Music Archives - Hal Phillips

Pocket Full of Mumbles Ruminate on their Tribute Band Origins

Hal Phillips — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 23:01:51 +0000

Heartiest New Year’s greetings from the band to everyone out there in Mumbles Nation. We wanted to share some content here and encourage you to monitor this space, as 2026 is shaping up as a busy year on the gig calendar. We should soon have news about a cool April date at a new, prestige […]

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Cassette Tape Revival? Hipsters Need a Primer on What They’re Getting Into

Hal Phillips — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 20:29:46 +0000

It’s weird to learn via media report that specific, intimate aspects of one’s own cultural history are making “comebacks”. Maybe 15-20 years ago, a certain American demographic started collecting and playing vinyl records again, for example. Out of nowhere this became trendy. Today, folks of all ages are still giddily sourcing records from Discogs and […]

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RIP Robbie Robertson, The Man who Understood Branding a Bit Too Well

Hal Phillips — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 16:59:03 +0000

[August 12, 2023] My parents, like so many elder Americans, loved The Band. And so it was no surprise the Aug. 8 passing of lead guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson resulted in a widespread outpouring of praise and reflection. Yet very little of The Band’s long-term renown never made obvious sense, including why its reputation […]

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That Night a Mouth Roared and a Light Went Out

Hal Phillips — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 06:24:36 +0000

Like many others that fateful night 37 years ago, Dec. 8, 1980, I learned of John Lennon’s death from Howard Cosell. Yeah, that Howard Cosell. It was Monday night, the Patriots were in Miami, and, in 1980, Howard was still presiding — in his inimitably pedantic, overly dramatic fashion — over Monday Night Football, […]

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With All-Cover Encores, The Feelies Advance State of the Art

Hal Phillips — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 14:28:21 +0000

Nerd rockers The Feelies played The Sinclair in Cambridge over the weekend, and for all the band’s laudable work churning out two solid sets, it was the encore that left the greater impression. This is perhaps by design, from a band that does encores like no one else and whose 21st century incarnation just happens […]

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Bowie’s Impact, Departure Still Sinking In

Hal Phillips — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 09:12:58 +0000

As was the case with many artists of the 1970s, David Bowie was introduced to me via my older sister. Janet brought home Hunky Dory at some point late in the Nixon Administration and when she wasn’t playing it to death, I played it to death. In truth I hardly ever bothered with Side 2 […]

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Silver Tribute Ends 23 Years of Jazz-Search Futility

Hal Phillips — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 14:37:02 +0000

Bald Hill played the Peace Fair on Brunswick Green Saturday. Our mando player, Ben, arranged the gig: His mother is a German war bride and longtime social justice activist. She administers this event, which annually draws a healthy cross-section of southern Maine’s aged hippie population. This year, for these unreconstructed lefties, we performed a Pete […]

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My Long and Winding Road to Built-to-Spill Fandom

Hal Phillips — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 04:06:31 +0000

The path I followed from first discovering Built to Spill, back in 2002, to my place front and center at Portland’s State Theater last Thursday night is nothing if not post modern. The way we find and consume musical media today seems hilariously random to this late 40something, raised and educated in such matters on […]

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Lost and Found: Demi-Icons from the Vinyl Age

Hal Phillips — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:55:42 +0000

Sometimes it’s what you don’t write. Case in point: An otherwise solid piece in the Wesleyan alumni magazine (“Wesleyan Rocks”) recently fleshed out the stories of two Wes-gestated bands, MGMT and Das Racist, along with a bit of Wes-spawned band history. It also and detailed a few other contemporary outfits trying to make it similarly […]

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Indie Godfathers R.E.M. Refuse to Waste Another Year

Hal Phillips — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:53:04 +0000

How to take the fact that R.E.M. have apparently broken up? It’s not with sadness or shock exactly. Thirty-one years from a band that, at one time, carried the flag for independent/college rock would seem counterintuitive, like perhaps it stayed way too long. Yet this judgment would be obtuse. There was an integrity to R.E.M., […]

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