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Monday, July 28, 2008

The Moment Ends? A Tribute to Phish


>THE MOMENT ENDS?
>By Jonathan Kiefer
>
>
> Years ago, that was us, the nascent Phish Nation, honking audience
>participation into "Stash" on the horns of our Saabs, snowboards
>roofracked; haunting head shops, you know...as if; hauling out the dusty
>four-track
>recorders, making trouble for the other members of our INXS cover-bands;
>loping, lacrosse sticks in our hands, through the halls of prep school
>dorms, having sought music that could be ours but couldn't be ruined,
music
>impervious to overplay on the radio or at the prom, having scoured the
>college radio stations for some kind of awakening. We had found it.
>
>We'd been told we had to hear this. Vermont-spawned quartet, unlike
>anything: frontman Trey Anastasio, lead vocals and guitar; Page McConnell,
>keyboards; John Fishman, drums; Mike Gordon, bass. At first, we might have
>hated it. Or started off skeptical. Listened impatiently, wondering, What
>the hell? Or thought it was just weird and probably took some getting used
>to. Word was, they were fluent in various styles. Okay, we said, sure, it
>sounds like bluegrass because you don't really listen to bluegrass. Yes,
>tell me about Latin funk, white boy. I mean, fluent? We'd always felt
sorry
>for the kid who played seven instruments half-competently, instead of
>playing one well. But we caught two or three live shows and came back
>thinking it could have been two or three different bands.
>
>We hadn't known how to categorize them and eventually got the idea that it
>couldn't be done. We liked the idea. It was cool and exclusive to be
>uncategorizable. We almost got polemical about it. "Hardening of the
>categories promotes art disease," we quipped, quoting whoever said that.
>Gradually, we relaxed-we didn't want to be fetishists, after all. No, they
>weren't virtuosos, but they were aficionados-real music lovers-and they
>were willing to try anything, even if they screwed it up. They were
>goofballs,
>these Phish, and good examples for us.
>
>Of course, some of us had our minds blown from day one. The incidence of
>blown minds, we should say, was not directly proportional to our ability
to
>recognize a few bars of Gershwin tucked into "Bathtub Gin," like a tongue
>in a cheek, or the melodic palindrome within "The Divided Sky" or other
>unannounced, too-clever and surprising musical structures, quotations and
>allusions. If we'd expected three chords and the truth, we got five
chords,
>sometimes with substitutions, two meters at once, and a riddle. We liked
it.
>
>So we made it familiar. Whistling, humming, mastering even those
>mathematically mind-numbing syncopations, if only to prove that we could,
>that tapping along was doable, even through the sustained anticipation. We
>finally learned all those cryptic words and wondered what they meant,
>hatched our own theories. In any event, we could sense what the band was
>getting at, and we liked it. We loved it. We had to know what they'd do
>next.
>
>More shows. Calling them "concerts" just didn't seem right. They opened it
>up. Jammed. Gliding and riding and weaving those songs out into space
>somewhere. Twisting around. We'd been treating these 20-minute improvised,
>exploratory ditties like background music before, scoring chores and
>homework and drives to the movies and sometimes getting high. The shows
>changed that. Being there made all the difference.
>
>It was comfortable inside the joke. The more we learned, the more immersed
>and conversant we became about this phenomenon-which we were helping to
>create-the cozier we felt. We saw more shows, and more. We knew, because
>outsider friends told us, that we talked about Phish too much. They also
>told us that, hell, we'd have been Bruce Springsteen fans if Phish were to
>cover one of his songs. It was a fair point: as if hundreds of originals
>weren't enough, our boys added music by more than 200 other artists to
>their live rotation, including one by the Boss himself...but only once, on
>July
>16, 1999, with longtime Phish lyricist Tom Marshall on vocals. Yeah, try
>and stump us.
>
>These tricksters were willing to cover just about anybody. The Allman
>Brothers, sure, sure, makes sense. Willie Dixon? Nice. Whoa, that's a Van
>Halen tune, remember that? And...um...ZZ Top? Ellington, Coltrane, Mingus,
>Monk, Miles-dig it. Wow, Neil Diamond, huh? Frank Zappa, yeah,
he's...yeah.
>Oh, the Beatles wrote that? Seriously, I didn't know. What? Shut up.
>
>Sometimes they played entire albums of other people's music, by request.
>They kept us guessing. And listening. We went out and bought more music.
>Theirs, yes, but also caught up on the pop and rock we hadn't gotten
around
>to, the jazz or rhythm and blues we hadn't known about, the other stuff
>we'd stayed away from. If we had instruments, we practiced playing them,
>hoping
>to improve by osmosis. With Phish for guidance, we experimented more with
>writing music of our own. We became active listeners.
>
>We were hooked.
>
>***
>
>It isn't so hard to have groupies these days. Politicians, business
>leaders, fraudulent religious figures and legitimate ones, athletes,
>painters,
>writers, actors and musicians all have them. Teachers, public radio
>personalities have them, and death row defendants. Institutions have
>groupies, thanks mostly to advertisers, and advertisers do, too. Nor is it
>hard to be a groupie. Who doesn't want to get behind something, get
inside?
>Who isn't a collector of something, and who isn't entitled? America's
great
>plurality is a plurality of scenes. And Phish has one of the big ones.
>
>Of the available musical subcultures, the school of Phish is rather
benign,
>even earnest. It tends to avoid, or at least not dwell on, the angrier,
>more punishing and reactionary aspects of rock. To enjoy and participate
in
>their scene, Phish fans do many things, but rarely do they seethe. When
the
>band
>"really rocks" or "has a serious edge," as they sometimes do, some fans
>still express surprise.
>
>Then again, expressing surprise, and inducing it, is the band's modus
>operandi. This has earned them a devoted and constant audience. Groupies.
>Devotion here isn't defined by knowing all the minutiae, seeing all the
>shows or collecting all the recordings. It's more about how Phish can do
no
>wrong. They've cultivated an atmosphere of curiosity and experimentation
>and gambled that fans would find it breathable. They chose hard work and
>word
>of mouth over posturing and hype and extensive public relations, and they
>succeeded famously. Here is the band that played the world's largest New
>Year's Eve concert in 1999 (estimates of attendance range from 75,000 to
>100,000). Here is the band that had to be forgiven for making a music
video
>(only one). And they were.
>
>Attention came, eventually, from the elite press because how could it not?
>This was a fairy tale band, having come up on its own, beholden to no one.
>Not even the fans. Predictably, the attention didn't spoil them. For the
>most part, they ignored it.
>
>The Phish subculture is democratic, at least in spirit, alleging a sense
of
>community and, in one way or another, palpably creating one. A community
>doesn't mean a utopia, of course, and a mobile, makeshift commune doesn't
>mean a community. But the Phish subculture is more than its scene. For one

>thing, Phish usually codify their music-and make it familiar to fans-in
>concert, long before recording it in a studio and releasing it on an album
>(they sold out two national tours before ever signing a record contract).
>This offers a rare perspective in pop or rock, more common to the
>quiet-seeming, steadily creeping influence of genuine folk or the loud,
>public ceremony of gospel. Some hard-line Phish Heads, having grown
>accustomed to live dynamics, find the crisp, contained studio versions
>chafing and difficult. But they can forgive that, too.
>
>Really, the worst thing Phish could do to the fans would be to stop making
>music together. And last October, at the peak of their popularity, that's
>what they did. Wrapping up a typical fall tour, they thanked the fans,
>explained it was time for an "extended hiatus" and dutifully pressed on to
>the two final shows at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View,
California.
>Then they went home to their families. They told the press "no comment"
and
>never really said goodbye.
>
>***
>
>We are the Phish Nation. How do you like the sound of that? The Phish
>Nation, we are. We are your phriends and phamily. The true, blue phans of
>Vermont's phinest. What's it all phor? Some hippie band? Some smart
>person's band? Some good-humored, avant-garde rock band? Some
experimental,
>nouveau-folk, electric jam band? The most important band in America?
>
>It's this: Phish is where we go for solace and release. Phish is where we
>go to not be alone. To rest our minds and expand them. It's as spiritual
as
>we
>want it to be, and the rules are pretty easy to swallow, the grooves are
>easy to follow. For some of us, this is the holiest thing we have.
>
>Look, we're not going to hang around the airport, trying to convert
>you...though now that we think about it, that's not such a bad idea. Come
>with us. Pheel the phlow. You know you want to.
>
>Okay, okay.
>
>Time has passed. Years. Let's have a look at the Phish Nation now. Mostly
>white, mostly male, mostly upper-middle class. Must we apologize? We are
>the crunchies, the wookies, the tapers, the taper-wookies, the tourists,
the
>yuppies, the yuppies who don't think they're yuppies, the stoners, the
>stoners who don't think they're stoners, the yuppie-stoners and you get
the
>idea, the clean-and-sobers, the Deadheads, the anti-Deadheads, the posers,
>the neo-slackers, the college-towners, the UVM'ers, the all-American Yalie
>quarterbacks, the California Berkeleys, the Boston Berklees, the community
>college tryers, the mousepad Mafia, the assistant service consultant-PR
>manager-programmer-implementation coordinator-client services
executive-web
>designer-dot commers, the lot commers, the kid brothers and sometimes
>sisters, the music snobs, the music snob snobs, the bike messengers, the
>outdoorsies, the need-to-get-out-moresies, the nomads, the miracle
seekers,
>the miracle workers, the proto-hippies, neo-hippies, prep school hippies,
>nobody's hippies, nobody's fools, the occasional ravers, the accidental
hip
>hoppers, the one-in-a-million ganstas, the others.
>
>We are the Phish Nation.
>
>By now, it's evolved into-we don't know if it's fortunate or not-an
>obsession. An addiction? Gosh, we say, we've spent more than a decade on
>this band, and who knows how many dollars? Saved our wages and salaries,
>planned our vacations around them. We've done hundreds of shows, seen the
>country. Descended in hordes on supermarkets and rest stops in the
>heartland, hearing: So where are you guys from? And answering: Everywhere.
>Those Mom and Pops must have loved the looks of us. If we could camp, and
>were into that, we would. We'd earn what we could in the parking lots,
>selling arts, crafts, T-shirts, food, dope. It really became a lifestyle.
>We tried not to romanticize it, but that was silly. It is romantic.
>
>Or it was. Evolution means change, and we've seen it, all right. The shows
>are one thing, but nowadays that scene in the parking lots is something
>else. We've got that younger generation now, and with it a generation gap.
>The youngsters are suspicious. So are the oldsters. We have factions. Our
>opinions differ. Why do the yuppies have to ruin everything? Why do the
>hippies have to ruin everything? Hugs? Drugs? We're losing our phamily
>values. We were brothers and sisters once. Now we're far removed. Are
these
>trying times for the Phish Nation? Yeah, no question, the scene is pretty
>wack.
>
>***
>
>Breakups and breakdowns are common enough in popular American music. Plain
>old breaks, "extended hiatuses," though not unheard of, are less common
and
>less successful. The touring life, however attractive, however rewarding
>and necessary, is a strained one. Sometimes a loss of momentum becomes, a
>point
>after which things won't be the same, becomes necessary. Staying the same,
>of course, is anathema to Phish. Improvisation includes the risks of lost
>momentum. And exhaustion is counterproductive.
>
>For seventeen years, Phish spent most of their shared life on the road.
>They shared themselves, stayed together, stayed out of trouble and tried
to
>stay
>open, innocent. Meanwhile, they practiced as determinedly as conservatory
>students and wrote music prolifically. Together or not, they're probably
>doing something musical right now. As Phish, though, they may have arrived
>at a point where the dismissal of preconceived notions itself became a
>preconceived notion. They may have reached a critical mass. Few people
>think they don't deserve a break.
>
>If Phish wanted a West Coast "home town," they could have San Francisco.
>The Bay Area, with a rich but not yet daunting history, still enjoys some
>version of youth, some vivacity. It's as good a place as any for the Phish
>scene. A place for possibilities and paths not taken, a haven for the
>otherwise marginal, where the spirit of bohemianism, of creative
>self-invention, will be nurtured-and tested-daily. This is a natural
>destination for personal pilgrimages. Or musical ones. True, according to
>volume 5 of "The Pharmer's Almanac," Shoreline Amphitheatre isn't among
the
>fans' top ten favorite venues for witnessing live Phish. But, then,
>"Anywhere" is
>number three.
>
>The blessing or curse of Phish's current success, the relative wack-ness
of
>the scene, neatly reflects that of the Bay Area, whose cultural identity,
>after a few seismic shocks, might seem on shaky ground. In both cases, a
>debt is owed to the legacy of the Grateful Dead-the band that took free
>flowing, electrified communal music on shared, ritualized road trips from
>under to aboveground decades ago and recast San Francisco's cultural
>reputation. Jerry Garcia's death in 1995 blanketed the area, like a
>persistent fog, with the devastated sense that a real movement had ended,
a
>scene was lost. From another perspective, it was wide open.
>
>Phish is not "the next" Grateful Dead, but the Phish scene is to the
>Grateful Dead's something of what Volkswagen's new Beetle is to the old:
>obedient but hardly servile; bigger; bolder; with more horsepower; slicker
>seeming, yet goofier when you think about it; a good idea to some, a bad
>one to others; an idea whose time has gone, or come.
>
>But not merely a replacement. Such things, to the people who hold them
>dear, the true groupies, are irreplaceable.
>
>***
>
>We've got Widespread Panic here. And String Cheese Incident and moe. And
>Galactic and Karl Denson and Sector Nine and Medeski, Martin & Wood and
>others as yet unheard of. We've got Phish solo projects, Anastasio's new
>band and tapes to trade, CDs to burn, the old stuff to hear, again and
>again. We've got websites to check, just for the hell of it. But for how
>long, how long? We'll need our phix.
>
>We've been good to them, and God, they've been good to us. Swum us through
>the highlights and traumas and transitions of our comings-up: left nests,
>invented independences, beginnings of academic and professional careers,
>the finding of peers or friends or lovers and the losing, the deep, dark,
>uncharted waters of adulthood, of life.
>
>At that very last show, we told ourselves to ignore the rumors, good and
>bad. Never call it a breakup, we said. It's a break. No reason not to
>believe that, right? Hadn't Trey said something about 17 more years? No,
>not a breakup. A setbreak, of sorts, between two great jamming epochs!
>That's
>it, that's it. We'll be back in 15 minutes, folks! Or months, whatever.
>
>They played "You Enjoy Myself" for an encore, and we sure did. We showered
>them with applause. They looked at us, we at them. They left, saying
>nothing.
>
>We passed a wave of shock between us. The house lights rose, and we didn't
>move. Okay, maybe not all of us, maybe half or fewer, but we stayed. The
>soundman played the Beatles' "Let it Be," and the crew came out to strike
>the set. We showered them with applause, too. Clapping and cheering and
>whistling and shouting. We hugged and cried our tears of joy, of
melancholy,
>and you can't take that away from us. It was beautiful, we agreed. We
>recognized the solidarity.
>
>And, as instructed, we let it be. Evolution means change, and change means
>growth, right? Let's remember what we have. We are the Phish Nation.
>
>Maybe it had been an escape. Maybe so, maybe not. Maybe so, maybe not.
Yes.
>we admit it, we concede. An escape from all the irony, the edge, the
>useless rage that permeates our really pretty good lives. We love these
>guys,
>because they aren't rock stars, and they aren't anti-rock stars, either.
>They aren't dumb, and they aren't affected. They're just not wrapped up in
>all that knowingness (How about not knowing? Expecting? Hoping?), the
>self-consciousness-which is not to say self-awareness. They're aware, and
>so are we. More than an escape: an impulse, for all its progressiveness
and
>moving forward, of nostalgia. To find a childhood, yes, that's what we
>said, a childhood. Of ideas that would take us all around the world, of
>curiosity
>and precociousness, sure, of course, but the good kind, the hungry kind,
>pre-competitive precociousness, the kind in which we played, the kind we
>displayed before the Saabs and snowboards and lacrosse sticks and seeking
>out a new sound. Before finally settling in to our low-slung,
>former-warehouse
>offices with exposed bricks and ducts, free Cokes and casual
>Monday-through-Fridays.
>Before finally settling in to the commitment of second-hand chic or
fleeces
>embroidered
>with dancing bears, emblematic Birkenstocks and poser dreadlocks, or even
>authentic ones, whatever that means. Yes, is it so far-fetched to think
that
>ours is a
>backward reach, a relaxation or an exhalation-sometimes smoky, okay-and
that
>sure
>we want tobe kids or kid-like and you know you do, too, right? It is
>possible that
>you know exactly what we're saying, and it's not so far off, come on, it's
>what
>you'd expect from the inheritors, the babies of boomer-hippie pairings,
with
>more privilege than perspective but admittedly, admittedly...and isn't
that
>a prerogative of youth that's been earned for us, however ungrateful we
are?
>Ours is a nostalgia not for the cause, the "day," the original scene, but
>for ourselves. Look, we want to believe in karma, we really are a
>can't-we-all-just-get-along crowd, and we're learning, hard, that it's not
>working, that love isn't really free, but jeez, we're trying to keep the
>cost down, and what if there is such a thing as a collective groove, and
>it's not so complicated after all? Can't we live while we're young? Can't
>we get off on that vibe, the community, the anticipation, the familiarity,
>the
>deviation, the sense-making-nonsense, the seeming spirituality, the music,
>the expanding vamps that build and build and Oh my God where are we now?
>And keep building, is it possible?! Outwards, onwards, becoming something
so
>far away from where we started that it just seems-it is possible, and
>return,
>just as we've almost forgotten how it began, to where we always were, to a
>phriendly, remembered refrain.
>
>Sure, we can. We are the Phish Nation. Sure, we can.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Mountain Brew???


Experiment fever has hit Natsmile Ales! We will be brewing a beer that contains a case of mountain dew in the finished product to be consumed at the Summertime Brews Festival right here in Greensboro.
BYO.com claims: "The beer turns out light and crisp, with some aroma, but not much flavor from the Mountain Dew."
We'll see about that!
Our ESB is on tap and delicious, and more is certainly in the works here, so keep checking back!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

BJCP Beer Judge Here we Come!!


Head Brewer Ben is on his way to Raleigh, NC to try his hand at becoming a BJCP certified beer judge this weekend. 60% of people who try fail the first time, but that's probably because they didn't watch The Big Lebowski for a week straight like Ben did.

You scoff, but he got through both college and grad school that way. He'll pass, if the Dude abides.

We've got cream ale in the works, as well as an old Favorite, NataliESB on tap right now. Up next is a slap in the face of the hop crisis Double India Pale Ale. Shall we use Magnum, Simcoe, or Nugget hops? All three? Whatever we decide we promise it'll kick your face in.

We're also making an interesting beer for Summertime Brews Fest right here in Greensboro called Mountain Brew. Half Mountain Dew, half beer. This is either going to be horrible or kind of alright. You know if we weren't up for experimentation we might as well be (Earmuffs!!!) fucking Budweiser!

So keep drinking, keep checking in, and keep supporting craft beer!

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Beer, Babies, and Barleywine


As you might guess from the title, Head Brewer Ben is getting ready for a new addition to the family. What does that mean for you, Natsmile Ales patrons? Why, lots and lots of great beer!


The brewers will be working as around-the-clock as possible to deliver you all the variety and abundance of beers you've come to expect. Once the new year and new baby hits, things may slow down, but we'll keep our fingers crossed on that one.


Thanks to everyone who came out to the first annual Natsmile Ales Cookout at the Brewery. It was a huge success which completely demolished our kegs of Cream Ale and Strawberry Wheat. We exposed a lot of people to our beers for the first time, and exposing ourselves to people is what we're all about here at the brewery. ;)


On tap right now is a big brown ale that's full of caramel and coffee flavor with a 6.24% ABV kick. Coming up real soon is an English Special Bitter, or ESB, that's hopped exclusively with Fuggles to balance the big Maris Otter malt profile. Next up is a Cream Ale, an IPA, and then a big bad Barleywine to be laid down should there be desperate dry times once baby Boven hits the scene.