My buddy is obsessed with jam-band music. He loves Grateful Dead, Phish and all of the other stuff he reads about in his Relix magazines. He didn't know much about Pearl Jam, so we agreed to exchange mixes of PJ for Phish.

So he made me two mixes. One of their older stuff and one of their newer stuff. He's going to make me two more - one for the middle of their career and a live one. I know defenders of this band will say "you gotta hear their live stuff," but from what I've heard, I don't see them as being much of an album band. Farmhouse and Junta seem liek their best ones to me. I actually think i would like Farmhouse a lot. Story fo the Ghost seems shitty. I actually like Trey Anastasio's Shine album that came out last year more than the "old phish" mix my buddy made me.

I don't know...just wondering hwo you guys feel about these potheads.

Music for people who really aren't into music at all but really really like pot.

In defense of my friend, he actually doesn't smoke pot and he has a very good taste in music.

Billy Breathes is a fantastic album, but other than that, they are very hit or miss for me.

i love the song farmhouse

i listen to the phish every now and then..i have this gigantic mix of songs i like

mowbs i should send you this one brooklyn show i have of them..well a couple songs anyway..its cool..jay-z comes out and plays big pimpin and 99 problems with them

check out down with disease, stash, chalk dust torture, character zero, song i heard the ocen sing, heavy things..all good tunes

i just got treys new cd, it sounds more phish-like than the last one..its not bad..i do like the shine cd too

Yeah that's pretty much it.

I don't really understand the weird obsession some people have with them.

Hardcore Phish "phans" are some of the most musically snobby and jaded motherfuckers I've come across on teh internets (but all the big Phish fans that I've actually met were cool as hell).

Anyway, I love Phish. They're one of my favorite bands (although, other than enjoying the hell out of the recent New Year’s Eve 1995 release, I haven't listened to them much over the past year or so). They're the only jamband I've ever really cared for.

mowbs, The Story Of The Ghost was my first Phish album and I didn't get into it much either. It's got some good songs and nice production but I think it's sequenced badly and it remains my least favorite studio album from them. Billy Breathes is great, but it's more acoustic and overall not very representative of Phish live. Junta or Lawn Boy may be the best places to start with their studio albums, but Rift is often my favorite. It's a loose concept album with a great flow and feels more like a real album instead of just a collection of songs like most of their other studio efforts.

And, predictably, definitely hear Phish live before you pass on them. Check out A Live One or one of the Live Phish volumes-- I haven't heard them all, but I think Live Phish 10 and 20 would be good picks to try.

Trey's self-titled and his Plasma live release are all I can recommend of his solo stuff. Bar 17 is totally forgettable and what I heard from Shine really sucked.

Neither Phish nor The Grateful Dead really do anything for me.

i've always wanted to check out some of their live stuff cause i hear great things but i don't know where to start. guess i'll just have to dig around and see what i can come up with

Saw em live in high school at the Tweeter Center. Good stuff, lots of fun. Musically, it didn't hit me, not sure why. I got a copy of A Live One, and I think thats it. I dunno, I really think they're strictly a pot-smoking band with hippie followers.

I hope some people take the time to check this out, 'cause it took me a while to upload over my suck-ass dialup (!) connection.

Phish - "The Lizards"

"The Lizards" is probably my favorite Phish song. I ripped this version from Live Phish 20 - 12.29.94.

phish is phucking phantastic!

Stash is pretty good...You Enjoy Myself...Lizards... and Fee is one of my favorites...

I've seen them a bunch of times, most notabley... The IT Festival up in Limestone, Maine in 03... the hippies took over an old, abandoned army base in the upper tip on Maine for three days... so much fun... so much ganja-food... so many drugs!!!

They know their audience very very well... they know that there are gonna be tons and tons of hippies... and not just hippies... a good array of different peoples all coming together... just fucked up on drugs... so they built this place called "Sunken City"... which was pretty much a big playground of lights... wierd art shit... cars in trees... statues of Bob's Big Boy half burried, and standing in the ground... tree houses... fun-houses...

...nuts vs. bolts... boy scouts with nuts (the kind that squirrels like) on their heads... fighting these futuristic aliens with Bolts on their heads... some wierd ass social commentary...

...shit that was three years ago... my boy bought a brick of opium... im still recovering

As for that... that was just three days of Phish... they do put on a good version of the Stones's Loving Cup.

Halloween in the 90s... i think one year they played Quadophenia all the way through... and either the year before or after The White Album all the way through...

PHISH is definately worth checking out folks... enough said!

roud room is my favorite album, but i would say junta or farmhouse are their most accesible. i really don't think the album are worth listening to if you want to try to "get" them. the live shows are a must....if i were your buddy, i'd make you mixes of live songs he ejoys.

the thing most phish fans would agree on, the atmosphere at the shows were amazing. i'm not just talking about the drug aspect, but the glowstick wars, crowd interatction, etc. going to one of their concerts is a whole differen animal.

Saw them live a bunch of times. Good musicians, decent songs, but too much wankery. The only album i think is good is Hoist. The rest of it is pretty annoying

I like phish a lot... seen em a bunch of times, and by no means am I a heady... but I totally agree with you here. If you guys think there is a pearl jam community, a jammily per se... it is nothing compared to the phishheads or deadheads.

This thread has reminded me how much I love the song "Dirt" off Farmhouse.

On a side note, I happen to love "jam" bands the Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers. However, I do not love their jamming. I love the Dead specifically for their song-writing and performance of those songs. I really don't care for the long extended jams, which I think puts me in a very small minority of Dead fans.

As far as jam bands go the Allman Brothers probably have the most entertaining jams to me, because they tend to be bluesy rather than jazzy. So I enjoy Allman Brothers jams quite a bit, but still less than I enjoy their structured songs.

shit.

The bass player was great, even if he did fancy kiddie porn.

"who doesn't like porn? anything is good in moderation"