The Tour Not Traveled

In Seattle these days, there are two warring camps. There's the WSP faction and the Phish faction. The Widespread faction tends to live in the Eastlake area, and the Phish faction live in West Seattle. Other than the spy Emika, representing Phish in the enclave of the biggest WSP house (and the sad rumor is that she is being the corrupted not the corrupter), I live in the Widespread part of town. I am terrified that they will set up loyalty oath to drive through that neighborhood; unsuspecting people will be forced to sing a few bars of "Makes Sense to Me" before being allowed to drive to the Space Needle. It's a vicious bloody war, only the weapons restrictions (Phish fans are only allowed to use Catapults and the WSP fans can only throw Chilly Water balloons) have prevented violence from spreading into the general populace. [1]

Now I love a jihad - even one that exists only in my fevered brain - as much as the next pacifist, but I could have easily fallen into either camp in this war. I first saw WSP when Phish and them were doing the home and home tour - Phish opening down south, Spread opening up north - in 1990. While my first time seeing them did nothing for me, they opened the Toad's Place show in New Haven, CT. This was the smallest crowd I ever saw at a Phish show; oddly enough playing finals week in New Haven didn't draw a crowd. I arrived at this show early enough to see WSP's soundcheck; in fact I spent the soundcheck sitting on stage, playing my ocarina. Domingo Ortiz - Widespread's percussionist - was actually jamming along with me. Since I gave the impression that I knew what I was doing, they never cleared me out and I saw the show for free. Widespread Panic were amazing that night. Even though my memories of that night are of the second set of Phish and I rejected Bob "Claw Me Down" Smith's offers of free Phish merchandise for every copy of Space Wrangler purchased, the name stuck with me. When Widespread Panic came out, I bought it immediately. When Space Wrangler was re-released I snarfed it up. While I didn't like all of the songs, the ones that I did like ("Space Wrangler," "Driving Song," "Stop Go," etc) rapidly became some of my favorite songs in the world. I went to the Jones Beach HORDE show in 1992 just as excited to see Panic as I was to see Phish. This night almost converted me to the Panic side of the force. I felt that WSP blew Phish away, and if I didn't have the history of touring with Phish, I might just have hit up Panic tour. As it was though, I next saw them at the Richmond HORDE in 1993. This show was memorable for several reasons. I got to play "Consumption" in a pre-show performance art piece. During "You Enjoy Myself", Phish played a joke where a wheelchair, purportedly with John Popper in it, was to be lowered onto one of the trampolines, until the cord snapped and he fell to his death. Oh, and Widespread Panic put on one of the worst performances that I have ever seen any band play.

I didn't see the band play again for 6 years. Come 1999, I heard that Panic would be playing the Paramount. Ok, local show. I might as well go. Of the five times I had seen them, this clearly was the 3rd best show. It didn't make me think that I needed to drop everything and see them, the way that Jones Beach and Toad's Place did, but there were definite moments, such as the reprise of "Chilly Water" at the end of the first set, that did quite impress me. When I discovered the local sources for cd's, I decided it was time to get some. When I listened to them, I noticed similarities between them and the bands that I love.

It may be hard for people growing up in the current scene to realize, but when Widespread Panic and Phish were first starting out, there was no such thing as a jamband scene. Sure there were people like the Allman Brothers Band, and on a smaller scale, Max Creek, but the jamband scene as we know it - tapers section, extremely variable set lists, anal retentive fans pouring over those lists - could only be found in one place, the Grateful Dead world. As a result, the Dead's influence on these bands, as much as they tried to minimize it, is much stronger than any one band would have today.

In addition to the obvious logistical influences (mail order, tapers section), two lessons of the Dead carried over. The first is that you have to have both Bobby and Jerry for the show to work. For those who are not fans, Grateful Dead setlists alternated songs (mostly) written by and sung by Jerry Garcia, with those (mostly) written and sung by Bob Weir. Jerry's songs tended to be mellow and pretty, Bob's songs were rock and roll. The contrast between the two is what made both of them work so much better. Neither Ratdog (Weir's spin off bad) nor the Jerry Garcia Band had the same power as the Dead; they both lived too much in one world. All of the classic segues were designed to contrast space/melodic prettiness with energy, see "Scarlet -> Fire", "Playin' -> Uncle John's Band," "Slipknot! -> Franklin's Tower", not to mention the post space Jerry ballad being followed by "Sugar Magnolia" or "Around and Around". So remember, "Wading in the Velvet Sea" or "Hope in a Hopeless World" isn't just there to give you an excuse to go to the bathroom.

Knowing when to play a ballad, as useful of a technique as it is, is just a trick. The more important lesson that the Dead has to teach to any prospective jamband is that jamming is not enough. The song that the jam comes out of is also important. The one thing that the southern rock of Panic and the ambient jammings of Phish have in common is that the songs that launch the jams are well crafted. Maybe it's just my Deadhead leanings, but it's not enough for me to jump into the middle of a 1972 "Playin'" and stay there for a whole set. A good jam should resemble a good adventure. Start out in a place that's so wonderful that you are not at all sure that you want to leave. Decide though that it's time and discover vistas that you would have never imagined had you stayed at home. Go as far as you can and then, when the road is wearing you out, return home to tell the tale. It's the "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is a mountain again" school of music. Returning to structure after improv gives meaning to the improvisations and power to the structures. For great examples of this, see the 7/12/90 "Dark Star", the 10/31/98 "New Age", and the 10/11/99 "Chilly Water > Last Dance > Chilly Water" to represent the Dead, Phish, and WSP respectively.

Don't get me wrong here. As much as I'm enjoying Panic these days, my loyalties are with Phish. Not only is it hard to throw away the fact that I've seen over 300 sets of Phish - as opposed to the 6 Panic sets I've seen - but I happen to be really digging on the ambient jams and the more I listen to the Millennial set, the more I think that that might have been the best set of music played by any band ever. However, we allegedly are heading for a long Phish drought. I'm glad to have a secondary backup band to meet all of my touring needs.

[1] In case it's unclear, this war is entirely fictitious. We all get along quite fine and only disagree over what to listen to, what part of town to hang out in, and what New Years show to go to.