When I was about fourteen, (lets call it 1995-96), Phish became an important band for me, a touchstone to a whole world that up until that point had been off limits, due to a somewhat conservative upbringing and to a general isolation from the ideals of the sixties (because my parents were too young and grew up in the totally atheistical, hope-free seventies, a situation I am quite happy about, thank you very much).
So Phish was a weird backdoor into an obfuscated world for me, one that hearkened back to all those halcyon days of hedonism, sex, merriment, sex, hedonism, drugs, and merriment.
What I liked about Phish was that they were non-traditional, in as much as they weren't 'top 40' and sterile in the way so much music was to me back then, and they also made gestures towards "jazz,' which in my hyper-educated, hyper-pretentious preteen existence signified a rarefied dignity. Phish were better than Nirvana because they used four part harmony by this sick calculus. I won't say this view was universal among my friends, but I do recall a chum in those days saying that he thought "You Enjoy Myself" was probably the the greatest, most complex piece of music ever composed.
Ironically, at the first Phish concert I went to I turned down an offer of a hit on a joint, so uptight and caught up in austerity was I. But that Phish show was probably the best, as just before my second (and final show) in 1999, my parents caught me and a bunch of friends smoking in the backyard, which effectively ruined the night for me.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying I have a semi-nostalgic-yet-irrevocably-stained-with-regret relationship with Phish, so it was not without a perverse interest that I listened to the (legal, free) bootleg of their first shows in almost five years...
I can't tell if its the rust, or the music, but I'm very underwhelmed. I find it pretty tough going to get through these longer instrumental jams, and the "song" songs sound out of sync and emotionally dead... True believers no doubt would be charitable here, but I am no such a one... This sounds like a bad band playing bad material, and the 'creative' transgressive elements, ie the soloing, jamming etc, are just not good. The world has not been missing this; this is not going to help any of us.
This brings us back to an older discussion, namely, the influence of jam music on the contemporary 'indie rock' DiY Todd P Brooklyn scene. I have previously made the argument about Animal Collective's (non)-similarity to the Grateful Dead... Well here I am going against that grain a bit, as I would say the best jam-oriented event I attended last year was also, strangely, the best event I attended last year, period...
That show was Atlas Sound at Music Hall of Williamsburg (2.24.08). What was great about the show was the way the layered digital synth textures of the Atlas Sound record (Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel). Here is a link to mp3s from a show on the same tour (different day/time but same band, though the MP3 gives no hint of how good the music was and how overpowering where the cascading guitar effects).
This show to me was a hundred times more vibrant than either of the Phish shows I attended as a youth; Phish fans are more like cult worshipers, or Kobe Bryant fans--people divorced form the broader reality in order to experience the benefits of the enclosed space of the devotee. This Atlas Sound show was a pure, unexpected religious experience, not the fore-ordained forced mania of the Phish fiend...
I don't know where I am going with this, but I do know that what made the Atlas Sound show so awesome was the guitar playing of Adam Forkner, the layered, cosmic expansiveness of his delay infused arches. Anyone familiar with Yume Bitsu knows that Adam is a space-rock pioneer Adam is, but this Atlas Sound reaffirmed that idea in the context of the more MBV/Pop sensibility of Bradford Cox's music...
So I'm moving towards a thesis where the best music around combines elements of genres in new and exciting ways, ie some standard line on hybridity that has been de rigeur in academic circles for years... Yawn. But there may yet be more here, and I will plumb those depths. Hoping to get out to some shows soon.
