Email // Facebook // PayPal.me

Or maybe you're looking for one of these (thanks, Google):

• tophill.net (Top Hill Telecom, Ft.Lauderdale FL)

• tophill.me (Nightclub Top Hill, Budva, Montenegro)

• tophillfarms.com (Xmas tree farm, Goodrich MI)

• tophillcabins.com (Vacation cabins, Cook Forest PA)

• tophillhospital.com (Hospital, Eldoret Kenya)

• saratogatophill.com (Motel, Saratoga Springs NY

• tophillind.com (Tophill Piao Cai Industries, Hong Kong)

• facebook.com/tophillmusic (Stuart Kenney, esteemed contradance musician, Greenfield MA)

• math.stonybrook.edu/~tony/ (mathematician, Stony Brook NY)

I've played mandolin, fiddle, guitar, etc. with:

• RedHot Chachkas klezmer band with Julie Egger et al. (1999-2015). Check out old website, and CDs "Beats Without Borders" (2010), "Spice It Up!" (2007), and "Family Album" (2002). KlezmerShack says: "Tony Phillips on plucked strings is a standout, giving the sound a slight bluegrass tinge...."

• Probabillies with Kerry Parker et al., most often seen at Noe Valley Farmers Market in San Francisco, occasional Saturdays 11am-1pm

• Crop Swappers with Catherine Rose Crowther et al., most often seen at Transition Berkeley's Crop Swap in Ohlone Park near the North Berkeley BART station on summer & fall Mondays at 6:30pm

• Freight & Salvage oldtime jams monthly

• Ngirchoureng with Jim Geselbracht performing Palauan string-band songs (2018-...)

• Instant Klezmer (2015-...) with Barbara Speed et al.

• Instant Klezmer Mandolin Orchestra (2005-...), which I formed and lead, performed occasionally at Jewish Music Festival and San Francisco Festival of the Mandolins,

• Jubilee American Dance Theatre (2000-2010s) band

  • Palma Soriano, Cuba (Dec. 2011)

  • Festival de Gannat (Gannat, France, July 2008)

  • Ramblin' Roads (Lesher Theatre, Walnut Creek, May 2006)

  • Kaustinen Folk Music Festival (Kaustinen, Finland, July 2005)

  • San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival (June 2000, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2011, 2016)

  • Festival della Collina (Cori, Italy, July 2002; listen to "Mezzogiorno in Cori" )

  • Mezinárodní Folklorní Festival (Klatovy, Czech Republic, July 2002)

  • Festival Internacional del Folklore (Baja California, Mexico, Nov. 2000)

• Westwind International Folk Ensemble (1995-1999) band for American and ethnic dance, including home shows at Cowell Theatre at Fort Mason and San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, plus tours to Bulgaria, Hungary, and Fresno

• Contra Costa Civic Theatre production of "Foxfire" (April-May 2008)

• Mandorian Candidates, a Mandolin/Octave Mandolin/Guitar/Bajo Sexto/Hammer Dulcimer/etc. trio with Olivier Zyngier and Jim Geselbracht, playing favorite tunes from as many nations as possible (active in the 1990s, reunion in 2016).

• Pre-historic (i.e., pre-internet) bluegrass bands, including County Line, Gold Coast, Hayfever, and Wildcat On Toast, that played many places including San Francisco's legendary Paul's Saloon

Hero/Mentors

• Prof. Kenneth Arrow

• Prof. John Rawls

• Hon. Ben. C. Duniway, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit

Organizations

• KlezCalifornia (Board Member, to 2020) klezmer music, Yiddish language, culture, dance

• Jewish Music Festival (Steering Committee, to 2015)

• San Francisco Festival of the Mandolins (Organizing Committee) annual event on a Sunday afternoon in April

Klezmer music

Proximity to some of the central people and influences made it virtually inevitable that I'd be drawn into the klezmer revival:

• Read about the history of The Klezmorim, members of which I've often crossed paths

• A crucial step was attending KlezKamp West in 1998, which led directly to joining The Red Hot Chachkas

• Yiddish New York, which succeeded KlezKamp as an annual gathering in late December.

• Sources of information include: Klezmer Shack, Der Bay, and Geneva Klezmer Music

Music groups, venues, organizations, media, stuff I like, etc.

• Freight & Salvage Coffee House in Berkeley is where I go most often, and where I host a monthly oldtime jam

• Peter Thompson's Bluegrass Signal show on KALW radio, 91.7 FM in San Francisco, on Saturdays from 6:30 to 8:00pm. Then stay tuned for Dory Stein's Tangents at 8pm.

• California Bluegrass Association / Calendar / Teacher list / Music Camp

• Old Time Music and Roots of American Fiddle Music

• Frets.com courtesy of repair-master Frank Ford of Gryphon Music in Palo Alto

• Archtop.com by Joe Vinikow of Seattle, who did an excellent tune-up on my guitar

• R & F Charle Lutherie if you want to see some nice instruments in Paris

• Mandolin Symposium

• Mandolin Magazine check out the magazine more than the website

• Fiddler Magazine ditto

• Co-Mando.com

• California Coast Music Camp in July

• Walker Creek Music Camp in April and October

• Festival of American Fiddle Tunes Port Townsend, Washington, the week of July 4th.

• Kennaquhair for Doug Dieter's Universal String Tension Calculator

• Steve Ryder Stringed Instruments makes electric mandolins and custom-wound pickups, including my solid-body 4-string mandocaster

• JoyceJazz

• Dr. Klez

• Band name generator incredibly useful

• Mandolincafe.com

• Tone-Gard.com

Time-wasting odds and ends (old)

• Thanks to Dee Brown and the South End Rowing Club I swam from Alcatraz to Aquatic Park, SF about five times, but not lately.

• Some other "cool" swim spots: Bristol Bay (Alaska), North Sea (Netherlands), Black Sea (Bulgaria), Helsinki Harbor & Gulf of Ostrobothnia (Finland)

• DHMO.org : notwithstanding the previous item, water can be dangerous!

• Street Name origins and history of San Francisco

• My favorite, ironically carnivorous, plant: Darlingtonia californica

• Yiddish vocabulary

• My publications:

  • • "The Compleat Poofreading Hanbook"

    • "How Not To Procrastinate!" (forthcoming)

Family matters

• Irving Levin memoirs transcript & recordings

• Tom Phillips Woodworking (below right) in Ashland, Oregon

• 2017 Obit of John Nova Phillips, globetrotting flâneur and literary executor of Violet Trefusis, my tenuous connection to the British Royal Family

• Lt. Louis Friedberg (below center), my mother's first cousin (son of Dorothy, my grandfather Irving's older sister), served in W.W. II in the Fifteenth Air Force as a navigator on a B-24 bomber based in England, was shot down over Germany, and died in a POW camp at age 20 in 1944. According to family lore, he participated in the famous raid on oil facilities in Ploiesti, Romania, Operation Tidal Wave.

• Another cousin Edwin Brown (son of Etta, my grandfather Irving's younger sister; below left), also served in the Air Force in England during the war. Carla (far right in the same photo, daughter of Clara, grand-daughter of Dorothy).

A brief yet telling retrospective