The set started out quiet with hootenanny-styled shout-outs to the Lord (not Terri Lord, the other one) that allowed for plenty of harmonic interplay between Phillips and Meat Purveyor Jo Walston.
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Phillips herself was wearing a shiny, $3 used suit that would make TV faith healer Benny Hinn green with envy. The show's theme was that of an evangelical ministry, with band members all donning vaguely monastic robes, which made them look like the waitstaff from the Medieval Inn. Although billed by South by Southwest as a solo show, Phillips was joined by her new "supergroup," Lord Douglas Walston-Phillips.
You never know quite what Gretchen Phillips will pull out of the bag for a gig, but then that's half the fun of getting out to see her play. When he turns more serious and uses his lower range, he sounds an awful lot like Leonard Cohen, and perhaps that's an apt comparison, since Fisher's songs rise from a deep well of emotional pain and insecurity, even if they are chiefly humorous in nature they're peppered with infantile cries, sexual boasts, faked orgasms (from the girls), and yes, even the repeated plea, "I want my Mommy!" In the end, it seems we were laughing both with Fisher, due to his skills as a type of entertainer that we thought no longer existed, and at him, nervously, because the words he was sharing with us were so uncomfortably, frighteningly personal. The fact is, though, that Fisher's lyrics are actually very clever and totally unlike those of anyone else alive the reason he seems so strange is that he's a man out of time, the last novelty act of the century or perhaps ever. The mere sight of Fisher in his trademark tux and two besequined babes had a cheese factor high enough to feed Wisconsin, but adding his trademark warble and the girls' tentative harmonies to the mix produced such a surreal show that the crowd didn't seem sure whether it was laughing with Fisher or at him. and a pair of mail-order backup singers, who seemed to know a few of the songs reasonably well.
Best known for his set of astrology songs (one for each sign of the zodiac), Fisher decided this South by Southwest showcase was a good chance to display his newer observational songs about various aspects of the human experience (mostly sex), sporadically backed by a couple of guys he knows from L.A. "There is a Holiday Inn in Hell, and I've just checked in." That was my realization about halfway through Harvey Sid Fisher's set in the spacious outdoor area of the Waterloo Brewing Company. Waterloo Brewing Company, Wednesday, March 18 Johnny Winter on the outdoor stage at Stubb's Saturday, March 21
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