MICHELLE SHOCKED: HELL ON WHEELS

She looks like any Iggy Pop-clone singer for any generic hardcore band.

Not only that, Michelle Shocked sermonizes anarchist politics at the drop of her soot-black hat. But this tough-looking neo-folkie is actually rather tender. She digs deep into her fragile Southern childhood; one riddled with pain—an adolescence she’d just as soon forget. But, as Michelle says herself, one’s past represents geography, and geography is the essence of folk music.

That’s what Michelle Shocked is all about; she’s one of a growing breed of hybrid, post-punk folkies who’ve popped up spawning folk scenes across the nation from L.A. to New York’s Lower East Side. So, despite painful nostalgia, Michelle divulges her Texas past and a fundamentalist Mormon mom who denied her the average American teenage social life—you know, things like T.V, parties and rock ’n’ roll.

Nevertheless, this 25-year-old toughie doesn t flinch when she describes her years of domestic oppression, homelessness, a rape and several arrests. But just peer into her squinty, street-smart eyes.