Manic electric guitar mangler David Michael Phillips has made a great deal of his technical approach to the guitar accessible to budding students on a fine video entitled #Rock Guitar with David Michael Phillips. As for the philosophical outlook governing his involvement in a progression of hard rock and glam rock outfits with vile names, that would presumably have to be developed through life experience. Such things could not be taught through a video, not even a digital one, not even if the digit in question is an erect middle finger. There was Lizzy Borden, named in honor of a little girl who chopped up her parents with an axe, preceded by King Cobra -- almost inviting a lawsuit from a malt liquor that tastes like year-old gasoline. In 2005 Phillips premiered a new band entitled Big Cock -- from jokes made by this artist in interviews, the inspiration does not seem to be a prize-winning bantam rooster.

Phillips started playing music in high school bands including a Kiss cover combo with his younger brother Dan Phillips. The guitarist still performs some of the music he wrote in this period such as the Big Cock entry on Mean Street Machine. He moved to Los Angeles to join King Kobra, a group led by drummer Carmine Appice of Vanilla Fudge that wound up opening up for Kiss on a national tour. Publicity shots of this group were striking, the dark-haired, mustached Appice flanked by a group of look-alike young men whose hair is so straw-blonde it looks like excelsior that has fallen onto their heads from a suspended packing crate. Phillips continues to write much of the material he performs, preferring to record in a spontaneous manner in which no more than two takes are ever tracked. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi