April 12, 2025 • 52 mins
Listen to Part III of Art Slut, Ann Wood's interview old pal and Austin Musician and Superstar, Gretchen Phillips of Two Nice Girls, Meat Joy and Phillips and Driver. Gretchen and Ann discuss Lesbian culture, the social philosophy of change and effects.
Hear Songs from Phillips and Driver from their albums Togetherness and Disco Dance Party 2000. Including a cover of "Grudge" by Joe Pernice.
Plus Gretchen and Ann share their mysteriously synchronistic venture into instrumental improvisation music.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
So we fucked it.
Because it was there with our blood.
Welcome back to Arts Sluts Radio.
Listen to us get deep on part three of my interview with Gretchen Phillips, legendaryAustin musician from Two Nice Girls, Me Joy and Phillips and Driver.
(00:29):
You know, I love petals.
I love you know my my stage name now is Ann Delay.
How many different delays do you think you have?
On my setup right now I use one, two, three, and then two loopers.
So why don't you tell me what your rig is?
(00:49):
I know you're not supposed to talk too much about yourself, but I would like to hearwhat's in your setup.
Okay.
Cause I love gear talk.
now my setup is because I'm doing improv stuff.
So I'm running through just a basic Roland keyboard amp.
So I've got a Yamaha Modex 6 and I've got a Rhythm Ace drum machine.
And then on the guitar side, I've got a Empress Super Delay.
(01:11):
I have a Electro Harmonix graphic fuzz.
I use the Ditto Looper.
So the Looper goes through the keyboard and then the Looper's going through the guitar andthen up it.
the level, hand level that I can manipulate, I've got a EH 16 second delay and amooger-fugger.
Yeah.
So I mean, that's, love it.
(01:32):
And I do like the Eventide time factor delay a lot.
So I'll switch back and forth with those.
It's amazing to me that after reconnecting with Gretchen, we are both exploringimprovisational instrumental music.
Here's a sample of my current project and delay.
(02:13):
you
(06:54):
That is so cool.
have, I got into, I was listening to our jam from Sunday with my new jam band, Dong Worm.
And Dong Worm.
D-O-N-G-W-O-R-M.
I was at, on Saturday, I was at the Giant Asian supermarket misreading the label and thename of everything, apparently all packaging.
(07:19):
I misread, I thought that said blah.
my God.
I thought, I'm so sorry.
I thought this said.
And I thought I saw Dongworm as a name of a product.
And I was like, that's a good band.
Anyways, Dongworm, had, sometimes it's hard.
I'm one of the things I really love, because Darcy's in Dongworm.
(07:39):
Darcy, I love Darcy.
Exactly.
So Darcy's in Dongworm, and we've been playing together for so long that sometimes in ourimprovs, it's like, was that me or was that you?
That's good.
But she's on bass and I'm on guitar so you can kind of hear it here but there was thissound that was the de-arm and weeper and a delay and some reverb that I was just like
(08:06):
that's my sound you know that is really straight up one of my signature sounds.
(08:34):
you
(13:18):
you
(14:53):
That was a very recent recording of Gretchen's instrumental improv project with DarcyDouglas called Dong Worm.
been really getting into though well there's the old Boss pitch shifter that's also adelay the blue one from the early 90s I bought but I just bought a little I mean it's
(15:15):
literally this big it's so tiny a sweet those little all those little Chinese micro microso I have a rig in Ottawa that's my main rig and then I'm just buying I'm happily buying
things here yeah
to have so I don't have to fly back and forth with stuff.
And I have a sweet little pitch shifter right now that is.
(15:41):
I have not- I love pitch shifter.
I have not played with that, but I might have to mess around with that.
bit.
I mess around with a pitch shifter and I actually just soldered together my my firstpetal.
made a fuzz.
sounds so good.
Science.
It sounds so good.
(16:03):
So nasty.
really nasty.
my gosh.
You gotta, you gotta like send me a little sound sent.
You will, I will.
I'll send you a little sound.
Yeah, I'm into it.
In the early 2000s, Gretchen joined up with longtime friend David Driver in New York Cityto collaborate and record.
(16:24):
Their albums feature some of Gretchen's finest vocal work.
Here's Grudge, their 2003 release, Togetherness.
(16:51):
God no
I that I would call you, save you home
Sorry but I'm pretty stoned
(17:11):
Hope I didn't scare you I hope to God you were alone
We would drink ourselves familiar, count the blurry lights.
(17:42):
All my friends have left me here, you were the only
Sometimes I think I'll disappear I wouldn't give anything to make it with
(18:15):
Make it with you
Where you're
(18:38):
Turn
(19:24):
see the light is changing
I'd sleep on the floor
No one who'd ever touch you I would give anything to make it with you
(20:04):
Make it with you
(20:39):
Okay, so another question I had for you, and sorry if you have talked about this quite abit, but you had mentioned in another interview, which I found really interesting.
So when you were growing up in your early 20s, and you still do identify as lesbian, andthat personally, and also as a community, right?
(21:00):
And then you had made some mention in another interview about...
how non-binary folks impact that and I would love to get your kind of insights on thatwhole progression, that whole development in our society.
I I feel like one of the very first things that I remember really resisting.
(21:23):
So when I think about my early life, one of my first memories ever is about music's impacton me.
And that was when they would leave me alone, my parents would play this lullaby recordthat was folk lullabies, mostly in minor keys.
And it was terrifying to me because I didn't understand words.
(21:44):
didn't, and to me,
what these minor keys and songs were saying was, your mother's leaving.
She's going to the store.
She will never return.
my god.
So it was kind of the emotional impact right back to what you were talking about.
That was true.
up in your brain.
(22:05):
Yeah.
as a like an infant was you know there's this one particular song to my little one'scradle in the night comes a new snowy lamb snowy white that no goat that goat will go to
the market and i'm like mom's going to the market on the other one will keep to bringbring back raisins and almonds sleep my little one sleep
(22:31):
It's about a babysitting goat, I think, or maybe mom watches and the goat goes to themarket.
I can't really remember.
Again, I was pre-verbal, but the way that minor melody went, it was just like reallycompelling and disturbing to me.
And I feel like that's this thing I've been trying to work out.
And then what it feels like to me in terms of sexuality and in terms of gender is thisother thing that I've been trying to work out.
(22:59):
Is it one way or is it another way or is it both ways?
Is it both and?
And so as a kid, I think the way that I would be seen now in a regular classroom, I thinkI would be understood by the teachers as like, and I think that's a little baby dyke right
there.
(23:19):
Gretchen's struggling because of that.
But there were no words for that.
There was no context for it.
Philips and Driver released Disco Dance Party 2000 in 2011.
Here's a track called Reluctant Butch.
(23:42):
You know, Barry...
I guess you're still something.
for me to
(24:04):
too.
you just called me something that harsher
(24:44):
No I'm
Do not co-
Some girls may like it, but this girl don't.
(25:09):
Take me to
So unless I cancel in me, all my history was eurogen for tonight.
(25:34):
super doesn't necessarily make me butch do not lecture me
Please, do not call me mom
You know,
(25:56):
must be a million, trillion, quarter million reasons I don't
You know, sweetheart, really don't think that you can underestimate what it means growingup in the South and our incredibly rigid gender roles there.
I'll never forget the first time I went to, I think it was Connecticut or Scarsdale orsomething.
(26:18):
I thought I was on women's land.
You know, all these, all these women, everybody was just running around with short hairand they had on their izods and they had their little soccer shorts on and I was like,
wow.
are so lucky that we have landed in this lesbian town.
And my bandmates are like, yeah, those are straight women, Gretchen.
(26:41):
This is the Northeast.
Like, what?
Those are straight women?
God, they would get their asses kicked running around looking like that in Texas.
Uh-huh.
This stuff is really hardcore there.
You can call Butch at the...
of a hat, it's miniature born.
I was just like a little child, you know, picking out stuff that I wanted to have my mombuy for me, you know, in this year's catalog.
(27:04):
Like, can I have these boots, those cool boots that have like the little circle thing onthem, you know, and can I have this, um, can I get this motorcycle jacket?
It wasn't really a motorcycle jacket, it really more like a jean jacket.
And she was like, no, you cannot have that.
What are you, butch?
I'm like, I don't know, I'm seven, you know?
(27:25):
Word, really, in lot of ways.
Where I was from, that was a journey word.
Back up in the 70s, okay?
It's all about androgyny.
But, we thought that, you know, ButchPim was, really reductive.
And I'm sorry, maybe I'll show my A chair a little bit, girl.
But you're reminding me of all this bad stuff.
I don't think it's really hot when you tell me that I'm Butch.
(27:45):
I think that you're, like...
And like, you wanna call me butch and you want me to go just freak out like this and thenyou gonna listen to me and give me a session on it?
Great.
But, if as I suspect, right now you just wanna get it on, I think that's an idea that youshould just keep it to yourself.
(28:19):
You it all go
you
(28:55):
Lesbianism was highly pathologized in the 60s and in the 70s.
and so forth.
Yeah, in porn and popular fiction like Sybil, Sybil's that a horror story might then kindof turn on like, she's a lesbian.
That's why she's killing, you know, just like a lot of certainly in porn, but also, Imean, I wouldn't say it was pathologized in porn.
(29:20):
I would say it was actually, that was a titillating world that was hard to recognize.
And don't get me started on the killer lesbian.
you trope because I love it.
I'm all about it.
I'm just like, be afraid, be very afraid.
I remember the cassette tape that you recorded that was like you reading.
(29:44):
Wanetka.
And yes, all the porn.
Yeah, yeah, all the porn.
Yes.
yeah.
So I think that for me, I have always been trying to look at how it's in a minor melody,but it's supposed to be comforting.
You are, I'm a girl, but I want to be basically Huck Finn on an adventure.
(30:11):
I think that the world has felt too small for me.
And I think that in terms of people butting up against binary, it feels unreal or untruethat it's not just like that.
That there can be comfort in black and white.
This is a sin.
This is not a sin.
(30:32):
This is okay.
That there are plenty of people who think and find comfort and people who are tortured by,you know, it's one or the other.
But I guess I just want to keep pulling the lens back so that I can see how these binariesare expedient, useful tools for systems often of oppression and don't necessarily feel the
(31:03):
same way inside of one's heart or inside of one's, as my neighbor just said, deep innerwisdom.
So I think we all have a compass that we listen to or we don't.
And I think that we can respect others, we can respect ourselves.
Sometimes we respect others more than we respect ourselves.
(31:23):
know?
But I think that there is a kind of just maybe political reason why I identify as lesbianfeminist.
was actually just thinking that, you know, in your, and I agree with you, quest to haveall humans coexist and us not be divided yet, certainly identifying as lesbian or
(31:47):
transgender or frat boy or whatever it is, you're able to, not frat boy, but you you'reable to challenge the mainstream and also it's empowering and it's powerful in society.
And in a way now,
I think that where culture is going, and certainly politics is not there, but whereculture is going, I think is more of a like holistic, everybody's included, but yet
(32:12):
because of the severe polarization of mainstream, that's why we're still having to uselabels.
think that identity says who your people are, but it also says who your people aren't.
And so let's say that that exists here.
I'm a lesbian feminist.
So actually, my dear male bandmate, you're saying, why don't you just blah, blah, blah?
(32:38):
That's not my experience.
I don't get to just blah, blah, blah.
You have a different experience because you are a straight white guy.
So I'm not saying that you shouldn't be born because you are that, but I'm just saying Ihave a different experience.
So I'm saying who my people are, who my people aren't, but I'm not content with that.
I wanna pull the lens out and say, but that may be true, but also we're humans is true.
(33:03):
So actually people are my people because people are my people.
Here's another song from Phillips and Driver's disco album called Togetherness.
(33:36):
This isn't like Madonna where they tell you how to dance away
Please don't deny them.
Speak your mind like Marv or Cho.
If I may offer one...
(33:56):
Go
not
you
(34:17):
Feel alone but you're not If I'm your offer Some validation Let's face facts Your ass ishot Together now
Show's
(35:21):
You're so alone
We wanna help you You may feel alone but you're not alone We wanna offer some validationHere's the secret we just got together
(35:44):
Show us how much we love each other Togetherness, that's where it starts Even when we burneach other Togetherness, that's where it starts Show us how much we love each other
Togetherness, that's where it starts Even when we burn each other again
(37:20):
Even when we both are together Togetherness, that's where it's at
Togetherness, that's where it's at.
and then go into and then I pull the lens out more but what about mammals just you knowwell mammals are also my mammalian kinfolk you know and then so these ways of I don't
(37:52):
think
that I want to stay in a settled place.
Certainly I don't want to stay in a settled place of, you know what, this is a kind ofhuman behavior I'll never understand.
I'm just not gonna understand it.
I have been really thinking about the antidote to fear for me is curiosity.
(38:15):
That's great.
I like that.
Yep, if the plane is indeed crashing, which I always fear, if I could summon instead ofterror.
Okay, it's happening.
I'm about to die.
Well, what's this like?
Here we go.
I'm falling, falling to the what the what does this feel like yo?
What's going on?
(38:36):
If I could summon that that's the ad.
That's the only place where I have agency again is how do I do it?
And where do I
So where do I have choices?
If I'm doom scrolling, not as easy for me.
So maybe I need to stop doom scrolling.
If I'm hanging out with super negative Nellie, not as easy for me.
(38:57):
If I'm smoking cigarettes and yes, I can write letters, but I also feel pretty terribleabout myself.
Maybe I need to.
So I have been really thinking about should that just using the word should implies thatthere's like a right way and a wrong way.
versus what I'm trying to inhabit, which is preference.
(39:21):
know?
And just claim it for what it is.
This is just my preference.
I don't prefer to kill people.
I just, I don't prefer to kill people.
Yeah, but there's a lot of, but in terms of what's happening right now, as far as in theMiddle East, there are people who prefer to kill people.
I prefer to kill no people.
(39:42):
That doesn't feel like a place where I get to decide, but
I had some bacon yesterday, so apparently I prefer to kill pigs.
But do I feel a deep kinship?
Could I look that pig in the eye?
Hell no.
You know, so we have all of these places where we might have an ideal, let's say, and thenwe fall short of that and trying to look at, then what are these ideals of should?
(40:05):
Why am I why am I invested in a thing where I'm constantly falling short?
So I mean, respect.
So then we return to what I was saying in the beginning.
So what about
Because I do think that frat boy was a great thing for you to add to that list ofidentities.
Because I don't think that's wrong to identify that way.
(40:25):
And could we bump it up a notch with respect between the lesbian feminist and the fratboy?
Mutual respect.
So if I'm going to say, you need to listen to my story, you got to listen to my story, Ifucking need to be able to listen to his story.
I have to.
Well, and again, the unself-reflected life, feel like in general, that is what is thedivision between our tribe, and I will say in that self-reflective, creative, artistic,
(40:53):
empathetic, and that I feel like if people who do have fear and anger and capacity forviolence, if they were able to self-reflect, I think that that is super powerful.
But then how do you make that happen?
Or do you make that happen?
I mean, I don't think I can, I mean, I have given up trying to make this world fit myTrue.
(41:17):
I have given up on that because I realized that my picture is a preference.
Do I wish that I was the president decider for all of this?
I do not.
When I feel like, my God, everybody, duh, we need to be doing it this way.
That's just my preference.
And everybody may have really great reasons for why they're doing it a different way.
(41:37):
There are certain things that I choose to believe.
And I know that I just choose to believe these things.
I don't know if they're true or not, but it helps me.
So I choose to believe that people do the best they can under the circumstances.
And when they can do more, better, finally quit those cigarettes, then that's what theydo.
(41:58):
And that if, as is the case with Teresa Taylor, they smoke themselves to death.
Yes, I don't.
I have a preference that that is not what they do, but I don't get to decide that.
I don't get to control that.
I don't get to say that.
We are all going to die.
so kind of removing myself from should and dictating to the world my own moral directiveshas given me more room to explore guitar tone.
(42:32):
I just mean have fun.
I just mean...
not be like this, but just like, okay, I'm gonna, whatever, he won.
I don't know what's gonna happen still two weeks away.
Let's jam.
said was in expressing your, if I can paraphrase, your opinion, your moral view, it'salmost like you're able to let that go and then just be in
(42:56):
Much more.
And that's what I want.
I just want to be in the moment.
And I think artists are lucky.
That if we can get being tortured and fraught out of the way, then that is what we'redoing, you know?
Yeah, it's super powerful.
mean, a good friend of mine, we were at an incredible performance recently and it was likenobody was at that show, but the performance was amazing and he said, that's the stuff.
(43:25):
And I was like, that is
I that way.
I was at an incredible show on Friday.
Nobody was there.
It was so good.
And the world's not fair.
Like, I could get a gig at a nice club.
These folks can't get a gig, you know, and it doesn't have anything to do with how amazingwe are.
It has nothing to do with that.
And they rocked six people as hard as they would rock 12.
(43:49):
That's right, that's just a beautiful thing.
From the album Togetherness, here is Lesson, another beautiful song by Gretchen and David.
(44:09):
feel this message I'm sending you tonight
That you are living
I could call you and see if you're okay
(44:36):
Find it hard to feel safe
when
our country's been at war I've been really scared never understood it before
(45:03):
hair
(45:26):
Our country's been at war I've been really scared I never understood it before
Last year I've come around I'd like to live, I'd like to live with you In a nice houseLearn to feel, learn to give Make some plans for the future Actually
(46:13):
you
satisfied
for the future I've had some dreams about the future
(46:45):
I'm sending you
that we are separated
so uncertain I hope we die together holding hands and making plans for our
(47:18):
Yeah
We embrace, not afraid to die Holding hands and making plans for our
(47:54):
mean, the young ones today have no...
I remember going to how mean men at music stores were to me.
The minute I walked in would make fun of my choice of pick.
And I would be a teenager and I would think, you asshole, why do you sell this pick?
(48:18):
If this is the dumbest pick in the world, well then why is this pick in your curatedstore, you ask?
Music retail is way behind musician culture.
I've had a music store for 28 years and that has been one of my joys is to create acommunity that is welcoming to all the people that were not being welcomed in Detroit.
(48:46):
I love it.
It's great.
Host to sing and creating community, is...
Terry, has, you know a little bit about her life.
That's that same thing where you're like, okay, the world is fucked up and what I can dois I can create this community and I can have this creative, positive impact on the people
(49:09):
in my community.
Absolutely, and we may only have about that much power.
We may not be able to stop giant systems full of machinery that are in my humble opinionhell-bent on destruction.
But can I have a party with the time that I have left with people I love?
Seeking them out and prioritizing being with them.
(49:32):
Yeah, that is actually what I want to do.
No though I still and maybe this is like the god thing but I still feel that there's thesynchronistic moments that can have impact because yeah I machines patriarchy oppression
all of that but it's like a person is involved in in every aspect and so to speak theperson with their finger on the button if that person through like pay it forward I guess
(50:02):
what I mean is like.
You have a good conversation with somebody, they feel good, they take that and go to thenext person and it yada yada yada and then it ends up with somebody who it makes an impact
and we don't even know because it's a chain reaction.
That's why I want to be respectful to fret boys.
I remember when I completely agree with what you're saying and I think that one may have agoal, is that you're going to pay it forward, but for me, at this point in my life, it's
(50:31):
just like I enjoy the experience more.
Curiosity.
Yeah.
And I have no idea what might manifest.
And I get great feedback from you and from all sorts of different places.
Of course it's very precious to me when men say to me, you said this thing that was very,very useful.
I appreciate you saying that Gretchen.
I love that.
(50:52):
I love that.
I love to have a version of, well, you know, it's reflected back, right?
That I am, I mean, what all I want on my tombstone, all I want it to say is she was a goodfriend.
That's all I fucking care about.
Well, you have been a good friend to me and I've always felt that, you know, a decade goesby and I pick up the phone or text and I feel like, yeah, that's Gretchen.
(51:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Well, that's it for my three-part interview with Gretchen Phillips.
If you want to hear and read more, go to Gretchen-Phillips.com.
Thanks for listening to Art Slutz Radio.
Hey, if you identify with the art sluts, explore our herstory at artsluts.net.
(51:42):
That's A-R-T-S-L-U-T-S dot net.
And purchase downloads of our music wherever you stream music.
All contributions and purchases will go to support Planned Parenthood.
Currently, 21 states have limited access to women's healthcare, including abortion, and 15of those have a total plan.
(52:08):
Talking about your abortion experience, voting and donating to support abortion rightswill make a difference.
Leave you baby
(52:30):
It's just my music, baby
So we fucked it.
Because it was there with our blood.
Welcome back to Arts Sluts Radio.
Listen to us get deep on part three of my interview with Gretchen Phillips, legendaryAustin musician from Two Nice Girls, Me Joy and Phillips and Driver.
(00:29):
You know, I love petals.
I love you know my my stage name now is Ann Delay.
How many different delays do you think you have?
On my setup right now I use one, two, three, and then two loopers.
So why don't you tell me what your rig is?
(00:49):
I know you're not supposed to talk too much about yourself, but I would like to hearwhat's in your setup.
Okay.
Cause I love gear talk.
now my setup is because I'm doing improv stuff.
So I'm running through just a basic Roland keyboard amp.
So I've got a Yamaha Modex 6 and I've got a Rhythm Ace drum machine.
And then on the guitar side, I've got a Empress Super Delay.
(01:11):
I have a Electro Harmonix graphic fuzz.
I use the Ditto Looper.
So the Looper goes through the keyboard and then the Looper's going through the guitar andthen up it.
the level, hand level that I can manipulate, I've got a EH 16 second delay and amooger-fugger.
Yeah.
So I mean, that's, love it.
(01:32):
And I do like the Eventide time factor delay a lot.
So I'll switch back and forth with those.
It's amazing to me that after reconnecting with Gretchen, we are both exploringimprovisational instrumental music.
Here's a sample of my current project and delay.
(02:13):
you
(06:54):
That is so cool.
have, I got into, I was listening to our jam from Sunday with my new jam band, Dong Worm.
And Dong Worm.
D-O-N-G-W-O-R-M.
I was at, on Saturday, I was at the Giant Asian supermarket misreading the label and thename of everything, apparently all packaging.
(07:19):
I misread, I thought that said blah.
my God.
I thought, I'm so sorry.
I thought this said.
And I thought I saw Dongworm as a name of a product.
And I was like, that's a good band.
Anyways, Dongworm, had, sometimes it's hard.
I'm one of the things I really love, because Darcy's in Dongworm.
(07:39):
Darcy, I love Darcy.
Exactly.
So Darcy's in Dongworm, and we've been playing together for so long that sometimes in ourimprovs, it's like, was that me or was that you?
That's good.
But she's on bass and I'm on guitar so you can kind of hear it here but there was thissound that was the de-arm and weeper and a delay and some reverb that I was just like
(08:06):
that's my sound you know that is really straight up one of my signature sounds.
(08:34):
you
(13:18):
you
(14:53):
That was a very recent recording of Gretchen's instrumental improv project with DarcyDouglas called Dong Worm.
been really getting into though well there's the old Boss pitch shifter that's also adelay the blue one from the early 90s I bought but I just bought a little I mean it's
(15:15):
literally this big it's so tiny a sweet those little all those little Chinese micro microso I have a rig in Ottawa that's my main rig and then I'm just buying I'm happily buying
things here yeah
to have so I don't have to fly back and forth with stuff.
And I have a sweet little pitch shifter right now that is.
(15:41):
I have not- I love pitch shifter.
I have not played with that, but I might have to mess around with that.
bit.
I mess around with a pitch shifter and I actually just soldered together my my firstpetal.
made a fuzz.
sounds so good.
Science.
It sounds so good.
(16:03):
So nasty.
really nasty.
my gosh.
You gotta, you gotta like send me a little sound sent.
You will, I will.
I'll send you a little sound.
Yeah, I'm into it.
In the early 2000s, Gretchen joined up with longtime friend David Driver in New York Cityto collaborate and record.
(16:24):
Their albums feature some of Gretchen's finest vocal work.
Here's Grudge, their 2003 release, Togetherness.
(16:51):
God no
I that I would call you, save you home
Sorry but I'm pretty stoned
(17:11):
Hope I didn't scare you I hope to God you were alone
We would drink ourselves familiar, count the blurry lights.
(17:42):
All my friends have left me here, you were the only
Sometimes I think I'll disappear I wouldn't give anything to make it with
(18:15):
Make it with you
Where you're
(18:38):
Turn
(19:24):
see the light is changing
I'd sleep on the floor
No one who'd ever touch you I would give anything to make it with you
(20:04):
Make it with you
(20:39):
Okay, so another question I had for you, and sorry if you have talked about this quite abit, but you had mentioned in another interview, which I found really interesting.
So when you were growing up in your early 20s, and you still do identify as lesbian, andthat personally, and also as a community, right?
(21:00):
And then you had made some mention in another interview about...
how non-binary folks impact that and I would love to get your kind of insights on thatwhole progression, that whole development in our society.
I I feel like one of the very first things that I remember really resisting.
(21:23):
So when I think about my early life, one of my first memories ever is about music's impacton me.
And that was when they would leave me alone, my parents would play this lullaby recordthat was folk lullabies, mostly in minor keys.
And it was terrifying to me because I didn't understand words.
(21:44):
didn't, and to me,
what these minor keys and songs were saying was, your mother's leaving.
She's going to the store.
She will never return.
my god.
So it was kind of the emotional impact right back to what you were talking about.
That was true.
up in your brain.
(22:05):
Yeah.
as a like an infant was you know there's this one particular song to my little one'scradle in the night comes a new snowy lamb snowy white that no goat that goat will go to
the market and i'm like mom's going to the market on the other one will keep to bringbring back raisins and almonds sleep my little one sleep
(22:31):
It's about a babysitting goat, I think, or maybe mom watches and the goat goes to themarket.
I can't really remember.
Again, I was pre-verbal, but the way that minor melody went, it was just like reallycompelling and disturbing to me.
And I feel like that's this thing I've been trying to work out.
And then what it feels like to me in terms of sexuality and in terms of gender is thisother thing that I've been trying to work out.
(22:59):
Is it one way or is it another way or is it both ways?
Is it both and?
And so as a kid, I think the way that I would be seen now in a regular classroom, I thinkI would be understood by the teachers as like, and I think that's a little baby dyke right
there.
(23:19):
Gretchen's struggling because of that.
But there were no words for that.
There was no context for it.
Philips and Driver released Disco Dance Party 2000 in 2011.
Here's a track called Reluctant Butch.
(23:42):
You know, Barry...
I guess you're still something.
for me to
(24:04):
too.
you just called me something that harsher
(24:44):
No I'm
Do not co-
Some girls may like it, but this girl don't.
(25:09):
Take me to
So unless I cancel in me, all my history was eurogen for tonight.
(25:34):
super doesn't necessarily make me butch do not lecture me
Please, do not call me mom
You know,
(25:56):
must be a million, trillion, quarter million reasons I don't
You know, sweetheart, really don't think that you can underestimate what it means growingup in the South and our incredibly rigid gender roles there.
I'll never forget the first time I went to, I think it was Connecticut or Scarsdale orsomething.
(26:18):
I thought I was on women's land.
You know, all these, all these women, everybody was just running around with short hairand they had on their izods and they had their little soccer shorts on and I was like,
wow.
are so lucky that we have landed in this lesbian town.
And my bandmates are like, yeah, those are straight women, Gretchen.
(26:41):
This is the Northeast.
Like, what?
Those are straight women?
God, they would get their asses kicked running around looking like that in Texas.
Uh-huh.
This stuff is really hardcore there.
You can call Butch at the...
of a hat, it's miniature born.
I was just like a little child, you know, picking out stuff that I wanted to have my mombuy for me, you know, in this year's catalog.
(27:04):
Like, can I have these boots, those cool boots that have like the little circle thing onthem, you know, and can I have this, um, can I get this motorcycle jacket?
It wasn't really a motorcycle jacket, it really more like a jean jacket.
And she was like, no, you cannot have that.
What are you, butch?
I'm like, I don't know, I'm seven, you know?
(27:25):
Word, really, in lot of ways.
Where I was from, that was a journey word.
Back up in the 70s, okay?
It's all about androgyny.
But, we thought that, you know, ButchPim was, really reductive.
And I'm sorry, maybe I'll show my A chair a little bit, girl.
But you're reminding me of all this bad stuff.
I don't think it's really hot when you tell me that I'm Butch.
(27:45):
I think that you're, like...
And like, you wanna call me butch and you want me to go just freak out like this and thenyou gonna listen to me and give me a session on it?
Great.
But, if as I suspect, right now you just wanna get it on, I think that's an idea that youshould just keep it to yourself.
(28:19):
You it all go
you
(28:55):
Lesbianism was highly pathologized in the 60s and in the 70s.
and so forth.
Yeah, in porn and popular fiction like Sybil, Sybil's that a horror story might then kindof turn on like, she's a lesbian.
That's why she's killing, you know, just like a lot of certainly in porn, but also, Imean, I wouldn't say it was pathologized in porn.
(29:20):
I would say it was actually, that was a titillating world that was hard to recognize.
And don't get me started on the killer lesbian.
you trope because I love it.
I'm all about it.
I'm just like, be afraid, be very afraid.
I remember the cassette tape that you recorded that was like you reading.
(29:44):
Wanetka.
And yes, all the porn.
Yeah, yeah, all the porn.
Yes.
yeah.
So I think that for me, I have always been trying to look at how it's in a minor melody,but it's supposed to be comforting.
You are, I'm a girl, but I want to be basically Huck Finn on an adventure.
(30:11):
I think that the world has felt too small for me.
And I think that in terms of people butting up against binary, it feels unreal or untruethat it's not just like that.
That there can be comfort in black and white.
This is a sin.
This is not a sin.
(30:32):
This is okay.
That there are plenty of people who think and find comfort and people who are tortured by,you know, it's one or the other.
But I guess I just want to keep pulling the lens back so that I can see how these binariesare expedient, useful tools for systems often of oppression and don't necessarily feel the
(31:03):
same way inside of one's heart or inside of one's, as my neighbor just said, deep innerwisdom.
So I think we all have a compass that we listen to or we don't.
And I think that we can respect others, we can respect ourselves.
Sometimes we respect others more than we respect ourselves.
(31:23):
know?
But I think that there is a kind of just maybe political reason why I identify as lesbianfeminist.
was actually just thinking that, you know, in your, and I agree with you, quest to haveall humans coexist and us not be divided yet, certainly identifying as lesbian or
(31:47):
transgender or frat boy or whatever it is, you're able to, not frat boy, but you you'reable to challenge the mainstream and also it's empowering and it's powerful in society.
And in a way now,
I think that where culture is going, and certainly politics is not there, but whereculture is going, I think is more of a like holistic, everybody's included, but yet
(32:12):
because of the severe polarization of mainstream, that's why we're still having to uselabels.
think that identity says who your people are, but it also says who your people aren't.
And so let's say that that exists here.
I'm a lesbian feminist.
So actually, my dear male bandmate, you're saying, why don't you just blah, blah, blah?
(32:38):
That's not my experience.
I don't get to just blah, blah, blah.
You have a different experience because you are a straight white guy.
So I'm not saying that you shouldn't be born because you are that, but I'm just saying Ihave a different experience.
So I'm saying who my people are, who my people aren't, but I'm not content with that.
I wanna pull the lens out and say, but that may be true, but also we're humans is true.
(33:03):
So actually people are my people because people are my people.
Here's another song from Phillips and Driver's disco album called Togetherness.
(33:36):
This isn't like Madonna where they tell you how to dance away
Please don't deny them.
Speak your mind like Marv or Cho.
If I may offer one...
(33:56):
Go
not
you
(34:17):
Feel alone but you're not If I'm your offer Some validation Let's face facts Your ass ishot Together now
Show's
(35:21):
You're so alone
We wanna help you You may feel alone but you're not alone We wanna offer some validationHere's the secret we just got together
(35:44):
Show us how much we love each other Togetherness, that's where it starts Even when we burneach other Togetherness, that's where it starts Show us how much we love each other
Togetherness, that's where it starts Even when we burn each other again
(37:20):
Even when we both are together Togetherness, that's where it's at
Togetherness, that's where it's at.
and then go into and then I pull the lens out more but what about mammals just you knowwell mammals are also my mammalian kinfolk you know and then so these ways of I don't
(37:52):
think
that I want to stay in a settled place.
Certainly I don't want to stay in a settled place of, you know what, this is a kind ofhuman behavior I'll never understand.
I'm just not gonna understand it.
I have been really thinking about the antidote to fear for me is curiosity.
(38:15):
That's great.
I like that.
Yep, if the plane is indeed crashing, which I always fear, if I could summon instead ofterror.
Okay, it's happening.
I'm about to die.
Well, what's this like?
Here we go.
I'm falling, falling to the what the what does this feel like yo?
What's going on?
(38:36):
If I could summon that that's the ad.
That's the only place where I have agency again is how do I do it?
And where do I
So where do I have choices?
If I'm doom scrolling, not as easy for me.
So maybe I need to stop doom scrolling.
If I'm hanging out with super negative Nellie, not as easy for me.
(38:57):
If I'm smoking cigarettes and yes, I can write letters, but I also feel pretty terribleabout myself.
Maybe I need to.
So I have been really thinking about should that just using the word should implies thatthere's like a right way and a wrong way.
versus what I'm trying to inhabit, which is preference.
(39:21):
know?
And just claim it for what it is.
This is just my preference.
I don't prefer to kill people.
I just, I don't prefer to kill people.
Yeah, but there's a lot of, but in terms of what's happening right now, as far as in theMiddle East, there are people who prefer to kill people.
I prefer to kill no people.
(39:42):
That doesn't feel like a place where I get to decide, but
I had some bacon yesterday, so apparently I prefer to kill pigs.
But do I feel a deep kinship?
Could I look that pig in the eye?
Hell no.
You know, so we have all of these places where we might have an ideal, let's say, and thenwe fall short of that and trying to look at, then what are these ideals of should?
(40:05):
Why am I why am I invested in a thing where I'm constantly falling short?
So I mean, respect.
So then we return to what I was saying in the beginning.
So what about
Because I do think that frat boy was a great thing for you to add to that list ofidentities.
Because I don't think that's wrong to identify that way.
(40:25):
And could we bump it up a notch with respect between the lesbian feminist and the fratboy?
Mutual respect.
So if I'm going to say, you need to listen to my story, you got to listen to my story, Ifucking need to be able to listen to his story.
I have to.
Well, and again, the unself-reflected life, feel like in general, that is what is thedivision between our tribe, and I will say in that self-reflective, creative, artistic,
(40:53):
empathetic, and that I feel like if people who do have fear and anger and capacity forviolence, if they were able to self-reflect, I think that that is super powerful.
But then how do you make that happen?
Or do you make that happen?
I mean, I don't think I can, I mean, I have given up trying to make this world fit myTrue.
(41:17):
I have given up on that because I realized that my picture is a preference.
Do I wish that I was the president decider for all of this?
I do not.
When I feel like, my God, everybody, duh, we need to be doing it this way.
That's just my preference.
And everybody may have really great reasons for why they're doing it a different way.
(41:37):
There are certain things that I choose to believe.
And I know that I just choose to believe these things.
I don't know if they're true or not, but it helps me.
So I choose to believe that people do the best they can under the circumstances.
And when they can do more, better, finally quit those cigarettes, then that's what theydo.
(41:58):
And that if, as is the case with Teresa Taylor, they smoke themselves to death.
Yes, I don't.
I have a preference that that is not what they do, but I don't get to decide that.
I don't get to control that.
I don't get to say that.
We are all going to die.
so kind of removing myself from should and dictating to the world my own moral directiveshas given me more room to explore guitar tone.
(42:32):
I just mean have fun.
I just mean...
not be like this, but just like, okay, I'm gonna, whatever, he won.
I don't know what's gonna happen still two weeks away.
Let's jam.
said was in expressing your, if I can paraphrase, your opinion, your moral view, it'salmost like you're able to let that go and then just be in
(42:56):
Much more.
And that's what I want.
I just want to be in the moment.
And I think artists are lucky.
That if we can get being tortured and fraught out of the way, then that is what we'redoing, you know?
Yeah, it's super powerful.
mean, a good friend of mine, we were at an incredible performance recently and it was likenobody was at that show, but the performance was amazing and he said, that's the stuff.
(43:25):
And I was like, that is
I that way.
I was at an incredible show on Friday.
Nobody was there.
It was so good.
And the world's not fair.
Like, I could get a gig at a nice club.
These folks can't get a gig, you know, and it doesn't have anything to do with how amazingwe are.
It has nothing to do with that.
And they rocked six people as hard as they would rock 12.
(43:49):
That's right, that's just a beautiful thing.
From the album Togetherness, here is Lesson, another beautiful song by Gretchen and David.
(44:09):
feel this message I'm sending you tonight
That you are living
I could call you and see if you're okay
(44:36):
Find it hard to feel safe
when
our country's been at war I've been really scared never understood it before
(45:03):
hair
(45:26):
Our country's been at war I've been really scared I never understood it before
Last year I've come around I'd like to live, I'd like to live with you In a nice houseLearn to feel, learn to give Make some plans for the future Actually
(46:13):
you
satisfied
for the future I've had some dreams about the future
(46:45):
I'm sending you
that we are separated
so uncertain I hope we die together holding hands and making plans for our
(47:18):
Yeah
We embrace, not afraid to die Holding hands and making plans for our
(47:54):
mean, the young ones today have no...
I remember going to how mean men at music stores were to me.
The minute I walked in would make fun of my choice of pick.
And I would be a teenager and I would think, you asshole, why do you sell this pick?
(48:18):
If this is the dumbest pick in the world, well then why is this pick in your curatedstore, you ask?
Music retail is way behind musician culture.
I've had a music store for 28 years and that has been one of my joys is to create acommunity that is welcoming to all the people that were not being welcomed in Detroit.
(48:46):
I love it.
It's great.
Host to sing and creating community, is...
Terry, has, you know a little bit about her life.
That's that same thing where you're like, okay, the world is fucked up and what I can dois I can create this community and I can have this creative, positive impact on the people
(49:09):
in my community.
Absolutely, and we may only have about that much power.
We may not be able to stop giant systems full of machinery that are in my humble opinionhell-bent on destruction.
But can I have a party with the time that I have left with people I love?
Seeking them out and prioritizing being with them.
(49:32):
Yeah, that is actually what I want to do.
No though I still and maybe this is like the god thing but I still feel that there's thesynchronistic moments that can have impact because yeah I machines patriarchy oppression
all of that but it's like a person is involved in in every aspect and so to speak theperson with their finger on the button if that person through like pay it forward I guess
(50:02):
what I mean is like.
You have a good conversation with somebody, they feel good, they take that and go to thenext person and it yada yada yada and then it ends up with somebody who it makes an impact
and we don't even know because it's a chain reaction.
That's why I want to be respectful to fret boys.
I remember when I completely agree with what you're saying and I think that one may have agoal, is that you're going to pay it forward, but for me, at this point in my life, it's
(50:31):
just like I enjoy the experience more.
Curiosity.
Yeah.
And I have no idea what might manifest.
And I get great feedback from you and from all sorts of different places.
Of course it's very precious to me when men say to me, you said this thing that was very,very useful.
I appreciate you saying that Gretchen.
I love that.
(50:52):
I love that.
I love to have a version of, well, you know, it's reflected back, right?
That I am, I mean, what all I want on my tombstone, all I want it to say is she was a goodfriend.
That's all I fucking care about.
Well, you have been a good friend to me and I've always felt that, you know, a decade goesby and I pick up the phone or text and I feel like, yeah, that's Gretchen.
(51:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Well, that's it for my three-part interview with Gretchen Phillips.
If you want to hear and read more, go to Gretchen-Phillips.com.
Thanks for listening to Art Slutz Radio.
Hey, if you identify with the art sluts, explore our herstory at artsluts.net.
(51:42):
That's A-R-T-S-L-U-T-S dot net.
And purchase downloads of our music wherever you stream music.
All contributions and purchases will go to support Planned Parenthood.
Currently, 21 states have limited access to women's healthcare, including abortion, and 15of those have a total plan.
(52:08):
Talking about your abortion experience, voting and donating to support abortion rightswill make a difference.
Leave you baby
(52:30):
It's just my music, baby
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