If you want to see what happened to all the alt-rock kids from high school after they turned thirty and got jobs, be sure to check out
Liz Phair before she vanishes for another ten years. At her Boston show last night she revealed herself to be more of a songwriter than a performer — at times she looked scared to be out there — but the set list was rich with tracks from
Exile in Guyville (the frat-boy in front of me raised his beer in the air and howled whenever she sang something dirty), and though she mixed in the new material in tiny, acceptable amounts, she steered clear of that fatal, exodus-inducing announcement so often given by the aging rocker on summer tour: "I'd like to play a few songs now off my new album."
The rumor around home (which has the support of the authoritative Allmusic.com) is that
the glam-rocker guy with the pointy boots and eye liner from my high school hooked up with her and played on one of her albums. Unwilling to accept that the rock 'n' roll life was available to regular kids from Howland High, I waited anxiously until the end of the set for her to introduce the band, and I was relieved when she did not mention his name. Don't get me wrong — I don't wish ill on the guy. It's just that my four-minute career as a rock drummer began and ended in a law school dormitory with an extended cover of the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" (simple and slow). The neighbors interrupted our third go-round to complain that they couldn't study.
I wish I could say there was a fight that day, that the police were called, that in the ensuing car chase I drove my car, Keith Moon-style, into the public pool on Magazine Beach. But none of this happened. Our band dissolved a week or two later. Three of us (the
bass player,
guitarist, and lead vocalist, who never did have a microphone) have since become lawyers. The fourth, of course, is your Phutatorius, who has tickets to see the Sex Pistols — recently released from their climate-controlled storage unit for the Queen's 50th Jubilee! — on Wednesday night.
