Philip Radiotes will release From The Rise of Fall his new record as Phil and the Osophers later this year. In the interim, he is offering a series of singles and music videos that capture his gift for crafting catchy, literate songs that blend musical genres from folk rock to world beat. Radiotes also incorporates ample doses of humor into the mix, as embodied by the two videos that we premiere today–one for his new single “Bee Liner” and a second that presents Radiotes at age 5 covering Michael Jackson.

As he explains, “My dad spent some years as a bus driver, so I knew the look and attitude I wanted the bus driver to have was kinda cool and sweet. The bus in the song arrives offering some kind of deliverance. I take the bus a lot and though I wrote the song in a literal fashion, I wanted it to have a working class nature to it, that we are taking this bus to get somewhere better in life. This particular bus is taking us directly there, at warp speed, and just a few of us passengers know how to get on it! The ‘Bee Liner’ video was made using the long lost video synthesizer from the 1980s, the Fairlight CVI.

“I was first unknowingly introduced to the Fairlight at five-years-old when I performed a karaoke version of Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ at a music service shop at the Fashion Island Mall in San Mateo, CA. I showed the ‘Bad’ video to (‘Bee Liner’ director) Ken (Anderson), he posted a sample of it to a few video forums, and found out it was a Fairlight CVI. We then tracked down what, to my knowledge, is the only working Fairlight CVI still available to use, and we convinced the guy who owns it to run our footage through it. So, the footage for ‘Bee Liner’ went from 2019 to the 1980s and back. I’ve been grappling with the idea of making the ‘Bad’ video public along with the premiere of the ‘Bee Liner’ video. It’s pretty amazing, but also pretty embarrassing.”