You are Liz Phair. You are now feeling creative for the first time in 15 years, which is why re-releasing and performing live your debut album makes sense (doesn’t make sense). But what do you do with all that extra inspiration you’re not utilizing because revisiting an album doesn’t require, well, any? That’s easy: create the musical score for Swingtown, CBS’s new drama about couples in the ’70s taking ludes and smoking pot and hosting key parties. It’s called Occam’s Razor, everybody. Actually, it’s called Liz grew up in the same town as the show’s creator, and they have shared anecdotal experience of some of the town’s extramarital hijinx. The Chicago Tribune‘s The Watcher blog spoke with Liz about how it all sounds and feels:
“I don’t know how organized it was, but there’s this sense that there was some swapping of partners,” says Phair, who, with her music partners Evan Frankfurt and Doc Dauer, created the instrumental score for “Swingtown.”
…
It’s the first time she’s worked as a composer, but she’s enjoying it, she said.
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“I’m cannibalizing a lot of the songs I’m writing now, and I’ll go in and rip off some three-chord thing from a song I’ve written before,” Phair said. “It comes out sounding totally different and it’s a lot of fun.”
Swingtown premieres tomorrow night. Here’s a trailer:
FYI the dude with the moustache is Grant Show aka Jake the leather jacket and t-shirt guy from Melrose Place, and the part of Innocent Wife #1 is played by Molly Parker aka Alma Garrett from the great Deadwood (aka the one who loved Seth Bullock and drank all the opium and damn I watch a lot of TV). Anyway, there was absolutely a point during that trailer at which I expected Paul Rudd to pop up and start naming his testes. Thought you’d like to know that.
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of course, my first thought, unoriginal as it may be, was “why does stereogum have a picture of avril lavigne up next to a liz phair article?”
Isn’t it “Occam’s Razor”? Unless that’s the name of one of the songs she wrote, which would make as much sense as Mariah Carey naming an album E=MC^2 but that’s happened now too. I don’t like to nitpick, but you can’t just namedrop a major theory from science and philosophy and expect it to go unnoticed.
yep, alternatively spelled Ockham’s, and i typoed my way between the two. also i just fired my spellcheck.
Also the name of a badass 30 Second To Mars song! Jared writes, like, the deepest lyrics ever, IMO. Why don’t you guys do a feature on them?
isnt liz phair avril lavigne’s mother?
those exile shows sold out so f’ing fast, you guys.
Remember when Liz Phair was cool?
not really.. . future tense?
liz is still cool. she can write great songs. i bet you can’t even write any. huh.
hope after her reissue, she can focus solely on the new album. no more sheryl crow ballads, k, liz? please!
Just because someone can’t write songs doesn’t mean they can’t criticize songs that have been written by others.
Oh come on was Liz Phair every cool???
a girls gotta make a living.
Oh, yeah. Liz was cool. Back when “indie” was called “alternative,” she was very cool.
More like SCHWINGtown……… that joke was popular when Liz Phair was cool I guess
That joke was never funny. NOT! It totally was.
I’d put it in her but
but.. .
but WHAT? jesus, finish the fucking sentence! what about the GLANDS?
Don’t you mean you’d “tap that?” since we’re in a former world of trite phrasing (back in the long long ago when Liz was cool)
butts butts
Liz is still a hot l’il firecracker, but I’m just not interested in her music anymore. Am I shallow? Sure, why not.
not the steve miller cover I was expecting
Music by a girl. I’m a girl, but I don’t play music. The closest I’ve gotten is listening to Mr Big’s Blood Sweat and Tears CD that he insists on playing. Meanwhile, Samantha was cross town, tending to her own “music making”.
Liz wrote “Why Can’t I” for the the super sweet movie Thirteen Going on Thirty. It’s an awesome power pop song from her horrible power pop phase … I thought it was Jessica Simpson at first and I said to my wife — “I can’t believe I like an Jessica Simpson song.”
“That’s Liz, honey.”
“Liz, who?”
And then I felt stupid for booing her power pop set the last time I saw her live.
Occam’s Razor is a line in Clutch’s Burning Beard as well. File that away somewhere. I’ll still listen to whatever Liz puts out, but I’ll admit I cringed at some songs on the last record. I saw her open for Jason Mraz, and was a little crushed. Liz? OPEN???
Occam’s Razor is a line in Clutch’s Burning Beard as well. File that away somewhere. I’ll still listen to whatever Liz puts out, but I’ll admit I cringed at some songs on the last record. I saw her open for Jason Mraz, and was a little crushed. Liz? OPEN???