A Second Critique by David Rainie

This past summer, my girlfriend Steph and I hit the road, embarking on an epic journey from Boston to Tuscon during an unfathomably oppressive heatwave, taking four weeks and eating up seventy-six hundred miles of macadam in the process. The trip was ostensibly an effort to get Steph and her stuff out to Arizona where she'd be attending grad school for the next couple of years, but as luck would have it, a band called Phish followed us around for a week or two, and in the process we caught two Phish shows at Great Woods and the final eight shows of Phish's 1999 U.S. Summer Tour (our route to Tuscon wasn't exactly as the crow flies). During the run we saw a twisted Tweezer>Have Mercy combo, a Runaway Jim and Piper of epic proportions, a Fluffhead jammed out for half an hour, a quadruple whammy Glide/Camel Walk/Alumni Blues(!)/Tweezer Reprise encore, and a My Left Toe>Whipping Post monster- and that's just what stands out in my memory- I've yet to hear any of the tapes. The shows were, in my opinion (backed up by seven years of rather dedicated attention to the band) fantastic, and I'm thus dismayed to see Phish take a beating such as that doled out by commentator Joshua Rosen in the January 2000 issue of jambands.com.

I can't contemplate to what standards Joshua and other detractors are holding the band, as my feeling is that Phish has, with a the exception of a few lulls, been getting better year after year. Rosen notes that he didn't like the Bonner Springs, Kansas show and that Phish has skipped out on renditions of Forbin>Mockingbird and Harpua for a year, but what does this mean? Is the existence of a mediocre show and the relatively short-term absence of two tunes really an indicator that the spunk and mastery that were once Phish have dried up? I don't buy it for one second. While I could argue with the "What about thus-and-such show?" approach (New Year's Eve 1998 and 1999 immediately leap to mind), such a strategy would only lead to the ultimate conclusion that it's all subjective anyway.

Whereas during the summer tour Joshua saw "tension between Mike and Trey on stage," I saw smiles and heard harmony. While Joshua felt that "the energy was definitely lacking, and they didn't appear to be having any fun up on stage," this summer, I heard a series of high-energy moments and watched Fishman bring down the house during an uproarious memory lapse while engaged in the Deer Creek "Purple Rain." Whereas Joshua and unknown others feel that due to a lackluster December tour "they could not have picked a better time for a well-deserved vacation," I had two of my greatest all-time Phish experiences during New Year's Eve and the first of the two shows in Portland, Maine and felt that the two other shows that I saw, Providence and the second night of Portland, were hardly low points in Phish's career. While Joshua states that "the more you experience something, be it music or marijuana, the more ordinary it starts to become," I would argue that with regards to music and myself, nothing could be further from the truth- the more I hear, the more perspective I gain. And while Joshua observes that a "break will prove to be important if the Phish community is going to survive and continue to grow and evolve for years to come," I would retort that I've watched the community "survive and continue to grow and evolve" over a period of seven years, and the supposition that a break is essential to the continuation of this trend is pure poppycock- but that's all just my opinion, and nothing more.

And this is the thrust of my observation and the basis for my argument that articles such as Joshua Rosen's are drivel and a waste of jambands.com potential as a source of truly substantive commentary. Rosen puts forth statements such as "1999 contained very few great shows sandwiched in between several mediocre ones" and he quotes the anonymous and habitually negative show-goers, but does this mean anything? Where is the analysis, the evidence, or the substance behind the criticism? Where is the "evenhanded"-ness in such a cursory peek at the current state of Phish? I would argue that such substantive elements are non-existent, and as such the essay is a disservice to Rosen, the band, and jambands.com.

I've come to expect unsubstantiated rants like Joshua's on rec.music.phish, and considering the informality of the forum, I've got no problem with clicking "Delete" and moving on. But jambands.com is an e-zine put together by serious people as far as I can tell, and I'm left wondering why serious people don't find equally serious people to put together an e-zine that's worth the time it takes to read? I'm not opposed to negative commentary as a matter of principle, but I am disturbed by the quantity-over-quality approach that jambands.com takes in its publishing decisions. There's a huge gap between fluffy ranting and insightful criticism, and I think it's time that jambands.com gets its act together and makes the distinction. With the jambands.com banner strung up at a number of small-sized gigs and with Andy Gadiel's high-volume page pointing the way to jambands.com's page, isn't it about time that the zine tighten its editorial standards?

As stated, negative criticism is not by nature beyond the bounds of relevance by any stretch of the imagination, but aren't we, the readers of jambands.com, worthy of something more than a series of fluffy opinions strung together over a hoops-n-hemp frame? Don't we deserve a mention of the flubs or some description of the jams which don't measure up to the standards of Phish's most exacting fans? Ought there be something more to an article than a series of unchallenged statement amounting to the "fact" that the band has become "weak" and thereby in need of a "long break?" And shouldn't the same standards be applied to positive views of the band's current state?

Over the years, Phish has had untold numbers of detractors and supporters, almost all of whom but professional reviewers have been fans at one time or another, and about the only thing that anyone can truly agree on is the fact that the music of Phish has evolved significantly over the course of the band members' collective career. In judging the nature and quality of the music, subjectivity is unavoidable, and it is thus absolutely essential that evidence be provided in analysis of the changes which have occurred lest the nature of said analysis drift into the realm of utter meaninglessness. One man gathers what another man spills, and opinions are stinky and everyone's got one. What everyone does not have, and what jambands.com needs if it is to exist as a source of worthwhile commentary, is a devotion to the premise that music, by its nature, requires a depth of analysis that goes beyond the ho-hum province of opinion into the solid-ground realm of substance. Readers shouldn't click away from jambands.com feeling that they've swallowed a sour mouthful of someone else's silly opinion they should instead be treated to a feast of facts seasoned by said opinion or premise.

Best regards in the new millennium,

David Rainie