[Welcome To Weekly Catch With Osiris! A weekly series brought to you from the team at Osiris. Each Wednesday we're going to bring you a historic Phish show from that week with some commentary. Our goal is to go beyond official releases and well-known shows to bring you some of the overlooked gems throughout Phish history. If you like what you find, we'd encourage you to check out the assortment of podcasts at the Osiris! This week's catch comes from RJ Bee of Helping Friendly Podcast.]

Listen: Mid-Hudson Civic Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, 2/12/93

Very few Phish tours are about specific instruments. But the Spring 1993 tour is different. It is 100%, completely about the addition of Page's baby grand piano. From the first notes of "Loving Cup" on 2/3/93 from Portland, Maine, you hear what this tour will bring. And this show, from a few days later in upstate New York, gives tons of ivory ammunition to dig into.

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Welcome to the 362nd edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the second of February! I cooked up this week's puzzle with assistance from fellow emeritus @justino; these clips are definitely tasty. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the two mystery clips. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Hint:

Answer: Congrats to the @The_Blob on his fourth win, becoming the third MJMer the past five weeks to cross the halway mark to Gloria in Excelsis Jamicus. This week he was the real King of Limbs and identified the 8/28/12 "Limb by Limb" and the 12/3/99 "Limb by Limb" shortly after the hint was posted. Thanks again to @justino for the sweet recommendations and we'll see you for MJM363 with more mysterious jams from a Hall of Fame MJMer.

There's still time to shop for Valentine's Day, so we wanted to remind you to please use Amazon Smile so that you can support the Mockingbird Foundation, the all-volunteer phan-run effort to support music education for children, with 400 grants made so far. Bookmark smile.amazon.com/ch/16-1529562 or click here:

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[Take the Bait is spirited deliberation centered around the hyperbole of Phish’s music and fandom, passionately exuded via the written words of phish.net contributors @FunkyCFunkyDo and @n00b100. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of phish.net, The Mockingbird Foundation, or any fan… but we're pretty sure we’re right. Probably.]

Funky: Well, n00b, we sure did suck the fun out of Japan 2000. I mean, yes there was an all-time show in 6.14.00, and, yes, there were five extremely explorative jams in 6.16 “Runaway Jim,” 6.10 “Piper,” 6.10 “DWD,” 6.9 “Tweezer” and 6.15 “Ghost”… but the rest was pretty average, and, at times, disappointingly out of sync. Of course, I write all this with a healthy dose of envy, as neither of us were there, and going from the responses of a few who did attend (thank you for writing your responses, by the way, we sincerely do love feedback) the shows were extremely memorable, energetic, and downright fun, simply due to the facts that Phish was playing to an excited foreign audience in tiny, intimate venues. And that, the once-in-a-lifetime musical experience that only a couple thousand fans got to witness, undoubtedly, weighs heavier than any of our words written from the friendly confines of the .net HQ ::wipes Cheetos dust off fingers, swigs Mountain Dew::

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It's time for the 2018 version of the annual Phish.net Jam of the Year (JOTY) competition! The seeding is done and the bracket is ready; this year, the four regions are named after the members of Kasvot Växt. The Horst region begins this week.

The first four weeks will have eight matchups each (sixteen songs), while subsequent weeks will have four matchups or fewer, with the Jam of the Year decided by April. Voting will take place in the Phish.net forum in dedicated weekly "***Official*** JOTY" threads, like this one for the first round. Just post your favorites for each head-to-head matchup in the thread for that round, and the dedicated JOTY staff will tally everything up. Each round's winners will be announced in the following round's announcement. Voting for the first round closes at 5 pm ET, Monday, February 11th, 2019, but you may vote for a later round even if you missed an earlier round.

You can find the first round match-ups and bracket after the jump.

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[Welcome To Weekly Catch With Osiris! A weekly series brought to you from the team at the Osiris Podcast Network. Each Wednesday we're going to bring you a historic Phish show from that week, plus provide some context into the show in question. The goal here is to dig deep beyond official releases & well-known shows, to bring you some of the overlooked gems throughout Phish's 35+ year career. If you like what you find, we'd encourage you to check out the assortment of podcasts at the Osiris Podcast Network! This week's catch comes from Brian Brinkman of Beyond The Pond.]

Listen: The Front - Burlington, VT - 02/06/1989

The year 1989 was an important one for Phish and not simply because it marked the end of the decade of their birth and led into the most celebrated period of their career. It saw the band headline The Paradise in Boston for the first time, close out their performance career at Goddard College, play their first 12/30 show in New York City, and play their first ever New Year's Eve show. It was a moment of transition for a band that in five years would transcend the NE Bar scene to become one of the preeminent national touring acts.

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Welcome to the 361st edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first* and easiest of February! The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

*Reminder: For the first MJM of each month, only folks who have never won an MJM are allowed to answer before the hint. If you have never won an MJM, please answer as a blog comment below. If you have previously won an MJM, but you'd like to submit a guess before the hint, you may do so by PMing me; once the hint has been posted, everyone should answer on the blog. If that's confusing to you, check out the handy decision tree that @ucpete threw together to help guide you. If you're not sure if you've won before, check in the MJM Results spreadsheet linked below.

Answer: In back-to-back weeks, we have fresh MJMers with their first wins! @ckess22 chimed in not too long before the hint went live, correctly identifying the 8/10/97 Split Open and Melt - depsite the show being well known for another jam... no matter, he has earned himself a download code and enters the fray of newcomers seeking seven wins and the fabled emeritus status. Tune back in next week on the same bat-time, same bat-channel, for another offering in which the difficulty and number of jams doubles!

[Take the Bait is spirited deliberation centered around the hyperbole of Phish’s music and fandom, passionately exuded via the written words of phish.net contributors @FunkyCFunkyDo and @n00b100. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of phish.net, The Mockingbird Foundation, or any fan… but we're pretty sure we’re right. Probably.]

Funky: Perhaps it was just a bit unfair to our readers and listeners to (re)introduce Japanese Phish with an all-time, A+ show in 6.14.00. Perhaps. But, then again, would they have taken the bait ::he said it, he said the thing!:: on our three-part series surrounding Japanese Phish had we not led off with something so scrumtrulescent? By reading that sentence you have proved that we lured you back in, tempting you with more morsels of Japanese Phish, and we are not talking about sushi.

Before 6.14.00 ever happened, four shows preceded it, and after it happened, two more took place. So, the natural questions arise: how did Phish build to such dramatic, yet serene, soundscapes? And, what did they do for the proverbial encore? Answers abound, some of which make sense, some of which make little sense at all. If David Byrne were writing this, he’d simply say, “Stop making sense!” Good point - that’s where we will start.

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Beyond the Pond is a bi-weekly podcast in which Brian Brinkman (@sufferingjuke) and David Goldstein (@daveg924) use the music of Phish as a gateway to introduce the listener to many other bands, the vast majority of which are not jambands. An episode generally begins with a deep dive into a designated portion of Phish improvisation, and then can spin off to any variety of musical themes and other acts, the overarching purpose being introducing the listener to as many new and different bands as possible.

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Welcome to the 360th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the fourth, last, and hardest of January! @wforwumbo back in the captain's chair for a hot minute, as my dissertation seems to finally be cooling off - thank you to @ucpete for graciously trading reins with me. This week we have a delectable little challenge courtesy of MJM Hall of Famer @jimsleftear, and I do have to say he's come up with a real stumper. So strap on your seatbelts, grab your favorite pair of headphones or speakers, and get your best tapes out of the catalog for this one. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the three mystery clips. The clips are connected by a theme, but the theme needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Hint: Something smells bad... or more accurately, there is some stink in the air.

Answer: Talk about on heck of a first win! Thanks to the hint, @Matty1222 snags his first download code by tying together three jams from shows in which the Makisupa Policeman code word involved the word "stink": the 11/15/96 Mike's Song, the 7/12/99 Foreplay/Long Time, and the 12/28/96 Weekapaug Groove. With a bludgeoning like that, will our new competitor become the newest member to ride the ranks to the promised land of emeriti? Stay tuned in the coming weeks to find out - or even beat him to the punch!

[Take the Bait is spirited deliberation centered around the hyperbole of Phish’s music and fandom, passionately exuded via the written words of phish.net contributors @FunkyCFunkyDo and @n00b100. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of phish.net, The Mockingbird Foundation, or any fan… but we're pretty sure we’re right. Probably.]

Funky: n00b and I are taking a bye week to prepare for the Phish 2019 Summer Tour Onsale today (Jan 25) and Saturday (Jan 26). May Icculus have mercy on all our souls.

We sincerely appreciate your support and feedback on the series so far, and we plan to unleash more lexicon-building hot takes and vet-enraging fluff in the weeks and months to come. We have a delightful time geeking out on the aspects of Phish hyperbole close to our own hearts, and, hopefully, we can geek out with what's close to yours. If there are any topics that you would like us to cover, please let us know in the comments section. Like Phish, we are the all-request ban... er, writers. You ask, we deliver!

See you next Friday for the second part of our three-part Japan series. And good luck with the onsale! ::grumbles about verified tickets::

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This week on HF Pod, we're bringing you something a little different. Two longtime listeners, Jason and Mike, join us to talk about an important topic—their experiences with addiction and recovery, and their experiences in the Phish community. We also play some music. You may have read the GQ article that came out yesterday, which featured Trey and a bunch of other musicians talking about how to thrive creatively without drinking or doing drugs. Also mentioned in this episode are The Phellowship and Trey's drug court speech from 2011.

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Welcome to the 359th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the third of January – happy Martin Luther King Day! While our friend @wforwumbo tries to get out of this maze, I'll be at the helm yet again bringing you the chronniest of gnargnar jams with a little help from my fellow MJM Hall of Famers. This week, our clips were selected by the 19th MJMer to enter the Hall of Fame, @justino – thanks for the twisted puzzle! The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the three mystery clips. The clips are connected by a theme, but the theme needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Hint: I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday yesterday – catch any shows on your day off? [answers accepted until noon PT on Wednesday]

Answer: Congrats to @ChalkDustTeacher, the second consecutive MJMer to cross the halfway mark to Emeritus status. This week, despite being located in the Great White North (last I checked), he figured out that all three clips were played on US Hoildays (two of which Canada doesn't celebrate), quite fitting considering MJM359 dropped on MLK Day. Those holidays and clips were of course the Columbus Day "Tweezer" from 10/10/94, the New Year's Day "Simple" from 1/1/11, and the July 4th "It's Ice" from 7/4/00 (catch the SSB tease at the end?). You guys know what to do if you're mad about losing, right? Stay tuned Monday for MJM360 with @wumbo back at the helm.

SoundCloud link

[Take the Bait is spirited deliberation centered around the hyperbole of Phish’s music and fandom, passionately exuded via the written words of phish.net contributors @FunkyCFunkyDo and @n00b100. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of phish.net, The Mockingbird Foundation, or any fan… but we're pretty sure we’re right. Probably.]

That's a heck of a title.

Funky: Some Americans can look at a map and point out Japan, all tucked away down there. A small fraction might be able to locate Tokyo. There is a very small population of Americans who are aware that a Japanese city called Fukuoka exists, and an even smaller portion of that population are aware it exists because of one reason, and only one reason: Phish. I would venture a guess that it is known, but perhaps not well-known amongst Phish fans, that Phish journeyed to the Land of the Rising Sun in 1999 and 2000. But, despite all the data and analysis and nitpicking of Phish fans, these three mini tours tend to not be talked about, really at all, save one show: 6.14.00, Drum Logos, Fukuoka, Japan.

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Beyond the Pond is a bi-weekly podcast in which Brian Brinkman (@sufferingjuke) and David Goldstein (@daveg924) use the music of Phish as a gateway to introduce the listener to many other bands, the vast majority of which are not jambands. An episode generally begins with a deep dive into a designated portion of Phish improvisation, and then can spin off to any variety of musical themes and other acts, the overarching purpose being introducing the listener to as many new and different bands as possible.

Read more...