LIZ PHAIR
ALBUM TITLE: An Evening With...
RELEASE DATE: Spring 2000, on Capitol
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT? After overcoming the stage fright she suffered early in her career, Liz Phair has found herself inspired to perform on 1998's Lilith Fair tour. Phair estimates she did 175 dates in support of her last album, whitechocolatespaceegg, and it forever changed the way she approaches music.

"What interested me was learning to be comfortable on stage, and just learning the dynamic of a set list," explains Phair. "I worked on the new material while I was on tour, and I've been very interested in demonstrating that new side of my artistry, because I was really a sucky performer before."

Backed by her touring band, Phair is currently recording without a producer, and plans to continue that way until she's done putting down the album's basic tracks.

"Some of it is just classic me," she admits. "'Bouncer's Conversation' is a conversation between two bouncers, and all the crude things they say about women. And then there's new-wave stuff, like 'Love/Hate Transmission', which is really Who-esque. It's about masturbating when I was young. My last album was so stylistically diverse because I write like that: I write country-western songs, little punk numbers and these weird introspective, breathy numbers. I think a lot of bands home in on one style that their bandmates think is cool. But I'm a lone songwriter, so in my room, I get to be whoever I want to be." [MH]