Phish, Jim April 22, 1992 - Willamette Week (Portland) by Staff A show by the Vermont quartet Phish is the musical equivalent of TV's "Short Attention Span Theater". There doesn't seem to be a style of music these guys can't or don't play -- and play well. On "A Picture of Nectar", their debut release for Elektra Records, they jump from hyperkinetic funk to a Kenny Burell-style jazz guitar number to cornball Western swing complete with banjo, honky-tonk piano and pedal steel guitar. Determined to leave no stone unturned in it's quest for musical diversity, the band just as successfully tackles calypso a la Hendrix and Little Featish Dixie strut; one song, "Stash", sounds like Larry Carlton after someone slipped him a mickey ("I'm pullin' the pavement from under my nails, I brush past a garden dependant on whales/The sloping companion I cast down the ash, yanked on my tunic and dangled my stash."). Phish has specifically requested that Seattle's Jim open this show, and it's not difficult to see why. Although Jim doesn't show the headliners' knack for eclecticism, the band's psychedelic, arty music is informed by the same off-the-wall mentality. Don't forget to take your Ritalin. (Roseland 4/24 $12)