Posts tagged Music

It recently occurred to me that 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of my love affair with four guys from Vermont otherwise known as Phish.  I’d like to cover two topics in one piece here: how I was introduced to the band, and my experiences with them, and a primer on what to listen for when listening to Phish.

The Introduction:

I can remember it almost like it was yesterday, my next-door neighbor, Bob talking my mother into letting me head up to Burlington with him and his friend Casey to go to a concert.  Needless to say, Bob failed to mention that this concert was going to take place in a tiny little bar that went (and still goes by to this day) by the name of Nectar’s.  Now I’m not entirely certain if Bob didn’t know someone at the door, bribed someone to get me in, or if things were just a bit looser in Burlington in those days, but I do remember being the youngest person there.  The way Phish had been explained to me was as a Grateful Dead cover band.  I’d started toying with the dead at around age 12, with Bob giving me a couple of great tapes (back in the days of tapers trading tapes by mail), one from Buffalo, the other from the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.  I guess Bob and Casey thought it was time for their young protégé to experience something close to the Dead live and in person, specifically by these up and comers hailing from Vermont.  I can’t even tell you what originals they played that night, but that was the first time I’d heard “Fire on the Mountain” performed live, as well as Jimi Hendrix’s seminal classic “Fire”.  I can remember that these four guys didn’t look particularly ‘star-like’, nor could they really sing all that well, but man o’ man, when it came time for the solos or pure instrumentals, these guys were truly dialed in. More >