Tag Archives: Liz Phair

Articles

Intersexion – Liz Licks GR

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I can see a new expression on my faceLiz Phair, Wheat, Rachael Yamagata at the Intersection

Grand Rapids, Michigan, March 15, 2004

Grand Rapids has an odd relationship with rock and roll. Located in central western Michigan, the city is a haven for Reformed Christianity, and the social conservatism that comes with it. In a broad sense, it’s lite rock lilt and the long arm of the Lord that keep GR’s toes a-tappin’. But just like a new kid with a hair lip, this blond and bland environment was just asking to be fucked with. Legendary haunts like The Reptile House took up the gauntlet; it rocked bondage nights and The Melvins before The Man finally drove it out. The Intersection did its part too, for years helping to anchor a shabby corner jumble of drunk haunts and hot dog joints, but those days died with the opening of a shiny new downtown Intersection, cleansed to resemble a Calvinist teen’s vision of the ultimate Christian rock clubhouse. What would Liz do?

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Articles

Libidinous Economics & The Lack of Network Effects

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That's what I want...The reality of the music business being a business is something that people, for reasons that are not entirely clear, like to avoid thinking about. To be sure, there is resistance to the record companies that have been manifest by the various forms of file-swapping, resistance that has led to a Borg-like response: Napster was assimilated; now there is discussion even within the U.S. legislature about the destruction of hard drives owned by those individuals who would dare continue exchanging music in a way that is unauthorized. Get ready for the photon torpedoes. The lack of what is perceived as authorization, of course, is one that is predicated on the belief of the record companies with regard to their “ownership’ of music. (This point of view, it should be noted, is not entirely unique to the record companies: the last time you installed any software from Redmond on your computer, you probably noted that you had to agree to what fundamentally amounts to the fact that although you “bought” the product—that is, exchanged money for product—you are really just borrowing the software.) But when we leave the realm of file swapping, there seems to be a blithe blind eye toward the fact that success is as much a matter of calculated stratagems as it is of talent. Rock and roll can change our lives, we think, because rock and roll is something that smacks of some sort of purity, of an almost religious state of being. We look at performers as being able to touch something in us, and we certainly won’t let anyone in who is tainted with filthy lucre. Or so we think. Because unless there’s an accountant behind them, and a marketeer in front of the accountant, we’re unlikely to see or hear them.

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Articles

That’s Not Phair!

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UnphairLiz Phair – Liz Phair (Capitol)

It’s always been Liz Phair’s greatest trick to entice with a come hither finger, only to kick you in the balls when you get close enough to kiss her. The real kicker? She always leaves you wanting more. This is partly why her two albums since the landmark debut Exile in Guyville were so eagerly anticipated, and it’s also why her latest, the long-awaited, eponymous followup to 1998’s Whitechocolatespaceegg, is so contentious for longtime Phair observers. It flirts around—and occasionally fucks—with her own reputation/history, but it’s also Liz’s most brazen stab yet at mainstream acceptance. Liz Phair, then, becomes a problem record for both audiences. The fanboys are pissed because they have to share even more of their girl with Jetta-driving Sheryl Crow fans. Meanwhile, blanket-hogging mainstreamers might be confused by the record’s sudden rights and lefts down alleys of blue language and hot sex. Phair herself has made her desire for a larger audience clear. But by strip mining her past for a cash money future—and delivering some of the weakest material of her career in the process—she just may have alienated both sides of the bed.

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Exile in Hitsville: xxoo Liz Phair

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First off, I think it’s only fair to admit that I’m a big Liz Phair fan. And my wife is an even bigger one. And after proofreading the first draft of this piece, I got the “God, do you hate everything?” question that I’ve become a little sensitive to recently. And it made me realize that I have been pre-judging music that I have not heard yet (see my reaction to the news that she was working with Michael Penn and Gary Clark back in November, 2001). So I’m going to restrain some of the cynicism in this version…

The Liz Phair fan site, Mesmerizing, has published the contents of an email message allegedly from Liz Phair herself. While Glorious Noise has been unable to verify the origins of this message, if the email actually came from Liz Phair, it sounds like we can expect a new Liz Phair album in May, which will include four tracks produced by “the Matrix,” the team behind Avril Lavigne’s Let Go album.

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The Glorious Noise Interview with Camden Joy

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When I was young, we approached rock and roll like that, that it had been broken open and sucked dry by greedy adults and nothing remained of it but a few shards. The Rolling Stones, for example, could be reduced to the mumbles and guitar jabs at the start of “Stray Cat Blues,” the submerged clatter of “I Just Wanna See His Face,” and the line in “Respectable” about smoking heroin with the president. Three fragments. And I’d have to say that even that was pretty generous of us. The Clash and the Who were each reduced to just two fragments. My friends and I called these “moments,” and we constantly bickered over the merits of this or that “moment.” I’m the one who said the moments occur when a performer strays from the script, when you sense they haven’t practiced this part but aren’t worried what to play. It was Roy who said these moments were “steered entirely by the majesty of impulse.” I always loved that, “the majesty of impulse.” Made passion sound like some kinda key to royalty.

— From The Last Rock Star Book Or: Liz Phair, a Rant by Camden Joy

We are pleased to present to you the Glorious Noise interview with one of my favorite contemporary authors, Camden Joy. He was called “one of the smartest, funniest, and most thoroughly twisted people writing about rock today” by Jim DeRogatis, the author of the Lester Bangs biography, Let It Blurt, and authority on smart, funny, twisted writers. In the interview Camden Joy discusses his role in reviving interest in alternative country legends, his love of genetically-modified fruit, and his waning interest in current popular music. He also mentions his three brand new novellas that were just published by Highwater Books.

Read all about it here.

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Potentially Scary News for Liz Phair Fans

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Pitchfork is reporting that Michael Penn is producing Liz Phair’s upcoming new album. This fact by itself isn’t a total disappointment, since I like what I’ve heard of what he’s done with Aimee Mann, and I don’t totally hate the sound of the Wallflowers’ album Breach, which he produced. We’ll see. Pitchfork adds (in their typically snarky fashion — but who are we to talk?),

While she was at it, she also decided to co-write some material with Gary Clark of the band Danny Wilson, who has recently worked with such leading ladies of artistic vision as Natalie Imbruglia and Vitamin C. And, being on a roll, she figured she might as well also bring aboard Pete Yorn, the man currently filling the pop culture void left by Shawn Mullins’ slip into obscurity.

I think I might be the only person in America who fondly remembers Danny Wilson’s chipper little song “Second Summer of Love” from 1989. Whatever though. We’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope Liz’s new album doesn’t turn out to be the complete schlockfest that Capitol Records would love for her to release.

Regardless, she still looks great in her underpants.

Articles

Who needs music television? Not us.

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Since they no longer play videos on MTV (old news, I know), we must turn to the Web to get our fix that used to at least be satisfied by 120 Minutes. For a while there, I used to tape that show every Sunday night and watch it Monday evening. I was turned on to some great new music that way. I saw the Travis video for “All I Wanna Do Is Rock” on 120 Minutes back in 1997, and that’s still my favorite song of theirs.

But now musicians know how to use the Internet, and I’ve got a broadband connection, so here are three videos that I think you should check out:

Liz Phair – Down. This is a new song from Liz, and I still love her even though she moved to LA as soon as I moved to Chicago. She may be avoiding me, but she still writes great songs. This is a cool video with interesting (for once) use of that goofy, stop-frame/multi-angle technique (as seen in Gap ads and football games).

Bjork – Pagan Poetry. First things first: Bjork’s boobies are featured in this kinky, unsafe-for-work video. The song is brilliant, and the video is disturbing.

Gorillaz – Rock the House. I initially gave the Gorilllaz album some shit because I was disappointed that there were only two songs with my man Del on them. I’m still upset about that, but I’ve gone back to the album several times recently, and have started to really like it. Except for the handful of songs where the guy from Blur sings in his annoying falsetto. Uggh. But a lot of it is really good. This new video from them is the other Del song.

If you know of other cool videos, please add them to comments section. It’s Friday and I don’t feel like working…

[Update: This was originally posted years before YouTube, but 15 years later we embedded working videos. -ed.]