BY DAVID KRONKE
Staff Writer

Though Ani DiFranco's journey has transformed her from a 19-year-old upstart with a shaved head, selling cassette tapes out of a box at her gigs to an indie-music and feminist icon, she insists that very little else has changed.

"I was always blessed with just a passion for what I do, performing on stage even if I'd struggled to get there - if I'd driven all day to get to a bar with 30 people there, it was still exciting to me," she says during a recent phone conversation.

"Even all those years of obscurity were thrilling to me - not just making art, but connecting with people through art," continues DiFranco, who will play two shows at the Orpheum Theatre on Friday and Saturday and speak alongside feminist author Susan Faludi tonight at a free event at the Hammer Museum.

"It makes you feel less alone in the world. That it feeds me has always outweighed the rest of it. That's achievable from the beginning and available to any artist, the opportunity to appreciate the moment and not pursue the pie in the sky."

Giving birth to her first child, Petah Lucia, last year has apparently put DiFranco in a reflective mood. In the past year, she has released her first compilation set ("Canon"), a book of poems and song lyrics ("Verses") and, this week, a concert DVD, "Live at Babeville." The DVD was recorded last September when she opened her own venue in her hometown of Buffalo, N.Y., a former church she restored, renovated and renamed Babeville (after her recording label, Righteous Babe, which now boasts an additional dozen artists).

Speaking from her home in New Orleans - the houses on both sides of hers, like thousands more in the area, are still hurting from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 - DiFranco discussed her unique, rewarding and occasionally vexing relationship with her rabid fan base.

DiFranco's do-it-yourself approach to her unapologetically confessional style of songwriting and assertive brand of acoustic guitar playing (dubbed in some circles urban folk) appealed to fans, while her bisexuality won over a large contingent in the lesbian and gay communities. Her 1998 marriage put off some, however (she divorced five years later; she had Petah with boyfriend Mike Napolitano, who co-produced her 2006 album "Reprieve.").

"Luckily, my audience expanded and expanded, and then contracted, due to the rhythmic cycles of the earth," she said, adding that in considering her relationship with her fans, "I stay fascinated and try not to feel pressured or hurt or whatever the other possible responses are.

"I think that's part of what my personal and political exploration in this world is about: engaging society - my society," she continues. "Throwing things at the world around me and seeing what bounces, what sticks, what falls to the floor."

She remains fascinated, even when her fans reject her. "When I walk onstage in a dress and someone in the crowd shouts out, `Sell-out!' does that mean everything I'm doing is negated? That femininity must be associated with weakness and passivity? We have cultural conditioning and presuppositions we don't even know we have, and that becomes evident when we engage."

She continues: "Getting married is a betrayal? Of what? How can I be leading a life for legions of strangers? One key ingredient to my mental health is that I stopped reading anything about me about a decade ago. It's hard to listen to all this defining of you that may not have anything to do with what you actually are. That really helps, because if you're listening to the chorus and reacting to the reactions, it can become a spiral of meaningless news."

DiFranco has, therefore, stayed sane in a way that bigger legends haven't. When touring once with Bob Dylan, she inadvertently hacked him off when he came across an interview with her in which she was asked what kind of influence Dylan had been on her. DiFranco had responded that she couldn't measure his influence; that he had always been a presence in her life, like a couch in her living room.

"I get a call from his manager: `He's a couch? He's furniture? You hurt his feelings!' And I thought, what is he doing, reading interviewers? No wonder he's so miserable!"

The conversation transitions from childish behavior to her own child. Petah, who's not yet 15 months old, is joining her mother on the current tour.

"She's been coming to shows since she was in utero - I was still playing when I was seven months pregnant," DiFranco says wryly. "She was getting pounded then by the music, and it shows. She loves to be on the side of the stage. She'll watch if I'm performing and she likes seeing me in that context. She also likes watching the drummer, which I think is common for someone her age. You get to bang on things.

"She's already a road warrior," DiFranco adds. "She had a passport with her picture at 6 months; it already has a bunch of stamps.

It's great having the baby on the road – in a way, it's easier than being home. There are all kinds of other people around to pass her to. When we're at home, the buck stops here with me. When we're on the road, it takes a village, as they say. And our little rolling village is intact. She enjoys it - she's really social. It's a cool life for a baby."

David Kronke, (818) 713-3638
david.kronke@dailynews.com
www.insidesocal.com/tv/

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ANI DiFRANCO

>Where: Orpheum Theatre, 842 S. Broadway, Los Angeles.

>When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

>Cost: $37.50.

>Info: (213) 480-3232, (714) 740-2000; www.ticketmaster.com

>Also: Ani DiFranco and Susan Faludi will chat in a live interview today at 7 p.m. at the Billy Wilder Theatre at the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles. Free tickets – first come, first served – will be issued beginning at 6 p.m.