It was a hell of a night! I was pretty interested in Phish before seeing them live, but hooked solid well before the end of the first set.

To my somewhat eternal dismay, I skipped the following night, also at the GAMH and the show at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz later that weekend as I was preparing for my A exam in grad school on 11/1/91. I also skipped most of the 10/31/91 GD run that year.

Being that responsible was silly. I still failed the exam! I might as well have had fun :-) "

So we're two weeks out now and people are starting to look for clues. There's no album game to play this year, so here's what people are speculating about. Since I don't know anything, I can just play along.

Rumor: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Selling England by the Pound - Genesis

Source: The image of a Halloween ticket really looks a lot like a random poster for a Philly Genesis poster

Case For: Those are rather similar images. Remember how they had a banana image for the calendar when they did Loaded? There was a hint! Also TLLDoB has been rumored for 98 and was a finalist last year.

Case Against: The Dog Faced Boy is also very similar to a standard image of the guy. Also it's not exactly an image associated with Genesis; few people knew about that random poster before a week ago. Musically, it has the issue of being an unknown entity for the fans whereas they usually try to have one or two songs that everyone would know.

Rumor: A Night at the Opera - Queen

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In observance of my own neglect, the Monday Mystery Jam will again be postponed until Tuesday this week.

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The earliest scrawlings on the walls of Phish's online cave date to 1990, when just a dozen fans started a regular email CC-list to keep in touch. By summer of that year, about 50 people were using a mailing list (or "reflector") at "phish@world.std.com" to talk about the band. The assemblage of fans, although swelling, was small enough that most of these folks knew each other, and all about each other's offline lives - something that would change dramatically over the years.

All the same, the hallmarks of online Phish traffic certainly emerged in these nascent communities: trading of the recordings, swapping of setlists and show reviews, plans to meet up, gossip, rumors, recommendations for other bands, and general celebration of a band that was very much a celebration of music...Indeed, Phish's initial online energy was particularly instrumental in the geographical expansion of their fan base, allowing the band to take otherwise premature tours westward with the assurance that fans would fill venues far from their native New England soil.

"My biggest concern was they were going to trash the place up," said Tiger, who had a change of heart when Great Northeast promised a rigorous cleanup and numerous announcements for concertgoers to respect the land. "They didn't leave a cigarette butt," he said.

“

A mobile phone app to stream and download Phish concerts after they happen received the Best Touring App award during the Billboard Music App Awards at the Billboard Mobile Entertainment Live! conference today in San Francisco. Up against Bonnaroo’s festival app by Aloompa and the R5 music venue app from Ticketfly, Live Phish clinched the award with a series of key features that’s driving sales.

Brad Serling, CEO of Live Phish builder Nugs.net said more than 10,000 fans of the touring jam band downloaded the app during its first week, and 17% of those downloaders went on to purchase concert audio as well as Phish back catalog items through the app. “

”

"Smegma, dogmatigram, fish market stew."
"Walking across the lawn, stepped upon a log."
"Tipsy, fuddled, boozy, groggy, elevated prime did edit her."

These are the lyrics of Phish. These are the fun, linguistic acrobatics that entertain us. But, from time to time, things get serious we have to acknowledge that we are human, and we have lives, and we have families. Those, too, shape us and our experiences. I think it's common for fans to forget that their favorite entertainers have lives off the stage, and from time to time, those fans can be both rabid and unforgiving.

When I began to read online comments deriding Trey's new ballad, Summer of '89, I was a bothered. When I heard the song debut in Hartford, I thought of it as a light little set-interlude, punctuated by the "and we danced all night" refrain. I wasn’t especially excited about it, but I certainly wasn’t offended by it. On repeat listening, though, I’m feeling differently.

I hope we're mature enough as a community to recognize Summer of '89 for what it is: a nice, gentle love song from Trey to his wife. Phish is on the road a lot - less these days, with Shakespeare camp and school vacation commitments - but it seems only fair that once in a while, they can use the stage to remind their family how much they mean to them, especially give the fact that most songwriters write lyrics that touch on their personal lives, while our rock stars tend to sing about imaginary friends, getting raped in the forest on an owl hunt, syrup thieves, aggressive reflections, and, oh yeah... good ol, classic masturbation.

The other day, I was driving along and Summer of '89 came on, and I listened to the lyrics seriously for the first time. What is it other than an intimate glance into Trey's love life? Weaving a grass ring, a particular, frequently-worn dress, a shared phase of Brazillian music. And then? "On the road when our first was born in the summer of '95." I actually felt a tear well up in my crusty old ducts, one that betrayingly fought its way up, but ultimately, I was just able to hold back. But it connected with me, because the idea of being away from my kids for more than a few days makes me sad, let alone a tour, or missing something as monumental as their birth.

I consider this light little tune, and I realize that behind the simple rhymes are not just memories that make one smile, but a little bit of regret. Regret about how it was simpler then. Regret about missing time with children. Regret in the moment: we used to dance all night, but now... well, now we don't.

Singing about kids often chokes me up, and this is coming from someone who almost never cries. I’m not ashamed to admit that there was a day a few years ago when, upon hearing the “smiles awake you when you rise” verse of The Beatles’ Golden Slumbers, I suddenly and uncontrollably wept like a baby thinking of my daughter. As a parent, I don’t see any problem with reflecting on the life you’ve built with your family and being wise enough to see your successes and man enough to admit your regrets and mistakes. To me, this was Trey reflecting on his life with his family. A little bit of happy memory, a little bit of bittersweet. But honest. Like Joy, it's hard not to see something raw underneath the veneer of playfulness that usually coats Phish and Phish-derivative offerings.  

Say what you will about Summer of ‘89 - it’s weak compositionally, it’s mushy and out of place at a Phish concert, its chordiness makes it musically unchallenging, it’s not manly enough, it’s unnecessarily sappy, it’s a too-intimate glance into private emotions... to me, those are all excuses. You don’t have to love the song, but to suggest that it’s bad because it’s different just seems disingenuous and uncharacteristic of Phish phans.

But then... what do I know? I likeTime Turns Elastic.

Read more...

"Smegma, dogmatigram, fish market stew."
"Walking across the lawn, stepped upon a log."
"Tipsy, fuddled, boozy, groggy, elevated prime did edit her."

These are the lyrics of Phish. These are the fun, linguistic acrobatics that entertain us. But, from time to time, things get serious we have to acknowledge that we are human, and we have lives, and we have families. Those, too, shape us and our experiences. I think it's common for fans to forget that their favorite entertainers have lives off the stage, and from time to time, those fans can be both rabid and unforgiving.

When I began to read online comments deriding Trey's new ballad, Summer of '89, I was a bothered. When I heard the song debut in Hartford, I thought of it as a light little set-interlude, punctuated by the "and we danced all night" refrain. I wasn’t especially excited about it, but I certainly wasn’t offended by it. On repeat listening, though, I’m feeling differently.

I hope we're mature enough as a community to recognize Summer of '89 for what it is: a nice, gentle love song from Trey to his wife. Phish is on the road a lot - less these days, with Shakespeare camp and school vacation commitments - but it seems only fair that once in a while, they can use the stage to remind their family how much they mean to them, especially give the fact that most songwriters write lyrics that touch on their personal lives, while our rock stars tend to sing aboutimaginary friends, getting raped in the forest on an owl hunt, syrup thieves,aggressive reflections, and, oh yeah... good ol, classic masturbation.

The other day, I was driving along and Summer of '89 came on, and I listened to the lyrics seriously for the first time. What is it other than an intimate glance into Trey's love life? Weaving a grass ring, a particular, frequently-worn dress, a shared phase of Brazillian music. And then? "On the road when our first was born in the summer of '95." I actually felt a tear well up in my crusty old ducts, one that betrayingly fought its way up, but ultimately, I was just able to hold back. But it connected with me, because the idea of being away from my kids for more than a few days makes me sad, let alone a tour, or missing something as monumental as their birth.

I consider this light little tune, and I realize that behind the simple rhymes are not just memories that make one smile, but a little bit of regret. Regret about how it was simpler then. Regret about missing time with children. Regret in the moment: we used to dance all night, but now... well, now we don't.

Singing about kids often chokes me up, and this is coming from someone who almost never cries. I’m not ashamed to admit that there was a day a few years ago when, upon hearing the “smiles awake you when you rise” verse of The Beatles’ Golden Slumbers, I suddenly and uncontrollably wept like a baby thinking of my daughter. As a parent, I don’t see any problem with reflecting on the life you’ve built with your family and being wise enough to see your successes and man enough to admit your regrets and mistakes. To me, this was Trey reflecting on his life with his family. A little bit of happy memory, a little bit of bittersweet. But honest. Like Joy, it's hard not to see something raw underneath the veneer of playfulness that usually coats Phish and Phish-derivative offerings.

Say what you will about Summer of ‘89 - it’s weak compositionally, it’s mushy and out of place at a Phish concert, its chordiness makes it musically unchallenging, it’s not manly enough, it’s unnecessarily sappy, it’s a too-intimate glance into private emotions... to me, those are all excuses. You don’t have to love the song, but to suggest that it’s bad because it’s different just seems disingenuous and uncharacteristic of Phish phans.

But then... what do I know? I likeTime Turns Elastic.

Read more...

The federal criminal case against the Las Vegas based Wiseguys ticket scalpers who broke into the Ticketmaster ticketing system and scooped up all the available tickets for the Phish Hampton reunion, Bruce Springsteen and other popular acts can move forward.

Federal District Judge Katharine Hayden rejected the defendants' claims (supported by some civil rights groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation) that they might have violated the TM site's terms of service, but not criminal law by their automated bots which snapped up all available ticket searches at the moment that tickets went onsale. The court set a trial date for March 1, 2011 in Newark, NJ.

See previous blog entries here.

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“I don’t want to give it away,” Anastasio told me recently. “We’re already learning it, and I’m having the same experience I have every year: You hear that first song, you think you know how the song line goes and how the vocal line goes, but then you learn it exactly and you find out it’s different.”

Phans going to North Charleston next week may want to check out a pre-show at the Aloft Hotel. According to the promoters:

“Aloft Hotel in North Charleston will be throwing the official pre-Phish concert party on Saturday, October 16, from 1 to 6 p.m. and we wanted to share some quick details for those interested in attending.

We would encourage you to come up early and check out music from Charleston favorites Weigh Station and DJ sets by Robert Rice. Music will kick off around 2:30 p.m. and delicious and healthy food is available for purchase from Roti Rolls, known for their locally sourced meats and veggies. If you need passes or wish to be added to our list, please email us. The cost to get in is $10 in advance, and we expect to sell out during the week of the shows. This is a small enough city and word gets around - so if you plan to attend, start making arrangements now!”

To reserve tickets, email the promoters at jasoncronen@gmail.com .

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Mystery Jam Monday will be pushed back to Tuesday. Thank you for your continued support of the Mystery Jam Series.

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P.S. Don’t worry so much about getting paid! Like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, focus on building a sticky platform/attraction first. The money will come after! It may not even come in ways you can foresee! Stop talking about getting paid and start building your tribe! Fans of acts will give them ALL their money. Then again, listening to a track once, enduring it on the radio, is different from becoming a fan. If you’re not in the fan business, you don’t have a career. And if you don’t have a career, you’re not gonna make any money, not for long anyway.

Cash or trade wants to know. Read their short essay and take their survey here, and discuss on the Phish.net forum here.

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