One day, people will rattle off the name Grant-Lee Phillips with the same venerable respect as that of Lou Reed; that's a bet. Phillips' semi-former band, Grant Lee Buffalo, sounded nothing like Reed's Velvet Underground, but GLB's trajectory bears the same striking cult-like, radiant afterburn. While Reed has repeatedly discovered greatness by sliding his native New York under the microscope, Phillips stakes out his own lyrical turf, stemming from his fascination with the sepia tones of a rural American carnivalesque.

Ever-progressive, Grant Lee Buffalo created a timeless identity with four carefully crafted albums that were truly alternative -- akin to Rubber Soul as seen through the eyes of a Tom Waits-ian sonic scavenger.The band had a striking ability to shift from quiet and meditative tones into a rousing thunder, crafting a gloriously dirty soundtrack of second-hand relics and abandoned theaters with an effortless sleight of hand.

GLB's legacy will be written in ten years when a number of bands cite them as an influence, much like the VUs, the Nick Drakes and the Big Stars of music history. In the meantime GLB's recordings were the beginning of a three-part story that has found Phillips crafting a musical identity only to have the plug pulled on the band when he felt they were gaining momentum. And from the ashes of that band, Phillips has crafted both a new self-reliant m.o. and Ladies' Love Oracle, a gem of an album that further spotlights Grant-Lee Phillips, the songwriter.

"It's too subtle of an album for [major labels] to hear," Phillips says of his project. "When my cynicism gets the best of me, I've come to the belief that many of these people are deaf except for the ringing of the registers and many of them spend little time listening to music. But that's why I've taken it upon myself to give this side of my music an avenue. Some music is intended as an intimate experience, and other music is meant to be much more of a broader celebration."

Phillips' enthusiasm for the independent approach didn't come easy. GLB's last album, Jubilee, was positioned by the band's Warner Brothers' Slash imprint as a breakout -- at least for a few weeks. "It was an interesting shift, in terms of the way the label basically let go of its dream," Phillips says. "They went in with a lot of gusto, but with a single and a half we were being told that it was over, essentially that the record was brain-dead."

Following the split with Warner Brothers, Phillips turned inward. He dismantled Grant Lee Buffalo, though he's left the possibility open for putting the band back together. "My intention was to keep the door open," he says. "Once we'd been around the block on our own we could come back and possibly take another stab at the thing. I can't be as sure today. It's been a difficult transition. But then again there's no sense of closing the door entirely." Phillips found solace in Largo, a Los Angeles club which has provided a willing forum for songwriters and experimental musicians such as Aimee Mann, Michael Penn and Elliott Smith. "I've come to live there at this point," Phillips says.

With a live forum to showcase new material, Phillips just needed a means of recording and releasing an album. For the former, uber-hip producer and collaborator Jon Brion (Mann, Fiona Apple, Rufus Wainwright) provided Phillips with three days of recording time in his home studio. Enter Web-savvy friend and L.A. musician Bill Bonk, who helped Phillips launch his own Web site (www.grantleephillips.com), for the latter, and Phillips was back in business. "When all the walls and scenery started to crumble around me within the label it forced me to take a closer look at minding the store. I was intimidated by the Web for the longest time, but within the last year I dove into it.

"Writing is necessary for me," he continues. "And if I don't get to it every day or so, it tends to clog up my creative metabolism. Which is something I struggled with working within the whole record system. Going on the road has its place and I really love performing. But the idea that you only get a chance to focus on recording every two years or so is a difficult one to swallow. And I refuse to accept the idea that certain songs should have no avenue if they aren't intended for mass consumption."

Currently Phillips is doing a short solo tour behind the release of Ladies Love Oracle. After the end of the tour, he plans to work on his next project. "I'm beginning to tip my hand with some of the material in terms of speaking with labels," he says. "The collection is a little more experimental in its arrangements. I've started to welcome the influence of technology into the whole thing. And I'm finding that there's an interesting tension between my more organic roots and my love for invention that the technology is bringing out."

Whatever the outcome of that album, Phillips plans to keep his own Magnetic Field Recordings going as he envisions subsequent projects that aren't fit for the mainstream. "I see it as this little label of my own to release things that never see the light of day," he says. "I don't necessarily see it as a place to release the material of other folks, just because I would never want to be cast in that role of the devil. [Self-recording] is becoming so much easier that I would encourage other folks to take it upon themselves do the same. I wielded no omnipotent powers that aren't available to everybody else who has a computer and a tape recorder."

Ladies Love Oracle and Phillips' tour schedule can both be found at www.grantleephillips.com.

ANDREW DANSBY
(March 16, 2000)