With summer winding down, and visions of tours past dancing in our heads, I want to focus one more post on a summer tour- musically, my favorite summer tour of all time- Summer ’95.  This summer was not for the lighthearted, as Phish was at its peak of psychedelic experimentation in the truest sense.  Straight mind-fucking madness leapt down your throat from the stage each and every night.  Multiple twenty-plus minute excursions into abstract and aggressive darkness were routine.  Each show was truly a trip- bringing you face to face with the demons and then back to the light of the divine.  Coming six months after an insane end of 1994, with the band tight as ever and carrying the most momentum of their career, Phish dedicated the tour to ridiculously dark improvisation.  Summer ’95 would provide the open space to deeply explore both the abstract and fiery jamming that had defined their careers, and Phish would move beyond anything done previously into music parallel to the realms of outer space.

Experimentation was paramount this summer; risk taking with no abandon- jumping into the void without knowing what would come out.  With the depth of the band’s communication, and a focus on very dark and psychedelic adventure, fans had to dig in each night.  You were never sure when a 40+ minute Tweezer would come crawling out of the speakers- there were multiple that summer- or when a dark groove would melt into an extremely ambient space- suggesting the mystery of the unknown.  The only thing you could expect was the unexpected.  Massive Bowie’s exploded all over the summer landscape; both abstract and heavy tension-and-release Stash’s, Split’s, and Antelopes raged in a way not seen in the late ’90s; terrorizing Mike’s Grooves descending from above.  The new, Free, began to expand itself into cool combinations with classic songs.  The band’s focus on putting together true mind-fucking outward journeys was clear, and the results were often brain numbing psychedelic treks through yourself and beyond.  Some jams made you sincerely question, and maybe fear, the massive power of the Phish.  It was like a summer of Phish Acid-Tests?  Could you pass?

Their playing this summer featured more insane improvisation- the kind when you can’t remember what song they were in, because in essence, they weren’t in any- they were just letting it hang out.  Some fans reject this style as too over the top and inaccessible, but this was a major focal point and piece of Phish’s development that would be refined through the peak of Fall 1995.  Jams like the Red Rocks Mike’s Groove, the Mud Island Tweezer, the Lakewood Bowie, the Walnut Creek Split, Sugarbush’s Runaway Jim, or the Great Woods Stash showcased just what Phish was capable of at the time- heavy full band psychedelia, not resembling the groove-centric playing of later years.  This was the depth of the quagmire, the primordial soup, the overt attempt to disrupt your reality.

Yet, with these dark adventures came divine moments of bliss as well- heavily improvised Reba’s, ultra-tight Hoods, and triumphant Slaves seemed to fit right in with these dark themed shows.  The focus on precision playing and communication brought these uplifting songs to colossal heights.  Juxtaposed against the madness they came before or after, they always provided necessary stops in the sunshine before lifting another cosmic rock to find out what creature lied beneath.

This was also the last tour that was happening in conjunction with Dead tour- it would all change after this.  Phish’s scene would grow much bigger, attracting the hangers-on of Dead tour who were just out there for the lifestyle and the lot.  And some would begin to come for the music as well.  The Phish scene was still purely Phish during Summer ’95, and it would be the last time that this would be the case.  The whole size of the scene would begin to multiply after this blissful summer in Gamehendge, and things would never quite be the same.

There would come a loss of Phishy innocence after this summer, and many saw the year of 1995, culminating in the triumphant New Year’s show at MSG, as the peak of Phish’s career.  While it certainly was the absolute peak of their career and style up to that point, they would go on to redefine themselves into the industrial groove machine that dominated the late ’90s with danceadelic shows and quite a different style of play.  Some people stayed, some left, and a whole lot more came.  But Summer ’95 was when Phish’s teeth were razor sharp, and you had to survive a trip into the jaws of the band each and every night.  Coming out alive, or the same, was not guaranteed.  They spent all June and July stretching the limits of improvisational music and re-defining what was possible with a four-piece band.

To remember such a special time in Phish history and evolution, I have created the third installment of Miner’s Picks: “Summer ’95.”  Totaling over seven hours of straight madness, this compilation will surely have you amazed at the mastery and overt psychedelic nature of what Phish did before 1997. Download away!

MINER’S PICKS: SUMMER ’95 PT. 1 (new mediafire link)

MINER’S PICKS: SUMMER ’95 PT. 2 (new media fire link-fixed)

MINER’S PICKS: SUMMER ’95 PT. 3 (new mediafire link)

MINER’S PICKS: SUMMER ’95 PT. 4 (new mediafire link)

Miner’s Picks: Summer ’95

1. Mike’s > H2 > Weekapaug 6.10 Red Rocks, CO

2,3. Runaway Jim > Makisupa 7.2 Sugarbush, VT

4. David Bowie 6.15 Atlanta, GA

5. Reba 6.19 Deer Creek, IN

6,7. Curtain > Stash 6.17 Gainsville, VA

8,9. Down With Disease > Free 6.26 SPAC

10. Split Open and Melt 6.16 Walnut Creek, NC

11,12,13. 2001 > Halley’s > Bowie 6.24 Philadelphia, PA

14. Slave to the Traffic Light 6.15 Atlanta, GA

15. Run Like An Antelope 6.23 Waterloo, NJ

16. Mike’s Song 6.20 Cuyahoga Falls, OH

17,18. Runaway Jim > Free 6.16 Walnut Creek, NC

19. Harry Hood 7.1 Great Woods, MA

20. David Bowie 6.19 Deer Creek, IN

21,22. Stash > Strange Design 7.1 Great Woods, MA

23. YEM 6.19 Deer Creek, IN

24,25. Timber Ho > Bowie 7.3 Sugarbush

26. Tweezer 6.14 Mud Island Amphitheatre, Memphis, TN

(photo of band: Shoreline 1995, Tim Mosenfelder; Sugarbush: Jon Michael Richter)

So much love permeates the Phish scene for the years of 1997 and 1998; yet people don’t often mention 1999 in the same way- and I’ve never understood this.  ’97 and ’98 were clear steps on the way to 1999- a year that featured a blistering summer tour, two fall tours, and Big Cypress- the millennial festival the band has called the apex of their career.  1999 was defined by the momentum gained over the past two years, melding the musical approaches they had developed, while adding a new “millennial” sound that featured more dissonance and distortion; prominent walls of sound and color, and fast-paced abstract psychedelia. As the band careened towards Big Cypress in the fall and in December, this millennial sound would become more and more prominent- but here we will focus on the beginning of that journey during the placid days of summer.

Taking a full six months off Phish, Trey initiated his solo trio, and completed a well-received Spring run introducing his first side project and a host of new songs.  Coming off their collective break, the band reassembled in June ready to continue their romps across the country that had defined their career.  Excitement was high that Kansas afternoon of June 30th, as fans readied themselves for their re-immersion into paradise.  Bonner Springs kicked off the tour in grand fashion with a show that set for the tone for the month.  Mike was in the middle now; jams were more bass lead than ever, and his Modulus sounded massive with the uncovered pavilion in Kansas.  After stopping in Atlanta for the introduction of “Meatstick”- the summer’s anthem- and a top notch July 4th offering, the band turned up through the Southeast, up through Jersey to the only mid-tour festival at Oswego, NY, and into Canada before circling back around the Midwest, settling in the comforts of Alpine and Deer Creek.

The music on this tour took the raw funk ’97, and the funk/ambience of ’98, and incorporated new styles featured on the newly released, The Siket Disc, a collection of instrumental shorts and ambient experiments that went over huge with fans favoring dark, more adventurous jamming.  The result was not only an alteration of their musical style- no longer solely focused on groove- but also the addition of “My Left Toe” and “What’s the Use?” to the rotation, two songs that got into deep abstract improvisation quickly, and provided “connector-jams” in several second sets- Kansas, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Star Lake- to name a few.  Some fans didn’t care for this more overtly abstract style, longing for the direct dance music and rhythm guitar of the past.  But one thing I learned over the years is that Phish was constantly evolving, and you must also evolve with them, or you’ll be left in the past.  This happened to a lot of people in 1997, as they dropped off with the onset of the slow funk era.  Each tour and each year, added something to Phish’s style and approach, and as things were added, other facets of their playing were necessarily lessened a bit.  But let’s be serious, there was no lack of funk and dance music in 1999, there was just more aspects to the music.  As 1998 saw the addition of “ambient jams” in the fall, Summer ’99 is when Trey began to develop his “millennial” sound that would become accentuated throughout the fall and December, and deliver us into 2000.  With more focus on layering, tonal texture, and manipulating sounds and effects, Trey and Phish tore through an amazing Summer that provided many highlights and pointed to a very exciting Fall.  Finishing up in Japan for three stellar shows at the Fuji Rock Festival- setting up their Japan Tour of 2000- Summer Tour ’99 continued building on the musical evolution that started two years earlier in ’97.

The band was firing on all cylinders all summer, as it began its uphill climb to the pinnacle of Big Cypress.  While many cite a drop off in consistent balls-to-the-wall playing in the year of 2000, it was 1999’s drive to the millennium that pushed the band to the brink.  As Trey and Fish walked off stage at Big Cypress, with tears in their eyes, after reaching, in their opinions, the high point of their career, they looked at each other and said, “I think we should stop.”  In the words of Trey, “The wave had crashed into shore,”  indicating a wonderment of what else there was for Phish to accomplish.  Everything that preceded this moment in Phish’s career had built to this point of indescribable magic- experienced by the band even more strongly than the fans- and the summer of ’99 was a significant building block in the year that Phish reached the top of the mountain.

In honor of such an amazing summer, and to expose a lot of music that may be unfamiliar to a lot of people, I am releasing the second in the series of “Miner’s Picks,” “Summer ’99.”  Totaling 34 tracks and over seven and a half hours of music, this compilation should allow everyone to discover, or rediscover the amazing playing that went down during this historic summer.  Enjoy! (Photos: band-summer ’99, Fishman-oswego)

THE DOWNLOAD LINKS AND TRACK LIST IS BELOW:

MINER’S PICKS: SUMMER ’99 PT. 1 ( all new mediafire links)

MINER’S PICKS: SUMMER ’99 PT. 2

MINER’S PICKS: SUMMER ’99 PT. 3

MINER’S PICKS: SUMMER ’99 PT. 4

“MINER”S PICKS: SUMMER ’99”

1. Run Like An Antelope: 7.3 Atlanta

2. Bathtub Gin 6.30 Bonner Springs

3,4. Birds > If I Only Had a Brain 7.8 Va. Beach

5. 2001 7.7 Charlotte

6,7. Tweezer > Have Mercy 7.17 Oswego

8,9,10. Mike’s > Simple > My Left Toe 7.21 Star Lake

11,12. Reba > Carini 7.13 Great Woods

13. Chalkdust 7.10 Camden

14. Free 6.30 Bonner Springs

15,16. Ghost > Slave 7.4 Atlanta

17. Split Open 7.12 Great Woods

18,19. My Left Toe > Stash 6.30 Bonner Springs

20,21,22. Tweezer > Catapult > Tweezer 7.24 Alpine

23,24. Runaway Jim > Free 7.18 Oswego

25,26,27,28. Meatstick > Split > Kung > Split 7.15 PNC

29,30. Birds > Walk Away 7.25 Deer Creek

31,32. Halley’s > Roses 7.13 Great Woods

33. Tweezer 7.10 Camden

34. YEM 7.1 Nashville

VIDEO BONUS: TWEEZER: ALPINE 7.24.99 (IN TWO PARTS)