Boston-based, biracial Indie folk artist is how Pamela Means defines herself on her website. After one conversation with her, you might add political, philosophical and eloquent to that list.

Means herself says she’s still relatively Boston-based and still political, but a little less folksy and even more outspoken. The singer-songwriter and guitarist is coming to San Diego this Saturday to launch her national tour, aptly titled “Regime Change Now: Election Tour 2004”, at Twiggs Coffee & Tea.

“I’m touring all the time, but seeing as this is the crucial last remaining weeks before the election, I thought I would draw even more attention to how important that is,” she says. “I’m definitely drawing [the elections] to people’s attention, and if I can get my hands on voter registration materials to have on the table every night, I’m going to do that too; I’ve been doing that here on the East Coast, so I definitely want to be proactive.”

Means uses her songwriting and performances as a venue to inspire independent thought – her way of making a difference in a nation saturated with advertising and oversimplified political messages.

“I consider myself an activist around the clock and I think that one can have that mindset – that you’re an activist every day when we make decisions on what we’re going to buy, clothing-wise or food-wise, or where we shop, where we don’t shop and where we go for our news about the world,” she says. “And so I try to consider all of those things in my daily life and it definitely transfers to my songwriting and to the stage as well.”

Means’ blend of acoustic soul, jazz, rock and funk has garnered her a national Indie following.

“The easiest way to describe me would be as a folk singer, but I try to stay away from the work ‘folk’, because what I do is broader than what folk connotes,” she says. “I have a lot of aggressive, alternative tunings – deep, groovy stuff with very pointed political messages – and I also have very delicate, finger-picking, introspective, pretty love songs.”

Though she sometimes plays with a drummer or bassist and experiments with other jazz musicians to keep her perspective fresh, Means is first and foremost a solo artist, and this tour, as well as her next album, will focus solely on her guitar and vocals.

She is currently promoting her fifth self-released album, Single Bullet Theory (Wirl Records, 2003), which won Out Music’s 2004 Outstanding New Recording – Female and took her on a national tour last year with musician Alix Olsen.

“This [tour] is sort of a return to some of those same places on my own to keep some momentum going and see how many friends I’ve made on the West Coast,” she says.

Performing over 150 shows a year at clubs, coffeehouses, colleges and festivals across the country, Means also plays numerous Pride events, Take Back the Night rallies and Black History Month celebrations. She has played with Ani DiFranco, Joan Baez, Neil Young, Shawn Colvin, Richie Havens, Patty Larkin, Melissa Ferrick, Violent Femmes, Pete Seeger, Janis Ian and Holly Near, and was named Falcon Ridge Folk Festival’s Most Wanted New Artist, and both Wisconsin’s Folk Artist of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year. Means was also nominated for a Boston Music Award for Outstanding Contemporary Folk Artist.

Pretty good for a musician who started making a name for herself playing in the Boston subways.

“My favorite part of performing is when there is an indescribable, intangible connection I have between performer and audience,” Means says. Performing in the subways “sort of strips everything down to that moment – that magical moment of the phenomena of art and its ability to touch people and to transcend… That really inspires me, and that’s what I’m always hunting for when I get onstage.”

If that is the root of her drive, then communicating each song’s message to her audience is the flower – the tangible result of that connection.

“It’s important for me to deliver that message effectively each time I have an opportunity to, and hope that it plants some seeds out there,” she says.

For all of her activism now, Means says she got off to a late start, growing up in Wisconsin in a hyper-segregated area and attending college at the Wisconsin Conservatory in Milwaukee. It wasn’t until she discovered the writings of Audre Lorde and bell hooks while living in Boston after college that Means found the words to articulate the feelings of racism and marginalization she experienced growing up. “It was like a big huge light bulb,” she recalls, after her first serious girlfriend gave her hooks’ Sisters of the Yam. “I suddenly had words for my own experiences and started to come into myself at that point. All of those changes affected my songwriting and started me on this path of being an outspoken critic of society.”

Besides critiquing the political and social climate around her, Means is constantly finding ways to connect to and unite the various cultures she is part of – whether it be gay, female, biracial, political, or just musical. “I think that [this amalgam] probably gives me that many more people that can relate to my music,” she says. “I haven’t found that it has hindered my career in any way, except in trying to find a way to bring all of these different sorts of groups together. … I think I’ve felt a little bit like I had to choose one or the other and that I have to create my own crossover.”

Means plays with Lauren DeRose at Twiggs Coffee & Tea Saturday, Oct. 2, at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $8. Twiggs is located at 4590 Park Blvd. Call (619) 296-0616 for more information.