by Brandon Busch - Originally Published Feb. 2007
There was a mighty warrior king in olden days whose
epitaph on his gravestone was "If I were alive today, you
would tremble." He would have liked Phil!
As I write this little tribute piece, I'm sitting here in the quiet peaceful repose of my small, but comfortably
appointed living room. Phil doesn't even know where I live, I haven't seen him for over ten years, and yet,
I'm looking over my shoulder, half expecting this nearly mythical man beast, this semi legendary musical
prodigy of the Texas progressive rock music scene of the seventies, my larger than life friend Phil,
to come a knocking. Fronted and illicit pleasure powders in his sometime larcenous but always talented hands, someone else's connived car keys at the ready, looking for a naive and trusting accomplice, for a night's worth of mischief and low crimes, and no small
amount of improper merriment.
Some people are more a force of nature, than a normal human being, like you and I. Phil, the mighty Phil,
was, and perhaps still is, just such a man. I haven't seen him in a long time, and I have quite gotten used
to living a peaceful life of reflection, writing, and contemplation. None of which would ever be possible if
Phil was within a five county area near me.
I have known stone cold sober snake eyed defense lawyers, mean and tough as the penal code of Texas, who would
rip their own tongues out with red hot pincers, before they would utter his name more than twice - and never his full name.
Phil had a way of showing up, like you had innocently and unknowingly channeled some west Texas demon banshee spirit from a Ouija board. Hell, at the mere mention of Phil's name, or the telling of some offhand anecdote of his often dubious, and sometimes, (OK mostly) unbelievable exploits, sane people still cover their ears and slink away to safety, he was that unpredictable and, well, fierce.
Some folks still swear he prowls the dark Texas nights, in a stolen black GTO, pawn tickets of musical instruments he's sold for cash flying out into the dark Texas night as he flashes that million dollar smile at all the ladies, looking for virgins to deflower, scandalous women to associate with, yes, and dope to be palmed, ripped, or plundered, or a poker game to be fixed, thwarted, and thrown, by nefarious and scandalous means.
Or perhaps if the stars are right, and your luck was running strong that night, it's off to a clandestine meeting with some fabulously famous but fast fading giant of the musical world, for an all night recording session, where you might hear a rock, country, or soul, or jazz laced rock opera and space symphony worthy of the Gods.
IPhil was nothing if not a complex personality. And one of the most tortured, but talented men of the twentieth century.
And one of the most torturing, as well, if you were in his sights.
I'm a good sized man, six foot two in my boots, and well over 200 pounds, raised in Texas, and I don't take
much guff from any man living. But Phil is the only human I have ever known, who could refer to me as
"his little buddy" and make me laugh when he did it. He was a bit of my musical mentor late in his career, an artful
dodger, a loyal yet scandalous friend, and a fearsome enemy to one and all.
At various times long past his fame and glory in the music biz, he was my bass player, then my body guard, my chef, but Phil always a boon companion. And prone to fits of extreme adventure, that always included everyone in the room, whether they liked it or not
That didn't, however, excuse me from suffering from his "unique" sense of propriety.Woody Allen once said "an artist makes his own moral universe". Phil certainly embodied that philosophy more than anyone I have ever known.
He was just drawn larger than most, with a bigger pen, with a few more flourishes than most of us get, all
laid out on a sheet of parchment sized to the Maker's own hands.
And he was, as God is my witness, one of the true unknown marvels of the music business, along with the
band he helped form in the early seventies. The name of which, I won't tell you at this point, because that is
another complete legend of rock in itself, a whole story of it's own.
This ones for you, Phil.
I had heard of him for years before I actually met him. Rumors of his prowess with guitars, guns, and the
ladies abounded in our small town. He was the one of original bad boys of the local rock or "hippie" music
scene in Fort Worth. He favored mirrored aviator glasses, leather pants, and tight fitting shirts that were
cut to accentuate his friendly, but intimidating appearance. He had a most disarming and genuine smile, and
piercing dark eyes that would melt most woman's resistance on first meeting him. I saw him play
numerous times before I was old enough to get into bars the "appropriate" way, and he was always the
showman, the jack of hearts, the class clown, and Falstaff, all rolled into that crazy hippie genius with a killer bear hug mystique. He possessed a quick hand, a genuine laugh, and a goodline of B.S. as well as a willingness to face danger down and laugh at it all as he grifted across the country in a rock and roll band.
.
Trained by a local Karate legend, he was also most formidable in a fight, but like most smooth talking
con men, a cool head usually prevailed, till he could size a person up, and figure out just what he could do
them for.
After I graduated from high school, I began to work with some local theater groups and musical talents.
Some of them were putting on a play at a local museum/theater, and it was a drug fueled insanity fest
fas far as I could see, from the word go. Phil was playing the lead in this production, (the name of which mercifully escapes me, it was that bad).
The whole play became a shambles within the first act, but Phil's fine acting abilities were shining even under these atrocious conditions. This was a man uniquely suited to carrying the whole production on his own shoulders, and looking back, I realize now that he never had much use for supporting actors, or stunt doubles, or well, anyone but his next mark.
The audience, however, always remained in a hazy place of indecision for Phil, because while his ego needed them, his Orson Wellsian need to control everything he had nothing but disdain for them.
Phil would only meet them halfway, (the audience that is). God help their poor unsuspecting little souls if Phil turned on the helpless spectators.
As the pproduction followed the flight plan of the Hindenburg Zeppelin and metaphorically burst into flames, somewhere in the second act, a stage propused in the production unnerved even the most adventuresome of the audience members, (I believe it was a twelve gauge shotgun), and when the blank shot went off in the theater, most of the now rapidly retreating audience beat a path to freedom, but one poor schlep just had to make his debut, and have his say, in the unscripted and yet starring role of audience member as theater critique specialist.
He stood up from his third row seat, and proclaimed loud enough for most people to hear, "This play sucks, this music sucks, and you suck, too" just as he looked right at our leading man, Phil.
At this point in my narrative, I have to rely solely on what I saw, not on the fantastical and "mostly" not
true stories that would embellish this farsical night with near slanderous infamy in the local music scene
for years to come, as to what actually happened in that theater, on that night, in that particular little town in Texas, this is what I saw, let them say what they will in rebuttal.
As soon as those fateful words left the unsuspecting theater patron's lips, a large, worked up, wound up
and rampaging Phil left the stage, bounded through, no, over, the orchestra pit, and then he seized the now wide eyed and trembling man, reared back his pile driving meat hook of a right hand, and cold cocked the
gentleman right out.
The poor fool fell right out flat over his chair, and went down for the count. As the man lay unconscious across
the back of the seat he had so recently occupied, Phil look around at the few remaining and now horrified audience
members, and asked "Do we have any more theater critics in the audience tonight?"
The cast party afterwords was a great success, whew, but quite lacking in representation from any members of
the audience, who had all chosen, en masse, to leave the confines of the museums fine theatrical facilities
at a most prodigious pace.
Phil was just an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, shrouded in lies, half truths, and innuendos. But he was
also one of the best musicians you could ever hope to hear. My own birth mother, who is a God fearing Christian woman and is hardly ever wrong about the real goodness of a person's inner spirit, LOVED Phil. Go figure.
He wrote songs that to this day, could bring a tear to the eyes of hardened criminals, and devout church goers alike.
At the same time.
I never met the like of his talent, not in Texas, not in Hollywood, nor anywhere else. Not often in my travels have I
heard more beautiful, more perfectly composed, gorgeous and heart wrenching songs played anywhere.
He was simply that damn good.
A genius I would say. A genius with a dark twisted need to tool and torment / enchant and delight his fellow man and woman, everyone of us he could reach, almost to the point of madness. But no doubt, Phil was a genius. And boy, could he write a song. Still, the lifestyle he chose cursed him to wretched excesses only kings and madmen are usually privy to.
Don't think I'm making it up.
Of course, when I knew him, he sold every damn one of those songs for a pittance of dope, or booze, or even a handful of macanudo cigars. Every damn beautiful one of them. They were like his precocious children, and he whored them out like they were little innocent street urchins in a war zone.
I never knew him to own things, persay. See, that seemed to be beneath his voracius and Godlike ego assessment of his needs versus yours, or anyones's for that matter. His Modus Operandi was more like he engulfed, he nationalized, he more precisely, "obtained" things.
Guitars,cars, girlfriends, houses, he seemed to have had the grifter's touch unlike most I have known, and I
have known quite a few members of the grifter's guild, it's embarrassing to admit.
His exploits were truly mythic and bombastic, never staying within the confines of normalcy or redundancy, and in a business based on half truths, legends and hyperbole, Phil stood out, as a manic blessed Saint of melody, harmony, and higher thought in your rock and roll or county laced songs.
The man could play, he could write, and before the life he chose robbed him of his health, he was one hell of a performer.
He claimed to have met many of the stars of the old, now fading world, of Rock and County music, (insert breathless crowd noises here) names I won't besmirch with the telling, but most of them would cringe if they knew what I have heard, and that I am also a writer. No worries, it's too soon...
Years ago, a superstar legend of country music, young in his career, hired Phil to join his backup band for his first national tour, after hitting number one on the billboard country charts.
Unfortunately, Phil's first introduction to him was at a Nashville nightclub filled to the brim with record executives, and industry heavy weights.
So naturally, at least the story goes...Phil got so drunk and whacked out on a plethora of substances, that moments after he was introduced from the stage, and invited up to join them, he bounded onto the bandstand, kicking the country star in the shins, knocked him down, and smashing a most expensive show piece guitar to pieces.
You could say he had a way of entering a room that defied normal laws of, well, almost everything.
Phil was just too large for the little roles that most people had for him, and went on to produce a fine body
of work, most of which never saw the light of day, and more's the shame of it.
No one could possibly embody what Todd Rundgren called "the ever popular tortured artist effect" more
than Phil. Someday, I will tell you more, but damn it, now someone is knocking on the door. I fear I may
have called him from his morphemic slumber, and I now must huddle quietly in the back room, remaining
perfectly still, and hope he goes away.
I'm getting too old to join you anymore, Phil. But I hear you never stopped being the man behind the legend, They say imperfection gives the diamond it's color. And you my friend, were a diamond, all the way. And by the Gods, you were very, very colorful.
Here's to you, you amazing Son of a Texas mother. You will always be the one and only Phil, a musical genius, a wizard and a true star of Texas music lore.
"When the truth and the legend collide, print the legend."
Postscript Aug. 2009: When the door bell rings these days, I am a little less apprehensive, albeit a little disappointed at the same time. Word has reached me of Phil's passing. Peace. I could have gone to the funeral, perhaps, if I had heard of it in time, but how do you look down on a legend and a rascal of cosmic proportions in his frail and mortal death? I choked, I just couldn't make it. My loss.
Phil, remember how you said when you died I could have my custom made Leddy snakeskin boots back that you borrowed that night in Vegas? Keep 'em good buddy, I could never fill your boots.
You were fierce. Your likeness will not soon walk this world again anytime soon. Where you stood, marks, suckers and chumps and bullies will always tremble and feel a cold chill, and not know why, but I will.
As they say in the theater, break a leg, my good friend. But go easy on em. Phil. May you live on in a million wild mythical stories, each one bigger and more outlandish than the last. Only you know the real story, but now your voice has gone silent, for the first time since I met you all those years ago.
That's a first.
