sometimes it's nice to listen to phish

[liebzz]

Big Boat

This album feels like a bit of departure for Phish, perhaps because the songwriting feels much tighter or because it’s Phish with horns! Either way, this album feels consistent start to finish, with plenty of highlights, including Friends, Home, Blaze On, the more traditional No Men in No Man’s Land, Miss You, the sonically different I Always Wanted It This Way for them, the Phish anthem More, and the closing Petrichor. This seems to me like Phish still trying to stretch their wings without fully flying out of familiar territory and makes for a pleasurable listen.

[liebzz]

Kasvot Vaxt - I rokk

While recorded live as an elaborate prank on their fans on Halloween 2018, Phish dress up as a fake Scandinavian prog rock band from the early 80s to “cover” the greatest album you never heard. In reality, this is 10 new originals delivered with a shiny object for Phish to focus their energy and build very solid songs off - a conception of an early 80s prog rock band with weird catch phrase lyrics sure to be inside jokes in the long term within their hardcore fan base (“faceplant into rock!”). What you get out of this is quite the unlikely result: possibly Phish’s strongest album front to back, complete with Phish’s greatest strengths delivered with the sort of tongue-in-cheek revelry they hadn’t exhibited since the early albums. While Stray Dog sits close to the traditional Phish sound and vibe, from Everything is Hollow though the end, this seems more like Trey’s signature guitars woven through an almost Primus-like prog rock lense. The Final Hurrah, Play By Play, We Are Come To Outlive Our Brains, Say It to Me SANTOS, and Passing Through we’re my favorites, but in the end all of it is pretty fantastic (helped by the fact that it’s played live, I think).

[liebzz]

Sigma Oasis

The most recent Phish album has a nice way of really taking its time to establish grooves. The title track, Everything’s Right, Steam, and Thread are really all timers and all with extended run times that don’t feel that way. A Life Beyond the Dream is a bit corny in spots but really builds into a beautiful jam that pays off - and makes that cheesy chorus essential. Shade, Mercury and Leaves are also all solid here. All in all, another excellent record from the second half of their careers.

[AndySlash]

i think sigma oasis might be their best studio record. at the very least, it is the album that sounds most like a phish show. obviously having several years of performances of the majority those songs under their belts helps but, still, it took them over thirty years to put out a studio record that really exemplified and represented their overall sound as a band.

[Hatfield]

i think sigma oasis might be their best studio record. at the very least, it is the album that sounds most like a phish show. obviously having several years of performances of the majority those songs under their belts helps but, still, it took them over thirty years to put out a studio record that really exemplified and represented their overall sound as a band.

Sigma Oasis is the biggest reward I've taken from this iteration of Liebzz's journey through a band. Joy, Fuego and Big Boat were enjoyable, but not enough to keep in rotation the way I do with Farmhouse, Billy Breaths or Rift. Because of that, I didn't even pick up Sigma Oasis.

I am loving this album! Thank you Liebzz and AndySlash.

[liebzz]

i think sigma oasis might be their best studio record. at the very least, it is the album that sounds most like a phish show. obviously having several years of performances of the majority those songs under their belts helps but, still, it took them over thirty years to put out a studio record that really exemplified and represented their overall sound as a band.

Sigma Oasis is the biggest reward I've taken from this iteration of Liebzz's journey through a band. Joy, Fuego and Big Boat were enjoyable, but not enough to keep in rotation the way I do with Farmhouse, Billy Breaths or Rift. Because of that, I didn't even pick up Sigma Oasis.

I am loving this album! Thank you Liebzz and AndySlash.

Nice, though my biggest endorsement would be for Kasvot Vax - rokk

[super nintendo chalmers]

I have never thought they were terrible, just that you can’t approach them from the same kind of agenda you would with other bands. You’d be rightly disappointed if you went in looking for epic songwriting, or took any of their passages too seriously - I always thought of their vocals as the filler for further exploration. If you need solid lyrics and for the vocals to be the focal point of a song, it’s just not the case with them. Also, if you are more of a rock enthusiast that’s immediately ready for a band to tear shit up, akin to an Allman Brothers or even Marcus King, you’d also be disappointed because they also tend to sort of meander until something catches fire, which is thrilling when it happens, but if you are not in a patient mood can be tortuous to wade through. Frankly, even the Grateful Dead were highly focused in comparison because their explorations worked off the main thesis of the song, and Phish tends to remove any limitation to their explorations.

So then there’s two more points I’d make on this. If you make it to the moment of impact for them (think when Trey finally catches fire on Divided Sky), there’s nothing like them. Same when you catch them in moments where they are more focused. I find when I am in the right headspace, I don’t mind the wandering as much - it takes away a sense of hurry or even having my mind look ahead too much - just to sort of allow that strange sense of hypnosis to take over and exist in the moment. But if I’m even a hair off that vibe, Phish wouldn’t do it for me that day.

I think about this often and it's pretty dead on. The best parts of the shows I've been to were when they were getting very Allmans-y. Then it would carreen into some god awful Club Med shit.

I still think they suck, but this post nailed it.

Met Trey once about a a year ago in front of my apt building...couldn't be nicer even posed for a pic.

[doug rr]

I have never thought they were terrible, just that you can’t approach them from the same kind of agenda you would with other bands. You’d be rightly disappointed if you went in looking for epic songwriting, or took any of their passages too seriously - I always thought of their vocals as the filler for further exploration. If you need solid lyrics and for the vocals to be the focal point of a song, it’s just not the case with them. Also, if you are more of a rock enthusiast that’s immediately ready for a band to tear shit up, akin to an Allman Brothers or even Marcus King, you’d also be disappointed because they also tend to sort of meander until something catches fire, which is thrilling when it happens, but if you are not in a patient mood can be tortuous to wade through. Frankly, even the Grateful Dead were highly focused in comparison because their explorations worked off the main thesis of the song, and Phish tends to remove any limitation to their explorations.

So then there’s two more points I’d make on this. If you make it to the moment of impact for them (think when Trey finally catches fire on Divided Sky), there’s nothing like them. Same when you catch them in moments where they are more focused. I find when I am in the right headspace, I don’t mind the wandering as much - it takes away a sense of hurry or even having my mind look ahead too much - just to sort of allow that strange sense of hypnosis to take over and exist in the moment. But if I’m even a hair off that vibe, Phish wouldn’t do it for me that day.

I think about this often and it's pretty dead on. The best parts of the shows I've been to were when they were getting very Allmans-y. Then it would carreen into some god awful Club Med shit.

I still think they suck, but this post nailed it.

Met Trey once about a a year ago in front of my apt building...couldn't be nicer even posed for a pic.

really nice guy..is he still on the uws?

[AndySlash]

i think sigma oasis might be their best studio record. at the very least, it is the album that sounds most like a phish show. obviously having several years of performances of the majority those songs under their belts helps but, still, it took them over thirty years to put out a studio record that really exemplified and represented their overall sound as a band.

Sigma Oasis is the biggest reward I've taken from this iteration of Liebzz's journey through a band. Joy, Fuego and Big Boat were enjoyable, but not enough to keep in rotation the way I do with Farmhouse, Billy Breaths or Rift. Because of that, I didn't even pick up Sigma Oasis.

I am loving this album! Thank you Liebzz and AndySlash.

better late than never! they surprise dropped the record just after the lockdowns began, streaming it on youtube, and by the time the album got to the everything's right jam it was clear this record was heading toward being an instant favorite of mine, and the rest of the album didn't dissuade me from that feeling one bit. a couple years on now, i definitely think it deserves to be mentioned as one of the band's best.

and i'll say this- the community aspect of everyone getting to listen to it for the first time, together, despite being isolated in our own homes, and all the excitement it generated among the fans was really needed at that time. it really was a gift of a record, and not just for the great music that is on it.

[swan]

“Shade” is a great corny love song, assuming you really love your wife/partner. My wife hates Phish but I saw this song at the Gorge in ‘18 & it made me tear up thinking about her. Thanks, sober Trey!

[oasisfan35]

Released another LiveBait so the MP3 is a free download for now.

[Simple Torture]

Released another LiveBait so the MP3 is a free download for now.

Only getting into this today, really nice so far!

[liebzz]

Listening to The Gorge ‘98 this week. The first show has an amazing performance of Julius. The second one so far is a mellower affair, long sprawling jams of Ya Mar and Gumbo early on.

Edit: through the first set of the second show, which catches fire halfway through The Divided Sky and culminates in an incredible My Soul. On to the second set this afternoon.

2nd edit: first 3 songs comprise the first 50 (five-o) minutes of the second set. Moments of brilliance with long forays into nowhere. Damnit. Actually Weekapaug Groove and Character Zero are pretty damn great here….so there’s a pay off.

[oasisfan35]

Released another LiveBait so the MP3 is a free download for now.

[AndySlash]

the piper » gumbo is legit.

[AndySlash]

sometimes it's nice to listen to phish

[E.H. Ruddock]

A buddy of mine texted me about a show he was at recently and these guys played a 43 minute version of one of their songs. No thank you jam bands.

[JuanHamm]

A buddy of mine texted me about a show he was at recently and these guys played a 43 minute version of one of their songs. No thank you jam bands.

This is what Hell is

[JuanHamm]

This thread has inspired me to relisten to the Analyze Phish podcast.

[oasisfan35]

A buddy of mine texted me about a show he was at recently and these guys played a 43 minute version of one of their songs. No thank you jam bands.