Brett Gladstone brings us a great article that contains a well-done interview with former Phish frontman Trey Anastasio. In discussing everything from the drug use that ultimately torpedoed the Phish juggernaut to the difficulties in dealing with the fan backlash the followed Trey’s announcement that Phish was no more, Trey has finally come clean.

By the time Phish played its final show at Coventry, they had, like The Grateful Dead, become something more than a band – they were a lifestyle. And for thousands of disillusioned, pseudo-bohemian youths, they were a traveling home, as well as a bottomless vehicle for interpretation. The latter – propagated by fans armed with minute statistics about Phish’s musical habits – sharpened as the band’s live performances dulled and their albums veered from the majestic intricacy, atonality and extensive jamming of Anastasio’s early compositions.

“Groups,” Greil Marcus wrote in “Mystery Train,” are “reflections of community, and the problem with community is that you have to live in it.” Phish made their early music at a literal distance, walled up in the backwoods, only to find their world unexpectedly close in upon itself. The fans’ problems became their own, particularly Anastasio’s.

It’s always been my personal musical opinion that *SOMETHING* happened after Phish’s killer 4-show run in April of 1998 (known as The Island Tour, comprised of two gigs on Long Island and two in Rhode Island). The reckless precision, instrumental highwire acts and a sensibility of “clever” that never took itself too seriously begain to dissolve in sloppy, unfocused playing and aimless jams that often degenerated into a formless goo (misnamed by many fans as “ambient jamming”). As the fan “drugs of choice” shifted from pot and psychedelics to nitrous and Ecstacy, the overall scene turned darker. Parasites descended onto the scene, and the Phish organization got bigger and bigger in an effort to retain some semblance of order while the band struggled to cope with the responsibility. Reading Anastasio’s recounting of that time, it seems that those pressures brought other personal demons to the band’s inner circle, and Phish became exactly what they never wanted to be–Phish, Inc. This was a scenario all too familiar in the waning days of the Grateful Dead….the organization became so bloated and filled with hangers-on that they band was forced to tour beyond their wishes in order to support the machine.

Something had to give, and it did.

Personally, I applaud Trey’s decision to break up the band….if he couldn’t bridge the gap between where Phish was and where he wanted them to go and the fallout from that struggle was harmful to band and fans alike, then his decision was the only right thing to do.

I’m grateful for the music and good times, lifetime friends made, a multitude of ideas that have catalysed my career, and for inspiring future generations of risk-taking bands who want to do it their own way. I hope the rich legacy of the live Phish vault continues to be mined for gems. And even though I’m personally not knocked out by the music Trey is making as a solo act, I hope he’s finding it rewarding and he certainly deserves as much…and he doesn’t owe anybody anything.

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Phish has announced the official release of their show from Madison Square Garden on December 31, 1995. I’m very stoked about this….12/31/95 has been at the top of my wish list for official release.

12/31/95 was one of several crucial peaks that Phish hit over their years, and many (probably myself included) consider this particular peak a notch above the rest. Don’t get me wrong…their other peaks were certainly worthy of nothing but gushing praise (plenty of August 93, Nov 94 Fall 97 & the Island Tour for example) but 12/31/95 rode the perfect plane between flawlessly executed composed sections nailed with dead-on precision, and reckless experimental abandon that explored moments of trancendence that were questioning and profound at the same time. “Tentative” was an adjective absent from Phish’s vernacular in December 1995. Their playing revealed a sense of urgency (not to be confused with hurried which has a different qualitative energy) and deftness of touch that changed into something slightly looser after this show.

So more than just being a totally over-the-top performance, I believe this show has historical significance and it marks both a completion and a beginning for the band. There have been ok-sounding audience recordings made from the taper’s section in circulation, and a couple of the tracks also circulate in FM quality having been broadcast on Kevin Shapiro’s “From the Archives” shows that were played during past festivals. That said, many of the audience recordings December 95 tend to be somewhat boomy and lacking in crisp detail. This is due to Phish sound czar Paul Languedoc working with a new sound system better capable of providing the sonic assault needed in the size of the arenas the band was now playing in. This unintentionally put a bit too much emphasis on Trey’s vocals, made Mike’s bass sound muddy and indistinct and left the quieter playing of Trey and Page lost in the mix. So much of the magic that is Phish is in the nuances….there are nimble bass lines and subtle electric piano fills that even the best audience recordings fail to capture. If this show is given the full multi-track treatment with a killer mix, it will truly be heard for the first time in all its glory.

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Looks like archive.org got the greenlight to begin hosting live shows from Phil Lesh & Friends in lossless FLAC and SHN formats as well as MP3 and Ogg.

For those who have been out of touch with the activities of the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, bassist Phil Lesh began playing a few one-off shows with some of his favorite musicians in early 1998. These early Phil & Friends shows had some great moments (I encourage you to download the soundboard of the 8/8/98 show which some call the best performance of Grateful Dead music since Jerry Garcia’s death) but 1999 was really the year that Phil & Friends found their muse. Phil underwent a liver transplant in December 1998, and his first public shows in 1999 were in April at the Warfield Theater where he joined forces with guitarist Trey Anasatio & keyboardist Page McConnell (both of the band Phish), guitarist Steve Kimock and drummer John Molo for 3 nights that remain favorites of many Dead and Phish fans. All three of these shows are available for free download in *STELLAR* sound quality (pristine digital soundboards) and all are essential listening.

Phil’s would go on to change his friends over the course of 1999, with a rotating cast of musicians that included Hot Tuna’s Jorma Kaukonen (guitar), String Cheese Incident’s Kyle Hollingsworth (keys) and Michael Kang (electric mandolin and violin), moe.’s Al Schiner (guitar), and Warren Haynes (guitar). Phil made it a policy of not announcing which Friends would be playing at which shows which made for a series of surprises and a great run of summer shows, particularly the 8/17-8/22 run. The 3 shows in early October 10/7-10/9 were among the best of the year and are also worth hearing.

After this set of shows, guitarist Steve Kimock left (Kimock had been the one constant in every Phil & Friends shows) and Phil reinvented the group in 2000. He played at his own 60th birthday party in a Phil & Friends lineup that included guitarist Robben Ford and then in the fall emerged with a lineup that remained consistent for the next 3 years. That lineup included Rob Barracco (keys), Warren Haynes (guitar), Jimmy Herring (guitar) and drummer John Molo. This quintent was a force to be reckoned with….almost like the genetic fusion of the Grateful Dead circa 1974 with Return to Forever. Stellar improv played with a musical verbosity that the Dead never engaged in (perhaps "indulged in" is a better choice of words). Many of these shows were released through the Internet by Phil himself who had them mixed from the soundboard and put on a series of FTP servers. Many of the shows this lineup played are worth having (11/30/03 and the 9/25-9/27/03 run in particular) and it look like more shows are being queued up for inclusion in the archive.

Back in the old days, analog cassettes of live Grateful Dead shows were traded through the mail. Soundboard recordings were few and far between, and quality audience recordings were difficult to come by. Analog generations as cassettes were dubbed over and over again diluted the quality pool even further. Things have come a long way…..

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Joe Taylor over at Spinme.com posted this great cartoon that resonated with me this morning.  At around this time of the year, my anticipation for the fall Phish tour would be working its way to a frenzy.  It was more than just anticipation of a concert….the fall Phish tour was a time when I would see friends that I hadn’t seen all year.  Events of the prior year would be celebrated, the performances from the spring and summer tours would be discussed, argued about, and disected in the loving way that only true fan-boys (and girls) can do.  These gatherings that preceeded Phish concerts were a blast–it saddens me that they won’t be happening ever again.

The Phish community was amphibious…spending half its life on tour and the other half online.  It was one of the first online music communities to have a Usenet group (along with the Grateful Dead, The Beatles and Bob Dylan), and the first band to release live shows into that community through "tape trees", a physical and linear manifestation of the P2P model which has since been displaced by digital trading through Etree using Bit Torrent and FTP, with official live releases from the band coming through the groundbreaking LivePhish service.  The fan initiatives in setting up FAQs, tape trees and mailing lists facinated me, and were significant in laying the foundation for a lot of the online marketing work I would do in the years to come.  Some of these initiatives were striking….the "adopt a newbie" campaign got beginning Phish fans up the learning curve and put quality live recordings in their hands at no cost (except for the cost of a blank tape and a stamp).  The "People for a Louder Mike" was a grassroots movement of fans who wanted the volume of Phish bassist Mike Gordon turned louder at concerts.  Their concerns were heard, acknowleged and acted upon by the band.  And the Mockingbird Foundation was perhaps the ultimate example of fans taking it to the next level….a group of fanatics put together two volumes of a reference book about Phish, as well as a Phish tribute CD with all proceeds going to benefit music education for children.

These are just a few of the reasons that made Phish so special and created such loyalty.  You don’t need to be a jamband (or marketing a jamband) to take some cues from their methodology, and from enabling true participation from fans in the experience.  The facets of online community for which Phish layed the groundwork are equally impressive as their musical legacy….

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