TTFT: A Big Jump—Summer ’09 Leg II
7.31.09—Red Rocks (Graham Lucas)
Come Leg Two of Summer ’09, Phish ditched their largely linear jams of June and started to explore again. Beginning at Red Rocks and carrying through The Gorge and beyond, the band seemed more confident taking risks on stage during August. Playing far more confidently than in June, Leg Two felt like a breath of fresh air, and many started to believe again. The jams below represent the best of Leg Two ’09.
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“Split Open and Melt” 7.31 II, Morrison, CO
This menacing mind-fuck provided the soundtrack to an oncoming storm. The interaction between the weather and the music was surreal. Check out the video!
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“Tweezer” Red Rocks 7.31 II, Morrison, CO
Grade A, certifiable Phish crack. At the time, this jam felt like the best thing since sliced bread.
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“Disease > Limb” 8.5 II, Mountain View, CA
The most exploratory “Disease” in a summer full of highlight versions.
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“Sneakin’ Sally” 8.7 I, George, WA
A left hook that the audience never saw coming, this “Sally” jam commenced the deeper magic on a mystical night at The Gorge.
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“Light -> Taste” 8.7 II, George, WA
At the time played, this was the most impressive version of “Light” the band had played.
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“Bathtub Gin > Hood” 8.7 II, George, WA
A second set “Gin”of the likes we are salivating for these days—and a serene and delicate “Hood” to cap off the set.
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“Rock and Roll” 8.8 II, George, WA
Though night one at The Gorge was—in my opinion—the show of 2009, this jam the following night vaulted to the top of the weekend.
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“Drowned” 8.13 II, Darien Center, NY
Back on the east coast, Phish kept the improvisational engines running, though to the tune of about once per show.
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“46 Days > Oh! Sweet Nuthin” 8.15 II, Columbia, MD
This dark horse jam amidst a crappy show at Merriweather is a stunning convergence of all four band members. Moving from murky psychedelia to glorified pastures of gold, this one is a keeper—even now.
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“Number Line > Twenty Years Later” 8.16 II, Saratoga Sp, NY
The band finished off the summer with a centerpiece sequence that highlighted two new songs, and when this tour ended, the entire community was pretty jacked on the Phish.
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Tags: 2009, Jams, TTFF
I am here to testify that neither MiA or Silly Willy are, in any way, assholes.
I’m going to copy and paste everything from this conversation and put it in a word document to read when I’m smarter.
“Now everyone take a deep breath and hate the French.”
You say that like we ever stopped?
Lol
On a music note, Zuma is a great fucking Neil Young album.
I picked it up for Cortez The Killer (Woooo, topical tie-in!), but keep going back to it for everything else…
I brought up the Ireland thing in an attempt to prove my point that European domination was only possible through colonization and domination.
Is there a reason that the Cherokee didn’t take over the world?
Was it because they didn’t have ships? Or was it because they subscribed to a world view that literally made it impossible for them to conceive of global domination like that?
I’ll use the Irish here, too. Is there a reason that the Irish didn’t take over England?
They could have. But, again, the IDEAs that they subscribed to were fundamentally different than those of English colonizers.
Literally, the world views of different cultures make it more or less likely that they will dominate other cultures.
Native Americans, it is more than well-documented, simply could not understand the level of destruction that Europeans were willing to engage in.
And this is where capitalism comes in. Capitalism is the dominant ideology of our culture. And I think this is why our world is so sick.
More humane cultures were extinguished. And is it any wonder in the face of an ideology that values profit over human life??
Is it any wonder that it was the British that produced capitalism?
I’m not strictly blaming the British for the problems of the world. But there are cultures that are more destructive than others, and saying that power and destruction is human nature is a cop out.
There are plenty of sustainable cultures even today. But global capitalism will snuff them out if we don’t stop it.
re: spreading it out
No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying: Get sustainable. Cultures must return to roots in the local land. Drinking coffee in Wisconsin is not worth destroying the rain forest in Brazil. The availability of Coca-Cola in Ecuador is not worth the pollution it takes to get it there.
Transporting slaves from Africa to Virginia was not worth all the forests in Ireland.
Our cars are not worth the violence in the Middle East.
The global economy will collapse or humanity will.
Some things never change around here. Haven’t even been lurking these days, but glad to see you cats are still up for great dialog.
Enjoying these Leg 2 jams, been a while since I laid my ears on ’09 Phish. They really did smoke RR>Gorge.
best. messageboard. ever.
Mad respect, MiA
Sorry if I keep pulling you in!
Have a good night if you have to go.
AJ
thanks for the kind words. Sometimes, I’m afraid that I’m offending some of you who clearly have more life experiences and world knowledge than me.
I appreciate the hell out of the fact that I’m allowed to write this stuff here.
I’m in that age in life where I’m often just looking to share with people. I don’t know many people willing to talk this stuff out with me and it’s uncomfortable. So, when I can talk it out, it feels great even if people are disagreeing with me.
But are they wooks, AJ?
Word. Do your thing, Skinny Willy and MiA and everyone else. Good people round here and rarely do we seem to get the “no, fuck you” type of attitude. Nothing wrong (and, imo, a lot right) with a little passion.
def wooks
off to my townhouse association meeting, fuck me. first world problems.
I actually kind of love some of the French
Sartre
Camus
Beauvoir
Lyotard
Derrida
Foucault
Barthes
Beckett (he had the distinct advantage of being Irish and yet moving to Paris and writing in French)
I just finished a remarkable book that I feel compelled to recommend. I think many of you would find it interesting.
“A Heart Blown Open: The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi”
You just can’t make up a more intriguing life story. He started his spiritual path with the belief that LSD would change the world. Manufactured “Clearlight Windowpane” distributing a million doses in the early ’70s for the sake of liberating minds, invented the gel tab basically.
At any rate, thought I’d pass it along. Check out an article on him if you’re curious.
http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j45/jun-po.asp
@silly – have to disagree with you vis-a-vis Native Americans and reasons why they did not engage in conquest. First of all, they did, all the time, particularly in areas where the density was greater. Across North America, there was plenty of space, particularly for the number of Native Americans (estimated around 10 million or so). In Europe, there were vastly more people in a much smaller area, thus leading to more conflict.
Further, a major distinction was the use of weaponry that allowed for folks to kill much, much more efficiently. Jared Diamond argues that the spread of agriculture and animal husbandry, which was limited via chance more than anything in the New World, because of a lack of species, both animal and vegetable, that were conducive to domestication. Further, because the New World is largely on a north-south axis rather than Eurasia, which stretches largely East-West, limited the diffusion of agricultural advancement because of radically different growing conditions.
To argue that Native Americans were inherently not warlike ignores reality and circumstance.
I dunno Silly, I don’t know if I necessarily disagree with what your saying, but I feel like, as usual, it’s not that simple.
Were the Romans capitalists? By definition, not really, no (although they did have financial crises, which I think is pretty awesome) but they still went out and conquered as much of the world as they could. Were the Mongols capitalists? The Aztecs and Mayans? People were killing each other in unfathomable numbers thousands of years before Adam Smith wrote about the invisible hand, back when Britain was one of the dark places on the map (Conrad reference, boom!).
The way I see it, although I could be drawing this conclusion from an incomplete knowledge of the facts, capitalism arose to deal with scaling issues in terms of the human race. It simply wasn’t feasible to operate under the previously existing agrarian/barter economy with the number of human beings alive, barring continued mass death from the Malthusian cycle concept.
Once capitalism came around, existing human behavior was allowed to scale up beyond anything that was imaginable before, which indubitably came with a lot of good points and a lot of bad points, but I don’t think the facts line up with the idea that capitalism unlocked a pandora’s box of human nastiness. It seems much more likely to me that human nastiness led to capitalism.
But at least we are all making proper use of our carriage returns, otherwise this debate would be a bitch to read…
great convo. I don’t think I’ve ever been offended by you silly.
I hear what you are saying. I agree that the economic system that we have creates numerous environmental, social and ethical problems. History is filled with horrors. That said, I think the trend is in many ways good. Our standards are higher. Apple had to call in that Dutch organization to inspect their factories, etc. There is progress… not enough, but some.
The thing I come back to is: I don’t know who to get mad at for all the bad stuff so I would rather focus on how it can improve. Increasing the rate of progress is hard. few have done much and those few are highly celebrated.
“Our cars are not worth the violence in the Middle East.”
See, for example, people have been killing each other over such a silly thing as shia’a vs. sunni Islam in the Middle East since before we were pulling oil out of the ground, let alone feeding it into cars half way around the world…
Not to mention all the killing each other that went down there before Muhammad even came around
Good thoughts by GP and Garret.
I would say the British didn’t create capitalism. Some say the Dutch did (with massive trading companies like the East India Trading Company) but Capitalism has been around since people wanted to build … something, and they didn’t have the resources to do it. But they had the balls to do it. So they went to lenders to get it. Banks or people, who held gold or specie, or whatever was acceptable as a common denominator of wealth. And they said “I’m gonna go around the Cape, and trade this shit, or their spices, and bring it back. And people will try to kill me, rob me, rape me and hang me. But I’m willing to try to go there, not know the language and make a piece of gold.
The Greek shipmakers sold their ships to whoever on the Mediterranean wanted to buy one and had the capital. So they could become fisherman.
You were from North Africa, they would sell you a ship. Egypt. Sell you a ship. Jewish, sell you a ship.
Banks were created to exchange gold for promises and investment. The Bible (purely as a historical document) talks about the Jewish money-changers at the Temple. These were basically banks in the middle east. You could trade one thing for another, including promissory notes. Or a document that said you sold a man 400 sheep.
Great book called “Against the Gods:The Remarkable Story of Risk” that explains the insurance industry. Who were arguably the first “capitalists” 200 years BC. I highly highly recommend reading it. Say what you want about insurance companies, but they let the guy holding 50,000 gold pieces pay another guy 10,000 gold pieces to insure that the dude that he just gave the boat to, would actually come back with it, and not just sail off to … Ireland.
I get your point though. Someone said to me “Knowing what you know now about terrible conditions the Chinese people are in China … will you now not buy an iPhone? Because when you buy an iPhone, someone in China is being abused by not being paid a “more fair” wage.
Dammit, and I like my iPhone.
But will you not buy software from an Indian software Engineer making $11/hr. Or is it $14/hr. Or if they make $28 an hour, then you would? Or is it $32.50. I’m not sure. When is it a fair wage again?
I think being intelligent about those things is an excellent idea. Try your best not to harm or abuse others. That’s a good start.
angryjoggerz Says:
March 8th, 2012 at 5:55 pm
best. messageboard. ever.
“There are plenty of sustainable cultures even today. But global capitalism will snuff them out if we don’t stop it.”
That’s kind of what happens to all civilizations, if history is to be taken as our guide. Populations grow too big for their means, and too big even for the means that they appropriate from others, and then they fall, and then someone else eventually shows up and starts over. We’ve just been able to grow the fastest so far…
And hell, you’re empirically less likely to be killed right now than at any other point in history.
That may not count for everything, but it has to count for something
@MiA – Ive got Against the Gods sitting on my bookshelf, but I read it years ago. I would argue that pay in absolute dollars doesn’t matter, what matters is relative pay. If the guy who makes an iPad makes enough to live a middle class life in China, then it doesn’t matter what the absolute pay is. That would be Apple exploiting a difference in cost of living. Now, as shipping costs increase, and they are, the calculus changes. In fact, for large, heavy, items think windmills, etc., manufacturing is moving back here because the shipping costs exceed labor savings. Thus, China has a massive incentive to keep oil (and shipping) prices low.
On the other hand, if Apple’s wages aren’t sufficient to pay for a middle class existence, then clearly they are being exploitive.
It is kind of crazy when you realize just how exponentially fast population has grown recently.
Something has got to give…