In celebration of PhanArt’s 2nd Anniversary of being published, this week we are sharing excerpts from select articles written exclusively for PhanArt: The Art of the Fans of Phish. To read more of this article and other great reviews of the Phish community and unique style of art, pick up the book here
An excerpt from ‘Inaugural Ball’ by Amy Pedatella, originally published in PhanArt: The Art of the Fans of Phish (2009, Allegra)
The year was 1996 and I was quickly becoming a Phish fan. As winter ended, the band made the announcement that they would be hosting a weekend festival in northern New York. The show was slated to be called The Clifford Ball and scheduled for the end of summer, without hesitation I was “in” and anxiously awaited ticket sales. Talking this phenomenon up with my friends, I found two eager participants. We purchased our tickets, made preliminary preparations and awaited mid-August.
Submitted by Noah Phence for PhanArt: The Art of the Fans of Phish
Apparently my friends were not as into Phish as I was, and purchased H.O.R.D.E. Tour tickets for the Friday of that same weekend. Wanting to forgo the H.O.R.D.E I was unable to find any takers for their tickets. I was left no choice but to attend the show at Randall’s Island, New York with them and immediately following travel directly to The Ball. Halfway through the Spin Doctors set, my friend decided to pass out and land in First-Aid after ingesting who knows what?
Always the optimist I thought, ‘she’ll shake it off.’ This is the point when my other friend at the show decided to piss in my Cheerios and pull the plug on the whole operation, taking our other friend home.
The H.O.R.D.E. was had, the hour was zero, and I found myself under the Triborough Bridge with three Clifford Ball tickets, a station wagon and nobody up for the mission. I had to beg and plead with anyone who will listen in a futile attempt to gain candidates. I had no choice but to go it alone. My rather straightedge brother had been at the H.O.R.D.E. also and got wind of my antics. Being the supportive older brother that he is, my brother refused to let me travel alone and decided to join me. He and I had seen Phish about three weeks prior in Rome, Italy, as part of an audience of less than 200 as they opened for Santana. He would have liked people to believe that he was going to escort me, but I knew better. He had experienced
In celebration of PhanArt’s 2nd Anniversary of being published, this week we are sharing excerpts from select articles written exclusively for PhanArt: The Art of the Fans of Phish. To read more of this article and other great reviews of the Phish community and unique style of art, pick up the book here
An excerpt from ‘Hippies Understand Capitalism‘ by Dan Greenhaus, originally published in PhanArt: The Art of the Fans of Phish (2009, Allegra)
Capitalism. It is the central theme that underpins just about everything in our country. Standing in stark contrast to other social systems such as communism and socialism, capitalism manages to bring out the most ingenious concepts and products, as the lure of a potentially unlimited payday will forever lead humans to push further and further, and reach higher and higher.
Capitalism, and the concepts of supply and demand and free markets, exist all around us. Once can find these ideas in many places, whether in its purest form (as most would assert) by way of the stock market, or at the local deli, toy store or, a little more surprisingly if you’ve never been there, the lot before a Phish show. The latter might be a surprise to some people who, when queried about the idea of a “hippie,” would sooner imagine a dreadlocked stoner smoking too much pot while following a band around the country than a businessman earning a living pursuing a passion the likes of which most people would, and could, never understand.
But when one looks closer, what they’ll find along the famed “Shakedown Street” is the economic incarnation of Capitalism in a pure form. People sell goods priced at a level pursuant to the demand in the marketplace set before them, with the underlying intention of earning a profit. In “The Wealth of Nations,” Adam Smith portended that the essence of a “trade” was the person obtaining an item felt that item obtained was of equal or greater value than whatever they may be relinquishing the right to in exchange for the item. It is that underlying concept that pulsates through the lot, and through the subconscious of that same dreadlocked hippie, regardless of whether he realizes it or not. It’s the lifeblood of the mini-society that has been built up around both The Grateful Dead and more recently, Phish and as such, a case could be made that the communities, much like our country, could not exist without it.
Two years ago this week, PhanArt: The Art of the Fans of Phish held its book kickoff at Revolution Hall in Troy, NY (RIP). Featuring music from The McLovins and The Flow, the long awaited arrival of PhanArt, a comprehensive collection of the art made by fans over the first 20 years of Phish was finally here. Over the course of the week we will be excerpting articles from the book that discuss the Phish community, art scene, and events throughout Phish history.
Featuring art from Ryan Kerrigan, Tripp, AJ Masthay, Jason Lees, Isadora Bullock, and dozens of other artists over the years, this 400+ page full-color coffee-table book is a walk down memory lane that is unlike any other book in that it is made up of the art of the FANS. Because of the Fans, Phish is a stronger band with a large community encompassing it.
To celebrate our 2nd year, we are offering for one week only the book at it’s original cost of $60 – this is a limited time offer and will last until Sunday night. Pick up the book while it is in it’s second printing and READ The F$%&ing Book!
All net profits from the sale of PhanArt will benefit The Mockingbird Foundation which supports music education throughout the country.
Read some reviews of PhanArt: The Art of the Fans of Phish
“I always love reading lot tales, its all part of the Phish experience, even stories from the road. Thats why PhanArt is so damn cool, cause it fully captures that aspect of Phish.” –Sam Davis of Dogoneblog
“It’s an amazing book that clearly took a tremendous amount of effort to create. Great job Pete!”- Prof. Robert J. Thompson, Director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, S.I. Newhouse School of Communications,Syracuse University
“Get that book. I love it. So much” – Kim Mancini
“I really like it, fun to look at all the art, really brings back some memories” – Baltimoeron77
“This is really a must have for anybody who ever appreciated the lot scene” – Ryan Kerrigan, artist“We have ours and it’s awesome!!!! Everyone get a copy of PhanArt!” – Taraleigh, The Healthy Hippie
“Love this book, great conversation pieces in it, great memories form seeing this stuff on lot are conjured up, and you are contributing to a good cause. So worth buying this book.”- Mark Hanzsche – Phan since ’94
“Think its a great book, I got #233!!! I leave it on my coffee table and my friends love it. They love going through and remembering what “lot” stuff we’ve seen or have from Stickers, t-shirts, and posters. Good Stuff!!!” – Dan “Danimal” Viall
The Pronghorn Antelope print is the final of three native Colorado animal prints in a triptych set. The first print is the Saw Whet Owl and the second is the Cutthroat Trout. Each print is the same size (20″x20″) and can be displayed individually or as a triptych set. A limited amount of matching number sets of all three prints in the triptych are available now at IansPrints.com/available-art.php for $125 shipped. If you purchase a set of prints Ian can offer to make them a custom color scheme that you choose.
The Pronghorn Antelope print was created using 7 hand cut stencils and spraypaint. Prints come signed, numbered, embossed and with a hand made Certificate of Authenticity. The Pronghorn Antelope print will be available for $50 shipped on Monday January 7th at 10am Mountain Time USA at IansPrints.com
Ian K. Millard is an artist from Denver, Colorado (USA) specializing in original stencil and spraypaint art. My prints and originals are created using multiple intricate hand cut stencils and spraypaint layered on top of each other to create an image. All of Ian’s prints are hand sprayed and I strive to make all my print editions unique. Never one the same. Prints come signed, numbered, embossed with the IansPrints.com seal and come with a hand made Certificate of Authenticity (COA).You can watch a little video Fuel TV / Mtn Dew Green Label put together on Ian’s art by clicking here
Bubby and Bean is run by Melissa Baswell from Mountains of the Moon, which we’re sure your familiar with. The blog is a great art site and with daily inspirations for a living a creatively. The giveaway started yesterday and runs until Sunday night.
Do your walls have a case of the winter blues? Are you sick of staring at the same boring space? Here’s your chance to give your walls a fresh + beautiful makeover with this amazing giveaway package full of gorgeous artwork! One lucky Bubby & Bean reader will win ALL of the following:
Tripp’s art print “Autumn Blossom” is included in the giveaway.
Autumn Blossom, a limited edition, hand-pulled silkscreen art print of an original illustration by TRiPP. This vibrant, retro-style print was created with archival inks on beautiful cotton watercolor paper, and is signed and numbered by the artist. I wish I could keep this gorgeous piece of art for my living room! Measures 15″ by 22″ and sells on TRiPPsPrints.com for $40.
Entering is easy as pie! Just FOLLOW or SUBSCRIBE TO BUBBY & BEAN, then leave a comment at Bubby & Bean stating how you follow/subscribe (Google Friend Connect, Bloglovin’, or reader) –and– YOUR FAVORITE COLOR. That’s it!
New from PhanArt in 2011 is our weekly Friday Feature: This Week in PhanArt History. Each piece of art we share is from days of Phish in the past, typically from the 1.0 and 2.0 eras, something of note that fans of all ages can appreciate that is featured in the book PhanArt: The Art of the Fans of Phish, with some commentary on the piece by PhanArt Pete.
This shirt was made by John Street Graphics and designed by Ryan Donaghy for the Hampton shows in January 2003. The shirt was sold in Hampton and throughout Winter Tour 2003. The 3 word ‘I Survived Hiatus’ conveyed a grand message regarding the incredibly long absence of the band from 10/00 till 12/02. Those 26 months were a lifetime for most and unprescedented in the bands career up until that point. This shirt summed it all up nicely – Survived was hardly an understatement at the time. It was an unexpected warmup in preparing for the unexpected breakup of the band a year later in 2004.
I’ll tell you about Donald Driver
who lives inside Green Bay.
Catches touchdown passes, mostly on Sundays.
He’s moving to the open field and he’s thinkin’ ’bout this catch
and hoping when he gets there, he won’t be second best
Keeps his eyes open, most of the game
Catches touchdown passes, mostly on Sundays
Adds to Cheesehead History with each and every play
The Packers will beat the Steelers Sunday and ‘I’m goin’ to Disney Land’ is what Driver will say
Like that Sunday when they beat Chicago
24 to 10
Bit of a rout if you ask me
But Cutler got sacked so it was in the can
They were moving through the rounds
And thinking bout the next
And hoping when they get there
Donald Driver will be the best
He keeps his routes open,
most of the day,
adds to his touchdowns,
every time he plays.
When he runs a post pattern
To throw, you don’t have to wait
Ill tell you about Donald Driver,
Who lives inside Green Bay
From Isadora Bullock, we present her Worcester 2010 Poster “It’s Ice”, a 3 color linocut on Rives BFK Paper. This poster comes in a limited edition of 125 and costs $25 including free shipping
Over the past few weeks, rumors of the Phish Festival at Watkins Glen International Speedway have been promoted online in the greater Phish Website, Blog and Message Board Community. In the past few days, these rumors have increased in degree of confirmation noting that contracts have been signed and the event details – 4 days and $200 tickets – are to be expected, along with only Phish.
While we don’t refute these rumors, we do think back to a time when festivals were announced with little warning and the enjoyment was held by all when that announcement did come. It has been some time since this happened; IT and Coventry in the Phish 2.0 era were talked about, but they weren’t revealed to us until Phish.com told us the event was going to be held (the latter with a sad letter from Trey). Some in the know might have known about those festivals, but we were all for the most part pleasantly surprised when the festivals were announced in 2003 and 2004.
lot
Going back farther in time, Big Cypress was announced in the summer of 1999 and only those who were close with the band or were in the know, knew about it in advance. Word wasn’t disseminated as fast because word of mouth only travels so far when all you have is a voice. This is before the Internet took off, cell phones became handheld computers and the momentary announcement of an event in a band’s history (like sitting in grad school class and hearing of the pending breakup of a 3rd tier jamband in late 2009) could be shared with friends and followers worldwide in a few short moments typing away on a keyboard or touchscreen.
Go back even further. Who knew about Oswego before it was announced? Lemonwheel? The Great Went? The Clifford Ball? Amy’s Farm? The answer is a minor population of people closely associated with the band and a circle of friends, few more. And most of THEM knew to keep it under wraps because that’s the right thing to do.
Railing against the technology we use isn’t sensical here because it is currently being used to write this piece. We all use the current technology, so why not stay up on news, Retweet that thing you saw about Dave Matthews and Phish, Repost that report that Watkins Glen is now Kangfirmed, talk on that message board about how awesome this will be because you KNOW it’s on because you live 145 miles from the site location and that makes you a resident expert, even though you aren’t a resident, or an expert. Ah, technology. It’s great, right?
But what if, just what if Phish, or any band for that matter, were to just go ahead and announce their tour, their shows, their festivals WITHOUT the rampant speculation that quickly devolves into a ‘I announced it first!’ race.
Everyone reposted the dates. We felt so loved. We had scooped Phish! Our server went down. Then back up again. It was a long night. But dammit we had the dates first!
While there is no place on our resume to put this achievement, it was written with a strong degree of humility….
Just a couple months prior to this, we speculated on the possibility of Spring Tour 2010 in Europe. We basically bit on the same thing many others did and since it never came true, we looked like the weatherman who forecasts for rain and when there is none he just goes on with his day. There isn’t any accountability for this aside from sheepish mea culpas that are left up on the blog as a sign of ‘yeah, we got this wrong.’ So yeah, we got this one wrong.
This is an example of what is happening now. A cycle that needs to be realized and stopped before the fun of anticipating tour dates is ruined forever. Do you know why Phish takes 5-6 months off to start the year? Because they have shit to do! They have families, all of them, and not just the band but the staff and crew as well. They need downtime and so do we. This is also the time of year where we work our collective asses off and SAVE MONEY for Phish Tour. When Phish tour comes around we can enjoy ourselves at countless shows, see tons of friends and see the country. That’s why we do this – because these 6 months build up to Phish Summer Tour!
When the first rumors develop 2 months or so before tour dates are announced, the cycle begins…..
Step 1. Hear of rumors and post them on your website or blog with commentary, allowing other blogs to repost these rumors.
Step 2. Rumors get repeated like they are the truth and soon they become facts. The rumor has now been heard so much that it is now a fact with nothing but dozens of websites turning to each other as proof that the dates are for real.
Step 3. Websites and blogs start jockeying for position to be the first to have the ‘official’ details on the event/tour. Once any small detail is announced, it is quickly repeated amongst others online, especially individuals, prior to the official announcement from phish.com
Step 4. Phish announces the event/tour, everyone reposts the official announcement on top of their advance announcement. Facebook is overwhelmed with ‘158 Friends shared a link: Phish.com Summer 2011 tour’ and the enjoyment is felt throughout all of Gamehendge.
Now what if steps 1, 2 and 3 weren’t a factor? What IF we just waited for Phish to announce these tourdates, even in an old-time fashion through the Doniac Schvice? It would be to the advantage of the veterans still on tour who know the rituals of money orders and separate orders (and paying in advance for all tickets, not running up credit card bills). Sure, this probably won’t happen but fans in the 3.0 Phish era are missing the anticipation that would creep up in February of each year, when Summer Tour was on the brain and the mailbox was checked daily – the actual mailbox outside, not the 3 email account’s mailboxes.
So we have this Festival that looks likely to happen and everyone knows about it. Contracts are signed, per bandsthatjam.com and we can probably expect to see only Phish over the 4th of July. Phish.com is the final say and only when that day comes, its all just a rumor.
Phish 3.0 and social media – too much of a good thing, it’s not always good.
