1 nice girl, 1 nice guy: Gretchen Phillips collaborates with a gay male musician and lets her music salve post-9/11 wounds – The Music Issue – Brief Article – Interview
Margaret Coble
Recently inducted into The Austin Chronicle’s Austin Music Awards Hall of Fame, Gretchen Phillips, 38, is a living lesbian legend. Best known for her work with the groundbreaking dyke rock bands 2 Nice Girls and Girls in the Nose, she’s been a staple of the Austin music scene since the early `80’s. Not content to operate solely in the estrogen realm, however, Phillips always had another dream. “After 2 Nice Girls, I got it in my head to duet with a gay guy with whom I had a good vocal blend,” she explains. “I met Dave Driver at the South by Southwest music conference many years ago. He was producing shows in New York called Homosonic. He was doing what I was thinking of, dykes and fags together, a queer showcase thing, where the artists actually collaborate on songs.” Many years later, the two would finally hook up to produce the new album Togetherness.
A 10-track collection made up mostly of covers (each contributes one original composition, Phillips’s “Lesson” and Driver’s “Oh Starsky”), Togetherness is no campy, cheeky romp. It’s an earnest exploration of the universality of music and truly good songcraft.
“One thing [Dave and I] have in common is that we know a lot of the same cover songs,” Phillips says. “Our sensibilities certainly diverge, but they come together in a lot of places that are really great.” Songwriters as diverse as the Scud Mountain Boys, Leonard Cohen, Badfinger, and Bad Company are represented, with Phillips’s impassioned rendition of Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic” standing out as one of the set’s highlights.
Musical eclecticism is nothing new for Phillips. She’s been an integral cog in the wheel of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival for the past decade, cooking in the workers’ kitchen, hosting the annual round robin, and emceeing the Night Stage with her warm comedic wit. Fans will be happy to hear she has just received a grant from the Athena Art Project in Houston to finance the rerelease of 2 Nice Girls’ and Girls in the Nose’s out-of-print and in-demand back catalog. Her current prog-rock band Lord Douglas Phillips (with sister Austin scenesters Darcee Douglas and Terri Lord) released a self-produced four-song EP, A Taste of LDP, in October. She also performs regularly with her country-gospel band, the Gretchen Phillips Ministries.
Audience reaction to her recent performances has been strong, Phillips says, aided in no small part by the timing of world events. Though the first scheduled industry showcase for Togetherness in New York on September 12 was canceled due to the attacks on the World Trade Center, the following week’s gig went on as planned.
“Not one industry person came, because no one knew if there was even a future in the world,” Phillips recalls of that intense time. “But tons of nonindustry people came. For some, this was their first time to go out since the attacks. And it was very emotional. There are songs on the album–like `Joan of Arc’ with all of its burning imagery, `Lesson’ with all of its war imagery, the notion of being able to be together `Day After Day’–that were just incredibly appropriate material. We put on a show because, as artists, this was our response. We did what we know how to do. And it was so not hokey but pure and good and moving. It really strengthened my resolve to be a musician, to be able to experience what is important and transcendental about song in times of hardship.”
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