a lot of these songs feel like they're coming from the perspective (…) of a regular person and not some guitar goddessFtr, I totally agree w/this… but I don’t think better drumming would have ruined the effect!
― Bob Dylan's iconic Ray Ban sunglasses (morrisp), Saturday, 14 May 2022 19:24 (one year ago) link
well I got up and put Guyville on the stereo this morning and guess what? it fucking rules.
― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 14 May 2022 23:32 (one year ago) link
Revisiting all of Guyville & Girly-Sound today, in anticipation of seeing Phair perform Guyville in its entirety ("...Plus Fan Favorites") on Friday.
One thing to add to my thoughts above re: Girly-Sound is how particularly great the third tape ("Sooty") is. Even when you're streaming the entire glut of songs in a sitting (as I'm doing now) – and enjoying them! – your ears sort of prick up (no pun intended) an extra degree when "Gigolo" comes on. There's a particular magic in this final batch of tunes; which I guess makes sense, considering that several of them ended up on Juvenilia.
(Btw, just learned from Wikipeda that "Gigolo" was reworked for Somebody's Miracle (as "Can't Get Out of What I'm Into")... her final dip into the demos for material. I'll have to check that out... I probably listened to that album once, if at all.)
― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp), Tuesday, 7 November 2023 23:19 (four months ago) link
Love this song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra7IjCoAmCA
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 7 November 2023 23:24 (four months ago) link
It just makes me flash back to the first time I heard it, and listened to it over and kvetZ
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 7 November 2023 23:29 (four months ago) link
Turns out I wouldn't have heard "Can't Get Out of What I'm Into" even if I did check out Somebody's Miracle – as it was only on advance copies, and the Japanese edition. Good recording (those guitars)!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXd2htiC0SI
― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp), Tuesday, 7 November 2023 23:33 (four months ago) link
xp "Suckerfish" is great!
My favorite thing, though, are those lovely, heart-tugging counter-melodies on "Slave," which she layers behind the Jesus & Mary Chain melody... like, how'd she come up with that??
― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp), Tuesday, 7 November 2023 23:38 (four months ago) link
not only are the songs (obviously) terrific, but the way she takes bits & pieces of well-known/famous songs, and kind of reconfigures / recontextualizes them, feels like a significant aesthetic move that I'm sure has other precedents, but I can't think of them at the moment.
^Going back to this comment (by me) – I think it's notable that two of the most powerful songs on these tapes are "Easy Target" and "Slave," both of which are built upon well-known melodies. Earlier this year, after listening to the early Lana Del Rey acoustic stuff (the "May Jailer" demos), I remarked how some of the songs reminded me a little of the Girly-Sound material... not to make too much of it, as the similarity isn't that strong, but I think it's there. And while I can't immediately think of cases where Lana has interpolated preexisting melodies in her songs, referencing lyrics/musicians/etc. is obv a centerpiece of her "artistry."
Also seems that Liz (Phair) and Lizzy (Grant) may have come from somewhat similar suburban milieus(?) Guess I don't really have much of a point, other than to suggest that there are links btw these two artists whom on the surface seem Phair-ly dissimilar (and whose career paths have definitely, well, diverged).
― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp), Wednesday, 8 November 2023 20:50 (four months ago) link
heart-tugging counter-melodies
On the flipside, she improved "Bomb" by removing the countermelodies when it became "Stratford-on-Guy" (...yes, I listened to the entire set of demos again today).
― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp), Wednesday, 8 November 2023 22:47 (four months ago) link
The show last night was lots of fun... the crowd was very into it – a theater full of super appreciative fans – and Liz seemed genuinely moved (this is in contrast to a Breeders show at the same theater, a few weeks back, where the crowd was oddly cold).
Her band was four young dudes dressed in black; pretty much exactly how you would picture the Liz Phair Band to look. The songs from the album sounded good, and they did cool things with some of the arrangements, while staying faithful to the original feel. There's something a little funny (in a charming way) about some of these offbeat little songs being presented with such fanfare (and also now, at her age and all our ages); Liz did little "dramatic routines" for a few of them. The big rockers sounded great.
The encore did indeed consist of a few "fan favorites"... Dave Pirner, of all people, came out and played "Go West" with her (dude still has the hair). The final song was "Why Can't I," which doesn't exactly push my personal nostalgia buttons... but it went over really well, and I could see it meant a lot to some of the folks around me. Why not!
― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp), Saturday, 11 November 2023 16:44 (four months ago) link
SF show ruled no special guests but she closed with Supernova, Go West and Why Can’t I rowdy crowd too, lots of fun
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 12 November 2023 07:08 (four months ago) link
I had no idea there was a girly sound version of Shane! Wow
― calstars, Sunday, 12 November 2023 16:13 (four months ago) link
I was there too, it rocked. I really liked Blondshell too.
― brimstead, Sunday, 12 November 2023 16:22 (four months ago) link
Yeah Blondshell was a great opener (I wuz already a fan, and so really pleased to see those songs played live).
― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp), Sunday, 12 November 2023 16:30 (four months ago) link
yeah they were great!
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 12 November 2023 16:56 (four months ago) link
Circling back to my above rambling comments (which I know no one cares about), Liz actually mentions Lana Del Rey in this new Pitchfork feature ("I had never heard of her until she played SNL, but something about her reminded people of me, which I found really surprising").
Putting that aside, I thought her comments on the Human League's "Don't You Want Me" were particularly interesting:
(...)it also became really formative for me, because it was the first time I had heard a woman clapping back in a song. Until that point I had always wondered (about the female perspective) in these stories. I would identify with the girl that they were singing about in my little romantic mind, like Cecilia — yeah, I did get up out of the bed, Paul Simon. But this was the first time that I really heard a woman say, No, no, no, let me set the record straight. That became my thing. And it all started with this stupid song. Guyville wouldn’t be Guyville without the Human League.
― low-sorbitol frootloop (morrisp), Monday, 20 November 2023 16:58 (four months ago) link
“Only human” also does that, was that a feature of the H League in general ?
― calstars, Monday, 20 November 2023 17:25 (four months ago) link
Upcoming DC show is in a big hall and they are having it all seated in a venue that sometimes has standing area on floor (which is ok). Tickets are expensive. Saw her years back once or twice. Not sure if I will splurge . Blondshell are opening and I haven't seen them yet.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 20 November 2023 19:50 (four months ago) link
Fyi, they didn't sell out Detroit & a bunch of $20 tickets showed up on the day of the show yesterday. Not sure if that will be the case everywhere.
― BrianB, Monday, 20 November 2023 20:52 (four months ago) link
They also release tickets the day of (presumably unused comps). This happened with Chicago even though it had been sold out for a while.
― birdistheword, Monday, 20 November 2023 22:34 (four months ago) link
“I would identify with the girl they were singing about in the song…like Cecilia” Sorry to be a lyrics dork but Cecilia is a song about writing a song. St Cecilia is the patron saint of songwriters.
― bbq, Thursday, 23 November 2023 20:05 (four months ago) link
wait is the Simon and Garfunkel song about writer’s block?
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 23 November 2023 20:08 (four months ago) link
!!
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Thursday, 23 November 2023 20:08 (four months ago) link
Yep.
― bbq, Thursday, 23 November 2023 20:12 (four months ago) link
That’s an interesting factoid. (Fwiw, Phair doesn’t even get the lyric right… it’s the narrator who gets up out of bed.)
― This field is required (morrisp), Thursday, 23 November 2023 20:16 (four months ago) link
what the!
― alpine static, Thursday, 23 November 2023 20:58 (four months ago) link
i had no idea
Finally that song makes sense and is beautiful
― meaner stinks meat bake it cone (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 23 November 2023 21:03 (four months ago) link
Paul Simon was writing a song, washed his face, and found someone else was writing his song?!?
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 23 November 2023 21:40 (four months ago) link
Garfunklel’d, as they say in the biz
― bbq, Thursday, 23 November 2023 21:47 (four months ago) link
I was today years old when I learned…
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 23 November 2023 21:48 (four months ago) link
Probably Robert Lamm
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 23 November 2023 22:05 (four months ago) link
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Saturday, 25 November 2023 11:44 (four months ago) link
(Also, don’t know what band you all are talking about, Blondshell were horrific)
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Saturday, 25 November 2023 11:45 (four months ago) link
I went to the Brooklyn show last night - missed Blondshell and got in my seat like 10 minutes before Phair started and it was really awesome. I wasn't sure if I'd ever see a show like this, but I really loved hearing all the lesser-known songs from Guyville, particularly the quieter cuts.
― birdistheword, Saturday, 25 November 2023 20:30 (four months ago) link
Saw her tonight in Nashville, lots of fun. This was the third time I've seen her so I'd heard the fan faves off Guyville before but it was cool to hear the lesser-known tracks. I also love how 30 years on she's still kind of perched halfway between making it and not making it — Gen X for life.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 28 November 2023 05:56 (four months ago) link
So, "making love with Cecelia" is a metaphor for writing a song, "wash my face" is some distraction (like the man from Porlock?) and "someone's taken my place" being "can't remember what I was thinking about while I was writing"..... ?
― Mark G, Tuesday, 28 November 2023 07:51 (four months ago) link
Or maybe a song was released by someone else that covered similar ground or had a similar melody.
― nickn, Tuesday, 28 November 2023 18:17 (four months ago) link