waste

i think i've OD'd on "the" phish today. i've been listening to the audio from the walnut creek DVD release (which i am absolutely buying whenever i can afford it, as soon as possible, probably even before i buy season 4 of "house"). and it's really good. really mellow, like one would imagine pretty much any phish show from '97 would be. but, when your listening session starts with a thirty-one minute "runaway jim", it's only a matter of time before any un-stoned brain gets tired of hearing musical scales wrung upside down and inside out. so i hit the wall, but i was still had some extra phish-energy left, so i popped in "bittersweet motel", which i haven't actually even ever watched in its entirety yet. i still didn't get through it tonight. but. the band's performance of "waste" on the DVD got me thinking. i had a long conversation with andrea the other day on the phone regarding phish and the kind of people who like their music, as well as what causes someone to get into music like theirs, which really has very few (if any) accessible access points. there aren't really any other bands who sound like them, at least in the way that, say, you can say broadly that neil young and dylan and acoustic springsteen sound a lot alike (though they vary greatly in the details). a lot of people liken the grateful dead to phish, but the honest truth is that their music(s) aren't much at all alike. maybe their approach to music in general is, and the fact that they were both followed across the country by massive piles of stoners helps further the comparison, but any music fan worth his/her salt that has listened to more than five minutes of each i think would agree with me that they sound nothing alike. anyway, it was a good conversation, and i was thinking about it as i watched the DVD. i had also had a similar conversation recently with my friend sarah (actually it was less an actual conversation and more us just calling each other names, but whatever), and i felt compelled to really think about how i got into the band in the first place.

i actually got "picture of nectar" in one of those one dollar for thirteen CDs things they used to have. my then-girlfriend and i signed up, and picked that CD on a whim (i think because she said the cover was pretty or something). ironically (maybe?) that was also where i got DMB's "crash", a CD which would pretty much end up being more influential on my view of music than just about any other album i'd ever heard, or ever would hear. "picture" was too dense for me at first; i liked the straightforward songs (there were a few), but the jams weirded me out. two or three of the jams on "picture" are still to me some of the densest studio jams phish has ever put down. but i kept the name of the band in the back of my mind. it wouldn't really be until 2001, when, at my first DMB concert, in toronto, dave played "waste" solo acoustic after announcing he was going to play a song by his friend (some dude named "trey anastasio") that something sort of turned inside of me.

i can't say i went home and bought every album the band had ever made right away. that wouldn't happen until 2003, when a few friends of mine basically shoved phish down my throat, i heard "rift" for the first time, and my head exploded. but i did find "billy breathes", the album with "waste" on it, a few months later at the record store used for 2.50 and picked it up. listening through the first time was a pretty transcendental experience. "billy breathes" is perhaps unique in phish recordom in that it doesn't expect you to follow along with complicated movements, searing guitar work, or arrangements that make some classical music look tame by comparison. instead, it just wants you to sit back, relax, and believe in the beauty of sound the same way you would believe in the beauty of a sunset (if you're not into sunsets or stars or occasionally getting choked up at a cheesy movie, something like phish probably isn't your thing in the first place). though watch out for "taste". that song might invert your brain a little. i forget how wild it is (or isn't) on the record.

so, i finally got to hear the studio version of "waste", and page's every-note-perfect solo (still one of my all-time favorites of his). and to this day it remains emblematic of why i like phish even without all the musical pyrotechnics: because those pyrotechnics are just the background, or a way to communicate. to communicate big, bold emotions plainly and not hidden behind complicated metaphor (which often makes it less risky to do so) and sometimes to just have fun (which is often a huge fucking no-no in music, for some reason...even in a lot of music that i listen to). so anyway, here's the "bittersweet motel" version of "waste". even if you don't like phish, or hippies, you might like this...be careful.



and since wanting the walnut creek DVD like fuck is wha made me go on this tear in the first place, here's a few band-authorized clips:

"bouncing round the room", another simple phish tune that's still pretty mesmerizing due to its basic, building structure:


and if you want to hear mike BRING THE FUCKING FUNK, check this out: