Phil Miller (original) (raw)

LATEST NEWS

03.11.24

In Cahoots Vlissingen, De Piek – 12 May 1984

Another one from Phil’s personal cassette archive, which has more gigs from the 1984 European tour than of subsequent tours…

06.10.24

OPUS Update – Dada Soul

This week we have updated our OPUS page – Dada Soul.

HERM
29.09.24

Dada Soul, Richard Sinclair & Split Second

This week we are posting another piece by Herm

Marc Hadley Interview – Episode Four

This week we are posting the fourth episode of Aymeric Leroy’s Interview with Marc Hadley.

HERM 15.09.24

Miller-Baker Duo Maassluis1992

It’s been a few months since we’ve added another Miller-Baker duo performance. This recording of indeterminate origin is from the duo’s first actual tour...

08.09.24

OPUS Update – Tide

This week we have updated our OPUS page – Tide.

HERM
01.09.24

Tide

This week we are posting Herm’s thoughts on Phil’s composition Tide. You can find this composition on track six of Phil’s CD Recent Discoveries CD3CD still available on discogs.com/seller/HermMiller/profile

HERM
25.08.24

Marc Hadley Interview – Episode Three

This week we are posting the third episode of Aymeric Leroy’s Interview with Marc Hadley.

HERM 21.07.24

In Cahoots Southampton Uni 1989

Here is a fairly good audience recording (of indeterminate origin) from Southampton University.

11.08.24

Phil Miller – A Simple Man

Read about the origins and history of Phil’s composition A Simple Man

HERM
04.08.24

OPUS Update – A Simple Man.

This week we have updated our OPUS page for A Simple Man.

HERM
28.07.24

Marc Hadley Interview – Episode Two

Today we are posting the second episode of Aymeric Leroy’s Interview with Marc Hadley.

21.07.24

In Cahoots Seven Dials London ’86

The 1985-87 line-up of In Cahoots is, deservedly, very popular with fans, being the one featured on Phil’s debut solo album “Cutting Both Ways”. This is a very good recording (with only very minor tape wear) of the band’s last gig of 1986

14.07.24

New OPUS Addition – Lounging There Trying

This week we have added new material to our OPUS page Lounging There Trying.
07.07.24 HERM

Phil’s parent’s marriage and his father’s wartime occupation

HERM
30.06.24

Marc Hadley Interview

This week we have added the first episode of Aymeric Leroy’s Interview With Marc Hadley.

HERM
23.06.24

NATIONAL HEALTH Stockholm

Sweden, Mariahissen 27 February 1980

We had posted National Health’s final gig with Alan Gowen in Vänersborg, Sweden, previously, but another recording exists from the 1980 Scandinavian tour, made a few days before in Stockholm.

16.06.24

All OPUS Scores Now Available

A few stragglers aside, we are happy to announce that, pretty much, all of the original scores, scanned and digitised by Herm are now available in PDF format on our OPUS page.

KYLE
11.06.24

Bird song on the Hackney marshes

Read about my early life with Phil here

HERM
02.03.24

Marc Hadley Interview

This week we have added the preamble to Aymeric Leroy’s Interview With Marc Hadley.

HERM
26.05.24

OPUS Update

For the last month we have been uploading lots of new scores to our OPUS pages, covering almost 20 numbers from Final Call to Part of the Dance. We plan to continue adding scores until we have every single one of them posted here for anyone who is interested

KYLE
12.05.24

Phil and Jim -From Gift to Insult at a Stroke

Inspired by last week’s interview, read my recalling of a disasterous interaction between Phil and Jim.

HERM
05.05.24

Interview – Jim Dvorak Final Episode

Today we are releasing the third and final episode of Aymeric Leroy’s in depth interview with Jim Dvorak.

HERM
28.04.24

The Phil Miller Legacy Band: new soundtracks

We have Aymeric Leroy to thank for this week’s post

HERM
21.04.24

Phil: A Bird’s Eye View

Read about Phil’s father and his love of birds here

HERM
15.04.24

More Scores Added to OPUS

We have recently added a large number of Phil’s original scores, in PDF form, to our ever-growing OPUS section. Including Breadhead and Chez Gege. Check out these and more here.

KYLE
08.04.24

New Interview Episode – Jim Dvorak

This week we are happy to present the second part of Aymeric Leroy’s interview with Jim Dvorak.

HERM
31.03.24

Shortwave Whitstable 1993

SHORT WAVE – Whitstable, Tankerton Arms – 7 December 1993.
I had mistakenly stated that Martin Mycock’s partial recording of the November 17 gig in Birmingham was the only 1993 recording of Short Wave we had in the archives, but further research into our vaults has produced this,

24.03.24

Phil Miller Guitar Prize 2024

We held the third Phil Miller Guitar prize in the Eastside Jazz Club at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on Thursday the 29th of February. Watch videos and listen to the audio here.

HERM
19.03.24

New Interview – Jim Dvorak

This week we are posting the first episode of Aymeric Leroy’s interview with Jim Dvorak.

HERM
10.03.24

OPUS update

Recently we have been working to post as many of our, comprehensively scanned, scores as possible on our OPUS pages. in the last week, we have added just over a hundred new PDFs for seven different titles; these being:

Half Life
No Holds Barred
Above & Below
Bass Motives
Calyx
Conspiracy Theories
Delta Borderline

KYLE
03.03.24

Phil’s manuscripts now scanned to PDF

Today we have added all parts scanned as PDFs to Delta Borderline, Half Life & No Holds Barred. Find them in OPUS.

Back in November 2022 I began the task of digitising Phil’s manuscripts which are held in the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire‘s archives, overseen by the keeper of the Archives Dr Pedro Cravinho. The idea was to make Phil’s band parts available to the students of the Conservatoire and those of you who use the philmillerthelegacy.com site, by scanning these parts and saving them to PDFs. Every few months I travelled up to Birmingham to return the folders I had borrowed and pick up some new ones. I bought an A3 scanner to do this work and figured I could complete the task in a year. In the end it took one year and three months but I have finally finished them.
There were just under 90 folders containing 3326 pages of manuscript, divided into 77 compositions, ending up with 1143 merged PDFs
Kyle is busy adding these PDFs to the OPUS pages so you will see them as fast as he can put them up. I will announce them on the home page as we put them up.
I will be returning the final folders when I go back to The RBC for the Phil Miller Guitar Prize on the 29th of this month where the newly formed Phil Miller Legacy Band has it’s debut performance.
Kyle is busy adding these PDFs to the OPUS pages so you will see them as fast as he can put them up. I will announce them on the home page as we put them up

HERM
25.02.24

In Cahoots Rotterdam 1984

Phil’s cassette archive of In Cahoots concerts has numerous recordings from the band’s first European tour in 1984, and the fact that Richard Sinclair was playing bass in this line-up makes these especially popular with Hatfield fans, in spite of the music being very different…

18.02.24

Phil Miller Guitar Prize

Read about this year’s Phil Miller Guitar Prize.

HERM
12.02.24

New OPUS addition – Inca

Today we have added Inca to our OPUS pages

HERM
11.02.24

Phil Miller a Lifetime of Recording

Read all about Phil’s recording history with In Cahoots here.

HERM
04.02.24

New Interview Episode – Mark Fletcher

This week we are posting the fourth and final episode of Aymeric’s interview with Mark Fletcher.

HERM
28.01.24

In Cahoots – York, Arts Centre – November 1987

This audience recording doesn’t sound as good as the soundboard from the previous night in Oxford previously posted here, but it’s the only complete concert from 1987 we have in the archives, including “Above and Below” and “Green and Purple” which were both missing from Oxford. This is from the brief period with both Hugh Hopper and Steve Franklin in the line-up, who clearly found some common ground as demonstrated by their subsequent collaboration in Conglomerate and the 2001 quartet session with Charles Hayward and Simon Picard. Along with Phil’s material, Elton, Steve and Hugh each contribute a piece, most notably Steve’s otherwise unrecorded “Small Creatures”.

New OPUS addition – No Holds Barred

Today we have added No Holds Barred to our OPUS collection.

HERM
14.01.24

Phil Miller A Self Taught Musician

Read about some of Phil’s personal history and the early years of his career here.

HERM
08.01.24

Mark Fletcher Interview

This week we are adding the third episode of Aymeric Leroy’s interview with drummer Mark Fletcher.

HERM
01.01.24

SHORT WAVE – Birmingham, Midlands Arts Centre – 27 November 1993

Once again we have Martin Mycock to thank for this recording of Short Wave on their inaugural and, as it turned out, only UK tour of sorts…

26.12.23

New OPUS page: No More Mr Nice Guy

This week we are adding No More Mr Nice Guy to our OPUS pages.

HERM
17.12.23

No More Mister Nice Guy

Read about the origins of No More Mr Nice Guy.

HERM
10.12.23

New interview content: Mark Fletcher episode two

Today we are posting the second part of Aymeric Leroy’s fascinating interview with Mark Fletcher.

HERM
03.12.23

In Cahoots Rotterdam 1985

Rotterdam, Mephisto – 29 March 1985
Another ambient cassette recording from Hugh Hopper’s first tour with In Cahoots, and yet another different setlist with a couple of pieces (both of them on the freer end of Inca’s repertoire) not heard in either the Eindhoven or Paris concerts available elsewhere on the site (4 days before and the next day, respectively) – Elton’s Janna, named after his daughter, and Calyx, in its only recorded performance by the line-up we are aware of. This is very likely incomplete, with five other potential inclusions missing, but still a substantial amount of music. Of particular note are the two pieces by Pete Lemer, including the rare Bring It To Me, played in succession in the second ‘set’ (or at least side 2 of the cassette in the archives) – no material by Hugh had yet been added. Instead tribute is paid to the late Alan Gowen with Reflexes In The Margin.

26.11.23

New OPUS page – Inca

This week we are adding Inca to our OPUS collection,

HERM
19.11.23

Inca – In Cahoots – What’s in a Name?

This week Herm writes about how In Cahoots got their name.

HERM
12.11.23

New Interview with Mark Fletcher

This week we are happy to bring you the first part of Aymeric Leroy’s interview with drummer Mark Fletcher.

HERM
05.11.23

Miller-Baker Duo Birmingham 1994

1994 wasn’t Phil’s most active year on the live front, with only one In Cahoots gig (the Jazz Café Halloween gig, documented elsewhere on this site) and a handful of Short Wave dates (including a high profile appearance at Gong’s 25th Birthday celebrations), the rest being duo dates with Fred, one at the Vortex in April and a 5-date UK tour in September, of which the present recording (once again by Martin Mycock) documents the last. The sound quality is average but listenable, and there are issues with the 2nd set – only a short fragment of “For Christine” remained which we chose to leave out, but we did keep the two longer fragments of “Underdub” as they total a respectable 6 minutes, and sadly the closing “Green & Purple” cuts just as the familiar riffing gets going, but this is still an enjoyable document, with the earliest known recordings of “Song For Big Fred” and a very embryonic “Adagio”.

29.10.23

New OPUS page – The Fox

The Fox newly varnished

Today we are posting the Opus page of The Fox
I have added the article I posted last week to this page.

HERM
22.10.23

Origins of The Fox at Orchard Cottage

The Fox’s last journey

Today we are posting an article about the origins of Phil’s sailing dingy The Fox

HERM
15.10.23

Mark Hewins Interview

This week we are posting the fourth, and final, part of Aymeric Leroy’s Interview with guitarist Mark Hewins.

HERM
08.10.23

Hatfield and the North Bilston 2005

This was a sort of warm-up gig for Hatfield’s concerts in Japan in early October and the full UK tour that followed, and their first live performance since the European tour of June, undertaken with the support of Mark Fletcher as second drummer as Pip was having serious back problems. This marked the debut of the “Big Jobs / Going Up to People…” opening medley, replicating that of the first album, and “Fitter Stoke Has a Bath”. These is also an instrumental version of Alex’s “Psychic Warrior”, later matched with lyrics by Pip after Elton Dean’s passing in early 2006.

01.10.23

New OPUS Page – Eastern Region

Photograph by Jane Noble

This week we are including Phil’s composition Eastern Region in our OPUS collection.

HERM
24.09.23

New Fred Baker Masterclass – Calyx

Today we are publishing Fred T Baker’s Calyx Masterclass.

HERM
17.09.23

Mark Hewins Interview part three

This week we are posting the third part of Aymeric Leroy’s Interview with guitarist Mark Hewins.

HERM
10.09.23

In Cahoots Nottingham 2001

For this recording as well as several others which we plan to also make available here, we have fan Martin Mycock to thank as it’s his recording of this gig, one of too few played after the release of “Out of the Blue” in 2001. Of course, Benji’s board recordings of the subsequent Japanese shows in December remain the ultimate document of this period, but this is a worthy alternative, and the only document we have of the band playing the entire album during a single performance, whereas in Japan it was spread over two nights. This still leaves room for a few tasty older tunes. After Pip left in 2002, only “Delta Borderline” remained in the set, which makes these versions of the other “Out of the Blue” material all the more valuable…

03.09.23

New OPUS Page – Flashpoint

This week we are adding Phil’s composition Flashpoint to our OPUS pages.

HERM
27.08.23

New Fred Baker Masterclass Flashpoint

This week we are showing a new masterclass Flashpoint from Fred Baker.

Next week we will be publishing Flashpoint as our OPUS page where you can listen to all the versions of Flashpoint we have been able to source.

HERM

20.08.23

Mark Hewins Interview

Today we are posting the second part of Aymeric Leroy’s Interview with guitarist Mark Hewins.

HERM
13.08.23

In Cahoots: Lichfield, George Hotel – 31 October 2003

Recordings of In Cahoots playing their then-new album “All That” are pretty rare. The go-to document for that is definitely the Tritonales Festival from June 2003 as it’s a good soundboard/audience matrix, whereas this, one of 4 UK gigs later the same year, is definitely a slightly boomy audience source, but it’s nearly the complete concert, with just seconds missing at the start and end, and it’s as dynamic a performance as you’d expect from this line-up, not long before Elton and Jim left.

06.08.23

New OPUS Page – Truly Yours

This week we are adding Phil’s composition Truly Yours to our OPUS pages:

This page includes not only a Fred Baker Masterclass but some great live videos and a ton of audio tracks.

HERM
30.07.23

New Fred Baker Masterclass Lock In

This week we are presenting another of our masterclasses from Fred Baker. This one is called Lock In. A lock in refers to the practice of locking the Pub’s doors after the last call to keep out the prying eyes of the law. It conjures up the picture of two guys on guitars having a jam after hours. Phil wrote this piece as a duo for himself and Fred Baker. This track is not available on this site, but the CD in which it features can be found on Discogs.

HERM
23.07.23

Sarah Gail Brand interview final episode

Today we are publishing the second and final part of Aymeric Leroy’s interview with Sarah Gail Brand, the trombone player who joined the 20 other musicians who came together in January 2019 to celebrate the Life In Music of Phil Miller at his tribute concert at the Vortex, London, which you can find elsewhere on this site.

HERM
16.07.23

In Cahoots Liège Belgium May 1986

Here is another recording from the 1986 European tour, again drawn from a cassette tape from Phil’s personal archive that shows its age although it’s still very listenable. Although it misses the first few seconds of the opening “Above and Below” it otherwise seems to be the complete performance…

09.07.23

New OPUS page: Early Days

Today we are adding Phil’s composition Early Days to our OPUS pages:

HERM
02.07.23

Mark Hewins Interview

This week we are posting the first part of Aymeric Leroy’s Interview with guitarist Mark Hewins.

HERM
25.06.23

New Fred Baker Master Class – Second Sight

Today we have added a brand new master class by Fred Baker. Which you can find here.

HERM 19.06.2023

Matching Mole Paris 1972

This is not a previously unheard performance – although it should be pointed out that the footage filmed on that day for the French TV programme ‘Pop 2’ was captured earlier in the day during soundcheck – but this version comes from a very low generation copy that hasn’t circulated much until now. It is somewhat ‘brick walled’ but a more pleasant listen that one would surmise from the corresponding waveforms…

11.06.23

New OPUS page: Calyx

Today we are adding Phil’s composition Calyx to our OPUS pages:

HERM
04.06.23

Sarah Gail Brand interview

Today we are publishing the first part of Aymeric Leroy’s interview with Sarah Gail Brand, the trombone player who joined the 20 other musicians who came together in January 2019 to celebrate the Life In Music of Phil Miller at his tribute concert at the Vortex, London, which you can find elsewhere on this site.

HERM
28.05.23

New: UNDERDUB masterclass by Fred Baker

We are excited this week to present the first of a new batch of Masterclasses by Fred Baker. Fred came down to London last month and we spent a week filming these new Masterclasses. which we will post on this site over the coming months. I know this first one: UNDERDUB will be welcomed by a lot of visitors to this site. It is a very familiar piece made popular with Hatfield & The North. Fred has produced 4 videos for this masterclass. In the first one he uses his JamMan to produce a duo performance of Underdub. In the second he takes us through the score for the melody and the form. The third one uses the score for the rhythm guitar part and the fourth explores ideas for improvisation.

HERM
21.05.23

In Cahoots Villebon-sur-Yvette 1998

I was recently sent this recording by fellow fan Pierre Tassone, of Music By Mail mail-order in Denmark, who was intrigued by it being labelled as being from the Villebon-sur-Yvette gig from 1998…

14.05.23

New OPUS page: A Fleeting Glance

Today we are adding Phil’s composition A Fleeting Glance to our OPUS pages:

HERM
08.05.23

John Etheridge interview part four

This week we are posting the fourth part of Aymeric’s interview with John Etheridge.

HERM
30.04.23

Phil and Fred in Russia part four

This week we are publishing the fourth part of Phil and Fred’s adventures in Russia.

HERM
23.04.23

In Cahoots Bracknell 1988

This was the last in a series of UK gigs In Cahoots performed at the tail end of 1988, the first since the Split Seconds sessions the previous summer, and the last until the European tour nearly a year later. It’s also the only one we have a recording of, and all the luckier for it as it has a piece that appears nowhere else, an untitled contribution by Steve Franklin…

16.04.23

New OPUS page: Nowadays a Silhouette

Today we are adding Phil’s composition Nowadays a Silhouette to our OPUS pages:

HERM
09.04.23

John Etheridge interview part three

Today we are posting the third part of Aymeric’s interview with John Etheridge.

HERM
02.04.23

Phil Miller Guitar Prize 16 March 2023

The Competition for the Phil Miller Guitar Prize is held annually at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and took place in the Conservatoir’s Eastside Jazz Club last Thursday 16th March. The £1000 prize is open to students at the Conservatoire who have each chosen one of Phil’s compositions and is awarded to the best performance / interpretation. We had a fantastic response this year, all the performances were very strong and the adjudicating panel, consisting of staff from the Conservatoire, had their work cut out when deciding the winners.

In Cahoots Le Dunois Paris April ’84

“Merci d’être venus en France!” (“thanks for coming to France”), a member of the audience is heard saying to the band as they enter the stage. Indeed it had been a few years since either Phil Miller (with National Health) or Richard Sinclair (with Camel) had been seen on a French stage when they played at Paris’ Dunois venue as part of In Cahoots’ debut European tour…

19.03.23

New: Scores on OPUS pages

This week we are reposting Underdub OPUS page with the addition of some scores, both Sibelius files, a midi file and 3 scores as pdf. I am often asked by musicians if I have the dots for this piece, so I am glad to publish them now.

HERM
12.03.23

The Upcoming Phil Miller Guitar Prize 16th March 2023

26.12.22

27.11.22

This second instalment of the Progman Cometh festival archives addresses the second and final edition of the festival, and is more complete in its documentation of the Canterbury Scene part of the festival…

New OPUS page: Dreams Wide Awake

This week we are adding Phil’s composition Dreams Wide Awake to our OPUS pages:

HERM
23.10.22

The Miller Brothers and Me part three by Hag

This week we have published the third and final part of Hag’s trilogy.

HERM
16.10.22

Theo Travis Interview

This week we are showing episode one of Aymeric’s interview with Theo Travis.

HERM
09.10.22

Canterburied in Seattle 2002

We are very happy to bring you a sonic documentation of the Progman Cometh festival, which existed for two years (2002/03) in Seattle, WA, and hosted an impressive number of important members of the scene as well as a number of bands that would broadly fit under the ‘avant-prog’ umbrella. For these recordings, which will be presented in mp3 format

AYMERIC
01.10.22

New OPUS page: Above and Below

This week we are adding another of Phil’s compositions to our OPUS pages:
OPUS is a dynamic project and more scores, audios and videos will be added as they are discovered.

HERM
24.09.22

The Miller Brothers and Me part two by Hag

Find the second instalment of “The Miller Brothers and Me” here.

HERM
18.09.22

The Drummer Paul Dufour died on 7th September

We were very sorry to hear that Paul died this week. We relied heavily on Paul’s help in 2019 when we were preparing for Phil’s tribute concert ‘A Life In Music’. Paul rescued this event at short notice when Trevor Tomkins had to pull out due to ill health. He did a fantastic job.

HERM
11.09.22

Hatfield & The North at the Baha Prog Festival Mexico – 2006

The third and last time I saw the reformed Hatfield was at Baja Prog, and no doubt the farthest I travelled to hear them. It was a great prog rock festival that was organized by the keyboard player and leader of the Mexican prog band Cast, Alfonso Vidales, in his home city of Mexicali in Baja California, just South of the US/Mexican border. I’d already been to the 2004, on account of SoftWorks performing what would turn out to be their last-ever gig there, and for both visits I have to thank Leonardo Pavkovic, who managed both bands and was also responsible for bringing a lot of reformed heritage prog bands, many from Italy, to the festival. Hatfield and the North wasn’t the only veteran band on the bill that year, I also got to see the likes of Nektar, England, Trettioariga Kriget, SBB and Mirthrandir, as well as contemporary bands like Marillion, the Flower Kings, Lazuli and Mostly Autumn…

03.09.22

New OPUS page Conspiracy Theories published

This week we are publishing a new OPUS page: Conspiracy Theories.This composition of Phil’s is the first track on the CD of the same name featuring a new lineup of In Cahoots.

HERM
27.08.22

“The Miller Brothers and me” by Hag

This week we are publishing an historical 3 part piece by Hag recounting his experiences with Phil and Steve containing loads of recordings, some of which many of you will not have heard before. Part 1 kicks off with The Steve Miller Tribute gig 12th May 2001

Paul Dufour Interview

The drummer Paul Dufour turned pro at the age of 18. We were very lucky when he came to our rescue prior to the Phil Miller Tribute Concerts at the Vortex in 2019 when Trevor Tomkins had to pull out for health reasons. Here is episode one of Aymeric’s Interview

HERM
13.07.22

National Health Toronto November 1979

National Health – The Edge, Toronto, Ontario, Canada – 11 November 1979 This bootleg recording from National Health’s 1979 North American tour has special significance for me. Not only is it one of the best sounding of the available ones, and a great performance to boot, but it’s also the first NH bootleg I ever laid my hands on, in the very early 1990s…

06.08.22

New OPUS page Bass Motives published

This week we are publishing a new OPUS page: Bass Motives. This is the first of several compositions Phil wrote for Fred Baker featuring the bass as a melodic instrument.

HERM
20.07.22

Phil Miller’s HARD SHOULDER – it’s hard to play – hence the title

This week I want to give some insight into how Phil approached recording his compositions. I recently came across an article that Dave Stewart wrote about Hard Shoulder – a piece of Phil’s you can find on the Cutting Both Ways CD Phil’s first CD featuring his band In Cahoots.

HERM
23.07.22

Simon Picard Interview Final Part

This week we are showing the third and final episode of Aymeric’s interview with Simon Picard.

HERM
17.07.22

In Cahoots Argenteuil October 1998

October 1998 was the only time it was logistically possible for me to follow In Cahoots on several dates of a European tour. I had arranged a trip to Belgium to take advantage of not just the InCa gigs in Liège and Brussels, but also gigs by other favourite bands, Magma and Présent. But as the Belgian gigs would be played as a quartet, I also made sure I caught the sextet line-up on one of their two stops near Paris, a medieval cellar in Argenteuil where I would later return to hear John Greaves’ Roxongs Trio…

10.07.22

New OPUS page: Delta Borderline published

This week we are posting another new page from OPUS – the complete works of Phil Miller. Delta Borderline is a piece Phil wrote in 1999 specially for guitarist Doug Boyle when compiling the music for his forthcoming blues album Out Of The Blue released on the Crescent Discs label in 2000. Phil dedicated this CD to his brother Steve who died before it was released. On the OPUS page you can watch the video of Doug playing Delta Borderline at the Phil Miller Tribute Concert at the Vortex in 2019. We have started to add the scores to the OPUS pages and on the Delta Borderline page you will find Sibelius files and also some PDFs

HERM
02.07.22

Adding Contributors’ Transcriptions to THE DOTS

This week we are introducing a new category into THE DOTS. Recently we were very pleased when two people – Daniel Rheault and music teacher / band member Neil Browning sent us their transcriptions of Phil’s music taken from CDs. Both of them sent transcriptions of Phil playing Aigrette taken from the Hatfield & The North CD. These transcripts represent what Phil actually played on the CD. We do not have a copy of Phil’s original version of Aigrette as all his hand written manuscripts are held in the Archives of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. I am going to visit the archive after the summer break to do some digitising of these manuscripts where I hope to find an early version which I shall add to the Aigrette OPUS page along with later versions.
Daniel also sent us his transcriptions of Underdub and Lounging There Trying from Hatfield & The North’s The Rotter’s Club 1975 and Final Call from Phil’s 1988 Split Second CD. Daniel wants his email address shown as he would like to correspond with other musicians who share his interests.
We would be very pleased to receive more transcriptions from anyone who has made them and would like to see them added to this new section.

HERM
25.06.22

Simon Picard Interview Part Two

This week we are showing the second episode of Aymeric’s interview with Simon Picard.

HERM
18.06.22

22.10.21

04.07.21

“A very nice DAT recording of In Cahoots’ only gig of 1994, a release party of sorts for the “Recent Discoveries” album recorded the previous year, and which provides a very large chunk of the setlist here…”

30.05.21

Short Wave Brussels 1994

“We’ve had two early performances by this band (originally known as Hugh Hopper & Special Friends) from 1991 on this site. Three years on, with the “Live” CD (actually a mixture of studio and live recordings) coming out in the meantime, the repertoire was still largely unchanged here, and in fact Short Wave’s activities came to an end by 1996…”

22.05.21

In Cahoots Utrecht 1984

“This is one of the best recordings by the original line-up of In Cahoots, broadcast live by AVRO radio during the band’s Dutch tour of May 1984. It is quite well preserved, too, save for the first few seconds of Above and Below…”

16.05.21

Prog Italia Magazine Article.

A big thank you to Vincenzo Giorgio for writing a fantastic three-part biography of Phil for Prog Italia magazine.

For those of you that speak Italian, the first part (pg 58-65) can be found in the March edition here.

13.05.21

Miller Baker Duo Vilnius 1993

“In January 1993, Phil’s old friend and promoter of many Dutch tours for his various bands, Henk Weltevreden, took Phil and Fred Baker to Russia for a duo tour that actually began with a two-day stop in Vilnius, Lithuania…”

09.05.21

In Cahoots Florence 1991

“In the early days of the site we had posted a gig from this May/June 1991 In Cahoots tour with basically the same setlist in a different order but with only a continuous soundtrack. See below Immenstadt, Germany 25th May now with a fully documented playlist…”

02.05.21

In Cahoots New Vortex 2005

“This was In Cahoots’ first appearance at the Vortex in its new Dalston premises – the club’s previous location had seen the last performance by the Dean/Dvorak line-up in April the previous year…”

25.04.21

In Cahoots Eindhoven 1985

“We had already covered In Cahoots’ March 1985 (the first with Hugh Hopper on board) in a previous upload of the Paris Dunois gig, but that was an incomplete recording, and this performance from the Dutch leg of the tour adds a lot of extra material…”

18.04.21

Matching Mole London 1972

“This incomplete recording of one of Matching Mole’s two appearances at the King’s Cross Cinema, just a short walking distance from the band’s rehearsal space…”

11.04.21

In Cahoots Villebon-sur-Yvette 1998

“This is one of two In Cahoots gigs in 1998 where fellow guitarist, and long-time Pip Pyle associate Patrice Meyer sat in with the band…”

27.03.21

In Cahoots Old Fire Station Oxford 1987

“This excellent soundboard recording documents the first In Cahoots tour with Steve Franklin on keyboards, but still with Hugh Hopper on bass – a line-up that remains undocumented on any official release…”

20.03.21

National Health Washington DC 1979

Listen to and download National Health from their 1979 US tour, live in Washington DC on November 28th.

“National Health’s US tour of 1979 has been well documented with bootleg recordings of most shows in circulation. This is one that’s less common than others…”

13.03.21

New Master Class – Early Days

We have just published our latest master class with Fred Baker on Early Days. Find it here.

08.03.21

In Cahoots Le Dunois Paris ’85

Click here for our first ever recording from In Cahoots’ March 1985 European tour.

27.02.21

In Cahoots Pijnacker NL ’84

Listen to and download this newly digitized recording of In Cahoots at the de Trucker club in Pijnacker, Netherlands from 13th May 1984.

03.02.21

Billie Bottle’s Tribute to Phil

“HAPPY 72nd BIRTHDAY to the late, great, guitarist/composer and all round inspiration, Phil Miller.”

Phil’s Birthday

Today, as it is Phil’s birthday, I thought I would post this recent portrait of Phil at 17. It was painted from a photo taken by his brother Steve in Cannes in the south of France. Pip Pyle had borrowed his mother’s Mustang and driven the three of them there during the summer holidays. They had a great time, hanging out in the sun and sleeping on the beach. It was this year that saw the forming of the band Delivery.

Listen to Delivery live in Canterbury from 1972 here.

HERM – 22.01.21

Artchipel Orchestra: New Tribute to Phil

This CD dropped through my letter box from Italy last week. It is a wonderful homage to Phil from the Artchipel Orchestra and is called TRULY YOURS – The Music of Phil Miller. How great to hear Phil’s music has a new life.

HERM – 06.12.20

New Fred Baker Master Class

We are very happy to announce our latest master class is now available. Click here to see Fred Baker exploring Phrygian Blues.

30.11.20

A Life in Music: complete playlists

Now that we have completed our series of videos from Phil’s tribute concerts at the Vortex Jazz Club from January 2019, we have compiled then into two separate video playlists (one of each set) so that you can watch them continuously from start to finish. These can be found on the Concert page here. For those of you that would like to read Aymeric’s introduction, these can be found further down the same page.

23.11.20

Matching Mole 1972 TV Appearance

Someone has finally searched the vaults of the long-defunct Education TV for which Matching Mole filmed a 15-minute session in 1972. This was always presumed lost, but here it is, in black & white but in excellent condition.

09.09.20

Coming Saturday 1st August

Downloadable Midi Files

As of today we will be including Midi files with our scores on The dots page. These can be played on many media players and edited with most sequencing software. We are starting the collection with Phrygian Blues, which was our most recently added score and scheduled to be Fred Baker’s next masterclass.

28.06.20

New Score

Today we have added Phil’s score for Phrygian Blues, which can be found here.

17.06.20

Fred’s 60th Lockdown Bash

Here is a video Fred Baker put up on YouTube. He had to cancel the concerts he had planned around his birthday on 4th June because of Lockdown, so he made this performance from his garden. He includes one of Phil’s pieces: Early Days from Phil Miller’s CD: OUT OF THE BLUE on the Crescent Discs label.

07.06.20

Nan True’s Hole

Hoping that everyone is keeping well and safe and thanks to Luciano Margorani for his great version of Nan True’s Hole, which you can watch on his Facebook page here.

GPD European Tour 1972

In these uncertain times, with many of us having to isolate, we’d like to thank Aymeric for a very welcome distraction in the form of this extensive, four-hour collection.

“Painstakingly assembled from disparate cassettes found in the personal collections of both Phil and Steve Miller, this is as complete a documentation as possible of the low-key European tour undertaken by the trio of Steve Miller (piano), Lol Coxhill (soprano sax, vocals) and Laurie Allan (drums) in October and November 1972…”

Fred Baker Trio – Truly Yours

Watch The Fred Baker Trio playing Truly Yours live from November 2019.

14.03.20

Phil On Composing

Listen to Phil discussing the process of composing in this conversation with Henk Weltevreden.

1. Phil Miller (When Composing Really Well)

07.03.20

New Master Class – Green & Purple

Watch our latest master class with Fred Baker.

“This master class shows how Phil’s use of the whole form of the symmetric scale in Green and Purple is actually the up-side-down version which gives you a whole different set of harmony and chords.”

01.03.20

Rarely Heard Recording

Thanks again to Aymeric for this almost never heard In Cahoots recording for VPRO radio in The Netherlands from October 1989.

“Fans of the band will recognise the opening track, For The Moment, as the same version heard on the Live 86-89 album, but the rest of the concert had never been heard before. I’s quite a unique mix of InCa staples like Above and Below and the Medley, and material rarely if at all heard elsewhere…”

22.02.20

Delivery Brighton 1972 Restored

Thanks to Aymeric for restoring this very old audio cassette recording from September 1972 of Delivery playing live in Brighton.

“This version of Delivery, a prototype of Hatfield and the North with Steve Miller on electric piano, was short-lived and played only a handful of gigs, so we are lucky to have any document from this period…”

Listen here.

16.02.20

New Recording Found

Today we uploaded a newly found live recording of In Cahoots live in Wuppertal from 1986. We posted the first three numbers of this gig a while back, but this tape, found elsewhere in Phil’s collection, has almost the entire concert.

08.02.20

New Master Class

We have just added another of Fred Baker’s fantastic guitar master classes. Here he covers Phil’s classic Truly Yours which was first recorded for Split Second shortly after Fred joined the band.

02.02.20

Fred Baker Trio – Delta Borderline

Watch Fred Baker and his trio, Nick Twyman (drums) and Mickey O’Brian (bass) perform Delta Borderline from November last year.

25.01.20

Fred Baker Trio with Nick Twyman on drums and Mickey O’Brian, bass guitar playing Delta Borderline at Northern Light Cinema Wirksworth on 24th Nov 2019.

Tomorrow 22nd January is Phil’s Birthday. Had he lived he would have been 71. We have not forgotten you Phil and we have not been idle. We have finished editing the film from the Tribute Concert PHIL MILLER – A LIFE IN MUSIC at the Vortex on Jan 6th 2019 and we are waiting for the soundtrack to be edited, so you will soon be able to see the results here on the website.

Another piece of good news is that the long – awaited second Miller/Baker Duo CD is on its way! Phil and Fred Baker have been recording the music for this CD ever since they brought out the original CD DOUBLE UP in 1992. It has been an ongoing project that occupied them every time Fred came to stay with us, whether he came for In Cahoots rehearsals, the Guildhall Summer School, gigs or whatever, he and Phil would be working away in his studio. When Phil died and Fred and I looked for this material. We were mystified as search as we might we just couldn’t find it. More than 2 years later I found the tapes! They had been there all along but I had foolishly thought they were video tapes that I had been unable to play. This is because the recording had been done via Phil’s ADAT machine which uses 8 track tapes that look identical to the old video tapes of yesteryear. The wonderful Benj Lefevre took them to a studio in Brixton and had them transposed into WAV files and has been busy mixing the tracks. We hope to bring out the new CD DOUBLE UP 2 in the not too distant future under the Crescent Disc label.

And from Italy comes the news that the Artchipel Orchestra have just finished recording a tribute CD to Phil, featuring the titles Truly Yours, Eastern Region, Second Sight,Above and Below, Calyx, Godsong and Nan True’s Hole. This CD will be coming out in the spring. It will be fascinating to hear Phil’s music being played by this brilliant group.

And for his birthday here is the latest of my series of portraits:

Herm

In Cahoots Vortex 2009

Watch In Cahoots live at the Vortex Jazz Club from November 2009.

19.01.20

Phil on Medley

Listen to Phil being interviewed by Aymeric about Medley along with some live footage.

10.01.20

In Cahoots Padova 1991

Watch more In Cahoots live in Italy at Banale, Padova from May 1991.

29.12.19

In Cahoots Pavia 1990

Watch In Cahoots live in Italy from May 1990.

14.12.19

Hatfield and the North Elephant’s Coda

Thanks to Aymeric for this great Hatfield clip.

02.12.19

In Cahoots St Jean aux Bois 1998

I’d first heard the horn-less quartet version of In Cahoots in September 1997 in Groningen, on what was likely its debut, and liked the trimmed-down approach very much, so I couldn’t possibly miss their brief tour of France in March 1998. So I found myself driving to St Jean aux Bois, a small village near Compiègne, about 45 minutes drive North of Paris. The venue ‘Les Naiades’ was a friendly little sort of inn with even a fireplace on the side of the stage. Longtime friend/supporter, Serge Wodrascka (who can be heard sitting in on Above And Below) put on gigs there into the 2000s and Canterbury Scene bands like Pip Pyle’s Bash and Hugh Hopper’s Franglo Band were some of the other bands I later saw there – not to mention the trio + guest version of In Cahoots in 2001, documented elsewhere on this site. Eventually, the place was filled with about 50 people, who were treated to a performance consisting of two lengthy sets, with familiar material like Above And Below and No Holds Barred as well as pieces I’d never heard before, Pete’s Big Dick and Fred’s Upside (during which a couple stood up and danced, much to the band’s surprise!), both of which would appear five years later on All That, re-arranged for the sextet.

Click here to listen.

13.11.19

18th October 2019

This is the second anniversary of the death of Phil Miller.
Here is a painting of Phil that I completed recently.

Can I please ask you all on this day to click the link to listen to this piece of Phil’s music?
It is the 6th track from the album Split Seconds and only lasts for 3.30 minutes.
It is called “I Remain”
Phil may have died but his music remains alive.
My heartfelt thanks to you all for doing this in his memory today.

Herm

2. I Remain (Miller) 03:30

In Cahoots Immenstadt Austria 1987

Watch In Cahoots (Phil, Elton, Steve Franklyn, Pip & Hugh) live at The Rainbow, Immenstadt, Austria, from 28th November 1987.

Despite the quality of this ancient recording, this early In Cahoots gig is well worth a look, especially for the great Pip Pyle drum solo.

16.10.19

Hatfield & the North Central TV 1990

In 1990 Hatfield reformed for a one-off appearance for Central TV. Dave Stewart wasn’t available and was replaced by Sophia Domancich. After the concert the recording was edited by Central TV who managed to remove all of Phil’s tunes. Very sad for Phil who not only had his tunes removed without notice but, unlike all the other musicians, received no royalties as a result of the TV exposure which would have been considerable.

Progman Cometh Seattle 2002

Watch In Cahoots at the Moore Theatre, Seattle from the 18th August 2002.

Click here to watch

22.08.19

New Video Interviews

Today we added seven new interview excerpts to our interviews page, including more from Doug Boyle, Jack Monck, Jim Dvorak and Pete Lemer, and new interviews with Marc Hadley, Sarah Gail and Simon Picard.

Click here to watch

14.08.19

Canterbury Legends 2007 Videos

Watch four videos of Canterbury Legends live in Cluny from 2007.

Click here to watch.

31.07.19

New Interviews Page

We have just added a new page of video interview excerpts that Aymeric Leroy conducted with a number of musicians that had worked with Phil over many years.

Click here to watch.

21.07.19

Green and Purple

Here is a drawing of Phil made by Guido Spring’s six year old son Jasper.
Great drawing Jasper!

05.07.19

Hatfield and the North – Son of There’s No Place Like Homerton – 1974

In April/May 1974, Hatfield and the North played a series of ‘big band’ concerts, of which Dave Stewart’s epic (Son Of) There’s No Place Like Homerton was the highlight. Sadly, none of the three shows were filmed, but we have Kim Fyson to thank for some truly wonderful photos of the Cambridge gig…

Click here to watch

02.07.19

Canterbury Legends (In Their Own Lunchtime) Bourgoin ’08

Watch Phil, Hugh Hopper, Didier Malherbe, Patrice Meyer, Alex Maguire and Manuel Denizet perform at the SMAC Les Abattoirs in Bourgoin-Jallieu, near Lyon, France, from May 2008.

Click here for the video

20.06.19

In Cahoots live in Paris ’85

Listen to In Cahoots live in Paris from 1985.

16.06.19

Phil Miller Guitar prize

Tomorrow evening (10.06.19) Fred Baker and John Etheridge will be judging the Phil Miller Guitar Prize at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Click Here for more information and tickets.

09.06.19

Calyx, arranged by Luciano Margorani

Thanks to Luciano for this great arrangement.

“A homage to Phil Miller and his amazing composition “Calyx”
I used the original track from Hatfield’s first album and changed it a bit with my computer.
You can hear Phil with Robert Wyatt, Richard Sinclair, Pip Pyle and Dave Stewart.
Recorded at Tappo studios in February 2019.
RIP Phil, you’ll be forever in my heart.”

05.06.19

In Cahoots at The Bull & Gate 1982

Click here to listen to our earliest live recording of In Cahoots.

29.05.19

NEW PAGE: Fred T Baker’s Guitar Master Classes

Click here to watch Fred’s video master class on Phil’s classic composition, God Song.

In this first of a series, Fred takes a fascinating and detailed look into one of Phil’s earlier pieces, explaining not only how to play it but also shares his great expertise on why it is such a great piece of music.

DON’T MISS THIS!

Fred T Baker New Trio:

with Micky O’brien (bass) and Nick Twyman (drums)
Playing music by Phil Miller and Fred T Baker

Wednesday 17th April 2019
Lichfield, Cathedral Hotel, Beacon St. WS13 7AR.

Doors open 7:15 pm, music at 8:00 pm
£10 / £12 students £5

Book in advance: lichfieldarts.org.uk

Short Wave – Bresse-sur-Grosne – 1991

Billed here as Hugh Hopper and Friends, these two sets were recorded in France in November 1991.

Click here to listen now.

14.03.19

New Score

We have just added Phil’s score for Your Root 2, along with his notes, to our dots page.

Birthday Tribute

Hi everyone, here is a link to a wonderful birthday tribute to Phil from Billie Bottle. Please listen to it. It is Billie singing lyrics using 22 titles of Phil’s music played to a version of Above and Below. It is beautiful and only takes a few minutes.

Herm x

For those of you not on Facebook, you can find it here on YouTube.

Phil Miller Memorial Concert

Phil’s Memorial Concert took place on Sunday 6th Jan to packed houses – There was hardly room to breathe but that didn’t stop the cheering! All the musicians played magnificently and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all 21 of them from the bottom of my heart. It was a stunning performance all round and enthusiastically received by the audience. We have had a bagful of enthusiastic emails from musicians and audience members alike. It was a night I shall never forget.
We filmed and recorded the entire event and will eventually post a good selection of pieces up on this site. It will take some time to edit the footage and mix the recording and I will only be posting numbers one at a time as they are finished and approved by all concerned.
We would love to hear from anyone who was there and would love to post your photos and comments on this site, so please send them in.
In the meantime Jonathan Coe has written a review of the concert for the latest edition of the NEW STATESMAN, Phil Howitt has put a review on his site. Sergio Amadori has written this review on Hibou Anemone & Bear, and Mike Barnes will reviewing the concert for PROG magazine.

Herm

JUST IN: Jakko Jakszyk will be now be flying in tomorrow to perform at both concerts, after Carol Grimes had to sadly pull out earlier today.

18:30 – 5 Jan 2019

Phil Miller commemorative T-shirts

£15 each – available at the venue on the day of the concerts in a variety of sizes.

Updated rolling news about the Phil Miller memorial concert: again we are sorry to say that Didier Malherbe is still recovering from his accident and won’t be able to be at the concert. We wish him well in his recovery. Trevor Tomkins has also had to pull out due to ill health. Get well soon Trevor. Paul Booth has accepted an Australian tour which prevents him attending and Jakko Jakszyk is heartbroken to say he has to pull out due to a family crisis . We hope this does not disappoint anyone too much. We are looking forward to seeing you all on 6th Jan. The concert has been oversubscribed and sadly a lot of people have been unable to buy tickets. If anyone who doesn’t live too far away from the Vortex is interested: the Vortex is going to live stream the music from the concerts to the bar downstairs so that musicians can relax downstairs and still be able to hear when they should make their way upstairs. Also we are having the concerts filmed and recorded and we will be putting this on this site during the course of next year. Commemorative T-shirts will be for sale, probably downstairs as it will be too crowded to do it upstairs. We still have a few of Phil’s CDs – mainly Mind overMatter and Out of the Blue, which we will give away on the 6th. Make sure you get your copy.

Herm

Click here to listen to Radio Story about sounds of London, inspired by Phil Miller and made by Guido Spring.

Click to Listen to National Health play Fourfold from 1979 and watch one of Aymeric’s slideshows of the musicians.

ALL TICKETS TO BOTH CONCERTS ARE NOW SOLD OUT!

GOOD NEWS! THE VORTEX JAZZ WEBSITE IS NOW SELLING TICKETS FOR PHIL’S CONCERT ON 6TH JAN AT THE VORTEX JAZZ CLUB

The Phil Miller Memorial Concert – Jan 6th – two concerts 4pm and 8pm at The Vortex, Dalston, London E8 – tickets £15 for single concert or £25 for both.

Featuring a total of 25 renowned musicians, performing a wide selection of Phil’s music, across two concerts on one night.

We were going to set a normal price for tickets along with a concession rate but were told by the club that was not possible, so we are selling ALL tickets at the concession rate! The Vortex is a small venue so ticket numbers are limited: book early so as not to miss out.

Go to this page on the Vortex website to see the musicians who will be playing and buy your tickets.

Keep up to date by visiting the legacy site where we will be posting rolling news.

HERM

Listen to Aymeric Leroy interview Lol Coxhill and listen to Phil and Lol playing together.

Click to listen to an In Cahoots Radio Bremen broadcast from 20 May 1986

Click here to listen to or download a recording of In Cahoots at the Zeesicht, Utrecht from 13 May 1986.

Click here to listen to and download very, very early Hatfield and the North, only weeks after they changed their name from Delivery and Dave Sinclair replaced Steve Miller – plus guest appearances from Lol Coxhill and Robert Wyatt.

Listen to and download Hugh Hopper & Special Friends (debut performance by the band who later became Short Wave) from the Europa Jazz Festival 12 May 1991

Watch Phil’s brother Steve play and be interviewed for Wire TV

Listen to both sets here.

Watch National Health perform A Fleeting Glance.

Click to listen to Phil Miller and Pete Lemer in the Netherlands from 1995, plus read an interesting review by Manfred Bress of how they won over a Hard Rock crowd.

The Miller/Baker duo from Belgium in April 1995 Click here to listen and read Aymeric’s notes.

This tape was labelled In Cahoots Boat Race 1994 but this seems to be an error. The year is clearly wrong – InCa only played one gig in all of 1994, it’s the Jazz Café (aka Halloween) recording. The band did play the Boat Race in Cambridge, but in December 1995, so that is very likely it, especially since the gig includes early versions of the Parallel repertoire which didn’t yet exist in 1994. Now what’s interesting is that this would be the day after the Canterbury Penny Theatre recording, but with absolutely NO overlap in the set list, which leads me to wonder if they could not be two halves of the same gig. We may never know – there doesn’t seem to be much contextual information in Phil’s typically concise stage announcements. In any case taken together they form a great document of that particular tour, with what I suppose is the complete repertoire played on it. Click here to listen or download.

Watch In Cahoots live in Pavia from June 1991

Click here to listen to In Cahoots live at the Penny Theatre in Canterbury from 1995

Click here to watch Short Wave live at Gong 25 from 1994

Click here to download Phil’s score and notes for Digging In. Click here to listen to the album.

Click here to listen to the first half of one of the last dates of In Cahoots’ long European tour of spring 1986.

Watch Short Wave perform Shuffle Demons at Gong 25. Click here to watch

Today we added Phil’s score and notes for his composition Truly Yours, which can be found on the album Split Seconds. Click here to view this and other scores.

See Herm’s latest portrait of Phil and view a slideshow of how it was done. Click here to view

Watch Short Wave perform The Balladin live in this video Click here to watch now

IN CAHOOTS live at New Morning, Paris from 19 March 1993. Now without the missing beginning Click here to listen now

IN CAHOOTS live at the Vortex Jazz Bar in Hackney, London from 10 June 2008. Click here to listen now

Thanks to Aymeric Leroy for this remastered recording of National Health live in Lawrence, Kansas, which now includes, the entire gig along with some historic demos recorded a few days earlier. Click here to listen now

Today we have added some magazine interviews with Phil (and Fred Baker) from the 90s. Click here to visit now

Steve Miller and Lol Coxhill on the 1974 Virgin Crisis Tour Click here to listen or download

Reformed Hatfield and the North live from Club Citti, Tokyo from October 2005 Click here to listen or download

National Health live in Lawrence, Kansas from November 1979 Click here to listen or download

In Cahoots live at St. Jean-aux-Bois, Les Naïades (near Compiègne, France) from June 2 2001 Click here to listen or download

Video of Hatfield and the North live at the Zoellner Arts Center, Bethlehem PA, 2006 Click here to watch now

Video of Hatfield and the North live at the Bowery Poetry Club, New York, 2006 Click here to watch now

Just added Phil’s score for Eastern Region to our dots page along with his original notes.

We have just finished digitising an old DVD of Phil’s containing historic TV footage of National Health, Soft Machine, Caravan and Kevin Ayers. Watch a young Michael Parkinson interview Soft Machine and Annie Nightingale introduce National Health on the Old Grey Whistle Test. Click here to watch now.

In December 1991 Phil took In Cahoots on tour to Japan. The line-up was Phil Miller on guitar, Fred Baker on bass guitar, Pete Lemer on keyboards, Pip Pyle on drums, Elton Dean on saxes and Jim Dvorak on trumpet, playing all Phil Miller compositions. In Cahoots played four concerts in Osaka and Tokyo. The CD Phil Miller In Cahoots Live in Japan was taken from these concerts. This recording is the concert in Osaka December 12th 1991. Click here to listen or download now.

Listen to early Inca playing Second Sight and Your Root 2, as recorded for BBC Radio 3’s Jazz Today programme in 1983. Recorded from the radio onto reel-to-reel tape by Phil’s father-in-law and my grandfather, Gordon. Click here to listen now.

Today we have added a new videos page, on which we will be publishing original and otherwise unseen footage. These files have been digitised from Phil’s own collection of DVDs and VHS tapes, as well as contributions from our visitors. The first video is a two hour In Cahoots gig, recorded in Tokyo from December 2001. Click here to watch it now.

“This excellent quality DAT tape was digitised by Herm from Phil’s private collection of numerous DATs. This is a line up of In Cahoots without any keyboards at all leaving Phil as the sole chordal voice in a music which is packed with dense harmonic information (of course the bass player can always have a bit of go with chords too but it’s probably courtesy to make it clear that it’s the same money). It is testament to the quality of the compositions that Phil has chosen his chording in this format to be sparse and understated enough to put fuller focus on the horn lines, this bringing a fascinating new perspective on the In Cahoots music and interaction of the musicians. Jim’s sound in particular really rings out throughout…” Click to visit page

Thanks to our friend Rick Chafen, Kansas City Community Radio (KKFI 90.1 FM) will be broadcasting some of our previously unreleased material tonight on the show The Real Deal at 19:00 CDT. Once a month, Rick co-hosts the show, on what is known as Obscuropean Fridays. If you are in the Kansas City area, you can tune in on 90.1 on your FM band, otherwise there is a live stream that can be found at kkfi.org ; below is a snippet of Rick’s introduction to the show. “I never knew that a band called Delivery had a 30-minutes spotlight on the BBC. But now it’s been made available thanks to philmillerthelegacy.com. In some ways, Delivery became a sort of proto-Hatfield and the North. The 1970 performance includes three players who would form the Hatfields. Delivery was the first proper band that Phil Miller and Pip Pyle had together and they would play in the same bands until Pip’s death (right after a gig) in 2006. I can promise you a whole lot more music from Phil’s various bands will soon be featured.” Click here to read it all and tune in if you can.

Today we have added six new YouTube videos, including a tribute by Fred Baker recorded on Phil’s birthday this year. Click to visit page.

We have just posted Phil’s score and notes for Green & Purple. Next up will be Eastern Region. Click to visit page

Phil & Fred – Japan – 1991

Phil Miller and Fred Baker live at the Roppongi Pit Inn, Tokyo, Japan, 21.12.1991. With surprise guests… In Cahoots bassist Fred Baker is a premium musician of many facets. He is a Professor of music at the Birmingham Conservatoire, a composer and a fully featured guitar whizz. While anyone present when Fred (in bass mode) hits his Fuzz Pedal of Ultimate and Terminal Filth will know how his passion for motorbikes has informed his musical character, the more refined and introspective side of him found a perfect expression in his guitar duo with Phil heard on the exquisite Double Up album. Fred was always highly attuned to the emotional twists and turns in Phil’s compositions and I love his harmonic overlays and commentary. It takes a musician of uncommon sensitivity to expand on Phil’s harmonic systems without overwhelming their economy; nothing in Phil’s music happened by accident and in Fred he found a foil as meticulous and detail conscious as himself. Here Phil and Fred appear at the famous Roppongi Pit Inn, Tokyo for a set of palpable intimacy that morphs into one of the gutsiest and most spiritually assertive gigs I have heard. I’ve mentioned before that Eastern Region is one of my absolute fave Phil tunes and it’s lovely to hear it’s poignant English character kicking off the set here. In contrast Nowadays a Silhouette adopts an evocatively languid continental mood in this format. Another gear change and Fred spins lines of octave leaping gypsy nonchalance on Underdub before chopping out melodies in ferocious fifths a la Wes Montgomery. There is no mystery at all why Fred had his right hand patented (only he is allowed to use it). Fred’s composition For Christine is given a perfectly crafted and delicate arrangement and Phil and Fred truly lock in as one entity. The playing here from both is touchingly peaceful and focused. Above and Below is one of Phil’s most monumental compositions. This version has an unmatched gravitas and at this point Phil announces the first in a series of very special guests… As the evening progresses Second Sight, in particular steams along thrillingly and I would like to draw your attention here to a delightful example of Phil’s examplary rhythm playing. …so, without giving too much away, it’s sufficient to say that all participants are on joyously lunatic form, and so will you be after experiencing this testament to a very special evening that is best experienced in one chunk of listening pleasure, as it happened, and without skipping ahead for sneak previews!Click to listen

05.04.18 – DOUG

National Health – Maassluis – 1979

National Health live at Toverbal Club, Maassluis (Netherlands) 29/3/1979 Phil Miller – guitar Alan Gowen – keyboards John Greaves – bass and vocals Pip Pyle – drums Thanks to Rick Chafen for this file and thank you also to Aymeric Leroy for identifying the date and location. These are two men I will be thanking a lot more… This is a very tight mic recording close to the stage in a fairly acoustically dead venue. Buzzing and occasionally drop-outs notwithstanding the balance is excellent. The Alan Gowen line up of National Health was a somewhat looser affair than the Dave Stewart led version. Phil and Alan’s compositions still had enough twists and turns to keep all the musicians in a constant state of insomnia inducing, buttock-clenching anxiety (I’d have thought) but the blowing sections are noticeably more liquid and jazzier in feel. These are my personal highlights;- John Greaves’ Squarer for Maud is an absolute delight; like wondering through a series of chambers. Each with it’s own surprising and unique decor but all forming a satisfying integrity of form (whatever that means). Astonishingly inventive and fluid solo from Phil who typically operates his wah pedal in the opposing direction than any other guitarist would have done. ‘Playing backwards’ is a comment I’ve heard about Phil’s playing more than once but, to slightly paraphrase a Stewartism, he was in fact playing forwards in a backwards world. Following on from this display and not be outdone, a fully goaded Alan Gowen brings us a Rhodes solo that sparkles like a rare gem. Key centre shifting wildly around in a manner hinted at in some unearthly chording earlier in the piece. This cut is triumphant. Phil’s classic Dreams Wide Awake is a really flowing affair by this point. The exquisite lines heard on the album version have an even more conversational and engaging character here. J Greaves and P Pyle are just so damn slinky and sinous. Compared to the intricate elegance of Neil Murray, Greaves approach has a little more ‘tude and a nice filthy punch in his tone without sacrificing elegance. Highly contrasting but I love them both, right. Playtime is a lovely, suspenseful composition by Alan Gowen (and originally heard with Gilgamesh). Every Phil solo has it’s own character and this one has an ironic sneering quality and a slight haughty air before dropping down an octave into some downright sleazy bends. Phil was generally warm and avancular but scrutiny of stage patter reveals Phil had some tech issues this night and fancy I can hear a bit of the ruffled mood of the man here and I think it’s great! Nowadays a Silhouette is a piece of open character in marked contrast to most of Phil’s compositions. Were almost back to Matching Mole conceptually. Lovely dynamic drop into Alan Gowen’s synth solo with Pip creeping supportively in behind. The feeling of space and lightness enhanced by an inspired Greaves who flows beautifully all over the neck. This is top flight musicianship that you would associate with fusion and progressive music but actually exists set apart and in it’s own category, all due to the wit, humanity, and depth of vision of the participants. Click to listen

30.03.18 – DOUG

Welcome to our new homepage

Thank you to everyone who has visited, engaged with and contributed to the site. Due to the enthusiastic interest in the new material we have been posting, we have decided to use this page as a blog, to provide up-to-date news of recent and upcoming uploads. If you would like to receive email notifications of new posts, use the ‘Subscribe’ section on the left of this page. We will also be using this feed to post any other items of interest that we, or you, might find. We are continuing to digitise Phil’s collection of DAT, Audio cassettes and VHS tapes. We will shortly be uploading a video of In Cahoots playing live at The Love Generation Festival in Japan. We also have a remarkable video with some very early TV recordings of National Health, which also includes In Cahoots band members such as Richard Sinclair in an extremely early Caravan broadcast and Elton Dean and Hugh Hopper with early Soft Machine including Robert Wyatt, not long out of school, before he grew his hair, along with Kevin Ayres and The Whole World.

29.03.18 – HERM