SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-LivePhish 10.21.95 Lincoln, Nebraska (2007).
This Phish show is pretty unusual, even for a band whose live sets are by definition unusual. It opens with a reprise (“Tweezer Reprise”) which is basically the end of a song. There’s also a song that is not itself unusual but it’s one that I’ve never heard before: an all acoustic guitar song called “Acoustic Army.”
But aside from those minor oddities, it also features the craziness of “Kung” which is more or less just nonsensical screaming. Then Set One ends with a great cover of “Good Times Bad Times.”
Set Two is where the madness comes full bore. After some great versions of “David Bowie” and Lifeboy” we get a 24 minute version of “You Enjoy Myself.” After about twenty minutes the song devolves into a vocal extravaganza, with each of the four guys trying to outdo themselves with weird noises and vocals sound effects for 5 minutes. And just when you think the nonsense is over, the band covers Prince’s “Purple Rain.” Fish, the drummer, sings the song (rather poorly, it must be said), but the “highlight” is his vacuum cleaner solo. Yes, vacuum cleaner solo.
I have included a video from this portion of the show to see just how odd this concert must have been (although I believe that other concerts featured similar nonsense too). If you get bored by the noise in the beginning of the video, remember that it’s out of context and not really representative of the rest of the show, but do fast forward to when the guy in the dress pulls out the vacuum cleaner and tell me that that’s not the best damn vacuum cleaner solo you’ve ever heard.
The set ends with Trey noodling the riff from “Beat It,” although they never play the full song. Then there’s an encore cover of “Highway to Hell” (which rocks). The disc comes with a bonus track, a twenty some minute soundcheck where you can hear the band experimenting with sounds and ideas for the show. Not essential but interesting.
Lest you think this whole show is weird, there’s some great renditions of “Chalk Dust Torture” and “Guelah Papyrus.”
[READ: December 15, 2010] “The Yellow”
This story opens with a forty-something year old guy who has moved home with his parents. To the consternation of his father (“have you turned faggot?”), he paints his attic bedroom yellow. Who would have guessed that this (four-page) story about a sad middle-aged man would end with casual sex and zombies?
Roy is frustrated with his life (obviously). He gets out of his parent’s house and goes for a drive. While scanning the classic rock stations looking for the next great thing, he feels a thump and realizes that he has hit an animal. He’s fairly certain it’s a dog.
We jump to the owner of the dog: Suzanne, a woman of about Roy’s age who is married with two kids. Her husband has taken the kids to the movies sensing that she would need some time alone. Roy sees that her house is the closest to where he hit the dog. He walks up to her house with the dog in his arms and sees her vacuuming the rugs. He knocks. She lets him in and tells him that the dog’s name is “Curtains.”
Things immediately get weird when he crosses the threshold. What I lived about this story is that as I said, it gets pretty weird and yet contextually it works totally believable. Each step into madness is incremental, and even though the story is so short, the tiny steps lead to a way-out condition. By the end of the story, you’re not sure what’s real, but you’re totally engrossed.
It’s a weird, but very cool little story.
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