Mike Gordon is an artist. Anyone who has studied his body of work knows that his creativity knows no bounds, mostly to the joy of others, though often also to their cheerful confusion and bemusement. His approach to art in general and music specifically is seen through a singularly distinctive lens that begs additional exploration. So when we had the chance to chat last week, I wanted to talk about his approach to his art.
Gordon is a pleasant kind of guy, and within seconds he had done his part to cast away the awkwardness of a typical interview. I asked if we could talk about the song writing process and he dove right in. Was there a typical process involved in him bringing a finished song to his band or if he brought just skeletons to them, allowing the group to apply the final touches? "I would like to do more of the latter," Gordon said. While Moss was largely written before the band was assembled, he aspires to welcome his band more into the writing process.
We're very excited to announce the next in a long line of Phish.net giveaways! We're giving away 2 tickets to any show on the upcoming Mike Gordon tour!! The rules are simple: just write an acrostic poem using any song title from Mike's newest album "Moss." Choose a song and write a poem using the first letter from each word in the song title. It can be humorous, dramatic, adventurous, melancholy... even a short morality play. Whatever your chosen genre, your peers will get to vote on your comments. We'll close the thread on the evening of March 4, then we'll take the 3 highest rated poems at that time and a small circle of old, beaded, crusty phish.net admins will convene in a dark room and subjectively select a winner. The grand prize winner will get two tickets to any show on the upcoming tour, the two runners up will each get a signed copy of Moss on vinyl.
We took a little liberty with the title of this blog post, as you no doubt noticed, but we hope you'll take the challenge seriously. Contests anytime need to satisfy typical appeal: never devalued, sometimes thoughtlessly invented, lovingly lauded.
Please note that in order to qualify, you must have a Phish.net account, you must post between now and March 4, 2011 at midnight, and you must have a valid email address attached to your phish.net account.
You may enter as many times as you like. Also, don't forget to check out our Phan Food contest going on in the Phish.net Forum. Good luck!
The Blog returns with the 39th installment of the Mystery Jam series. Just like every week, we will be playing for an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. The rules haven't changed: you need to correctly identify the song and the date to win. Post your guess in the comments. One guess per person per day (with the second “day” starting after I post the hint). The hint will come on Tuesday and the answer will be posted on Wednesday. Good luck....
Late Tuesday Hint: Another week where we really don't need a hint. Sigh.
Wednesday Answer:8/10/04 "Birds of a Feather." For any of you who may have thought that Phish couldn't bring it in 2.0, the defense rests. Congrats to RabeldyNugs for nailing it within 10 minutes of it being posted. Quite impressive. The Blog will be back on Monday with MJXL.
LivePhish.com
MP3 Downloads Courtesy of LivePhish.com
To make James Franco's portrayal of Aron Ralston [as the injured climber in the Oscar nominated film 127 Hours] as accurate as possible, Ralston told [film director Danny] Boyle to have Franco recite lyrics from the jam band Phish, Ralston's favorite band."
Following the recent announcement of summer shows, Glowstickwars.com is having a pre-tour special:Get a 25% discount AND free shipping when you order a case of 25 tubes of Show Sticks or more before March 15th, 2011, using promo code 25OFF25. 10% of gross proceeds support the Mockingbird Foundation.
A rambling Huffington Post post blames Mike and Jon for the "statistic out there, unverified as it may be, that roughly one third of the audience at any Phish show is Jewish." The rest is a mix of rehashed tripes and stretched imagination.
The Blog returns with a President's Day Mystery Jam. Just like every week, we will be playing for an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. The rules haven't changed: you need to correctly identify the song and the date to win. Post your guess in the comments. One guess per person per day (with the second “day” starting after I post the hint). The hint will come on Tuesday and the answer will be posted on Wednesday.
One programming note: in an effort to make the Mystery Jam more west coast friendly, we will be posting the MJ later in the day on Monday. The trade off is... well, there shouldn't really be any trade off, but there is a possibility that if something goes wrong in posting, I won't be able to fix it until later in the day. Thanks to President's Day, that wo't be an issue today. Good luck and, for those who have the day off from work, enjoy the holiday...
Tuesday Hint: For the second straight week, it does't look like we need a hint.
Wednesday Answer: Yes, it was the glorious 8/10/97 "Cities." Yunkfunk was the first to guess it and for that a shiny LivePhish.com MP3 download code will soon be coming his way. See you all next Monday.
LivePhish.com
MP3 Downloads Courtesy of LivePhish.com
In a feature that has been a long time coming, the Phish.net site team is very excited to bring you the first installment of Side Project Setlists. We invite you to go ahead and poke around – because we know you will anyway – but we really can't stress enough that this content is very much in development. If you see something that is incomplete or doesn’t quite work as you may have thought, for now know that it is a work-in-progress and that we’ll provide updates when major sections are complete. That said, we hope you'll agree that, once we finish (and we really can't stress enough that it could take us a while), Phish.net will be the definitive site for all Phish-related setlists.
The roll-out is going to start with Trey's side projects. All of our setlists will be vetted by our setlist team (to the extent they circulate) and documented to the same standards as Mockingbird's Phish setlists – lovinglydetailed and comprehensively. Like our Phish setlists, this is a collaborative process in which we invite the entire community to participate; if you notice anything incorrect or missing, please follow the links on the setlists to submit a correction.
We also have plans to start creating Song Histories for all TAB songs. If you have any interest in assisting with that process, feel free to send a private message to @lumpblockclod or @pzerbo.
More of Mike Wren's photos of the last night's Trey Anastasio Band show at the Palace Theatre, Albany (NY) can be found in his Flickr photostream here.
1. The entire acoustic set is beautiful, in part given the audience sing-alongs. Also, the arrangement of Guelah Papyrus in particular is unusual, surprising and charming. I had no idea what song it was before Trey began the lyrics. It has an almost spell-bindingly repetitive riff during the verses, and the chorus ain’t shabby either. If you’re a fan of this song, it’s worth downloading this show to hear it. And it doesn’t hurt that Trey plays Buffalo Bill, of all things, on his acoustic next.
2. Trey -- after explaining why Wading in the Velvet Sea means as much to him as it does (hear the banter for yourself) -- dedicates the song to Tom (with whom he wrote the song) and even bromantically sends his love to Tom, thinking that Tom wasn’t at the show, and then Tom (I think) yells “I’m here!” which leads to some amusing words from Trey. Gotta love intimate small-venue shows if only for exchanges like this. And I also heard (I think via Eric Wyman on Twitter) that the Drifting that Trey played last night was in response to a 5-year-old girl with a sign for it. Precious.
3. Devil Went Down To Georgia with the horns in a bluesy-klezmer arrangement is wonderful, just a riot.
4. The electric set is tight. It made me realize how much I missed Trey band. Jaded Trey-vets probably won’t be blown away by any of the jams, but I just love the horn arrangements, and I don’t think I ever want to hear Ocelot sans horns again. It adds so much to the song. I was never much of an Ocelot fan, but this is easily my favorite version. Hear Ocelot with horns. (And hear Alaska with horns, too, from the Portland 2/18 show!)
5. I am not embarrassed to admit that I was unfamiliar with the “Gorillaz” until Trey’s cover of Clint Eastwood, and think it’s awesome that he covered this song (which I’ve downloaded from iTunes, and am listening to now). If you are familiar with this song, Trey’s homage to its greatness is entertaining, but be prepared to be surprised. Trey’s arrangement is about as true to the original as Phish’s cover of Floyd’s Great Gig in the Sky.
In any event, if you’re still on the fence, check out what Trey’s doing this tour -- if only to hear the horn arrangements and unique acoustic arrangements of your favorite Phish tunes. I’m only seeing the tour closer at the Fox, and now wish I were seeing a lot more shows. $0.02.
This poster by Erin Cadigan is one of four being auctioned off on eBay by PhanArt to support the Mockingbird Foundation. Erin's an extremely talented artist who did the official Phamily Poker Tournament poster benefitting the Mockingbird Foundation last fall.
Bidding on this poster auction ends Tuesday evening (February 22).
Erin's poster for the second leg of summer tour 2010 is based on the Virgin of Guadeloupe, the clouds are the venues and dates.
The print measures 12″x18″, comes from a signed and numbered edition of 113 and is printed on 1-33 Champagne pearlized 100# cover 34-113 Cougar felted 100#cover (nice white paper). This poster is number 80/113.
Phanart Pete Mason and various artists in the Phish community are once again fundraising for The Mockingbird Foundation (the sponsor of Phish.Net). PhanArt Pete is auctioning off posters from four artists, including Erin Cadigan, on eBay: http://tinyurl.com/4dgcyes. You can read more about the poster auction here: http://www.phanart.net/?p=4961.
Following closely on the heels of yesterday's announcement of the Phish soundcheck vinyl to be released on Record Store Day, Saturday, April 16, Mike announced today that he will also be rereleasing Inside In and MossRemixes as Limited Edition Vinyl albums that will be available exclusively at participating independently owned record stores across the country.
Nearly eight years after Mike's debut solo release, Inside In, Mike is "unleashing" the album on vinyl for the first time as a deluxe double-LP set. For Record Store Day, Inside In has been pressed on 180g orange vinyl and includes "Minkinetics", "Trinners March" and "Be Your Tape", three previously unreleased outtake tracks from the album (available only on vinyl). Musicians on the album include Jon Fishman, Bela Fleck, Col. Bruce Hampton, Buddy Cage, Vassar Clements and others.
In addition, Moss Remixes, a Limited Edition 7-inch featuring two remixes from Mike's latest solo album Moss (released in October 2010) will be available at participating record stores. The release is limited to 1,000 copies. The idea was not to "remix" the songs, but instead, work with the moments that had lead to the germination of the songs. The A and B sides include full remixes of "Horizon Line" and "Fire From A Stick" (which incorporate bits of original demos, bass and drum jams, and many added extra textures).
For more background information on Record Store Day, click here.
For the Record Store Day website with a searchable list of participating independent record stores, click here.
Phish.net
The Mockingbird Foundation