Magnet Magazine
Thanks to Sam Phillips for guest editing our website all week long. Be sure to check out Long Play, the year-long multimedia project she is currently in the middle of. Also check out this live video of “I Don’t Want To Fall In Love,” recorded with the Section Quartet in Santa Monica, Calif., last September.
It’s not as much of a journey from religious music to Jerry Lee Lewis and the Die Hard movie franchise as you might think. For someone who began her recording career as a Christian artist, Sam Phillips has had a very secular professional life. Born Leslie Ann Phillips in 1962, she cut her last album of religious music, produced by future husband T Bone Burnett, in 1987. (Phillips and Burnett divorced in 2004.) Phillips then jumped ship to the Virgin label in 1989 and began recording albums of thoughtful-yet-stirring music to document her new life as Sam Phillips. Critics’ fave Fan Dance, her 2001 debut record for Nonesuch Records, featured lovely string arrangements by the legendary Van Dyke Parks. Phillips is currently in the middle of a year-long multimedia project called Long Play and also has a tune placed in Oscar-contending film Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges. In addition, Phillips will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with her.
Phillips: These three American Folk Blues Festival DVDs, along with The Johnny Cash Show and the old Playboy After Dark series, were staples on our tour bus. In volume three, you will see a gentleman play harmonica with his nose—amazing! Video after the jump.
If you’ve ever wished your favorite 1960s girl group would go all garage rock on you (and really, who hasn’t?), look no further than Dum Dum Girls. The Los Angeles quartet—Dee Dee, Jules, Frankie Rose and Bambi—is set to release its debut album, I Will Be, on March 30 through Sub Pop. (The LP follows two EPs and a seven-inch.) Download I Will Be‘s first single, the fuzzy-and-poppy “Jail La La,” below.
“Jail La La” (download):
https://magnetmagazine.com/audio/JailLaLa.mp3
The New Pornographers (pictured) will release their fifth album, Together (Matador), on May 4. It will feature the band’s full eight members, along with guest musicians such as Annie Clark (St. Vincent), Zach Condon (Beirut) and Will Sheff (Okkervil River) … Wanna rock with members of Kiss, Van Halen, Poison, Motörhead, Traffic and Winger? Then head over to L.A. for Rock N’ Roll Fantasy Camp, which will run February 23-28. Plus, this year the event will be filmed for a VH1 reality series … On February 25, Port O’Brien will hit the road with Portugal. The Man in support of its recent album, Threadbare. Plus, the band is doing good by releasing an EP, The Pan American Sessions, which will benefit Doctors Without Borders and its earthquake relief efforts in Haiti … Speaking of which, Orenda Fink is offering her 2005 album, Invisible Ones (Saddle Creek), for download on her website in order to encourage relief-effort donations for Haiti. Fink has often described how her time spent in the country affected her spiritually and musically, and she reiterates this in a personal letter that can be read here … Travellers In Space And Time is the seventh studio album from the Apples In Stereo; it will be released April 20 via Elijah Wood’s Simian Records … Singer/songwriter Charlie Faye will support her recent album, Wilson St., with an ambitious 10-city tour. “Travels With Charlie” will have Faye living and establishing a new band in each city every month, starting with Tucson, Ariz. … Jakob Dylan (Bob’s son) will release his sophomore solo album on April 6. The T Bone Burnett-produced Women And Country (Columbia) will feature guest vocals from Neko Case and Kelly Hogan … Matt Groening, the man who gave us The Simpsons and Futurama, will curate a weekend at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in the U.K. on May 7-9. Highlights of his lineup include Spiritualized (which will perform Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space), Iggy & The Stooges, the xx, Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions, Built To Spill, Panda Bear and Deerhunter … Devo will perform at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, which will be broadcast on NBC, marking the first network-TV performance for the band in 20 years … Singer Inara George and multi-instrumentalist/producer Greg Kurstin are The Bird And The Bee, and their love for another duo, Hall & Oates, prompted them to record a tribute record. Guiltless Pleasures Volume 1: A Tribute To Daryl Hall And John Oates is out March 23 on EMI’s Blue Note Records.
—Emily Costantino
It’s not as much of a journey from religious music to Jerry Lee Lewis and the Die Hard movie franchise as you might think. For someone who began her recording career as a Christian artist, Sam Phillips has had a very secular professional life. Born Leslie Ann Phillips in 1962, she cut her last album of religious music, produced by future husband T Bone Burnett, in 1987. (Phillips and Burnett divorced in 2004.) Phillips then jumped ship to the Virgin label in 1989 and began recording albums of thoughtful-yet-stirring music to document her new life as Sam Phillips. Critics’ fave Fan Dance, her 2001 debut record for Nonesuch Records, featured lovely string arrangements by the legendary Van Dyke Parks. Phillips is currently in the middle of a year-long multimedia project called Long Play and also has a tune placed in Oscar-contending film Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges. In addition, Phillips will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with her.
Phillips: I miss digging big holes in my back yard and making a mud-pie bakery. I realize that dirt and I have been at odds since 1994, when I was in the third Die Hard movie, and crew members were required to throw dirt on me take after take in one scene. It took me a couple of days to get the dirt out of my hair because it had attached itself to the hair gel they had put on me. Good dirt is hard to find, and it is great to feed plant dirt with used tea leaves, vegetable and fruit scraps when you can. Video after the jump.