Exile In Lizville

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Celebrity culture tends to be pretty hyper, and even more so with a growing crop of young talents constantly vying for the spotlight. Once in a great while, however, a singer, actress or other celebrated person manages to survive through the years.

As this happens they tend to adapt to the changing times, often alienating long-standing fans in the process. That’s exactly what happened between singer Liz Phair and Queerty correspondent Megan Metzger, who admits she once loathed her icon so much that she wanted her off the planet. But, just as some star alienate their base, they too can stage a come back, shining brighter than ever.

After the jump, Metzger traces her rocky relationship with Phair – and how a live show last week rekindled their unspoken – most likely unrequited – romance.

There was a time I wanted Liz Phair dead. See, I have this fantasy reserved for those who forsook their brilliance. What if Liz, Michael Jackson and Nicholas Cage had boarded a helicopter right before their careers jumped the shark, and the pilot lost control in a jagged mountain range and the ‘copter pulls a Patsy Cline? Tragic, yes, but this way, fans aren’t subjected to phoned-in stabs at commercial viability or public disgrace and self-mutilation (not to mention Lisa Marie Presley would only be on her second marriage).

At 15, Liz Phair was my teacher, and her debut album, Exile in Guyville was the textbook from which I learned sex was fucking fun–but usually not without consequence–that bad boys make you crazy insane, and rock’n’roll chicks can bag groupies just as easily as the dudes.

Guyville, released on indie stalwart Matador Records in 1993, is a song-by-song response to the Stones’ double-LP opus Exile on Main St., but Guyville’s sparse scuzz paired with Phair’s overtly sexual, smart and honest lyrics make Guyville a masterpiece in its own right.

After EIG, Phair released a couple of alright albums for Matador, got married, had a baby, got divorced, then mosied on over to Capitol Records. The major label pressured her to make radio-friendly hits, even hooking the artist up with Avril Lavigne’s svengali writing team, the Matrix.

I couldn’t help but be possessed by one question: how in fuck did Chicago’s lo-fi rock goddess of the 90s grow up to become a polished Cougar Lavigne of the new millenium? Many fans, like myself, felt betrayed and wrote her off. But this past Thursday, all was forgiven.

In commemoration of EIG being re-released through her new aural home, A.T.O. Records, Phair’s performing a mini-tour in small clubs like the Hiro Ballroom at the Manhattan Maritime Hotel in Chelsea. Wednesday’s show sold out in under five minutes, and Thursday’s within 30 of it being announced. Apparently I wasn’t the only one excited at another shot of love.


[6’1″ off of Phair’s first album, Exile In Guyville.]
A surprisingly diverse collective of executive lesbians, aging schlubs, malnourished hipsters and former alterna-girls crowded Hiro, a smallish venue that brings to mind the Tokyo night club where Uma Thurman went medieval on Lucy Liu’s ass in Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Liz Phair charged the stage, and the crowd went apeshit. Some of us might’ve cried a little bit.

Even though it’s been 15 years since Exile in Guyville’s release, girlfriend looked good in an borderline-slutty leather vest and short shorts ensemble. Whatever. She’s the blow-job queen. She can wear what she wants.

Someone very clever in the audience yelled the album’s first cut, “6’1.” Phair immediately launched into the rocker, dipping a half-octave too low into the first line: “I bet you fall in bed too easily with the beautiful girls who are shyly brave…”

But homegirl’s clear, deadpan voice recovered as the set progressed, and she and her boyish backing band plowed through Guyville’s 18 songs with aplomb.

One of the many great things about EIG, as a whole, is that its desultory emotional tone somehow manages to be musically seamless. Rollicking tracks like “Help Me Mary, Soap Star Joe,” and the album’s only real so-called hit, “Never Said,” are paired with real downers like “Canary and Shatter.” This made the live experience an emotional rollercoaster. At some moments the crowd was silent and weepy, then during post-feminist anthems like “Fuck and Run,” “Flower” and especially the “Divorce Song,” we almost drowned out the chick with the microphone.

That chick with the microphone has a notorious rep for having a nasty case of stage fright, but that wasn’t apparent Thursday. What was apparent, however, was both her and the fans’ gratitude for an opportunity to revel in a work of genius.

“Let me ask you a question,” she said at one point in the night. “How many of you listened to this record to get over a break-up?”

Pretty much everybody in the room, including Liz herself, raised a hand.

As the band approached Strange Loop, Exile in Guyville’s jammy closer, the crowd knew the record was over, and so, too, the end of the show.

But, of course, there was an encore, which included Liz’s later, inarguably weaker catalogue. She started with Whip Smart’s sweet piano ballad “Chopsticks,” which begins with the classic line, “He said he liked to do it backwards I said, ‘That’s just fine with me, That way we can fuck and watch TV.’”

The encore was the only time she hesitated that night, but the struggle provided us with one of the show’s most charming moments. During Phair’s re-imagining of the Troggs’ tune “Wild Thing,” she kept fucking up the chords, and picked out a googly-eyed, side-burned young thing to play the guitar part. Luckily for him, kid knew what he was doing, and lingered on the stage too long after the song, prompting Phair to tell him to take a hike.

She ended the night with a timid rendition of “Polyester Bride,” the mild and breezy single off of her last album of any interest, 1998’s whitechocolatespaceegg, and with that she thanked us again for making the night incredible and was out.

No, Liz Phair. Thank you for the incredible night. I no longer want you to perish in a fiery aero-crash.

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