Girl Problems a Slits Live Album and Liz Phair’S Latest Illuminate the Prejudices That (Still) Plague Women in Rock
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30 CHICAGO READER | OCTOBER 21, 2005 | SECTION ONE Music THE SLITS LIVE AT THE GIBUS CLUB (SANCTUARY) LIZ PHAIR SOMEBODY’S MIRACLE (CAPITOL) Girl Problems A Slits live album and Liz Phair’s latest illuminate the prejudices that (still) plague women in rock. By Jessica Hopper t’s 2005 and one thing is island-tide jerk that would dis- clear: rock critics still have tinguish Cut is barely evident on I their heads up their asses Live—instead the band is melod- where “women in rock” are con- ic and surprisingly poppy. Viv cerned. Though there has been Albertine’s guitar playing is a some progress in the last decade staccato crunch, like someone or so, the plight of the female marching on ice, and the deeply musician is still very much a rooted rhythm section specializes plight. If it’s not the sexualizing in bounce. Ari Up’s German review it’s the backhanded refer- accent sneaks out from behind ences to talent or ability or the her crisp British e-nun-ci-a-tion speculation about whether the on her singsong shouts. She’s at artist is the one in control of her her most shrill only when heck- own image and ideas. The sort of ling the hecklers, sounding like a gender-suffused discourse spun Teutonic Bette Davis as she tells by music magazine journos and one, “Go back to Texas, cow- freelance flacks has as much to booooy.” In the span of 30 min- do with the fantasies we build up utes they bang out ten songs, around an artist as it does with then encore with two they’ve just the killer riffs on side B. And played (“Split” and once the mythology is handed “Shoplifting”). While it isn’t as en down and locked in, it hinders IN fuego as their Peel Sessions— any attempt at a clear, unbiased their earliest and best record- critical listen. ings—Live at the Gibus Club is a ANNE FISHBE The Slits, UK punk’s first visi- The Slits solid addition to their catalog. ble all-girl band, for example, are mentioned as forebears or tars for them. They were a viscer- years down the pike the Slits are stone, he adds that the band cre- hile the Slits’ legacy is built “punk’s grandmothers” in every al, caustic, and calamitous singled out as being uniquely ated great music “through sheer W on their supposed lack of girl-punk history. While that cer- band—fantastic in spite of their inept, their innovation and song- emotion and desire.” Live is intent, Liz Phair has made her riotous defects, claimed a 1979 writing rarely granted true legiti- culled from a five-night stand in intentions known since day one. NME review. They were primi- macy. Discussions of the band Paris in 1978, shortly before the The cover of her debut, Exile in tive rank amateurs who did not and their debut album, Cut, Slits recorded Cut, and features Guyville, shows her lunging give a fuck. It’s implied that if rarely take place without their original lineup, with drum- toward the camera, blurred in they did in fact care, they reminders of what they “could mer Palmolive (later of the motion, mouth open wide, bar- would’ve become good in the not do,” critical examinations Raincoats). It’s rather shocking. ing tit. Supposedly a double- technical, virtuosic sense. But hemmed with “in spite of” rather For all the descriptions that album response to Exile on Main since they didn’t, it must be that than acknowledging that there make them sound like jungle Street, Guyville dealt with desire their songs were not of their own had never been a band like the cats on an episode of Wild both explicitly and subtly. Phair careful design. Slits. Ultimately their genius was Kingdom, for all the talk of their forged a bond with her audience What’s extra ridiculous about writ (off) as accidental. emotional, visceral, and nontech- based on the authenticity of her this is that during the baby years The liner notes for the recently nical playing—they sure do portrayals of postcollegiate tainly counts for something, of English punk, the prime dic- released Live at the Gibus Club sound like a band. Like a band ennui, romance, and fucking. their legacy as it’s commonly tum was not giving a fuck: pretty (Sanctuary) do little to dispel the that had been together for three Her songs were stark, feminist, understood and recited abne- much every band consisted of prevailing mythology. “They years, composed of people who’d and prosaic, titillating but never gates the sense that they may pimply kids clawing at clumsy were breaking new ground with- been playing instruments for crass. You felt smart identifying have had any true talent. The power chords out of disdain for out really trying,” writes their about that long. They sound like with them. She may have been a established “facts” are these: virtuosity. The bloated power road manager, Don Letts (later what they were: a skronky mini- neophyte, but she displayed out- They could not play. On their noodling heard in the Stairways of Big Audio Dynamite). Then, malist funk quartet masquerad- size ambition and was accepted first tour, opening for the Clash, to Heaven of 70s rock was the chiseling a cheerful patriarchal ing as a punk band. as a serious artist. She was Mick Jones had to tune their gui- sworn enemy. Yet somehow 30 platitude into the band’s head- The ghostly reggae sound and excused from the rote special CHICAGO READER | OCTOBER 21, 2005 | SECTION ONE 31 grief reserved for female musi- hand. Phair had broken an cians regarding whether they unspoken rule, one that holds as “can play.” Those rankled by her true in rock ’n’ roll as it does in a candor or disappointed by her strip club: When you acknowl- live performances were grossly edge the exploitation, you cor- outnumbered by the fans and rupt the fantasy. You can go for critics genuflecting at her feet. the cock, but don’t start fishing Phair’s ’03-’04 game season around for the wallet, too. was little more than a louder, In recent interviews Phair has more overt application of the said that anyone still hung up on plays that had her arty indie rock of a decade Liz Phair been working ago “should get over it.” Her lat- loose jangle that slides into the WHEN Tue 10/25, for her all est album, Somebody’s Miracle unassuming slow burn chorus— 7:30 PM along. Liz (Capitol), is a 14-track telegram and “Table for One,” a song about WHERE The Vic, Phair, her first that lets you know if you came self-medicating, drinking, and 3145 N. Sheffield album in five looking for anything other than shame, could almost fit on PRICE $30 years, featured music to play in your hair salon, Whitechocolatespaceegg,with its INFO 773-472- her nearly you’re shit out of luck. She simplicity and questionable 0449 or 312- naked on the makes getting over it phenome- Spanish guitar interlude, but in 559-1212 cover. But nally easy. the end neither one’s good for while she was Somebody’s Miracle has the much more than playing behind still offering libidinous odes, she glimmering sheen of Liz Phair, the closing credits of a Julia was piggybacking them to glossy but the would-be Matrix hits Roberts chick flick. production and the sort of hooks have been replaced with a style The rest is worse—an inter- that sound good all the way up in of music known in the biz as bor- minable mix of Crisco-gilded the cheap seats of the Coors ing. The lyrics are purloined AOR that sounds like Sheryl Light Pavilion. from “Love Is” cartoons, and her Crow if she had two ideas This attempt at having it both pro-boner sentiments have been instead of just one. With ways misfired big time: critics DUSAN RELJIN replaced with virginal tender- Somebody’s Miracle Phair evis- lambasted the 36-year-old single Liz Phair ness: “Let your body hold me cerates all trace of the artist we mom for both acting like her 25- close / Let your body move you / thought we had pigeonholed, year-old self and not sounding miniskirt poses and songs about when a 36-year-old combines Moooove yaa” is the album’s leaving little to grasp and even like her 25-year-old self. The way fucking you’d think she’d included big-budget production with most explicit line. “Everything less to fight about, and forcing scenesters and critics alike a bukkake DVD as a bonus disc. overt sexuality, she knows exactly (Between Us)” hints at some of us, once and for all, to take her clucked their tongues about her The real problem was that what kind of transaction is at the hallmarks of her sound—the on her own merit. v 32 CHICAGO READER | OCTOBER 21, 2005 | SECTION ONE Music WARLOCKS SURGERY (MUTE) Wait for It Surgery isn’t the Warlocks at their best—until the very end. By Monica Kendrick ometimes, on dark days, I and like the BJM’s the band’s really resent Spacemen 3. early records were ambitious and S When they broke up I was grating and joyously, dorkishly left with an awful jones for their energetic, like college boys wax- peculiar brand of evil trance-out ing rhapsodic drone rock—a sound that holds Warlocks, about opium. on to its pop bones, as if the vul- Gris Gris, They might tures missed some bits.