Too Much Dead Phish

I love this magazine; think it is a great source for info you can't get other places and a great forum for all the people brought together by music. I can sit here at my desk and click away at Jambands all night, which is what I am doing now, and I am perturbed. Y'all do a great job of covering many, many different bands but there are two who I see mentioned way too much. I see far too many Grateful Dead and Phish references, and I get tired of them. I feel that this is just going to turn into a pointless, bitching rant from me, but anyway . . . Here's my deal: I don't like the Dead, I own Reckoning and think it is one of the best albums ever made, but I only own it because a friend of mine gave it to me to piss me off. I used to think Phish was the greatest thing in the world, but I quickly reneged on that thought when I saw the light (“the light” was moe.) and Ph*sh has quickly slipped out of my deck and into oblivion. Today I am absolutely, 100% sure that moe. is the greatest band to ever walk to face of the earth. When they are on stage I know there is no other band, now or ever, that can come close to doing what they do. I didn't used to be this militant about moe., but every night they go out do something no other band can do: they blow me away every time I see them. I don't like to hear people say other bands are better than moe., and I have a special disdain for people who try to tell me the Dead or Phish are better, but I can accept their opinions and argue all day long.

So I think moe. is the greatest band ever, and I see too much Dead and Phish content on this site. Don’t get me wrong: I am not looking for more moe. articles, and I am not saying, “don’t write about the Dead”, but enough is enough. It amazes me how almost everything written on this site refers to one of these bands. There is also a great deal of stuff about other bands, but it seems all the big articles focus on one of the two, and everything else written here, while the topic might be another band or venue, always refers to these bands. Lately I have been wondering a lot why this is so.

The Grateful Dead is everywhere, and have been for years, and I just accepted that. But recently Phish has exploded. This is not an explosion of bigger venues and more sell-outs and more fans, but prevalence and visibility in the world. I equate this explosion with seeing so many more of those damn Phish t-shirts that mock products via songs. The rise of Phish’s general popularity compared to their worsening in my own mind got me thinking. What makes them so damn good and people love them so much?

Not long ago I dusted off my box of Phish tapes in an attempt to bring back that sensation I had in just a few years ago that made me listen to this band constantly. I listened to numerous tapes spanning the past 12 years and couldn’t come up with any semblance of what I once thought. I did assure myself that 1997 was the year for them, or at least me and them, but that’s the only positive I could come up with. They just don’t impress me, and now I don’t see why they ever did. Just something different from the rest of music I guess. If you’re going to get into the jamband scene, you probably start with Phish--I guess that was me. I heard this new sound that was so different from my Zeppelin and Cream background, and it infected me. But as quickly as it came it also withered. I think because I found something, many things, better than those four guys. That’s sort of what I want to happen to everyone, notice, listen, open themselves to more than Phish, because there is so much more out there.

But the Dead, on the other hand, never did it for me. I just spent a weekend in Chapel Hill seeing moe., while staying with a friend of mine who never let So Many Roads leave his CD player. This allowed me the opportunity to hear too much Dead, and it got old very fast. I heard this “incredible” sound check jam and this 20-minute Shakedown, but it was all very bland. My opinion on the Dead is that the did the jam band thing first, and they were innovative and paved the way for all these other guys today, but they don’t have nearly as much raw talent or sounds and songs that speak to me like they do for the hundreds of thousands of you Dead fans out there.

So I can’t really put my finger on why these bands are so revered on this site. I could see someone reading this site and saying: well you don’t like these bands and you’re too stuck on moe. to open your own ears to anyone else. Please don’t believe that. I can appreciate the music that the Dead and Phish put out, it’s worthwhile stuff, but I keep asking: “why does every damn article have to be about these two bands?” I would say the reason is simply their popularity. So many people love the Dead and have been listening to them for over 30 years now, and Phish has been doing it for almost 20 and gained quite the fan base, so there's plenty of tapes and fans out there. [Digression: And all this stuff people are saying about how Phish sucks now and needs time off, it's just more people jumping on another wagon like they did a few years ago when they began listening to them.]

If I ran a website it would also have a majority of moe. content, just as this one is overrun with Phish/Grateful Dead stuff. That's not what I'm asking for at all, but just for some people to open their eyes a little more to the wealth of great music out there. Instead of referring to that Dark Star in the middle of Kansas on 7/20/70; how about that Born on the Wrong Planet from 7/31/99 or that Low Spark on 6/5/73? Phish and the Dead are good bands, but there's so much more out there, and I just get tired of seeing so many people stuck on them with Dead reference after Dead reference. I have gone on too long, probably incoherently at times, surely I’ve inflamed at least a couple of you. So won’t you tell me why they’re so great?

If you've read this far; thank-you,
Zac