Phish C/D

speaking of, from the show i'm currently listening to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n861757Irsw

6/19/95: too early to judge probably but the vibe i get from 95 phish is "victory lap." they are playing at such a high level that even the songs i do not care for at all ("cavern," "poor heart" with added screaming and punk energy) sound dope, and the jamming, when it happens, is always taking you into an elsewhere state; "antelope" is not necessarily my favorite vehicle for phish jamming, but the "antelope" here leaves a lot of scorched earth behind it. the "reba," posted above, rivals and potentially outdoes 8/26/93 for my favorite "reba" yet, effortlessly slipping from dreamy impressionism into a cathartic rock finale. at this point they are playing "david bowie" at 100x speed or something and once again the jam is a fully can-esque nightmare. and yet the peak of this set may be the opener, "theme from the bottom"?

ooh mama, lots of activity on Brad's project and on this thread while I was away camping for the weekend. I'll have more thoughts at some point, but Brad, just wanted to say to follow up on your previous love for summer '91 horns Phish, that another side alley to go down might be Trey's self titled album of 2002 + the live album Plasma. That era is peak use of horns, in my opinion, as Trey tries to take the M.O. of afrobeat and apply it to his unique songwriting styles. There are a few clunkers on that album but some great ones as well. It's also still an acquired taste, but not to the same degree as Phish - that stuff is easier to situate in a paradigm, and it is insanely groovy and danceable.

11/14/95: this is even better than the other '95 show, dynamite first set with early renditions of "billy breathes" and "free," the latter even leading into a jam(? don't think i've heard that happen before). second set immediately announces its intentions with a very angry "maze" a slightly askew "gumbo" and then... the motherlode... that's right... the 40 minute "stash"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7q_4uFFRLA

which i would say is about as good as phish ever gets

fucking incredible

i love phish

I have been inexplicably seduced by Brad's running commentary in this thread and am bookmarking

i especially love "like a pink floyd album being composed in real time" phish

paul don't do it! reconsider!

Too late! I'm digging out my copies of A Live One and the one disc-rotted LivePhish volume I have as we speak!

well in that case, wash uffitze drive me to firenze

shiiiiiiiit

update:

- the white tape ✓
- colorado ‘88 ✓
- junta ✓
- 8/26/89 townshend family park, townshend, vt ✓
- lawn boy ✓
- 10/31/90 armstrong theatre, colorado springs, co ✓
- 7/12/91 colonial theatre, keene, nh ✓
- a picture of nectar ✓
- 11/19/92 ross arena, saint michael’s college ✓
- rift ✓
- 8/26/93 arlene schnitzer concert hall, portland, or ✓
- 12/31/93 worcester centrum theatre, worcester, ma ✓
hoist ✓
- 7/8/94 great woods performing arts center, mansfield, ma ✓
- 12/19/94 providence civic center, providence, rh ✓
- a live one ✓
- 6/19/95 deer creek music center, noblesville, in ✓
- 11/14/95 university of central florida arena, orlando, fl ✓
- billy breathes
- 11/2/96 coral sky amphitheater, west palm beach, fl
- slip stitch and pass
- 8/10/97 deer creek music center, noblesville, in
- 11/23/97 lawrence joel veterans memorial coliseum, winston-salem, nc
- 4/4/98 providence civic center, providence, ri
- 8/1/98 alpine valley music theater, east troy, wi
- the story of the ghost

if anyone feels like recommending me another '97 or '98 show... please do... otherwise i'm just gonna listen to the only show i haven't heard in the hampton/winston-salem 97 box, and it's gonna be great

i also have two '99 shows on my hard drive and remember nothing about them, so i'm thinking of just relistening to them lol

apologies in advance, but the phish revisit brought back a few small related anecdotes to pepper between BN's posts of actual substance. (hiding for easy skipping) 1) I spent a good portion of my elementary school days at the high school gym, forced to watch my older sisters play volleyball. To pass the time, I'd hang around the open section of hallway next to the concession stand. A part of the hallway featured student works of art, including a faithful pencil drawn copy of the Storm Thorgerson photo on the cover of Slip Stitch and Pass. I was infatuated with the drawing and would make a point of admiring it every game, probably while eating starburst fruit twists. I considered it to be the greatest work of art at the time, during which my own art was mostly drawings of dunking basketball players with lightning bolts in the background. 2) I had a similar obsession with my older brother's Junta shirt with the fish-shaped "PHISH" logo. I would search for it by rifling through the basket of clean-but-not-folded laundry. This was all before I ever heard the music. 3) In high school, I admired an older guitarist that owned an actual all-white stratocaster and was technically much better than me. My friend heard his band was going to play You Enjoy Myself at the high school battle of the bands in 2002. I was so disappointed when they knowingly played only the short funky bit, segueing out of Roses Are Free. Nobody gives a shit about isolated sections of Phish songs.

billy breathes: i think ghost is my favorite phish studio album but there's no doubt in my mind this is their most successful studio outing. it sounds incredible, they're writing many actually-good songs, and they actually replicate the feeling of their jams, it's just in the sequencing (especially on the abbey road-esque cascade of the second side) instead of the playing

"taste" is my favorite phish song that's not "harry hood"

lol at this lillywhite quote on the wiki

"Phish, for me, are the musical equivalent of watching a flock of birds fly across the sky: They don't scatter every which way, but rather, they move with each other; they dip and dive, they go up and down; but at all times, they seem to have this radar, this instinct, for where the bird in front or in back of them is going. Musically, each member of Phish knows what the other is doing, which then carries over to the whole. The band can play anything, which then raises the question: Well, what should they play? With Billy Breathes, it's the closest they got to making what I would say is a good stoner album. You know what I mean: you put on the CD, you fire up a big one and you just go down that road. There hadn't been a good stoner record since Dark Side Of The Moon. Billy Breathes got close. I keep telling Trey Anastasio we can make a better one."

"taste" is lovely,one of their best. you owe it to yourself to listen to the 7/22/97 walnut creek version, which was released on a dvd at some point

one of my favorite things about trey anastasio is that he can play the drums

Even more reason for you to hear 8/10/97 then! Spoiler tags in case you want to be surprised...

The long, involved Rotation Jam to set up Rock A William started when Page went to the theremin for a solo. Soon after, Trey took up the keys and Mike went to play guitar. Page eventually picked up Mike’s bass. After they jammed a bit longer, Mike went to join Trey on the keys. Trey then joined Fish on the drums. The two of them played on the same drum set and Mike took a piano solo. Trey eventually kicked Fish off the drum stool, and Fish picked up Trey’s guitar.

i have downloaded a copy of that show jvc, thanks for the rec!!! it’ll be a good follow-up to the 11/2/96 “crosseyed and painless” which trey plays a small percussion kit on afaict

my pick for the phish song that is amazing every time it's played even though it never turns into a jam is "the lizards"

Lizards coda, while it doesn't jam, is a jam

11/2/96: was '96 an off-year for phish? starting the first set with "ya mar" and "julius" tells me they're not really in a hurry to go anywhere, so maybe! "stash," which had been flipped upside down and shaken over the past two years, is... just very normal-good here. the "free" jam is very cool though, better than the one a year ago in '95, feels like the song is drowning in its own reverberations

was '96 an off-year for phish? alternate answer: not if you're listening to any minute of the coral sky "crosseyed" > "antelope"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpdAqCjnEvg

"Phish, for me, are the musical equivalent of watching a flock of birds fly across the sky: They don't scatter every which way, but rather, they move with each other; they dip and dive, they go up and down; but at all times, they seem to have this radar, this instinct, for where the bird in front or in back of them is going. Musically, each member of Phish knows what the other is doing, which then carries over to the whole. The band can play anything, which then raises the question: Well, what should they play? With Billy Breathes, it's the closest they got to making what I would say is a good stoner album. You know what I mean: you put on the CD, you fire up a big one and you just go down that road. There hadn't been a good stoner record since Dark Side Of The Moon. Billy Breathes got close. I keep telling Trey Anastasio we can make a better one."
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, July 6, 2021 10:27 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I kind of want to say the same thing to this guy that I always want to say to overenthusiastic deadheads - "You know there's a whole genre of music called jazz, right?"

'96 always felt like a weird transitional year to me. I feel like they were still adjusting to having a whole new level of popularity and interest, along with the bigger arenas and expectations. Part of this was planned and a natural part of their evolution as a group, but toss in the wild and weird expectations in the post Jerry Garcia void and, well, I think they struggled to find their footing. They hadn't yet latched onto the cowfunk sound that would inform the best moments of '97, especially that fall tour, plus they spent some time being an opening act again (for Santana in Europe). But yeah, I always find '96 to be less engaging than either year around it.

Fwiw, Rob Mitchum has a pretty nice substack going where he goes over shows from 25 years ago the day of, right in the middle of that Santana opening run right now - https://phishcrit.substack.com/.

you know that makes a lot of sense

a lot of phish dot net reviews of the 95 shows i listened to were chronicling the loss of garcia and the influx of dead fans in phish audiences

Yeah, I'm sure the crossover was starting before '96, but summer of '96 would have been the first summer without a Dead tour in ages, so I think that's when the influx really hit home. I remember so many magazine articles in '96 about how Phish was the "logical" replacement for the Dead, I have to imagine that fucked with their heads a little bit.

i should also say that "crosseyed" is the first appearance of the funk siren in this project so far

they could've put out an album with 11/2/96 "crosseyed" on the a-side and "antelope" on the b-side and it would be the best phish album ever (i have listened to this jam a few times today lol)

a lot of fans date the genesis of the funky '97 sound to their choice to cover Remain in Light for their '96 Halloween costume, and the Coral Sky Crosseyed>Antelope is sort of like that seed poking its head up through the ground for the first time. You can sort of feel that they were learning to play in new ways in order to not thoroughly embarrass themselves doing RiL, and then that show, which is the very next show after Halloween, they're just bursting to integrate those new moves into their jamming

i have to start reading that phish substack, i really enjoyed this piece about the fearlessly ugly 30 minute "tweezer" they put on a live one https://phishcrit.substack.com/p/the-long-game

I saw phish once per year in 1993/94/95/96 at venues that held 1610, 1590, 8023, and 37,000 people respectively. That last year felt much different, huge and druggier and sketchier with lots of people who had obviously migrated over from Dead shows.

I saw them again in 2016 and it felt kind of shiny and wholesome, with lots of old people my age with nice cars, camping with their kids, and discussing their jobs in the cannabis industry.

slip stitch and pass aka 3/1/97 abridged and rearranged: i love this album. it’s quaint sitting next to a live one as their second official live release but that’s why it’s good. it’s the phish live digest, less commitment than a full show and yet a complete-feeling snapshot anyway. the “wolfman’s brother” is perfect, the “mike’s groove” always entertaining if a little self-conscious of where it’s going with all the floyd and doors quotes, and a ripping performance of “taste.” i also love that christgau really liked this record, makes a weird kind of sense to me

did i add this show to my list when i found it on youtube? yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8tHfibTkJ0

profoundly uncool people play music together

i was not impressed with the "ghost" that opened that show but this "bathtub gin" is hot

made me that more excited to hear the legendary winston-salem "bathtub gin" which is coming up :D

and the "wolfman's" > "magilla" > "bowie" was totally worth adding yet another show to my list

Brad, have you heard the 7/29/98 Bathtub Gin? 25-minute show opener, legendary euphoric jam. The rest of the show is really good too, would be a worthy stop for when you hit 98.

i haven’t!!!! hooray

oh yeah this is the famous "gin" included as filler on the unrelated '98 date they used for livephish 17... gonna try to find the whole show

7/10/97: thank you for recommending this show to me jvc. if there were a soundboard available, i would buy it. as it is, the audience recording i found is OK but weirdly cuts out between and sometimes during songs; regardless it's clear enough that you can hear how phenomenal the first set is, particularly the "gin," "down with disease," and ESPECIALLY the "split open and melt" which has grown far crazier since the last time i heard it in '94 or so? and the "split open and melt"s in '94 were bonkers!!!! capped off with yet another beautiful and cosmic "harry hood," if it were possible to rank "harry hood"s it'd probably be one of the best ever

second set is a little less thrilling buts that's because (as you expected jvc) the rotation jam doesn't really translate to an audio recording

it's hard to divide up phish years like dead years (the dead, for one, had lineup changes which make it easy to identify certain eras) even though there's obviously something distinct going on in each of the crucial '90s periods. but i would say the most significant and isolatable shifts in phish's playing and sound occurred in august 93 and over the course of 1997, peaking in the fall. the jams are far more open and less crowded than they used to be, and everyone feels more inclined to ride a groove than to smash a bunch of chords up against each other. if they're not quite playing in the world of infinite possibility that defined '94-'95, it feels like they're headed toward much more mysterious and rich dimensions

Great descriptions again!

Not sure if you're already past this point but I'd also encourage you to listen to the full Hampton/Winston-Salem 1997 box set. At the very least, supplement your 11/23/97 plan with the second set of 11/22 as well. The Halley's Comet is all-time.

7/29/98 Bathtub Gin is a fantastic add as well.

My other highest priority recommendation to add to your project is to supplement 4/4/98 with (at least) the 2nd set of 4/3/98. I was at 4/4 and love it but the Roses Are Free -> Piper is must hear. As is the Twist from 4/2, actually...

i've heard every island tour show! it was my gateway, and 4/4/98 is my (first) favorite phish show of all time largely because the "tweezer" > "taste" is a perfect half hour of music and the second set is fucking relentless. i really rate the "roses are free" > "piper" from 4/3 though

i'm revisiting 4/4/98 because i wanna see how it stacks up now that i've heard so much more phish lol. also a video of it seems to have surfaced on youtube in the past two months

i've also heard most of the hampton/winston-salem box, i've been saving the last show for reasons unknown to me other than it's hard to listen to a box set of three very long shows with any kind of discipline

ah, I get that.

xp I love that 4/3/98 Roses Are Free so much because it has the unbounded creativity you accurately associated with '94-'95 above, but with the restraint of '97-'98. And then the Piper is all about restraint - find a menacingly slinky groove and just build it for like 10 minutes, at least that's how I remember it. Anyway, glad you already know those shows. Many days I'd say they're the pinnacle of Phish.

xpost - Glad you liked it, I think it's a great show even if it's not available at the highest sound quality. I wore a tape of that show out back in grad school and I guess I'd hoped maybe a better source had popped up in recent years, but not really. Anyway, yeah, that first set is so bonkers and I'm not surprised the rotation jam doesn't really hold up, though I still have vivid images of Page playing the theremin and the absolutely huge goofy grins the dudes all had as they goofed around.

I found CDs of the full Island Tour at Reckless about five or six years ago and snagged them all for about $35 total - that was a happy day.