Image as found on Bitch Music Bitch Music– Witchy Poet Pop, cover photo created by The Gay Agenda
After a long semester of classes, art projects, and interning with The Buffalo Hive (a Western NY arts and culture online magazine), the last spring semester of my college career was coming to an end. However, in gay ol’ fashion, you cannot go out without a bang.
For me, this was in the form of screaming “Hey Bitch” with the Bitch herself!
Bitch is a singer and songwriter who has been performing since the early 90’s. Starting in college, she formed a band with a friend, where they began going by the punk-rock name ‘Bitch and Animal’. The two went on to tour with singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, a folk and alternative rock artist, and continued to record two albums with DiFranco’s label Righteous Babe Records. Since going solo in the early 2000s, Bitch has worked on her multi-media performances and has shared stages with other talented individuals like The Indigo Girls.
In 2022, her first solo album ‘Bitchcraft’ was released, which consists of eleven unique songs with bangers like “Hello Meadow!”, “Nothing in My Pockets”, “Pages”, and our personal favorite “You’re The Man.”
On Friday, the 15th, The Gay Agenda got the opportunity of a lifetime thanks to Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, which gave a grand Buffalonian welcome to Bitch in the flesh. For two nights, they hosted the most colorful narrative show we could have imagined.
The day before SUNY Fredonia’s class of 2026 graduation, the Gay Agenda was invited to experience “Hey Bitch!”, her ‘one-woman-one-beaver show.’
And naturally, we said HELL YES!
My roommate and I packed the car after our grad rehearsal in Steel Hall and made our way through traffic to Hallwalls, where Bitch and her flashing lights were waiting for us. We definitely didn’t walk into the backstage area of the fashion show by accident, and definitely didn’t have to ask a few very gorgeous/very kind models where to go. Once we made it to the show, it became one of the best ways to celebrate the end of an era, with inspiring songs and a beautifully fun way to talk about expression and one’s true colors!
And don’t worry, for you, we’ve got the gayest scoop. As you may be wondering, what on earth is a one-woman-one-beaver show? Well, you’re in luck, because you don’t have to wonder when we’ve got all the answers!
The show was written and performed by Bitch, which centers around her album Bitchcraft that came out (pun intended) back in 2022 after Covid.
It follows her lifelong career and involves themes like reclaiming oneself and, in turn, one’s queer identity.
Starting at the early ages of her life, Bitch opens up to the audience about the realities of her homelife. How she grew up with English parents: a mother who focused on the tap-dancing school she opened in the family’s basement, and a father who sat in his chair with a cold one after a long day away at work. This is where the story begins, with a young Bitch, sitting with her broom, expected to sweep away her sorrows up and under the rug.
However, as a quiet child, she found her love for music through the violin. She would play and use the music to express the feelings she didn’t have the words to describe, speaking through something more tangible than voice.
She continued finding a love of music, writing, and tapping through life, where it soon led her to college and into her feminist literature classes. This is where she chose her name, where she began going by Bitch. This is where she found the voice we heard that night reverberating off the walls of Hallwalls theater. The person she knew for so long, before the world began to tear her down.
It’s hard being a loud, proud woman in our current political climate. All she ever wanted was to create change, to empower women to take back words like bitch and pussy that are so often used to describe powerful women in horrible lights. When she thought she was just on the verge of changing the world, the rug was once again swept right out from under her bedazzled feet.
This was when she stopped performing, for an ever-brief period in her life. It took her a long time to want to step onto the stage again, after the hate left lasting marks on her heart– but it’s in these trying times that creatives tend to find the most inspiration.
She took a leap and found her voice again. All they wanted to do was write, and so she did. She wrote and produced Bitchcraft to tell her story, to show their truest self in the aftermath of being so beaten down by the world, after hard breakups, and after things seemed so dim. She stood back up and sang her story to anyone who wanted to listen, and to those who didn’t, she wouldn’t give them a choice. She sang anyway, and continues to sing now.
Today, bitch wants the world to learn to do the same thing– to “keep writing witches!” as she so creatively wrote on papers and threw out at the audience that night.
Writing and telling our stories are some of the most powerful things we can do as people and as creatives. As members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and as queer and trans individuals.
Which is exactly why The Gay Agenda keeps on using its metaphorical (and online) pen to tell and provide stories to those who need them.
Not only was “Hey Bitch” rich with thoughtful messages, but it was visually appealing to those in the theater that night. With projected recordings, flashing lights, and quick changes aided by the helpful hands of our lovely friend… beaver? Yes, that’s right, a BEAVER! [You’ll just have to see it to believe it.]
The show is one eventful experience with not a dull moment in sight. From studded brooms, many laughs, and the sheer force of queer love, it’s surely an experience we will never forget.
Something Bitch mentions in their show is that in our contemporary society, we are all so afraid of being who we are. Sure, it makes sense when we are continuously told to hide, to be ashamed of the people we are deep down, but why should we let the fear of what’s written on the “page” stop us? Yes, it’s been hard. Time and time again, queer people, people of color, and those speaking out against our current political reality are pushed down– expected to be silent. However, in the darkest of times, a light is sparked.
And for our world now, Bitch can be that light– who continues to reclaim words so often made out to be weak by misogynistic pigs, and pushing her proud gay agenda onto anyone who thinks it’s okay to be homophobic in the big year of 2026. She is attempting to create a world in which people don’t feel afraid, as she once was, to be themselves.
Bitchcraft was born from this desire to be as loud and proud as a person can. To be so colorfully unique that it pisses off the masses with our beautiful ‘pussy-manifestos’. This is a reality that every single person can feel when watching Bitch perform.
If this light that we have been missing for so long has to be anyone, let that light be Bitch. Screaming with a crowd of people, telling them all how gay they are, and prompting an entire group of older queer people to call and repeat her very own female empowerment mantras– then The Gay Agenda will endorse that as loudly as we can.
Not only is this a mission Bitch wants others to find inspiring, but Hallwalls Executive Director, Parrish Gibbons, is sitting, cheering right alongside them.
As seen on their website:
“Hallwalls’ twofold mission is to serve artists by supporting the creation and presentation of new work in the visual, media, performing, and literary arts, and to serve the public by making these works available to audiences. We are dedicated in particular to work by artists which challenges and extends the traditional boundaries of the various art forms, and which is critically engaged with current issues in the arts and—through the arts—in society.”
If there’s anything we should take away from Bitch and Hallwalls in Buffalo, it is to live as authentically as we desire. For what’s the point of living in a monochromatic world when there are thousands of different shapes and colors we can use to brighten our day-to-day lives?
Let us all come and go on rhinestone-studded broomsticks and neon leotards.
If you’re interested in more from Hallwalls, make sure to check out their lineup of amazing events taking place NOW on their website!! [here]
Supporting the arts is one of the most important things we can do in this AI-driven world– as we should all make sure to follow real artists, and celebrate the diversity that comes along with it.
Want to hear more from Bitch? Then follow her socials [here] and make sure to look into her new multi-media comedy, “One Long Earring”, that acts as a “lesbian spinal tap” for all those in need of one.
And make sure to check out her next stops of “Hey Bitch!” to experience the queerness yourself!
All dates below
Aug 2 Sun
“Hey Bitch!” at Post Office Cabaret in Provincetown, MA @ 5:00 PM
Provincetown, MA, United States
Aug 9 Sun
“Hey Bitch!” at Post Office Cabaret in Provincetown, MA @ 7:00 PM
Provincetown, MA, United States
Aug 16 Sun
“Hey Bitch!” at Post Office Cabaret in Provincetown, MA @ 7:00 PM
Provincetown, MA, United States
Aug 23 Sun
“Hey Bitch!” at Post Office Cabaret in Provincetown, MA @ 7:00 PM
Provincetown, MA, United States
Aug 30 Sun
“Hey Bitch!” at Post Office Cabaret in Provincetown, MA @ 7:00 PM
Provincetown, MA, United States
Sep 6 Sun
“Hey Bitch!” at Post Office Cabaret in Provincetown, MA @ 7:00 PM
Provincetown, MA, United States
Sep 13 Sun
“Hey Bitch!” at Post Office Cabaret in Provincetown, MA @ 7:00 PM
Provincetown, MA, United States
Thank you
This article comes with a special thank you to both Parrish Gibbons and Bitch for their contributions to this event, and the tickets to experience this amazing show. And a very special thank you to Elmer Ploetz, editor-in-chief of The Buffalo Hive, who helped make this piece possible and who continues to support The Gay Agenda every step of the way.
The Gay Agenda
