Punk Phil

I’m pleased that I did not try photographing Punk Phil as he passed by. These photographs are richened because of the backstory.

The second time Phil and I met was at the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery. He had offered to show me around the Punk exhibition when we had first met on the high street a week before.

He looked surprisingly tame today. He was sporting a five-day beard, and he smelt of soap. He was wearing a hoodie in place of the leather biker jacket that he was sporting when we had first met.

Phil was a real punk. He had formed So77, a band that had developed a moderate following across the UK. Forget the exhibition. I found myself talking to the real thing.

Even though it was still morning, the smell of beer lingered on his breath. He apologized. Then laughed. “Fuck it. It is Saturday after all”.

The waitress brought coffee to our table. Phil had ordered a double expresso, and his cup emitted a strong but pleasant aroma. He waited for it to cool, and then swallowed it in a single gulp.

We started talking about his musical career. One of So77’s highlights had been fronting for The Jam. The gig at Birmingham Town Hall had received a rapturous applause. Unusually, the sound engineer from The Jam had complimented them on their performance. And at the after-show party, Paul Weller had made a point of coming over to say how much he had enjoyed their set.

Phil explained that he wanted to revive the band. He talked about how the previous iteration of the band had broken up. He was close to tears. The bass player and drummer had tried to oust him from his own band. “I had been doing a lot of coke and alcohol back then”, he admitted.

He had taken this badly and their relationship moved past the point of no return when he pointed out that he had paused the band when the bass player needed time off when his wife had been diagnosed with cancer. The drummer, who was married and had four children was already in the firing line for repeatedly hitting on Phil’s partner.

This was the point where our conversation swerved wildly off course. We discovered that we had similar life experiences with failed relationships. Ironically, at various stages of our lives, we had lived quite close to each other, even though we had never met before. We mused over the negative serendipity, and shared horror stories of having relationships with our children brought to a premature end by angry wives who believed that children were an extension of themselves.

We left the quiet of the gallery and crossed the street. Phil liked the idea of being photographed in front of a mural depicting Queen Elizabeth and King Charles. There was a faint aroma of urine at the base.

The hoodie had gone and he was now sporting a yellow T-shirt proclaiming “We are the Sex Pistols”. His leather jacket had appeared from heaven knows where. He was wearing a pair of tartan Doc Marten boots, that he claimed to have bought in a factory sale for a mere 5 pounds in 1993. They were purchased from the White and Bishop shoe factory in Daventry that mysteriously burnt down. We were heartbroken, They built TESCO on the site. My late best friend lived in a house next to the factory.  He was offered double the market value of the house. Tesco won. They pulled up 200-year-old trees and ripped down Victorian houses. We were gobsmacked.

The boots were immaculate, and I wondered if they had spent their life in the box. They certainly had not seen much street action. Phil has all of the punk moves. He moves effortlessly from a display of anger to anarchy. But occasionally I can get him to drop the punk mask and the vulnerability of a man who has lived life shows through.