Phish A La Carte October 12, 2003 - Pulse Weekly (Philly) By Monica Ortwein Mike Gordon is a man who really needs no introduction. As the bassist for a little band you may have already heard of called Phish, Mike Gordon has made quite a name for himself touring the world over the past two decades. The unconventional bassist has gotten both some good press and some pretty bad press recently, however. The bad press began after a photography outing with the young daughter of a Hell’s Angel biker ended in Gordon being charged with kidnapping. Luckily for Gordon, the whole thing was chalked up to a really, really bad misunderstanding, and the charges were dropped. The good press involves Gordon’s release of his first-ever solo album, Inside In, an accompaniment to a movie he made in 2000 called Outside Out. We got inside Gordon’s off-the-wall brain for a quick conversation about what fans can expect to hear on Inside In and what the bassist’s fascination with the egg beaters that adorn his album’s liner notes is all about. PULSE WEEKLY: How did you deal with all the negativity directed at you after the kidnapping allegations? MIKE GORDON: The truth came through and now that my charges have been dropped, that kind of demonstrates that further. I wouldn’t really say that it was negative; what was negative was just one news broadcast in New York where they sensationalized the whole thing on NBC. They’re assholes, actually. Other than that, the press had been pretty truthful about it. It’s pretty much behind me. PW: Have you been practicing a lot for this tour? MG: We’re having a rehearsals all week. It’s really fun; we’re practicing 12 hours a day but for another five hours people are just jamming with each other 'cause they’re having so much fun. So it’s, like, 17 hours a day. PW: Wow, that’s a lot. What kind of stage stuff are you going to have? Is it gonna be really out there and outlandish? MG: We have Phish’s light designer, who’s really good. But basically what’s out of the ordinary is the mixture of instruments and performers [we have], between a tap dancer and pedal steel and trombone and flute ... you usually don’ t have that combination. PW: Is it kind of intimidating for you to be doing this on your own without the other guys from Phish? MG: It’s just a different role, different shoes to try to fill. I’m used to the [leader] role from being a movie director, but in the band setting it’s not usually me – I’m usually the quiet one. PW: Who is the Couch Lady that the album is dedicated to? MG: The woman who plays the Couch Lady [in the film Outside Out] was my next door neighbor. She passed away recently, so we dedicated the album to her since she was the Couch Lady, even if it was only in make-believe. PW: I was looking at some of the other instruments that you’re playing on this record and I was surprised there was a washing machine and a dryer on the list. How did you play those? MG: Originally the sounds were for the movie soundtrack, and I wanted to have a lot of sound effects. I just put a microphone inside the washing machine and rumbled the top with my palms and when that sounded good we decided to try it on the dryer too. PW: And what’s the deal with the egg beaters all over the cover of the album? MG: I was trying to think of concepts that made me think of the words Inside In, and I thought about how the spokes on a handheld egg beater weave inside each other. My mother is a painter. I remember she had this drawing class 20 or 30 years ago, and she had to draw egg beaters that were several feet high, huge charcoal drawings of egg beaters. The art guy ended up being able to incorporate that. PW: Do people ever confuse you as a relative of Jeff Gordon, the racecar driver? MG: No, but they sometimes think I’m Michael Jordon. [laughs] PW: Ah, that makes much more sense. Article Copyright © 2003 Pulse Weekly (Philly)