All this week, fellow NPR Music blogger Carrie Brownstein is conducting a little experiment: she's trying to become a Phish fan. The band, she writes, is one “that some people intuitively don't like; it is the liverwurst, the Twilight book series, and the waterbeds of the music industry!" Which is why she's trying to give them a fair shake. Follow along at Monitor Mix.
This is all somewhat relevant to jazz, I swear. Just give me a minute.
Like many people who waited out their adolescence in a predominantly white, relatively affluent, progressive Midwestern suburb, I grew up with plenty of people who listened to Phish and/or participated in jam-band culture at large. I'll confess to owning a few “tapes" and burned copies of studio albums, but I never fully threw myself into that arena. I've never been to a show, and I wasn't so much into doing the drugs which seemed to accompany that scene as I saw it in high school.
I then went to college in New York City, where many were too hip to admit their Phish fandom (phandom?), and during a time when the Internet Music Revolution was beginning to hit Web 2.0. The band would break up not long afterward, at which point all the cool kids were already throwing themselves into the indie rock scene and purchasing increasingly form-fitting garments. Phish had seemingly become an afterthought among my generation of fans.
Five years later, they're back, and my Twitter feed began lighting up with “OMG Phish at Fenway #phish" notices, and it hit me: Phish represents a business model for music that was ahead of its time, one that jazz could maybe take a few cues from.
I know that's a stretch, but hear me out. For one, the entity that is Phish is generally considered inseparable from its fanbase, which ranks as among the most devoted in music. In common perception, to be a Phish fan is to be an unwashed, patchouli-wearing, psychoactive drug-consuming, somehow socially-disabled member of an unthinking herd. Phish isn't so much a musical reference for many of its detractors as it is an allusion to a community of people who get off on comparing versions of “Bathtub Gin" or what-have-you.
This is all somewhat relevant to jazz, I swear. Just give me a minute.
Like many people who waited out their adolescence in a predominantly white, relatively affluent, progressive Midwestern suburb, I grew up with plenty of people who listened to Phish and/or participated in jam-band culture at large. I'll confess to owning a few “tapes" and burned copies of studio albums, but I never fully threw myself into that arena. I've never been to a show, and I wasn't so much into doing the drugs which seemed to accompany that scene as I saw it in high school.
I then went to college in New York City, where many were too hip to admit their Phish fandom (phandom?), and during a time when the Internet Music Revolution was beginning to hit Web 2.0. The band would break up not long afterward, at which point all the cool kids were already throwing themselves into the indie rock scene and purchasing increasingly form-fitting garments. Phish had seemingly become an afterthought among my generation of fans.
Five years later, they're back, and my Twitter feed began lighting up with “OMG Phish at Fenway #phish" notices, and it hit me: Phish represents a business model for music that was ahead of its time, one that jazz could maybe take a few cues from.
I know that's a stretch, but hear me out. For one, the entity that is Phish is generally considered inseparable from its fanbase, which ranks as among the most devoted in music. In common perception, to be a Phish fan is to be an unwashed, patchouli-wearing, psychoactive drug-consuming, somehow socially-disabled member of an unthinking herd. Phish isn't so much a musical reference for many of its detractors as it is an allusion to a community of people who get off on comparing versions of “Bathtub Gin" or what-have-you.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
