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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by Carl[/i] [br][url]http://fairfieldweekly.com/gbase/Music/content?oid=oid:134111[/url] [b]The Undivided Guy Phish is gone. Trey Anastasio's not. But will phans welcome his new act? by Ryan Kearney - November 17, 2005[/b] In 1992, I entered boarding school as a freshman and was promptly introduced to three habits during my first week: Skoal Straight, pot and Phish. These days, the first two only make guest appearances in my life. The latter has been absent since I graduated. I had entered ninth grade a devotee of the Pixies, the Smiths and Fugazi, and while I didn't forsake my heroes, there's no doubt I marginalized them in favor of the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan (no mistake, that) and, particularly, Phish. Like dip and pot, this shift in musical taste was a consequence of environmental pressure--just less addictive, is all. The abrupt shift isn't easy to explain. I didn't feel like I [i]had[/i] to like Phish; I just found that, despite musical interests to the contrary, I did. Perhaps it's that, at such an insulated boarding school, social pressure was both intense and less apparent, like a toxic, odorless gas. Or perhaps bouncy, playful lines like "Bag it/Tag it/Sell it to the butcher in the store" sounded better while stoned than the Pixies' Black Francis' guttural "Cookie I think you're taaaaaaaaaaaaame!" Regardless, I became a Phan. I grew out my hair. Wore Birkenstocks. I even hacky-sacked. On the other hand, I didn't wear skirts, grow dreads, juggle sticks or say things like, "These are kind buds, jiba." Then I went to a college with more indie kids than hippie kids, and suddenly, just like that, I was no longer a Phishead. I didn't hate them, but I didn't love them anymore. The toxic, odorless gas had dissipated. [i]Junta[/i] , [i]Picture of Nectar[/i] and other Phish records slipped down the pile as my old favorites-- [i]Surfer Rosa[/i] , [i]13 Songs[/i] , [i]Meat is Murder[/i] --mounted an insurrection. I hadn't thought much about Phish in yearsuntil last week, when I had the chance to interview Trey Anastasio, who fronted the band for 21 years until last year's breakup. A dozen years ago, I would have paid for the opportunity. But now, it gave me pause. I had a hard time grasping that Phish existed after I graduated from boarding school. I had an even harder time imagining that their later albums--and, more recently, Anastasio's solo efforts--were any good. Phish was a keepsake I didn't want spoiled. Phish was always Anastasio's main gig, but he's no stranger to branching out on his own. Visit [teal]Treyanastasio.com[/teal] and you'll see listed no less than 13 projects he's been involved with over the years--many of them since 2000, when Phish took an extended hiatus that marked the beginning of the end. I recognized two of the groups--not including Phish--but not his latest outfit, 70 Bolt Parade, with whom he'll be playing the Chevrolet Theater in Wallingford on Saturday, Nov. 19. "It's fun making a new band because it's a process," says Anastasio, 41, calling from the road, en route to Dekalb, Ill. "You try to really get to know everyone in the band." And to make the band gel, he adds, "I try really hard to embrace all of the different qualities of people in the band." That's what made Phish work. Each member had disparate skills and quirks. Page McConnell was the reserved, improvisational jazz pianist. Cross-dressing Jon Fishman played the drums and an Electrolux vacuum cleaner--often, he has claimed, while tripping on LSD. Mike Gordon, the nerdy bassist, was schooled in bluegrass and the Dead. And Anastasio was the beamish singer who couldn't resist endless guitar solos. When I first listened to Trey Anastasio's latest solo album, [i]Shine[/i] , it didn't sound much like the Phish I knew. Nor should it have. No other members contributed to the album, nor did Anastasio's longtime lyrical partner Tom Marshall (the Robert Hunter to Anastasio's Garcia). And instead of recording at the Barn, Phish's upstate Vermont studio, he flew down to Atlanta and hooked up with hot-shot producer Brendan O'Brien (Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine). "I went down there alone to Atlanta," he says. "I needed to change my scenery and figure out who I was again. Phish was a pretty big cyclone to be in the middle of." Maybe [i]Shine[/i] isn't as extreme a departure as I had first thought. In recent days, I spun Phish's swan song, 2004's [i]Undermind[/i] , and the track "The Connection" jumped out at me. This is what [i]Shine[/i] sounds like: Slick. Clean. Crystal clear. The album is unabashed pop, replete with predictable hooks and string flourishes. No quirky musicianship. No extended jams. No oddball lyrics. This is as radio-friendly as Anastasio has ever been--and as optimistic. Phish was always uplifting, but never so explicitly as Anastasio on [i]Shine[/i] 's title track, when he sings, "And the light shines on/What we all ride on/And when the day's come and gone/You know we all ride on." As clichéd as those sentiments are, at least they're coherent. "Come as Melody," which recalls [i]Hoist[/i] 's cringe-inducing stabs at mainstream rock, offers this closing epiphany, "One, one will be love now/I'm free/Undone/Unheard from/Love, will beg/Will see... " He's never been much of a confessional singer. Since [i]Shine[/i] is his first album since Phish's demise, many Phisheads will judge it more seriously than his past solo work. "They will at this moment in time," Anastasio admits. "But since I've put out so many records over the years, inevitably what will happen is the dust will settle and some of the songs will age well." A fellow New Jersey native, whom Anasatsio recently met, once faced a similar transition: Bruce Springsteen. "He said, "I was a guy who wrote about cars and girls and then people started liking me for that,'" recalls Anastasio, referring to the moment in 1982 when Springsteen ditched his popular E Street Band to record his first solo album, the hushed [i]Nebraska[/i] . "You have to break that mold no matter how much everybody likes it," says Anastasio. "And it's hard." It's especially hard since [i]Shine[/i] is no [i]Nebraska[/i] . But, just as the Boss went back to his E Street Band, Anastasio can always break out the trampolines and go bouncing 'round the room again. If not, then at least I've got my memories. rkearney@newhavenadvocate.com [teal]i>Trey Anastasio performs Saturday, Nov. 19 at the Chevrolet Theater in Wallingford. Call Ticketmaster at 203-624-0033, or visit ticketmaster.com. [/teal] [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature.