The White Bitch

Experimental musician and local author releases long awaited Prey Drive
Posted by Briana Prevost, NOLA.com August 19, 2008 10:10AM
Categories: Local Musicians, Music reviews, The Perfect 10

Briana Prevost of NOLA.com interviews Michael Patrick Welch.Watch the interview »Hear selected tracks »

With a name that's undeniably set to grab attention, White Bitch (click here to find out why the vulgar name choice ), has released his first album full of guitar driven pseudo-pop tunes that will keep listeners interest from the first instrumental intro to the last ringing electronic gun-shot of an instrumental outro.

Michael Patrick Welch (to his students and readers), or White Bitch (to concert goers), knew he wanted to be involved with music since he was about fifteen. But it took a while for the often one-man-band performer to record and release his debut, The White Bitch's Prey Drive, for audiences to enjoy.

"This record is pretty much like my greatest hits record of the past 12 years...There's even a couple of good songs that I left off because I wanted [the album] to have like a good balance," Welch said.

Welch began his music making career with a college band, but as their rock stopped rolling, and the band broke up, Welch found himself with a bunch of songs and no one left to play with.

That's when he recruited the help of his sister, and they became a song-making duo. But when Welch wanted to get out of Florida, where he had been living, to pursue his other love of writing, he wanted to move somewhere cheap where he would be allowed to "work on [his] art more and not have to worry about the cost of living," and all signs pointed to New Orleans.

In fact, his new New Orleans lifestyle was highlighted in the song, "I Cant Find My Way Around," a saga full of nicely crafted guitar riffs about riding his bike while getting lost around the city and rejected by an inconsiderate woman.

But even though this Bitch writes novels by day, (his novel, The Donkey Show was published in 2003) and will teach young kids for the Young Audiences after school arts program, he also takes his music very seriously as he states on his appropriately entitled song, "Serious." (click here to listen to this and other tracks from WB's debut album ).

And maybe 12 years of some "Serious" songwriting and sound perfecting was just what this album needed.
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With its syncopated choruses full of catchy pop tendencies, Welch's Jack White-esque high intensity soprano (yes, not tenor, but soprano) vocals, will give listeners something to sing along to and have fun trying to reach his horrifyingly high voice register.

Prey Drive also features some of indie band, Gomez's, inspired electro-guitar melodic beats that give the ear the illusion of everyday kitchen appliances playing in the background of some seriously sick poetry laden lyrics.

"I felt really strongly about my ability to express myself through my writing and writing music became sort of like my respite from the outside world," Welch said. "...But I'm really serious about the music aspect of it and making the music."

With the recent success of his album release show at the Hi-Ho Lounge, The Creamy White Bitch will be playing at Mimi's on the 21st and Banks Street Bar on the 23rd.
- NOLA.com

The White Bitch Arrives

Dominique Minor talks to Michael Patrick Welch, who plays Voodoo Fest this Friday (3:30pm, NOOMOON Stage)

Bywater resident Michael Patrick Welch, 34, is a veritable Jack-of-all-trades. He is a musician, a teacher, a painter, former magazine columnist, accomplished author and journalist, and primary caretaker to a pygmy goat named Chauncey. He is celebrating the release of his debut album, The White Bitch's Prey Drive –a day in the making for more than 15 years.

Taking Welch's multiple areas of expertise into consideration, it's no surprise that his musical style is wide-ranging: it' s equal parts alt-rock, funk, indie-pop, and abrasive punk. Through stuttering, clicky pre-programmed beats, jangly guitar riffs, and psychedelic atmospherics his songs come together like jagged pieces of glass that fall together like a row of dominoes.
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Michael Patrick Welch


"Because I have a high voice, typically, a lot of people tell me I sound like Prince or Jeff Buckley," He said laughing, "But they don't give me credit for ripping off more!"

A big influence growing up, he said, were hardcore punk pioneers Shudder To Think.

"I've only recently started thinking about it." He said, "When I heard they were playing Voodoo Fest I almost shed a tear. One their albums –called Pony Express Record-- is an album I've never listened to more. I've never admitted that to anybody."

As a teen, Welch was a devoted follower of the rock scene in his hometown of Tampa, Florida, eventually becoming a part of the scene himself.

"Even though I'm just now releasing my first album, I've been writing songs and playing shows since I was fifteen." He said, "My dad had to drive me to shows, and help me bring my equipment. I didn't know how to tune my guitar [by ear], and I remember being so frustrated. Older people had to come out of the crowd and tune my guitar for me."

Since then, Welch has continued to perform concerts monthly, crafting his unique sound and earning his stripes as a proficient performer along the way.

After high school, Welch went on to the University of South Florida, where he majored in painting and English. Upon graduating, he worked as a part-time staff writer and editorial assistant for the St. Petersburg Times for three years before moving in New Orleans in 2000.

In a foreign city, fueled with a desire to quickly resume his regular concert regiment, Welch began looking at ways to reconfigure his sound.

"I was in bands all throughout college, and I had one band [Americar Underworld] that was really great." He said, "However, I realized I had to figure out how play totally by myself, or there may be a chance I would not be able to play if I was [waiting for other musicians to perform with], and that would have been unbearable."

He continued, "The only time I ever took a break from performing was when I first moved to New Orleans, and I didn't have a band."
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The White Bitch w/ Ray Bong


It was at this time, Welch began experimenting with pre-recorded loops and a drum machine to supplement his need for a backing band.

"That's how I came up with The White Bitch idea," he said.

Within six months, he had resumed his regular gig schedule as one-man show, eventually playing with numerous acts, such as TV On The Radio, Girl Talk, Of Montreal, Quintron, Trans Am, The Fucking Champs, and Tilly and the Wall among many others.

However, getting there was not easy.

"When I started doing this thing by myself, it wasn't all that good for the first few years." He said, "I knew I had to keep doing it. Eventually, I figured out how to write the kind of songs that sound good when I'm playing alone. It took a long time though."

His dogged determination through adversity later became a theme in his writing. After evacuating for Hurricane Katrina, he was briefly exiled to Houston, Texas where he was hired as a staff writer for the Houston Press.

While there, Welch wrote extensively about other displaced musicians, as well as detailing his own tumultuous journey evacuating the city with his beloved pygmy goat in a pet carrier.

Before leaving Houston, he was offered a permanent job at the Press, but turned it down. He knew his heart was in New Orleans.

Upon returning to the city in October 2005, he played alongside local noise-rock purveyor Ray Bong (of The Bongoloids), and became the first musical acts to play at One Eyed Jack's after Katrina.

"Ray and I played in the lobby [of One Eyed Jack's] to a crowd of six people. We did it because we were just crazed, and it was one thing we wanted to do to keep the blood pumping."

Over the course of the next three years, Welch developed a strong musical bond with Bong, continuing to work with him during concert performances and the recording of his album.

"Ray Bong has taught me a lot about making music," he said. "Typically, when I play my songs they're the same way every time, and they're always the same length and same time...he adds an intangible varying aspect [to my music]."

Welch also expressed his gratitude toward another all-important source: "Dell [Computers] accidently sent me an extra computer that was set up to be an recording studio after Hurricane Katrina." He continued, "The fact that Dell sent me that computer was amazing, I even thank Dell on the back of CD!"

He added, "If you've seen me play before and it wasn't that good, you should see me play now...It's been a lot of public trial-and-error...there's lots of sounds I couldn't have gotten on the album if it wasn't for me [having time, and access] to experiment; it's something I've worked towards for years."

* * *
For more info on The White Bitch, please visit: http://www.myspace.com/thecreamywhite bitch - NolaFugees.com

White Bitch CD-Release Party



The White Bitch is a downtown electro-freak, rock guitarist with a deep, obsessive love for Prince, which explains his penchant for drum-machine-driven R&B but doesn't preclude extended tangents into the stratospheres of lo-fi experimental noise. His one-man band often is augmented by a motley crew of like-minded software and machine manipulators, who inflate his new album, The White Bitch's Prey Drive, with clouds of ecstatic drone, twitter and hiss. The album is a sarcastic, neurotic, angst- and humor-ridden breakup/make-up album that includes both reworked familiar tracks and new offerings. He is joined by local glam-rock screamers the Bad Off, with whom he now plays second guitar. The Hiss, an Atlanta group of Kinks-damaged psychedelic garage-rockers open. Tickets $7. — Alison Fensterstock

10 p.m. Sat., Aug. 9
Hi-Ho Lounge, 2239 St. Claude Ave., 945-HIHO - Gambit Weekly

Meet The White Bitch
Le Carnival: NooMoon Stage
Friday 3:30-4:00
By Dominique Minor

Michael Patrick Welch is a busy man: he is a teacher, painter, accomplished author, journalist, primary caretaker to a four-year-old pet pygmy goat named Chauncey, and the mastermind of the experimental electro-rock act, The White Bitch. His music is equal parts alt-rock, funk, abrasive punk, indie, and pop. Like pieces of jagged glass, the sputtering, pre-programmed beats, jangly guitar riffs, and psychedelic atmospherics, his songs are skewed and broken, yet beautiful.
“I’ve always wanted [my music] to sound like my inner-emotional landscape, crossed with the guitarists I grew up listening to, like Johnny Marr, J. Mascis, Slash, and Peter Buck,” says Welch.
As a teen, Welch was a devoted follower of the rock scene in his hometown of Tampa, Florida, eventually becoming a part of the scene himself. “Even though I’m just now releasing my first album, what I keep stressing is that I’ve been writing songs and playing shows since I was 15.”
After moving to New Orleans in 2000, Welch became fueled with a desire to quickly resume his regular concert regiment, and he began looking at ways to reconfigure his sound.
“I had to figure out how to play totally by myself, or there may be a chance I would not be able to play if I was [waiting for other musicians to perform with], and that would have been unbearable.” He added, “That’s how I came up with The White Bitch idea. If you’ve seen me play before and it wasn’t that good, you should see me play now...It’s been a lot of public trail-and-error.” He said, “There’s lots of sounds I couldn’t have gotten on the album if it wasn’t for me [having time] to experiment; it’s something I’ve worked towards for years.” - Where Y'at

One Eyed Jack's
Saurday, March 18th

4 out of 5 stars

The night had all the makings of a great show: a solid opener that complemented the main act, a great band from far away lands, a nice concert hall and about 150 scene kids.

Opening the show was New Orleans' own White Bitch, a one-man machine churning out dance-inducing beats layered with passable guitar work and piercing, yet relaxed, vocals. One could easily be convinced that it was actually eclectic-rock hero Beck on stage, rather than an unassuming Ninth Ward local playing a show where he "doesn't really care if you pay attention," as long as you shout "White Bitch!" on his prompt. About three songs into his set, White Bitch was joined by MC Shell Shock, an endearing blond rapper and former Super Bowl dancer. Unfortunately, she added little as her small voice was overpowered by pounding beats and thrashing guitar work. After 40 minutes of imitating Peter Frampton on ecstasy, White Bitch left the stage.

- Tulane University

The White Bitch
3:30 - 4:00 at NooMoon
The White Bitch is Michael Patrick Welch, a published writer, music teacher and self-described "feral singer" who creates electro-rock-and-R&B for an appreciative New Orleans audience. The White Bitch's sound is a fuzzy and fascinating mash-up of genres: electronica and skillful guitar combined with samples from all over the place. Welch's high, wild voice evokes comparisons to Prince and Jack White, but his sound is like no other. Welch also happens to be a great guitarist, which perfectly complements the weird sounds and drum machine-driven effects he likes to plug into his tracks, as well as clever lyricism. Electronic rock without the over-the-top freakout, the White Bitch is putting out local rock we can all get behind. Check out the extraterrestrial funk of "Serious" or the wailing, sarcastic angst of "Song to a Fla Beach."
Faine Greenwood
Staff Writer - Tulane University "Hulabaloo"

A City of Thousands Can’t Hold The White Bitch Back

Interview by Dan Fox

Since arriving in New Orleans a little over seven years ago, Michael Patrick Welch and his host of personas have overtaken New Orleans like so much kudzu racing through virgin Southern soil. His first appearance, largely metaphysical, was in The Donkey Show, Welch’s semi-autobiographical novel about his initiation into the city by way of two of its most entrenched institutions: the cutthroat underbelly of a fine dining establishment and the Orleans Parish Public School System, where as a teacher he earned his stage name, the White Bitch. The loudest and most urgent of Welch’s alter egos, the White Bitch has slowly become a staple of the New Orleans music scene. What started out as a sampler-enhanced solo performance has expanded over the years, with the White Bitch incorporating live musicians into his act as well as early noise pioneer and all-around fun-time guy Ray Bong (of the Bongoloids). It might come as a surprise that his first album The White Bitch’s Prey Drive, released this month, is mostly guitar-oriented, like Santana over a beat machine. Another surprise is how polished Welch’s voice sounds as he expertly wails over pop tunes that infect and echo in your brain long after the song has ended. ANTIGRAVITY caught up with Welch and accomplice Ray Bong one sweltering July night to discuss, among so many of the possibilities, his new album, helming the late Keith Moore’s Noizefest and what exactly it means to be called “The White Bitch.” Special thanks to Chauncey, Welch’s pygmy goat, who head-butted me towards the end of the interview.

ANTIGRAVITY: This is the White Bitch’s first album?

Michael Patrick Welch: Of my whole life.

AG: What took so long?

MW: Well, actually Ray loaned me a thousand dollars! Maybe at two other points in my life I would’ve put out an album but I didn’t have the money at the time.

Ray Bong: You had done up a series of songs about three years ago, which were almost good enough.

MW: I’ve been playing shows almost once a month since I was fifteen, since my dad was driving me to the club with my equipment. One time, somebody in the crowd had to get on stage and tune my guitar. It was in Florida in this little town where there’d never been a local band.

AG: What did you bill yourself as?

MW: Different bands. I had a band in college and then after that I had this really good band called the Americar Underworld in Tampa, and we opened for the Make-Up and a bunch of other good bands. And then we broke up and I started realizing that—like everybody else I was in the band with, I was getting distanced from music, because you have to rely on other people and have that union. So I had to figure out something I could do by myself and that’s when I started the White Bitch thing, trying to figure out how I could have something to do even if it was imperfect. I didn’t want to quit playing shows and all my friends that I played in that band with, a lot of them have completely stopped.

AG: Isn’t it weird when people stop playing music like that?

MW: It’s hard to maintain as you get older. I think in New Orleans it’s not as much of a problem, but if you live in other places you understand that. Here, it’s not encouraged that you quit playing music when you’re fifty. People of all ages play music and go to shows here. In other places, like in Florida—if you’re thirty-two and you’re in a band it’s kind of like “Shouldn’t you be over that by now?” Here, you can end up having a fifty-three-year-old person in the band!

AG: Speaking of, How did you and Ray Bong hook up?

RB: I saw the White Bitch playing outside of Fair Grinds after the Jazz Fest one day.

MW: I had this plan where we were going to play outside of Fair Grinds and it would be like “Everybody will have to look at us because everybody’s coming out of Jazz Fest,” but then it just started pouring. So we were under the canopy and everybody was running past and no one was paying attention. And then Ray stopped in the rain and he had this six pack hanging from his hand, and he was just standing there in the rain, watching us. For five songs, in the rainy, rainy-ass rain.

RB: Me and my wife, Liz Bong we were dancing in front of them while everybody else was standing under the awning.

MW: The way he was dressed, I was thinking he was just some Jimmy Buffett fan and he started talking about “Yeah I have this D-J-X Yamaha noisemaking tri-wave generator Coron analogue blah blah blah…”

RB: I was interested in the White Bitch because he was playing all by himself, with no musicians and making this whole band sound and that’s something I’m interested in also. But then it turned out that when we jammed, I loved the White Bitch’s music. It had space in there for electronic sounds and so we played more and more. I didn’t play out; I might’ve played a few times but he would get a show and I would get on the stage and go “Ooohhhh.” And it’s all because of the White Bitch.

MW: I’m always playing along with the same song at the same speed and it sounds kind of stiff. What he’s doing adds an improvisational element to it. I also have a lot to deal with when I’m onstage and I get kind of intense and I’m not very fun sometimes. And Ray’s kind of like the Flavor Flav to my Chuck D. Alex Rawls from Offbeat said something like that to me once, [and] Public Enemy is my favorite group of all time so I thought, “Oh my god, he’s right!” When we were playing the Girl Talk show a couple of weekends ago there was some point when I was bent over all the electronics and I was trying to figure something out, all brow-furrowed and shit, and then I hear some squealing and screaming. I turned around and Ray is leaning out over all these college girls on Ecstasy, letting them play with that Coron and I thought “Cool, it’s taken care of.”

AG: That Public Enemy reference reminds me of your earlier stuff, which is more rap/hip-hop based, but your album is clearly more rock and roll. What made you go in that direction?

MW: I can write raps, but my voice doesn’t sound good doing them. Singing is really important to me. If you saw me when I first came to New Orleans, my voice probably didn’t sound all that good; it took a long time. Singing is definitely the hardest musical thing anyone can do; it’s the most naked. If you’re playing the guitar and miss a note, no one will notice but if you miss a note when you’re singing they’ll think you’re a bad singer.

RB: But White Bitch has a real Roy Orbison thing going on.

MW: Well, everyone always throws Prince at me because of the high voice, but it’s actually Craig Wedren from Shudder to Think and Roy Orbison and Jeff Buckley—and definitely Prince. There’s some Jeff Buckley stuff that I can sing surprisingly well. So I started thinking I should write songs in a high register, and that sounded fucked up for two and a half years. It took trial and error, viciously, for a long time.

AG: Reading The Donkey Show really enhances the album, like the book is one huge CD insert. Is that something you would encourage or would you want to keep them separate?

MW: The book feels like it was a really long time ago. I’ve been trying to get another one published, so when I think about that I can only think “Oh my god, I’m a loser! I’m a one-book wonder!” I’m still working at it—it just takes a long time. I never thought about the album coinciding with the book, like The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz! Some of the songs are old enough where it does remind me [of that time], but I never thought of it like that, honestly. But that’s cool.

RB: When you get to the song “Natural,” that’s the White Bitch taking off from the days of The Donkey Show.

MW: “Natural” is about the goatm and the goat is post-Donkey Show. I wrote another book that’s part two of The Donkey Show, with the same people. It’s about us evacuating with our goat. Defend New Orleans gave me $1,500 to publish it but I haven’t found the rest of the money yet.

AG: Can you explain at least part of the album cover art? It’s pretty wacky.

MW: Ratty Scurvics, the person who I consider to be the most talented artist that I’ve possibly ever known in my whole life—and that’s out of a lot of artists—can do everything. He can write; his music is insane (he has that one-man band); it’s so good. It was maybe upwards of thirteen years ago he was in the Chicago Art Institute for painting, which is a really prestigious program, and he dropped out, just started playing music and didn’t paint ever again, kind of. Over the years that I’ve known him I’d see something he drew and ask him “Why don’t you paint again,” and he would give me whatever reason why he didn’t want to do it. I usually have ideas for everything: when the Donkey Show came out I knew exactly what I wanted the cover to look like, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do for this album cover. But I knew that I should make Ratty paint a painting, and then I could see what he could do after fifteen years, and it would be so significant because it would be the only painting that Ratty did “Since he gave it up!” I wanted to gear it away from being racial and make it like a white dog thing. I always tell everybody that the dog part is me and that the rest of them are all my band members suckling off my talents, suckling at the teat trying to get a little off me. [Laughs] He did a bunch of paintings after that, barfed out a whole bunch of them at the same time. So as far as it being the first album of my life and Ratty and that story, it’s pretty meaningful to me.

AG: Let me ask you about Noizefest. Is it hard to be so hands-off the way you are about it, being as particular as you are about your own work?

MW: I don’t even play at that, I just send out a couple dozen e-mails. That thing is Keith’s and the whole thing about it—he was so fucking anal about it that it’s almost my “I love you! Fuck You!” just to be like, “See Keith? You didn’t have to be like that, fucking annoying bastard!” But it was his great idea and he would ramble on so much about it that it would make you roll your eyes. But now that he’s gone and it’s going the way it is, I’m like “ Damn. Keith thought of this really cool idea that is so good that it’s self-perpetuating.” To me, it’s the best music thing all year.

AG: Having moved to New Orleans, you have a unique perspective that’s worked to your advantage. How much of a New Orleanian do you feel like these days?

MW: In my seven and a half years it definitely feel like I’ve lived here for twenty. I feel like maybe I’m a little more ambitious and uptight than most people here are. When I moved here I honestly thought this would be a great experience but I wouldn’t want to write about it, because it’s been written about so much. Why would you want everybody drinking out of the same straw? But then when I got here I realized that everybody writes about it from the point of view of “Check out how much I know about it,” so the only way you can squeeze any more insight out of New Orleans is from the idiot’s point of view. But I never really feel like I can lay claim that I’m from here.

AG: When you started as the White Bitch, your music was way more confrontational and abrasive than what your album sounds like now. Do you think you’ve outgrown the White Bitch name, perhaps?

MW: There are a lot of times that I’m embarrassed by the name. [Laughs] If I have a job, I don’t want to tell the bosses, “Oh I’m playing this big show tonight.” “Really? What’s your band called?” “Oh… it just goes by my name, you’ve never heard of it.” The point was to have something that I could name it and never change. So I chose that and it’s always going to be attention getting. Now that the album is out, I’m going to send it to Dischord and anybody I can, and I bet there’ll be nobody that will see “The White Bitch” on there and not pop it in to see what kind of music it is. They’ll think it’s some racist thing like Skrewdriver, or else some feminist spoken word record. I never think about changing it. The other thing about not changing the White Bitch thing is that I don’t really have a huge aspiration to take it outside of New Orleans; and within New Orleans it’s kind of fitting because it’s the racial epithet of white people, and it’s the only one that has ever stuck in the history of epithets for white people. White Bitch is the only thing that’s like “Ouch!”

For more info on The White Bitch’s Prey Drive, go to their Myspace page: myspace.com/thecreamywhitebitch - AntiGravity Magazine (cover story, Aug 2008)