SI-SI-SI-SILLAS!

I'm working for Worship Leader Magazine this week at GMA's Music In The Rockies conference. They have me teaching a few classes, critiquing songs for up-and-coming writers, and, the best part, just hanging out with the rest of the Worship Leader Magazine team.

We rode into the city of Estes, Colorado from our conference center for dinner tonight; through the glowing orange mountains at dusk and down the main street of the tiny tourist town, laughing most of the way - usually at somebody in the car. Of course being gifted in the laughing-at area I have to fess up to starting the good times just before the car ride by mocking a man with a little seniority and a lot of musical skill on me - Mr. Phil Sillas.

When I moved to Nashville back in the Summer of 1997, Phil was writing the musical beds for Melrose Place (Remember that show?) and scoring cuts in many genres, while I was wearing slacks and a tie and calling him "Sir" a lot. He was the big time songwriter and I was the lowly intern at the publishing company. Today Phil works for Worship Leader Magazine while still scoring big cuts in every genre and I'm the lowly independent artist who should be calling him "Sir" a lot.

But I didn't.

Not today.

I called him "Si-Si-Si-Sillas."

See, Phil Sillas has done a lot of very cool things with his musical gifts but the coolest, in my opinion, are the two things he doesn't want anyone to know. Which, of course, is why I'm telling you now and must have something to do with why I call him, well, you know by now.

Phil Sillas wrote the jingle (what he calls the "musical identity") for The Clapper. Yes, that song. BUT wait, even cooler, he also wrote the theme song, I mean musical identity, for....

Chia Pet.

That's right, those two musical giants somehow once resided in one human brain, the brain of my friend Phil Sillas, until sometime in the late eighties early nineties when the Clapper song threw away the Chia Pet song's copy of The White Album and things got ugly. The Clapper eventually moved out of the brain of Phil Sillas and onto magnetic tape and, well, the rest is jingle history.

I think Phil secretly enjoys being reminded of his illustrious past as musical identity god. So if you see a guy who looks like Poncharelli from CHIPS walking around Music City, or Estes, take a gamble and give him a big ole "Si-Si-Si-Sillas!" Sure he might not be Phil at all and whoever he is might cut you, but, you know, he might be Phil and you'll finally get the chance to thank him for his everlasting contribution to your childhood and pop culture in general.

Oh, and tell him the intern said hey.