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 !

Consequences

by Yome NetSan 10. May 2011

When I like something, I just can't get enough of it. It means I seek infos, I buy, I listen to everything I can. Very often, I discover something which leads me to discover something else which leads me to discover something else, and so on... These combos are rather frequent and may have a lot of branchs. The real problem is that I like a lot of different things (music, games, movies, comic books...) and it's often hard to make a choice.

During the past few months, there were several of these phases and I decided to present them as a Phish setlist with two sets (the first one is rather straight, the second one with lots of improv), segues, sandwiches, guests, covers and old tunes.

Don't forget to click on each link as they're all different. Most of them will lead you to the object's description page my other blog Gamusik, where you can browse my collections. Although this website is in french, the collection part should be easy to navigate for english speaking people...

2011/01/13 L'Europe Bar, Valence, France

Set 1 (Game & Watch Set)
Super Mario Bros$ > Mario Bros*$, Zelda$$** > Donkey Kong$$ > Donkey Kong Jr.$$ > Super Mario Bros$$, Fort Apache$

Set 2 (Lux Set)
Des Pixels à Hollywood > Conférence Cinéma et Jeux Vidéo*** > (é)mergences > Arcades! Jeux Vidéo ou Pop Art ? > Osmos*@ > Solipskier > CDM Sounds : The Osmos Soundtrack@@@ > High Skies Sound of Earth@@@ > Osmos*@@ > Gas0095^ > Gas0095^^ > (é)mergences > Silent Hill Shattered Memories* > Silent Hill Collection > Silent Hill Homecoming* > Arcades! Jeux Vidéo ou Pop Art ? > Geometry Wars : Galaxies > Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2

Encore
6E 61 62^^^ > Yin + Yang^^^, Nice to Meat You!^^^^ > Super Meat Boy

Show notes
* First time played
** Original version last played in the 80's.
*** With an Alexis Blanchet solo
$ Original version
$$ First new version
@ PC version
@@ iPhone version
@@@ Free version
^ Download version
^^ CD + Minimoog version
^^^ With C.LD ST.RAGE
^^^^ With dB soundworks

 

2011/04/13 Lonesome Worker Theatre, Valence, France

Set 1 (Puzzle Set)
Dangerous, Rift*, Sergent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Disneyland Park > Val d'Europe à l'Horizon 2005, Hokusai The Great Wave > Pink Floyd Back Catalog, Victoria Frances

Set 2 (Miles Davis/Vinyl Set)
Kind of Blue > Dust off old vinyls** > Out of the Blue (10 CD Set) > Bitches Brew 40th Anniversary Legacy Edition > 3 Miles Davis Complete Sessions# > 9 Pink Floyd vinyls## > ION Vinyl turntable > 3 Ben Harper vinyls### > Dig out more old vinyls***, Back on the Block@, Red Dead Redemption Suite, The Beatles vinyls^ > More Pink Floyd Vinyls^^ > Abraxas > Tea for the Tillerman, Agharta > Bitches Brew LiveMore Ben Harper vinyls###, Zabriskie Point > La Vallée > Zabriskie Point, Two Soundchecks > Inside In > Moss Remixes, Tron Legacy > Tron Legacy R3CONF1GUR3D > Tron Translucence Trilogy$

Encore
Jack Skellignton@@@$$ > 8-bit Classic Blue@@@$$$ > 8-bit Power Red@@@$$$

Encore 2
Portal > Portal : Still Alive > Portal 2

Show notes
* Last played in 2004
** With The Haunted House, Il était une fois l'Espace and Bad teases.
*** With Joy, Live from Mars and Le Conte de Noël teases.
# Included In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew and A Tribute to Jack Johnson in their entirety.
## Included Meddle, Relics, Obscured by Clouds, The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, When the Tiger Broke Free and About Face in their entirety.
### Included Shimmer and Shine, The Will To Live and Lifeline in their entirety.
@ With a Miles Davis solo
@@ Included Soundtrack Vinyl, Soundtrack CD, Undead Nightmare CD and Collectors' Pack #1 in their entirety.
@@@ The Tie Trilogy in its entirety
^ Included Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road and Let It Be in their entirety
^^ Included A Nice Pair, Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother in their entirety
^^^ Included Rock And Roll Is Free Limited 7"Alone : The Live EP, The Will to Live : The Live EP and Both Sides of the Gun in their entirety
$ Included Blue, Yellow and Red in their entirety.
$$ Disneyland cover
$$$ With ssj_duche on second tie

>> French, original version on Gamusik




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