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Archive for the ‘Phish’ Category

Jonathan Lethem–“Radisson Confidential” (Harper’s, October 2011)

Posted in Books about writers, Essays, Harper's, Jonathan Ames, Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Safran Foer, Phish, Raymond Chandler, Sci-fi on October 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Live Bait (2010-2011).

If you’re a fan of Phish, you no-doubt know about their live concert releases.  Phish has always encouraged bootlegging of their shows.  And people traded the shows all around the country.  Back about twelve years ago, they started releasing some of these concerts officially–soundboard quality recordings.  There was no indication that they would release every concert they had played, but they selected a very interesting mix of recent and early shows as well as Halloween shows (where they cover an entire album from another band) and shows from unusual places.

Starting in 2009 (after their hiatus), the band started making (almost) all of their concerts available for download (for a fee) on their site.  You can get any show–you can even get them in CD format, for a quite sizable fee–soundboard quality.  One thing that I really like about their site if you go to a concert, you can redeem the bar code on your ticket for free MP3 of the show, usually within 48 hours.  Back when I used to go to concerts, I would have loved to have copies of a lot of the shows I saw.  This is a cool service for their fans.

And speaking of cool services, this post is about Live Bait.  I love the title of the series, which is obviously a pun about places where you can buy live bait (the covers all have pictures of bait stands), but it’s also a wonderful way to bait users into buying more music–crass and clever.  Anyhow, the Live Bait downloads (up to #6 right now) are a collection of live recordings taken from various shows.  (Live Bait #5 has songs from 2009 and songs from all the way aback to 1989).  They’re assembled together into a kind of seamless show and they are all available for free. 

Okay, big deal.  But it is a big deal because, while the first couple were 80 or so minutes of music (not too shabby in and of itself), Live Bait #3 features a 58-minute version of a song (!); Live Bait #4 contains almost 4 hours of free music and Live Bait #5 contains over 6 hours of free music.  So if you’re curious about why people like Phish so much, here’s several opportunities to listen to some of their live songs for free.  

Their most recent download is from their Benefit for Vermont Flood Recovery–if you’re going to buy a show, it’s a good place to start

[READ: September 25, 2011] “Radisson Confidential”

For a time (I wish I could remember exactly when this was) it seemed like all the young hip writers were named Jonathan: Ames, Lethem, Franzen, Safran Foer, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it.  I think I grew weary of the whole episode and decided not to read any of them.  That has since changed, and I have now read (and enjoyed) all of them–but each for very different reasons.  The funny thing to me though is that they were all lumped together and yet they are all so very different, especially now that Safran Foer has been writing nonfiction and Franzen has proven himself to be a writer of occasional big books that get lots of attention. (more…)

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Jonathan Goldstein–Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! (2009)

Posted in Anachronisms, Bible, Canadian Content, Death, Demons, Fables, Food, Funny (ha ha), History, Humiliation, Jonathan Goldstein, Marriage Trouble, Phish, Pregnancy, Religion, Sex, Short Story, Violence on March 8, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK : PHISH-Live Bait: Vol 2 (2010).

Phish has been releasing live concert downloads  for years now.  And now that they’ve started touring again, they have a whole bunch of new ones.  I’m not going to be downloading new shows, (I have a  bunch of old ones that I really never listen to).  But what I like is that they are giving away a few tracks from these shows.  And what I love is that they’re calling the freebies, Live Bait.

This set is a few tracks from shows recorded in August of 2010.  There’s nine tracks  ranging from 90 seconds (“NO2” ) to 17 minutes (“Twenty Years Later”).

Although this show is from 2010, this bait contains only two songs from their last album, Joy. The older songs are fan favorites (“Wilson, “Possum”) and weird interludes (“Kung”).  The band sounds fresh and really into what they’re doing and the old songs sound rejuvenated and fun.

Nevertheless, since most of the other live releases are older, it’s so nice to have the two new songs.  You can’t be choosy on a free sample, but I’d have loved to hear them do “Time Turns Elastic.”  If you’re new to Phish, this is a good place to get a free sample of their live shows.  Three volumes of bait have been released so far.

[READ: February 16, 2011] Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible!

I discovered this book when I read the short story “Samson and Delilah in The Walrus.  I liked, but didn’t love, the short story, but I was intrigued enough to want to see how the other Bible stories would stack up.  And since we had the book on the shelf, I decided to check it out.

So this book is a retelling of several stories from the Old Testament.  What Goldstein does is create a backstory for these biblical characters who are really just sketches.  The stories are funny, serious, weird and often enjoyable.

The introduction is a very funny kvetch about at being a Jew and having dinner in the Grey Derby; waiting online for hours with so many other Jewish families, eating kosher food with your own family, fighting over the check, pointing fingers, calling each other names and, ultimately, leaving by 5:30 PM.  It made me laugh out loud in the best Woody Allen tradition.

With no real introduction, he moves right into his new versions of Bible stories.

The biblical stories that Goldstein updates include:

  • Adam and Eve
  • Cain and Abel
  • Noah and the Ark
  • The Tower of Babel
  • Jacob and Esau
  • The Golden Calf
  • Samson and Delilah
  • King David
  • part 1: Goliath
  • part 2: Bathsheba
  • part 3: Absalom
  • Jonah and the Big Fish
  • My Troubles (A Work in Progress, by Joseph of N–) (more…)

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Samantha Hunt–“The Yellow” (New Yorker, November 29, 2010)

Posted in AC/DC, Death, Funny (strange), Led Zeppelin, New Yorker, Phish, Prince, Samantha Hunt, Sex, Short Story, Supernatural, Yuck!, Zombies on January 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

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. (more…)

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Wells Tower–”Vogalooooonga” (Outside, April 2010)

Posted in Adventure, Canoeing, David Sedaris, Drinking, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Odds, Outside, Phish, Travel, Wells Tower on September 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ODDS-Neopolitan (1991).

This was the first Odds album.  For such a quirky name, Odds played some pretty standard music. I’m not even sure if the first song qualifies as “alternative” as it sounds not unlike an early Phish song, only less quirky (and much shorter).

The disc offers a pretty nice range of poppy tracks, from acoustic based songs like “Are You Listening?” to louder guitar rockers liked “Evolution Time” (probably the most interesting track here).

Another notable song is “Wendy Under the Stars” a surprisingly explicit song about the day Elvis died.  The other track that stands out is “Love is the Subject” which has a harder more abrupt sound that is actually a bit premature for that style and sounds quite funky for this album.

Lyrically, the cleverest song (and one that seems to foreshadow their future songs is “Domesticated Blind” “Making babies, buying houses.  A French guy’s name is on our trousers.  We used to be such rabble rousers.  Before the world revolved around us; I’ve been domesticated blind”

I like this album, but I admit that it’s not the kind of disc that makes people go, “Ooh, who is this?  I want to get it!”

[READ: September 12, 2010] “Vogalooooonga”

This is the last of the Outside pieces that Tower wrote (not chronologically, just for my reading schedule).  And I’m really pleased that I saved it for last.

It does what Tower does best: tell a story while relating an event.  In fact, if he just changed a few details, this would make a great short story.

Wells and his brother have apparently been on many “assignments” together, and it transpires that when they travel together they often end up at each others throats.  So the piece opens with them agreeing to never do another story together again.  Then they get a call to go to Venice together to ride in the Vogalonga, “a 19-mile noncompetitive rowing regatta, held in late May, that promises a breathtaking tour of the old republic’s lagoon and outer islands” and that is traversed only in vehicles that can be paddled.  Wells’ brother says that they can’t pass up a trip to Venice, so he agrees to go along.

Based on the other stories that Wells has written, he is an athletic guy (and his brother is evidently bigger and stronger than he is).  Nevertheless, a 19 mile canoe trip in the canals of Venice can only lead to trouble.

And so this piece reads a bit like a David Sedaris story of familial in-fighting (although it’s a lot more manly than any of Sedaris’ pieces).  They fight from the get go (including his brother’s suggestion that they assemble their 17-foot canoe in their 10-foot hotel room.  And aggressive hilarity ensues. (more…)

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DC Pierson–The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To (2010) [prepub]

Posted in Adventure, Books about writers, Boredom, Corporate skewering, DC Pierson, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Huh?, Humiliation, Marriage Trouble, Phish, Set at School, Sex, Supernatural, Technology, Virginity (Loss of), YA Books on September 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-LivePhish 11.14.95 University of Central Florida Arena, Orlando FL (1995).

I have a number of these LivePhish discs.  They are universally solid releases (all from soundboards, I believe, which, have they really been recording all of their shows since like forever?).  And it’s fun to hear Phish totally jam out on a few of their more meandering songs.

One of the most interesting aspects of the series is that they almost always throw in a cover song (on Halloween, they cover an entire album by another band).

I haven’t really mentioned any of these releases because there’s usually not much to say about them: you either like Phish live or you don’t.  But this one is notable for being particularly odd.

They do an a cappella song in the first set–typically if they do an a capella track it is as an encore or the intro of the second set, but this one is right there in the beginning.

The end of the set also had the only instance (of the shows that I have) where Trey explains the audience chess match.  Many of the recordings open up set two with an audience chess move.  In this case, Trey explains that they have been playing chess with the audience at each show.  Phish is white, the audience is black and anyone who wants to just has to go to the Greenpeace booth to play a move…I have no idea how they would choose who gets to play the final decision.

There’s some other odd things in the show. “The Divided Sky” features one of the prettiest solos that Trey plays.  In this show there is a very long pause between the end of the first half of the solo and the beginning of the second.  The crowd cheers quite a bit during the pause, but we the listeners, have no idea what happened.

And then there is the extra long rendition of “Stash.”  It’s broken into three sections.  The first one features a fun audience response guitar solo.  And in this instance, he plays it in a much more staccato style.  The middle one features a bizarre percussion type solo.  And the third features a rendition of “Dog Faced Boy” which is not sung to the appropriate music, rather, the keyboards just play simple, unrelated chords while Trey sings.

Set two ends with a wonderful rendition of “You Enjoy Myself” that ends in their bizarro screaming and grunting.  You’ll get funny looks listening to that loudly.

So this set is a good one, and it stands out as unique among the others for being so darn bizarre.

[READ: June 27, 2010] The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To

I’m always bummed to read a prepub after it gets published.  Sigh.

Sarah told me that I’d love this book and she was correct.  It’s about a misfit high school boy who draws pictures and draws them really well.  Despite this talent, he is not lauded by the cool kids in his class (the kid who draws licensed characters holding joints is lauded by the cool kids).

He’s also kind of defensive about his drawing, because he gets tired of people asking him what he’s drawing.  Especially when they think that he’s just doodling.  But then one day Eric Lederer asks him what he’s drawing.  He and Eric have never talked.  In fact, he doesn’t think anyone talks to Eric.  Eric’s THAT kind of weird.

And what our narrator realizes is especially weird about Eric is that he is standing really really still: “No one stands this awkwardly sure of themselves except characters in my drawings staring straight ahead with their arms at their sides” (8).  And with that awesome detail I fell in love with the book. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–2666 [Week 14] The Part About Archimboldi (3 of 4) (2004)

Posted in Big Books, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Communists, Death, Foreign Books, Infinite Zombies, Military, Natasha Wimmer, Nazis, Phish, Racism, Roberto Bolaño, Sex, Suicide, Translation, Violence, Work on April 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Joy (2009).

This is basically Phish’s reunion disc (after a 5 year hiatus).  It opens with one of their poppiest songs, “Backwards Down the Number Line” a song that picks up where their least disc left off: with a feeling of driving down a country lane with nowhere to go, windows opens, just happy to be alive.  The second track, “Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan” is a delightful rocker with a supremely catchy chorus “got a blank space where my mind should be….”

The third track, “Joy” starts as a simple piano ballad, but quickly morphs into one of the prettiest songs I’ve heard in ages, an outrageously happy upbeat tender song: “We want you to be happy, cause this is your song, too.”

“Sugar Shack” is a delightfully funky song, recognizable at once as one of Mike’s songs.  It’s a simple, pleasant enough track, but somehow Mike’s voice sounds weaker than usual.

“Ocelot” is a silly track (and one of my favorites) while “Kill Devil Falls” is a bluesy number that will easily be a lengthy jam live.  It’s my least favorite track on the disc, but it is followed by a more upbeat future-jam called “Light” which features delightful multi part harmonies.

The highlights of the disc are the final two songs: the 13 minute “Time Turns Elastic” and the five-minute “Twenty Years Later.”  “Elastic” is a wonderful non-jam, a thoughtfully constructed epic with many parts (although not an elaborate prog rock track or anything).  It’s catchy and moving with sweeping grandeur and easy to sing parts.  And it melds wonderfully into the delicate multipart gorgeous final track.

This is a really strong, mature disc from Phish. There’s not a lot of silliness or nonsense, just some great uplifting gentle rock songs.  It’s quite wonderful.

[READ: Week of April 19, 2010]  2666 [pg 766-830]

This penultimate section of 2666 (the end is nigh!) settles down into an almost pasotral recollection of Archimboldi (the man formerly known as Reiter) as a writer (yes the pronunciation of his name is not lost on me, although I assume it doesn’t have the same connotation in German).  And while it is not all happiness, there is more joy in these 60 some pages than in most of the rest of the book combined.

But before we get there, we have one final moment with a war criminal.

(more…)

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Les Claypool–South of the Pumphouse (2006)

Posted in Chuck, Drinking, e.e. cummings, Fishing, Les Claypool, Marriage Trouble, Oysterhead, Phish, Primus, Ra Ra Riot, Racism, Rasputina, Sex, Short Books, The Futureheads, The Who, Vampire Weekend, Violence, Wikipedia on May 31, 2009| Leave a Comment »

pumphouseSOUNDTRACK: RA RA RIOT-The Rhumb Line (2008).

raraI have a hard time describing this album.  It has a lot of ingredients that don’t make sense individually, yet which work very well. I would almost resort to calling them pretentious rock, but that seems so derogatory.  Vampire Weekend falls into this category of highly literate pop too, and we know how much  I love that album!

Ra Ra Riot play catchy indie pop, but their main instruments are cello and violin. And yet they’re not anything like Rasputina’s string-laden goth music.  Rather, they write catchy poppy songs that are punctuated with strings.  I even wanted to say they don’t have a  guitarist, (they do) but I guess that just shows how well his licks meld with the rest of the music. And, indeed, on some tracks, the guitar is up front and wonderful.

They also get labelled pretentious because one of their songs (and one of their catchiest) has lyrics from e.e.cummings, or rather, they use his poem “dying is fine)but Death” as the lyrics for the song “Dying is Fine.”  They also cover Kate Bush.  Now the Futureheads covered Kate Bush a few years ago, so perhaps Kate is the next go-to artist for covers.

Ra Ra Riot wins extra points for covering a fairly unknown, and utterly bizarre song, “Suspeneded in Gaffa.”  This happens to be one of my favorite Kate songs, so I’m a bit critical.  However, they do a very good job of making it a pop song (There’s enough weird stuff in Kate’s version to never give it mainstream acceptance).  And the strings work very well for it.

Ra Ra Riot was also featured on that paragon of good taste: the show Chuck [And since I have mentioned the  music of Chuck on many occasions, I would be remiss if I didn’t send a shout-out to this site which lists all of the songs in Season One–gotta update Season Two fellas].  Chuck played “Can’t You Tell” in a romantic scene, and it worked quite well.

So, after all that, what can I say about the band.  They may be too commercial for some, but I think their combination of strings, intelligent lyrics and good vocals is pretty great.  Incidentally, in case you were wondering, a rhumb line  (or loxodrome) is a line crossing all meridians at the same angle, i.e. a path of constant bearing. Following a rhumb line requires turning the vehicle more and more sharply while approaching the poles (thanks Wikipedia).

[READ: May 26, 2009] South of the Pumphouse

So this book is by Les Claypool, lead singer and bassist of Primus.

Claypool’s lyrics are typically stories, full of weird characters in weird situations.  Oh, and fishing.  Lots of fishing.  And that sums up this book pretty well.

The book is set in El Sobrante, California, a redneck haven that has not progressed along with the rest of the state.  Earl is a fisherman and meth addict.  In that order.  Fishing is Earl’s life.  His father fished every weekend, and Earl and his brother Ed went with him.  Rain or shine. (more…)

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Periodical: Harper’s

Posted in 19th Century, Abba, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Essays, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, Lewis Lapham, Military, Natural Disasters, Phish, Political Humor, Religion, Smarty Pants, War, WMDs on May 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »

harpers 1993I first heard about this magazine from my friend Ailish’s then-boyfriend, Dave (this was sometime in 1993, I would guess).  Dave fancied himself an artiste: he typed his novel on a portable Underwood, loved Henry Miller and read Harper‘s.   I liked him, but was always confused by his pretensions since he didn’t really fit the bill.  But regardless, when we visited, I always read his Harper’s. I very quickly got hooked on it and have been subscribing ever since.

Harper’s is another one of those magazines that I don’t immediately get excited about receiving because there’s always the possibility that there will be five really long articles that I want to read in it.  And who has the time for all of that? Perversely, I am secretly delighted when there is only one story that I want to read in that month’s issue. But I know that if I’m going to read something in it, it will be good.

Clearly the high point of the magazine is Harper’s Index.  The index is a list of various statistics.  The gimmick, if you will is that everything is written in such a way that the answer can be given in a numerical value.  for example: “Amount the ABBA tribute band Bjorn Again says it was paid to play a concert for Vladimir Putin in January (2009): $27,500; Estimated street value of drugs seized last March at three Phish reunion shows in Hampton, Virginia: $1,200,000.” (more…)

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Faith Erin Hicks–Zombies Calling (2007)

Posted in 28 Days Later, Art Spiegelman, Canadian Content, Cherry Garcia, Consumerism, End of the World, Faith Erin Hicks, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Grateful Dead, McSweeney's, Oni Press, Phish, Scream, Set at School, Sirius Radio, Supernatural, Technology, Universities, YA Books, Zombies on June 17, 2008| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: Sirius Radio-The Grateful Dead Channel

I’ve never been a big fan of the Dead (even though I like Phish quite a bit). I never really got into the subculture, and really the music seemed peripheral to their fanbase. I recall being very disappointed when I bought What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been back when I was a metal head and couldn’t believe that a band with that name and with skeletons all over the place was that wimpy.

Well, it turns out that Sarah was something of a fan, and, after all these years of listening to Phish, I’ve grown an appreciation for the Dead as well (and Cherry Garcia, of course).

So, as we have Sirius radio, we put on the Grateful Dead channel one night. It’s a fascinating channel, as it sounds like it’s some guy playing all of his Dead bootlegs. It was funny to not hear any LP tracks. I found the whole experience rather pleasant. It worked great as background music, and was utterly inoffensive (not exactly a ringing endorsement, I know but). I enjoyed the experience and would definitely do it again. Probably not anytime too soon, after all, that was a lot of Dead to ingest. But someday, I’m sure…

[READ: June 10, 2008] Zombies Calling

Aside from Oni Press, my favorite comics publisher is SLG, Slave Labor Graphics. They’re generally a little darker and weirder than the Oni stuff, so it suits my dark side when needed. (more…)

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