Trey Tour – Winter 2001
8.7.08 Brooklyn (Unknown)
After Phish finished at Shoreline in 2000, Trey’s motor kept running. Continuing to write new material, he soon needed an outlet to play it and booked a spontaneous solo tour for the Winter of 2001. For a backing band, he looked to his his trio from the Spring of 1999. Pulling his rhythm section of Tony Markelis and Russ Lawton back together for his second tour ever, this time Trey added a three-piece horn section as well. Dave Grippo (alto sax) of Giant Country Horns fame,) young Jen Hartswick (trumpet, tuba) and Andy Moroz (trumpet) formed the Burlington-based trio that spiced up Trey’s jams all tour long. Adding a genuine fusion dynamic to the band’s rhythm-focused grooves, this initial horn lineup meshed immediately with the Trey, Tony, and Ray, forming, in my opinion, the best-ever incarnation of The Trey Anastasio Band.
Winter 2001 Poster
To his Spring 1999 staples of “Sand,” Jibboo,” and “First Tube,” Trey added new songs such as “Push On Til the Day,” “Burlap Sack and Pumps,” and “Drifting.” Trey ditched his acoustic set in favor of two electric throw-downs and the band hit the road in February for a slate of ten shows (adding one more on the spot in Atlanta after an unexpectedly high for the first.) Starting in the Northeast, the band wound their way south, finishing with a fierce four-pack in Asheville, NC, Columbia, SC, and two at The Fox in Atlanta. Spicing their sets with new covers, this version of Trey’s band featured musical conversations rather than Trey simply shredding over a thick groove. As opposed to the horns of modern-day TAB who have more composed lines, Grippo, Hartswick, and Moroz improvised right along with Trey through the fiercest and most explosive escapades, upping the onstage dynamic considerably while bringing an entirely new element to Trey’s jams.
Philadelphia 2010 (B.Ferguson)
So many musical passages stood out on this tour, but if one jam shined as the quintessential TAB 2001 excursion, it was “Sand > Quadraphonic Toppling” from Columbia, South Carolina. Delving deep into fusion psychedelia, the band threw down an extended series of textured dance grooves that were spiced considerably by horn improvisation. And then evoking memories of Big Cypress, Trey led the band through the abstract “Quadraphonic Toppling,” playing—and looping—the song’s minimalist melody himself.
Trey’s sextet existed for just a blip in time, playing only the winter’s eleven shows together. When Trey emerged with his band for the summer of 2001, he had added Ray Paczkowski on keyboards for the first time, as well as a fourth horn player, Russell Remington, on tenor sax and flute. The following summer, this lineup only grew, as Trey went on to explore Afro-Cuban grooves. But for a spontaneous stretch in the winter of 2001, Trey was discovering the power of his solo act, and his shows contained a palpable energy, bringing a buzz to the scene. Phish was done—for the moment—but Trey’s solo career was beginning to heat up.
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Jam of the Day:
“A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing” 6.19.04 II
One of the top-shelf jams of the post-hiatus era.
[audio:http://phishthoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ph2004-06-19d2t03.mp3]=====
DOWNLOAD OF THE DAY:
4.12.1991 Barrymore Theatre, Madison, Wisconsin SBD
Mp3 Torrent (asap), Megaupload < Links
Barrymore Theatre - 1991
Keeping the old-school soundboard train rolling.
I: Llama, Uncle Pen, The Divided Sky, Guelah Papyrus, The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > Suzy Greenberg, Stash, Rocky Top, Golgi Apparatus
II: The Landlady, Runaway Jim, You Enjoy Myself, Fluffhead, Cavern, Tela, Buried Alive, Reba, My Sweet One, Good Times Bad Times
E: Contact > Big Black Furry Creature from Mars, The Squirming Coil
Source: SBD
Tags: 2001, Side Projects, Trey
Doh, forgot to talk up Zero.
Early Zero has John Cippolina and Pete Sears, all instrumental shows, ridiculous, Martin is still playing fierce and Steve is on fire. Liam Hanrahan is solid but not exceptional on base. Greg Anton on drums a straightforward rock drummer.
Later era you get Bobby Vega on bass and shit. is. funky. Cip is gone, Pete Sears’ piano replaced by Chip Roland on B3, and for better or worse you have Judge Murphy on vocals, singing new Robert Hunter songs, written specifically for a guy who looks like a longshoreman with a porn-stache who likes to wear “420: 24/7” t-shits and whose choice of covers includes “Up on Cripple Creek” and “I Like my Women a Little on the Trashy Side”. I am not making that up.
I saw Zero once a month in ’95/’96 when they were playing the Maritime Hall as basically the house band. I went for Steve, Bobby, and Martin and tolerated the rest of it. Also (I’ve got deja vu, did I write all this once already?), Zero has the record for the most. time. spent. doing. jack. between. songs. by any band, ever. Usually someone dicking with their gear while Martin tells terrible jokes. So you can’t trust track times on archive.org necessarily, because 7 minutes of that might be crowd noise and shenanigans.
and for all that, I LOVED that band. 8/17/96 Fillmore is a pretty good representative show for the late era.
cool stuff Plord. Thanks.
@sumo
just reading back…
you gotta finish Battlestar
my roommates and I are always looking for “B” television series to watch and we thought Battlestar was B at first
but man it’s addicting.
oh, right… sorry ’bout that t3
no alac.. it’s a really small 4 gig i got on newegg yesterday for $20
pretty cheap, volume could stand to be a bit louder, and a pain to navigate (the thing is really tiny) but sounds great, easy to load up, even has a nice ‘3d’ eq preset that is making this trey band show sound real nice
kaya has had good things to say about iaudio for a flac player
Plord – good post, re: Zero
Right on point, it was….well, all about the jams
Agreed to on Kvhw being his best side band, and so much fresher alternative to zero at the time
Shit was hot
llfa, kFl. no worries. I thought of that myself earlier today.
–
I know I had a couple of zero jams as fillers on phish tapes back in the analog era. at the time, I didn’t know who they were but there was one in particular which was more of something left on the end of a tape that was recorded over than a filler which was basically band introductions with everyone taking a little solo. wow, that was a long sentence. the pitch was way fast so you really couldn’t tell what was what, but it intrigued me enough to figure out who this band was. glad I did. I never dug too deeply into their catalog, but I always have appreciated what I have heard of zero.
Dr john and the original meters doing desitively bonnaroo at bonnaroo?!?!
Why o why can’t I see that without going to the roo?
One of the great albums by a true American gem.
*ting
Come east for some Trey huggie bear.
which shows g-cub?
come west for the oakland show. mike’s the next night in arcata.
/bane’d.
ca$h in some frequent flyer mileses.
At least Portland – NYC I say. Spare bed in Joe’s bachelor pad Sunday. (Lady of the manor gone for next week). :).
Tick effin Tock. Slowest night at work ever right now. 45 minutes to go
NYC!!
Actually, the thought of 4 nights of accoustic summer of 89…
It would be tough to go to my wife and say “I’m going to the west coast to see mike Trey and robear.”
And by wife, I mean my pregnant wife. Woot woot!!
1st birthday time coming up for daughter gcub? Hope all is well
wut^?!$$
also, you’re hitting nYC?
And congrats!
@gcub
So what you’re saying is that the world needs to get ready for:
The Peppatwo?
NYC, yessir I am.
13 months for miss Parker. All is well, walking, trying to talk, all around happy girl. Joyous times.
Wut?!?! That’s exactly what I said as I unpacked the groceries and found the ol’ EPT. We passed all 4 of those stick tests. Not exactly the plan, but fuck plans, right? 1st trimester down. Moving the peppadew to a big girl room and looking forward to completing the clan.
Peppatwo 🙂
Yes!
the pack of investment bankers that took us to the Hawks game kept handing me clear beers. when we got up after the game there was a fucking six pack of full clear beers under my seat.
great seats though. Hawks get some must needed points.
couldn’t get enough KVHW back in the day
hot shit. haven’t spun any in ages though. need to do that.