40 FOR 40: JAMS (PART 1)
To recognize, celebrate, and commemorate our favorite band’s first 40 years, Phish.net will be presenting a series called “40 for 40” featuring curated selections by the Phish.net/Mockingbird Foundation community that highlight important aspects of the band’s history. First, get ready for 40 epic JAMS! Each Friday for the next four weeks, look out for 10 jams to enjoy that speak to the depth of Phish’s incredible live improvisational performances across the decades.
7/10/99 “Chalk Dust Torture” by BozakAxel (Chip Parker) - Mockingbird Foundation Director and President
As President of the Mockingbird Foundation Board of Directors, I am honored to have this opportunity to thank all the amazing contributors who have made and continue to make Phish.net the incredible community it is! Everyone volunteering with the foundation understands that Phish.net is an integral part of our mission to “broaden access and educational opportunities for young people in music and the musical arts,” because we know the critical role the .net community plays in generating support for our grantmaking, which currently stands at nearly $2.4 MILLION of charitable giving.
With your continued support of the Mockingbird Foundation, Phish.net will continue to evolve, improving its services and enhancing its content. It’s incredible to think that even after 40 years, the future is still somehow so bright for our community! I encourage you to consider supporting the fundraising campaign we are coordinating alongside this “40 for 40” celebration by making a gift of $40 (or $122.83, or any amount you want!) to help us continue our support of music education programs across the United States. It is important to note that contributions to the Mockingbird also enable and support Phish.net, as maintaining the website is among the Foundation’s few overhead costs–which are minuscule compared to our capacity for giving. We all deeply appreciate your support!
Phish At Sphere April 18-21, 2024
PHISH will play four shows at SPHERE in mid-April. A ticket request period is underway at PhishTickets. Public onsale will be December 15 at 1pm et (10a pt). These will be Phish's only shows at SPHERE in 2024. For more information see the announcement on Phish.com.
AN INTERVIEW WITH TREY'S ACOUSTIC GUITAR MAKER: ADAM BUCHWALD OF CIRCLE STRINGS
Back in January 2022, I was checking out www.treysguitarrig.com (as usual) and noticed a post about a new guitar of Trey’s. But it wasn’t a Languedoc. It was by a maker named Circle Strings, also from Burlington. The guitar itself was absolutely gorgeous: a brilliant Koa flame on the back and sides and a beautiful classic Spruce on top.
Whoever built this guitar must have a pretty impressive resume and backstory. That someone turned out to be Adam Buchwald who I have been fortunate to get to know this past year. I presumed there was more of a story for Adam to tell besides making a few guitars for Trey. I also figured others might be interested as well.
In addition to Circle Strings which builds custom instruments, Adam runs IRIS Guitar Company which makes an affordable line of acoustic instruments, Allied Lutherie which sells top quality vintage and new woods to builders around the world and Ben & Bucky’s Guitar Boutique which is Vermont’s top guitar store – an impressive resume indeed!
Hope you enjoy learning more about these amazing guitars and the people behind them!
PHISH'S HALLOWEEN SHOWS RATED THREE WAYS
[The following opinions are not necessarily shared in any way, shape or form by any Phish.net or Mockingbird Foundation volunteer. In reading any words in this post, you agree to hold Phish.net and The Mockingbird Foundation harmless from any and all liability arising therefrom, and you accept any and all responsibility for such liability arising therefrom. -Ed.]
IT is beyond peradventure, as has been established ad nauseum on this website, that rating a work of art on any scale is stupid, frivolous, and offensive. Accordingly, Phish fans have been assigning ratings to and ranking Phish shows for decades.
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"EVOLVE" SONG HISTORY
Thank you Grant Calof, user @That_Guy, for authoring the "Evolve" song history, and thank you Tom Marshall for helping to ensure its accuracy!
"SEND IN THE CLOWNS" SONG HISTORY
We are very grateful to Cassidy McManus, phish.net user @donttouchthatknob, for authoring an all-new song history for the Stephen Sondheim number "Send In The Clowns" performed as the introduction for the NYE gag on 12/31/19 at MSG.
If you'd like to author a song history of a song on the site that lacks a history, please don't hesitate to ask, as this site relies on volunteers to author its content.
REMEMBER MIX(ED) TAPES? NO? WHAT ARE "TAPES"?
IT was not uncommon in the 1990's for fans with too many cassette tapes to either give them away or "liquidate" them for the cost of buying a new tape (at the time, around $1.50 a tape including shipping costs). I liquidated hundreds of tapes because I had too many and wanted them to go to better homes. And at that time, there wasn't access to Phish's recordings online, and so I preserved certain versions of songs (usually jam segments only) that I wanted to hear again (or again and again and again) and didn’t want to lose for all eternity by dubbing them onto two dozen or so 100-minute mixtapes or mixed tapes.
And here are the first 13 of them for your amusement. It's surprising to me that not everything on those tapes circulates today online (sigh), so I may be giving such tapes to someone to digitize the material that has yet to circulate online (more sighing). In any event, if this post gets enough attention, I’ll consider posting the "setlists" (so to speak) of the other ten or so mixes that I have, which I do not seem to have ever typed-up, and so I would need to pull the tapes to type them up (not easily done without the full use of my right leg, as I continue to recover from ruptured right anterior tibialis tendon repair surgery). So please, if you appreciate this content, indicate as much in the Comments. Thank you!
HOW WOULD YOU SUMMARIZE ONE YEAR OF PHISH IN ONLY A 74 OR 100 MINUTE PLAYLIST?
IT will be the fortieth anniversary of Phish's first gig in about forty-some-odd days. Over the course of Phish history, fans have often considered what Phish jams they would put on a 100-minute cassette “mixed tape” (aka mixtape) or a 74-minute CD (the Regular volume CD) or, more recently, on a playlist.
But what if that playlist were limited to only 74 minutes? Or 100 minutes? And what if instead of being a playlist of your favorite Phish jams, it was a playlist of what you believed to be tracks that best represented Phish's music and history in a given year over Phish's FORTY YEAR HISTORY OF PLAYING SHOWS?
CHICAGO3 RECAP: THE BEST 2.5 STAR SHOW MONEY CAN BUY
[We would like to thank user DrAyers (Michael Ayers) for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]
Greetings from inside the United Center! This is my second night seeing the boys in Chicago, as Jimmy Carr has announced a show in Chicago months before Phish did, and thus I was already on the hook. I was seated in the 200s for both nights (Saturday night behind the stage, Sunday night Mike side), making friends with the gentleman to my left (a fellow vinyl collector) and the WSP fanatic (Narrator: Poor soul) to my right.
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CHICAGO2 RECAP: "NO QUARTER... NO WAY...!"
[We would like to thank user Farmhose, Alaina Stamatis (@Fad_Albert on Twitter), for recapping last night's show. -Ed.]
Because of *ahem* legal troubles as documented in my last .Net review I’m not permitted to leave where I live, and I don't live at the United Center, so this Phish show recap was generated in my living room instead of the NBA’s largest arena. The band came out to roars and applause but I didn’t feel compelled to stand up and instead chose to remain on my ass in my pajamas. No Hawaiian shirt, no face gems, no dudes offering me a finger dip into their mysterious baggies; just pure, unadulterated couch. And I still had a better seat than 8,000 of the nosebleeds.
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CHICAGO1 RECAP: CHILLING, THRILLING SOUNDS
[We would like to thank user Brettsinthebathtub (Brett F.) for volunteering to recap and recapping last night's show. -Ed.]
Once again, we are at Phish. This time at the United Center; a building that proudly displays the achievements of some of the greatest athletes of all time in its rafters. But you can watch The Last Dance on your own time. Tonight, the focus is another GOAT.
If there’s any uncertainty about the tone of the night, it’s made clear up front: Shit is about to get real spooky in here. The theme from Friday the 13th” plays as the band takes the stage. I’m caught off guard, as I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything other than the crowd when the band is picking up their instruments.
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Phish 2023 Nye Run At Madison Square Garden
PHISH will perform at Madison Square Garden on December 28, 29, 30 and 31. The ticket request period for the phoi pholloi is underway at tickets.phish.com and will conclude on Monday, September 25th, at Noon eastern time. The public onsale begins Friday, September 29th, at Noon eastern time. A limited number of travel packages (hotel + tickets) will go on sale Wednesday, September 27th at Noon ET here.
Save The Date: Next Phish Festival Will Be August 15 - 18, 2024, In Dover, Delaware
The next Phish festival will be at The Woodlands in Dover, Delaware, from August 15-18, 2024. More information will be published soon. Join the Phish Update to hear about it first (email + shiny new SMS list): phish.com/update.
First Annual Wingsuit Open!
We're excited about the upcoming First Annual Wingsuit Open, a charity disc golf tournament for Phish fans organized by Matt James. The event will be September 2nd in Aurora, CO, and benefits music education for children through the all-volunteer Mockingbird Foundation. Complete rules, registration info, and a course map are at www.peacejames.co/wingsuitopen. There will also be a mini disc golf competition and a putting competition on site, as well as other contests, prizes, and limited edition gift items TBA.
Matt's hoping to grow the event to 180 players; you'll want to say that you were an OG, at the inaugural event. Also, the event is currently in the "middle registration" period, and the donation request jumps in 5 days to "late registration". (Those unable to attend can also register to get a player's pack shipped to them.) So, sign up soon, and start working out those throwing arms!
Note that this is the same day as the Eighth Annual Runaway Open charity golf tournament, for which there are still openings and which will now also include a virtual component. Three kinds of golf, to accomodate your preference and location, and bring us all together for some fun and fundraising. Register for one, or all three, today!
Golf With Phans For Charity
The all-volunteer Mockingbird Foundation is hosting the 8th Annual Runaway Open charity golf tournament for Phish fans on Saturday September 2nd in Denver during the upcoming Dick's run. We'll have 120 players in a shotgun start, with coffee, lunch, cocktail, gift bag, raffles, and prizes, and we'd love to see you there. Register soon (mbird.org/8ro), while spots are still available - it fills up every year, and we can't go above 120.
(Audio is the ending of "Tweezer/Magilla" by Michael Ray and The Cosmic Krewe, from the Mockingbird Foundation's double-disc tribute, Sharin' in the Groove. Concert photo by Nate Cundy for Listen Up Denver, by permission of the photographer and website.)
Two Special Spac Shows To Benefit Vt And Ny Flood Recovery
PHISH has just announced that they will perform two shows at the Broadview Stage at SPAC on August 25 and 26 and that proceeds from the concerts will benefit Vermont and New York flood recovery efforts.
The ticket request period for these shows is only one (1) day, ending tomorrow, Wednesday July 26 at noon e.t. For more information and to request tickets just click here. Tickets to the general public will go on sale this Saturday July 29 at 10am e.t.
Phish's 2023 Fall Tour: Nashville, Dayton, Chicago
Phish has announced an eight show Fall tour beginning in October. There will be three shows at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, then two shows in Dayton, OH, at the Nutter Center, and finally three shows in Chicago at the United Center. The ticket request period is underway at https://tickets.phish.com, and it will end on Monday, July 10th at 12pm e.t. The public onsale begins on July 15th at 10am e.t. See https://phish.com/tours for more information.
Mockingbird's Biggest Round Yet!
The all-volunteer, fan-run Mockingbird Foundation has just announced its largest round of competitive grants ever - 19 grants in 15 states totaling over $144,000!
This makes 625 grants totaling over $2.3M, and we'll be announcing several dozen more over the summer, thanks to the tremendous generosity of Phish fans like yourself.
If you haven't donated yet, please do. We're glad to slowly increase the percentage of inquiries we get each year, but it's still unfortunatley very competitive, as the need for funding in this area is tremendous!
Mockingbird Announces Finch Fund Grants
The all-volunteer Mockingbird Foundation will be announcing scores of grants this year, including Summer Tour Grants, upcoming emergency grants, and, in less than a month, our 28th round of competitive funding. But we're starting with something special.
We pulled all of the Round 28 requests for $2K or less, ushered them through an expedited due diligence review, and are now announcing 25 grants totalling $35,980, in advance of Round 28. We're still playing with the name, but the gist is this: Identify dozens of small requests, that could make a big difference, and fund them quickly!
With this announcement, Mockingbird has now made more than 600 grants nationwide. We'll hit 650 before the summer's over, and 700 is in our sights, thanks to the generous support of Phish fans like you!
Spring Tour, And Tour Grants, Come To Socal!
In honor of Phish's upcoming shows at the Hollywood Bowl, April 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, the Mockingbird Foundation is sending checks for $1,000 to support music education through three nearby programs, all in Los Angeles, CA:
- Larchmont Charter Hollygrove, will get outfitted with a new PA system and microphones,
- Mar Vista Elementary will be able to purchase 45 children's sized Fender guitars, and
- Palms Middle School will acquire some new musical instruments for their students.
These unsolicited "Tour Grants" are part of an effort that now totals $230,000, over 10% of all Mockingbird grants to date. We're doing them for all 8 shows this spring, and all 23 this summer, updating a running list on the Foundation's website as we go, and welcome Phish fans and others to make a tax-deductible contribution supporting this effort.
Phish.net
The Mockingbird Foundation