o, is it ‘Elvrum’ with one ‘e’ or two?”

“(Laughs) Well, it’s one ‘e’ but I’ve been spelling it with two lately.”

“Ah, I see.”

And that right there is the biggest “rock star” moment in my entire interview with experimental/indie rocker Phil Elvrum. Why musicians always seem to want to change their names, I’ll never understand. But Elvrum is no Artist Formerly Known as Prince (read: not an egomaniac), and the soft-spoken guy is very down-to-earth over the phone. I guess you’re allowed to call yourself whatever you damn well please when you seem like a decent human being, make albums with Mirah and Calvin Johnson, write lyrics like “I faced death/ I went in with my arms swinging/ But I heard my own breath/ And had to face that I’m still living” and are making some of the most exciting music heard in years.

Most of the time, however, Elvrum just calls himself The Microphones. The Microphones, which might as well just be called Phil and Friends, is on tour “for the heck of it” and to promote the “Live in Japan” album, released last February.

“I think live albums can be kind of a cop out and kind of a half-assed thing to do,” Elvrum said from his headquarters in Anacortes, Wash. “But there was something about those shows and the recordings of them that were really special to me, that didn’t seem like a straight-forward live album…Playing with a band that was made up of Japanese people that I didn’t know and that didn’t know the songs…it turned out pretty amazing.”

It seems like a live Microphones show is experience you can’t get anywhere else, even from a Microphones album. “I don’t have a [regular] band, and I don’t really want a band. I really like playing with a band that doesn’t really know what’s going on…Playing shows has always been different from recording or making up songs…I don’t think my shows will ever be like my albums. I sort of resigned that to myself a long time ago.”

Why does he think a lot of the best music to come out in the past 15 years or so has come from the Pacific Northwest? Is there just something about the area?

“I don’t know. It’s probably mostly accidental or coincidental….But when Calvin Johnson, who started K Records [in Olympia, Wash.] I think in 1980, I mean, Olympia was pretty much loggers and government people. The idea of young people coming together, starting bands and doing things creatively themselves was just so alien. And people like Calvin just had to keep plugging away at it for so long and now—that’s just what the town’s character is…And it’s not that it doesn’t happen anywhere else, because it totally does.”

It’s not terribly unlikely that something like the music scene in the Pacific Northwest could happen in the great state of Utah. We’ve got just as many pretty sights and young, creative and capable minds as our neighbors to the north. And Elvrum seems at home in the Beehive State. He’s looking forward to visiting it, anyway.

“I like Kilby Court a lot,” he said. “The people there are nice. I’m excited to go to southern Utah. It’s sort of the destination of the trip. It’s one of my favorite places on the planet.” Phil’s voice goes off and sounds like it’s about to crack. The man is as genuine as his music. “It’s so beautiful there.”

The Microphones are playing Kilby Court with Necrophacus. Ichor, Pipidipdipdid Minov and Chubby Bunny on March 16. It’s sure to be unlike anything you, or the bands, have heard before.
jordan@red-mag.com