Miner’s Mailbag V
6.25.10 Camden, NJ (Graham Lucas)
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@EdCochran18: Can you address the cultures of different venues?
This is one of the weirdest factors of going on tour—by far. Because you are (usually) in a different state every night, the first thing that comes into play are state laws. Last summer, for example, when tour jumped from California into the south and then back to Colorado, the culture was like day and night. Weed and other drugs are seen so differently from state to state in the US, its hard to believe we are still in the same country sometimes, (see OKC.) Thus the first thing to verse yourself on is the laws of where you are and how seriously they have it out for hippies. But then the venues, themselves, can be extremely laid back or tight. For example, at Bill Graham Civic the ushers patrolled to make sure you were smoking weed and not cigarettes (this is a fact), while at Merriweather, there are teen-aged girls, backed by an urban security SWAT team, making sure your feet don’t cross painted lines on the aisles in the pavilion, less they kick you onto the lawn (also a fact.) Sometimes security takes themselves way to seriously (Jones Beach) while others they encourage you to have fun (Hampton.) It’s pretty crazy to bounce from venue to venue and have to adjust to a new set of norms on a nightly basis when all you’re trying to do is dance and feel good, but—alas—that’s why Jedi training is a huge asset on Phish tour.
Chillest Venues: The Gorge, Hampton, Dick’s
Tightest Venues: Merriweather Post, Jones Beach, Virginia Beach
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@Teddier: Five years into the future-what are Phish doing to keep their interest fresh and will their music change much by then?
Five years! Wow. Phish has only played four years in this era and we are jumping five more ahead. I’ll be completely honest and say that Phish 2017 may or may not exist. While I certainly hope so, five more years is a long time for these guys to keep going. For some reason, I don’t see Phish following the Grateful Dead model of play until you drop. I suppose nothing stands in their way of playing five years and beyond except a desire to move on. If they are still playing in five years, I sure hope the band has a couple more albums under their belt and we are hearing a hell of a lot of new material! Improvisationally, however, the sky is the limit. As long as these four guys are committed to each other, I am confident they will crank out high quality jams. Any stylistic conjecture would be sheer speculation of which I wouldn’t even know where to start. If Phish has one thing going for them, their fans will never lose interest no matter what they do. Tour wise, let me take a wild guess—maybe summer tour and a new years run?
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@Matthewgerber79: Do you ever see Mikes Song or YEM ever returning to their former improv glory, or has that ship sailed along with Halley’s?
Interestingly, all it takes is Trey’s will and either of these songs can snap back into form on any given night. But for whatever reason, I don’t see it happening. “YEM” doesn’t feel like as huge of a loss as “Mike’s,” which has gone from a top three jam vehicle for the second half of the ‘90s to a recycled guitar build. But at least “Mike’s” is over in eight minutes these days, while “YEM” still has nearly ten minutes of composition and five minutes of a vocal jam, leaving the song with negligible payoff on any given night. Everyone has been focusing on the rarity of “YEM” over the past two years as if it’s a bad thing, but if the band is only gonna step into four minutes of generic funk, my preference is to leave it on the shelf. There’s no need to kill so much of a set with the theatrics that are “YEM.” It’s unquestionably one of Phish’s greatest songs, but they’ve played it so much over their career, it seems like they no longer know how to make it interesting.
Here are some personal favorites in no particular order and without racking my brain:
Bliss:
“My Left Toe” 7.21.99, Star Lake
“Reba” 7.6.94, Montreal
“Harry Hood” 12.28.10, Worcester
“Bathtub Gin” 8.17.97, Great Went
“Bathtub Gin” 9.12.99, Portland Meadows
Groove:
“Sand > Quadraphonic Toppling” 12.31.99, Big Cypress
“Ghost” 5.22.00, Radio City
“Bathtub Gin” 7.29.98, Riverport
“Roses Are Free” 4.3.98, Nassau
“Mike’s Song” 12.31.95, MSG
Shred:
“Tweezer” 12.2.95, New Haven, CT
“Piper” 7.18.99, Oswego
“Antelope” 10.24.95, Madison, WI
“Drowned > Rock and Roll” 6.29.2000, PNC
“Antelope” 12.9.94, La Mesa, AZ
Space/Weird:
“Drowned” 9.14.00, Darien Lake
“Wolfman’s Brother” 10.31.98, Vegas
“David Bowie” 12.29.94, Providence
“Disease > Free” 6.26.95, SPAC
“Reba > Walk Away” 10.29.98, Los Angeles
Tags: Culture, Mailbag
Nice! enjoy your weekend Sumo!
Duder, while i may overly quiet on FB, i love seeing your Jake updates, what a beautiful babe. Hlpe ur gettin more sleep!
it has improved.
Yeah, the last pic after we voted is our favorite.
total smile on ‘lil Lebowski’s face
our favorite local band, which played at our wedding
http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=552247
Brushfire Stankgrass
Pisgah Brewing Company
Black Mountain, NC
2012.01.27
LIVE (matrix):
Source 1: SBD > Sony M10 (24/48)
Source 2: BSC2 K1 (mono, card, ROC, ~7.5′ high, ~20′ back) > Busbox > Busman/Oade Mod UA-5 > Roland R-05 (24/48)
HOME: M10 + R-05 > Audacity (align, fix time drift, levels, merge, tracking, fades, dither/resample) > xACT (fix SBE (for 16 bit), ffp)
~Set 1~
01. Nicaragua
02. B-Jam (Bisque)
03. Microclimates
04. Panthertown
05. Sugar Glider
06. City Rats
07. The Craving
08. Floatation Device
09. Futbol Reggae
10. One for the Salamanders
11. Soul
12. Fumaquious
~Set 2~
01. Tomorrow Never Knows
02. Down Time
03. California Knows How to Party
04. Hippies Hornpipe
05. Cubism
06. ??
07. Chinese Breakdown
08. Door Upstairs
09. Strangest Things
10. Spill
11. Banjo In My Spaceship
12. Harvest Reggae
13. Moon Rocks
14. Party #1
Its a Shame About Rey.
wha happen
How’s it going everyone?
Duder, how’s being a father going? Pretty fun stuff, huh?
Greetings from the now sunny West. All kind of goodies coming to fruition.
Have lead on cheap hotel over nYE run. Also heard Bisco after party for two nights across from mSG.
fun and exhausting Rooster
No one covers Nirvana……..Bollocks!!
Hey folks. Still chillin in NJ in the dark ages. Governor order gas limits here depending on your license plate. Last number even, can only go on even days, vice versa. Lines shorter. Hopefully 48 hours until things are normal with that.
Who knows when we get power back. Not really important in grand scheme of things. There are kids in Staten Island who haven’t eaten in 3 days. People are coming together and helping one another. Faith in humanity restored.
Can’t keep the people of tri- state down.
Only lycan covers nirvana.
home
filled up the back of a friend’s car with clothes, baby stuff, and other assorted gear from our place to be brought to staten island. shit is bad there, and other places too. wish I could get out there and help more, but 20 month old demands all hands on deck
this gas shortage is crazy. lives organized around lines with gas cans
hoping estimates were too conservative, Palmer, and you’ll be back in the future before too long
Bring back jazzy Antelopes! Spun 10.30.98 & really dug the jazz influenced jamming
Hundred on Texas tech over Texas -7.
Think Texas is gonna get clobbered.
Easy money.
Not having gas is a minor inconvenience really.
Correction: 9/14/00 Darien Lake 9/24/00 has the tasty Cities
Not to make light of anyone’s suffering though.
Unless it’s running your generator to boil your water and keep you from freezing I guess.
Not to come out of hibernation with a smartass comment. What’s up MiA? In three days all the wine will be in barrel finally. Been a long harvest season, but a great one.
The storyteller makes no choice
soon you will not hear his voice
his job is to shed light
and not to master
Englishtown 77 over here
MSG:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=10952517&l=aeca182339&id=95184371935
My wife bought tickets to a local beer tasting fundraiser thing last night. Sounded good enough. But, the beer samples were served in these tiny little cups like the ones for giving my kids cough medicine. I got sick of that real fast, and decided to just go up to the bar and order a real full size beer. The only choices there were bud, bud light, coors light, mich ultra. WTF! So now that I have good-beer-blue-balls, I’m forcing my family to go to the British Beer Company restaurant tonight so I can get some man size tasty brews. Yay!
Oh, and I had to miss my old man Friday night hockey skate, taboot…
Here’s a listing of the beer choices for tonight. Any recommendations from the wise knowledgeable BB beer aficionados?
http://www.britishbeer.com/menu-beer.asp?p=7
Off to son’s hockey practice, but I’ll check back here before dinner…
Peace.