Last June, Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyville received the retrospective treatment, coinciding with the album’s 15th anniversary. Released through Dave Matthews’ ATO Records (to which Phair is now signed), the expanded edition featured three bonus tracks plus a new “Guyville Redux” DVD, in which Phair chats with some of the folks who were directly or tangentially involved in the making of the seminal album (all men, it turns out).
Well, it wasn’t until yesterday that I got around to watching that DVD, a DIY venture from Phair that matches the album’s lo-fi aesthetic well. These informal interviews offer insight into the Chicago scene at the time and the efforts that brought Guyville to life. Among those who Phair tracked down are the album’s producer Brad Wood and assistant engineer Casey Race, her friend Tae Won Tu (who pimped Phair’s Girly Sound cassettes), the Matador Records guys (the “coolest” indie label), producer Steve Albini (who compared Phair to Rickie Lee Jones—it wasn’t a compliment), and Nash Kato and Blackie Onassis of Urge Overkill.
There are more participants than those listed above, and it’s all pretty enlightening, like when Phair discloses that she wrote Guyville largely about Kato in a bid to get his attention. We also discover the impetus for the infamous cover shot, taken in the photo booth at Chicago’s Rainbo Club with Phair donning Kato’s (fake) fur coat and little else. What we don’t get, though Phair teases us at least twice, is a full description of just how Guyville matches up as a song-by-song response to The Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main St. Maybe we have to wait patiently for the album’s 25th anniversary to get the details (and then I’ll wait another 10 months before sifting through them).
Phair was pretty confident that Exile In Guyville was going to be a big deal, though her Matador bosses had lower expectations. She surprised them with a request to make a video for “Never Said.” I think they gave her $3000, and it looks like she headed over to the Lincoln Park Conservatory for much of it:
Though Phair was said to be in the final stages of recording a new album last July, no release date has been announced (though it’s still expected sometime this year). Maybe she’s been otherwise occupied by her day job, composing music for the new 90210 (a job that’s lasted longer than her similar Swingtown gig).
Purchase Liz Phair – “Never Said” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.
