Heavy Cross (book)

Heavy Cross (English original title: Coal to Diamonds: A Memoir ) is an autobiographical book by the American singer Beth Ditto , which she published in 2012 together with the feminist author Michelle Tea . In the book, Ditto mainly describes her childhood and youth as well as the first years of the band's history from Gossip to the release of the album Music for Men .

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General presentation of content

In Heavy Cross Beth Ditto mainly describes her childhood and adolescence, her family and friends as well as the first years of the band's history and her band Gossip until the release of the album Music for Men . The description is largely chronological, but there are regular leaps in time and ideas as well as extensive representations of your thoughts on topics that move you. In some parts of the book, Beth Ditto goes into great detail on various topics that have influenced her life and opinions. Among other things, it's about being fat, the punk lifestyle , feminism and homosexuality as well as singing and music, especially punk rock , grunge and riot grrrl as well as some formative bands from these areas. The book is divided into 25 unnamed, numbered chapters and is written entirely in the past tense and first-person perspective by Beth Ditto.

The life of Beth Ditto

Beth Ditto performing with Gossip at the 2012 Roskilde Festival

Beth Ditto describes her biography in the book, from the earliest memories of her childhood in the trailer park in Judsonia, Arkansas, to her life in Olympia in Washington and later in Portland , Oregon . From her childhood she describes sometimes very drastic experiences with her mother Velmyra Estel and her foster father Homer Ditto as well as her aunt "Jannie", with whom she spent parts of her youth. As a child, she was regularly sexually abused and raped by her uncle, whom she describes as a pervert:

“Uncle Lee Roy was a creep who literally sprayed his perverse form of sexuality around him. […] Every time we were alone, he had his hands all over me. In my underpants, under my shirt. That was completely normal [...] I must have been around four years old when it started. "

She goes on to describe how she was treated as an outsider in school and how she got into punk and grunge and when she was 15 she founded her first band Little Miss Muffet with her high school friend Anthony and drummer Joey Story. She befriended Nathan Howdeshell, Kathy Mendonca, and Jeri Beard, and after high school she moved to Olympia in Washington a year after they shared an apartment. Here the band Gossip was founded, which performed locally and released their first EP on the independent label K Records .

“It was a boring day. We wanted to kill time and on a whim we started making music. That was the hour of birth of Gossip. [...] We made our debut as the opening act for Boy Pussy USA, who called themselves Zombie Beat for one evening because of Halloween. It was an honor for us. "

Beth Ditto in the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, BC

The band gained local fame as a punk band and toured with better-known bands of the label such as Sleater-Kinney , but failed to establish themselves musically in the United States even after their second album The Movement in 2003. Beth Ditto kept afloat financially, mainly with part-time jobs between tours. The band members moved to Portland , where Beth Ditto suffered from depression and the first symptoms of chronic sarcoid . In 2005, Kathy Mendonca decided to leave the band Gossip and lead a regular life. At this point, Ditto had decided to concentrate more on the band and they got an offer to tour with Le Tigre . Hannah Blilie, who previously played at Shoplifting , was accepted as the new drummer .

In 2006 the band recorded the album Standing in the Way of Control with the title track of the same name. The album was a huge success , especially in Great Britain, and in the same year Beth Ditto was the winner of the NME Cool List published by the English music magazine New Musical Express . She was the first woman to win on this list, and at the same time there was no cover picture of her on the magazine. The NME persuaded Beth Ditto to appear naked on the cover of the magazine the following year, which it accepted

“When I was voted the coolest person in the world by the NME, I was the first woman to receive that title, but also the first not to be on the cover of the issue as the coolest person in the world. […] At some point they said: "We want Beth on the front page, and naked." I thought about it for a long time. [...] So I pulled it off, even though I was on my days. It didn't hurt either - I didn't mind being naked. "

At the end of the book she sums up:

“It doesn't seem so strange to me now, which in itself is kind of strange again. I don't know who I will meet and where in the near future. I don't know how long Gossip will ride this incredible wave of success that catapulted us out of the cozy little scene of Olympia. [...] I know that I am the product of everything I have been through, all the good and the bad. [...] Judsonia sits so deep under my fingernails that no manicure in the world could do anything about it. "

reception

Heavy Cross has been featured in numerous magazines, with the focus usually being on the very direct portrayal and description of Beth Ditto's childhood.

expenditure

Original: Coal to Diamonds: A Memoir with Michelle Tea. Spiegel & Grau, New York City 2012, ISBN 978-0-385525916 .
Heavy Cross (with Michelle Tea ), German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .

supporting documents

↑ Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; P. 63 ff. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .
↑ Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; P. 74. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .
↑ Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; Pp. 130 ff. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .
↑ Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; P. 172. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .
↑ Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; Pp. 185-186. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .
↑ Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; Pp. 190-191. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .
↑ Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; Pp. 199-200. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .

[Ditto_2012_63_ff-1] Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; P. 63 ff. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .

[Ditto_2012_74-2] Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; P. 74. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .

[Ditto_2012_130-3] Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; Pp. 130 ff. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .

[Ditto_2012_172-4] Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; P. 172. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .

[Ditto_2012_185-5] Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; Pp. 185-186. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .

[Ditto_2012_190-6] Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; Pp. 190-191. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .

[Ditto_2012_199-7] Beth Ditto, Michelle Tea: Heavy Cross , German by Conny Lösch. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2012; Pp. 199-200. ISBN 978-3-453-26675-9 .