Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Bedroom Muses



During a summer in the early 90s I worked as a journalist intern for my hometown newspaper. One of my mentors, for all her daytime professionalism and reserve, could not completely suppress what she was in her off hours -- a Good Time Girl*. She seemed to recognize I was one in the making. She slipped me a cassette. It was Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville.

None of the tape covers in the collection I owned were like this. Liz Phair, draped in a dark cape, her mouth open in a forceful "O", had paired her intimately revealing lyrics with a cover that gave peek at the upper tip of her left areola. The tape cover sat at the very back of my sock drawer -- musical contraband.

I credit Liz Phair with the truce my naiveté feverishly made that summer with my heretofore dormant irreverence and inclination toward highbrow snark. A Catholic education had previously curbed but not quashed the inevitable. Liz Phair used the word "Fuck" all the time and repudiated anything demure or - gag me - princess-y. I unabashedly sang her words in my car with the windows down -- as long as my parents weren't around.

I found out later that Liz Phair wrote and recorded Exile in Guyville in her bedroom. She had taken her destiny into her own arms and completed the ultimate DIY project: a still to this day critically hailed debut.

I have a special place in my heart for musicians who don't wait for recording contracts, but charge up their Macs, ask for donations, sling espressos, walk dogs, and employ Web 2.0 strategies so they can put their music out into the ether, and preferably in your ears. These are the artists who are a pleasure to support because they are bypassing traditional means of mass producing and marketing their music. (So when one in particular makes your eyes go wide with delight, be sure you tell the world about it.)

Merrill Garbus is the one-woman show behind tUnE-YaRdS. She classifies herself as "experimental", and describes her music thusly:
Your mom when she gets really mad but instead of whoopin' yo' ass she starts making crazy-ass beats with the pots and pans AND yo' ass.


This makes me want to get my Mom really mad -- around some strategically placed kitchen gadgetry.



*Good Time Girl: A member of the female species inclined toward activities one would confidently term as "fun", or "a good time"; a member of a group engaging in goodhearted, if slightly irreverent -- fuck, who are we kidding? -- completely irreverent dialogue that may or may not involve a round or four of spirits, uninhibited dancing, and potentially watching the sun illuminate the dark, giving rise to a brand new fun, er, day.

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