Read the book(s)

by Yome NetSan 28. August 2016

This summer has been a quiet one. I haven't got the chance to start listening to Phish's tour before it ended neither the several vinyl records I bought since April. But I've read quite a lot and some of the books I dove into have been related to our band.

 

Fare Thee Well

After finally buying the huge Fare Thee Well 12 CD / 7 BluRay "Complete" box (still missing the Santa Clara shows, where the lyrics "Fare Thee Well" have been sung), I added to my shelves the accompagning book.

It's a beautiful coffee-table kind of book with a lot of beautiful pictures. Seriously, the production of the concerts and the talent of the photographers have done wonders. I received it in the morning of the day I flew to my vacation in Morocco, so I have left to dive deeper in those lights.

 

This has all been wonderful

 

I also bought a book I've been willing to read for a long time : David ''Zzyzx'' Steinberg's "This has all been wonderful". Everybody know for sure Zzyzx's website for Phish statistics but not as many know that the guy wrote a book about his summer 1994 tour, "the year Phish became Phish".

The book isn't very long but I haven't begun it yet. I hope it will immerge me in the 94 scene with description of the lot and the fans more than the actual music. We'll see...

 

Continue reading...

15 years ago, my life changed forever

by Yome NetSan 12. July 2012

I was in Bellport on the 12th July 1997 when someone played a song that changed my life.

Phish instantly became one of the three bands I listened to the most at the time with k's Choice and Smashing Pumpkins. By the way, it's funny how those three bands are still there in my life and how they all split up and came back together at one point (although "coming back together" can be discussed in regards of the Pumpkins).

It's only very recently that I found the words to express why I love Phish jams.
While many bands can play inventive improvisations, they sound like if someone pressed the Pause button to let the guy play his solo and the music starts again where it left off.
With Phish, the jam moves on, travels, goes forward. At the end of a jam we're not where we were some minutes ago. We've been in a natural voyage and we arrived far further.

Anyway, a lot of things happened in 15 years.
The band evolved, went on hiatus, came back, broke up, came back again...
Meanwhile, I grew up, built my life, met my wife, learnt a lot, worked as much, bought a house, changed a lot but stayed the same in a way.
I often feel like I'm still 17... and then I look at my little boy...

 

In 15 years, I gathered a lot of Phish-related memories...

I remember trying to figure out what they were saying in You Enjoy Myself.
I remember writing to Eric about how I love Junta and the french talk in the background of Dinner and a Movie.

I remember spending nights reading setlists in the Helping Phriendly Book, a RTF file compiled by Phish.net. This was before the Phish Compagnion books (coincidentally, a Third Edition has just been announced today).
I remember translating the lyrics of Esther and Kissed by Mist into french poems.

I remember playing Sample in a Jar in a concert with my band, although I'd rather forget about it.
I remember trying to write down Trey's spoken diatribe in Icculus before realizing I could find all lyrics on the Internet.

I remember bouncing around the room when I recognized the beginning of Weekend at Burnsie's, the Simpson episode in which Phish play Run Like an Antelope.
I remember being amazed by my first mp3 CD player which cost 990 francs at the time (about 150€/$), very expensive for my student girlfriend's wallet).

I remember receiving my first ever Internet order : the Live in Vegas dvd.
I remember buying so much promo CDs on eBay for my collection that I couldn't even tell which one I had or not.

 

As I recently wrote, Internet is my only link to the band. With Phish, it's the thing that has actually changed my life the most in the last 15 years. I could not live without Internet today, just like I could not imagine living without Phish and all that ensued.
And for the first time, the Virtual Band became a little more real this year thanks to Mike Gordon visiting Amsterdam for Jam in the Dam. A disturbing experience.

 

Speaking of "all that ensued", the amount of new music I discovered thanks to Phish is quite astonishing. No other artist got me into so many other artists. My musical horizon is much wider now thanks to them.
Obviously, the first band that I think of is the Grateful Dead, which introduced me to Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia & David Grisman, Bob Weir & Ratdog...
While I was looking for Phish mp3, I quickly came upon Nugs.net with its great NugsCast and Free Stash. Bands like Widespead Panic, String Cheese Incident, Gov't Mule, Lotus, moe. were new to my ears and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't know them by now if I haven't heard Fee on that saturday night in Long Island.
I also heard for the first time about Talking Heads, Little Feat, Deodato or Frank Zappa with Phish covers.
The many side projects are an endless source of discoveries... Vida Blue, Pork Tornado, Oysterhead (which introduced me to Les Claypool), Trey's solo bands (who got me into the great Jennifer Hartswick) and Mike's collaborations like the Benevento/Russo Duo which leaded me to Marco Benevento, Garage a Trois, Everyone Orchestra...
And finally there's the musicians the band played with like Dave Matthews and Medesky, Martin and Wood, whom I had the pleasure to see in concert at Jazz à Vienne in 2005.

All of these artists are now regulary featured in my playlist, my turntable or my Playstation 3.

Everything started with Junta so I would have loved to celebrate this 15th anniversary with a listening session of the Pollock Edition vinyl but, well, you know...
Instead, I think I'll play a big Phishy concert full of covers with Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Set 1 : Sample in a jar > Chalkdust Torture > Down with Disease, Wilson > Scarlet Begonias > Llama, On the Road AgainStash > Bold as Love, Psycho Killer > Fire
Set 2 : Crosseyed and Painless > Tweezer > Space Oddity > Cold Rain and Snow
Encore : Frankenstein, Tubthumping

 

See you in 15 years phans !

Pix'n Love Publishing : The Archaeologists of Video Games History

by Yome NetSan 26. July 2010

I know it's nothing about Phish or music at all but as I've already spoke about them several times, I thought I could add some more as french editor Pix'n Love goes international and open Pix'n Love Publishing !

Pix'n Love Publishing was founded in 2007 by three young Frenchmen, each very passionate about the history of video games. Their goal is to offer gamers, as well as anybody curious about the subject, a selection of reliable books about their passion: video gaming and its history. During their three years on the market, they've published, re-released, translated and written over 25 books in French. Some even became real best sellers in France and French speaking territories.
Today, Pix'n Love Publishing goes international and is proud to bring you some of their most successful releases, fully translated into English.
Three books are already planned to be released. The first one, the History of Nintendo (1889-1980) will be available around the end of August.

I read their books since the beginning and they are awesome. Florent Gorges, main redactor and creator of the company, is maybe one of the person who knows the best Nintendo and starts to have a very good reputation around the world. His books about Nintendo history are sold in several stores in Tokyo, even if they're in french ! No other books in the world have been published about Nitnendo this this kind of researshs and details. There are actually the Helping Friendly Book of video games !
They also organize annual trip to Japan and it's with them that I went there in april 2009. A defining moment for me.

The 3 first books published in english will be :

  • The History of Nintendo Vol.1 : 1889-1980 From Playing-Cards to Game & Watch (you can pre-order now, released end of August)
  • The History of Nintendo Vol.2 : The Game & Watch games, an incredible invention
  • The Great Personalities in the Gaming Industry Vol.1 : Takahashi Meijin

So you can guess that if you're into video games like me, or just curious, I advice you to get thoses books.
Proove that we gamers can actually read !

pixnlovepublishing.com

 

 

The Virtual Band

by Yome NetSan 23. March 2010

I heard this expression when livephish.com released the Headphone Jam during de 2004/2009 break. The idea was that Phish would become a virtual band, not performing live but gathering on some occasion to record hour long free form jam. They would still be "broken up" but still playing in a way. I thought it was a good alternative at a time when reunion wasn't even hoped.

But from my point of view, Phish has always been a virtual band. I discovered them in 1997 with a studio album dating back from 1988. As i've never heard about them, I thought they were disbanded for long. Then I became aware that they were still playing lot of shows and starts following them on the Internet.

My computer has always been, and still is, my only link with the band. Browsing several websites and blogs about the band and fans, downloading audience or soundboard recordings of almost every show, watching, at first very poor and then very good quality, videos is a everyday occupation.
I remember watching songs' name appearing in setlists. At one time, some where only names as I haven't listened to them yet. I discovered Mike's Song, for example, with Slip Stitch and Pass.

Internet is also the almost exclusive way to buy Phish related material, although I managed in 1999 and 2000 to buy somes albums at my local store in France. This was possible, I think, because the band toured sporadicly in Europe and Japan from 97 to 2000, so their releases were better distributed outside the US. So I bought a lot of Phish albums, live releases, boxsets, dvds, books, goodies, promo cds. All of that gave me a rather complete view of the band, their music and their career, but in a virtual way. There hasn't been any physical connexion because everything went thought the computer.

Oh wait, There's one ! I managed to buy the Green Sparow, Mike Gordon's last studio album, with a signed booklet. The signed booklet was added to the package along with a regular sealed CD. I understand that it's a lot easier for every one (including Mike) to have a pill of single booklets signed without having to open a cd, pull out the booklet, sign it, pull back it inside and then send it.

Phish is the only active band that have a big impact on me that I've never seen live in concert. In fact, Phish is the artist entity that had the most impact on me for my whole life. Bigger than Michael Jackson back in the 90's, who is the artist that woke up my musical tastes (and I got to see him live in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1997).
The only other band for which I would travel the globe to see live is Pink Floyd. Another dream that I will never live for obvious reasons.

I felt very broken in 2004 when I knew about the break up, again by checking my emails. I cried when I read the news and I cried again on august 16th morning when I woke up and read the setlist and reports on the Internet.
I feel almost as broken up since I took the decision last week not to go to the USA this summer. I always fear that a break up (or worst) can happen any time and that I will never see them, althought the musical and health situation for the band is very different now than in 2004. I'd never listened to the Las Vegas 2004 run since this week, and I'm glade to enjoy the music I heared in 2009.
By the way, 2009 is the only year during which I listened to every single show played by Phish, at worst 2 days after it was played. In 2004, I listened to all of the summer tour but out of order and in the following month, without regularity. I started in January to listen to every 2002/2003 shows and even if it's not 1994 or 1998, I'm enjoying it very much.

By the way, what if all that music was fake ?

I thought about it from the very beginning when I didn't really know the songs and where to find shows. I happened to download concerts from other band (Cousin Fungus, String Cheese IncidentDave Matthews Band, Greateful Dead, or other jam bands) without noticing at first it wasn't Phish. I even end up burning CDs and labelling CDs as Phish by mistake. At the end of the day, I was still enjoying all this new music, whatever the band was playing.
The idea came then that, even if Phish wasn't really playing this music, I wouldn't care as long as I'm enjoying what I listen to. I mean Phish's music could be computer generated, the band could fake playing on stage (like lips-synch with instruments), all of their improvised moment could be writen in advance. Sure I'd be pissed to have been fooled but, man the music is fucking good ! That's why I enjoy live DJ sets like Daft Punk's Alive 2007. Everything is written and planed but the music is fun.

That's what's important after all : music.
Phish can still be a virtual band playing (or faking) in a far away country, I don't care as long as I can listen every day of my life to new music from them.

26 years later

by Yome NetSan 2. December 2009

I'm still up side down with the music.

Ok, I don't listen to Phish for 26 years but still there first show was on 2nd December 1983.

Part of my little celebration here will be to catch up with the present by listening to the Set II of the 29th November show in Portland. This way, i'll be ready to listen to MSG I tomorrow.

I hope that this flyer will be well spread amongst phans tonight for a big Happy Birthday chant !

 

I also got some presents by post this morning and one of them made me laugh.

So I received Phish: the Biography, a book about the band written by former senior editor of Rolling Stone Parke Puterbaugh. I read good and bad reviews of it (respectively in PT and Relix) so I can't wait to read it. The book is bigger than expected and with a hard cover.

Don't expect a lot of picture like in The Phish Book. It's all text with a small bunch of pages with some black and white photos in the middle. Some of them are really old and quite funny.

 

 

 

The laugh of the day was provided by livephish.com.
I ordered on sunday the 22th the 3 Limited Edition slotMusic cards of Festival 8. And yes, I received them today, a week and a half later. The small usb mini-sd card reader come in a plastic cd-size case with a custom Festival 8 cover. There is no track listing on the back because the 3 inlays are exactly the same (it reads "10/30, 10/31, 01/11/2009"). The only difference between the 3 is a little sticker with the date written on it on the back of the case. There's a big picture inside the sleeve but I don't know if it was taken during the festival.

I wonder if the micro Sd given (or sold ?) during the festival (or here) came with this same case. I could be as it could have been printed before the shows (if the inside picture is from this summer).

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for my Joy Box which should have been shipped (thanks to a 59$ fee) on the 17th November. I will sure check the date and price written on the parcel when it'll arrive.
I got a blank space where my Joy Box should be !

LivePhish.com 1 - Dry Goods 0




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