To all of my fellow Phish fans, and supporters of The Mockingbird Foundation, I am thrilled to announce the first offering of Mockingbird Holiday cards and ornaments found here: http://mbird.org/2017-holiday/.

During this season of giving, there is no better way to show your support for music education for children than customizing your own Holiday cards. These cards are created in conjunction with Picaboo Cards for various causes: https://www.picaboo.com/cards-for-causes/the-mockingbird-foundation/.

You will have a choice of creating a custom collage of your pictures from 2017, utilizing one picture that sums up the year, or simply creating your own design. The back of the card provides an inspirational message from The Mockingbird Foundation that speaks in the one language that truly unites us all: sweet, sweet music.

The ornaments are available at http://www.cafepress.com/themockingbirdfoundation, and there are three to choose from. Each contains a different special message to decorate your home or tree with cheer, love and light through the season. We hope you enjoy them. Designs were created by Annie Nicholson and Elayne Best, featuring the Foundation logo designed by Heather Hanly.

The Mockingbird Foundation greatly appreciates your continued support. As we are run entirely by volunteers – with no office, salaries, or paid staff – administrative costs are very low, so nearly every penny of your donations ultimately supports music education programs for children. So far, the Foundation has distributed over $1.1M to the cause of music education for children – 348 grants in all 50 states, with more on the way. Your support will ensure further grant opportunities while bringing holiday cheer to all. Thank you!

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Welcome to the 299th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first* and easiest of November. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday. Good luck!

*Reminder: For the first MJM of each month, only folks who have never won an MJM are allowed to answer before the hint. If you have never won an MJM, please answer as a blog comment below. If you have previously won an MJM, but you'd like to submit a guess before the hint, you may do so by PMing me; once the hint has been posted, everyone should answer on the blog. If that's confusing to you, check out the handy decision tree I threw together to help guide you. If you're not sure if you've won before, check in the MJM Results spreadsheet linked below.

Answer: Congrats to @shelfofpregnanthens on his first MJM win – this time next year, will he be the fourth "Pete" to achieve MJM Emeritus status? This week, @shelfofpregnanthens was able to identify the Tweezer-esque (but definitively '94) 5/16/94 "Stash" without the aid of a hint. Stay tuned next week when we'll either go for something slightly more difficult, or something outrageous if I can put something special together in time for MJM300.

[Post is courtesy of dot net user @swittersdc.]

The new episode of Helping Friendly Podcast features a conversation with the co-hosts of Beyond the Pond, a podcast that takes Phish improv and branches way out into all kinds of music. We talk about our Phish journeys, and lots of musical inspiration. Hope you enjoy. You can subscribe to the Helping Friendly Podcast on iTunes, or listen through the player below. The HF Pod team is me, mdphunk, rowjimmy and brad10s. Thanks for your support!

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[More thoughts from new fan Ashley Ertle.]

They say music speaks to your soul. I never personally experienced it until Phish.

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Welcome to the 298th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday: the fifth of five October editions, and (hopefully) the hardest of the month. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of all five mystery clips – these clips are connected by a theme, which should help to narrow the search, but it needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday. Good luck!

Hint: George Orwell's last novel PLUS Pearl Jam's first album = ????

Answer: Serious congratulations to @WFORWUMBO, who claimed his second MJM win, and simultaneously bludgeoned the blog, seemingly poised to claim an ever-so-rare victory, by corectly identifying this week's 5 mystery clips: the Tweezer from 11/23/94, David Bowie from 4/24/94, Weekapaug Groove from 10/25/94, the 11/3/94 Split Open And Melt, and Mike's Song from 12/31/94, all connected by the theme: 1994. Incidentally these are all awesome jams, well worth checking out if you're unfamiliar with any. Next week's MJM, the first of the month, will be a pedestrian walk in the park, compared to this week's labyrinth. Please take it easy on my pal, @ucpete, since he'll be the one pitching you the slow, over-the-plate softball, providing the opportunity for many of you to be the first to hit that ball out of the park. Have fun, and thanks Pete.

Welcome to the 297th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday: the fourth of five October editions, and the second hardest of the month. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of all four mystery clips – these clips are connected by a theme, but it needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday. Good luck!

Hint: One man's junk is another man's funk.

Answer: And then there were fourteen... that's right folks, we have our 14th MJM Emeritus Champion, Mr. @FunkyCFunkyDo! This week, he needed the hint to push him across the seas to Prussia's shore, where he yelled the correct answers from the top of the throne: 11/22/94 "Funky Bitch (-> Jam)," 8/31/12 "Undermind," 9/1/17 "No Men in No Man's Land," and 6/22/12 "Kill Devil Falls." Depending on whether you consider the first clip "Funky Bitch" or just "Jam" (phish.net calls it "Jam"), this week's clips' first letters spell "FUNK" or "JUNK," respectively.

The fact that @FunkyCFunkyDo, aka Pete, acheived Emeritus status this week is particularly fitting in a couple ways. First off, given his handle, could he have chosen a better MJM on which to mic drop than one that spells "FUNK" and starts with a "Funky Bitch" jam? Second, the day on which he answered correctly, October 24th, 2017, was the three year anniversary of my meeting him for the first time and hitting a show together: 10/24/14 Forum. Member that Disease? Oh yeah I member... Notably, with Pete's win, "Pete" breaks the tie with "Dan" to become the commonest MJM Emeritus champion name, 3 to 2 (@schvice knows what's up).

Funny enough, 10/24/14 wasn't the first time Pete & Pete had seen Phish in that room on the same day – 2/14/03 was his first show (perhaps you've heard Funky talk about that previously, maybe the "Forum Gin"? Maybe one of these 87 results on Google?), and it was just my fourth show. We've been lucky enough to see over 20 of the same shows since, and have shared in some times of great joy and times of overwhelming emotion thanks to our favorite band. With that, it is with great pleasure that I hand @FunkyCFunkyDo his key to The Vault, a new pair of invisible dancepants, a burned copy of Fred McGriff's previously-banned dance training video, carte blanche to provide unsolicited MJM clip ideas, and one last code good for the free MP3 download of any show available at LivePhish.com. Nice work Pete!

Our friend @Dog_Faced_Boy will be bringing the high heat on Monday with MJM298, the hardest of the month. Don't miss it!

The Saturday morning of the 7th Dicks Labor Day Weekend bash, The Mockingbird Foundation held its second annual Runaway Open golf tournament at Buffalo Run Golf Course in Commerce City, CO. It was impressive to see so many Phish fans (44, nearly three times as many as the inaugural event last year in Vegas) get up early to get their golf on for a great cause: music education for children!

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Welcome to the 296th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the 100th (regular) MJM in my time as host. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of all three mystery clips – these clips are connected by a theme, but the theme needn't be part of the correct answer. While there are three clips this week, this puzzle isn't as difficult as it seems – each clip is a full minute long, and finding just one of the three may lead you to the other two fairly quickly. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday. Good luck!

Answer: Congrats to @mickeyjoe86 on his sixth win! Now both he and @FunkyCFunkyDo sit on the doorstep to emeritus status. It should be awesome to see the two of them duke it out in their race to the finish line, though who knows? Maybe some of our 4 or 5 time winners will have something to say about it – or even better, maybe some of our newcomers will come in and play the spoiler. This week, @mickeyjoe86 recognized the third clip quickly (as did @FunkyCFunkyDo), pinned the eras of the clips as the classic 1.0 / 2.0 / 3.0 layout, and explored a few themes before realizing I was going for a #VegasStrong theme. Within a few hours of the MJM dropping, he had identified all three clips: the 10/31/98 "Lonesome Cowboy Bill," the 2/16/03 "Down with Disease" (the second piece of the "DWD" -> "-7" -> "DWD" < link to video), and the 11/2/14 "Piper" outro, all of which were played in Las Vegas, NV. MJM297, the fourth of five October MJMs, drops on Monday.

Welcome to the 295th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the second and second-easiest of October. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of both mystery clips, which are connected by a theme. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday. Good luck!

Hint: It's interesting to hear spacey jams from the same song back-to-back, especially between versions close to two decades apart. I wonder if the ability to buy cannabis near both these venues before the shows had anything to do with the far-out nature of the jams...

Answer: Congrats to first-time winner @negativeseven, who beat out @wforwumbo (and @FunkyCFunkyDo, who was also closing in on the answer post-hint) just in time to win their first MJM – nice work! This week, we took a look at wacked out DWD jams, >19 years apart: 9/3/17 "Down with Disease" and 7/1/98 "Down with Disease," played at the most recent Phish show at Dick's, and the autonomous anarchist district Christiania, respectively. I've visited both places and they're both cool in their own weird ways. Stay tuned next week when we step up into even tougher territory with MJM296...

[This post is courtesy of Jeremy Levine (@Franklin) - ed.]

Summer 2016 was a confusing time for Phish fans. After Thrilling Chilling, Miami NYE (feat. “Disease”), all of Summer 2015, Magnaball, MSG NYE (feat. “Tweezer” and “Hourglass”), the band seemed to be on a rollercoaster that only went up. But the next summer tour didn’t get off to the same strong start as we saw the previous year in Bend, and catching up to 2015’s heights seemed essentially impossible after the East Coast run wrapped up in Syracuse. 2016 certainly had its gems and generated a lot of great music, but it seemed like we had crested the peak.

And then, after a strong-but-not-legendary Dick’s run (feat. “Simple”… and I guess “Crosseyed and Painless”), the Big Boat arrived. Phish’s studio albums have never been the most exciting part of their output, but some fans saw this new record as validation of the hypothesis that 2016 Phish was a neutered Phish, dropping far below expectations.

But then we had Fall Tour 2016, a mind-boggling New Year’s Run, and an unstoppably good summer tour (feat. Baker’s Dozen). With Big Boat’s one-year anniversary this Saturday, I think it’s time to take a look at the album that showed up in the middle of this pivot — how its compositions stand up now that the hype cycle is behind us, and how its songs have weaved their way into the live format.

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Welcome to the 294th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first* and easiest of October. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday. Good luck!

*Reminder: For the first MJM of each month, only folks who have never won an MJM are allowed to answer before the hint. If you have never won an MJM, please answer as a blog comment below. If you have previously won an MJM, but you'd like to submit a guess before the hint, you may do so by PMing me; once the hint has been posted, everyone should answer on the blog. If that's confusing to you, check out the handy decision tree I threw together to help guide you. If you're not sure if you've won before, check in the MJM Results spreadsheet linked below.

Answer: We have a winner, by PM – congrats to @FunkyCFunkyDo on rapidly identifying this week's MJM, a show for which he was undoubtedly in attendance (being a PNWer): 7/27/13 "Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley" (-> 2001). Do yourself a favor and listen to that breathtaking outro jam while imagining yourself at the Gorge... yup. Funky's sixth win puts him on the precipice of MJM Emeritus status, ahead of all other active MJM contestants. Let's hope for the sake of the challenge that he chooses an MJM of a high degree of difficulty as his swan song! We're back for two clips and a theme on Monday for MJM295.

Welcome to the 293rd edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the last and most difficult of September. This week's clips come from the twisted and sadistic mind of Jam Charts guru @Dog_Faced_Boy – those familiar with his work helping out with the MJM over the past year know won't be surprised to hear he thinks I go too easy on you guys each week! The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of all four mystery clips – these clips are connected by a theme, but it needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday. Good luck!

Hint: It makes sense that this week's puzzle would come after last week's puzzle. Check that: we have a winner!

Answer: Congrats to @mickeyjoe86, who wins his fifth MJM, and now has won a single, double, triple, quadruple, and quintuple-clip puzzle! Not sure if it'll happen, but that would be pretty cool if he won a six pack and a seven-clipper to close the deal on his imminent Emeritus status. This week he didn't even need the hint to figure out that I followed up last week's A Live One theme with a theme based on Phish's follow-up release, Billy Breathes. He correctly identified the 7/15/98 "Free," the 6/7/95 "Theme from the Bottom," the 9/1/13 "Prince Caspian," and the recent 8/1/17 "Steep." Special thanks to @Dog_Faced_Boy for putting together this week's puzzle, and the first Monday of October will bring the MJM difficulty back to earth for next week's puzzle: MJM294.

The Mockingbird Foundation and Education Through Music invite you to participate in a campaign to highlight the importance of great music teachers and quality music education.

Education Through Music was one of the charities supported during the Baker's Dozen run, receiving one of Mockingbird's unsolicited "miracle" Tour Grants of $1,500. ETM partners with NYC schools to bring music education classes to every student. ETM focuses on some of the poorest communities, and works with schools that previously were not providing any kind of arts curriculum to students.

Participating in the campaign is simple:. Visit the ETM campaign website at ETMonline.org/SupportMusicEd, where you can print a sign graphic and snap a selfie with it to post on Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter. You can also make a 30-60 second video talking about how a music teacher made a difference in your life, or simply post a story or statement of support. When you post, please be sure to use the hashtag #SupportMusicEd, tag ETM (@etmonline, all platforms), and link to the campaign webpage.

The Mockingbird Foundation and Phish.net are proud to join ETM in raising awareness and recognition of the impact of music teachers and to #SupportMusicEd.

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Welcome to the 292nd edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the third and second-hardest of September. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of all three mystery clips – these clips are connected by a theme, but the theme needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday. Good luck and boogie on!

Hint:

Answer: Congrats to our favorite Canadian teacher, @ChalkDustTeacher, on his third win. This week, after recognizing the Minneapolis Bowie, he used the hint to find two other "alternate universe" A Live One selections, Phish's classic first live album to be released on vinyl next month. That's right, the 11/26/94 "David Bowie," the 12/2/94 "It's Ice" outro, and the 11/2/94 "Possum" all come from shows featuring A Live One selections ("Slave," "Gumbo," and "Tweezer" respectively). If you thought this week's puzzle was hard, wait till you see MJM293! *scrambles to put together puzzle*

[Post is from Phish.net user @swittersdc – ed.]

This week, the Helping Friendly Podcast is back with a very special interview with Katy Tur. As most of you know, she's known for her Phish banter on air, and probably better known as the host of MSNBC Live, which airs every weekday afternoon at 2 PM ET. She also sits in on MTP Daily and other NBC news programs.

We had a great conversation with Katy, that ranged from her favorite Phish tunes to a history of her fandom, and to her book, which comes out today, September 12, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History. Order it now!

You can subscribe to the Helping Friendly Podcast on iTunes, or listen through the player below the jump. The HF Pod team is me, @mdphunk, @rowjimmy and @brad10s. Thanks for your support!

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