From the #TBT archives:
A WilberNews Special Report by Jason Wilber…
I want to share with you a funny thing that happened to me when I was on tour with John Prine in Canada.
Those of you who have known me a very long time might vaguely remember my high school garage band. We called ourselves “Sarcasm”.
The band was Hans Winold on bass, Harvey Phillips on vocals, Kevin Burkett on drums, and yours truly on guitar. We played a small repertoire of rock tunes like Louie Louie, What I Like About You, You Really Got Me, I think you get the picture.
We mostly played this music during our rehearsals, because I think we only did maybe 3 or 4 gigs in the two or three years we were a band.
But oh, did we rehearse.
Most of our (very loud) rehearsals were held in Kevin’s (very patient) parent’s house. And occasionally, we rehearsed at Harvey’s house, especially if his parents weren’t home. Harvey’s Dad (Harvey Sr.) was, and is, known as one of the foremost tuba players in the world. He is the man responsible for the Tuba Santas you often see performing around Christmas time. He is quite an interesting guy. His music career began as a teenager with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Band. Really, I’m not making that up. [Ed. Note see his bio here]
During my high school years, I always got a kick out of the fact that Harvey’s Dad was a famous musician. I didn’t really know much about the music he played. Lots of people told me that he was “world renowned”, which I knew was good, and the Phillips’ home was full of musical awards and plaques, so I didn’t ask too many questions. Since I wanted to be a professional musician myself, I was just excited to know anyone who was famous for playing anything.
I think Harvey Sr. felt that the tuba hadn’t gotten the respect it deserved in the musical world. So to make up for this, he used the word “tuba” as often as he could. He named his farm the “TUBA RANCH”, he referred to all other brass instruments as forms of the tuba (to him, a trumpet was a “soprano tuba”), and he probably would have named one of his kids “Tubatha” or “Christubar” if Mrs. Phillips hadn’t intervened.
I don’t know if Harvey Sr. cared much for our garage band music. I mean, I don’t think he cared much one way or the other. But you know, the man had spent his life studying music. He was a serious professional musician, and a distinguished professor. Looking back, I can imagine that listening to his son’s garage band plunder through Louie Louie at maximum volume for the 200th time might not have been that rewarding of an experience for Professor Phillips. Of course, at the time that sort of thing didn’t even begin to occur to me. My major concerns were things like, “Hmmm…I wonder if this guitar amp will go any louder?…”.
I only remember speaking with Mr. Phillips a couple of times. Once was at a party at his house when he introduced me to Percy Heath, the famous jazz bass player. And the other time was when I had stuck around for dinner one night after a Sarcasm rehearsal. The dinner conversation was about where people at the table were from, so Mr. Phillips asked me where I was from. “Mars?”, he offered.
After high school our garage band sort of drifted apart and we all moved on to other things. I haven’t really kept in touch with the fellas over the years, but I was reminded of those garage band days recently while I was up in Canada playing with John Prine.
In November of 2003 we did a really fun 16 day tour of Eastern Canada and the Maritimes. Jimmy Rankin from the Rankin Family was opening all the shows, and by the way his music is fantastic. Watch for more about Jimmy and his music in an upcoming issue of the WilberNews.
The last show of this 16 day Canadian tour was in Ottawa, Ontario at a large performing arts center called Centennial Hall. Ottawa is a beautiful city. There is a big canal that runs through town. I hear that in the winter when it’s frozen, the locals get around town by ice skating on the canal. Can you imagine ice skating to work, or out to dinner?
In the hallways of the backstage area at Centennial Hall the walls are covered with hundreds of framed 8 by 10’s from all the artists who have played there over the years. We killed some time before and after the show just looking at the photos and reading what some of the artists had written on them. But there were so many of the pictures, some dating back 40 or 50 years, that we didn’t have time to look at them all.
At the end of the night after the show was over, we were all packed up and just walking out the door. As we walked past one of the walls of photos, I got a funny feeling that I had just seen something familiar. So I walked back and started looking over this big wall of pictures. Finally, there at the top, I spotted an old photograph of my high school band mate’s Dad, Harvey Sr., with his cheeks all puffed out, blowing into a big tuba.
I really got a big laugh and a smile out that one, thinking of our old garage band practicing in the basement of the world’s foremost tuba player. I never imagined that Harvey Sr. and I would be playing the same rooms someday. I’m sure he didn’t either. Small world.
David Jacques was nice enough to capture the moment for me…
This story originally appeared in The WilberNews in 2005 or so. Mr Phillips passed away in October of 2010. See the New York Times article: Harvey Phillips, a Titan of the Tuba, Dies at 80.
