Phish Write-up

[john quinn]

Just thought y'all might like to see what Atlanta Journal staff writer Steve
Dollar said about Phish:
PHISH ANGLES FOR FUN WITH HALLOWEEN TRADITION
When the Vermont rock band plays the Omni on Thursday, the concert
promises to be even more unusual than most of the group's typically
open-ended performances. It is Halloween, after all, and along with a
sold-out house of intensely enthusiastic, "noodle dancing" fans--so-called
Phish Heads, who embrace the band much the way the Deadheads did the
Grateful Dead--the members of Phish will be in disguise.
Musical disguise. "We find it very difficult to play for a long time
in costume," says drummer Jon Fishman, who co-founded the group while at the
University of Vermont in 1983. "So we desided a better costume for us would
be to do someone else's songs."
Thus a tradition was born. The annual Phish Halloween show, which
hits a different city each year, is marked by a complete, nearly
note-for-note rendition of a celebrated album, performed in the middle of a
marathon, three-set concert. Previously, the band has saluted "The White
Album" and "Quadrophenia," works by two groups - the Beatles and the Who -
whose influence can be heard, along with the Dead, Frank Zappa and Sun Ra,
in Phish's ambitious, complex song structures, goofy art-rock
conceptualizing and jam-happy genre busting.
The irony, of course, is that the band's reputation is built on a
willingness to play for the moment, abandoning the rote set lists and studio
perfection comon to arena-sized rock shows. Though the release of its new
CD, "Billy Breathes" (Elektra), will help change the perception, Phish's
undistinguished recorded output has been mostly a byproduct of its
free-floating live performances, more artifact than art.That's one reason
its fans obsessively record (with the band's Ok) and trade concert tapes;
everything that matters happens onstage.
So, for a change, "We try to replicate the [cover] album as much as
possible,"Fishman continues. "We're jamming some of the songs out longer,
but the song parts themselves are the same."
Conjecture about which album Phish will chose rums rampant, but
Fishman narrows the field a hair. "It's going to be by an American band, an
American album, an '80s album. We did a '60s album and a '70s album, and now
an '80s. There's one song on it that everyone has heard, but it's not as
high-profile as 'The White Album.' But, then again, what is?"
The element of surprise helps to define a musical attitude that can
seem amorphous to a casual listener. Basicaly, at a Phish show, anything
goes. Fronted by scruffy guitarist Trey Anastasio, with Mike Gordan on bass
and Page McConnell on keyboards, the four shift individual roles with the
casual ease and sporting spirit of a volleyball game. They might veer, in a
few minutes, from a surreal eruption of blue-grass banjo to a mock-operatic
flourish to a lengthy guitar solo. Sources, in country music, jazz fusion,
reggae and '70s art-rock, flash by as if zapped be remote control.
Sometimes, the band comes up with inspired collisions of sounds
marked by the offbeat humor of its musical gamesmanship; other times, it
merely makes an indulgent mess:)
"We have the most incredibly patient audience that's willing to let
us take as many chances as we possibly can,"Fishman says. "We need to
approach it that way, too. 'Fearless' is a good description of how one
should be when playing music. The one thing about music - you know Bob
Marley sait it: 'Hit me with music'-when it hits, you feel no pain. You
can't hurt yourself by falling if your playing music. You're going to make
mistakes, and you're going to have shiny moments of articulating."

Well that's the article. I'm a little behind in my Digest readings so I
don't know what the recent subject of banter is, but I can't help but bring
up what Fishman said about the disguise album. An '80s album that eveyone
has heard one song off of. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sorry I'm dozing off so I'll bid everyone good night and see you on Halloween!

Alistair