Sam Phillips Seeks Audience of One

Sam Phillips, “My Career in Chemistry”

Sam Phillips, “Don’t Do Anything”

I’m used to Sam Phillips albums being challenging on initial spins. A friend tried to turn me onto her in 1994, playing me Martinis & Bikinis, which he’d just bought. As he suspected, I dug hearing XTC’s Colin Moulding on bass, but the first time I heard it the album was too cluttered and claustrophobic for even my clutter-craving ears. About 2 years later, another friend who’d been trying to turn me onto Phillips and, for years before that, her husband/producer at the time, T-Bone Burnett, came to our house and left my wife and I with copies of both Martinis & Bikinis and a previous album, The Indescribable Wow. “Here,” he said, as he slapped the CDs onto our kitchen table, “it’s time you guys love these albums!”


Again, as I tried the copy of Martinis… that our friend made us own, all I heard were cool, Beatlesque ideas smothered in compression. To this point, I really didn’t know anything about this woman or her background, only that she was married to a guy the same set of friends had pushed on me years earlier and whose music similarly failed to impress. One day we were headed for a road trip, and I packed the CD with me. During the drive, as my wife and I talked, I started to hear the lyrics and get pulled into the album for more reasons than Moulding’s bass parts. I don’t have much formal religious background or the slightest connection to any religion but the Society of Friends, the teachings of which permeated the curriculum at the Friends school I attended for 12 years, but I sensed there was some spiritual undercurrent to lyrics that was more formally Christian than any peace and love platitudes by various hippie bands I’d grown up loving. It was kind of exciting to hear Christian concepts addressed in a subtle way in Lennon-style rock arrangements. I asked my wife, who had way too much formal religious training growing up, if she heard what I was hearing. She knew exactly what was going on. She pulled out the lyric sheet and started informing me of the connections to scriptures and other mysterious texts that I’d avoided my whole life. That night I learned about Phillips’ heavily Christian roots. I quickly fell in love with Martinis & Bikinis, and I still consider it a great achievement in Lennon-influenced songwriting, which all too often finds the well-intentioned, Lennon-influenced artist desperately grasping for meaning and posturing, unable to address the grand concepts Lennon could address personally, directly, and with authority.

That earlier album our friend gave us, The Indescribable Wow, and her next one, which I bought, Cruel Inventions, never struck a chord with us. After being spoiled by the weird wonders of Martinis…, her first two secular albums sounded like another girl singer from the ’80s LA power pop scene. Not bad but not close to approaching the godhead of Lennon. Future releases by this woman, I told myself, will be tracked closely!

So much for my big talk! The week Omnipop (It’s Only A Flesh Wound Lambchop) was released in 1996, the friend who’d insisted that we love the earlier albums called to tell us to go nowhere near this new release. “I know how you are,” he told me, “this album may ruin everything you now love about Martinis and Bikinis.” I took my friend’s advice, and to this day I’ve still not heard more than a song from this horribly titled album.

Little did I know it would take Phillips 5 years to produce a new album. I bought Fan Dance the week it came out. With a good 6 years of Martinis… under my belt, I couldn’t wait to hear more from this artist I suspected could be a rare, new great one at my relatively advanced rock age, when it becomes harder, young Townspeople who may be reading, to think anything new to one’s ears is great.

Fan Dance is a really mellow album. Have you heard it? It’s nice – not bad, but Phillips’ Great White Hope status would have to be carried over to her next release, which took only 3 years to arrive. A Boot and a Shoe was even mellower, and this one was accompanied by news that she and T-Bone had divorced during the making of the album. Heavy. It helped to explain the hushed nature of the album, and somehow, although this release was no less mellow than its predecessor, it was more artfully mellow. I liked it better than Fan Dance. I think. To tell the truth, whenever I decide to revisit these albums I quickly forget which one’s which and which one I like a little better. Anyhow, hope only lasts so long, but I decided to reserve a little more for her next release!

Last week, on my birthday, I took a trip to my favorite Philly record store. I’d read some good reviews about Phillips’ new album, Don’t Do Anything. Critics made some references to how difficult and disorienting a listen it could be. I’m cool with that, I told myself, figuring I’d check out this new album, just in case if fulfilled the promise of Martinis…. A review I read maybe a day or two before my trip to the record store made mention of the guitars being “too loud.” Now that sounded promising! Phillips had been making quiet, “chamber pop” albums seemingly captured without her knowledge on a single mic wrapped in guaze set 20 feet away for too long. Even an audible electric guitar might sound too loud at this point. Bring it on!

So I paid $14 for her new album, passing up the chance to spend $18 on used copies of both Eric Burdon Declares War and Black Man’s Burdon. In the past week I’ve swallowed a bottle’s worth of difficult pills. My tolerance for this enigmatic artist was as high as possible. I’ve played Don’t Do Anything about 15 times and it’s…OK.

The woman sounds like she’s on horse tranquilizers. The songs themselves have potential, and a couple, like “My Career in Chemistry” and “Little Plastic Life”, the latter of which sounds like it should be featured in an iPod or Target ad campaign, are immediately likeable. I can hear traces of her Elvis Costello-like way with melodies and chord progressions. The lyrics sound pretty interesting; I’ll probably whip out the lyric book before I file this album away for another year. Once again, however, it sounds like she recorded the album on a single Sure SM57 mic wrapped in gauze. She sings as if she doesn’t want to wake up an infant. The acoustic guitar is midrangey in a bad way. Most of the time the only drumming is the dull thump of some kick drum or loosely tuned floor tom that’s being hit by a mallet – or is it a hunk of liverwurst? There are traces of interesting arrangements – oh, so subtle traces. Is there even a bass guitar on this album?

This could be a really good album, and if I were some middle-aged rock critic fantasizing about picking her up on the rebound, maybe I’d give it more credit than it seems to be worth. It’s 4 years after your split with T-Bone, Sam. I’m a child of a broken home. I know how bad it can suck for all involved, but get over it! Someone in the world wants to listen to your records again, probably more people than just me. Any you’re losing me. I hereby suspend your great white hope status. I’m not sure who gets that title next, but neither of us are getting any younger. Let’s get it together, my friend. You’re too good to be sitting at home moping, turning out albums for an audience of one.

Please note, I’m fully prepared to eat my words a few months from now, but life’s short. I fear I may not have the time to fill in the artful gaps of Phillips’ records.