Phil Howard is a nice chap who loves making music using mainly electronic instruments - and anything else that makes a noise.
From school bands and theatre groups of the 70's, through years of writing and recording with the collaboration of fabulous and musically clever friends, to the present day co-fronting 'The Kazbaas' party band, he's built up an archive of music ranging from pretty bad (according to some) to actually pretty good stuff (according to others) .
Here's your opportunity to sit back, turn up the volume and enjoy a selection of the musical meanderings of Mr Phil J Howard. If you like them that's great and if you don't then you're genuinely thanked for giving them a listen.
Phil and Lauren throwing some cool dance moves (allegedly!) to the opening track of the 'Mr Fancy Hat' album.
This is just Phil, and Phil again and again with an acapella version of this great Labi Siffre song, made more famous by Madness.
The 2026 album Mister Fancy Hat is a collection eight songs ranging from 80's style synth-pop dance to steady ballads featuring the great vocals of Lauren Rees, Sue Walker and Sue Bailey (and Phil, of course).
All songs written, performed and produced by Phil.
The first single of the Mister Fancy Hat album and featuring Sue Bailey on chorus vocals (that's Sue in the picture :) ).
It's a quirky little number...!
Created on an eight track recorder and home-made mixer in my garage back in 1987, this is the original recording and was the opening track of the cassette album "Phil's Greatest Misses".
Listen out for the cool lead guitar break from Martin Cockett!
Conceived in a swimming pool in Oklahoma city USA in 1988 and completed in 1989, this is my first attempt at MIDI recording (more about that below). The image is of me in that very pool!
Lead vocal is the super voice of Ian 'Howlin' Brazier with great backing by my good friend Sue McDonald.
(incorporating a geeky kit list!)
A 1975 production of 'Carousel' at the Theatre Royal in Bath was my first outing on a proper stage at the age of 12. I'd been in Bath Abbey choir for a few years leading up to that but it wasn't really for me as you couldn't show off during services (as the choir master made very clear to me!). The 'Bodlets' (now 'Zenith') youth theatre group is what I needed and the six shows I did with them between '76 and '79 were great!
This photo is from a series of cabarets we performed across the city in 1977.
With dreams of world tours and luxurious tour buses The Blue Movies played just one gig - at the Hamp Community Centre in Bridgwater. The band consisted of Rich Witts on bass, Huw Davies on drums, a guitarist who's name I don't recall and a blonde punky singer who's dad had a classic Vox Continental organ that I could borrow. On top of it is my first home-made synthesizer.
The keyboard is a great wood-effect Casiotone 201 which I had for my 18th birthday. There's also another home-made synthesiser in a box with a Casio VL-Tone on top (which I bought with my first pay packet and still have) and a classic Teac A-3340 4 track recorder (which I also still have).
I no longer have the plastic duck.
Good synthesisers back in the early 80's were very expensive so the only way I could get a decent one was to make my own, and the Electronics & Music Maker Spectrum Synthesiser was the answer! A complete synthesiser in kit form down to the last resistor! I still own it, but it doesn't play too well now so is mounted in pride of place on the wall of my home music room.
My oldest friend, Marky Hogan, worked for Madame Tussauds in London so would get us free time in their studio, which was great. Clearly a couple of Special Brews helped the creative process!
This where some of the early music had it's first chance to be properly recorded and was given out to friends on C60 cassettes.
The introduction of MIDI made a massive difference to how people recorded. That also meant increasing the equipment list significantly!
Oh, the things I could do with the Alesis MIDI sequencer, Fostex A8 recorder, Yamaha RX17, DX100, Akai x7000 sampler, Roland MC202 micro-composer and my trusty Spectrum Synthesiser! Synth geek heaven!
We set up a small business making music and videos in 1990 - 'Red Pheasant Music & Video'. It was all still analogue using a Panasonic MS4 newsreel camera and editing suite.
One of the craziest music commissions was a three minute soundtrack of singing animals for a large animated tree in the Kuwait City branch of Mothercare!
The mid 90's saw the introduction of low-cost digital recording. The white mixer is a Fostex DMT8 (which I still have) synced up with a Yamaha W7 workstation. Add to that the old Spectrum Synth, a few bits of outboard processing and the great voice of Sue Walker and we have all we need to make some great sounds. This photo was taken while recording the song 'Cry', which will feature on the soon to be released 'Four Track Mind' album of archive songs.
In 1995 my work moved me and a whole load of other families from across the country to the south coast. In an effort to bring people together I formed the Swanwick Panto Troupe, aka 'SPOTS', with the intention of doing just one show and raising a bit of cash for charity. It went down so well we carried on for 17 years, not only creating great friendships but also raising tens of thousands of pounds!
This is a picture of me with Jenny Ward, Sue Walker and Ron Baker murdering Bohemian Rhapsody in Cinderella!
The band 'Baadness' formed in 2006 with a bunch of us who fancied doing covers of bands such as Madness, Specials, Bad Manners etc. We even managed to play on the main stage of the O2 arena in 2007 - but sadly there are no good pictures of that. This photo is of a charity night in 2009 with an early band line-up. After a name change to The Kazbaas in 2014 you'll still find us gigging across southern Hampshire. Check out some of our videos for a bit of Kaz-enjoyment!
Ian 'Howlin' Brazier and I first created music together in the mid 80's and, along with Marky, he gives a good honest critique of the output! You'll hear some of Ian on the 'Four Track Mind' album from recordings we did in the late 80's and early 90's.
And if you fancy a bit of groovin', you'll find Ian rocking across Dorset as the lively front man of Cell Division!
Lauren is the lead singer with The Kazbaas and is a remarkable musician with a fantastic singing voice (but don't tell her I said that - I'll never hear the end of it!), so it's been fab and fun and educational for me collaborating on some of the 'Mr Fancy Hat' songs.
There are plans for more, so watch this space!
I'm fortunate to have a great array of instruments in my music room today - including a Nord Stage 2, Nord Stage 3, Roland Jupiter X, Roland AX keytar, and a Novation MiniNova amongst the old Yamaha RX17, Casio VL-Tone and even a Stylophone! Add to that a couple of nice guitars and a banjo, not that I'm particularly a strings player - it's just great to own them and play around. Recording is all PC based, of course (Cakewalk Sonar for the extra geeky readers).
There's a nostalgia to the old days of having to splice tapes and copy music onto cassette tapes, but it's so much easier today. When we recorded on 4 track tape machines there was no going back - your 'track-bounced' mix was your mix. Nowadays it's all PC based with a seemingly infinite number of tracks to play with. Everything can be changed and tweaked to the finest detail which usually means it takes much longer to get the finished result because you just want to do one more little adjustment...
