A very happy birthday to Phil Thomas Katt today!
When PTK was a kid he knew he had the yearning for stardom, often performing for neighbourhood kids and even starting a small radio station in his area, until the FCC traced the signal and shut it down, and smacked his dad up with a hefty fine.
Undeterred by the dark underbelly of the music industry, he began writing songs for instrumental albums he owned and, eventually, learned the guitar and started an acoustic duo named SUNRISE with a dude called Roger Beasley. He then recorded his first record, Brand New Love, in 1977, and distributed it to local radio stations, receiving a slice of air time.
He also made television appearances on variety shows, and on the release of his next single, Rockin' in my Chevy, he toured the country playing small venues as the song reached nationwide air time.
A year later he got his first job at a radio station, at WFTW in Florida. He would go on to play a couple of other radio stations throughout the 80s, and even got fired from one of them, before hitting the big time with ROCK 104 in 1990, becoming their #1 show. This dude loves radio so much in fact that in 1991 there was a point where he was working at 5 different stations at once.
PTK then set his eyes on video content, and so he created The Uncharted Zone, a web series created to promote local musicians, and eventually people from all over the planet. As well as some of his stars, PTK was thrust into the spotlight of YouTube, seeing him become a bonafide hit due to his signature shaggy black hair and sunglasess combo, and also for his weird intros, claiming him to be "the space happy", or "the flamboyant" Phil Thomas Katt, amongst other things.
One of the biggest videos to be produced by UZ is of course Mark Gormely's Without You, and the most famous band they've worked with so far is the punk/funk band Downtown Brown.
Phil Thomas Katt, you have yourself a great b'day.
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