The Language of PHISH July 23, 1993 - Boston Globe by Paul Robicheau The wacky world of Phish runs deep. On the surface, the Vermont band dips into everything from art-rock to bluegrass, from barbershop quartets to free-flowing jams and loopy lyrics. Then people pick up on the fact that band members sometimes bounce on mini-trampolines while they jam, or that drummer Jon Fishman may "solo" by cupping his mouth to a vacuum hose. "Really, anything we do is just because it's fun," says guitarist-singer Trey Anastasio, on the phone from his home outside Burlington, before a summer tour that includes a headlining show at Great Woods tomorrow. "Some things just stay, and other things don't," Anastasio says of odd supplements to Phish's revolving repertoire of more than 100 songs per tour. "The vacuum cleaner has stayed. It has weathered the test of time. We'll just throw some idea out, like 'Let's do it,' and sometimes we just look like idiots." However, there's more to Phish than meets the casual eye. Last year, the group began throwing big, inflated balls to the crowd at mid-set -- a gambit that other bands, such as Jethro Tull, have done before. But Phish doesn't ignore the bouncing balls while fans have their fun. Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon and keyboardist Page McConnell each play according to the action of one of the three balls, while drummer Fishman burns a groove. "It's up to each [band member] to do whatever they want," the guitarist says. "You can sort of make it up, 'Well, when the ball goes toward the back of the room, I'll be playing at the low end of the fretboard, and when the ball comes to the front, I'll go higher, and rhythmically, I'll be playing [a certain way] each time they bounce it.' One thing that started happening, that everyone knows now, is if [the fans] grab the ball and hold on to it, it's a sustained note, and if the ball goes up in the air, it's a staccato note." To collect the balls, Anastasio, Gordon and a stage hand make a hoop with their arms, and the crowd quickly directs the balls to the target. It's all part of Phish's symbiotic relationships with it's fans, many of whom follow the group from show to show. "I really like the concept of the listener being creative in the same way the musician's being creative, and leaving space for their own thing," Anastasio says. "I like it to be like an event. I feel really uncomfortable if I don't feel connected with the crowd in some way. That, to me, is more important than what you play. I still think we're striving to make an album that connects with people on the scale that our concerts do." For that matter, devout Phish heads strive to connect with live songs that aren't even on any of the band's four albums. The newly initiated might well scratch their heads at fanatics' shouts for "Wilson" or "The Lizards" -- songs from the land of "Gamehendge," a song cycle that Anastasio composed as his thesis at Vermont's liberal Goddard College in the mid-'80s. "It's basically legend -- in the strict sense of the word -- in that it's passed on. It's not on any album. You have to dig for it," Anastasio says. "That's something that we don't have in this culture anymore. There used to be storytellers." "Gamehendge" is a story of an imaginary land that draws from Anastasio's prior experience in writing children's songs with his mother, a former editor of Sesame Street magazine. In the story, the evil Wilson steals the Friendly Helping Book (the source of peace and harmony with nature) from the Lizard People and enslaves them. Revolutionaries succeed in stealing back the all-powerful book -- with the help of Col. Forbin and Famous Mockingbird, which has wings to reach the book's castle hiding place -- only to have one of them become a new dictator. "The whole Gamehendge thing is kinda about my youth too." says Anastasio. One of Anastasio's old school friends, Steve Pollak, still joins Phish on stage now and then as the "Dude of Life." "He pops up pretty often, and likes to pop up in places where you'd never expect it," says Anastasio, recalling an Alabama show where the audience walked out on the Dude's shtick. Last New Year's Eve at Northeastern, Pollack came out in a rubber mask, pushing a lawnmower, and sang a cover of "Diamond Girl." That show became notorious, both for its added props and because it was broadcast on WBCN-FM -- which Phish took as a chance to "play with people's minds." So read a handout at the door which asked fans to react to band-held signs, such as one calling for "mass hysteria" during the tale of a spaceship attacking the arena. "I like having my mind played with," Anastasio says. "You go to a carnival, and you go into the hall of mirrors because you want to have your mind played with." He says he's not worried about newcomers at Great Woods who fail to understand the offbeat language of Phish. "We haven't really had that kind of commercial success yet," says Anastasio, whose band had sold 11,000 advance tickets for Great Woods by early this week. "The people who are coming are still coming through word of mouth, and that means they've probably heard tapes, or probably have friends who are into the whole thing who have explained it to them. So I don't think it's going to be much of a worry. I think if we had a No. 1 hit or MTV success, that would be a problem."