Stoned Crowes vs. Cold Phish
Former Spiral Light editor Richard Lee sampled both
in the course of ten days last year...
 

Phish:  London, Shepherds Bush Empire, 13.2.97
"a massive turnoff..."

"This is the future", Brian of the Charlies told me in the set break tonight.
Wow, Brian, so we really are fucked then. I missed Phish when they played here
in 1992 and also their July gig at this same venue in 1996, so I was looking forward
to this gig. I'd heard various bits from the band over the last 4 years or so and
was intrigued.

Turned up at the gig to find the place swamped with Deadheads, oops, sorry,
Phish-heads, everyone of whom seemed to be sporting an American accent
either real or fake.  I found the whole thing disconcerting, haven't we been
here before?  In fairness, the audience was very young (18-24-ish) and
seemed as though perhaps they'd caught one of the later Dead shows and got
half an idea for what was happening.  OK.  If I was to say that there were
100 English people in the entire venue I think that would be a very liberal
estimation.  The staff both on the door and at the bar all commented on the
unusual sound of an English voice when I spoke to them.  It was that kind of
night.  We really could have been in Anytown, USA.  Do they have any English
fans or is it just visiting Americans in Birkenstocks and half a dozen
crusty English old Deadheads along out of curiosity?

 The Phish music that I'd heard seemed to be of a very proficient nature
with some joie de vivre about it.  The reality, I'm sorry to say for those
of you not there or intrigued, was considerably less than that.  for those
of you not familiar, they don't sound anything like the Dead at all.  It
could possibly be said they may have taken some of the GD's modus operandi,
but that would be stretching a half thruth, in all honesty.  I can't give
you a set list, but things played included the likes of 'Prince Caspian',
'David Bowie', 'Punch You In The Eye', plus covers of 'Also Sprach
Zarathustra', Zappa's 'Peaches in Regalia', Edgar Winter 'Frankenstein' and
'Johnny B. Goode.'  Sound-wise, it's all very retro.  This is progressive
rock by any other name, but that's OK, because it's fashionable again now.
So, I heard Zappa, Genesis, ELP, Rush, Brand X and quite a strong Beatles
influence etc.  There is no mistaking the palette from which the band draw
upon, they just don't add anything new to it.  Imagine one of Zappa's highly
proficient early '80s road bands but without him and minus the humour, wit,
and cynicism.  Phish are very big on keyboard sounds of the Kieth
Emerson/Tony Banks variety, split second time signature changes, modes,
twiddly bits and bad '70s 'boogie' (of the 'rawk' variety), etc.  It's a
feast of seventies sampling and we're in that 1973-76 period of prog rock.
I consider myself well knowledgeable about all this type of thing, as deep
in the dark closet of my past (approx. age 11-15) I was hugely into all of
the above named and still have all the old vinyl to prove it.  If I were
that age again I would probably love Phish.

 So why don't I like them now?  Out of two thousand people there why do I
seem to be the only person here who really would like to leave early?
Because it's boring, to be frank about it.  I'm not trying to do a hatchet
job here, I went along with the full intention of having a good night.
There just doesn't seem to be anything happening.  Paddy Ladd told me not to
stand there looking for the heart of the band.  Paddy, my old love, I don't
have to.  The fact that there isn't one is so obvious that I don't have to
look for it.  Its absence is the most striking aspect of this whole room,
staring me in the face, CAN'T AVOID IT.  The problem is that the lyrics
could redeem the whole thing but one listen/look at them just reveals a
vacuity of pretentious twaddle of the wacky sixth form style.

 The guys in the band are serious musos with a million notes to play but
absolutely nothing to say.  What was that Garcia used to say about every
note of his having its own personality?  All Phish's notes are completely
blank, empty, disconnected from emotion or voice.  If you want to hear great
musicianship then go and see the jazz guys who have been roundly slated for
doing better things than this for years.  Phish have their own version of
improvisation but it's all fairly well arranged within a framework.  Budding
musicians probably love this band.  It's all very clever arrangements and
time changes which either remind you of aforesaid prog rock, or impress you
with their virtuosity as musicians.  I always thought music was supposed to
transmit feelings, emotions, soul, etc.  I'm sorry to say all this, I have
no axe to grind, but it's just dull.  Take the 'jams' in the second set
which I would imagine are highlights for many.  To me they were turgid,
monotonous, and lacking in the dynamics that surely make up 'a good jam.'
The music is all on one level, there are no peaks or valleys.  Trey
Anastasio doesn't have the style or emotional content in his solos to make
anything stand out about the rest of the playing.  It's like there is
something missing that would give the music a voice.  Cold is the word that
I think best sums Phish up.  Cold with plenty of impressive musicianly
chops, if you're impressed by that.  And they can all play a different
instrument and change round mid-song.  Whoopee.

 And what's really annoying, is this novelty take they put on things.  A
hokey country song of the 'El Paso', 'My heart broke in a thousand places'
variety, but played for laughs, which is also how some of the covers came
off.  There is such a smug, complacent, self-righteousness to the whole
thing that it is a massive turn-off, on top of this emotionless music.
 From a Deadhead's point of view, I can understand people wanting a
substitute for the Dead, but how can this possibly be seen as it?  Phish
must be laughing all the way to the bank.  I don't see the connection other
than that, ostensibly, Phish have a marginally Dead-like ideology to the
approach.  I think we need a little more than that, however.  I need some
music that moves me (heart or feet) and there is plenty of it around, but
I'm afraid Phish don't do it to me.  Billy only breathes because someone has
resuscitated him, it seems--he's dead as a doornail otherwise.

 Welcome to the future?!  It's just more of the past and unfortunately, it
seems to be the bits you  really don't need.  Don't believe the hype.
Caveat emptor.
 
 

The Black Crowes: London, Royal Albert Hall, 23-2-97.
"long term contenders..."

 After a night of acoustic revelry in Highbury, the Crowes returned to the
stately grandeur of the RAH for an 'electric' knees-up.  Interestingly, this
comes just ten days after Phish for which hordes of Deadheads were at, yet
for at the Crowes there are remarkably few perceived Deadheads about.  I'm
no more familiar with the Black Crowes than Phish, so the evening promised
to be interesting in the wake of the previous week's debacle.
 For those of you not familiar with them, the Black Crowes live are a quite
different position to their records.  Probably just as retro as Phish, but
they seem to be far more honest about it and seem to have something to pass
on to their audience.  Soundwise, think of a hybrid of the Dead, Allmans,
and Stones and you'll be pretty accurate.  Plus they have a lot of heart in
contrast to the sterility of Phish.  Jamming was the raison d'etre of the
evening.  Indeed, outside ot the Dead and Allmans, I have seen very few
bands jam it out to quite this extent.  Quite what their audience think, who
may not be familiar with the Dead, would be interesting to know, because the
Crowes have taken the Dead's strengths and styles very much to heart, even
down to the drummer's Kreutzmann technique.  One song was very much of the
'NFA-Lovelight' style Dead rave-up we're all familiar with, whilst towards
the end there was a 'space-Hard to handle' jam whereby I do mean 'space'.
It was of your archetypal Dead 'drums-space' variety, and carried off with
remarkable aplomb I thought, before segueing quite neatly into 'Handle'
which undoubtedly owed more to the Dead than it did to Otis Redding.  The
Crowes may not be in the same league of instrumentalists as Phish, for which
I'm thankful, but they play so much more from the heart and with
considerably more energy.

 To put it in a nutshell, the Crowes have 'feel' and 'intuition' which is
what it's about, isn't it?  But so unavoidably lacking with Phish,
unfortunately.  There were, I was surprised to find, a couple of points at
which the Black Crowes approached Dead-like escape velocity with the feel
and intensity of their playing which, perhaps because of their (relative)
instrumental boundaries, dug in much deeper to reach for the moon and came
far closer to it than the Burlington bunch did.  Indeed, of all the bands
I've seen over the years, the Black Crowes are the only ones I can see as
being long-term contenders for the territory the Dead and Allmans have come
to occupy.  The only problem here, as ever, is the pressures of any band
whose primary home is 'the road'.  The Crowes make OK-ish albums but they
don't seem to capture the live power and style of the band, a factor which a
lot of the bands those of you reading this enjoy can also lay claim to.  And
as the drug factor goes, I think we can safely say that the Crowes are up
there with the best/worst of them and that has its price to pay more often
than not.

 Tonight, I think, seemed to be virtually all original songs, with the
exception of 'Hard to Handle', but they are known to occasionally pull out
covers by Dylan, Little Feat, and Gram Parsons giving a fair indicator of
their pedigree.  Frankly, I kept expecting them to blast into 'Truckin'
which never happened although it gives you an idea of the territory they
occupy.  As with any gigs at this venue there is concern as to sound and
tonight was no exception.  Whilst it was never bad, it did fluctuate
somewhat reaching a clarity and power mid-set before becoming less clear
later on, but that notwithstanding, 'twas a fine, high, ol' time down the
RAH with the Crowes.

Eyes OfThe World/The Music Never stopped
 

Eyes of the World
billpannifer@easynet.co.uk