Phishing for some serious rock 'n' roll March 26, 1993 - San Francisco Examiner By Philip Elwood SANTA ROSA - I get an uneasy feeling when observers of the rock 'n' roll scene use such phrases as "and they are all obviously very good musicians" in their prose praises. For instance, from a Billboard story - "The members of Phish have lent a distinctively light side to their serious musicianship by jumping around on trampolines and wearing fruit on their heads." And, "(Phish) has emerged with an album that stresses its light-hearted approach to serious musicianship . . . and serious lyric content." From Rolling Stone magazine - "Wild stage antics aside, the members of Phish are extraordinarily serious students of music." As all loyal Phish-heads know, this rock-jazz-funk-bluegrass-western quartet from Vermont has been touring the nation's clubs for a decade, gaining a huge underground college-age following. Two years ago Elektra issued a Phish CD titled "A Picture of Nectar," hoping that the group's powerful instrumental work and songs would impress a general listening public that hadn't seen their stage shenanigans. "A Picture of Nectar" got heavy college-station underground airplay but little coverage elsewhere. Yet, even without a video it still sold more than 100,000 units. The second Phish CD ("Rift"/ Elektra 61433) has been recently released and the band, emerging from the rock-club underground, is now on tour playing the auditorium circuit. In the trim, rather sedate Luther Burbank Center on Wednesday, Phish presented a 31/2-hour show (with long intermission) before a bouncy young crowd of 850 that half-filled the auditorium. Phish has a Grateful Dead-like following, including recording-teams and wiggling, lurching Phish-head dancers in the lobby and aisles. They were there on Wednesday night as were high-school age kids hearing Phish for the first time, live. To my ears, or what's left of them, Phish's performance is so monstrously overamplified that any musical judgment is impossible. Guitarist Trey Anastasio, who writes and sings most of Phish's material, got into some extended solo stuff that burned hot; his singing (of some very clever lyrics, judging from the recordings) was all but submerged in the amplified surround-sound of Mike Gordon's bass and Jon Fishman's bass drum. Somehow surviving the audio overkill, the splendid piano and Hammond organ contributions of Page McConnell rang clear and true. Apart from the frightening claustrophobia that enveloping electronic sounds and subtones can create, Phish's music is exceptionally well-structured and tailored. And it's so eclectic that it frequently catches listeners and dancers off-guard. Meters accelerate and decelerate; rhythms shift, keys change, lead "melodic" lines break midway, moving to something else; instrumental solo breaks pop out of the ensemble like, well, a trout out of water - and the short lyric stanzas, often repeated, fit neatly into the rhythmic if not melodic pattern. For relief, the Phish instrumental foursome occasionally becomes the Phish (a capella) vocal quartet; drummer Fishman (or is it Phishman?) plays a barely audible trombone solo at one point, and Anastasio sometimes leads the crowd (on their feet, jumping around) in shouts and clapping. But no more vacuum cleaner solos, no trampoline on stage, no screwball antics; Phish is now taking its music seriously. I wish I could have deciphered more of it. Phish plays the Warfield Theater on Friday and Saturday nights and at Humboldt State in Arcata on Sunday. Article © 1993 San Francisco Examiner