Phish die in water January 14, 2003 - Michigan Daily By Scott Serilla Album Review - Round Room Chances are, if you've lived in Ann Arbor, Mich., long enough, at more than one party, you've had a tie-dye-clad throwback struggle to focus his smoky gaze on you, poke his finger into your chest while saying "Duuude, it's about the music." While there are worse mantras (fashion and drugs come to mind), this pathetic argument isn't going to fool anybody anymore. Justifying endless noodling in the name of "the music" is a crutch for neo-hippie suburbanites either too high or too dumb to tell a good jam from 30 minutes of aimless, showoff faux musicianship. Rock or any other worthwhile pop genre is not about the music at all and never has been -- it's about the songs. From Chuck Berry to the Ramones, the Beatles to Elvis Costello, passion for the craft of songwriting has always been an infinitely better identifier of a great artist than raw technical playing. Even at their best, Jam forefathers the Dead and the Allman Brothers were finding a particular groove with the context of already well-written songs. What Jam culture forgets too often is jamming should be serving the song, spontaneously heightening an emotion of the moment, filling out and enlivening the original song. It might surprise some non-Jam fans to learn that improvising for 20 minutes has occasionally made a song better. But it might be even more surprising to Jam-devotees to learn that 20 minutes doesn't automatically make a good song. Too often I've had a Phish cult member excitedly tell me, "Oh man they did a half-hour version of 'Squirming Coil,'" as if simply dragging it out longer guaranteed it was better. Phish used to be better at balancing their admittedly talented chops with quirky, fun songwriting, fighting back the jazzy pretense of their epic soloing. But their new record "Round Room" feels unnecessarily shapeless, under-written and sloppily thrown together. Clocking in at almost 80 minutes, the album is full of half-finished tracks that meander here and there, squandering the potential of opener "Peebles and Marbles" and closer "Waves" by stretching them into 11-minute marathons for utterly no reason. Frontman Trey Anastasio apparently gave away all his completed songs to his side projects, giving Phish only leftovers. Even highlight "46 Days" seems like it was barely rehearsed, discussed or thought out. Boys, there are differences between laidback and unfocused, carefree and careless. The key track here is bassist Mike Gordon's "Mock Song," a stream of conscious rant of intended nonsense with a chorus of "Who's mocking who? / It's just a mock song / Call it what you will." At least somebody finally said it -- the band is not even bothering with songwriting anymore, content with just creating the illusions of songs and jamming for jamming's sake. The Big Lie: The band might tell you they wanted to release an album of undercooked tunes to capture the "magical" moment when the group first got back together after their much publicized two-year hiatus. Fact: The label rushed a half-done album into stores so there was something brand new on the shelves to match all the media hype accompanying the group's first show on New Year's Eve and subsequent tour (these songs would have benefited from being tested on the road and then recorded after the tour). For the first time I can think of, a band has put out the studio outtakes before releasing the finished project. Copyright © 2003 Michigan Daily