Rembering a few weeks ago when everyone kept asking me my favorite gift from christmas but my genuine fav gifts were a real intact deer skull and a 6 pack of beaver jaws. And then everyone looked at me like im a freak. My brother in christ You asked me the question
i did get a haircut and the stylist told me my head is the perfect shape to be shaved because it suits me and the razor glides right over my beautiful skull 😇
did you just recently hear your first phil ochs song and want to know what moved the man to write it?
have you been listening to the fellow all your life but don't know as much about him as you'd like to?
are you rapidly falling ill with philaria and in need of some guidance before blood gushes from all your orifices?
are you a political extremist filled with a sense of impending doom and in need of some anger, grief, and solace from a fallen comrade?
are you in any number of other situations (shooting yourself in the knee trying to become the fastest gun in ohio, buying a pig to nominate for president of the united states of america, narrowly avoiding being disappeared to bolivia by the government of uruguay, etc) and open to learning about a troubled soul who created marvelous beauty?
this post is for you! phil got around a helluva lot (not sexually but in every other way) in his 35 years years on this planet and left plenty to learn. anything underlined is a link and anything highlighted in blue is recommended as a starting point for newcomers!
biographies:
death of a rebel by marc eliot (1979) — i wouldn't recommend this one as an introduction to phil. it's poorly researched (frequently incorrect dates, names, locations), at times wildly exploitative, and is partially fabricated. many people who knew phil intimately feel that it mischaracterizes him. i would recommend taking everything in this book with a hefty grain of salt. an eventual must-read for experienced philarics, though.
there but for fortune by michael schumacher (1996) — this is your introduction. i've found that schumacher's fact-checking is not always fabulous and he, annoyingly, rarely cites dates. but there is much more solid research and he has a more nuanced perspective on phil's personalit(y)/(ies).
songbooks:
songs of phil ochs (1964)
the war is over (1968)
the complete phil ochs: chords of fame (1978)
other books:
phil ochs: a bio-bibliography by david cohen (1999) — no scan has been uploaded. if anybody has it and has the time to upload it to the internet archive please do! this contains a brief biography as well as an extensive concert directory and similarly helpful information.
i'm gonna say it now: the writings of phil ochs ed. david cohen (2020) — an essential for anybody who loves phil's writing. contains articles and poems, many of which were previously unpublished, from his time at staunton military academy to the end of his life. there's no scan but you can find it for pretty cheap if you haunt ebay & abebooks
that man in the gold lamé suit: phil ochs's search for self by jim bowers (2023) — i think this one's too new to upload a scan of. this is kind of a biography, kind of not. bowers takes a stab at figuring out phil's complex psychology.
films:
the creative person: the folksinger dir. carroll williams (1965) — sweet tv documentary with interviews and live footage of phil and some of his contemporaries
wondering about things dir. larry yust (1971) — tv documentary about scientific advancement which contains only 28 seconds of phil footage but in my opinion it's worth it just to hear how high pitched his voice is in comparison to all the other dudes interviewed
last summer won't happen dir. tom hurwitz and peter gessner (1968) — documentary about the anti-war movement in new york city from the protests at the pentagon to the festival of life in chicago; you get to watch phil argue with other activists. you can watch this one for free on plex via the solidarity cinema archive (scroll down on the site for login info)
conventions: the land around us dir. gerald m. swatex and kaye m. miller, from the university of illinois political science film collection (ca. 1969) — documentary about protests at the august 1968 democratic national convention in chicago, which includes several brief clips of phil presumably having his world turned upside down
renaldo and clara dir. bob dylan (1978) — partly factual, partly fictional film surrounding the rolling thunder revue and the events which led up to it. phil's performance at mike porco's 61st birthday party, which doubled as the tour's going away party, at gerde's folk city on october 23rd, 1975, was recorded for this movie, but almost entirely cut; in almost five hours, there is only one thirty-second-long clip of phil. it is the last known footage of him.
chords of fame dir. michael david korolenko (1984) — weird documentary film with events in phil's life reenacted by an actor. contains interviews with friends and family but very little actual footage of phil
there but for fortune dir. kenneth bowser (2010) — basic talking heads documentary with some cool archival footage spliced up. pretty good introduction and it's moving to see the way people in his life spoke about him with such emotion so long after his death.
websites:
celebrating phil ochs
phil ochs lyric index
the phil ochs setlist archive
sonny ochs official website
broadside magazine archives
the broadside of boston archives (not to be confused with regular ol' broadside, which was based in new york)
northwestern university libraries
i will most humbly add my own custom theme blog my good friend dorian assembled for me (best viewed on a computer)
video interviews:
newport folk festival, july 1964
come, read to me a poem, new york city, april 12th, 1967
with fred weintraub on wwor-tv's from the bitter end, greenwich village, november 12th, 1967
the sound is now, 1968
with tim powell, detroit, 1971
nixon resignation watch party, august 8th, 1974
the last rally by yes new york, central park, new york city, may 11th, 1975
audio interviews:
folk guitar, april 30th, 1966
with murray the k on wor-fm 9.7, february 22nd, 1967:
#1
#2
pop chronicles interviews #87, circa 1968
circa february 1968 gordon friesen interviews included in broadside ballads vol. 11:
#1
#2
#3
#4
room to move, australia, 1972
with studs terkel and bob gibson, may 1973:
#1
#2
with vic sadot and rich lang, may 1973
with cora weiss, september 15th, 1974
the following are very hard listens. they were conducted by "friends" (either feds or fools) who reveled in phil's mental breakdown in his last year as a source of entertainment. in these interviews he is manic, psychotic, and speaking through his alter ego, "john butler train" or "luke train." i include them as historical documents nevertheless:
john train interview with bruce martin, summer 1975
john train interview with harry smith, summer 1975
discography:
camp favorites by "the campers" (1962-63) (uncredited) (we all have to work for a living)
all the news that's fit to sing (1964)
i ain't marching anymore (1965)
phil ochs in concert (1966)*
pleasures of the harbor (1967)
tape from california (1968)
rehearsals for retirement (1969)
greatest hits (1970)**
gunfight at carnegie hall (1974)***
a few months prior to his death, phil was writing an album about his split personality and experience in psychosis with the working title "duel in the sun." while it never came to fruition, you can listen to rough drafts of some of the songs as played by phil at the shared apartment of dave peller and ratso sloman in december 1975 here and here
* in concert is functionally a studio album as it consists entirely of new material & phil actually had to sing over the live recording in studio because he was very nervous at the concert and his voice failed lol
** greatest hits is not actually an album of phil's greatest hits. phil named it as such sarcastically because he didn't have any hits. it's all new material. 50 phil ochs fans can't be wrong!
*** recorded march 27th, 1970 but a&m refused to release it until 1974. comprised of the afternoon and evening gigs on that date frankensteined together & fixed up in studio, but draws mostly from the former, which was shortened by a bomb threat that phil tried to ignore. right after that gig, he punched through the box office window and was banned from carnegie hall forever. camp classic.
posthumous releases:
chords of fame (1976)
phil ochs sings for broadside (album) or broadside ballads vol. 10 (liner notes) (1976)
interviews with phil ochs (album) or broadside ballads vol. 11 (liner notes) (1976)
a toast to those who are gone (1986)
the war is over: the best of phil ochs (1988)
the broadside tapes 1 or broadside ballads vol. 14 (1989)
there but for fortune (1989)
there and now: live in vancouver 1968 (1991) (actually recorded in 1969 but was printed as 1968 for one reason or another)
live at newport (1996)
farewells & fantasies (1997) + booklet
the early years (2000)
amchitka: the 1970 concert that launched greenpeace (2009)
on my way (2010)
live again! (2014)
live in montreal (2017)
the best of the rest: rare and unreleased recordings (2020)
phil's archives are stored at the woody guthrie center in tulsa and are open to researchers by appointment. good left wing luck!
