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Underground > Radio & Music >

Phish

18:22 / 01.06.05

I searched and googled it, and no, there has been no Phish thread yet.

They are such a wonderful band and I can listen to their music every day, it just gets better and better. Since I´m not good at explaining music, I link to the appropriate sites:

Phish Homepage

good explanation about the band

downloadable music

"Phish has a cult-like following larger than any other rock band in history with the possible exception of the Grateful Dead. For several consecutive years, they were consistently ranked as one of music's top grossing concert acts, and were a genuine cultural phenomenon, complete with their own flavor of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, an appearance on The Simpsons, and the record for the largest millennium concert in the entire world."

"During their entire 21 year career, Phish never repeated the same concert setlist twice. Every single show was completely different from one another, and every version of each song was played differently than other versions."

My favourite records are Billy Breathes, Picture of Nectar and Rift.

Phish 1983 - 2004

21:08 / 01.06.05

I also love Phish: not so much their music, as the philosophy behind it.

22:04 / 01.06.05

Phish are real heroes of mine. And Sting. Sting would be another person who's a hero. The music he's created over the years, I don't really listen to it, but the fact that he's making it, I respect that.

08:44 / 02.06.05

Sting remind me of police, and that reminds me of this:

Trey Anastasio (Phish guitarist, composer and lead singer) and former Police drummer Stewart Copeland formed a band called Oysterhead with Primus bassist and bandmaster Les Claypool.

Listening to the record Grand Pecking Order is a lot of fun. It has some similarities to Kraut rock.

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:46 / 02.06.05

That fall, Phish engaged in the most extreme audience participation game in their history. The band challenged the audience to a chess game. A huge chessboard would be lowered down on stage before the show and in between sets. The band would make a move, and then a representative from the audience would make their move based on votes tallied in the lobby. At the end of the tour, the band and audience tied 1-1.

Other great Phish stage gimmicks I have enjoyed: the one where they all emerged from strange translucent pods (pity about that time the bass player got stuck!); the one where a replica of Stonehenge descended from the ceiling.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:45 / 02.06.05

Has M.I.A got her own flavour of ice cream? I don't believe she has, motherfucker.

Advantage, Phish.

16:01 / 02.06.05

Ah, but does M.I.A. have an e-mail fraud technique named after her? I rest my case.

Does anyone else find it telling that this band is named for a creature entirely averse to hooks?

19:20 / 02.06.05

Actually, Phish really fascinates me -- they seem almost entirely reliant on live shows rather than albums to create a fanbase. I've heard a few of their recordings (and one or two songs aren't bad), but I don't think I can say I really know Phish because I've never been to a show (and don't really want to go).

ONLY NICE THINGS

23:12 / 02.06.05

Actually, Phish really fascinates me -- they seem almost entirely reliant on live shows rather than albums to create a fanbase.

This seems to me oddly remeniscent of the Grateful Dead. Has there ever been a connection between Phish and "The Dead" before?

23:25 / 02.06.05

"Has there ever been a connection between Phish and "The Dead" before?"

do my eyes deceive me, or are there no sarcasm delemiters around that sentance?

01:33 / 03.06.05

Yeah, but the Dead kind of marketed themselves as a traveling bubble of the San Francisco scene -- they started with a strong identity/identification with that city's musical culture.

Phish come from where, Vermont?

Just how much did Phish rely on the Dead identification anyway? I mean, it seems like Phish were selling the Dead experience, in a way. Like their shows were a bubble of continued Deadness, a Haight-Ashbury twice removed.

06:21 / 03.06.05

Has there ever been a connection between Phish and "The Dead" before?

Of course, that´s how many people found out about Phish, coming from GD. IMO Phish are much better, and I stopped listening to GD years ago, they are too repetiticious.

Phish come from where, Vermont?

Yes, Phish was formed in 1983 at the University of Vermont.

13:16 / 03.06.05

I can't say I really know Phish

If every single show was completely different... and every version of each song was played differently which of us, truly, can say that we 'know' Phish ? I'm guessing even a couple of people in the band found the whole concept a bit deep, not to say slippery.

13:27 / 03.06.05

Those guys though... dude, they were fried

13:36 / 03.06.05

You know what I loved most about Phish? Their sense of "humor." There hasn't been such a "hilarious" "rock" "band" since the "heyday" of, oh... Frank Zappa.

18:28 / 04.06.05

And Zappa is a scrreeeeeeeeeeeaamm.

22:50 / 04.06.05

See, Zappais hit-or-miss for me, because (and here's the thing) he's a clever guy pretending to be stupid for effect.

Phish, though—they go the extra mile.

22:52 / 04.06.05

They're pish.

Aha

ha

ha.

13:34 / 05.06.05

Brah, stop drinking the Hatorade.

16:24 / 05.06.05

One thing about Phish that makes them stand out, in my mind, is that of the (many) friends I've had who went on tour with Phish, all of them have at some point or another said that they worry that Phish hates them.

There's a sort of Gnostic world-view in the parking lots of Phish shows, where the suspicion spreads that the band is just making up dumb songs to steal trust fund money from suburban white kids.

You know - evil deceiving creators bent on jailing the senses of the herd. A tie-dyed matrix warrior credo, if you will.