Buck Dharma
together with Bouchard Brothers at Hilfiger
Tribute
Friends of Billy Hilfiger came together to
remember his life and music Monday, October 8th
at Don Hill's night
club in Manhattan. The night started with
Al and Joe Bouchard doing a
Hilfiger original Billy's Song and then
the rest of the Brain Surgeons took the
stage for Last Angry Woman and
Godzilla. The Cult Brothers with
brother Andy Hilfiger and Jimmy
Cacalla were joined by Buck Dharma
and Al Bouchard for unforgettable versions of
Cities on Flame and (Don't Fear) the
Reaper. Leslie West and Corky
Lang played Mountain favorites,
Theme From an Imaginary Western and
Missippi Queen. Dennis Dunaway and
Neal Smith joined Joe Bouchard for the
driving Alice Cooper track,
Under My Weels, the Buchard,Dunaway
and Smith song Real Thing and their
new version of Fallen Angel. Handsome
Dick Manitoba's Wild Kingdom with JP,
Adny Shernoff and Daniel Rey
played The Party Starts Now, Haircut
and An Attitude and I Want You. A
reconstituted King Flux with Richie
Stotts, Marky Ramone, Michael
Houghton and Andy Hilfiger played
Stones songs Jumpin' Jack Flash
and Last Time. Ricky Byrd was
joined by Joe Bouchard and the house band
Rock Candy for Billys favorie love song,
Hunk of Burnin' Love. Michael Houghton
played Cheap Trick songs with Rock Candy
and Billy's nephew Michael Fredo joined
in to sing a song. Billy's original band
Fright played and sang on into the night
with many of the musicians in the audience joing
in.
Hilfiger was
fun-loving rocker
By JIM PFIFFER and DAN ALOI
Star-Gazette
jpfiffer@stargazette.com
William "Billy" Hilfiger lived and embraced
life to the utmost, grabbing it tightly and
squeezing everything he could out of it. He
loved fun, he loved rock 'n' roll, but most of
all, he loved his family and friends. "He was an
all-around average guy who loved to play guitar
and loved to enjoy life," says 43-year-old Jason
Kirk of Elmira, who played in local rock bands
with Mr. Hilfiger from 1976 to 1982. "He was
always happy with who he was and where he was at
in life. There's nothing bad you can say about
Billy."
Mr. Hilfiger died Saturday, Sept. 15, 2001,
from brain cancer at Arnot Ogden Medical Center
in Elmira. He was 45. He is survived by his
wife, Karla, and scores of relatives. Mr.
Hilfiger was a musician and landscape designer
in New York, and the brother of fashion designer
Tommy Hilfiger, who was born and raised in
Elmira.
Mr. Hilfiger was buried Monday morning in St.
Peter & Paul's Cemetery in Elmira.
Those who knew Mr. Hilfiger remember him as
always smiling, always happy and always ready to
have fun. "He was the life of the party," said
Deborah Frost of New York City, who plays guitar
and sings with The Brain Surgeons, a rock band
that Mr. Hilfiger played with since 1993. "He
was always having fun, getting into mischief,
telling jokes and just being a total character.
You couldn't help but laugh and have fun around
him."
Mr. Hilfiger's musical resume is a long one.
He played in local rock 'n' roll bands starting
in junior high school, gaining confidence and
acclaim as the talented guitarist in Glass Head
and then Fright, an immensely popular Elmira
group in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Fright
filled Elmira nightspots such as The Connection
and Myhalyk's with fans cheering the band.
"Billy was a huge (Rolling) Stones fan," said
Kirk. "They were his biggest influence. Their
music was playing at his wake (Monday)." Mr.
Hilfiger wrote a little music and some lyrics,
said Kirk, but his true love was playing guitar.
He had scores of guitars, but one of his
favorites was his Gibson Firebird, said
Kirk.
After moving to New York City in the early
1980s, Mr. Hilfiger and younger brother Andy
Hilfiger formed a band that went through several
different names, including Greenwich, Bad Blue,
and Hill Fire. In 1986 they formed King Flux,
playing loud, boisterous rock 'n' roll with
Richie Stotz of the Plasmatics and Marky Bell, a
former Ramone.
Mr. Hilfiger was working in Manny's Music
Store in New York, where resident and visiting
pros bought their instruments, when he met
brothers Joe and Albert Bouchard, bassist and
drummer, respectively, for Blue Oyster Cult --
another one of Mr. Hilfiger's well-loved bands.
Soon after, both Billy and Andy Hilfiger were
regular bandmates of the Bouchard brothers, who
toured (and played Elmira several times) as the
Cult Brothers and The X Brothers.
As guitarist in Albert Bouchard's band The
Brain Surgeons, Billy Hilfiger made his mark and
found his most satisfying niche. The band has
made a string of critically acclaimed albums,
and Mr. Hilfiger played and composed guitar
parts on a new double CD.
Even though they lived and developed their
careers in New York, the Hilfiger brothers would
regularly return to play a show for the hometown
crowd, with their "family band" HIPPO -- named for
his late father -- that included drummer Jim Cacala
of Elmira and Michael Fredo, Mr. Hilfiger's nephew,
a professional musician and rising pop star. "He
was a real rock 'n' roll musician, with an
incredibly distinctive sound, almost like Keith
Richards (of the Rolling Stones)," said Frost.
"I'll never forget him, and I bet anyone who knew
him won't forget him either."
Pete and Billy share a fascinating moment.
Sudden I turned step by step in Niagara
Falls.
At the Coconut Teaser Billy jams with
Mike Watt.
|
|
Billy and David leaving Seattle
tBS in Portland OR
I met Billy Hilfiger in Manny's Music Store on
48th Street in Manhattan in 1984. I had been
working on the Imaginos album for a few years
already and had some days off to get my thoughts
together on how to make it better and how to appeal
to the "Bigs" at Columbia who were not exactly
overwhelmed with it. I was living on West 53rd
Street at the time and when I needed a positive
mood change I would go to Manny's to check out the
gear. This time when I walked into the store a guy
in the guitar department started playing "Cities On
Flame." I looked at him and he had the biggest
grin, I had to find out who he was. Turned out he
was a guitar salesman there and was a big BÖC
fan. Later I found out he was a fellow upstate New
Yorker and we had other connections through his
brother Bobby and my brother Gerry, both of whom
were champion high school wrestlers (as was I) and
had college roommates in common.
Billy told me about his band with Richie Stotts,
King Flux. Every time I would see him on 48th
Street he would tell me about the next gig they
were playing. I finally went to see one of the
shows at the legendary Cat Club and was quite
impressed with the band. I thought the material was
original and the Hilfiger brothers, Billy and Andy
looked and sounded particularly good.
Billy was always in great shape in spite of his
readiness to party and rock and roll lifestyle. He
rode his mountain bike to stay fit. When Deborah
wrote an article on Rocking Runners for New York
Road Runners Magazine she included Billy in the
story and pictures.
In 1987 Sargent Rock and Lee Deedmier quit the
Helen Wheels band and we asked Billy to join.
Another guitarist was hired to be the lead
guitarist and Billy was supposed to play rhythm.
After almost a year of playing sparsely attended
shows Billy was clearly frustrated with the band.
He particularly disliked being relegated to the
rhythm guitarist role. The other guitar player did
not want to let Billy play any leads and would
denigrate Billy's attempts to get even a little bit
of the spotlight. Within a year of joining Billy
quit the Helen Wheels Band.
In 1988 the Helen Wheels Band was finished and
Billy told Richie Stotts that I would make a good
drummer for his new band. I joined and played with
Richie for several months during which we played a
couple great gigs and recorded an EP of Richie and
Billy's songs.
Later in 1988 my brother Joe and I started a
band to play covers of BÖC songs and we asked
Billy and Andy to join. After a few very productive
practice sessions we decided we were ready to play
and booked a gig. It was then that Joe and I
started arguing about the direction of the band and
just before the gig I had the opportunity to record
a live album for a popular artist. The gig was the
same night as the gig with the Cult Brothers so I
backed out of the band and was replaced with Jimmy
Cacalla. There were some hard feelings but within a
short time it was just so much water under the
bridge and never brought to mind. I was even a
surprise guest with the Cult Brothers on
occasion.
In 1994 I was going for a run in Riverside Park
and I ran into Billy on his bicycle looking at some
of the gardens there. He was starting his own
landscaping business and was checking out the
competition. I told him about my new band the Brain
Surgeons and Billy insisted that he had to be in it
too. We started practicing in late April for our
gigs in May. We only practiced twice before our
first show and David was having great troubles with
the bass parts. At the second one he expressed his
frustration with trying to remember all the songs
and Billy turned to him, started playing the riff
to the Red and the Black and said, "Play
this and follow me." Finally David was shown he
could jam on a rocking riff and everything was
going to be all right. Billy was a valuable member
of tBS from early '94 until his last gig with us in
April 2000.
Billy was very particular about how the little
things were organized in the band. He was
outrageous but also concerned that he not look like
a fool. All the wires on the stage had to be neatly
grouped. He was willing to play new songs but they
had to be arranged well and learned down pat. He
felt the look of the band was as important as the
music. He was such a showman that when Pete would
play a lead the people would look at Billy and
think he was playing the lead. I know this happened
many times because I would hear them compliment him
on the leads that Pete played.
When Billy first got sick he was acting
strangely. He developed a bit of a split
personality. He was the life of the party in
Toronto and Buffalo and then got very cranky on the
way back to New York City the next day. When he got
the diagnosis that he had a tumor he kept a very
upbeat attitude. He took anti-seizure drugs and
felt this thing was controllable. Later that fall
when we played a gig in New York City he was
scheduled to go in for surgery the following week.
He was very upset and when I put my arm around him
he cried. I told that I would be there for him and
did my best to help him be brave. After the surgery
we visited him in the hospital cracked jokes and
all felt relieved that it had gone well. Later when
we started playing shows without him he felt really
guilty and told me how sorry he was that he was
sick and worried that he had let us down. Of
course, I assured him that that was not the case
and having to do it without him made us stronger,
especially Deborah, who had to take up most of the
slack. In fact he had helped us immensely because
Deborah had a chance to study how he played the
songs (hand positions etc) and was able to copy
him.
I last spoke to Billy a month before he died. We
just came back from our summer tour and many of our
fans had asked how he was. He had told me before we
left for the tour that the doctors felt he was
running out of options but was still hopeful that
something could be done to prolong his life. When I
called him that day after the tour he was very
lucid but for the first time in four and half years
he did not sound hopeful. He was glad that people
asked for him and glad I called but after a few
minutes he needed to rest and we said goodbye for
the last time.
Billy's last show with the Brain Surgeons at the
Living Room, NYC 4/15/00.
HOME
| ALBUMS
| ARTISTS
| MERCH
| SHOWS
| NEWS
| PICTURES
| REVIEWS
|
