Phish bassist, singer bring collaboration to Lensic September 23, 2005 - Albuquerque Journal (New Mexico) By David Steinberg Musicians warm to calypso revival When Mike Gordon was 12 he and his family visited the Bahamas where he was enamored with the then-popular calypso music. Fast forward to December 2004: Gordon, who was the longtime bassist of Phish, and singer-songwriter-guitarist Leo Kottke visited Gordon's father's home on the west coast of Costa Rica. The trip to the Bahamas provided the inspiration and the visit to Costa Rica provided the environment for the two musicians to organize the songs for their new CD, which is titled "Sixty Six Steps." "Just being in that sweltering heat under the palm trees with Leo and playing these kind of island rhythms just instilled a rich flavor that we wouldn't have had sitting in Minneapolis or in New York City," Gordon said in a phone interview. "We each brought tapes of our ideas, more like song sketches, and there were some that we had already played together and some tapes of cover songs. So there were a number of possibilities." So Gordon and Kottke, known mainly as a soloist, jammed for five days until their song ideas took shape. "Then we pushed 'record' on the mini disc recorder so the sessions sounded really good and sounded exotic, like Costa Rica," Gordon said. That was just a warmup. From Costa Rica, the two flew to Nassau, Bahamas, to go into the Compass Point recording studio. Gordon said the studio personnel told him that they were first band in a long time to come in and want to make a calypso album. Calypso has been passé for decades, but the recording filled Gordon with reverie. "In the middle of that twoweek period I was feeling the same vibe from back then and tasting the Bahama Mama drink and having all the emotions coming back to me," he said. Gordon and Kottke will be in concert at Santa Fe's Lensic Performing Arts Center Tuesday, Sept. 27. One of the 14 tracks on the CD is "Ya Mar," a calypso tune that Gordon had heard the Bahamian band The Mustangs play in 1975. It's also a song that was a staple of Phish's live performances. Article Copyright © 2005 Albuquerque Journal