Tank full of Oil: Dave Phillips

Dave Phillips

Dave Phillips is a main agent of the strong Swiss noise scene. He co-founded the hardcore-extremist group Fear of God in the late eighties and since the early nineties has worked with Rudolf Eb.er (Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck), Joke Lanz (Sudden Infant), Marc Zeier (G*Park) and Daniel Löwenbrück (Raionbashi) in the group “Schimpfluch”. But mostly he performs solo.

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This artist makes more noise than all existing performers named Dave Phillips combined -- not as the result of some sort of decibel competition, but simply because that is what is expected in the noisy realm of so-called industrial music. He often records for the revolutionary Tochnit Aleph imprint, defying expectations of record releases in appearance as well as sound. The Phillips discography includes Live Aktion, a mini-CD tiny enough to fit inside a shirt pocket, if not a pack of cigarettes, while other releases on Tochnit Aleph advertise stimulating packaging including a "hand-made cover with plaster, safety-pin and beer-bottle cap."

Phillips is a founding member of the Fear of God band, active between 1986 and 1988. He began performing under his own name near the end of this period and was also involved in presenting some of the earliest appearances of noise bands such as Napalm Death in the land of chocolate and coo-coo clocks, Switzerland. Since 1991 he has been a member of the Schimpfluch-Gruppe, described as "a collective of bruitists and performers dealing with psychophysical tests and trainings," which must beat being a Top 40 cover band by a longshot. Phillips later was a member of the performing group Ohne, also featuring the relentlessly obnoxious Tom Smith of To Live and Shave in LA. Speaking of obnoxious, Phillips could be the only performer with a publicity shot of himself vomiting.
Artist Biography by Eugene Chadbourne
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Dave Phillips is an audio-visual artist who excels particularly in extreme sonic activism/protest, and whose work incorporates both sound and image, always supported with bodily expression, a key component of his performances. On the completely other end of the spectrum, his research also focuses on field recordings from various locations around the world. His performances question the limits of social-psychic/environmental awareness, simultaneously acting as social protest.