Phree Your Mind
November 11, 1995 - Spin
By Richard Gehr
Looking for a miracle now that Jerry's gone? Phish's magical mystery tour
may
be your road to nirvana.
Among the post-hippie rock group Phish's many civilized qualities is its
subsidy of a volunteer cleanup crew dubbed, not surprisingly, the Green
Crew.
In exchange for supplying recycling bags in parking areas and helping to
pick
up after the show, the Vermont quartet spots these dozen-odd tour-heads
gas
money, tickets, the occasional dinner, and handsome North Face parkas
subtly
embossed with the band's piscine logo. During one of the dozen or so Phish
shows I've seen over the past year, a lanky and serious team member named
Squirrel told me that before he lit out with Phish, he used to be a
Deadhead.
"But," he said, "you kind of realize they're old and in the way. And
besides," he added with pride,"the Dead's trash crew doesn't pick up half
the
stuff we do."
As of August 9, of course, comparisons with the Grateful Dead are
essentially
moot. Which isn't to say that Phish members didn't grieve when Jerry
Garcia
died. "Every speck of me wishes he was still alive," bassist Mike Gordon
said
at the time. But Phish's lineage extends wider and deeper than the late
'60s.
Formed more than a decade ago in crunchy Burlington, Vermont, where the
quartet still resides, Phish is rock music's biggest dirty little secret.
A
radio nonentity, and only relatively lucrative in terms of record sales,
Phish grossed more than $10 million on the road in 1994, making them one
of
the country's most successful touring bands. And with the Dead's road
karma
in serious retrograde, Phish may soon find itself with more fans than the
relatively intimate venues they've stuck to so far can comfortably
accommodate. Thus one fan's online suggestion of banners reading WELCOME
TO
YOUR PHIRST PHISH SHOW...NOW GO HOME!!
As the most visible and exciting example of '90s improvised rock, Phish
has
much to answer for-especially to tight-assed adherents of alternative
rock.
"A lot of the difference between us and other bands," suggests guitarist
and
Nirvana fan Trey Anastasio diplomatically, "is that our personality
emerges
through the music and not the lyrics. At best, we're not striking a pose
and
we're comfortable with who we are and whatever our emotion happens to be
at
that time. We've always tried to focus on change as central to the whole
Phish thing. Everytime we go onstage we try to do something we've never
done
before."
Phish was spawned as a cover band in late 1983, playing its first gig at
an
ROTC Christmas formal until an unappreciative DJ slapped on Thriller. "I
think we played 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' about three times that
night," recalls Anastasio, a scruffy, bearded redhead who possesses the
guileless affability of an Irish setter. After Anastasio's semester-long
hiatus from the University of Vermont, the band reformed as rocking
progressives dedicated to flooring the group dynamic. With the loss of
original guitarist Jeff Holdsworth, the foursome-consisting then as now of
Anastasio, Gordon, keyboardist Page McConnell, and drummer Jon "Fish"
Fishman-began spending long hours rehearsing Anastasio's complex
compositions.
Through ceaseless woodshedding-"practicing for the sake of practicing,"
says
Gordon-Phish evolved into a mutant musical hybrid, with each of the four
bringing something distinct to the table. "Mike started the bluegrass
thing,"
says Anastasio. "He wanted to cover Bill Monroe's 'Uncle Pen' early on.
Page
wanted to learn jazz standards, Fish wanted to play calypso and hardcore,
and
I was writing these atonal fugues I wanted everybody to learn first."
In tried-and-true jam-band tradition, Phish self-released its first album,
Junta, in 1988. Its second, Lawn Boy, was picked up by Elektra, for whom
they've recorded four subsequent discs: A Picture of Nectar, Rift, Hoist,
and
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