On the heels of her March leg of her Funstyle tour, which includes two shows at South by Southwest (IFC and Perez Hilton), it was time for a brief check-in with Liz Phair before she hits the road.
Ken: Did you attend any Oscar parties?
Liz: No Oscar parties, I was up snowboarding with family at Sugar Bowl that week and we got snowed in -- couldn't leave.
Ken: Will you be checking out any bands at this year's SXSW?
Liz: Of course I will be checking out bands at SXSW! No clue who yet. Will prob tag along with band or friends who make it a point to know what's cool.
Ken: Why wasn't your performance of "All Tomorrow's Parties" used on the UnderCover Presents Velvet Underground & Nico Tribute CD?
Liz: I have no idea why my Nico performance wasn't included on the disk and I find it disappointing and vaguely disturbing... I loved doing that. I never heard anything about it and really hope it wasn't some legal conflict with my publisher or label.
Ken: I just got an email from Peter Varshavsky of Porto Franco Records, and here's what he wrote:
Hello Ken,
We thought that the recording quality was poor on the Liz Phair track and she was not available to do the fix, so we got Crystal Monee Hall to sing it with Jazz Mafia. We also re-recorded Meklit Hadero's track and did a couple of other minor fixes. Everything else is faithfully reproduced from the show.
Liz: Thanks! That's a relief that it was technical, but still sad :(
Ken: Regarding "All Tomorrow's Parties", I recorded the 2nd performance on my Sony CyberShot camera -- the video is shaky at best, but the audio might be "listenable" enough. If you want, I could post an mp3 of the audio or the video itself -- your call.
Liz: Sure! Why not? Right? Xxx Liz
With Liz's permission, here is "All Tomorrow's Parties", from the 2nd show:
Here is a follow-up from March 29th, post-SXSW:
Ken: How was your SXSW experience?
Liz: Loved every beer, Bloody Mary, margarita, Moscow mule filled minute of it. Went to a zillion places packed with all good friends - too many venues to count, don't know the names anyway. Sunning poolside at the W, trekking through the capital grounds, all the way across the river to big Mexican restaurant, more friends, more friends still, back and forth through the bar at the driscoll, watching Peter get stuck in an elevator for two hours via Chris's video, checking out Twin Shadow, MORE friends, Rachael Ray, John and Joey and Eric and Autumn and Sunny - trying the volcano (thumbs down) - hummer ride (thumbs up) - rickshaw driven by super stud ferrying me and my lawyer up biggest hill in Austin - crazy guy in mega-spangles undressing in front of me at our IFC show, disturbing and distracting - Perez Hilton fiasco when all our electrical equipment blew five minutes before show time, overcome by great spirit of musical cooperation, thank you P.H. Folks and Pretty Reckless!! Played fast on borrowed equipment and tore it up! Veni, vidi, vici. :) [For those not well-versed in Latin, "Veni, vidi, vici" is "I came, I saw, I conquered."]