Phish, "The Story of the Ghost"

Mitch talks about the one that got away

, and

Aug 25, 2021

Mitch’s Pitch:

When the lockdown started, we were all told that Shakespeare used his plague year to write King Lear, and perhaps we could turn COVID shit into COVID salad by writing our King Lear, too. But rather than:

Drafting verse about a king’s final hour

Counting dumb iambic pentameter

Baking bad sourdough with King Arthur’s flour

Aiming for a plague task much easier

I decided to do something much more valuable with my plague year.

I decided to finally get into Phish.

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Now you would think that me, as a known Deadhead and unabashed jamband fan, would love Phish. But I did not.

And it’s worse than you think - I wouldn’t even give them a chance. I was so misguided in my loyalty to the Grateful Dead that I wouldn’t even listen to this up-and-coming band that everyone in Albany in the early ‘90s was talking about. I had a chance to see them in their early prime and I didn’t even consider it - in favor of a past-their-prime Dead busting out “Picasso Moon” while poor Jerry nodded off on stage.

What a schmuck.

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In fairness, Phish and the Dead are very different musically. There’s a lot of cultural overlap between the communities (although a big generation gap), and they’re both jam bands, but their music sounds nothing alike. Where the Dead are more of a country-folk-blues band heavily influenced by jazz, Phish are much more eclectic, and sound like Frank Zappa binging The Simarillion. While the Dead are serious and mythic in their storytelling, Phish are silly and mythical.

But both bands, at their best, are cohesive units that can mind-meld and jam as one unit, going into deep, exploratory places. They can achieve “lift-off” in a jam, and not many bands can do that. And both bands can write great songs. While Phish may not have written as many all-time classics as the Dead (tough to compete with Garcia/Hunter and Weir/Barlow) they do have a lot of really great, memorable songs.

The Story of the Ghost, their seventh album, is absolutely bursting with great songs.

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The album has a wonderful sonic consistency throughout - there’s definitely a specific vibe to the Ghost - but it also manages to cover a lot of ground musically. There’s more traditional songs (“Birds of a Feather”, “Limb by Limb”), weird but cool sound experiments (“Fikus”, “Shafty”), a fantastic and fantastically evil prog-rock epic (“Guyute”), there are moments of pure beauty (“Brian and Robert”, “Wading in the Velvet Sea”), there’s funky, vibe heavy stuff (“Ghost”, “Meat”, “Frankie Says”, “The Moma Dance”) and then there’s “Roggae” - kind of a mission statement for our whole crazy scene:

The circus is the place for me with bears and clowns and noise

I love the shiny music that descends from overhead

If life were easy and not so fast

I wouldn’t think about the past

Of course, it’s the playing that Phish is famous for, and rightfully so. There’s no weak link in Phish. Trey Anastasio is a clean and tasteful guitar player (full confession, I may have previously written: “Trey shit up the second set with his stupid Trey guitar and his stupid Trey guitar faces.”) Page McConnell is a terrific keyboard player. Mike Gordon is a flexible and talented bassist. Jon Fishman is an inventive and creative drummer. They’re not great vocalists, but they fearlessly experiment with their singing anyway, and Tom Marshall’s lyrics are weird, absurd, evocative and occasionally poignant.

Gentlemen, I’m asking you to learn from my mistake. Yes, I know that Phish can be nerdy and their lyrics can be silly. I know that they can push their luck by bouncing around from style to style and getting a little too experimental. I recognize that their vocals aren’t the greatest in the world. But they’re a truly excellent band - an actual interconnected, cohesive band - and The Story of the Ghost is proof positive that they should haunt the hallowed halls of the Newbury St. Collection forevermore.

CJ’s Response:

To the dispassionate observer (me), Phish seems like a Deadhead’s attempt to speak the second coming of Uncle John’s Band into existence. I like the Grateful Dead, but I saw no reason for a torch to be passed to the next iteration of that consortium. As a result, I have absolutely zero history with Phish. If I’ve ever heard a Phish song, I didn’t realize it. So, I came into this completely cold. As cold as, well, a ghost.

To be honest, I was not looking forward to this album at all. When Mitch revealed his pick, I texted back something along the lines of “Couldn’t you just pick another Grateful Dead record? Jesus.” Here’s the good news, though. I liked “Ghost” a lot more than I thought I would.

The title track is tight for a space rock tune and I enjoyed the song at face value, regardless of the trippy lyrics. “Birds” and “Meat” were oddball tracks that gained my respect for the chances they took. And “Guyute” was like a Jethro Tull song if someone had anesthetized Ian Anderson.

But then things took a turn.

“Fikus” was too weird for me. “Shafty” left me wanting. And I couldn’t get into “Limb by Limb”. By the time I got to “Roggae”, everything was mushing together and I really wanted to listen to some Diamond Head.

The capper was “Wading in the Velvet Sea” which sounded like the kind of music they pump into calming rooms for aggressive children where the walls have been painted pink or pale green. Yeah.

Quick story: A friend of mine rented an RV so he and his college friends could see the final Phish show in Vermont back in 2004. Literal seconds into the trip, he misjudged the height of a bridge underpass and sheared the two skylights off the top of the RV. Many hours after making some duct tape-based repairs, they pulled into Coventry in the middle of a monsoon. The RV immediately became mired in the mud and they had to walk five miles in the pouring rain to the first show of the weekend, which they missed entirely. Those were the high points of the trip.

The lesson: Stick with the Grateful Dead.

Pitch Failed (I still feel like you haven’t told me the story of the ghost)

Ken’s Response:

Once Jerry Garcia died in summer of 1995, a sea of bands fought a cold war to see who could stake the rightful claim to the jam band throne. Locally known and revered bands like Widespread Panic, String Cheese Incident, and Yonder Mountain String Band became nationally known. They toured constantly, they were all good bands and their shows were nothing shy of a real good time. But they never found the chemistry The Grateful Dead had on-stage. Their extended jams were less of a cohesive trip into outer space as they were guys taking turns soloing in a jammy way. And then there was Phish.

Phish was four guys working as one unit. As great as they are individually as musicians, they each presented themselves on-stage as four parts to one machine, and they knew, like the Grateful Dead before them, the machine doesn’t work without all the parts working together.

They were the new kings of the jam-band world, and they continued what their predecessors had started, even if the music was stylistically divergent from what the fans were used to.

But here’s the thing...I just don’t think The Story of the Ghost is good enough. Musically, it’s incredible! Opening with “Ghost” and the beautiful “Birds of a Feather” was a phenomenal start but the album takes a lyrical and vocal nose-dive after that, with nerdy lyrics that are neither poignant, funny, nor telling any kind of interesting story.

We have ongoing discussions at EONS Global HQ about engaging with an album, and I give every album we discuss at least 6-7 listens during the week. But is it the listener’s responsibility to engage with an album, or the artist’s job in making an album to engage the listener? I’d side with the latter and this album came up short.

While Phish’s live shows might offer the same opportunities to hear musical greatness, The Story of the Ghost is too immature and unpolished for Newbury St.

Pitch failed (count me out for the next phish phry)

Mitch’s pitch was not successful and Phish’s The Story of the Ghost has been exiled!

Run like an antelope to the comments section and let us know if listening to Phish’s The Story of the Ghost is chalk dust torture or gets you bouncing around the room. It’s simple and it’s free!

Exile on Newbury St.

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