Those Fabulous Nineties

Attentive readers will recall that last week I sung the praises of a 2025 BBC/Britbox comedy/drama called Riot Women. Short version of the premise: A bunch of (mostly meopausal) British gals get together to form a punk band. Hilarity ensues.

So we're watching the first season cliffhanger episode the other night -- there's gonna be a second season sometime this year, I'm happy to say -- and this song, with which I was previously totally unfamiliar, comes on the soundtrack. And I flipped out over how cool it is.

Uh, hello -- why did't I get the memo? 😎

True confession -- back in the mid-90s, when Ms. Phair was at her peak, I really didn't pay much attention to her, or her alleged masterpiece (from whence that song derives) Exile in Guyville.

Although I was deliriously thrilled with this collaboration she recorded around the same time (with Chicago power pop band Material Issue) on a fabulous tribute album to Saturday Morning kids shows.

No fooling, I used to blast that at full volume over the sound system in my office at Stereo Review at all sorts of inapropriate times (I'm pretty sure I also raved about the album in print). And I was delighted to discover I still loved it. But in any case, that Phair song above is just great; I'm obviously going to have do a retrospective re-examination of the Guyville album.

P.S.: I was a huge fan of Material Issue, who were one of the fewer-than-you-might-suspect 90s bands I actually was nuts about.

In fact, I recall being far more upset over MI frontman Jim Ellison's suicide than by Kurt Cobain's. For the simple reason that -- unlike most his of contemporaries during the Grunge Era -- Ellison always projected the attitude of somebody who really, really enjoyed being a rock star.

I should add that I just discovered there's a Material Issue documentary movie available for streaming (1 dollar -- cheap!) over at Amazon Prime HERE. Gonna watch it tonight; I'll get back to you if it's worth the price of admission.