This month’s fan site is Coventry: A Phish and Music Blog. Here’s what Pauly has to say about the site…
The site was started in the summer of 2004. Originally Coventry: A Phish Blog was a place where friends of mine who attended Coventry, Vermont could share their stories and journeys about the final Phish concerts. We all got scattered due to the weather and some of us had to hike into the show. Most of us were not able to meet up together like we had done at other festivals due to the strange circumstances surrounding the final Phish shows. The site also became great resource for our friends (who did not attend the shows) to read up about our exploits.
Once Phish broke up for good, the site focused on all things Phish… like heading to Trey Anasastio Band shows or random Phish news. The site became a group music blog with several of my friends contributing. Since they all had different musical tastes and lived all over America (like in Texas, Colorado, NYC, and Kentucky), we had a cool and eclectic group of folks contributing, like my buddy The Joker from Boulder, CO who’s a musician and the mind behind the Bathtub Gin blog.
Our site languished a bit when I was hired to cover the World Series of Poker for Fox Sports and I moved to Las Vegas in the summer of 2005. But since I was in Vegas that year, I attended the Vegoose music festival with the Joker. We posted a lot of our hijinks on the Phish blog. Over the next few months, when I had the time, I would randomly post about different shows that I saw.
We hit up Bonnaroo in 2006 and covered the event for Coventry with pics, stories, and videos. We also attended Vegoose in 2006. More hijinks ensued.
Originally the focus was on Phish and since many of us were Deadheads… we also write a lot about the Grateful Dead or Phil and Friends. Our musical tastes fall right in the middle of the jamband scene… ranging from bands like Galactic and STS9. Of course, my new favorite band became My Morning Jacket when we caught their Midnight set at Bonnaroo in 2006.
I headed down to Australia in early 2007 for a work assignment. When that was over, I attended the Big Day Out festival in the Gold Coast. That’s a roving festival that tours throughout New Zealand and Australia, sort of like a Bonnaroo or Cochella, with stops in major cities in Oz. I scored a backstage pass (courtesy of a friend of ours who knew Tool’s tour manager) and got to take tons of pics and videos including Jet, John Butler Trio, The Killers, and Muse. I posted my Big Day Out hijinks on our blog.
A group of us headed down to Langerado in March of 2007. That was a blast and we covered the event on our blog. I took tons of video and posted clips of some of our favorite bands such as Medeski Martin & Wood, Galactic, Widespread Panic, of course… Trey. Although I could not attend Bonnaroo in 2007, a good friend of mine from South Carolina could. We added him to the roster of contributors and he managed to get a media pass. He took a couple of great photos of Wayne from the Flaming Lips and Bob Weir.
The site really took off at the end of 2007. I was spending less time on poker and the Joker wanted to start posting more about music. I added a few more voices to the site and it took off. The Joker’s hard work is really the reason why our traffic spiked and we’ve been picking up new readers. He’s been posting a lot of share files of some of his favorite music ranging from Phish to Radiohead to STS9 and the Disco Biscuits. Since he’s based out of Colorado, he has a firm grasp on that flavorful music scene.
So what should you expect from Coventry: A Phish and Music blog in the upcoming months???
The Joker will be posting links to some of his favorite music. He’ll also be attending a bunch of Disco Biscuits shows in Colorado in the next few days and posting setlists, pics, videos, and stories. The Joker also has a morbid addiction to posting links to free music… which has become a quite popular aspect of our blog.
Since I’m the "professional" writer in the group, I’ve been writing a lot about different Phish shows I attended back in the day. I have 151 Phish shows under my belt and some of my favorite posts to write are Today in Phishtory. I post a couple of those every month. It gives me tons of heady flashbacks and reminds me how much I used to have following Phish all over North America and even to Japan. I’m also a YouTube junkie and love searching for random Dead or Phish videos.
Our friend BTreotch recently joined the crew. He’s working on a research project in Antarctica (we’re not making this up) and he said that he’s bored a lot and wants to contribute during his down time. He’s a musician and artist and likes to post mixes. He’s hysterical, so keep an eye out for any BTroetich posts.
My girlfriend, Change100, is obsessed with American Idol. Although I cringe when she watches it, expect her to do a weekly recap of the events on that program in the upcoming weeks.
A bunch of us from Coventry are heading down to Langerado in March. We hope to blog about our adventures directly from the festival, even though we’re camping out. I have a mobile air card (and hope we can get a signal) and since we’re going to rent RV’s, I expect to have unlimited power supply. We want to post lots of videos, pics, and stories about or time there and share them with all of our friends and readers.
Of course, once the summer hits, we’ll be reporting on different festivals and shows that we attend, particularly Radiohead’s tour through the America. Since the Joker lives close to Red Rock, we expect him to be giving us updates of all those random shows he attends there.
So if you love Phish and enjoy music as much as we do, stop by Coventry: A Phish Blog… there’s something for everyone there.