Liz Phair- Sessions At West 54th

Everyone has those moments, not quite a "life changing" moment, but a realization moment when you discover something, in this case an artist, something so good you can't believe you almost missed out on. Liz Phair was one of those artists I heard about before even listening to her music. Her debut record, Exile In Guyville was getting a lot of attention and buzz (I hate that word!) and for a guy that actually didn't have a lot of female artists in his collection (shamefully), I was curious. I dubbed a cassette copy from a friend and nearly wore out the tape because I played it so much. The songs were fresh, intelligent and oh, so interesting. The blunt, honest sexually open lyrics and Phair's low almost mono-tone vocal style had me hooked. It didn't hurt that she was cute with a tomboy-ish, "one of the guys" look and attitude. I can watch her early (pre-2000) interviews all night, she's that charming. For me, Exile In Guyville is one of the best records from the 90's and Fuck And Run and 6' 1" from the album can be on any of my playlists. In 2018, Liz revisited this album on the 25th anniversary of the original release with a repackaged boxset edition of Guyville called, Girly-Sound To Guyville which included re-mastered versions of the three Girly-Sound tapes. I posted mp3 versions from the original tapes back in 2012 and those unremastered versions are still posted here.

Sorry, for the poor quality. These are screenshots from a video on YouTube.

I'm posting a fantastic live recording from Liz Phair when she appeared on PBS's, Sessions At West 54th. The program aired for three seasons from 1997-2000 and featured live performances from a range of artists from various musical genres. This was performances from good quality, mainly critically acclaimed musicians, so no teeny-pop rubbish or trendy American-Idol wannabees. Liz Phair appeared on the second season to coincide with the release of her third album, Whitechocolatespaceegg and I would say she was at the height of her career (at least musically) at this time. To appear on a program like this confirmed she was a legit talent with much acclaimed credibility. This album had some great songs on it, a few still from her Girlysound recordings, but the consistency of her material was showing cracks. The original version of the record (I posted in 2012) was rejected by the record label, so it was re-recorded and remixed and more (commercially appealing) material was added. Despite it's flaws, it was her last "good" record before she abandoned much of the qualities her original fans came to appreciate about her to seek a more mainstream audience that wasn't there. This sounds really critical (I don't mean it to be), but reflecting back maybe she had bad advice or some of the decisions that were made for her were wrong.

Getting back to Sessions at West 54th, I saw the original broadcast on PBS-TV back in the day. The show is an hour long and Liz's slot was split with John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards, so the televised portion for each artist was half an hour. I VCR-ed the broadcast as well as audio recorded (jacked into the back of the TV) it onto cassette. The sound quality was good and I listened to it a lot, but it broadcast only 5 songs from her set. As luck would have it, I eventually found the complete live audio recording of the performance and that's what's posted below. The sound quality is excellent and Liz's performance is outstanding. There is some dispute of the actually date because on my file it's listed as October 5, 1998 (change the text file if need be), but according to other sources it should be October 15th. (setlists.com lists Oct. 5, she was in Washington)
Enjoy!

Please do NOT sell or profit from this recording!
Do NOT convert to lossy formats (except for personal use)
Please share!

Video broadcast (televised portion)- YouTube


Liz Phair
October 15th, 1998
New York, NY.
Sessions at West 54th

CDr(trade)->WAV->Flac FrontEnd(level 6)->Flac->You

01 Intro (David Byrne) 00:19
02 Mesmerizing 05:00
03 Johnny Feel Good 04:11
04 Never Said 03:36
05 Support System 03:29
06 WhiteChocolateSpaceEgg 05:31
07 Uncle Alvarez 04:20
08 6' 1" 03:22
09 Dance Of The Seven Veils 04:15
10 Polyester Bride 03:54
11 Supernova 03:31
12 Divorce Song 04:07
13 Perfect Life 05:53
14 Fuck And Run 05:08
15 What Makes You Happy 04:45

LIZ PHAIR- Sessions At West 54th FLAC. rar