Phish swims out of the mainstream June 9, 1995 - Denver Rocky Mountain News By Michael Mehle A hit single isn't the hook While writing new material for their next studio album, the members of Phish paid particular attention to a certain song. Amid lengthy improvisations that veer off into Dixieland jazz, bluegrass jams or a cappella skatting, this one definitely stood out. ''It's short. It's catchy. It's melodic,'' bassist Mike Gordon says about the song in question. ''The manager says that's the one he worries about.'' Such are the worries for Phish, a Vermont four-piece band that steers clear of the obvious avenues to commercial success. While most bands treat the hit single as the Holy Grail, Phish sniffs at the elusive Top 40 smash as if it were week-old egg salad. They don't want any part of it. So skeptical of having Casey Kasem introduce their work, the members have half-jokingly considered throwing the radio-repelling ''F word'' between verses of the short, catchy song their manager worries about. ''That's been the attitude about singles,'' Gordon says. ''Our biggest fear is that suddenly the concerts would be filled with people that have only heard that one song. And our fans don't want to hear those songs they hear on the radio. They want to hear what's obscure. They write us hate mail if we start playing certain songs too much.'' And what's more, Phish (which plays Red Rocks tonight and Saturday night) doesn't need a hit single. The Phish phenomenon has transpired well outside the lines of America's mainstream media machinery. Radio still has no place for the band's 15-minute songs, and MTV will begin featuring Phish about the same time it stops rerunning Beavis and Butt- head episodes. (Presumably, no time in this millennium.) Yet the band from Burlington, Vt. remains one of the nation's top concert draws, grossing more than $ 10 million on its last tour, while selling 600,000 tickets to 100 concerts. Its albums continue to sell steadily, and about 85, 000 fans now receive the Phish newsletter. On top of all that, the band nearly had what it never wanted last year when the album Hoist actually spawned a pair of songs that made their way to radio. As an answer to that unexpected, unrequested success, the band has returned to its roots for its next release, a live CD due out June 20. ''We thought that it was time to swing back in the other direction and show people what we really were, and that's a live phenomenon,'' Gordon says. A Live One includes 125 minutes of music, but just 12 songs, five of them never released on a studio album. In other words, there's a lot of extraneous jamming in those two hours. In fact, the album features a 35-minute version of Tweezer and a 20-minute version of You Enjoy Yourself. For those who haven't seen Phish live, the album also helps distinguish the band from its obvious reference point - the Grateful Dead. Yes, there are unavoidable comparisons, namely unwieldy jams, fanatical followings and ever- changing shows. Yet Phish's style is markedly different than the Dead's, encompassing several different genres ranging from pop to jazz to bluegrass all in a single song. The band has spent another three months rehearsing for this summer's tour, an exorbitant amount of time for most bands, but standard operating procedure for Phish. Band members spend five hours a day, five days a week together conducting ''exercises to open our ears'' to prepare for their improvised live show. ''Essentially, we practice jamming,'' the bassist says. After the tour, the band will rehearse some more with no clear objective. ''We got into the habit of practicing for a tour or for an album'' Gordon says. ''We wanted to take away the goal-oriented aspect, and we ended up just experimenting, sort of like we did in the old days.'' The band's in no hurry to record its next project, which Gordon hints might be an acoustic musical written by guitarist Trey Anastasio. And they'll do what they can to avoid recording the unretractable hit single. ''A hit single - that's the fear,'' Gordon says. ''Because that hit single can sometimes be the curse of death.''