I discovered Trans Am in 2006 when I was living with one too many people in a shitty Brooklyn apartment. Since all six of us considered ourselves to have stellar musical preferences we would each rise in the a.m. and proceed to try and out blast each other with our respective stereos.
For the record, I didn’t have a stereo. So you can imagine my annoyance when my roommate awoke with the need to play Trans Am’s Liberation at ungodly decibels at 6:30 a.m. I’d never heard of them before, and wasn’t too happy to be hearing them at that hour, but after some fierce scowling and a cup of coffee I found myself enjoying the album, so much so I stole it from her. Don’t feel sorry for her. She was kind of a bitch.
Five years later Liberation is, along with Sex Change, Red Line, Thing and pretty much all of the Golden records, one of my favorite albums, and Phil Manley, one of my favorite musicians. He’s been a member of three great bands with wildly disparate yet creative sounds. And he seems like a pretty cool dude. So I was happy to hear he recently released a solo effort, Life Coach, on Thrill Jockey records -Trans Am’s long-time record label.
Life Coach is a collection of instrumental songs composed and recorded entirely by Phil and loosely inspired by Jazz drummer, Tony Willams’ Life Time, project. Unlike Williams, Phil collaborated with no one. I had the opportunity to speak with him about the new project, his history with Trans Am, The Fucking Champs and Golden, a band that has not seen its due but probably will, sooner rather than later. At least I hope so.
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