Phanart Pete Mason and various artists in the Phish community are once again fundraising for The Mockingbird Foundation (the sponsor of Phish.Net). PhanArt Pete is auctioning off posters from four artists, including Erin Cadigan, on eBay: http://tinyurl.com/4dgcyes. You can read more about the poster auction here: http://www.phanart.net/?p=4961.

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Following closely on the heels of yesterday's announcement of the Phish soundcheck vinyl to be released on Record Store Day, Saturday, April 16,  Mike announced today that he will also be rereleasing Inside In and Moss Remixes as Limited Edition Vinyl albums that will be available exclusively at participating independently owned record stores across the country.

Nearly eight years after Mike's debut solo release, Inside In, Mike is "unleashing" the album on vinyl for the first time as a deluxe double-LP set. For Record Store Day, Inside In has been pressed on 180g orange vinyl and includes "Minkinetics", "Trinners March" and "Be Your Tape", three previously unreleased outtake tracks from the album (available only on vinyl). Musicians on the album include Jon Fishman, Bela Fleck, Col. Bruce Hampton, Buddy Cage, Vassar Clements and others.

In addition, Moss Remixes, a Limited Edition 7-inch featuring two remixes from Mike's latest solo album Moss (released in October 2010) will be available at participating record stores. The release is limited to 1,000 copies. The idea was not to "remix" the songs, but instead, work with the moments that had lead to the germination of the songs. The A and B sides include full remixes of "Horizon Line" and "Fire From A Stick" (which incorporate bits of original demos, bass and drum jams, and many added extra textures).

For more background information on Record Store Day, click here.

For the Record Store Day website with a searchable list of participating independent record stores, click here.

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According to the Drexel University website:

"The Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux and Phish archivist Kevin Shapiro will be here for two days of events and workshops. On Thursday, February 24th at 6 PM in Stein Auditorium, 111 Nesbitt Hall (3215 Market St.), David and Kevin will participate in an open discussion moderated by Music Industry Professor Toby Seay.

These two highly regarded professionals will discuss how they've managed the massive recordings and holdings of their archives, how their bands make decisions about preservation and releases, and the impact technology is having on their work.

Professor Toby Seay is a veteran recording engineer who has worked with Dolly Parton, Randy Travis and many others on numerous Gold and Platinum albums including eight Grammy Award winners. In support of this event, Toby will release a podcast that will offer select, released tracks chosen by Lemieux and Shapiro of performances by each band in Philadelphia along with a discussion on why these tracks were released.  

The podcast will be available Wednesday, February 23rd from 3-7 PM as a stream via http://www.drexel.edu/westphal/events/lemieuxshapiropodcast/. "

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From Phish.com:

In support of Record Store Day, Phish will release Two Soundchecks, a Limited Edition 7-inch vinyl record that will be available exclusively at participating independently owned record stores across the country. 'Two Soundchecks' marks the band's first ever live vinyl release and their first release in conjunction with Record Store Day.

This 7-inch is limited to 2,000 hand-numbered copies, and once they are gone they are gone. The A-Side is an instrumental jam culled from the soundcheck of Phish's third show of a sold out three-night stand at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, CA. The B-Side is an especially exotic soundcheck from Hartford, CT in 2009, featuring Trey on Bass, and Fish on drums. This Limited Edition 7-inch was created exclusively for Record Store Day.

Two Soundchecks will be available in stores only beginning April 16th, 2011. For a complete list of participating record stores, please click here.

Let me explain the sign situation from where we stand onstage. We see them the first time you hold them up. Yes, we saw the Manteca sign at the Garden. Page and I were cracking up about it backstage. The problem is, if you keep holding them up all night, It blocks the view of the people behind you, so it seems kind of insensitive to everyone else. We saw it the first time, so you don’t have to keep holding it up…you can put it down. A lot of people just hold them up between songs, which is very thoughtful.

The other thing is that sometimes we need to run through some of these songs before we can play them, because there are SO many songs now that even the easy ones sometimes have a little quirk that one band member might forget. It’s usually something small. Like Fish will say that he can’t remember how My Mind Has a Mind of Its Own ends because it’s so similar to other bluegrass tunes. Stuff like that. So often we’ll see a sign, and think “we’ll check that one out tomorrow”.

The last thing is, it’s not very in the moment to be obsessing about the next song while you are playing or listening to the song you are actually playing or listening to, is it? In that sense, the signs are really annoying sometimes, I have to say."

From Part One of the Hidden Track blog's interview with Trey here.

Mystery Jam Monday Part 37

The Blog is back with another Monday Mystery Jam. Fresh off a rare Blog victory last week, we will be playing for TWO MP3 downloads courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.net. The rules are simple: you need to correctly identify the song and the date to win. Post your guess in the comments. One guess per person per day (with the second “day” starting after I post the hint). The hint will come on Tuesday and the answer will be posted on Wednesday. Good luck.

Tuesday Hint: Looks like there's no need for a hint this week.  And, west-coasters, we hear you.  The Blog tries hard to avoid east coast bias both in MJ selection and otherwise.  We'll try to come up with something.

Wednesday Answer: It was, in fact, the 6/28/00 "Bathtub Gin," making Control_For_Smilers our big winner.  Congrats, C_F_S!  Starting next week, the Blog will schedule posts of the Mystery Jam for later in the day on Monday, to accommodate the west coasters.  You guys may not get many shows, but you at least deserve a fair shot at the Mystery Jam! 

We won't record any covers. ... I don't think that most of the covers we do are in an original enough fashion to merit putting them on an album. .. Its something we just don't put that much energy into. The covers that we learn, we learn because they're great songs and we play around. ... It's kind of more like educational material than it is something that we want to ... put our stamp on.

"Hands on a Hardbody", a new musical Trey and songwriter Amanda Green ("Burn that Bridge", "Summer of 89", "My Problem Right There") collaborated on for the music, will be opening in Manhattan in March for a three-week run. The show is produced by the La Jolla (California) Playhouse company and directed by Neil Pepe.

According to the article on the show biz site Playbill.com, the musical is based on a documentary about contestants trying to win a hardbody truck by being the last person standing with his hands on the truck, like the Survivor immunity challenges.  The producers casting the show are looking for singers who "should have authentic, skilled country/folk voices and genuine acting chops. It is a strong ensemble piece."

'The varied characters include a Texas disc jockey who has a garage band; a manager at a car dealership; a returning champ who spins tall tales; an aging ex-oil rigger; a Louisiana ladies' man; an Iraq war vet; a young, unemployed oddball; a long-haul trucker, a poor man with a loving wife and eight kids; a psychology professor who is an expert on sleep deprivation; a soft-spoken Latino kid who aspires to college; a female marketing director at the local Nissan dealership; a tomboy who can belt to a D; a middle-aged woman of faith; and a former cheerleader."

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The Mimi Fishman Foundation just launched a new charity auction, closing Sunday, February 27. The auction features posters from the 2010 Phish Fall tour as well as their New Years run, all numbered and signed by all members of Phish, as well as two String Cheese Incident 2011 Winter Carnival packages with tickets to all three SCI March 2011 shows as well as a signed poster from the band.

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Mystery Jam Monday Part 36

The Blog is back with another Monday Mystery Jam. This week and every week, we will be playing for an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.net. The rules are simple: you need to correctly identify the song and the date to win. Post your guess in the comments. One guess per person per day (with the second “day” starting after I post the hint). The hint will come on Tuesday and the answer will be posted on Wednesday. Good luck.

Tuesday Hint:

The MJ is from a venue Phish has only played once.

Wednesday Answer:

First off, our apologies for the technical difficulties with the Mystery Jam these last couple weeks.  We'll work on getting these minor hiccups fixed.  So, having said that.......Blog FTW!!!  The MJ was the 8/25/93 "YEM." Definitely a version worth seeking out if you've never heard it. So, since no one got the Mystery Jam this week, we will be paying for two LivePhish.com downloads next week.  Until then, thank you for your continued support of the Mystery Jam series.

Last week, we unveiled J-Card Mode on Phish.net.  The response was overwhelmingly positive, especially given that it was a "throwaway" feature - meant more for entertainment than utility.  It didn't add anything new to the experience, it was solely intended for fun.  We didn't expect to receive the amount of feedback we did, and we certainly didn't anticipate the number of requests for a true "J-Card" view of setlists.  

In retrospect, it only made sense for us to follow through on the concept.  We should have anticipated the demand for the throwback tape inserts.  Alas, a few days later, we're delivering it.  Today I'm releasing "J-Card Setlists."  Yes, the name is similar to J-Card Mode and perhaps even a bit confusing.  The challenge here is that some will want shorter song titles but not the altered setlist view, so we're making them optional.  Starting right now, you'll see a new option on the setlist page called "Show J-Card Setlists."   When you click this link, individual setlists will now display as follows: 

This feature is new and still in unofficial testing.  It does some weird things when you're viewing incomplete sets and only approximates an actual j-card so much.  But we hope you find it as entertaining as we do, if only for the novelty.  

Note: This feature currently is disabled in Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 and below.  The styling requires features that do not work.  

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Brando and Dusty at cashortrade.org, the phan operated, "face" ticket exchange, are giving away two tickets each to the 2/19 Palace Theatre Albany TAB show and the 3/22/11 Mike show at the Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn in a random drawing from all cashortrade.org members that recommend three new members to join the service.

Further details at the cashortrade.org website here.

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Phish released the 2nd round of summer 2010 shows in remastered format today. These hand-picked shows were remastered for this release by Fred Kevorkian and are available on iTunes and hard copy CD at select music stores. So far there is no published list of music stores that will carry the CDs. The three shows chosen for this release are:

8/6/2010 Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA iTunes Link

8/7/2010 Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA iTunes Link

8/13/2010 Verizon Wireless Music Center (formerly Deer Creek), Noblesville, IN iTunes Link

Has anyone compared the LivePhish.com downloads to these fresh remasters? We would love to hear your opinions in the comments.

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I don’t treasure my Phish shows like I used to.  I have a whole hard drive full of them, and I’ve backed them all up.  I don’t want to lose them, but if I do, what of it?  It doesn’t matter, all those ones and zeros still exist out there in the ether, so I can track them down again if I have to. To get tapes, let alone listenable ones, that took some doing.  You had to network, both in person at shows and afterwards online.  Every overstuffed bubble mailer that arrived at your door represented some sort of minor miracle.

When I was a senior in High School I got sent a pristine First Generation (remember “generations”, no more, thanks to digital) copy of 10/22/96, Madison Square Garden, within a week of it happening. That was a big damn deal!  I must’ve dubbed a hundred copies of that show and made enough trips to the post office to know the clerks by name in order to spread the jams.  It really took some doing.

My tape collection still has more personality than anything I’ve ever downloaded.  Each package would arrive in the mailbox, and there was this moment of excitement.  What could it contain?  Is this the perfect show?!  Some tapes would arrive with almost no information.  Annoying yes, but somewhat like a game to figure out what you were listening to. Some of the best ones would come with full-on artwork that rivaled an official release.  But some of those other tapes really had character! Out of the blue, there’d be god knows what, like stickers, pictures and other ephemera.  It was kind of like a grab bag of Phishness.

- Aaron Hawley, excerpt from "The Relentless Communicator: A Tape Trader’s Lament" (2/1/11) on onlinephishtour.com.