{"id":410,"date":"2009-06-05T18:50:31","date_gmt":"2009-06-05T22:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/?p=410"},"modified":"2009-06-05T18:50:31","modified_gmt":"2009-06-05T22:50:31","slug":"time-turns-elastic-not-beard-not-fish-but-phish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/?p=410","title":{"rendered":"Time Turns Elastic – not Beard, not Fish, but Phish"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"phishtimeturnselastic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was encouraged by a good friend to give the 13 minute ‘single’ from the forthcoming Phish record.\u00a0 I’ve never been a big fan of their music, despite the fact that there is a serious prog side to this jam band institution.\u00a0 Anyway, they’ve got their first studio album in five years coming out this summer, they’re back on tour, fans are eating it up.\u00a0 So after getting all salty about what they do, I took some time and actually listend to the song.\u00a0 Here’s the pertinent portions of my explication:<\/p>\n

For a different band, the first two minutes could be a chart-topping pop single.\u00a0 How crazy is the crowd going to get when they hear “I’m a submarine”?\u00a0 Now comes a very small meandering and then we get more lovely and heartfelt pop.\u00a0 The sound of the acoustic piano and the electric guitar is really simple but rich and textured.<\/p>\n

At about 4:35, things start to go a bit wrong for me.\u00a0 ‘Melody, shelter in the darkness.\u00a0 Take hold of me now.”\u00a0 Even at the first go-round (and without having a strong contextual understanding of the band in general) I knew this was going to introduce a long instrumental section.\u00a0 But the lyrics give it away.\u00a0 We’re ‘in the darkness’ and we need some ‘melody’ to make it – I guess – not so scary.\u00a0 OK, let’s see what you got.<\/p>\n

This starts by sounding like the more recent versions of Brand X with the alternate picking and harmonics.\u00a0 Then we have the build-up to the long middle portion.\u00a0 It’s a little rocking, then it’s a little quiet.\u00a0 Then it starts rocking again.\u00a0 The piano is leading the charge and it’s pretty happy until we get to about the 8 minute mark.\u00a0 Now it’s back to those harmonics and melody in counterpoint.\u00a0 Not so happy now with the sky bleeding and the world turning upside down.\u00a0 It’s a bit fusion-y for the next minute or two – almost reminds me of Chic Corea and Return to Forever, but less hysterical.\u00a0 My problem, is that it’s just a bit of meandering, almost trying to be a bit off, a bit atonla, to set up the BIG ENDING.<\/p>\n

Now, you know that no one likes the big ending more than I, but did we need seven minutes (from about 4 to 11) to get there?\u00a0 It’s OK if there’s some hot stuff in that intervening period, but it seems to be kept at a moderate to low energy intentionally to set up the big classic rock finale.\u00a0 I just wish they would do more with that middle period.<\/p>\n

But the ending is exceptional and it rocks and I know that it will go over great live.\u00a0 It is<\/em> prog because it’s very composed and it requires a lot of attention to get all the ins and outs.\u00a0 And while not all prog is automatically good music, I always appreciate the effort.\u00a0 It makes the world safer for Beardfish, Elephant9 and other rockers coming on the scene.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know that is some cheap, cut-and-paste, blogging, but its along the lines of what happens here, as far as content.\u00a0 The same individual who encouraged the above email is now pushing for collaborative music blogging.\u00a0 Hmmm…\u00a0 As always, I’m all ears!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was encouraged by a good friend to give the 13 minute ‘single’ from the forthcoming Phish record.\u00a0 I’ve never been a big fan of their music, despite the fact that there is a serious prog side to this jam … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[76,244,1478,392,24,393],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":412,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}