Category: Bands

Phish – American Rock & Roll Band

Phish is a rock and roll band from the United States that has been around for more than thirty years. The band is known for the great variety of music genres, awesome improvisation techniques and a huge base of fans that consider their passion for Phish a way of life. There was a pause in the activity of the 4 members in 2004, but they reunited later for more concerts.

Band Members

While the band concept was born in 1983, the band exists in its current format since 1985. These are the four members: Mike Gordons – vocals and bass, Trey Anastasio – lead vocals and guitars, Page McConnel – vocals and keyboards and John Fishman – vocals, vacuum, percussion and drums. In the 1983 formula, Jeff Holdsworth was a guitarist, but he was later replaced by Page McConnel.

Musical Style

Music genres like rock (mainly progressive and psychedelic), country, jazz, folk, pop, blues, bluegrass and funk were adopted by the band. However, instead of focusing more on traditional folk like other groups, Phish is more focused on improvising using jazz as a starting point. While there were many albums released by the band, its huge popularity was mostly given by its live performances. The music is very complex and varied, with a lot of improvisation that can be clearly noticed by listeners.

Phish Albums

The first album was recorded in 1988. Its name was “Junta” and was sold in the form of audio cassettes. The band released its second album in 1990, called “Lawn Boy”. At this time, the fan base was already large and the band was popular on the Internet as well. But, before these two albums were released, there were other experimental cassettes distributed under names like “The White Tape” (1983-1986) and “The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday” (1987-1989). In 1992, the third official album came out, called “A Picture of Nectar”. In the meantime, the first two albums were reissued.

The popularity of the band continues to grow and its songs start to be popular in charts as well. “Rift” is the fourth album, released in 1993 and then “Hoist” was the fifth, in 1994. In ’95, Phish made a double disk called “A Live One” and in ’96, the seventh album called “Billy Breathes” came out. The following albums came out like this: “Slip, Stitch & Pass” in ’97, “The Story Of The Ghost” in ’98, “Hampton Comes Alive” in 1999 and “Farmhouse” in 2000. After this last album, the members of the band decided that they need to take a break.

After the break, they released “Under Room” in 2002 and the thirteenth album called “Undermind” (2004), but the band broke up soon. In 2009, the members reunited for a fourteenth album called “Joy”. The newest album was released in 2014 and is called “Fuego”. Besides the albums, there were many other releases in the form of live representations, sets, documentaries and experimental films.

Most Popular Phish Songs

There were hundreds of good songs from this band over time and the list would be too long to write. These are the most important: “Stash”, “Ghost”, “Brian and Robert”, “Run Like An Antelope”, “The Lizards”, “Sample In A Jar”, “Time Turns Elastic”, “Reba”, “Maze”, ” Slave To The Traffic Light”, “You Enjoy Myself”, “Bathtub Gin”, “Rift”, “Fluffhead”. “Chalk Dust Torture”, “Julius”, “Farmhouse”, “First Tube” and many others. For example, “Time Turns Elastic” exists on the album “Joy” and was meant to be an orchestral piece originally. “Fluffhead” was made for the first album, “Junta” and is one of the favorite of most fans. “First Tube” is a trippy instrumental song.

Phish Live – “Tweezer” on 08/2/2015