Phish Stories November 28, 1996 - San Diego Union Tribune By James Herbert In the grand taxonomy of rock, there are two kinds of Phish. One is a little band from Vermont that plays loose, improvisational music rooted in folk, jazz and blues. The other is a cultural movement that has swelled up so large it has all but swallowed the band it formed around. There's Phish, and Phish Phenomenon. Phish devotees are so obsessed that they trade lists of every date on which every Phish song is known to have been played live over the past decade, and follow the band around the country in one great caravan of fandom. Phish keyboardist Page McConnell, meanwhile, is so obsessed with his own band that after cutting an album, he'll actually listen to it. For a little while. If he likes it. "For a couple of weeks after we finish recording, I'll play it for my friends," McConnell says. "But then I put it away and don't really listen to it." It's not so much that he doesn't enjoy the songs -- in fact, McConnell says of "Billy Breathes," Phish's seventh and latest record, that he is "really still in love with the album." It's more that Phish isn't the kind of band to stop and contemplate what it has wrought. When the quartet arrives at the San Diego Sports Arena for a performance Wednesday night, it will have been barely a year since its last show here, but a quantum leap forward in the band's profile and popularity. In the past year, Phish has firmly established itself as one of the biggest touring acts in rock (despite scant radio exposure); been the subject of a feature in Life magazine; played to huge crowds at its two-day Clifford Ball summer festival in New York state; and seen the graceful and engaging "Billy" raved about in Rolling Stone and elsewhere. Yet the members of Phish already are looking ahead, to their next album, their next tour, their next... comeback? Bracing for a backlash "We're anticipating a pretty healthy backlash from the media in the next year or two," explains McConnell, sounding oddly genial at the prospect. "And then eventually this sort of music will go out of style, lose popularity. "These things are going to happen. You've got to kind of anticipate them, and just understand that you're still the same band and you're still making the same kind of music, and just because not as many people like it or the critics don't like it doesn't mean it's not just as good as it was three years ago. "For a time, people like the darker, grunge sort of stuff," he says by way of example. "And then suddenly the shift, and they listen to Hootie & the Blowfish. Whatever it is, it goes in cycles. "I anticipate we're going to keep going for a long, long time. And we'll come out on the other side when this music starts to become popular again in the next cycle." "This music" is, roughly, the kind of jam-oriented rock practiced with great success of late by the likes of Blues Traveler, the Dave Matthews Band and Rusted Root, and in years past by that other traveling circus of a band, the Grateful Dead. But Phish throws plenty of other styles into the stew, everything from bluegrass to gospel to funk. At one point a few years ago, the entire band studied barbershop harmony, and in their last San Diego visit, Phish sang a rousing version of "Amazing Grace" in that style. Odd practices Phish's talent for improvisation is honed by odd practice regimens with even odder names ("Hey Hole" is one). With guitarist Trey Anastasio handling most of the songwriting, McConnell, bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jon Fishman contribute their musings to a sound that can range from R.E.M.-style jangle to art-rock epics, but can never be conveniently categorized. In some ways, "Billy" is a departure from Phish's past: The songs tend to be shorter and more conventionally crafted, and the album is suffused with a warmth that puts raw feeling ahead of the musical pyrotechnics. McConnell acknowledges the album's sense of passion, explaining, "We were especially happy to be making the album in the place that we were, in the situation we set up for ourselves. We really gave ourselves time to sit back and enjoy the project -- really sort of let it happen, in the time it needs to take." The band initially spent six weeks recording at a barn in Woodstock, N.Y. Then, almost as an afterthought, they hired producer Steve Lillywhite -- famed in the '80s for his work with U2, Simple Minds and others, but busy lately producing for such current stars as Dave Matthews -- to help finish "Billy." The sense of focus is clear on songs like the Latin-accented "Taste," which McConnell terms "a little bit of a breakthrough for us"; the pretty title track, an ode to Anastasio's daughter; and the atmospheric "Prince Caspian," inspired by the work of writer C.S. Lewis. "Unlike our other albums, there aren't songs I don't like, which is a very good thing for us," McConnell says. "I think that was sort of a key; we all really wanted to feel 100 percent about all the songs." If you want to know how Phish's fans feel about those songs or others, just consult the vast "Phish.Net" presence on the Internet. Or take a look at the latest volume of "The Pharmer's Almanac," a monument to Phish minutiae. In this guidebook, we learn that Jonathan Frakes of TV's "Star Trek: The Next Generation" played trombone on "Riker's Mailbox," from the album "Hoist"; that Phish has performed Boston's "Long Time" 16 times in concert (exact dates are included); and that the official version of the sole lyric to the song "You Enjoy Myself" is: Wash an Uffizi and drive me to Firenze. There's more, too, much of it information about acquiring tapes of past Phish shows (the band allows fans to tape concerts for the sole purpose of trading with other fans). It would have been hard to imagine this kind of mania forming around Phish when it first began playing the beer bars in the college town of Burlington, Vt., in 1983 (McConnell joined in '85). But live shows have always been Phish's true medium, and through word of mouth the band's legend has grown to its present vast proportions. Phish rewards its legions with such treats as the annual Halloween concert, in which the band plays an entire cover album partly chosen by fans. Two years ago, it was the Beatles' "White Album"; last year, the Who's "Quadrophenia." This year: "Remain in Light," by Talking Heads. As much as he likes performing, though, McConnell admits Phish's success comes with some struggles. "It's kind of a constant battle, to be honest. We're often saying to ourselves, `Remember how it used to be, when we'd play these places and there'd be 600 people in this sold-out room, and we'd just blow the roof off the place? (And now we're in) this stale, cold arena, and it's echoey and boomy and maybe it's only half full. Can we create that feeling again?' "And sometimes we can." © 1996 San Francisco Union Tribune