http://myspace.com/phisharchives blog entry 4
(originally posted 11/6/05 4:20a EST. reposted 3/4/06 6:45p)

original blog:

the mystery ship has sailed, yielding ride captain ride's original, first-track spot to split open and melt from 11/6/98 at u. wi, madison kohl center. this melt is a worthy successor and will leave you sizzling like a funky, hot steak-um. great times - definitely doesn't seem like 7 years ago. thanks for all the comments, especially from the mcu krewe.

in keeping with the current theme around here, i also uploaded a photo of the gamehendge time phactory in its current state doing well after a decade in a warehouse or three.

repost:

rather than replacing ride captain ride, this reposted mega-melt took the slot of its kissing cousin from madison, wi - 10/24/95 antelope. like most tracks posted here AH, this one is now downloadable as well as streaming. i want to thank chicago brethren steve and danny for driving me to and from this show, which fell conveniently at the end of a week-long seminar on corporate archives i still refer to today. the conference ended just in time for my family to join me for an amazing long weekend of shows at chicago's uic pavilion. hallowed phish ground.

have a good weekend. Enjoy!

--ks

http://myspace.com/phisharchives blog entry 24 (Posted 03/01/06 7:30p EST) i can't say enough about the 1997 summer tour. this set II fire closer from 7/30/97 ventura was the second track i posted here. summer 1997 had all the fire (pardon the pun) of the somewhat more recognized fall, but it also had a little more of the "old phish" sound for a blend of deliberate, layered funk with that familiar overblown in-your-face burn. maximum shred with extremely thoughtful interplay. this blend became especially tasty during the spring 1997 europe tour. if you don't own it, check out "slip stitch and pass" for a corner-turning band produced live cd (from exactly 9 years ago - 3/1/97 hamburg germany) released in 1997 with john siket's killer multitrack mix and giant-ball-of-string cover art by storm thorgerson (of pink floyd fame) at drygoods. when the band continued the tour that summer on native soil, they weaved the new groove neatly into the tapestry for the long term. this track sealed an incredible show at the dusty ventura raceway (which i like for its beachside perch). the band combines post-remain-in-light funky sensibility with old-school, jimi-infused spirit to bring the show to a high-powered end with fire. you also need to hear, among other parts of this show, the jaw-dropping david bowie > cities > david bowie - too long to fit here. ride captain ride from 12/30/92 was removed to make room for this track, which, like ride captain ride went up too early to have a blog here. now they both do. Enjoy! --ks

http://myspace.com/phisharchives blog entry 23 (Posted 02/22/06 3:33a EST) i wondered about posting anything from the '93 murat because the amazing second set is, for good reason, among the most commonly traded sets ever. i'm often asked about my favorite show and typically answer "the next one", but of all the shows i've been blessed to attend, my memory of this night is especially vivid. i remember the spine-tingling feeling during the incredible bathtub gin that re-defined the song. i remember taping in the last row of the balcony where the official taping section for that night was designated. the "taper's section" was first defined that summer tour when the forest of mic-stands grew too thick for paul and chris to see the stage. i remember my friend judd taping outside the section (ie: anywhere that wasn't the back of the balcony) with sonic studios microphones, which had also just been recently developed. i remember realizing so many of the ultra-ornate venues that summer were masonic temples and what mason's children may have to do with all that. beyond the murat, i recall the feeling night after night when comparing notes with my girlfriend (now my wife) and with touring buddies about how each night somehow impossibly surpassed the night before. i remember the beauty and innocence of the cinci zoo, the power of darien lake (home of roller coaster of the mind), the magic of nautica stage, taper tom, parker and ian and i remember the penultimate inundation of fog during grand rapids' great gig in the sky. i remember the smoking melt from "hometown" rochester, michigan, where we'd seen the band open for santana the previous summer. even that weird guy "playripple" was around, catching a little phish in between gd shows. a week like that will likely never exist again - at least not for me - and i'm convinced that's a good thing. the magic is preserved in the minds of those who were part of it and replayed by those who've gathered the tapes like the precious gems they are. by the way, listen to the aud's of this era to hear an audience so spellbound by the music they forgot to make any noise. sure, i'll wax poetic about so many great events and call them all best-ever on some night or other; the new aud, 3 nights at roxy, 3 at fox, gamehendge, bradstock, carreystock, worcester 1997 and 1998, the second uic show (in 11/94) and the epic run there in 1998, miami, island tour, nearly a dozen holiday tours, remain in light, quadrophenia and everything in between. and no, i didn't forget big cypress, the flatbed truck, the tower jam, fuji rock, horde tour and all the rest. ok, maybe i forgot some of it but it's still the soundtrack to my life and i never forget how eternally grateful i am for that. the murat show the next summer was also amazing (with dynamics so purposefully subtle you can scarcely hear some of the most amazing moments in the audience tapes) and i won't even attempt to weigh 6/94 against 8/93 as it's a futile endeavor (or might be except for the unbelievable 6/18) that's been attempted by many a learned phish scholar who caught it, and for each of those a dozen who didn't. the power of the murat is and always will be indisputable and it's most palpable in the 8/13/93 gin. throughout this whole show though, caution was thrown to the wind in exchange for mind-boggling musical and emotional heights. next level combinations like lengthwise > llama, ginseng sullivan > fluffhead, gin > yamar and of course the magical amazing grace/highway to hell encore which further confounded my mid-20's brain. even the ultra-compressed files necessary to feature these longish tracks here let the inspiration flow through. it's true - this segment pushes the tasteful limit of digital audio manipulation, but it's worth it. when we re-launched phish's myspace sites, i reached first for the "murat gin". just the name inspires goosebumps and judging from the number of listens here, that's not an unusual feeling. however, i promised myself to rotate tracks regularly since there are an infinite number of transcendent moments to discuss. so what should follow the murat gin? well, as 333 on 222 approaches, i had to continue the story by sharing this inspiring pair of songs from later in set II of 8/13/93. together they comprise yet another incredible memory from the murat and another truly riveting piece of phish improvisation. having sputtered at length already and with every intention of reprising past blogs 3 through 20, I won't belabor my midwest theory...but it's real and this is around when it became cemented. here's 8/13/93 mike's song > lifeboy where the gin once towered. Enjoy! --ks p.s. charlie dirksen's excellent review of this mike's song at phish.net is worth a look. Spiritual indeed. p.p.s. i've finally stopped pontificating and i'm sure you'll thank me for that, but I have to say: 1) in order to properly discuss the summer 1993 tour i'd have to dedicate pages to literally every show, and 2) livephish07 from 8/14/93 tinley park is, thus far the only officially-released part of this landmark tour and it is a monster. check it out at drygoods.

http://myspace.com/phisharchives blog entry 22 (Posted 02/18/06 3:33a EST) in an effort to bring this site back up to date i am slowly rotating through some of the content featured in the past (BH) as well as adding new (AH) material. covers here are streaming only, but like the lincoln reba, this track demands a reprise. the first four tracks posted here in september 2005 were: 12/30/92 ride captain ride, 7/30/97 fire, 11/19/92 fast enough for you (w/ gordon stone) and 9/17/00 dog log. ride captain ride from 12/30/92 springfield, ma was the very first track i posted and was an instant hit among the dozen or so earliest friends here for obvious reasons. i hope it connects (or if you're aging gracefully like me, reconnects) you to that incredible time in phish history when most phishheads were just realizing every night would be a ride to another glorious shore. little did we know quite how long and intense the ride would get, though parts of this show hint at it in classic night-before-new-year's tradition. check out gin and yem > auld lang syne > yem for extended madness as well as the timber > bowie set I closer, which deserves separate treatment. when this first went up, i hadn't considered blogging yet, so it's nice to have this chance to lend a few words to this encore, which had only just been revived by the band at toronto (12/12/92) a couple weeks before. back in those days, phish.net still was still in very early stages and cell phones were the size of suitcases, so you had to learn such statistical tidbits by word of mouth. already the folklore was there but as folklore turned into history, the music carried all we needed to hear. i hope you like this one as much as I do. our tribute to the other wilson (wilson pickett, r.i.p.), 8/5/88 telluride mustang sally made way for this song about another great ride. evolution being what it is, the mystery ship would make even a good mustang jealous. have a wonderful long weekend. Enjoy! --ks

http://myspace.com/phisharchives blog entry 2 (originally posted 10/21/05 10:21p EST. reposted 2/16/06 1:11a EST) i couldn't let the 10 year anniversary of the epic lincoln, nb show pass without paying tribute, so i removed dog log from 9/17/00 merriweather to make way for the dynamic reba from 10/21/95 pershing auditorium (check the scatting around 6:00 among many highlights). pure magic. but what could be expected from a set that starts and ends with tweezer reprise. this show is worth a closer look. i wish it was possible to post at higher bitrates but myspace limits uploads to about 9mb. the result is longer tracks require lots of compression. guess it's better to post them anyway, so until i figure another easy way to share, this will have to suffice. there are a few notes to add along with this repost. first, 4/23/93 buffalo bill soundcheck from hamilton, ny was removed to make room for this track. second, when this reba was first posted in 10/05, it was streaming only, but it is now enabled for download too. last, an added bonus to reposting this reba is the ability to listen in context of the antelope from 3 days later. the entire fall, but especially the few weeks building up to halloween in chicago was an incredibly exciting time. compression aside, the excitement shines through. Enjoy! --ks

http://myspace.com/phisharchives blog entry 21 (Posted 02/12/06 4:19a EST) i just returned from seeing spam allstars at nectar's. page once again joined the allstars for the whole show tonight. it's always a pleasure to have them light up the town. i started re-posting old blogs earlier tonight, starting un-inventively with blog number 1, posted last october just as we confirmed the nye 1995 cd set would be released 12/20/05. that was before we knew there would be a release party, live phish videos featuring the show and so much else. i'll post other past blogs as time permits so you can catch up on old times or see what went down over here before the hacking.* i was asked BH by someone whose identity was lost AH to post my favorite antelope. more than a few of my go-to favorites have been released in the livephish series, like LP07 8/14/93 tinley park (antelope > sparks > walk away > tinley jam > antelope > have mercy > antelope), LP02 7/16/94 sugarbush (antelope > catapult > antelope), LP06 11/27/98 worcester and 4/3/98 nassau coliseum ("carini's gonna get you") from the island tour. unfortunately, LP02 is currently out of print, but it should be available again soon with the other missing titles. some other greats that have been released as downloads at livephish.com include 11/30/94 olympia, wa (halley's > antelope > sweet one at the front end of a must-hear set of segues) and 6/24/04 deer creek following a blistering tube. there are countless other greats, not the least of which include 7/30/88 telluride (after the jazz odyssey ended), 11/2/96 west palm beach (crosseyed > antelope w/ karl perazzo) and 10/29/94 spartanburg, sc (antelope > sleeping monkey > antelope). the list goes on and on. when i was told people hadn't heard the monster antelope from 10/24/95 at dane county coliseum in madision, wi, it was a no brainer where to start. you must hear this version. another 1995 track, 11/14/95 maze from orlando was benched so this ripping antelope could play awhile. i like the 10 year gap between the date of the first antelope posted here and the first blog posted here. watching it pass without reason or rhyme... Enjoy! --ks *hereinafter referred to as BH. AH will be used to refer to events that taking place in the year of our hacking. p.s. sunday 2/12 @ 9p EST: apologies for the eternal "processing" time this track is taking. usually they go up fast. this is at 20hrs and still waiting.

http://myspace.com/phisharchives blog entry 1 (originally posted 10/20/05 3:33a EST. reposted 2/12/06 9:30p EST) it's a big day on the island - so big i drafted my first ever blog entry to celebrate the announcement of the latest phish archives release, "PHISH; New Year's Eve 1995". in just 40 days it will officially be 12/20/05, (the day before) the winter solstice and time for this incredible monster of a show to cause goosebumps like it has been lately around here. hope to preview as much content as possible as we approach the big day so keep an eye out. for information on New Year's Eve 1995 - Live at Madison Square Garden (a/k/a "New Lang Syne") check the phish.com news piece (which, due to blog limitations can't deep link from here - scroll down to the item dated 10/19/05) and our special phish update. in other news, i hope everyone's enjoying these tracks. i've been trying to decide when to rotate them for new material. i'm loving the fact that 12-30-92 ride captain ride remains the front runner for plays. "be amazed at the friends you have here on your trip". seems like just yesterday we were at symphony hall soaking up this gem (and the crushing timber ho! > bowie among others). and you thought MSG was a long time ago... as a wise man once said, time is a stripper doin' it just for you. Enjoy! --ks