This is the first episode in my original series covering the live years of the band Phish. The series will be a combination of quality highlights, interview clips, footage of shows, pictures, and other fun stuff from the band's history. I'm basically trying to put every aspect of this band on full display to show why Phish phans are, well, Phish phans, and why they don't just listen to a handful of songs from dozens of different bands/artists like a normal person!
Years of research and editing went into these projects, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed making them!
Starting out at the University of Vermont Burlington, the band Phish consisted of Guitarists Trey Anastasio and Jeff Holdsworth, drummer Jon Fishman, and bassist Mike Gordon. Keyboardist Page McConnell ended up convincing Trey to let him join in 1985, and then 'recruited' Trey and Fishman to switch to Goddard College for school. Holdsworth ended up leaving the band in '86 due to the complex proggy nature of the music. The boys played here and there over this four year period on campuses, bars, and outdoor gatherings. During these years, Trey was writing his most ambitious compositions whilst him and his band were trying to find their footing by drawing from different American genres.
0:00 Intro
3:08 Harry Hood 10/30/85 (Song history)
6:29 Fire on the Mountain 12/2/83 (Mike talks about the first gig)
7:10 Slave to the Traffic Light 12/1/84
7:47 Icculus 10/31/86 (Nectar's)
8:25 David Bowie 10/31/86
10:05 Bowie 8/10/87
10:16 Bowie 8/29/87
10:34 Timber 11/19/87
11:29 Jam 10/31/87
12:06 Big Black Furry Creature from Mars 8/21/87
12:45 Mike's Song 8/21/87
13:49 Makisupa Policeman 8/29/87 (Fish talks about drumming experience before UVM, Trey talks about meeting Fish)
15:21 Dinner and a Movie 11/19/87
16:37 Punch Me in the Eye 4/24/87
18:33 Skippy the Wondermouse 3/4/85 (The poem Tom Marshall wrote to Trey that sparked the creation of Gamehendge)
19:06 McGrupp 11/19/87
20:58 Jam 12/6/86
21:43 Fluffhead (Practice footage)
22:46 The Chase 5/20/87 (Trey talks about the vibe of the early gigs)
23:15 Antelope 5/20/87
23:41 YEM 5/20/87 (Song history)
24:41 Harry Hood 5/20/87
25:12 First known version of Divided Sky 5/11/87
25:57 Lushington 10/15/86
27:52 Whipping Post Jam 11/23/85
Mike Gordon on the "Whipping Post Jam 11/23/85"
From The Phish Book, p. 140-143:
"I had my peak musical experience of all time during a gig at Goddard College in November 1985. At the time I was an engineering student pondering a transfer to film. I'd just completed a series of tests, and the pressure was temporarily off me. The entire week was a peak experience of sorts. The snow had just fallen for the first time that fall the night we played. Goddard was something of an anti-institution at the time. Only about fifty people were on campus the night we played, and of the ten people who came to the dance, eight left after the first set.
Jeff was playing volume swells on his guitar, which I thought was the most incredible sound I'd ever heard. We turned off all the lights, and I started jumping up and down with the beat, not caring how I looked for perhaps the first time in my entire life. as we jammed, I felt more spiritually in tune than ever before. I felt at one with the building, wall outlets, chandeliers, and these people I loved. as we kept jamming, my ecstatic state didn't diminish no matter how I played or what style we played in. At one point I had a vision of Trey standing beside me in white tails with a pocket watch, as if we were performing during the 1920s.
The whole experience was like viewing a huge well-lit room after having been blind. I felt completely illuminated. I decided then and then there to start a journal, and I've kept one ever since. The first two volumes were completely about that experience, then they branched off to concern related experiences of life, art, and music. How do music and art help me and others to actualize ourselves? What's the formula, if there is one? What conditions make it most likely to occur?
I was more like myself that show than ever before, but I was also part of Phish, five people in a circle who seemed to hover above the forest and move slowly through the trees. I wandered into the woods after the second set and decided never to return. Yes, film-making was better than engineering. But film had nothing on the musical experience I'd just had, and I was afraid I'd never be able to recapture it. So why bother? When I did return, the rest of the band decided to play another set. I was terrified another set would soil my past experience, but it turned out to be just as great! We played for hours to the two or three people listening to us in the darkness. I decided my goals in life were to live in the woods, travel around from city to city, and try to replicate the experience I'd just had as often as possible. The whole gig's on tape, but I'll probably never listen to it.”
/ @aavfx