#Liz Phair revives ‘Guyville’ for 25th anniversary

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Emma Silvers May 23, 2018

Liz Phair is getting into character. She’s practicing her moves. She’s doing vocal exercises every night.

“You make these sounds for a really long time, like a monk, to try to get that lower register open,” she says, demonstrating a long, low hum. “Because my range has gotten way higher as I’ve gotten older.”

She’s calling from Los Angeles, a week after her 51st birthday. And the character for whom she’s in training is a 25-year-old version of Liz Phair, the one that released “Exile in Guyville” in 1993, the album that subsequently thrust her into the national spotlight — despite the fact that she had only played a handful of live shows.

“It was a disaster,” she recalls. “That’s not how you do it! I was already famous before I’d ever played live.”

But Phair needs to channel that person to properly perform that album, she says — which she plans to do for Bay Area fans Friday, June 1, at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco, as she tours intimate venues in support of the 25th anniversary reissue of “Girly-Sound to Guyville” (Matador), a seven-LP or three-CD box set complete with essays, interviews and remastered rarities. (The first half of the title refers to early Phair demo tapes that were, before now, mostly message board fodder for die-hard fans. This tour marks the first time she’ll perform the tracks live.)

“Exile” was a revelation when it hit the radio in 1993: sensitive and blunt, angry and funny, honest about sex and the alienation of being a creative girl in a guy’s scene. Framed as a wry response to the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street,” it stood in stark contrast to the bro-dominated grunge acts of the era, and quickly landed on critics’ best-of-the-year lists. Meanwhile Phair, a Chicago native and recent Oberlin College grad who had written most of her songs in her bedroom at her parents’ house, became an indie darling overnight.

It was in that spotlight that Phair was taken to task for her lyrics, whose sexual frankness (“I want to be your blowjob queen,” from the sing-songy track “Flower,” was among the most-quoted) barely moves the needle by today’s pop music standards. But in the ’90s, says Phair, “You were still judged according to the Slut-O-Meter.”

“I wanted it to be so outrageous and over the top that you had to talk about whether I could say it or not,” says Phair, whose penchant for performance art comes across in early interviews. “I wanted men and I wanted to have sex. I had those feelings, and I had those thoughts, so it was really about what you were allowed to exhibit. What you’re given ownership over, even in the real estate of your own inner life.”

In the 25 years since “Exile,” Phair has released five full-length albums, some to acclaim, and some — like her 2003 self-titled foray into slicker, more radio-friendly pop — to critical derision and cries of “sellout.” She also dabbles in other art forms: after finishing a double album with Ryan Adams recently (release date still to be announced), she turned her attention to a different kind of writing, inking a two-book deal with Random House in 2017. A memoir called “Horror Stories” will be published first; the second, she says, is tentatively organized around the theme of fairy tales.

Regardless of her medium, Phair’s impact and influence have grown more obvious with each passing year, especially as younger generations of feminists discover her landmark debut.

“Dude, I was ahead of my time. What can I say?” she says with a laugh, when asked about how well “Exile” has aged.

It’s 2018, and Beyoncé, whose brand is seeped in sexuality, just gave the performance of her life at age 36 — the same age Phair was when a New York Times review of her self-titled record painted her as a desperate, over-the-hill soccer mom for daring to still be sexual. Does our cultural landscape have more room for women as three-dimensional beings than it did in 1993?

“I do think we’re much further along,” says Phair. “But especially in the last couple years, with the Trump administration, it’s also shocking and deeply disturbing to realize how much further there still is to go.”

Which has, in turn, lit a fire under Phair in other ways.

“I have felt a definite need to be present, vocal and accounted for, because I need to be as strong and loud as these voices that are so horrifying to me,” she says. “We all do. The America that I believe we live in just needs to turn up its volume.”

In the meantime, those who caught Phair live circa 1993 can expect a much more technically skilled performance of “Exile” songs than the last time around. That said, Phair’s biggest strength remains the same: “It’s a testament to people’s appreciation of songwriting,” that fans stuck with her 25 years ago, she says, as she learned to play shows in real time.

“But I think that’s what I do better than other people. I don’t sing better or play better, but I have a kind of authorship. A voice.”

Emma Silvers is a Bay Area freelance writer.

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