PHIILIPS & DRIVER | GRETCHEN PHILLIPS EXPERIENCE | TWO NICE GIRLS | GIRLS IN THE NOSE | MEAT JOY LATEST PRESS Check out Queer Music Heritage. It's why the web was invented. There's also an exhuastive interview with me on this great website: Interview with Gretchen
"Cover tunes are the order of the day on Togetherness, the remarkable collaboration between (Gretchen) Phillips & (David) Driver...They bring together Austin and New York City in a way that I've never heard before. There is an equal balance of torch and twang that is so refreshing, it is like hearing these songs, many of which will be recognizable to listeners, for the very first time." "When was the last time you heard a genre-bending duo that was actually worth listening to?...Phillips&Driver are the real deal." "Both Austin-native Phillips and New York City resident Driver have pipes to spare, each being a near tone-perfect vocalist - Phillips leans more toward the chiming and angelic while Driver bends more towards chorale and broadcast...By not puritanically reproducing the original works on Togetherness, they have made these songs their own." "Phillips&Driver offer elegant, often quietly subversive versions of song." "No matter how love is defined, from song to song, Togetherness is a joy to listen to." "Phillips and Driver's brilliant 2003 album, Togetherness, melds their diverse musical backgrounds (she's a rocker from Austin, and he's a New York City crooner) on country-rock versions of songs by artists ranging from Leonard Cohen to Bad Company."
"The emotional resonance of Phillips' music is universal, which - in a way - makes it even more radical in its implications." "Gretchen Phillips is a goddess." "This tape is real good, but Phillips is even better live. She should be seen at least once by anyone who likes catchy, funny, pop that's way on the weird side." "[the] Gretchen Phillips Experience played very competent loose-limbed alternative rock with blues guitar riffs, country twanging, folksy lyrics and reggae rhythms thrown in for good measure. Segueing a song about being an 'ultra-radical feminist' into a fantasy about a woman who swims at her gym, Ms. Phillips approached her subject matter with intelligence, ease and humor." "Phillips' new material reveals the degree of her responsibility for the "edge" in her previous bands. The four-track, tapeloopy experiments on her cassette Welcome to My World and a Half show a gleeful Gretchen bouncing off of cultural icons...[her] more structured, poppy compositions contain evidence of one of the most warped, wonderful songwriting talents in our town and in our age." "The fact that Phillips uses her angelic, well-versed voice and wit to deliver cleverly astute punker than punk sentiments is a key factor in her continuing significance to Austin music. She is one artist you can be a localist about and really mean it." "Gretchen is a goddess of pop, one of few humans able to stand on stage with a guitar and still give you goosebumps. It's the power in her voice, but also the tenderness. It's also her point of view, which defies words...[I]f you listen closely, you can feel how it feels to feel, even when you're too busy thinking." "If there's such a thing as a fringe legend, Gretchen Phillips qualifies, having been a member of three influential Austin bands: Meatjoy, Girls in the Nose, and Two Nice Girls. On Songs to Save Your Soul (Seasick Sailor Records), her first CD, Phillips has fashioned a quirkily beautiful, folk-and-gospel flavored song cycle that contemplates alienation, cultural warfare, spirituality, and sex, all in just over 21 minutes." "Gretchen Phillips is a living lesbian legend." "It's a rare human who can talk about heteronormativity and Badfinger in one interview. But Gretchen Phillips is no run-of-the-mill lesbian folk singer." "Gretchen Phillips is a priceless vocalist; she can sing so beautifully, you'd move to Austin just to be near her voice."
"The Two Nice Girls singer is back with a seven track effort that mixes country chestnuts like Buck Owens' "Together Again" and "Satan's Jewel Crown" from the Louvin Brothers, with the therapeutic-sounding originals "Peace on Earth" and "Om Shanti." This is a comforting mood piece with an ethereal quality served up by Phillips' smooth voice. At just over 20 minutes, it's a quick soothe, a chair massage on a busy day."
"Gretchen is poetic, powerful, frightening, intimidating, angry and beautiful. Gretchen sings of sex, suffering and the joys of being a lesbian in a fucked-up man's world. She is respected for her music all over the world, she is an idol and a saint." "Kudos to Ms. Phillips, infamous ex-folksinger, for saying, as I overheard, 'I think the acoustic guitar is an overrated instrument.' It's easy to pigeonhole this Austin, TX quartet as the best all-women rock band ever. Truth is, they are one of the best rock bands regardless of sex." "One of the most sexually relevent albums ever." "Ex-Meat Joy Gretchen Phillips's salty attitude permeates the discreetly physical lesbian love song 'Goons' and the regretfully rowdy lesbian love anthem 'I Spent My Last $10 (On Birth Control and Beer)." "Amazing harmonies and vocal arrangements, the ability to swell and ebb at the drop of an eighth note, and very unconventional ideas about melody and song-structure are what the Girls do best ... A stunner." "As far as lyrics are concerned, this album proves to be the most entertaining one I've heard in a long time ... This album is a must." "What makes Two Nice Girls so interesting is the way they take sexual orientation for granted ... they transcend every category into which one is tempted to pigeon-hole them. They're just four strong women, playing some of the most interesting music currently out there." "Their sense of humor, kitschy arrangements and irresistible harmonies endear them and their debut LP to audience of all persuasions. You should hear how liberating 'Last $10' sounds when 300 predominantly straight people sing along.' "(Last $10) is poignant and hilarious, one of the lyrics of the year ... Don't lazily equate noise with revolution--too many make that mistake and we end up with reactionary retards like Guns N' Roses or the Beastie Boys being seen as rebels. The 2 Nice Girls LP is a dozen times more subversive than anything House Of Love have ever done, and more awkwardly truthful." "The wonderfully proud (but not brow-beating) lesbian stance in their beautiful love songs and their affectionate cynicism for the man's world around them is often set against a sharply contrasting musical backdrop." "Two Nice Girls use abandon and intensity without letting hardcore's inherent consumptive energy dissolve the more acoustic emotional dynamic range ... The vanguard just does not get any better than Two Nice Girls." "Two Nice Girls are composedly sure of their abilities as musicians, enough so to feel comfortable with any style of music ... They're serious, they're folky in places, and they're unashamedly out, but these women manage to take their music into the mainstream, manipulating every genre going." "Two Nice Girls take the ridiculous and create the sublime." "Two Nice Girls have quite a knack for taking other people's material and turning it into their own, often equaling or transcending the power and aesthetic value of the original." "Two Nice Girls are the lesbian Beatles." "Listening to Two Nice Girls, one arrives at the conclusion that the band must be contenders for producing some of the most beautiful music in recent memory. The quartet combines a staggering diversity of instrumental competence with sweet, heart-rending vocals that, whether presented solo or in harmony, never fail to elicit satisfaction." "For all the inspired covers, the real artistry of Two Nice Girls lies in the way they've managed to forge a cohesive group style without diminishing the individuality of four creative voices. By refusing to pull punches or respect boundaries, the band has earned the popular response it deserves on its own terms." "Two Nice Girls is a band of several different mindsets. At one moment, it's a ferocious loud-rock outfit, with screeches of guitar feedback and a tough backbeat, at another, it's a neo-folkie ensemble with beautiful three-part harmonies sung with exquisite timing and grace." "Blending political ideas and entertainment is hard to pull off successfully and Girls in the Nose does it beautifully." "Girls in the Nose is definitely good for the ears." "Lesbian positive music for people who like their rock and roll with instructions for breast self-exams. Think about it: it's a lot more complex than what they're calling alternative these days."
"Meat Joy's stinging, springy assault on sexual warfare has to be heard to be believed; here it's the attitude which sound 'hard'... some of this is acoustic, all of it's fascinatingly weird." "A rather anarchic and wildly unclassifiable ensemble, Meat Joy have the potential to become another great Austin mutant hardcore band a la the Butthole Surfers and the Big Boys ... this may be the first overtly bisexual record ... they apear to have a ton of ideas, many fresh and decidedly different." "As unpolished as they are inspired, Meat Joy's homemade eclecticism finds focus through two stunningly talented female vocalists who deal mainly in politics of the sexual/religious/racial variety ... Meat Joy are never less than fascinating, which is more than I can say for most records I've heard lately." "Meat Joy's first album is a terrific piece of work ... they reach certain truths and follies that transcend sexual boundaries ... Do buy their record; it's worth it." "...those whiny nits could learn a thing or two from Austin's Meat Joy, an art band, if ever there was one, who manages to sing from the viewpoint of the oppressed outsider without becoming self-righteous or self-pitying." |