Phish C/D

Though my aversion to "Stash" may be, as I'm not sure I could ever be a true fan of any band for whom this is like a a top 5 crowd favorite. I think I may even hate "Stash."

― Paul Ponzi, Sunday, August 1, 2021 7:51 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

hmmm maybe so maybe not

marshall is an uneven lyricist imo. i think the lyrics to like “limb by limb” are awesome. i also love that “sleep” is the exact same concept as “eid ma clack shaw” by bill callahan, tho it obv pales in comparison

the nonsense stuff that he wrote for phish at the start sucks though, and yeah the lyrics for “stash” are soooo dumb

anyway the deeper you get the less it matters lol

I'm definitely starting to relate to that

other good phish lyrics: birds of a feather, dirt, sand, brian and robert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUaL2eYwayM

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

my verdict is that 03 phish were goddamn fucking amazing, at least at this point. “ya mar,” a song i do not like, transformed and transcended

attn paul, re: your question about 2.0 upthread, the “waves” from the IT festival is an open-ended ambient jam

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

Yeah, I always thought I'd love the IT era. I recall roommates watching that DVD a lot back in the day and I remember having to concede that the Tower jam was especially sick, even as a Phish neutral person

I don't think I'm Phish neutral anymore, but I'm still choosing to proceed with caution. Like I've limited myself to watching only every third video itt lol

i relistened to that "waves" jam this morning, still can't believe it

Man, I'm impressed with this recent start. 4 shows in and they've already dropped in 3 massive jams. I haven't heard last night's "Tweezer" yet, but I was a big fan of the "CDT" from the other night and the kinda dark "Carini" from a few nights back. The "CDT" is up on YouTube for free, worth it.

i'm excited to check it out, especially since i just got really obsessed with the stretched-out "chalk dust torture" from IT

There is definitely some rust, if you are pressed for time I would just completely skip the first Arkansas show. The rest of had some rough spots, but the guys are clearly engaged in the jam again, which is great to hear.

coming toward the end of the IT festival... and getting turned inside out by the 40-minute "46 days".....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvQ9mPh6i-k

i'm so glad the one phish festival i decided to dwell on was IT, at least this little window of time contains a lot of the best phish improv i've ever heard

i think it's useful to compare a jam like this to the car crash-esque 30 min "tweezer" they included on a live one, where they were constantly collapsing into dissonance and struggling to tie anything they were doing together, whereas here they achieve kind of a continuous flow of dissonances

btw, for anyone who ever considered subscribing to livephish+: the app is very good, if a little buggy, however the desktop experience is godawful

first month was only $1 so my complaints are ultimately minimal

IT (documentary plus 8/2/03 and 8/3/03): these aren't the tightest or most perfect phish shows ever, but there's no question in my mind that this is the best music they've played in the span of time i've covered in this project so far; i could just be talking about the tower jam here but the actual sets are dense and overflowing jungles of sound themselves, only hinted at by the clips i've been posting itt, cf. the underwater pulsings of the "waves" jam are enjoined in a narrative between the (dissociated and strange) "discern" that precedes it and the (relatively normal in a "we've decided to land on earth" way) "david bowie" that follows. i have a few qualms—for instance set 3 of 8/2/03 is nearly perfect until they decide to play "spread it 'round," but even then they invert the good hippie vibes in the small jam it leads into, which is like a terrifying photonegative of the song; and set one of 8/3 takes forever to get going, and only wakes up during the massive "chalk dust" jam

but i think i have an idea of what distinguishes '03 phish, if not 2.0 in general, which is that it's the dreamiest they've ever gotten. set two of 8/3 speaks to my point, i think, from "ghost" to "mountains in the mist" to "pebbles and marbles," each of which is like advancing further and further through a fog-shrouded reality. the doc helped reinforce this, as it gives you a sense of the kind of immersive alternate reality they built here, from the temporary structures that constituted the "sunken city" to their decision to play an hour of totally improvised psych rock in a decommissioned airport control tower

i think i might be getting a distorted and overly-rosy impression of 2.0 because i'm only listening to the great stuff? i have considered listening to their "final" '04 shows at coventry bc legend suggests they are not good or fun, but i don't think i really have time for it, as i'm seeing phish in less than two weeks(?????!!!!!) and i'd like to get through as much of 3.0 as i can before then

btw pls recommend me 3.0 shows, i have no compass for any of it

Man 3.0 is so hard to recommend, to be honest. It's so wildly all over the place in terms of quality and ideas.

Off the top of my head, I'd def suggest checking out the full Baker's Dozen run from 7/21/17 to 8/6/17. Tons of great jams and interesting covers and tangents. Honestly, the spirit of those shows is the closest I've felt to the more "playful" old Phish (if that makes sense). Lots of other great individual shows. I like the Kasvot Vaxt Halloween show (10/31/18) and the epic "Tweezer" show from 12/30/19. Mostly more recent stuff, I'll have to think on this a little.

lol i was afraid someone was going to recommend me every baker's dozen show

Haha, sorry. I could probably whittle it down for you, I just found the high points (of which there are many!) to be so spread out. It's not was easy as naming 2 or 3 specific shows.

it's totally cool, i'm actually excited to listen to all of them, it's just... so much lol

+1 for Baker's Dozen. I'm not actually too familiar with 3.0 generally, but the Baker's Dozen was what got me back into Phish after mostly ignoring them for like a decade. That run of shows is just an incredible achievement in so many ways, and every show I've heard from it is loads of fun with quality jams, 7/25/17 being the clear standout imo

Also 7/14/19 is really great. Set 1 is packed with rare bust-outs, and set 2 has a "Ruby Waves" with one of the best jams I've ever heard

Yeah 7/14/19 is probably a good call, but tbh I just go back to the "Ruby Waves" and haven't heard the full show since right after.

this is all very good thanks y'all! i've figured out a few early '10s shows to investigate just from livephish comments, can already tell i'm gonna spend minimal time in '09/'10 from reading the setlists

Probably safe to avoid those years for sure. 2013 was when I really got back on board, 6/30/12 was my first Phish show in person since 1.0. It wasn't great, but I was shocked to see them covering "Golden Age" at that point. The following year at SPAC was when I really fell back in love with them again.

Was any of the IT festival ever released in a format other than DVD?

both dates are on livephish and include the soundcheck and the tower jam

https://www.livephish.com/browse/music/0,294/Phish-mp3-flac-download-8-2-2003-It-Loring-Air-Force-Base--Limestone-ME
https://www.livephish.com/browse/music/0,295/Phish-mp3-flac-download-8-3-2003-It-Loring-Air-Force-Base--Limestone-ME

11/28/03: it's the 20th anniversary of phish! this show is mad underrated, the first set is flawless and full of surprises, from "ghost" bleeding into "what's the use" to the abnormally fast and gnarly "ac/dc bag." trey's voice is starting to give but he's playing really hard, like he's basically shredding like prince through the whole show, and it makes "sample in the jar" an unusual set two highlight. then they play two undermind songs in a row and the show only sorta recovers with the "mike's groove." think i have a sense of what's coming down the line

one thing i'd like to say before i get into '04 is that '03 is fishman's best year. he was always the best musician in the band but his playing is just perceivably even better somehow on the '03 shows i've heard

he was always the best musician in the band

whoa, you can't just drop this bomb without elucidating! I'm not a musician but it does seem to me this is a band without a weak link in the proficiency department. That said, I don't necessarily hear Fish as a cut above the other guys. Then again, I haven't been bingeing like you have!

i wasn't necessarily a true believer before this project but fishman is legit one of the best drummers to ever play the instrument

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZwRQ6bsm_k

ok i spoiled myself a little and watched this

holy shit

Right? The wooks can call this 4.0 all they want if we get tasty jams like this.

undermind: i find this album very confusing. i think the approach must've been white album-esque, every song presenting a different angle of the band, but that's ultimately why it reminds me so much of a picture of nectar (which, ugh) while also sounding broadly kind of like an album a mid-'00s indie rock band released during their country phase? i really feel that during "the connection," immediately one of my favorite phish studio songs. "a song i heard the ocean sing" is not only an obvious jam vehicle but sounds formed itself out of a jam which is a very good thing and i can't wait to hear it in sets. "scents and subtle sounds" is a pretty cool song, i really loved it during IT and the studio version... is a studio version. but "secret smile"'s string-soup production doesn't work and is at odds with the sound of the rest of the record. idk. album does not make any sense to me as a follow-up to round room or as a phish album experience

headphones jam: i had to write the above about undermind really quickly so i could get into the profoundly emotional response i am having to the headphones jam. they recorded this before they started tracking undermind and somehow their congealed unconscious minds were still capable of producing something of near-tower jam quality. if you like phish that is totally disconnected from songcraft and instead wired into banks of smoking electronics this is your jam. atmospheric, funky, confident, moving from mode to mode like ocean waves gently collapsing into each other. a true follow-up to the siket disc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4kbsZOCf_U

who among you knew that i would be posting a video of the '04 saratoga "piper" well before i heard it

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

i can't write sentences and that youtube video didn't embed so lol. amazing jam, though, if you haven't heard it it's 35 minutes of ... hard to describe

2.0 is 2.over!!!

6/19-6/20/04: both of these shows have faltering first sets and all-time second sets that are vast psychedelic continuums that happen to proceed from interconnected phish songs. 6/19 starts with a fine "reba," a fine "runaway jim," my least favorite phish earworm "nicu," and then finally starts massing into something huge and unrecognizable with "scents and subtle sounds" and a "wolfman’s brother" that kinda recalls the microfunk versions of early europe ’97. then they play "walls of the cave," a song that opens them up profoundly literally every time they play it, and the only jam in the first set that forecasts the second

which, "a song i heard the ocean sing" > "piper" is about as close as music gets to feeling endless, for me. not in the sense that it’s really long, it is, but more like how the horizon never ends, you can run toward it but you’ll never actually reach it, it just scrolls forever. that is this show’s "piper." my hatred of "gotta jiboo" does not translate to live versions, it always sounds amazing, i’ll just always wish someone had written lyrics. and the set descends from its peak rather literally with "limb by limb"

6/20, is, if anything, a more awkward first set and a more locked in second set, but i prefer the show all around tbh. every jam is like those staring-into-the-void moments during agharta. i don’t think i’ve heard them plunge so thoroughly into this sound since ’98, with the new threads of trey just shredding nonstop, cf. the massive "drowned" jam (best phish covers: 1. "roses are free" 2. "drowned"); and the ’03/’04 tendency to get quiet and contemplative until the music sort of sounds like four harmonized throbbing pulses. set two: a three song fugue, "seven below" > "ghost" > "twist," which may explore literally every dimension of phish, followed by a lovely "yem." a set like this is hard to process knowing they were going to break up in another month, as they sound totally engaged and like they’re still capable of surprising themselves… it’s just weird, i’m familiar the circumstances that cut off 2.0 just as it had achieved liftoff, and they register as much sadder to me when i’m listening to a show like this

goodbye phish 2.0!!! you are much better than the fans think, and ’03 is a year i’m going to explore a lot more in depth in the future

2.0:
- round room ✓
- the victor disc ✓
- 12/31/02 madison square garden, new york, ny ✓
- 2/28/03 nassau coliseum, uniondale, ny ✓
- IT (documentary + 8/2-8/3/03) ✓
- 11/28/03 nassau coliseum, uniondale, ny ✓
- undermind ✓
- headphones jam ✓
- 6/19/04 saratoga performing arts center, saratoga springs, ny ✓
- 6/20/04 saratoga performing arts center, saratoga springs, ny ✓

All this archival talk is great but are u watching the tour happening live right now

i watched the "tweezer" from 8/1

and i'll be seeing them in atlantic city, which is why i'm doing this crazy project

here’s what i got going for 3.0 so far:

- joy
- party time
- 11/28/09 times union center, albany, ny
- 10/30/10 atlantic city, nj

I listened to a Punch You in the Eye a few nights ago and I've been mulling over the purchase of a hacky sack.

joy: hilarious thing to me about this album, produced by steve lillywhite, is the opening sequence is identical to billy breathes: sorta soothing rocker > total rager > ballad. i also like this album much more than undermind, which... i think i like a lot of songs on undermind individually but hate them all together in that order. here the track order doesn't seem calculated to pull the floor out from under me on every song, and that's good. the lyrics have gotten cornier, somehow, but the songcraft behind them feels restored, confident yet relaxed. in other words i could see myself listening to this album on purpose. i think page's obligatory track destroys the mood unfortunately, and they would've done better to include something instead from...

party time: obv an outtakes collection, every song on joy feels interrelated and this instead seems to pick up every ragged end of the phish sound. my particular favorite is "if i told you," aka the dawning of electro phish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpPIvLXV5e0

i also love "gone," for my money the best song trey's written since round room, completely at a loss as to why it isn't on joy

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

my vote for "phish song i don't want to hear at a show ever again" is "nicu"

song i wanna hear at every phish show: "seven below"