Sometimes You Listen to Phish Because You Know What's Best For The Soul. Other Times, You Support the Candidate Who Is, Too

http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/bernie-sanders-just-called-phish-one-of-the-great-bands-in-this-country/

Pisces Band Fulfills Scorpion Desires, Blows All Else Out of All Water

If you missed the 2015’s most kickass orchestration of the year, that’s cus it happened at the very end if you weren’t one of the 10,000 jamsters at MSG, you were probably skankin’ elsewhere. Thing is, I know you felt it. Phish’s first jam first night of the New Years run, I knew EVERYONE felt it. There is truly nothing in life like getting real down on that gushy smile level with someone, that diggity dirty, funk flingin groove, all that Phishy absurdity oozing out every communal pore, like AHHHHHHH, really! REALly!!!!!...yep, this is still Mike's Song right now.

Like really, we danced as hard as those narrow cement tiers allowed us, funxtreme-tastica in every spoodley lick. And really, if you had showed me what the set-list would be for the first night of the MSG run, I would have nodded like I had heard all those songs a million times, because I have. But not like that. Each jam opened up into vibrating jams that opened and flowed and flounced so deeply and friskily in the moment and then the next. I haven’t missed an MSG run yet, and the hype’s true about this one. Every jam exemplified an ecstatic propulsion of art. And everyone felt it.

Phish reallh reaches all those under-water layers. Breaking through the Piscean chaos into the ️Neptunian love spell it has to offer, and bleeding, rippling, raging through the Scorpion/Plutonian core of if all. I swear. I felt it.

I always feel it.

Every head got so down on the whimsy, flitting “Bathtub” splanks, so thrilled thrashy wild as it built up and up and out for 15 minutes The whole show was riddled with the incessant sparks and tickle of the Phish crowd culminating again. So like wowwww, Phish totally is The band of the Scorpion Pluto generation, keeping us vibing, crawling, chasing their spirals under the rug, til they sting us with zaps of funk and splizzam lasers into zings and zongs we feel, love, rage and radiate. Yup. Phish has lured and played, pampered and swayed us all under the same covers. Where it’s dark, mysterious, and helplessly rainbow, so every cell in the midst of it is smiling so can’t-help-it-groovy.

I posted forever ago about my skepticism travelling to the city during such a chaotic time, but caught a ride with my daugther’s sister and her mom on their way back to Phili; thank the beauty of blended families. My excitement completely blinded me from initial hesitance, even through the metal detector and flashlights digging through my bag as one patted down my freckled friend in denim cut-off shorts and a “PURE SEX” button gleaming on her Mexican blanket coat, I was still unconcerened and completely shut off to the possibility of risk. But the cab driver on the way to my dad’s from the train reminded me.

“I hope security was tight,” he said, “ya never know what those nuts will do after that shit in Paris.”

At first I was like, “Come on, really…”, inclined to say something like, “Then we can blame all nuts for fear of the unknown, not an allocated few.” But before speaking, I let the intention behind his sentiment linger, and I remembered my gratitude. I prayed protection barriers for everyone dancing and celebrating music and art in beauty and love.

And to me at that point still, it was all very Phishy and drippy and teeth-clenching exciting to get home and drink so much water I wouldn't have to slip someone a dollar then duck away for it not being two...and have a cigarette and pass out with my toddler, replaying replaying replaying that bass-slapping energy, that build, that force of everyone singing “Character Zero,” knowing it was the last song; knowing in a breath, the boys would leave the stage and be gone. Until tomorrow, for most of them. Until Mexico, for the fortunate ones. The lesson here is urging everyone I know to get ready for summer tour, because Phish is gonna blast all our hats off. And also, all are welcome and encouraged to continue beaming love and protection for the jammin’ masses. We couldn’t have momentum without all of us making moves.

"Fare Thee Well" Shows July 2015: Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock your pockets

Some Phish vs Dead stuff is just true. Like with my ex-boyfriend. He could hear any Dead track and tell you what members were playing, what early to late decade, or even what year it was, and anecdotes about that tour. But get him on Phish tour 2011 right my ACL surgery, and I literally danced the fuck out of my wheelchair more than he did in his healthy two feet. He danced to one song. ONE SONG. Okay, I get that it doesn't exactly blither and flow so smooth-ecstatically through everyone as it does through me, but like, can't you open up a bit? Really, spanning 14 shows, six states, and the only song to stimulate you to shimmy and snake around is “It's Ice”?!

Bethel, NY 2011

I know what you're thinking. There's got to be something else going on there.

And yes, it's called “NOT BEING THERE FOR THE MUSIC.” This boyfriend made thousands of dollars off phans, and that was his sole reason for following a band he resented with a trunkful of crystals and wire-wraps. But it's not the Dead, right? So how could it ever be good enough? So goes the logic of the Dead elitist (at least this one), so set with the Dead on the top of the pyramid that nothing else could possibly reach those heavens and therefore really matter at all. And man, those elite show-goer heavens are higher than my high-interest student loans could dream of surmounting to. Like hundreds of thousands of dollars high. EVEN with a splash of Phish.

Because here we are, facing our last ensemble of the Grateful Dead this July, with three 50^th anniversary “Fare Thee Well” shows in Chicago, Trey billed as lead guitarist. Come on, hyping up the mail-in ticket-order tradition and giving heads three days to gather hundreds of dollars for the threat of the last-ever Dead shows is not all that bad. Because after selling out 210,000 mail-order tickets, the band's heavily rumored to be announcing more shows. Really, why have one last show when you can have lots of lasts shows?

Right, so Trey is playing with the remaining original members of the Grateful Dead. Those stuck in the Dead vs. Phish complex are forced to accept the culmination of energy. My best friend growing up/tour wingman says, “It's pretty much my wet dream,” despite the fact that she among millions of others did not get tickets after coloring an elaborately beautiful Steal Your Face envelope in a potentially expensive effort to see that wet dream fulfilled. Instead, the Bears season ticket-holders got precedence in their Chicago playground, but at least they've been willing to sell tickets back to heads and custies for 1000% mark-up value. 

Truly, the music of these bands are food for my soul, and every head I've ever met is going/trying to go to Chicago this summer. But $200 for parking is not my wet dream. It's exploitative. The more I hear about it, the more I cower in the "REALLY JAM GODS?!" corner. This is a horrific jam scene rape.

“Oh it's totally about the money. If it were about the heads, the community, they would have done it where people could camp!” laments Ophelia, the space-cat spinning a magic wand center-forward of every lawn. As a Libra who loves both bands, Ophelia is positive about the musical potential. “I think it will be interesting! I've never felt the Dead and Phish were at all the same, except for the fact that they both jam. Obviously Trey is not Jerry, but I don't expect him to be. It will be a totally new musical thing...Basically, I imagine it as Phish playing Dead covers. For both bands, the lead guitarist is the one with the inimitable sound.”

Live artist Kait Buckley, actually an electronica-hooked hooper who's grown up on the Dead, speaks to the inevitable Trey-zy nature of Anastasio, explaining, “I've seen [Trey] play with Furthur before and at first, he was a little all over the place 'cus he's used to his own thing, but he got in the groove as the set went on. I'm sure they will be practicing a lot together for those shows and he will have a lot to live up to, so I assume he is taking it seriously.” Stoner Bob Pirrone is optimistic, saying, “He basically took over the jam band scene after Jerry passed. It feels right to give him the honor to play some Jerry. I mean, he plays well with Phil and Friends.”

Pirrone has a point about the scene takeover. The jam-world lost Jerry as Phish's following swarmed and swelled to a cult level. Trey has been quoted as saying that he used to avoid listening to the Grateful Dead to prevent being overly influenced by Jerry while coming into his own sound. These days, he details to the Rolling Stone, “I've made a conscious effort to learn everything I could about Jerry's incredible style.” From tripping on acid at his first Grateful Dead show and being trance-formed by the music to learning it inside and out twenty years later, “Fare Thee Well” is sure to be a collectively epic-beyond-jamtabulous-fathomability phenomenon of the decade. If of course, you can afford it.

Jerry's daughter Trixie announced the 4^th of July shows online as a celebration of American culture and history (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR3LaG4vcBk). With Scorsese filming the shows in the city of the Dead's last concert with Jerry, the event seethes the high profile status that hotel hippies like my ex cream over, a circus for glampers. 

Sure at first, even I was set on heading to the lot and the slim chance of a miracle, but the fact that three day passes are going for over $100,000 on StubHub turns me off from the whole jam porn wet dream thing. Maybe Meg, it is too good to be true! Go follow Phish for a whole Tour for the same cost!

This was the basis of my ex taking me on Phish tour: money. After too many months on the road driven by the hustle, I refuse to go anywhere where the spirit of money is heavier than the music. Monetary flow is so much more tainted than the organic/gasmic potential of jam. You can always tell a custy fest from a grassroots one. I'd rather pay twenty bucks to a family farm who hired their friends to rage bluegrass in their cow-field all weekend. But of course, I say that as someone with 20 grand in student debt and no degree...Are you an affluent grower/capitalist stoner like my ex? Have a blast! Maybe you can tell me about it at 3DL! (Check it out)