Phish COULD have been....
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/faceoff/040817/part1If that doesn't inspire a slumbering writer to start writing again then i don't know what will.For my first post on this in well over a year i think, i could be wrong, in fact i probably am, i'm going to fully organize my current views on music, as it upsets me when i contradict myself to some people.
->All music has a purpose instilled in it by its Creator. That purpose can be criticized, it can be called crap, it can be described as "treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality" but the merits of such a concotion cannot be discounted. Usually when i hear something i don't like (i.e. Chris Carabba needs to fucking shut his God damn mouth) i will say it's shit, or i don't like it (Sometimes i will say it's "sentimental tacky crap" or it's "redifining minimalism" but for the point i'm trying to make those phrases have no relevance) basically what i'm trying to say is that I as a person am very willing to discredit the aesthetic qualities of something I'm hearing but to me it goes unstated that i have a certain amount of respect for the Creator of whatever piece I'm hearing. I mean, they took their time to at least write something I can criticize with reckless abandon I at least owe it to them to respect the fact that they wrote something worthy of my time as an asshole.
-> Phish COULD have been regarded as the greatest rock band ever if the never released a studio album and only released CERTAIN live albums. I will take Phish's Halloween '96 performance over pretty much any show in the rock genre ever. However, I will completely concede that there have been higher levels of consciousness reached during jazz performances and anyone wishing to have a clearer head needs to talk to Timothy Elias Doherty about Jazz. At least Mclaughlin and Zappa, you owe it to yourself.
Back to my point about Phish. Here is a band that is completely capable of stunning renditions of their own songs as well as songs written by ANYONE else. I mean, what other band could cover Deodato's funk remix of the "2001: A Space Odyssey" theme song, lesser known as "Also Sprach Zarathrusta"? No one. Not even moe. Sorry boys, but you just can't hack it.Although it is one of the lesser shows in their "Musical Costume" cannon, my purchase of Phish's 1994 Halloween show (Vol. 13 in the Live Phish Series for the record buying public) will always be something I'll regard as a "life altering" event. It wasn't so much as that performance changed my life, as the ramifications that occured after it. The offshoots of that purchase have influenced my life and the life of those around me more than i could put into words. However, the explanation of the previous is a column for another time.
I'll do part two some other time, i'll kick it off with something about the beatles.
boom
(just to clarify with everyone, i was not being serious about Phish being the greatest rock band ever. They are the very definition of "Hit or Miss")
bang
posted by Ryan | 11:20 AM
3 Comments:
Just a two word review: "Shit sandwich."
Phish has never been entirely my cup of tea; I respect their whole extended-jamming technique, and all, but it just don't do it fo' me. If it weren't their entire gimmick I would say that they overdid the whole "twenty minute jam" idea; but if you took that away, what really would you have left over? I mean, their tunes are alright, their lyrics are... existent... so what you'd have is some alright kinda funny mellow-rock songs. Phish's enormity is (and don't take me too seriously here, not only do I not know a lot about Phish at all, but I'm half asleep) a direct fault of the drug-use of their fanbase, the massive amount of time they have had to learn each other's musical nuances, and the kicker: an open defiance of the definition of what a contemporary rock band should play, directly when a lot of people got bored with the over-done-titude of the contemporary rock ideal.
Skilled band of talented musicians, yes, but an enormous amount of coincidence and like two decades of practicing together, in my humble opinion, may have had a large bearing on their success. Dig it?
Well played john. In fact i completely agree with you. The only difference is that i love them and you do not. I agree that they can over due the novelty of "we play long songs" and sometimes that really bothers me. I said once about jam bands, and this is especially true for Phish, that if you can write the beginning of a song and repeat that riff for the ending and you can jam off of that riff long enough to make your drug filled audience forget what song you were playing in the first place then you are the Gods of jam bands. Some of their long songs such as Fluffhead or Divided Sky are really just long COMPOSED works, which i respect a great deal. They're very talented, as you mentioned, and their ability to be in tune with one another is impeccable at times, faulty at others. For me however, there is something about them intrinsically that attracts me and that is the basis for my love of them. I think they can run the gamut from brilliant to brokendown and as i said they are the very definition of hit or miss. I have no real way to end this as i realized i only wanted to comment to tell john that i thought his point was very good and i enjoyed it a great deal. That is all.
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