Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page F4

F4 SCENE STAR TRIBUNE FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2007 KATASTROPHY WIFE Web: MySpace.com/ katastrophywife. Sound bites: For audio samples, go to startribune.com/music or call 612-673-9050 and enter 5390 for or 5391 for to the Katastrophy (still) in the making Slowly, carefully, Bjelland is turning her release valve back on. She has a new Adrian Johnson, who has lived with her for almost three years. Johnson had no experience managing or drumming, but apparently what she needed to bounce back. Adrian started working with me, everything has gotten Bjelland said.

best thing is, I can trust Last month, they issued a new single, under the moniker applied to most of post-Babes work, Katastrophy Wife. The new track a love song anything but sweet, based on two heart operations is available on iTunes, or as KAT FROM F1 an EP. The EP includes a fun, bombastic cover of Iron to the At least for two songs, reason to believe that Kat really is back. She plans to record a full album this winter in Australia, where she was courted by a small label, RiSH Records. Bjelland said firmly, even naming the title: have a lot of new songs.

good heavier than most of the Babes songs, and the lyrical content is more advanced. had time to plug a lot of info into my that pesky little detail of putting together a band, though. Various lineups of Katastrophy Wife have fallen apart, including the first one with her second husband, Glen Mattson, and the last one with members of the all-female British punk band Angelica. Bjelland currently has designs on the frontwoman of the Aussie band Magic Dirt, named Adalita whom she hopes to bring to town this fall to rehearse as a second guitarist (she want a bassist). Whatever happens, she said, not going to make the same mistakes Bruised violet She usually refers to him as the Englishman whom Bjelland accuses of derailing her career.

His name is Kurt-Pagan Davies and he became her manager around 2000 when Katastrophy Wife was getting started. saw his target and he went for she said. She claims that Davies did not pay her money she was due from two Katastrophy Wife albums, and the barely released 2005 disc plus a few Babes in Toyland collections. She also blames him for driving a wedge between her and Babes co-founder Lori Barbero. The rift with Barbero arose when Bjelland and some of the women in Angelica toured England in 2002 as Babes in Toyland without consent a tour that she said was all doing.

started the tour, and when I saw that all the posters said in nothing about Katastro- phy Bjelland said. had to keep playing. So we played more Babes songs or else people would throw tomatoes at Angelica singer Holly Blackwell, whose band had an album produced by Bjelland, said in an e-mail from England that her own band had complaints about Davies similar to Angelica broke up in large part because of him, she said. Davies, talking by phone from England, called accusations He said Bjelland was involved in setting up the controversial Babes tour and tried to make him take the fall for it. Davies said he and other musicians had a hand in writingthe songs on but want to give us amazing to me that such a strong, intelligent, forthright woman can act like she was fooled so many said Davies.

basically saw me as her glove puppet. And now her Barbero believe explanation of the pseudo-Babes tour: been hearing lines like that from Kat for years, and I stopped buying them a long time have talked on occasion in recent years, but Barbero said their friendship been permanently suffered through years of her drug problems and Barbero said. love her and wish her the best, but I endure her As for own assessment of a proper Babes reunion ever happening, she playfully quoted her slogan: blame myself for not paying enough attention to the business part of it, but why you get a she said. such a dumb old mistake, going back to old blues musicians. like, get her drunk and have her sign They still do Bjelland said she has been sober and drug-free for several years, and her mental state has gone away.

On the afternoon of the interview, she was in the kitchen making some yerba mate tea which she swears has healing powers while her son, Henry, and were upstairs watching Wedding She laughingly recounted the day she and Johnson showed Henry some old Babes videos, like the 1991 clip from the Reading Festival where Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl and Sonic Youth are watching from the side of the stage. The 8- year-old got bored fast. once in a while, be in line at a store or out somewhere, and be like, famous, you she said. like, Chris Riemenschneider 612-673-4658 Former bandmates Lori Barbero, top, and Kat Bjelland fell out after Bjelland toured in 2002 under the Babes in Toyland name. Find it on Sundays in the paper and online All the news you want, on the dot.

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