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Fifteen years ago, Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville galvanized indie rock with its fearless lo-fi articulations of female lust in Chicago's Wicker Park. Gerrie Lim met her as she surfed the ensuing wave of acclaim. -- Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages

"I EAT A LOT but never at one time," Liz Phair says, explaining her unfinished Eggs Benedict, as the midday sun backlights her sandy-blonde hair and turns her blue-gray eyes a misty turquoise green. It's a warm beautiful Saturday, typcially unwintry for December, and we're lunching al fresco outside La Belle Epoque, a French-Continental restaurant on Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz.

One year ago, Phair was completely unknown outside her native Chicago – until her demo tapes reached Gerard Cosloy and Chris Lombardi of New York's indie Matador Records, who signed her and changed all that. These days, praises are sung and notices writ large over Exile In Guyville, her spunky double-LP debut released in May 1993, which Spin recently called its Album of the Year. "I think Liz Phair will ultimately turn into something huge," declared DJ Bob Boster in Us magzine. "Five years from now, we'll look back and think, 'Wow, I remember when that first Liz Phair record came out.'"

But, as befits her style on things cuisinary, Liz Phair herself prefers to digest it all a bit at a time, in bite-size pieces, thank you. The fast-track rise from obscurity still amazes her, mostly amuses her, and no longer fazes her. "Liz Phair research! Don't you think that's funny? I have a press kit!" she declaims, laughing as I plunk down onto our table the LA Weekly with her on the cover. The paper's writers love her – Gina Arnold calls her "the female Paul Westerberg"; Sara Scribner deems her a "folk-punk genius."

"Folk-punk genius, that's great!" the object of ardour herself exclaims. However, genius-sightings have since occurred; 14-year old girls have been known to faint upon seeing her on the street. "It was totally very, very strange for a while," she admits. "I'm now in this period right after – after getting over it. Where it just seems so silly, when I think about it. It is about you, but it's not about you. It's about human nature and what we do with our projections."

Much of Phair's current newfound status as indie-rock darling is founded on perverse speculation over Exile In Guyville itself, the cover of which she appears topless (photo cropped to reveal just the tiniest flash of her left nipple), the songs of which detail her ruminations on life, love and interpersonal warfare with oftentimes gritty, X-rated detail.

Seldom have I read reviews of a debut album whose lyrics have been so frequently quoted, particularly the disarmingly mellifluous "Flower" ("Everytime I see your face, I go wet between my legs/Everytime I see your face, I think of things unpure, unchaste"), the quasi-Joni Mitchell refrain of "Dance Of The Seven Veils," and a rockin' romper-stomper on multi-lover miasma aptly entitled "F**k And Run." Small wonder that Interview magazine's full-page Liz Phair piece carried the headline "Folk-rock that could make you blush" (the big, bold "blush" appearing nicely, naturally, in vaginal pink).

"There are certain tried-and-true methods about the sex industry," is all she drolly offers, giggling, when I asked her about all this hoopla that has made her a protean sex symbol of sorts for Generation X. She did not anticipate the album's immense outreach. "Totally not, cross my heart," she says.

This three-day LA stopover marks the end of a three-city West Coast jaunt (she'd earlier played Seattle and San Francisco) prior to flying home to Chicago, for Christmas as well as the wrap of a new video ("Stratford-on-Guy," the follow-up to her first video "Never Said" – true to the marketing adage of our MTV Age, it's videos only; no actual singles have yet been released) and then the final tracking and mixing of her next album, still untitled but already half-recorded.

The previous night she'd played at McCabe's in Santa Monica, and every musicbiz flack and functionary from every major label in town attended, all wooing her knowing that her current contract with Matador is set to lapse – after just one more EP and the aforementioned next album.

That flame's now been lit, and she knows it. "Sure, I would love to be on a major label," she tells me excitedly after lunch as a drive her around, her favorite band the Rolling Stones (Exile In Guyville being her poetic response to Exile On Main Street) riffing forth from my car speakers. Ry Cooder's guesting slide guitar on "Sister Morphine" makes her hum happily along. "What am I doing in this place? Why does the doctor have no face?" Mick jaggedly croons.

That evening, at the famous Troubadour in West Hollywood, she straps on her off-white Fender with its blood-red pickguard and plays to the full house, doing most of Exile In Guyville plus three new songs. She coos the Stones' neo-falsetto "Emotional Rescue" during her own "Divorce Song," bucking her hips in mock sex parody.

"It reminded me of watching Patti Smith when she first played CBGBs," someone said to me the next day, "watching a raw talent in bloom." The Los Angeles Times agreed, Lorraine Ali's review noting "an empowering drive to the music, which combines folk-rock simplicity with post-punk aesthetic of imperfection" and lauding "her restless, probing intelligence, her cool tones and smart lyrics."

Cool and smart she is, this Phair one. My hunch is that, with this debut album as ground zero, she's here to stay. Dare I swear on that? Sure, since I've also discovered that the name Elizabeth actually means, in Hebrew, "oath of God".

Sympathy for the devil, the Rolling Stones say. Mesmerizing, I say. All Liz Phair in love and war.

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