Liz Phair- Lounge Ax, Chicago, IL. March 14, 1999

  

 

As the Aadam Jacobs audio archives continues to be shared, I hoped a Liz Phair show would appear at some point since Chicago was her home turf and she performed there frequently, especially in the "early days". Fortunately, there is a recording from the Lounge Ax, a smaller intimate venue that would have been wild to see Liz live. This show from 1999, was actually a fundraiser featuring, a Hot Damn Fashion Show (by Liz's sister-in-law) that followed Phair's set (Sally Timms opened), where she was accompanied by Buddy Judge on guitar. This show wasn't publicized or listed on the Ax's website and it wasn't handled by her management. The cool thing was that tickets were a mere $15 and only sold at the bar. It's not a full blown band show, but the up-close and personal aspect of the evening must have quite the thrill to be there! The sound quality is incredibly good and the performance is fun, loose and well worth the listen!

Enjoy!

 

 

Please do NOT sell or profit from this recording!

Do NOT convert to lossy format, except for personal use.

Please share!

 

Here's the link for Aadam's original post on the archives. There are lots of amazing shows to listen to and enjoy there! In the banter between Polyester Bride and Go On Ahead, it's interesting that Liz says she was asked if she was pissed with bootlegs and replies, "I am so thankful someone has a record of all this stuff". Yes!!

 

 

Super-fan, Katie Brown accompanied Liz on vocals, for Flower.

 

Liz Phair
Lounge Ax
Chicago, IL

March 14, 1999

Recording generously loaned from the Aadam Jacobs Audio Archive

Transfer:
DAT (M) > Panasonic SV-3700 SPDIF > Marantz PMD570

Mastering: FLAC > WAV > Cool Edit Pro 2.0 (normalization; added fades at beginning and end; 16/44 conversion) > CDWav (tracking) > Trader's Little Helper (level 8) > FLAC > TagScanner 6.1.20 (tagging)

Recorded by: Aadam Jacobs
Transferred by: John Bartol
Mastered by: elegymart


Total running time [1:02:21]
---------------------------------------------------
01  intro 
02  Liz intro 
03  Glory
04  Girls Room
05  6'1"
06  Divorce Song
07  Wild Thing
08  Johnny Feelgood
09  Dance of the Seven Veils
10  Flower
11  Mesmerizing
12  Perfect World
13  Polyester Bride
14  Go on Ahead
15  Conversation Overheard Between Two Bouncers
16  Fuck and Run
17  Explain It to Me
18  Supernova
19  MC / Liz comments


Band line-up:
Liz Phair - vocals, guitar
Buddy Judge - electric guitar
Katie Brown - harmony vocals on t10

LIZ PHAIR- 1999-03-14 Lounge Ax, Chicago, IL FLAC. rar

 

Liz Phair- Exile In Guyville 30th Anniversary Show, Chicago, November 18, 2023

 

There are certain albums that are career-making for artists that are best known for that record even years later. For Liz Phair, it was her debut album released 30 years ago (technically 31 now in 2024), Exile In Guyville that placed her on the rock 'n 'roll map with a brilliant debut and without argument, her best album. When Guyville came out it was a time when alternative music was gaining the attention of mainstream audiences and Grunge was already converting listeners to non-commercial music, as Nirvana's, Nevermind came out two years earlier. 

 

I was thinking about Exile In Guyville a few weeks ago, as I was preparing to submit a grant proposal for an art project that will focus on portable cassette players (Walkmans) and cassette culture. Recently, I've been a bit obsessive about Walkmans and older, obsolete technology (and my minidisc recorder recently died), so I've been painting and drawing these game-changing machines and using them to listen to tapes again. The grant will allow me to expand deeper on this theme both in quantity and quality (more on that later, if I get it). Anyways, the connection here is that Liz Phair's, Girly-Sound tapes preceded Guyville, recorded in her bedroom on a 4-track cassette recorder and those tapes, which were circulated to early fans in Chicago, helped get her record deal with Matador.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album, Phair and her band toured the record and played the album in it's entirety and for the encore a couple of her best known songs. For the hometown show in Chicago, Liz performed all six songs she rotated in and out of the encores in other cities. She was warmly welcomed at the sold out show at the Chicago Theatre and it would have been amazing to be there. I left the recording notes and comments from the taper, to give you more details about the sound quality and the concert.

Taper Comments: Liz brought her 30th anniversary "Exile in Guyville" tour to the sold-out Chicago Theatre and the results are what one might have expected -- the fan base that all own "Vs.", "In Utero," and various Cranberries albums were rapturous at seeing "Exile in Guyville" in its entirety. Four backing singers appeared in strategic spots in the audience (spread across the main floor and balcony) for "Flower" and "Johnny Sunshine," in what I suspect was a one-off for Chicago -- it was very cool having spotlights on singers throughout the auditorium backing the songs. The encore featured *all six* of the songs that she's been rotating in and out of the encores throughout the tour, presumably making this the longest show of the tour. She paused before "Go West" to apologize for adding songs as a nod to her hometown fans, for those who would be late for commitments they'd made after the show. :)

The performance was great, and Liz frequently noted that the show was a dream come true for her.

The recording itself is very good. There are moments that the enthusiastic crowd impinges on the music, although mostly this is manifest in loud bursts of applause between songs. The women next to me were chatty, but you can't really hear them because I had a solid line on the left stack and the music drowns out nearby audience chatter. The guy to my right had a few enthusiastic outbursts that I can't really do anything about, but it just accentuates the excitement of the crowd.

Enjoy!

 

 

Please do NOT sell or profit from this recording!

Do NOT convert to lossy formats, except for personal use.

Please share!

 

Liz Phair
Chicago Theatre
Chicago, Illinois
November 18, 2023

Source:  DPA 4060 => Tascam DR-2d
Conversion:  WAV => Audio Cleaning Lab => FLAC (16-bit)

Location: 6th row, left side

Track listing:

CD1 (58:44):
(1)  Intro (1:08)
(2)  6' 1" (3:04)
(3)  Help Me Mary (2:43)
(4)  Glory (2:00)
(5)  Dance of the Seven Veils (2:37)
(6)  Banter (1:04)
(7)  Never Said (3:26)
(8)  Soap Star Joe (3:14)
(9)  Explain It To Me (3:02)
(10)  Canary (3:43)
(11)  Mesmerizing (4:28)
(12)  Fuck and Run (3:42)
(13)  Girls! Girls! Girls! (2:20)
(14)  Divorce Song (4:12)
(15)  Shatter (5:11)
(16)  Flower (2:44)
(17)  Johnny Sunshine (5:02)
(18)  Banter (0:41)
(19)  Gunshy (4:14)

CD2 (33:34):
(1)  Stratford-on-Guy (3:07)
(2)  Strange Loop (4:24)
(3)  Encore break (1:54)
(4)  Supernova (3:09)
(5)  Johnny Feelgood (4:04)
(6)  Go West (3:48)
(7)  Polyester Bride (4:14)
(8)  Extraordinary (3:39)
(9)  Band introductions (0:30)
(10)  Why Can't I? (4:21)
(11)  Outro (0:18)

LIZ PHAIR- 2023-11-18 Chicago, FLAC. rar

Liz Phair- Whitechocolatespaceegg Sessions

 

 I used to consider myself not much of a reader, sure, I read the newspaper everyday and read articles in magazines and on the computer, but when I really think about it a lot of my day is spent reading (in some form). We read more than we give ourselves credit for, you need to have at least basic skills of literacy to survive day to day life and our mind is busy processing information all the time. To sit back and open a book to read for pleasure has become a enjoyable leisure activity to allow ourselves to imagine other peoples lives or fictional accounts of experiences we wish we can participate in...or not. I prefer non-fiction, but I have been trying to balance my palate as I seem to alternate between biographies of athletes and musicians, graphic novels (and comics), pop culture (music, art, film etc.) and classic novels. Biographies (and auto biographies) fascinate me to explore the story behind the music and the game and this usually leads to more respect for the subject. 

 

 

 

I checked Liz Phair's memoir, Horror Stories out the library back in July and finally finished it last week. I read the first couple chapters, and at first found it a difficult to read as memoirs are different from straight-up auto biographies. I renewed the book four times and finally connected with the narrative and cruised through the rest of the book and found it an enjoyable read. This wasn't an ordinary story that bios cover, but she shares stories and experiences of uncomfortable, awkward and dis-empowering moments in her life that most authors avoid when they write about themselves. The writing is honest and unpretentious and a very intimate and unique self-portrait of her life.

 

(quote from Horror Stories) Horror stories is my effort to slow everything down and take a look at how we really become who we are. It's more than just my personal story. It's about the small indignities we all suffer daily, the silent insult to our system, the callous gestures that we make toward one another. Horror isn't necessarily the big, ghoulish waiting to pounce on you in the dark. Horror can be found in brief interactions that are as cumulatively powerful as the splashy heart-stoppers because that's where we live most of lives.

The stories are interesting, no real order, both chronologically or of importance. Each chapter is a glimpse of a certain episode in her life such as, navigating through a blizzard in NYC, going into labor, blackout in NYC, a crush on a guy that worked at Trader Joe's (who later killed himself) and her #metoo moment. The #metoo chapter is especially interesting because the accused was to produced her next album at the time. They were working on what would have become a double album and then the New York Times published an article about his inappropriate interactions with young female artists, sexual harassment and communicating with an underage girl online. Phair doesn't name him, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out who it is (click to NY Times link). Obviously, the project was scrapped and the album wasn't released. 

  Since this isn't a book review blog, I'm posting tracks from her Whitechocolatespaceegg sessions. Apparently, there were a lot of tracks recorded and these demos were uncovered by sheer luck with the discovery by a former roommate of some original studio tapes left behind by Jason Chasko, who produced some of the songs on WCSE. (read the notes for a full breakdown of all the tracks in the file). This turned out to be 7 cassettes that the poster purchased and converted the tracks to two CD's. The tracks are fascinating, some are rough mixes, early versions, alternative mixes and unreleased. If you're a fan of demo and session tracks, like I am, this is the holy grail of Liz Phair unreleased tracks. I had earlier posted the original version of WCSE that was rejected by the record label that had to be re-recorded and mixed, so this is a nice companion piece. Extra bonus, these tracks are all lossless!

Enjoy!

 

Please do NOT sell or profit from this recording!

Do NOT convert to lossy formats, except for personal use

Please share!

 

LIZ PHAIR

WCSE Sessions (1996-1997)

Disc One
1996 Studio Recordings (taken from tape 7)

  1. Oh My God
  2. Headache
  3. Desperado Theme
  4. Ride
  5. Hurricane Cindy
  6. Rocket Boy
  7. Perfect World
  8. Fantasize
  9. Russian Girl
10. Stuck On An Island
11. Tell Me You Like Me
12. Girls' Room
13. I'm Like That
14. Waiting For The Bird (White Bird Of Texas)
15. Freak Of Nature

Sidenote 1: I only used the Studio Recordings
portion of this tape.  If you are interested
in the Demos portion...

1997 Studio Recordings
16. White Chocolate Space Egg (tape 1)
17. Big Tall Man (tape 1)
18. Tell Me You Like Me (tape 2)
19. What Makes You Happy (tape 2)
20. Bars Of The Bed (tape 3)
21. Blood Keeper (tape 4)
22. What Makes You Happy (tape 5)
23. Big Tall Man (tape 5)

1998 whitechocolatespaceegg Rough Mixes
24. Johnny Feelgood
25. What Makes You Happy

Disc Two
1997 whitechocolatespaceegg Running Order (tape 6)
1. White Chocolate Space Egg
2. Fantasize
3. Headache
4. Big Tall Man
5. Baby Got Going
6. Only Son
7. Bars Of The Bed
8. Oh My God
9. Ride
10. Waiting For The Bird
11. Perfect World
12. Desperado Theme
13. Tell Me You Like Me
14. What Makes You Happy
15. Freak Of Nature
16. Girls' Room
17. Russian Girl

Bonus Tracks
18. Blood Keeper (tape 4 - same as disc 1 track 21)
19. Greased Lightning (from Japanese Polyester Bride CD EP)
20. Hurricane Cindy (from Japanese whitechocolatespaceegg CD)

(Tracks 19 & 20 are not included because they were "officially" released and were removed...sorry)

LIZ PHAIR- '96-'97 WCSE Sessions FLAC. rar

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

Liz Phair- Girly-Sound Tapes

As I was writing yesterday's post about Liz Phair, I realized you really can't talk about Liz Phair's early work without mentioning her pre-Exile In Guyville recordings, the Girlysound tapes. Actually Girly-Sound was the moniker Liz Phair used when she self-produced several tapes in 1991. They were recorded in her bedroom in her parent's house and were initially given only to two people. These tapes circulated and she eventually signed with Matador Records on the strength of a tape she sent the label that contained 6 songs from the Girly tapes. Many of the songs from Girly-Sound were reworked and re-recorded for her debut and altered versions of the other songs appeared on later studio albums. You could say Liz Phair became a bit of a phenomenon, as the tapes were traded within the taper community and Liz Phair fan music circles. To read more about the tapes and the tracks on each and a guide to what album the tracks eventually appeared on, read the wikipedia page for Girly Sound. None of the Girly-Sound tapes have been officially released, though 5 tracks appeared on her 1995 Juvenilia EP and a bonus disc of Girly-Sound tracks were included on the physical version of 2010's Funstyle album.

The tracks posted below are mp3's (probably 1st generation) from the three cassette tapes (sorry, I don't have the actual tapes!). These are truly a prize for any Liz Phair fan and an interesting listen for anyone curious about home recording. Technology has come a long way from the 4-track cassette recordings of Liz Phair and probably hundreds of other musicians that recorded music in their bedroom (yes, I have made many recordings of myself from my single track cassette recorder and 4-track tape machine!), nowadays a bedroom recording can sound as slick and intricate as a professionally recorded album thanks to computers and software. Thank you Liz Phair for proving that DIY can be a launching pad for a successful music career.
Enjoy!

Tape #1
GIRLY-SOUND
Yo Yo Buddy Yup Yup Word To Ya Muthuh (1991)

01. White Babies
02. Shane
03. Six Dick Pimp
04. Divorce Song
05. Go West
06. Dont Hold Your Breath
07. Johnny Sunshine
08. Miss Lucy
09. Elvis Song
10. Dead Shark
11. One Less Thing
12. Money
13. In Love With Yourself (Combo Platter)
14. Fuck Or Die

Tape #2
GIRLY-SOUND
Girls Girls Girls (1991)

01. Hello Sailor
02. Wild Thing
03. Fuck & Run
04. Easy Target
05. Soap Star Joe
06. Ant In Alaska
07. Girls Girls Girls
08. Polyester Bride
09. Thrax
10. Miss Mary Mack
11. Clean
12. Love Song
13. Valentine
14. Shatter

Tape #3
GIRLY-SOUND
Untitled (1991)

01 Flowers
02 Whip Smart
03 Open Season (Beg Me)
04 Go Speed Racer
05 Stratford Guy
06 South Dakota
07 Why I Left California
08 Batmobile
09 Gigolo (Cant Get Out What Im Into)
10 Easy (Its Not That)
11 Slave (Sometimes A Dream Is What Makes You A)
12 Chopsticks

GIRLY-SOUND- Tape 1. rar
GIRLY-SOUND- Tape 2. rar
GIRLY-SOUND- Tape 3. rar

Liz Phair- Whitechocolatespaceegg (Original Version)

Say what you want about Liz Phair, but you can't deny she was quite the force in the 90's. Her amazing debut album in 1993, Exile In Guyville is a classic and is listed in Rolling Stones top 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time (328) and this definitely was her greatest achievement. Her other albums in the 90's, Whip-Smart and Whitechocolatespaceegg are good, not essential, but are still worth owning. This is where my interest in Liz Phair began to fade, I downloaded her next couple of albums, Liz Phair and Somebody's Miracle and they tread on the side of too mainstream for my taste. Also there's something about the production team of The Matrix that I can't stand, that canned auto-tuned sound and her subject matter and lyric content (H.W.C.) at times sounded desperate. Some called it selling out or career suicide, but I think she was trying too hard to capture the spirit and attitude of her earlier work, she was no longer shocking or innovative. Her most recent studio album, Funstyle was a fiasco and barely listenable. Don't misunderstand me, I love Liz Phair, if she came to town (hasn't happened yet) I would buy tickets the second they went on sale and with the advent of YouTube I can live out my musical fantasies watching her videos and live performances. With the re-release of Exile in 2008, Liz reminded music lovers why she was relevant and she did the trendy thing and embarked on a tour performing the entire Exile In Guyville record. I would love to have seen it. When Liz Phair submitted the original version of her third album, Whitechocolatespaceegg to her record label (Atlantic) it was rejected and she was instructed to re-record and remix it. What I've posted are the rejected mixes and original version of the album including some tracks that didn't make it on the album. None of these tracks were officially released and in most cases these versions sound a lot different than the released versions. It was probably a good decision to remix, as most of the songs seemed to lack the punch and crisp sound of released product. I do enjoy the original version of What Makes You Happy and as a bonus I'm posting a short video from the making of Whitechocolatespaceegg where she's recording some vocals for Happy. If anyone knows if there's a the full version of the video, please let me know. Enjoy! LIZ PHAIR
Whitechocolatespaceegg (Original version) 1996/97 01. Whitechocolatespaceegg 02. Fantasize 03. Headache 04. Big Tall Man 05. Baby Got Going 06. Only Son 07. Bars Of the Bed 08. Oh My God 09. Ride 10. Waiting For the Bird 11. Perfect World 12. Desperado Theme 13. Tell Me You Like Me 14. What Makes You Happy 15. Freak Of Nature 16. Girls Room 17. Russian Girl LIZ PHAIR- Whitechocolatespaceegg (original version). rar (the original files were taken from the Symphony Of Ghosts music blog)