Phil's first band, Sticky George, lived over a chip shop in Aigburth Road in Liverpool, while bits of it went to the Art College. They were given their first opportunities by the Everyman Theatre and by the Liverpool poets Adrian Henri and Roger McGough. Eventually Phil and violinist Stuart Gordon peeled off to form The Shortwaveband, working with a diverse collection of other artists including the Scaffold and Diana Rigg. They also became one-half to two-thirds of The Korgis – some people remember ‘Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime’. The band split when the lead singer decided to play with his girlfriend instead. Phil, still sometimes with Stuart, spent some years doing songwriting, sessions and production for TV and for an unlikely combination of other artists ranging from Peter Hammill and Jake Burns to Johnny Logan and Barbara Dickson. He joined several other bands; the two good ones were fronted by Jake Burns and Tim Cody. After watching too much talent getting wasted, Phil got fed up with ‘business’ of the music business and packed it in to pursue another enthusiasm, linguistics.