Go Phish June 28, 1995 - Mann "In Concert" Magazine By Ed Condran Even though Phish fans collect bootlegs of their favorite band like President CLinton collects quarterpounders, there is a huge demand for their new release, A Live One, according to bassist Mike Gordon. "Even though we let people in our audience tape at our shows, people have been asking for a live album for awhile," Gordon said via telephone from Cleveland. "We would have put out a live album sooner, but we've been concentrating on making studio albums. We had to get this out of our system. We are very much a live band." Indeed, the band's last album, 1994's Hoist may have barely gone gold; however, the group proved to be one of the top grossing acts of the year. Phish, which plays Saturday and Sunday at the Mann Music Center, garnered $10.3 million on tour--selling 600,000 tickets to 99 concerts coast to coast. The group capped off its extraordinary year by selling out New York's Madison Square Garden and the Boston Garden. During the first two months of the new year the quartet, which also includes vocalist-guitarist Trey Anastasio, pianist Page McConnell, and drummer Jon Fishman, listened to tapes for hours on end before selecting the material which appears on teh double CD/double cassette. "I couldn't believe how long it took," Gordon said. "I was hoping to be able to work on some other projects but the live album turned out to be a full-time job." Six of the album's twelve tunes have never been released, having only been released at Phish shows. Nevertheless, fans are just as enthusiastic upon hearing those tunes thanks to the endless amount of bootlegs circulating. "It's really cool that the fans are all into all of our material," Gordon said. "They're a great bunch of people. I'm glad we have this live album for them. We had so much fun with it htat wemight do another one real soon." But don't bands release live albums as frequently as teams from Philadelphia win championships? "Bands don't release live albums much," Gordon admitted. "The record company (Elektra Entertainment) may not be pleased about releasing another live album, but if we want to that we'll do it. We don't always play by the rules." The most remarkable thing about the Burlington, Vermont band is that it has achieved so much success by plotting its own course. Phish has made just one video for MTV, "Down with Disease," which Gordon directed. Everyone in the band but the eloquent film major despised the clip. "I really enjoyed it because I wanted to direct something," Gordon said. "The rest of the band hated making it and hated watching it. They think it's a horrible piece of work. There will never be another Phish video." There have been no hit records. "We may hev tried in teh past to have them but we believe hits are a bad thing," Gordon said. "Our fans are there for every song. New people might be drawn by a hit and comejust to hear that song. Then we would be playing weirder and weirder music before and after playing that song live and they may decide not to come back. We don't need bigger crowds. We like things the way things have gone on with this band. We've experienced a natural, steady growth in most markets. It started off slowly in Philadelphia, but it sure has picked up." The band played Ardmore's defunct 23 East a number of times during the late '80s. Phish finally moved up the local food chain due to increasing demand. "It's funny since I remember trying to convince the guy who ran the 23 East to book us at the Chestnut Cabaret," Gordon recalled. "It took awhile but we got there and then we got to the Keswick (theater), the Tower (theater) and the Mann." The group's tour ends two weeks after its shows at the Mann. According to Gordon, the group will start working on an acoustic CD-ROM whic will also be released as an album. The project, dubbed Gamhenge, is a musical Anastasio wrote eight years ago while in school. "It's going to be an unplugged album. The songs have characters which relate to the story Trey wrote. There's a little narration between each song. Gamhenge won't be promoted in the way a new album would be though. We don't want people to think that this is an album of brand new songs." Even though Phish has almost enough material for a new studio release album, the band won't record it until the fall of '96. "We'd like to go in right after this tour and do it but we're just going to wait," Gordon said. "We don't want to flood the record company with music." Gordon and the rest of the band have no problems with Elektra. The label has let Phish develop at its own pace. "The have always had a good attitude towards us. They're not the type of company that pushes or drops a band. They've been great with us. They just let us be the phenomenon we are."