Yet another new year, and yet another flurry of activity from friends who have been satisfied by Phish on their NYE run of shows.
I personally am not a huge “phan” of the band any more, but as we move into a very critical year for the music industry, I want to tell you about a few things that makes this band successful.
Maybe we can borrow some of these concepts in electronic music?
The main theme I’d like to drive home here, is the band operates like a 12-headed hydra from the larger music industry. It has mechanisms in place that see to it if you cut off air or water to this beast, it can continue to thrive.
This guerilla style of career development was invented by the Grateful Dead. After Jerry Garcia died, the doors opened for more people to get into Phish, who had a funkier and more electric sound than their predecessors.
The band became large, and remains large based on this aspect alone. Live performance is an interaction with people that cannot be replaced by fancy vinyl artwork, engaging ustream chats and so on. It is a night out for fans, and one they might tell their kids about 20 years later.
I remember my first and only show, 1995 at the Molson Ampitheatre like it was yesterday. The hippies running around the parking lot, the sunny summer evening on the lawn, and great music into the night.
I’m not going to draw lines between DJing and Live P.A. here. The bottom line is you need to be out there in front of people often. Take every chance you get.
Lately I believe that these opportunities are kind of like playing hockey. You are on the ice for a good portion of the game, but only once in a while do you actually get the puck. Make the most of those moments.
How does Phish manage to play three-day festivals, with no support from other bands needed? They have amassed a giant catalog of tunes that they can cycle through.
Originals or covers, it doesn’t matter, it’s almost infinite at this point. Often it’s a case of how they were sequenced throughout a night, and how they improvised on these pieces. This is very much something that jazz gave us.
In the digital era, you need to keep the pressure by releasing lots of music. In theory this isn’t hard to do with electronic music, but it’s because we have so many options for finishing tracks that they start to pile up. Break down your fear of finishing music, and get it out there.
Phish fans buy a ton of swag. And some of it is really beautiful. T-shirts, posters, and god knows what else, the official merchandise is high quality. The end result is a ton of advertising that the band didn’t pay for, people paid the band for it.
Work with great artists to put your musical vision on print where it spreads farther. For great examples of this in dance, see Plastikman or the more recent music branding master, Deadmau5.
Phish are fast movers at setting up systems for things like selling recordings of shows online right afterwards, and now they are pioneering some of the highest quality webcasts.
Other groups tied to arduous record contracts or have feeble support staff can’t move like they do. It is rare to learn of a webcast of an event in dance music that is not just high quality sound but also video.
One of the fundamental uses of technology that benefits the fans that cannot be overlooked, is a lenient recording policy.
Audience taping is permitted at all shows. Guest performances with other artists will be governed by that artist’s policy. When performing at a festival or other event featuring multiple bands, that event’s policy may override Phish’s customary taping policy. When performing in Ottawa, all bets are off. That place is cuh-razy.
A theme in many of these points above is Phish is “with it” on a visual level. But where they really excel in this regard is the visual components to their live shows. Spearheaded by Chris Kuroda, the band has always been known for jaw dropping imagery to accompany the shows.
Only until very recently have I seen dance music not only catch up, but now is surpassing with shows like Amon Tobin’s ISAM which benefits from the music being completely pre-orchestrated with visuals ahead of time.
At the heart of all this, one thing is very clear for both Phish and The Grateful Dead. They do everything for their fans. Dance music industry is too intertwined with club life, so you often see that people are in it for their own ego more than they are the fans.
You can’t paint this picture in any other way. If you don’t love the fans, you will not go to the great lengths needed to convert them from someone who likes your music, into something of an evangelical supporter.
Sure, Phish is not without it’s own controversy. Some people go to these shows more for the hype than the music. Some of the songs are old and tired. The band itself is getting older too, and is maybe not very “relevant” to today’s Skrillex sound. But there is beauty in this movement, and hoards of people spend their free time in happiness because of them.
My friend said it the best to me last week. It was something to the effect of, “you go to a few shows, download a few albums… And then one day you wake up and it hits you. You are wearing a Jerry Bear ring and your house is decorated with all these posters. It’s almost cult-like”.
I don’t think that all artists need a large following. I do think that they need to build a strong tribe around their music though, if they want it to spread far and wide.