The thing about clichés is that they are mostly true.
It’s obvious after watching the Waxbanks-Wolfson-Gans cage match here on Phish.net and on Facebook over the past week that a lot of you feel very passionately about the Grateful Dead and Phish. More than a few of you feel very passionately about both and, like Waxbanks, I number myself among you. And more than a few of you favor one over the other with a generous measure of – let’s say – passion. It seems bafflingly necessary for some to litigate the merits or superiority of one over the other.
I find these arguments insipid and masturbatory, but I do understand the emotions from which they sprung. Phish blossomed as a live draw when – and perhaps because – the Grateful Dead were corkscrewing, and ultimately dying. It was, without exaggeration, an indescribably painful time. Ironically, though Phish was growing its fan base exponentially, the Phish show experience was not exactly hospitable in 1994 and 1995; many of us know naïve Deadheads who parachuted into the scene expecting a younger and more vital Grateful Dead II, but were treated instead to 30-minute improvisational mindfucks, secret language, narration, and throngs of diehard fans who had invested enough time to be in on the joke. Hardly a fur-lined safety net for the bereaved.
[And let’s be honest: if Phish was for everybody, it wouldn’t be special. It is music from the island of misfit toys and only kids with just exactly the right screw loose can come to love it unconditionally.]
The converse is true. Phish and many of their fans deeply resented interminable comparisons to the Grateful Dead, not because the Grateful Dead wasn’t influential or because the comparisons were never accurate – they often were. They resented the comparisons because they were just as often lazy and clichéd. They were also a ball and chain around the band’s collective ankle. Phish was brand savvy enough to know that they had to escape the Grateful Dead’s gravity before they could enter their own orbit and attain the artistic credibility they so richly deserved. And it would take them years of conscious effort to achieve it. Yes, there were some early-to-the-party phans who thought Jerry’s death laid out the welcome mat for throngs of malodorous noobs destined to never get Phish, but there weren’t that many of them, and fuck them anyhow.
Which brings me to my point: It’s 2011, and it’s time to grow up and get over it.
By “it” I don’t mean carefully constructed compare-and-contrast exercises designed to stir up blog traffic and provoke some academic discussion. Those will endure and probably should. By “it” I mean the parochial instincts and behaviors so many of us default to when the topic is raised.
Recognize and appreciate that music is not the NFL. I dig pro sports just fine, but I rejoice in a life unburdened by the need to stand nose to nose with some gin-blossomed blowhard in a mildewed bar and argue the relative merits of Cake and Sonic Youth. What a waste of precious oxygen, if for no other reason than Cake and Sonic Youth do not care. Artists who deserve your attention do not seek your loyalty, nor do they seek to ascend on another’s back. They are far too busy trying to keep a creative fire burning to keep score in some imagined tournament. So why do we insist on doing precisely that?
To be fair to Waxbanks, his essay wasn’t the least bit parochial. He had a thesis he felt had merit which spoke to a defining difference between the Grateful Dead and Phish. While some of his supporting arguments may have been less benign than his thesis, it’s sad to see Grateful Dead academicians I admire so unnecessarily on tilt about the whole affair. The musicians and lyricists and crew members and back office staffs of both of these bands have toiled for decades, collectively, to suggest to you a host of higher thoughts and sentiments.
So here are mine.
The Grateful Dead and Phish changed my life forever. They are binary stars in my musical sky, and I will be warmed by each in different ways, on different cycles, for as long as I live. And while I am quite capable of musing about their differences, it is their similarities that once again intrigue and move me.
The primary reason both of these bands have captivated people – and the reason why tens of thousands of people never went on Bobby and the Midnites tour or Pork Tornado tour or even Jerry Garcia Band tour – is because they were and are alchemical. The personal and musical relationships of the players generated more light and heat than they were capable of individually, or with any other collaborators. The songs of each band’s maturing repertoire referenced and informed each other, and built toward a meta-narrative that defined each band more than any other single attribute. And they achieved nearly all of this not sequestered away in a studio, but on a stage, within spitting distance, inviting us all to participate in their great creation in as many different ways as we could conjure.
If you must share an orbit, you could do far worse.
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Bobby and the Midnites rocked btw! "Live in America" video?! Classic. *clears throat*
Oh, and I dig the binary stars metaphor. The GD are the big star in my universe, but a great metaphor nonetheless!
Um, where's "Never liked The Grateful Dead, would live a happy content life if they never heard another note of their music on classic rock radio and only care about Phish"? I guess that would torpedo any article one might want to write about Dead v. Phish, but am I the only Phish fan who acknowledges the debt Phish owes the Dead but doesn't give a damn about the Grateful Dead's music?
When I wrote an entry on Phish for the Grove Dictionary of American Music, I had to mention the Dead connection, if only for the fact that being compared to the Dead is part of Phish's past, present, and future. The thing is, there are many similarities between the Dead and Phish, but there are even more between the non-musical aspects of the Dead and the non-musical aspects of Phish. In fact, I've often said that music is the least shared element between these two bands. Still, it is an unavoidable comparison. Read my thoughts here: http://smoothatonalsound.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/canonizing-phish/
To add one last piece of relevant comparison, it should be noted that seeing the Dead live in highschool directly inspired and turned Trey on to the entire jamband/audience experience, so in a very direct way one did inspire the other. Your assertion that artists don't seek to ascend on other's backs I disagree with. They would never be so bold or callous as to assert that they invented the musical theory they use to create. In just this way, I'm sure they have made deep peace with the flow of musical ideas through generations and feel that the advancement of soundscapes by those before them gives the band the freedom of such a broad palette. In much the same way that Isaac Newton claimed that if he were to see further, it was only by standing on the shoulders of his colleagues and those who lived before.
Without being a "Ditto-Head" clone, Phish carries on the fond memories of the Dead spirits.
I'm ancient history (almost 65) and am very thankful for what Phish is doing right now. Awesome stuff occurring during the Phish tours this year.
Okay, yes, but that's not exactly what I meant. I meant that they don't seek to ascend on the backs of their peers, i.e. "get over on" another contemporary for the purposes of being viewed as superior - or create rivalries or street duels. Yes, they are all drawing from and walking on a foundation left for them by others.
Personally, for thick funk, intensity, musical composition (waxbanks is pretty right on with his article concerning chaos), and actual experience, I enjoy Phish. When the band is locked in to a building Antelope jam and rides the wave of the crowd, I feel that energy. But for pure emotion, song writing, lyrics, and undeniable magnetism, I go for the Dead. Jerry's vocal delivery on China Doll from Reckoning and the band's tender support is so organically emotional, that I get chills every time. And Bobby fans are people, too! Great discussion and nicely written article.
Nicely put, and thank you, and hear hear, etc. ...
...but I confess I don't get the Wolfson/Gans reference. I know the latter name, of course, but that's it...
So, I guess I am saying that I go back and forth between the two depending on mood. I truly LOVE them both. Seriously. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! No other bands have even come close to touching my heart the ay that Phish and The Dead have. I still get the same excitement over trying to guess what Phish will play at a show that I had 25 years ago at a Dead show. I get giddy over this shit!
I think when I first started seeing Phish 20 years ago I thought they were somewhat akin to the Dead (even if I thought they sounded more like Zappa), but these days I see, and hear, two totally different bands with two totally different things to offer a listener.
I am truly honored to have been a part of both bands' experience!
Nice piece Chris.
Huh, is David Gans reading this from his isolation booth somewhere in the land of the dead?
I saw much animosity on furthur lot this summer for PHISH and obviously vice versa. I even saw very confused faces when me and my homey SOLO raged the SAT NITE SUPERBALL STREAM at the shakedown in the Electirk Forest ( cheese/ dub step fest). I wondered why these people could not feel the love we have for them and music in general?! This is Jerry's dream.. sitting up on a cloud, watching it all continue to evolve be4 our very eyes. As I participaed in the Phish festivites this past weekend in Chicago and Phish raged on with a blazing "FIRE".. all i could really think about is what JIMI would say and i got my answer.. GROOVY BABAAAYE haha. Im a machine gun funk, great garcias ghost anomaly who discovered the power and majesty of Phish a little later than some of his peers. Instead of people trying to be so divisive.. maybe they should frickin realize that it is one big family tree. One feeds of the other and THAT IS THE TRUTH. Its odd when you old heads, (PHISH AND GD) feel you need to make snap judgments from that high pedestal you stand on. DONT YOU CATS REMEMBER THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS BEING THERE..... and you have no real idea of the true textures of soul and music that are being shared unless you are there... literally!~ Its not a damn competition. The scene is strong because of us all. We are a team working together.. for common goals of creation and UNITY!@!~ I will always hold GD MAGIK above all as they were the innovators but like my girl shannon told me. TREY IS MY JERRY!@ and shes' fuckin right. Ive felt that Phish gospel more than once. I told my homey Deg1 after Cuyahoga 6/4/11 how i got that wonderful, sparkly, family feeling and it was definetly confirmed in my heart of hearts down in CHARLOTTE NC 6/17/11. I cannot discount my furthur tour.. if you doubt me listen to the end of SPAC 7/19/11 wharf rat> eclipse> MOTM> UJB> VIOLA LEE... the next nite i met a cat that goes by the name UNK.. he asked me for a dollar more than once.. to get himself into the show.. I told him persistence pays off and he definelty agreed as SPAC was his 700th dead family show since 89'.. thats alot of fuckin shows kids! Dead serious is what they call it~ something must be bringing him back again and again.
You can argue technical merits of music til the cows come home.. but like another friend of mine told me a long time ago.. It does no good to debate about music, because, whatever you like is what you like. Music is art, conveying much emotion but on its most basic level... it should just make YOU FEEL GOOD! ( ABOUT HOOD) OR as we continue to "PLAY IN THIS BAND" of merry gods and goddesses... fountains of youth.. frickin unicorns, fluffheads and double rainbows; Just remember.. that it all can coincide under a "brand new crescent moon". the basic truth of the DEAD ( WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR UUUUUUUUUUUUUU KINDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!~?????
I love all of you so very much..... This beautiful family continues to teach us all. Now its time for the earth to die once more as autumn approaches. Death and Rebirth.. the cycle continues above the waves and beneath. I am forever grateful for all of you. and Jerry I know would ask of us "CAN YOU STILL HAVE FUN????!!!!!" XOXO from the desk of darkeststarstillwaiting..... peace eternal
When I picked up a copy of "Pictures of Nectar" in the early "90's, I was immediately hooked, and went out and bought "Lawn Boy" and "Junta" within a few days. Ironically, it has been years since I have listened to any studio Phish albums, but I have continued to listen to live Phish since my first discovery. For GD studio albums, I still listen to "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead" occasionally, but usually it's live Dead I listen to.
The bands are so different musically, but I embrace both bands sometimes to the point of scary obsession. I accept this, and my family seems to accept this "as just the way I am, like it or not".
I was never able to understand the arguments I have heard over the years about the superiority of one band vs. the other, and I am just very happy to have both of them, and I will generally attend any and all of the few West Coast Phish shows, and any Dead-related show here in the Bay Area.
It's great for our planet to have been blessed with both of these phenomenal bands!
Beautifully stated sir.
I share your sky with a frequent visit from Zappa's comet.
I may need to make some adjustments if my iPod ever shuffles Tweezer into the Dead's Scarlet > Fire.
hell yeah. and last time i checked i'm an only child and really enjoyed the ThunderCats.
Just on point all the way. Thanks.
Fantastic quote. Definitely gonna have to use that one. Great article.
Shit, as far as I'm concerned all 'jam band' music was born the moment Tony Williams switched to the ride cymbal at the climax of Miles's solo on 'It's About That Time'...
I expected Phish to sound just like the dead, and figured they were just some act cashing in on the dead's fan base. So I talked shit about the band with the strange name which I had never heard. I was wrong, and stupid.
The first Phish song I ever heard was rift. I woke up at a strange house after a party. I grabbed a tape off the floor and slammed it in my walkman. My first thought was, "holy shit! this is fucking awesome." I listened to Rift about 100 times. Then I bought a ticket to the next show.
I never looked back.
Still a dead fan. I have not ever noticed a similarity between the two bands music. Seriously.
When I first heard Phish it was 2009 and they had just gotten back together. At that time the only bands I listened to were The Grateful Dead (favorite era still late 70's, but learning to love the Brent era), The Allman Brother's Band, and a lot of Bob Dylan.
[honestly, my parents thought I was a freak for listening to only 1960-1970's music]
Then I heard Phish and it changed my life. I think I first heard them of Jam On radio station during one of their "Gone Phishin'" segments. Listened to an entire set and was hooked. The next week I bought my Phisheroo '09 ticket and never looked back....
It is unfortunate that I never saw the Grateful Dead but as I'm rocking to 12/31/77 this morning (sugar> scarlet> fire, truckin' is fuckin rockin') I know that no matter what, in this community, the music never stops, it never dies. EVER. Hope all you older folks know how lucky you are. I am lucky too, because there is still music that moves me playing all across the country
I saw my only Dead shows during the early 1990's and for someone who didn't know, it was as magical to me as it was for someone back in '64-'67... though it may not have been on the same musical level, it didn't matter to a kid from Utah. Standing in the middle of the floor of the 'old' Sam Boyd's Stadium, I was still gettin' it
The longer people are fans, the more the perspective changes. No doubt there. I will submit, however, that music is very much about perspective. And perspective is drawn from the depths of what makes you a person, all the things that make you tick, which includes your history, your genetic make-up, the albums your parents had in their collection, etc. Growing up listening to my mom's Who, Beatles and Jethro Tull albums, well, you could say I developed a specific perspective about music. One that jived with the later additions of The Grateful Dead, Phish, and dare-I-say... Widespread Panic. I've pondered this topic repeatedly over the years, and I think one of the things that draws it all together, at least for me, is the sheer dependence on the Real. It is a willingness to put the music above the musician... a concept that appears to be sorely lacking in some of the more mainstream veins of music today... in my opinion .
A final example of perspective... I hadn't seen Phish in a few years, when I got down to Broomfield last fall... Fishman's efforts in Moma made this version an instant classic for me... and some of my companions, who have been diligent phans for years didn't think too highly of the shows... so it could be said they've seen more so they know more, or perhaps, they are lookin' too hard, too close, with too much expectation... again, just a matter of perspective.
I understand completely.
I saw my first Dead show on 3-26-88. There were jaded vets who insisted on telling me I'd missed it all. That the band was done. Obviously a band like that is never "done" until they stop playing live - there are merely consistency issues. I subsequently saw the Warlocks crack open Dark Star and Attics, Ripple at the Cap Centre, the Casey Jones bustout, and a bunch of other more common but incredibly well played stuff I still listen to today. 1993-1995 were not good years for the Grateful Dead but they still had high moments. Without a doubt.
Can people please leave behind the 15year old Greatful Dead photo copied posters, beat-up wood carvings and piles of GD t-shirts out of the lot....
We are at a damn Phish show!!!! Please have some respect for both bands.
LOL. While we've been discussing the bands' respective music, Dead fans are definitely different than Phish fans, especially when it comes to dress code and "kit" (at least on the East Coast).
Phish fans may dress a bit weird in a costume style or Burning Man fashion, beads and such, but judging from Dead-o-centric festies like GOTV and Further, many if not most Dead fans are still back in the tie-dyed shirt hippy mode and lots of the GDP-licensed iconography -- the "stealie" face shirts, skull and roses, dancing bears, tie dyes, tapestries and on and on.
You see few tie dies at Phish shows. Phish merch, even lot merch, other than the one Phish "logo" shirt, has always tended to be varied and not a single look or handful of designs, like the GD. Phish kept a much tighter control over distribution too, only selling merch through Dry Goods online and venue concessions and not flooding the market through licensing so kids could buy the shirts in a J.C. Penneys or Spencers Gifts in any mall in America. And phans went for the obscure, like song title shirts, where the game was NOT to say "Phish" on the shirt or bumper sticker so only hipster insiders would know, not the po po, and the merch was not infringing on the Phish trademarks.
So there are business and cultural reasons that Dead and Phish fan taste in merch is different, but I'd agree that, like some of the reaction to these articles about the music, the Dead fans seem a bit trapped in time in the mid-90s in kind of a Rip Van Winkleseque way.
(I'm glad I enjoyed both bands a lot, the Dead in their day, but my feet are firmly planted in the Phish camp since '93 and I must say I do not find the various Dead cover bands exciting concert fare these days...there are some nuggets and pleasant
My last generalization is this: perhaps because there is no longer a possibility of Jerry playing, Dead fans are a lot more tolerant and appreciative of cover bands -- with or without original members -- and various spinoff projects (Ratdog) than Phish fans are tolerant of cover bands. I took a lot of guff from people during the hiatus by being a fan of Phix, a fantastic Phish cover band.
Dead fans seem very tolerant and appreciative of cover bands like Dark Star Orchestra, and they don't seem to get at all wrapped up in what Phish fans (I think) would tend to do, which is argue things like "DSO > Furthur?". And I noticed a lot more people at Dead fests like GOTV seem to be amateur musicians and be able to strum along and sing most of the classic Dead ballads.
OK, enough generalizations, stereotypes, cliches, etc. but there is some truth in this perhaps. But it's all in fun and not intended to be a big slam on anyone, just differences I've also noticed.
It was 9 years later than '73 that I actually got a ticket to a GD concert at the old Spectrum RIP (passed up the band for years and can't really recall why...). This decision changed everything in my musical universe profoundly. I lost count after 100 GD concerts all the way out to 1995, and ravenously collected the material from 1968 onward.
It was 1991 when PHiSH made their first stop in Seattle (Ballard's The Backstage RIP) and thanks to Rob G giving me Maxell XLII-90 copies of 4-22-90 and 10-31-90 several months in advance (my friend KNEW me) I made it to the show. It was a complete surprise to me at the age of 30 that year that there was another band that could capture my soul with such power AGAIN. I went to as many of the Pac NW shows as I could with the balance of my life - job/home/son/wife and soon enough my own band - not to mention whatever GD concerts I could get to as well.
Musically, I did not hear GD in PHiSH. I heard a wide range of influences that were my own. Like them, I was an east coast boy until I went northwest in 1986, about 3-4 older than them, and it's not surprising this could be the case. The 2-set format and tendency to mix songs that pleased me greatly with wild improvisational jamming was the common factor to me.
I just don't read analytical battles with these fans but I wanted to respond to this excellent OP. I spend THAT time LISTENING to the ass-kicking music that matches my DNA - from both of my live-performance obsessions. I LOVE IT!
Just a bizarre thought (one that may have already been explored above), what would a Dead cover of Phish sound like?
The only part I don't get is why JGB isn't in any comments. JGB was the church on Sunday for us heads that saw GD as a Rager Saturday night.
JGB warfield may have been a peak for a lot of people that were there.
All 3 bands are so different and blow anything else live away.
Thank God Phish is back!!!!!
Care to translate that, I'm not fluent in New Age Hippiespeak.
That review of Slip, Stitch and Pass you linked to here is hysterical.
It reminds me of Mike in Bittersweet Motel, loving the fact Todd Phillips made Trey read bad reviews on camera. As though Todd had much of a choice, since that Milo Miles review was a *favorable* one, and still managed to slag the band with every other sentence.
I started playing guitar at 14, and like every boy at that age, I started dreaming of what kind of band would be MY BAND. I was introduced to the Dead at 16, and Phish at 19-20. The Dead were a band that gave me all that I could want from a band I listened to, but Phish was the sound/attitude/balls of the band that was in my head (but I wasn't talented enough to execute myself). So much so, that I used to have a list of cover songs I would want to play with my band. It was nearly 30 songs long. Phish played over 20 of them.
Not that I think one is ultimately better than another, for how can you compare two sunrises, but Phish is the one I have overwhelmingly preferred for 16 years.
"what's really mind-boggling is that no one even knows the 1 thing (and 1 thing only) that phish has in common with the dead. Here it is - Mixolydian mode improvisations."
lololololol
Yeah, mind-boggling. How is that not perfectly obvious to everybody? You just sort of blew the lid off my Universe.
nicely put!!
Thanks buddy.
i think the backgrounds of Trey and Jerry were so different musically too. Jerry was much more structured and classically taught before the dead. he was using his music to make money right from the start with teaching guitar and performing. Trey came from a liberal arts school where the focus was much more on the spirit of music and a lot less structured. Jerry was teaching guitar lessons to kids while Trey was writing "gamehenge" at the same ages (roughly). wildly different attitude toward music right from the start.
See you in Colorado!
Stoked on forthcoming Co shows, a love of Bobbys chops, Phil's voice, a fake-jerry on guitar, Phish across the country, and Dead Boots from 73, Mikes White High Tops, Page's hairline, Fish's Samba classics, Trey's Ocelot guitar, 12.2.95 New Haven, and a healthy interest in a healthy future of the US and A!
Love Ya'
Clusterfly6