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August
2005
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Gretchen Phillips A Tribute to Her Music |
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This month's show is a tribute to the music of Gretchen Phillips and her various bands. As the sign to the right whimsically alludes to, this artist has been so prolific, and with music touching so many genres, that if you were driving down the Queer Music Highway it would say "Gretchen Phillips, Next Five Exits." While she was in bands in High School, her first successful band was in Austin, around 1982, in the mixed band Meat Joy. In the mid-80's she formed two ground-breaking bands at the same time: Two Nice Girls and Girls In The Nose. Those were years of glorious music and extensive touring, and to my mind, those groups were the first to put a lesbian point of view front and center in their music and to take that music into the mainstream. And there was, and still is, much more music to follow. |
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Gretchen
gave me such a terrific interview and her music covered so much territory
that the internet version of the show grew to two hours. The "radio
version" happened to fall during a station pledge drive, so I had
to trim that, with great agony, to about 52 minutes, but I saw no reason
why my internet listeners couldn't enjoy all her comments and a much
wider sampling of her music. Also please explore the special additional
pages I've set up, to showcase her Discography, archival press clippings,
and the music of her bandmates.
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A great compliment to any artist is when another artist "covers" their song, and I started the show off with probably the first cover version of "I Spent My Last $10 on Birth Control & Beer," as done by Arizona duo Janice Gennevois and Haris Blackwood, under the very fun name, Women In Comfortable Shoes. Their 1992 cassette (above) is almost impossible to find, and also has neat cover versions of "Leaping Lesbians," "Butch Fatale," "My Dyke," and others. Note: some images will reveal photos "behind" them if you pass over them with your cursor |
Playlist: Part 1 Women In Comfortable Shoes - I Spent My Last $10 (1992) Meat Joy - My Heart Crawls Off (1984) Girls In The Nose - Two Lovers/Two Altars (1990) Girls In The Nose - Honorary Heterosexual Lesbian (1990) Girls In The Nose - Starpower (1990) Two Nice Girls - Goons (1989) Two Nice Girls - Sweet Jane (With Affection) (1989) Two Nice Girls - Let's Go Bonding (1991) Poi Dog Pondering, with Two Nice Girls - Rock Me Baby ('92) Two Nice Girls - Princess of Power (1991) 5 Star Music Makers - Princess of Power (1994) Two Nice Girls - The Queer Song (1991) Kathy McCarty & Gretchen Phillips - Blue Norther (1992) Meg Hentges - This Kind of Love (1999) Gretchen Phillips - Treacly Brit Pop (1993) Gretchen Phillips - How Lesbians Get That Way (1993) Gretchen Phillips Xperience - Pease Park (live) (1995) Gretchen Phillips Xperience - Gretchen Phillips Says Yes (1995) Part
2
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Here for the Gretchen Phillips Discography Click Here for the music of her bandmates Click Here for Press Clippings Click graphic at right for their 1992 Farewell Tour Booklet, including lyrics to many unrecorded songs |
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and,
to go the source herself, please visit www.Gretchen-Phillips.com
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Meat Joy
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The
first album that Gretchen Phillips appeared on was the only release
by her first Austin group, Meat Joy, in 1984. According to New Music
Express, it was a "...stinging, springy assault on sexual warfare
that has to be heard to be believed." For the release the band
purchased 1500 blank album covers and and with the help of the Austin
community hand decorated every single one.
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At
left are two of the many covers for the album. The lower one I spotted
in a used record store in Houston (for $60, it's still there..:) and
persuaded the store owner to let me take digital photos of the cover
and label. I'd love to see more examples of the cover, so if you can
send me a scan or photo of others I'll add them to this section of the
site.
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Girls In The Nose
Two cassettes were issued by this group, and they featured slightly different line-ups. The first, "Girls In The Nose," from 1990 included Kay Turner, Gretchen Phillips, Betsy Peterson, Joanna Labow, Darcee Douglas, and Pam Barger. And on 1992's "Origin of the World," Gretchen only guested on one track. The main line-up was Kay Turner, Joanna Labow, Darby Smotherman, Jean DuSablon, MJ Torrance, and Lisa Wickware. See the Discography and Bandmates sections for more complete information on the artists on these releases and the others shown on this page. |
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Two Nice Girls
If the
cover photo look a bit familiar, well, it's a take-off of the
Two Nice Girls started out with Gretchen Phillips and Laurie Freelove, and they were soon joined by Kathy Korniloff (but kept the name) and this was the line-up for their first album, "2 Nice Girls" (1989). By the next year and their release of their "Like a Version" EP, Laurie Freelove had left for a solo career and was replaced by Meg Hentges, and Pam Barger joined on drums. This line-up remained until the band broke up in 1992.
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Gretchen Phillips -- Solo and Group Projects
"Welcome to My World" (1993) was a musical shift in an entirely new direction, as Gretchen played with Casio electronia pieces with monologues, etc. The cassette release came first, with she says over a thousand different hand-decorated covers (two shown above). But with the CD release of it, she and photographer Darcee Douglas got creative in illustrating some of the "sins of excess" described in the music. |
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Gretchen worked with others on her next releases. In 1998 there was "Do You Ever Wish for More?" with Jo Walston (of Meat Purveyor) and Andy Loomis. That one contained the very not-ready-for-radio "Pease Park." And in 1998 she went country with "Songs to Save Your Soul," with Darcee Douglas and Terri Lord. Below, still another incarnation...Gretchen was joined by Terri Lord and Darcee Douglas in the trio Lord Douglas Phillips. Their first recording was "Yesterday When I Was Young," for the Dusty Springfield tribute album "Forever Dusty," in 1990. And the next year brought the 4-song release "A Taste of LDP."
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In 2001 Gretchen contributed a solo effort, "Eau de Lesbianism," to the Various Artists CD "Calling All Kings & Queens." And in 2002 she was joined by Jo Walston, Andy Loomis, and Shaan Shirazi to form the Gretchen Phillips Ministries. The album was called "Seitan Is Real." Three of the songs from "Songs to Save Your Soul" were carried over, and others included boistrous versions of "Old Camp Meeting Time," "Gospel Ship," and (would you believe?) "Hot Stuff."
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Phillips & Driver
After all those lesbian bands, Gretchen decided it was time for a dyke-fag album, and her pal David Driver was just the person to help....their "Togetherness" CD was released in 2003. |
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above, photo
taken after our interview session, on July 7, 2005,
And,
above, what a treat, Gretchen performed a house concert |
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