Singer-songwriter Bitch doesn’t regret her stage name. Yet there are times she gets exasperated trying to explain her moniker to strangers. “I get sick of being at parties and getting, ‘Your name is what?’” she says. Bitch, who’s never revealed her real name to fans or the media, recently released her first solo album, Make This Break This. Among other things, it chronicles her split from her girlfriend and former musical partner, Animal. “I can get into a deeper level of heartbreak, now that I’m by myself,” she says. “It’s more like a diary and less like a dialogue.”

Bitch and Animal had a pretty successful run on the queercore circuit at the top of the decade. But the duo format became oppressive, says Bitch. “We wanted to do different things,” she recalls. “I was more interested in going a little more personal with my writing. She wasn’t. We were growing in different directions.” Make This Break This’ alt-folk (complete with electric violin and ukulele) is more in tune with her songwriting these days. Politics, romance, and serial-killer Aileen Wuornos all collide in a tangle of lo-fi sounds. “I rely on moments of pain to feed me creatively,” says Bitch.
Sat., March 17, 8 p.m.

This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2007.