Phish

by Parke Puterbaugh

  “I can’t tell you how difficult it was to license all of that stuff, because nobody else was doing it,” said Beth Montuori Rowles. “It was impossible to get a digital license because they hadn’t yet set rates for digital downloads. So when you went to these large publishers to get a license for a digital download, first of all, the federal copyright act mandates a thirty-day notice, and obviously we were violating that term since we were putting up shows within forty-eight hours.

  “No one was saying no to us, but nobody was saying yes, either. It was like you couldn’t obtain the license because they didn’t know how to write it or how much to charge for it. And to get it through these big publishers’ business-affairs departments was ridiculous. So we couldn’t actually get physical licenses, but we were getting letters saying, basically, ‘Do this and we’ll figure it out after the fact.’ Of course, we wouldn’t be getting a letter like that from every single publisher, so we just had to move forward.”

  The tide started to turn when Harry Fox, a company that handles licensing for multiple publishing companies, began offering instant live licenses for shows released within seventy-two hours.

  “When they made that available,” Rowles continued, “I went to them and said, ‘Okay, now we’re starting to talk. Not all the terms meet our needs, but we’re actually going in the right direction.’ We were one of the first companies to get involved in this digital realm of licensing that excludes the thirty-day notice. Honestly, I think it took us two years to get the first licenses going. So the band’s always been on that really innovative cusp.”

  Even on Phish’s musically triumphant summer 2003 tour, there were signs of chinks in the armor, at least from a business perspective. Attendance on the summer tour was down from what it had been prior to the hiatus. In 2000, their last previous touring year, Phish sold out 95.5 percent of capacity. They took in $39 million from 54 concerts, for an average per-show gross of $722,222.22—not a bad haul for a band that didn’t gouge fans with ticket prices. In 2003, Phish played to 90.8 percent of capacity. That’s only a 5 percent drop, but it was indicative of a trend.

  Did that mean Phish’s audience had stopped growing? Had some Phish fans aged past the point where they’d suffer the inconveniences of the road to traipse around on tour? Did some fans not return to the fold posthiatus? Was Phish’s latter-day style of playing not as captivating to longtime fans? Did the modest decline in ticket sales reflect a more general music-biz trend as listeners retreated to more “virtual” hideouts, like computers and iPods? Or was it simply the economy? The answer no doubt resided in some combination of all those factors, although Phish’s manager, John Paluska, felt one was particularly significant.

  “I think the biggest factor is our economy,” manager John Paluska told Billboard. “It made people more selective. Instead of going to a few shows, they might go to one.”

  “We weren’t selling quite as many tickets,” acknowledged lighting engineer Chris Kuroda. “Everyone has his or her own reason why they’re not buying a ticket anymore, from being grown up and working to support a wife and kid to they’re just not into it anymore to it’s not as good as it used to be.”

  Phish turned twenty on December 2, 2003. They celebrated that milestone anniversary with a concert at Boston’s Fleet Center on that date. A career-spanning film montage, assembled by Mike Gordon and engineer/editor Jared Slomoff, played in the arena at intermission.

  They closed out 2003 with a four-show New Year’s stand at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, sounding much stronger than they had at the same point a year earlier, when they broke the hiatus. On occasion, they still wrestled with some of the more challenging passages in songs like “Reba,” but the jams were fluid and the vibe playful and upbeat throughout the run.

  They were joined on the third night by George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars for a second-set jam. The irrepressible Clinton exclaimed, “Y’all ready to funk up this place tonight? Phish with a P! That’s funky to me, y’all! We got a little P with us, too! P-Funk, y’all!” The stage filled with costumed funkateers and a twenty-minute “P-Funk Medley” ensued. The sight of two seminal American jam bands sharing a stage made for an unforgettable moment of music history. The cherry on this funky sundae was that George Clinton got an arena full of white suburban Phish fans to chant, “We need the funk! Gotta have the funk!” in unison (more or less).

  For New Year’s Eve, Phish had devised another great gag. A local high-school marching band emerged one by one from a Mini Cooper that had been lowered onto the stage over a trapdoor. As the clock struck midnight, the band joined Phish in a medley of Kool & the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie,” the traditional “Auld Lang Syne,” and Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” There was an odd bit of luck in that the band hailed from Palmetto Senior High School, so their uniforms were prominently emblazoned with a “P.” The three-set show careened to a close with Fishman singing “Feel the Heat” from the Boogie Nights soundtrack, performed because this arena was home court for the NBA’s Miami Heat.

  Phish ended the year by raising the temperature, but their world would turn a good deal colder in 2004.

  There weren’t more than a handful of outright bad Phish gigs one could point to as evidence of waning inspiration, poor execution, and drug problems. Not everyone liked the turn toward ambient jamming and “cow funk” in 1997 and 1998, but the shows were inspired and well-played. The years 1999 and 2000 were off but not awful—just unspectacular, for the most part, by Phish’s standards. The concerts at which the shit really did hit the fan (or fans) were their three nights in Las Vegas in April 2004 (overindulgence in Sin City) and Coventry (their calamitous festival finale). Although 2004 was a largely gloomy year for Phish and Phishheads, even it had some red-letter shows—such as their two-night runs at Brooklyn’s KeySpan Park and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Undermind, Phish’s tenth studio album, was also born during the season of travail that led to their breakup.

  As with Round Room, it mixed brief, well-crafted songs with lengthier, more complex pieces, but it was an altogether tighter and more produced record. After working with Bryce Goggin and John Siket for years, Phish decided to try someone new. They turned to Tchad Blake, who’s worked with Tom Waits and Los Lobos. They liked his experimental bent, penchant for found sounds, and ability to create evocative musical atmospheres.

  “We were looking for a producer who was compatible and yet came in with his own opinions,” said McConnell. “It was good to bring in someone with a different sensibility and perspective, some fresh ideas and fresh ears.”

  Undermind came together during a month of sessions at the Barn. Unusually for them, the album was cut mostly by the light of day. “We made a daytime album that has a fresh afternoon feel,” noted Gordon. “There’s a peaceful kind of sound that comes about when we’re working in the afternoon and are able to look out over the mountains.”

  Taking a cue from Blake’s kitchen-sink approach, Gordon played five different basses on the album. McConnell laid down multiple keyboard parts—including Hammond organ, Yamaha synthesizer, and Fender Rhodes—to create sculptural textures. Fishman brought in old, beat-up cymbals and hi-hats at Blake’s request. Anastasio got to stretch out on “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing,” a slab of moody, ornate psychedelia. Undermind was the first album to feature songs by all four members of Phish. The album closed with “Grind,” a group-written piece of barbershop quartet on the subject of teeth. They submitted it to Joe Lilles—one of the foremost barbershop arrangers—to write an arrangement geared to their vocal ranges.

  The album’s undisputed pinnacle is “The Connection.” A burnished gem, it is a song so simple, tuneful, and eloquent that you could swear it’s always been there.

  “When Trey brought in the demo for ‘The Connection,’ I thought it was one of the most beautiful songs I’d ever heard,” recalled Fishman. “To be able to write one song in your life with that level of simplicity and depth is a great thing. My respect for Tre
y and Tom as a songwriting team went through the roof. It was a sense of, ‘This is really a sign of growth. Look at what this is developing into . . . and I get to contribute to this? What an opportunity!’”

  “We’re all happy with the album,” said McConnell. “We did a lot of the vocals live, and the three of us would stand around and sing together. I really enjoyed that, and we were able to capture some nice moments.”

  “The whole project was easy and fun and creative, like a big celebration,” said Gordon. “I feel our albums keep getting somewhat more accessible, yet at the same time they sound more unique to us.

  “I’m feeling so good about Phish and what these experiences in our lives are leading to musically and lyrically,” he continued. “I know we’ve been in a band for twenty years, but it still feels like it’s ripening. With Undermind, I feel that it’s really starting to take wing in a whole new way.”

  Three and a half weeks after Fishman, Gordon, and McConnell made those upbeat and hopeful statements, Anastasio broke up the band.

  All the while, gossipy fans dished and deconstructed every perceived flub and rumor of substance abuse on their various online forums—Phantasy Tour, Jambase, Phish.Net. Contrarily, some heard, saw, and spoke no evil, attacking anyone who dared point out deficiencies. Music writer Jesse Jarnow posted reviews of all three nights at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas on jambands.com. Jarnow was a longtime Phishhead, and his criticisms of that run were both constructive and critical.

  The three-night Vegas run of April 15-17, 2004, comprised the only shows Phish played that spring, so there was keen anticipation. Of the first night, Jarnow wrote: “The band seemed disoriented onstage during their first set, nervous even, guitarist Trey Anastasio puttering around between songs, back slightly hunched. . . . The second set was better, if a little more bizarre, [although] Anastasio continued to blow cues. . . . By two hours into the show, one could very easily wonder about what excites the band these days.”

  Of the middle night of the run, he wrote, “Last night was a fantastic Phish show, more than making up for the uneven performance of the opener.” But the third night raised another red flag: “Everything was frayed during Phish’s last night in Las Vegas. The band’s old songs, once a source of puzzlebox beauty and underscored by their seamless playing, revealed their all-too-intricate constructions as the quartet once again blew transitions (‘You Enjoy Myself ’) and forgot verses (‘Tweezer’). The band’s newer songs, the numbers they should be able to play in their sleep, also fell prey to disheartening sloppiness.”

  He remarked on the band’s “collectively decaying memory.” Perhaps that was a consequence of playing so infrequently and rehearsing less. Booking a handful of nights in Las Vegas was no way to keep a band like Phish on its toes. Jarnow’s severest judgment: “Whatever the hell’s going on, Phish can’t continue to play like they did on the first and last nights in Las Vegas and expect to be taken seriously.”

  As if to affirm the perception that something was amiss, there was an unnerving interview with Anastasio on the second DVD of the It documentary. It was filmed right after the Las Vegas run in 2004, and the wear and tear his lifestyle was taking was evident. He looked pale as a ghost as he enthused hoarsely about the band’s “new beginnings.”

  Jarnow’s honest assessments nudged Anastasio to the tipping point. He read the reviews, listened to the soundboards of those shows, and then called a band meeting. To his bandmates’ surprise, he came to break up the band—for good this time. The rest of the band didn’t see Anastasio’s decision coming. They thought he might have in mind some major downsizing of their office and warehouse staff. The meeting took place at Gordon’s house on May 21. Gordon told Rolling Stone’s Will Dana that Anastasio started crying and said, “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Anastasio posted an announcement on Phish.com on May 25, 2004, a month after the Vegas gigs. It sent shockwaves through the fan world. Signed only by Anastasio, it was unambiguous in its finality. It read as follows:Last Friday night, I got together with Mike, Page and Fishman to talk openly about the strong feelings I’ve been having that Phish has run its course and that we should end it now while it’s still on a high note. Once we started talking, it quickly became apparent that the other guys’ feelings, while not all the same as mine, were similar in many ways—most importantly, that we all love and respect Phish and the Phish audience far too much to stand by and allow it to drag on beyond the point of vibrancy and health. We don’t want to become caricatures of ourselves, or worse yet, a nostalgia act. By the end of the meeting, we realized that after almost twenty-one years together we were faced with the opportunity to graciously step away in unison, as a group, united in our friendship and our feelings of gratitude.

  So Coventry will be the final Phish show. We are proud and thrilled that it will be in our home state of Vermont. We’re also excited for the June and August shows, our last tour together. For the sake of clarity, I should say that this is not like the hiatus, which was our last attempt to revitalize ourselves. We’re done. It’s been an amazing and incredible journey. We thank you all for the love and support that you’ve shown us.

  —Trey Anastasio

  Page McConnell eventually added his own note of assent and explanation. Fishman kept quiet. Gordon made no secret of opposing the breakup. He argued for staying together on the basis that longevity was preferable to demise. For that, Phishheads accorded him hero status.

  Because of his reviews, Jarnow was saddled with the reputation of being “the guy who broke up Phish” within a certain unforgiving corner of the fan world. He got a subtle earful from Mike Gordon, too. A month after the breakup announcement, following the first show of the summer tour—an awesome performance at KeySpan Park, on Coney Island, that was released on DVD—Mike Gordon pulled Jarnow aside in the Betty Ford Clinic and told him, “Just so you know, your reviews came up at our end-of-band meeting. No hard feelings, though.”

  Once he made up his mind, Anastasio was capable of following through with an assertive finality. For example, Gordon told Rolling Stone that Anastasio got rid of his CD collection and set fire to his television set. He was given to such bold strokes, and his handling of Phish was no different.

  “I have to see this [disbanding Phish] as one of those things,” Gordon noted.

  I didn’t see it coming in the conversations I had with McConnell, Gordon, and Fishman for the Undermind album bio. Perhaps I should’ve gotten a clue when Anastasio demurred on his interview, as it was the first time that had happened. But Anastasio was a very busy man with a lot on his plate, so that was understandable.

  I did speak with him on May 19—two days before the meeting at Gordon’s where he pulled the plug—about his upcoming performances at Bonnaroo. I was writing an article about Anastasio for the festival program. He was scheduled to play as a guitarist in Dave Matthews’s solo band; as conductor of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra in a program of his compositions; and as the leader of his horn-filled solo band. He was juggling a daunting set of tasks, and the pressure must have been considerable.

  He said little that would have led me to believe he was poised to end Phish. In hindsight, the only comment he made that might offer a clue to his weary and overwhelmed mindset came as he praised David Byrne, who was also appearing at Bonnaroo.

  “There’s hardly a day that goes by that I don’t find myself laughing about some David Byrne lyric in the context of my life,” Anastasio said. “It happens so often. It just happened recently. He’s right on the money. Like ‘No Compassion’: ‘So many people . . . I’m not interested.’”

  After the breakup, Anastasio mused freely about his reasons for disbanding Phish. There were many such reasons, some of them extra-musical, but in retrospect the fact that they’d gotten away from the band practices that were so fundamental toward bonding them loomed large.

  “I often liked band practice better than the . . . ” he said, trailing off.

  “Performance
s themselves?” I offered.

  “Yeah. My memory of band practice is the thing I’ll miss the most. And maybe that’s part of the reason why . . . We don’t practice anymore. We haven’t practiced . . . We can’t.”

  “I don’t think the music was as good after Big Cypress, from 2000 through to the end,” said Amy Skelton. “Certainly, the last show before the hiatus had some really incredible moments. But those years weren’t that amazing. And I wasn’t jaded. I still loved the band most of the time, but I remember standing in the room many times, listening and saying ‘yeah,’ but I wasn’t sucked in. My hair wasn’t standing on end at the top note of one of the best songs. They were sort of going through the motions. It was decent, but it wasn’t transcendent. There were a lot less of those moments in those years. And some shows, I didn’t get it at all.”

  Not coincidentally, those were the years when Phish stopped practicing and instituted a “no analysis” rule for their live shows. The escalation of drug use and backstage scenes was also a cause or symptom. All of these things eroded the intense self-scrutiny and disciplined, goal-oriented strategy that had made them so unique for many years.

  Even after the hiatus, the organization the band felt financially obliged to support remained something of an obsession, the elephant in the room.

  “I don’t know if you ever went to the Phish office, but it was pretty big,” Anastasio said in 2005, after it had all gone away. “I mean, as long as it was going to keep going, it was as big as it needed to be. It’s very hard and I felt so guilty about all the people losing their jobs and everything. I still do. There’s still people floating around Burlington kind of trying to work for Phish. . . . But, I mean, people were unhealthy. Things had gotten really gross in a certain way, and now they’re not.”