Phish: Name Your Reasons Why They Are So Bad & Hated

I pick phish food rather than Cherry Garcia.

The music, I don't know.

What the? As I'm totally Phish-ignorant, could you enlighten me on this?

b-but Axilla is better than TFTB! i mean, you have to be in the mood for annoying, but at least it's memorable.

anyway, Phish

They have a song called that, I believe. The entirety of the lyrics are 'David Bowie, UB40.' I wish I didn't know that.

*grin*

1. that one where Page does that piano solo outro
2. that one with the fucked up time signature
3. whichever cover song Fishman breaks out the vacuum cleaner on
4. the one with the pretty vocal harmonies
5. that other one with the fucked up time signature
6. the bluegrassy one about the aliens shooting a cow with a laser
7. the one Alison Krauss sings with them on the album
8. the one that's a take-off on the NPR All Things Considered theme
9. the one where Fishman just GOES OFF
10.You Enjoy Myself

meanwhile, dude next to me is notating every moment of their set on a notepad, lame-O

*cries*

I've never heard Phish cover anything remotely obscure. The closest is probably "Peaches En Regalia", which I guess I might have never heard had my daddy not raised me in a house chock full of Zappa.

Xgau called DMB "blander than a tofu sandwich"

xpost

In fact, it seems like the Phish hate is connected to the "phan" hate which seems to come from a widespread hatred of all things "hippy", and not as often having anything to do with their (often tedious yet also occasionally enthralling) music.

I have a lot of Bonaroo-attending type friends, mostly from a period of college from which I remember little, who dig them, collect bootlegs, talk about who did what when, and such. Also have some friends who were "band types" who like them and argue in favor of their musicianship. But I just never could get into it.

I even dig Bela Fleck, so I'd rather hear the Flecktones but I think that a lot of that is I dig Victor Wooten and Futureman. Anybody with the balls to stand up in front of a bunch of hippies and work the electronic percussion voodoo I've seen him do deserves props.

The only thing I think I like less than DMB and Phish that really pretends to be music (so new country, boy bands, etc. aside) is bad trance music. If I have to be on drugs to "appreciate it", then it's shit in my mind.

And last, but not least I think the reason I moved from not caring/disliking to hating them is the number of times I've entered this situation: I have friend X who's cool but not into music (or I'm trying to get with). They introduce me to their friend Y who friend X says is into music also and that "we would get along". I ask "what kind of music are you into?" or something like that trying to start idle chit chat. Y says "Phish and ....". Now I have to be nice while they talk to me about Phish. I always fuck this up. See, Y doesn't care if I like Phish, he just wants to talk about them, so I'm stuck cutting him off. The longer I wait, the more of an ass I act like. The earlier I do it the more impatient, snobby, etc. I seem. Hippies are way to sensitive and X always worries about them because they're sensative and don't get out enough (sit around and smoke pot all day). Fucking Phish fans,

well it's fun as baseball-stat stuff, but this sort of community does tend to reduce one's field of vision (though it educated me a bit re other, older artists in college) and reinforce your tendency to kid yourself about quality.

The only thing I think I like less than DMB and Phish that really pretends to be music (so new country, boy bands, etc. aside) is bad trance music. If I have to be on drugs to "appreciate it", then it's shit in my mind.

you might enjoy your life more if you admitted to yourself that new country, boy bands, etc. can be good. trance does suck, though, says i the dance music ignoramus.

also thinking future man is somehow not a hippie - haha

yes dude, you know me well. i am utterly unfamiliar with George Clinton's anal-stage critique of late capitalism and technophilia.

(And by the way, it was confirmed on all sides that Mike Gordon never took nekkid pictures of that kid or did anything at all inappropriate, he was just being friendly and taking a 6-year-old child whose parents were off getting high somewhere for a ride on his probably-seeming-really-cool-to-a-6-year-old Segway scooter. He did however get the shit beat out of him by some Hell's Angels. He also recorded a really good duo album with Leo Kottke. And has the most retarded hairdo ever.)

Dude, the cover is a GUITAR. What the fuck were they worried about?

The tires are the things on your car
That make contact with the road
Bummed is what you are
When you go out to your car and it's been towed

I woke up one morning in November
And I realized I love you
It's not your headlights in front
Your tailpipe, or the skylight above you
It's the way you cling to the road
When the wind tries to shove you
I'd never go riding away
And come back home without you

Also: Jonathan Frakes on trombone
Also: GAMEHENGE (oink)
In addition: "Five pounds / six pounds / seven pounds"

(xpost for Donna)

xpost Ned but it's a SCARY guitar...or something

Imagine, if you will, spending a weekend in Vermont with a bunch of friends at a quaint cozy li'l summer home a friend's mom owns, only to have 2 of said friends get ripped on Schlitz, throw on _A Picture of Nectar_ at 3 AM, crank up the volume so fucking Nova Scotia can hear those gnarly Trey leads, and bang on someone's bedroom door, screaming "LLAMAS TO BOOT TO BOOT" like retarded Teddy Ruxpins.

Said bullshit was made slightly more tolerable, however, when one of the two friends decided to try a bowl of Fruity Pebbles w/ Schlitz instead of milk. Hilarity ensued. Oh, the hilarity.

this shit that gets peddled to you as 'trance', 'dance' whatever, it's not the shit at all.

dance music grew originally and continues to thrive in the underground. all this talk of 'the great crash of 2003' means just the date when shiteass BAD commercial dance music finally got it's dues. Gravy trains had been ridden by very untalented ppl for a long long time.

Dance music is not dead, just as Rock was not dead when they originally claimed it was. it's still newborn and fresh and innovative (in theory) it will RESSURECT. honest. while ur waiting 4 the 2nd coming check out 'Remedy' by Basement Jaxx, as proper write home mind-blowing dance music albums go this is a stand-up fucking classic.

peece yow

the connotation, though, I agree, is too much to bear.

Light years better than Dave "let's shut down independent record stores" Matthews, the gross fratboy king

My other roommate was into pre-Stankonia Southern hip-hop, though, so it all balanced out.

"You Enjoy Myself" is nice. It's the only Phish I've heard. Is their other stuff similar? Are they anything like any of these bands: Medeski, Martin & Wood; Metalwood; Charlie Hunter; Nero; Allman Brothers Band; Funkadelic; Weather Report; Rez Abbasi Trio; Rush when they're doing instrumental fusion tracks; Earthworks? If they're anything like any of those things I'd probably really like them.

Some are more marginal than others, but I like all of the albums up until Billy Breathes (their attempt to make the Phish version of American Beauty or Workingman's, which is a pretty silly endeavor to begin with), and none of the studio ones that followed. I mean, BB is not terrible, but the only there there is Steve Lillywhite's production, which is better on Dave Matthews' first studio full-length.

Am I making the following thing up? apparently there was an interview with Trey What-His-Name in which he named his fave guitarist of all time-that't right, Kevin Shields.

you're not making it up

i hate phish because when I was in college I worked for a document processing/scanning service and before we had an actual office we worked out of people's homes, and the girl whose place I worked out would throw on whatever fucking Phish album it was that had just come out (this was around 94) and it annoyed the shit out of me, so whenever she'd leave I'd put in Red House Painters or something and she'd come back and take it out and put fucking Phish back in and accost me with that fucking barbershop-sounding bullshit. This girl also broke her hymen with a cucumber when she was 13, or so she told all of us one night while drunk and particularly pathetic.

isn't B&J's "One Sweet Whirled" Ice Cream named after a DMB song?

yes

- they sounded like a cross between Supertramp, Yes and Barenaked Ladies.
- they looked like chunky, mainstream guys wearing bad jumpers.
- they smirked at each other whenever someone played a particularly hot "lick".

That's all I can remember, but I'm sure there were many more things they did that night that made me loathe them. Luckily this jam band thing is totally an American phenomenon so I don't have to come across it too often. Noodling and humour is a bad, bad combination.
- the audience loved every minute of it. They danced badly and whooped a lot, even though many of them were British.
- for one song, the guitarist and bassist bounced on trampolines.
- for another song, they lay down and made semaphore signs with their feet.
- for yet another song the drummer pretended to hoover the stage. Someone mentioned this upthread so I guess they always do it. Again, the audience loved all these "humerous moments".

For good measure I also signed out American Beauty, Anthem of the Sun, and Live Dead.

This is why I recommended Junta (which has YEM) and not SlipStitch.

songs you would probably like, in rough order of preference: Divided Sky, David Bowie, Rift, It's Ice, The Squirming Coil, Guyute, Foam, Reba (possibly my favorite; the second half outweighing the first), Punch You in the Eye, Harry Hood (many regard this as their favorite song, the Phish "Scarlet Begonias"), Stash, Mound, Colonel Forbin's Ascent->Famous Mockingbird, Maze, The Curtain, McGrupp and the Watchful Hosemasters, Glide, Theme From the Bottom, All Things Reconsidered,

other songs you might like (ok, this is most of them, minus the rock 'n roll/funk songs): Bouncing Around the Room, Camel Walk, Cars Trucks Buses, Cavern, Fast Enough For You, Fluffhead, Harpua, Horn, Llama, The Mango Song, My Friend My Friend, NICU, Run Like An Antelope, Silent in the Morning, Tela, The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony, The Wedge

The Hell's Angels, who detained Gordon for police, were not, the sources say, gentle with sensitive areas of the rock star's body.

20+ minute "jams"

Five bucks says Phish will cover Loveless at the next whatever-they-call-it where they play an entire album from start to finish. The vacuum cleaner will obviously be used on "When You Sleep" and "Soon" will be 20 minutes of chicken-scratch guitar.

Reba - 11/16/94, 10/31/94, 5/16/95
Harry Hood - 12/31/93, 11/25/94, 8/17/97
You Enjoy Myself - 10/31/95, 12/31/95

Err...what about the Ozric Tentacles?

"Seriously, I've even seen Phish live...what's good about them? It's like, "Hey guys, I've got a zillion chords I think I can make into a song; it's got this B# lydian vamp -- we can solo for days! --, but I don't have any lyrics...anyone heard a good knock-knock joke lately?" I just don't get it."

so live Phish is like one of those dot-com startups where you could wear pajamas to work and the mission statement made fun mandatory. reason enough to hate them right therre

so live Phish is like one of those dot-com startups where you could wear pajamas to work and the mission statement made fun mandatory. reason enough to hate them right therre

"Donna Brown, SUPERgenius."

"for health reasons"

well, the quotes are implied, but you try spending 90 seconds holding your mouth over a running vacuum cleaner tube every other night

Someone hasn't been eating their Tofutti!

Phish is really quite good if you give 'em a shot. Beyond the epics (Divided Sky, Reba, Split Open and Melt, David Bowie, Fluffhead, Maze, You Enjoy Myself, etc etc etc), their song catalogue can be fairly dismal. But that's not what Phish is about.

Phish is all about tension and release, building on horrible-sounding themes and blowing them to shreds in one giant Trey-led climax. The kind of climax that makes you want to pull out all your pubes and staple them to your forehead in a sacrifice to the gods. The kind that keeps building and building until you shit out your intestines and spend the rest of the show trying to shove them back down your throat.

God those were some nasty analogies. But that's the kind of power they have the ability to channel. They're not anywhere in the same realm as the crap 'jam' scene. They transcend it in a million ways, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise (Dood, the String Cheese Incident is so heady, brah).

I will never have a music epiphany like I did at a Phish show ever again. I know their songs can suck. I know their fans can suck. I know their lyrics suck in general.

But show me another band that does THAT. Fucking zen.

I'm still trying to remove the staples from my forehead.

flashforward- music time. after funneling into the nice place, we took a lawn seat, i went and guzzeled 4 yuenglings in 10 minutes,at 5 bones a pop i wanted maximum impact. oddly, over the PA system was SCOTS. i was pleasantly suprised by that. but, i seemed to be the only one, so...back to the lawn.

phish came on and the crowd of course twirled like crazy, the air began to stink even worse and i was in hell. until they played 'gold sounds' and i lept up and watch the entire place stop moving as they had no idea what the song was. i did a little jig as i sang badly. that was the 4 minutes i enjoyed, beyond the alcohol.

what a fuckin waste.
even the grrl said it was underwhelming.
next time they came, similar situation, no pavement cover. i fell asleep. easily. without booze, even!

moral- phish=lame. not as bad as DMB, not nearly.

This is just endlessly hilarious to me.

to those who actually saw shows and knock things like the tramps, vacuums and other humorous aspects....i can just see you standing at a SHOW which you paid to see for crossing yoru arms and refusing to have a good time...get over yourself.

You are missing the whole point of "jam" music. To put it bluntly, they are ALL endlessly noodling. Its the type of fan that likes this type of music that listens to EVERY band member, and not just the guitar. They are ALL noodling, and what makes it amazing is that they are all doing their own thing, but still staying on the same page.

And Is that supposed to impress us?

it's that damned smelly phish i can't 'get over'.
or it's damnedably pseudo-hippy audience.

it's like DMB fans, but in reverse...almost

i was once on board with those who don't like phish but i discovered in the past couple years how dead wrong every notion i had about it was. you have no idea what you're hearing when you listen to phish because you listen to it based on your own experience and expectations of music as is the natural thing to do (why do you think some foreign music sounds very strange to you). I had to change the way I listen to music to really 'get it'. now everything i used to listen to (90's alternative generally speaking) just sounds bland...there are details within phish's music not readily apparent to the untrained ear. unfortunately i can't convey these in any simple terms so i won't try but only say this: don't knock what you don't understand.

How can ya hate a band that has such deliciously rhyming lines???
Pure genius I say!

this statement, in my experience is bullshit:

Phish = skunk weed
Dr. Dre = the chronic

I have known Phish fans with some truly gormet shit.

Also, I have no affinity for their music, but I recently saw Trey on Charlie Rose and he seemed to be a very nice, intelligent guy...

whoever wrote this:

if you knew anything, you'd know that indie music is the gayest of gay

You should check out The Frogs, I think you'd dig them!

the thing i dont understand (and i used to like phish a lot in high school, i went to a bunch of shows, i wasnt even on drugs, for chrissakes...) is how this idea of "phish, in contrast to all the other music in the world, which is totally imperfect and criticizable, is not something that you can discuss at all objectively. if you dont love it subjectively, you just dont get it, and theres something magical that happens, and it cant be quantified, etc etc etc." its really like people have been brainwashed into this blind acceptance of the experience and music without their critical thinking skills, which the well-educated "phans" should, by all rights, have in spades. i feel like really really hardcore phish phan-dom can beget this horrible brand escapism that is harmful in its insularity and its lack of critical examination of music...

maybe thats overstating it a lot, i dont know... i also know that indie/electronic/experimental/etc. fan-dom can engender similar insularity, but i never hear the sort of rapturous praise heaped on a single band by their fans than i do with phish.

btw, i still like billy breathes.

The thing is, Fishman and Mike are the two most noodly players in the band. %60 of their jams, Trey is just sustaining a couple notes indefinately while they flounce all over the place. Fishman actually is one of my favoritest drummers live, but Mike honestly is one of my least favorite bassists I've ever witnessed. His tone is way too plucky and muffledy, and it seems like he never has and never will understand the concept of "the pocket".

burrrrrrrrrrrn...

generally speaking in discussions like this (just look at the main topic of the thread), intelligent discussion is not permitted and anything along those lines is viewed as condescending. damned if you do, damned if you don't.

If it doesn't have a purpose, doesn't go somewhere, or fit into a bigger picture in the right way, the first people that will admit are the people at the show. In fact sometimes they're too overcritical of this.

people will hear this noodling section, decide its crap, and turn their ears off basically even if the music continues but they lose the effect and have no chance of enjoying anything that follows. i've seen it a hundred times. this is one of the details i was referring to earlier. one of the biggest reasons for the 'get it'/'don't get it' factor.

Not to say its for everyone, but that's typically how it works for those who listen to phish, it wasn't a 'hey this is great' first time round. that's why we tend to get defensive because we see ourselves in the trivialized arguments ;)

You guys really dont know what you are talking about. The VAST majority of Phish fans are not sweaty non-showering hippies. They are working in corporate America in every capacity. Generally speaking, they are well off, well educated individuals who, for one reason or another, have formed a bond with this particular type of music, and there is nothing wrong with that.

srsly, best googler ever

dude parkinglot widespread trey nitrous best ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRpRL9QjJYk&feature=player_embedded#!

Squandered opportunity for a vacuum solo imo :/

"there are details within phish's music not readily apparent to the untrained ear."

this always kills me.