The Chills’ Martin Phillipps - An Appreciation
Martin Phillipps taking in: The Chills, ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’, ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’, music videos, American tourists, the Dunedin sound, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Kelly’s of Portrush and Mount Errigal.
I was planning a blog post about how a few of my favourite musical artists had filmed music videos in Ireland. The post was going to include details of Julian Cope swimming with Fungi in his ‘Beautiful Love’ video. James also spent time in Dingle filming their video for ‘Runaground’ at Ballintaggart Racecourse. It was going to include reference to how Depeche Mode filmed their video for ‘A Question of Lust’ on Killiney Hill and I was going to mention how The Chills filmed the video for their ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ at the foot of Mount Errigal in Co. Donegal in late February 1990.
Martin Phillipps of The Chills passed away two days ago. He was only 61. My post about music videos can wait.
I saw The Chills play in Whelan’s on 22 June, 2023. Myself and my old buddy Conor were accosted by an American couple who had somehow ended up in Whelan’s. The guy was middle aged and bald, and wore a Harley Davidson t-shirt. His partner was about 15 years his junior and clung to him.
“We’re on holiday,” he shouted at us. “We love Ireland,” she shouted at us. “We love live music,” he shouted at us. “Led Zeppelin is his favourite band,” she shouted at us. “What do this band sound like?” he shouted at us. I walked away and went to the bar as Conor tried to describe the Dunedin sound. I had had enough of them.
The Chills took to the stage. Hearing those songs at close quarters was intense. ‘Wet Blanket’, ‘Pink Frost’, ‘Submarine Bells’, ‘Doledrums’, ‘Monolith’, ‘Kaleidoscope World’ and of course the majestic ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’.
The Americans didn’t last and had retreated to the front bar, this was live music but not as they knew it.
The Chills returned for an encore and played ‘Hourglass’ - one of the many highlights of 2021’s Scatterbrain - and then finished with ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’, Phillipps’ incredible tribute to his former bandmate Martyn Bull who died of leukemia in 1983. Myself and my old buddy hugged after the gig, it was an emotional night.
“I wear my leather jacket like a great big hug
Radiating charm - a living cloak of luck
It’s the only concrete link with an absent friend
It’s a symbol I can wear ‘till we meet again”
Brave Words (LP, 1987 - Flying Nun UK). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
It was the third time The Chills had played in Dublin. Their second Dublin gig had been in The Button Factory nine years earlier on 31 July 2014. I missed that gig.
The Jesus and Mary Chain played Vicar Street the same night and myself and a few buddies went along. Afterwards over a few scoops in the Thomas House someone mentioned that The Chills had just played in a half empty Button Factory. How did I miss that gig being announced? The Mary Chain gig was alright but I was gutted that I’d witnessed the Reid brothers instead of Dunedin’s finest.
Between those two gigs the band would release their fifth album, 2015’s Silver Bullets. This was the band’s first album since 1996’s Sunburnt. It was followed in 2018 by Snow Bound and then in 2021 we got the aforementioned Scatterbrain, one of the best albums of recent years.
In the middle of this run of albums we got The Chills: The Triumph & Tragedy of Martin Phillipps, Julia Parnell and Rob Curry’s masterful 2019 documentary. It tells the story of Phillipps’ struggle with hepatitis C and a medical prognosis that gave him a 31% chance of dying within 12 months. Phillipps is forced to stop drinking and face his demons. The film follows him as he contemplates his life, battles with the fear of failure and the stark reality of his own mortality. It’s a sensitive, intimate portrait that sees Phillipps set about cataloging a lifetime spent collecting records and pop culture ephemera. The story of The Chills, Flying Nun Records and the famed Dunedin sound are interwoven through the narrative. It is an essential film and one of my favourite music documentaries of recent years.
Kaleidoscope World (LP, 2023 - Fire Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
My friend Pádraig was visiting New Zealand in 2019 and just so happened to arrive in Auckland on the day of the film’s premiere:
“It was in some freezing cold suburban cinema in Auckland. After the documentary there was a Q&A with Phillipps and the directors, and then a solo performance by Phillipps. I’d only found out in Sydney Airport while waiting for my flight that all that was happening. Luckily, my flight was to Auckland. I dropped my bag at the hotel and figured out what train to get to the outer suburb, art deco, colder than Limerick Junction, cinema. An incredible night.”
Pádraig continues: “At a concert a couple of months later Phillipps asked if anyone had seen the film. About maybe quarter of us roared our approval. For those who hadn’t seen it, he said “spoiler alert, I survived”. And he survived another five years after that.”
Martin Phillipps and Pádraig Collins, The Hollywood Avondale, Auckland, 4 May 2019.
Eariler this year Phillipps started culling his vast record collection and selling select items via an auction site. I could only gape at the records and dream - the prices were out of my league.
The Chills’ first Dublin gig was on 18 February 1990 in The Baggot Inn. Prior to their Baggot gig the band played two warm up shows at Kelly’s in Portrush on 16 and 17 February and returned up North to play a gig in Derry at The Venue on 21 February. Prior to the band’s 2014 Dublin gig Siobhán Kane interviewed Phillipps for Thumped and he explained how the band ended up in Portrush:
“We rehearsed at Kelly’s in Portrush. We spent about two or three weeks there – a friend of a friend had a contact, and we had access to this wonderful old rambling wooden building, and this huge barn-like bar downstairs. Occasionally we had to get out for a function, when they put sawdust on the floor, and every few nights we’d hear music pumping away in this building, which was quite ghostly, but we’d wander round and find another bar! And I think by the time we left Kelly’s we had found five bars. On a Friday or a Saturday night, busloads of kids would come in, copulate, then have a fried breakfast in the morning and leave, it was wonderful!”
I can remember discussing this interview with an old friend Philip Cartin (Supremo Recordings/Kill Cool). At the time Philip was working in Freebird Records and whenever I popped in we’d spend time chatting about gigs and records - as you do! It was Philip who told me that the video for ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ had been filmed at the foot of Mount Errigal. It turned out that in late February 1990 after The Chills spent those few weeks rehearsing in Portrush for the subsequent Submarine Bells tour they produced the video in Donegal.
I wasn’t convinced, “are you sure Philip, the mountain looks like it could be somewhere in New Zealand.”
“I know it was filmed at Errigal Paul, because I’m in the video,” came Phil’s response.
“That’s me inside one of the giant foam speakers keeping it from blowing over in the wind,” said Philip with a smile.
Scatterbrain (LP, 2021 - Fire Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Pol McCartney of Bam Bam and the Calling and The Deadly Engines recalls: “the Derry gig was the night before the video was shot in Donegal. The gig was promoted by Bam Bam drummer Tom Doherty and we had a bit of a lock-in post the show.”
“Martin was lovely, and actually sat with my wife Louise and me most of the night,” continues Pol. “I probably did the poor lad’s head in by quizzing him about the meanings of the songs. I’m a total geek like that.” A man after my own heart, I think I’d have done the same.
‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ (7”, 1990 - Slash/London). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
“Once we were damned, now I guess we are angels
For we passed through the dark and eluded the dangers
Then awoke with a start to startling changes
All the tension is ended, the sentence suspended
And darkness now sparkles and gleams”
In 1989 The Chills signed to Slash Records an imprint of Warner Brothers. Now their records would have a bit of clout behind them. ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ reached No. 97 in the UK Singles Chart on 31 March 1990.
It was a heavenly pop hit but unfortunately nobody wanted it.
That’s a pity because it’s simply majestic.
RIP Martin Phillipps.