Biography
Bif Naked entered the world in New Delhi, India, as the child of two boarding-school teenagers. American missionaries adopted her and brought her to Minneapolis, after which further relocations eventually led her to settle in Winnipeg. There she enrolled at the University of Winnipeg with the intention of majoring in drama. Around the same time she became involved with Jungle Milk, an eclectic collective of musicians, and married the group’s drummer. Though the marriage ended quickly, it resulted in her taking the frontwoman role in Gorilla Gorilla, a punk band whose drummer was also her ex-husband. The arrangement proved unstable, yet she stayed with the act through its relocation to Vancouver before leaving to join the punk outfit Chrome Dog. A brief period with Dying to Be Violent followed, after which she issued the independent solo EP Four Songs and a Poem in 1994. She signed with Concrete Records, which soon released her self-titled full-length album. When the label folded she recovered the masters and, in 1996, reissued the record on her own imprint, Her Royal Majesty’s Records. The album, together with the intensity of her live shows and nonstop touring, secured her a deal with Lava, and I Bificus appeared in 1998. Critics responded favorably, and the track “Moment of Weakness,” buoyed by its energetic and memorable video, drew wider attention. Purge arrived in 2001, but its American release was postponed after the lead single “I Love Myself Today” became a major hit in Canada. More than a year later the album reached the United States in the fall of 2002. The retrospective Essentially Naked surfaced in 2004, and Bif Naked returned with Superbeautifulmonster in September 2005.
Albums
