Phish C/D

I know I definitely heard Surrender to the Air, Trey's "free jazz orchestra" thing, back in the mid-90s when I was new to Phish, but I had virtually no context for jazz or non-hippie improv at the time and I'm sure I didn't pay close attention. Listening to it again now and it's... not terrible? I mean it's definitely not the most compelling set I've ever heard, but I think there are a few moments.

For the uninitiated, the lineup:

Marshall Allen: saxophone
Trey Anastasio: guitar
Kofi Burbridge: flute
Oteil Burbridge: bass guitar
Damon R. Choice: vibraphone
Jon Fishman: drums
Bob Gulloti: drums
James Harvey: trombone
John Medeski: Organ
Michael Ray: trumpet
Marc Ribot: Guitar

I haven't listened to that since it came out. I remember waiting and waiting for it, then going out one night to buy it and have a little stoner listening party with my buds and no one was into it. I doubt that any of us had much context for free jazz at the time.

Simpsons: when a 10-note sequence from the opening of the Simpsons theme song is played, scream “D’oh!” like Homer.

Thankfully most of that "secret language" stuff faded long ago. My current day, 3.0 (hopefully soon to be 4.0) Phish complaint is the incessant damn "woo"-ing. Started with mostly one song, "Twist", with the audience interjections, but some shows it's creeped over into a LOT of other songs. I am definitely team no woo.

i don't think i told anyone here yet but i'm seeing phish for the very first time in atlantic city in august, i am SO excited

i also bought this show immediately after seeing the year and the setlist, gonna get stoned and listen to it in a bit https://www.livephish.com/browse/music/0,1557/Phish-mp3-flac-download-07-23-97-Lakewood-Amphitheatre-Atlanta-GA

bought it even before i saw ppl in the comments arguing it contains the greatest "ghost" of all time

They feel they never told you

That's great Brad, I def want to hear your report after the show!

I haven't seen them since fall of 2018 and probably won't this year unless the rumors of another fall tour come true since they aren't swinging nearby for the summer tour.

yes Brad please provide full report!

I was at that show and it was one of my favorites back in the day. Hope you enjoyed.

lakewood 97? yeah totally blew my mind last night. not my favorite “ghost” as it turns out but amazing all the same. heartened by how many reviews of it say “this was my first phish show”

i have started a dumb project i will prob abandon at the first signs of struggle but i'm going to listen to every phish studio album and at least one live show for every year they've played ('97-00 i'm just gonna try to pick one i haven't heard yet, which will be easy)

checking out colorado 88 rn and fuck me, this is so good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba4vCGtMBo8

i also listened to the white tape today and i think it's actually pretty cool and maybe the least embarrassing weird thing phish ever made

if phish didn't become phish i could see that tape becoming ultra-revered by the kind of ppl... well, who love zappa and ween of course. but in a cool way

vivid memory taking a flight from the Hartford, CT airport back home to see my folks and the inordinate number of people in legitimately mud-stained phish clothing.

Turns out it was fans that had attended their “last show” show in Coventry, VT.

i enjoy junta a lot more now that i'm familiar with all of these songs as set warhorses. still kind of hate "fee," still find "esther" awe-inspiring

Brad, please keep sharing yr thoughts, really loving this. I never came around on "Fee" either, still not really a fan of that. Glad you checking out Colorado '88, killer comp of where they were that year.

colorado '88 is really good for the most part!!! an edit of it without the jazz odyssey or fishman's trombone playing would be one of the most accessible phish records imo

but of course it would be less quintessentially phish

otm on both counts, although I love the story about Fishman getting lost on a mountain while tripping and leaving the band hanging (which is why they were playing that jazz odyssey in the first place):

Perhaps Fishman’s most infamous Colorado memory isn’t what he played, but why he didn’t play. “It was the only time a member of Phish failed to make a gig,” the drummer says. “I went to Ajax Mountain with my friends and we tried to come down an alternate route and ended up running into about one thousand feet of sheer cliff. The only way to get out was to go back up the mountain and down the way we came. By the time I got to the gig I had already missed two sets.”

In Fishman’s absence Anastasio sat behind the kit and the group offered a “jazz odyssey” based around Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage.” While the results were at times less than stellar, the group overcame its follies through humor. “I came waltzing in with a handful of flowers and a head full of acid and Trey told this story about me while I played high as a kite,” Fishman laughs, before pausing to look at the unopened copy of Colorado ’88 resting on his shelf. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a recording where I was on acid before.”

well ok the gamehenge stuff would be an obstacle for normal ppl but i have figured out on this go-around that i really like the gamehenge songs :(

xp

i read that story last night and it genuinely terrified me lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN5CqvC5TCY

Mike turned to me and said, “Check everyone’s minds they’ve turned to egg yolks” which, meant so much to me.

lol

amazing first set on 8/26/89, pretty much every early phish song i love right in a row

"harry hood" increasingly seems like it's my favorite phish jam

"Hood" is so much fun live, I hope you get one at your show. Killer way to end a set.

I humbly submit 8/10/97 (my second ever Phish show) as a show to check out when you get to that year:

SET 1: Bathtub Gin -> Sparkle > Down with Disease > Dirt, Cars Trucks Buses, Billy Breathes, Split Open and Melt, Bye Bye Foot > Ginseng Sullivan, Harry Hood

SET 2: Cities -> Good Times Bad Times -> Rotation Jam -> Rock A William -> David Bowie

ENCORE: Cavern

The rotation jam in the second set doesn't quite hold up on tape as fun as it was in person, but the "SOAM", "Hood" and "Cities" are all among my favorite ever versions of those tunes.

thank you mr. miner

bag it
tag it
sell it to the butcher in the store

lawn boy is a little more uncanny than junta because here we have 4-5 phish classics presented in somewhat-to-radically different studio forms, but that's kind of to their benefit, at least in this particular space?

10/31/90 was a weird show, clearly has a deranged-yet-playful aspect to it because it's halloween, but both sets have their peaks (early "stash," great YEM jam and vocal jam, "the asse festival," "reba" -> "runaway jim" into "foam" into early "tweezer") and valleys (mostly just "love you")

7/12/91: i didn't know this was a phish w/ horns show until i started it! this freaking rules!!!!!

once you hear certain tunes with horns, you can't not insert them in your head for all subsequent listens to those songs (Suzy Greenberg, Cavern, Gumbo...)

i would go nuts if they did another horn tour sometime but trey largely channeled that side of his musical interest into his solo band. 91 was the only time they ever did a whole tour of it, and they haven't even really had sporadic horn appearances in like 20 years

I saw them on that 91 tour with the Giant Country Horns, never having heard a note of their music, at the Bayou in DC. Completely blew me away but I lost the thread shortly thereafter.

this is def one of the best phish shows i've ever heard even though it features pretty much none of the searching improvisational fugues that i fell in love with. the horns just sound SO good and give the show so much energy and as a bonus make phish sound way tighter than normal

Brad you are becoming a true blue phan

a picture of nectar is a solid hour of everything that’s really bad about phish

“stash” is still good. “stash” is always good

11/19/92: fantastic show for the most part, really ideal versions of "foam," "split open and melt," "divided sky" in the first set, the debut of a bunch of rift tracks, the highlight of which is a "fast enough for you" with additional pedal steel (said pedal steel also turns "llama" into a really hot basement with mold growing in the corners, best rendition of the song i've heard yet). "tweezer" is a nightmare, in a good way. unfortunately "lengthwise" is the closest i've come to thinking "fuck this band" during one of their shows

really glad they did away with having an obligatory fishman singing showcase in the second set, always a momentum slaughterer

rift is awesome!!!!!!

"horn" is one of the best phish songs ever imo

I love Horn.

8/26/93: wow! wow!!!! best show yet. first time they sound like a Real band, by which i think i mean there's just a confidence and professionalism where previously there wasn't exactly a lack but it wasn't the priority. they are just firing on all cylinders for the whole fuckin' show. first set is an embarrassment of riches, the "reba" totally perfect, the "split open and melt" flickering like a damaged signal. they even jam briefly on "fee" which makes me like the song a lot more lol. what sets '93 improv apart, afaict, is the density, more than ever page and trey feel like they're creating these masses of notes that jut out at odd angles like a mountain of cars in a junkyard

link for the interested: https://www.livephish.com/browse/music/0,1200/Phish-mp3-flac-download-8-26-1993-Arlene-Schnitzer-Concert-Hall-Portland-OR

it is a real treat hearing these first reactions from someone with a honed but open-minded musical ear. i couldn't agree more that picture of nectar blows and rift is awesome (somewhat controversial opinion among phish fans who, afaict, are going just based on how many "classic" phish songs each album contains), and love your descriptions of how the improv changes and improves from 92 to 93 (conventional wisdom in the fan community but you articulated the qualitative difference so nicely)

August 93 was kind of the first era of the band to develop legendary status, soon to be followed by June 94, November 94, December 95. 96 widely considered an off-year (though making a statement like that is sure to elicit valid defenses of numerous shows therein), and then once you get to 97 the really experimental improv becomes such a mainstay that it's hard to single out specific stretches. However, by that time a lot of the tightness starts to wane so you have to really be in it for the jamming

Horn is an absolute beauty. Part of the reason Rift stands head and shoulders above the other albums of its era, imo, is it captured this little window where Trey was writing reasonably normal lyrics about relatable human experiences, but before the quirkiness seeped out and those lyrics just became corny and trite. Horn is a great example of that sweet spot. It's also just such a lovely composed guitar solo.

I took guitar lessons from this grizzled blues dude in 8th and 9th grade, and he would just ask me to bring in tapes of the songs I wanted to learn. It was lots of Phish and Zeppelin, as I recall. I remember always having the distinct feeling that he was happy to teach me whatever I wanted, but didn't have the highest opinion of the non-classic stuff I'd bring him. When he was teaching me Divided Sky, though, I remember him complimenting the writing on a particular section - the one right after the proggy atonal part, but before the slow ethereal part - in addition to giving me a sense of pride in Trey/Phish for impressing him, it spurred me to attend to and appreciate how their composed sections and melodies are structured in a new way.

ugh a picture of nectar was so bad. sequenced nonsensically, and a really good case study of using the studio to ruin and drain the energy from your own songs

i'm really glad the shows i selected for this project so far hit close to or dead within those classic periods you name