Fare Thee Well in Europe

by Yome NetSan 10. June 2015

I'm sure you already aware that Phish's Trey Anastasio will play the five final shows of the Grateful Dead in Santa Clara and Chicago between June 27th and July 5th.

My friend Gilles from Switzerland is trying to go to the Chicago shows.

The three last shows will be webcast but apparently, the MLB stream will not be available in Europe.
They will also be broadcast in a lot of cinemas in the United States.

 

But for us in Europe, the very last show (on the 5th) will be shown in selected cinemas all over Europe on the 6th night ! Holger will attend one of the many events in Berlin.

What seems to be the complete list of cinemas can be found here. As of now, there will be 11 events in France (most by Kinepolis) and one in Switzerland but unfortunatly none anywhere near Lyon where I live...

I would love to see this in a cinema and party the night with other fans. I hope more theatres will be added to the list but the time is short.
Please make it happen !

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 !

More on Rock Band : Phish

by Yome NetSan 1. April 2011

At last !

I managed to get more precise stuffs about Rock Band : Phish, and it’s MASSIVE !

The game will cover all of Phish career with live recording only, from Colorado 88 to NYE 2010-2011.
Several modes will be available : Career ala The Beatles Rock Band, Concert with 2 randomly-generated sets, Practice with exercises from the band practice room.
Each track will offer real improvisation sections (score based on melodic and rythmic harmonies) and most of them will feature real concert footage in HD.
Of course, all the plastic instruments will be supported, including the new keybord and the 102-buttons guitar from Rock Band 3.
The game is developped with close participation of Phish members and will feature an exclusive 30 minutes in-studio jam.
Just like livephish.com, every future DLC (albums, concerts) will benefit to The Waterwheel Fundation.

Man, I can’t wait to play this game !!... But it's unlikely to be released outside of the USA... Glade the PS3 isn't region-locked !

Exclusive news : a Phish video game !

by Yome NetSan 29. March 2011

Part of my job as a web developper is that the company I work for/in change after each project. This way, I get to know different people and way to work depending of the size of the company. That’s why I work in a city 150 km from my house since november 2010.
One of my new co-worker has lived in Los Angeles for several years and still have many friends in the US. After asking her if she had someone who can get my the 3 limited editon vinyls from Phish and Mike Gordon released for the Record Store Day, she came back to me with some incredible news.
When she lived there, she actually befriended someone who recently moved to Massachusetts to work at Harmonix, Rock Band video games creators. This person was so surprised to know that a guy in France love Phish so much he ask half the planet to get 3 discs from Los Angeles, he when pretty talky about a current project in his company :
Rock Band : Phish !

I’ll try to get more informations about this in the following days because all that I know is that the game is planned to be released simultaneously with a very anticipated DVD/BluRay boxset from a very very famous show...

Phrench Poker Magazine

by Yome NetSan 14. February 2011

I don't play poker (or every once in a while), yet this morning I bought a poker magazine, Poker 52. Indeed, it has Phish in it.

2 pages about Phish in a french magazine is very rare, and it's even more surprising it arrives in a poker magazine. The author is a regular writer in this magazine and, this time, the editor picked an article about our favorite band, we must salute the effort.

The story is about a fan's travel from Bruxels, Belgium, to Madison Square Garden, New York, for the NYE Run.
At the beggining, he has already missed the first show in Worcester but plan to arrive at New York then rent a car to drive to north east for the 28th december concert.
But due to bad weather, his flight is canceled. Several options are sugested by the company like a direct flight that arrive on January the 1st or another to land late on the 30th.
Finally, his trip goes like this : Bruxels > London [3h wait] > Chicago [3h wait] > Boston [landing at 1.30am] > 5h Drive to New York on the 30th.

The original article (in french) can be read on the author's blog here : http://benjodimeo.blogspot.com/2010/12/gone-phishin.html

Thanks to Coventry Blog for the story.

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

 

 

Summer dream

by Yome NetSan 19. March 2010

While it's still at the dream state, summer is taking shape.
As you can see on my map, I'm considering 3 options with a wide range of possibilities.

 

My initial idea was to follow the entire second leg in August.
As the tour starts with 3 nights at the Greek Theatre in Berkley, I could take a flight from France to San Francisco. Then I planed to rent a car (maybe a SUV or even a van) to take the long drive to Telluride, Colorado. After the 2 festival-like shows in the mountain, I'd drive furthur east to attend the 3 other 2 nights stands. The tour and summer ends on Jones Beach, in Long Island. Really close to where my story with Phish begun twelve years earlier in a warn july night of 1997 (see my story here). I'd take the plane in New York to come back home the following day.

Sure enough, traveling alone by car all of the USA from West to East should be a wild ride, but a long one. The distance between Berkley and Telluride, Telluride and Noblesville and finally East Troy and Wantagh are promise of day long drives, respectively 1766, 2255 and 1497 kilometers (sorry, I don't count in miles even if it'd seems shorter). I didn't investigate the possibility of continental flights.
The fact that the Greek Theatre and Telluride tickets might be the more difficult to score in the whole summer is another downer. It would be tough if I book such a trip and happen to not have tickets...
Flying from France to San Francisco is also very long and has almost every time a stop in another country (London, Dusseldorf, Amsterdam or Toronto).
Because of all of these reasons, it's the most expensive and exausting option.
On the other hand, it would be 11 shows in a 15 days period with only multi nights in mythical places, an initiatic trip and a great adventure.

 

But what about the first leg ?

At first, I gave it a no go because it would make me miss my wife and me anniversary. Then I recall that as far as I remember, I've always told her that if a Phish concert was to be balanced with our anniversary, and even more as time pass, Phish will have the priority. I might sounds mean but, technicaly, I felt in love with Phish before I felt in love with her. Fortunatly, the summer tour makes a pause during most of July and so doesn't interfer with my baby's first birthday. Of course, I wouldn't have missed this for anything.

So I checked the shows that didn't imply a long drive around New York and narrowed the list to 9 to 11 shows.
Both options make me land and take off in New York (JFK Airport or Newark). Still with a car rent, I'd drive to Hartford, Saratoga Springs, Mansfield, Camden and Columbia. I could add Hershey and Portsmouth at the beginning if I don't mind to drive twice 700 more kilometers for 2 shows.
Those dates and flights make the whole trip a lot cheaper.
In the end, I'd attend 9 or 11 shows in 12 or 16 days without driving the 68 hours of the August run. Of course, the adventure is less thrilling but should be more fun after all without all of the exhaustment.

It's a first draft, as I may adjust my flights to land and take off nearer of the first and last show. I could also choose another airport in Europe as it wouldn't be very different in terms of train to begin in Paris, Lyon or even Geneva.
And as the price of the flights Europe/New York are mostly the same whatever the days I choose, I could also take an extra day in Manhattan or Long Island, to meet old friends from 1997 who knows...

 

For those who keeps tracks (and that's including myself), here is the Excel file I compiled to consider all the possibilities : Phish Summer 2010.xls (133.50 kb)

 

But after 2 days of research and dream, I came to the conclusion that it would cost at least 2000€ and that I must take 2 weeks off from work for the trip.
Meanwhile, we are looking for a house to buy so I'd have to take the money from the house to the trip.
Technically, I could take enough days off in the summer without a problem for my company. But I already took days off for myself only in the past (I went to Japan last year for example), while I couldn't thoses last mounths when my wife needed help with the baby, because I had too much work.
I have to accept the evidence and listen to my conscience (aka my wife) who tells me that it wouldn't be reasonable to go. And even if she wouldn't blame me if I took the decision to go, I know I have to be serious and stop beeing selfish (without a play on word).

Going to the USA to see Phish on tour is a dream I have for more than ten years now, but it seems that there are dreams that aren't made to be fullfiled.
I'm sure there are many other Phish fans in France and Europe who will never ever see Phish in concert too...
Why not gather all of them in my future house for a listen party ?

 

Still waiting (part 2)

by Yome NetSan 17. December 2009

As expected, my new update about my Joy Box is another mail to Dry Goods...

Hi,
Your standard answer to my email sounds like a bad joke. I wonder if you have really read my original message...

The fact is that I'm still waiting for my order #24332894.
I checked my shipping address on your website and it's good (I've already ordered several times with this same account without changing the shipping address).
I checked my local post office and they don't have this parcel for me (meanwhile, I received other orders from several websites from France, Canada and Asia during this 2 last mounths without any issue).

I'm in touch with other european fans who already received their Joy Box (but with a scratch) as you can see here :
http://www.bouncingaroundeuroom.eu/post/2009/12/12/PHISH-Jox-Box-finally-arrived-in-Germany.aspx

I can't understand how you can make people pay such expensive international shipping fee ($59 in my case !!) without providing a basic tracking number ! Moreover, the items aren't that protected in the parcel and always come with a small or big scratch.
It is totally unprofessional and very disrespectful for your "valued" customer.
I'd like you to explain me how my order would cost you $59 to ship, with details. I have very high doubts about that amount.

Another example : If I want to order a simple t-shirt right now during the "7 Below sale", shipping to France would cost me $16.21 for a $14 shirt ! How can you justify those $16 without a tracking number ???
And of course, the free shipping is good only for US customers...

It's not a small order to an obscure seller on ebay in a difficult-to-reach country, it's a $225 order on the official web store of an internationally famous rock band !

I ordered on the 11th august 2009 and I doubt I'll get it before 2010 !

This is really a bad joke...

Please, I'm waiting for a real answer.

Some banners and old-school logos

by Yome NetSan 23. November 2009

Joy Box ? [update]

by Yome NetSan 17. November 2009

I'm still waiting for my Joy box (among other items in the same order).

I sent an email to Dry goods (with other emails found on the Phish.com contact page as CC) today.

Hello Dry Goods,

I'd like to know when will my order #24332894 be shipped ?
It has been pushed back because of the Joy Box and I received the following email stating that it will ship during the first week of November. It's know the 17th november and I got no news.

You can understand that a $225 order made on 11th August and not shipped on the 17th November might be quite annoying for a "valued" international customer.
And yet, I paid $59 for shipping only !
I remember that it was written on the Pre-order Joy page that the Box will be shipped on a first-ordered/first-shipped basis. I think that I order it on the first day the Joy box was listed and I read on multiple message boards over the Internet that people got an email when it was shipped and have already received their order !

I'm glad I choose 12-18 month as size of the baby items I ordered. My July-borned baby would have been too tall if I had choose the size depending on the date I should have received my order...
Oh and a shirt included in my order is on sale know and cost $5 less...

My second "fear" about my order is that I hope the items will be very well protected in the parcel than with my last orders. I don't want to wait several month for the Joy Box for finally received it crushed...

I received the Mike Gordon's Green Sparrow vinyl and Trey Anastasio Original Broadway Style and Time Turns Elastic vinyls with crushed corners because of a too small parcel. I emailed you several times about this issue with pictures of the vinyls but I got no answer.

Oh and I'm still waiting for an answer for my october 2008 email about a 10% off coupon I got because of the delay of the Green Sparrow vinyl that never worked (see far bellow)...

I'm a great Phish fans and a long time Dry Goods customer. I got used of not having the choice to buy Phish items elsewhere because I'm french and paying a very very expensive price for shipping.
I'm sorry to say that but since Dry Goods is managed by Music Today, the customer service is very poor.
I find insulting that, as a "gift" for my patience, you give me a reduction coupon for a next order, on which you will own money anyway !

I'm sorry to become a little bit angry but you can understand that this situation is getting on my nerves...

I'm waiting patiently for your answer.

 

[UPDATE on 18th November] I don't know if my yesterday eMail has anything to do with it but...

Your order has been shipped by IMEX STANDARD.

[UPDATE on 23th November] I received today an answer for my mail. It's a standard answer for not received item from Dry Goods, I had word-by-word the same answer when I asked about my Clifford Ball dvd several month ago. By the way, it's ridiculous to pay 59$ for shipping and not having a tracking system...

Our records indicate that your order shipped on 11/17/09. International orders ship via IMEX Bulk. We are not provided individual tracking numbers. Regardless of delivery location and due to recent border restrictions, International delivery can sometimes take up to 24 business days. IMEX delivers to your local mail carrier who then delivers to the address provided with your order. If you do not receive your order by the 24th business day, please check with your local post office as they may be holding your order. If you are unable to locate your order, please verify with us your correct shipping address and we will investigate your delivery issue.

If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to contact us.




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