Seven gold records (including Lawn Boy), scores of live releases, the largest tour draw in the history of the USA, solo records, solo tours, amazing collaborations (sorry Joe Pass died before you could play with him Trey),self produced films, indie films, marriages, children, an unequaled list of tours dates, massive self promoted gigs- all this in the face of hostility from Electra Records and utter indifference from the music business.It couldn't have happened to nicer guys. I swear I've been in and around musicians my whole life and the boys in Phish are genuinely big hearted, sincere, wonderful guys that love their fans and humbly deserve all the fame and fortune that THEY HAVE EARNED on their own with little help other than their manager John (another sterling guy) and Paul their sound man (ditto for Paul) and Marley the dog.(if I forgot anyone, I'm sorry my mind's a sieve) Because they were so misunderstood and mistreated by the idiots in the music business I am adding this note to the site to illustrate the injustice of one of the 1990's greatest band's mistreatment.

[Here's a brief, probably unknown story about the way Phish were treated by people in the music biz- it's true because I was there!{lawyerly statement} Of course these are my opinions and muddled recollections and what is the truth anyway? This is the post modern era! Truth is subjective. It's the story that matters!]

After leaving Absolute a Go Go Records , amicably I may add, Phish signed a deal with the label of their choice Electra. In those days Electra seemed to be the hippest around and was "a friend to the musician". Yeah right.

Electra licensed "Lawn Boy" and released the band's first major label effort "A Picture of Nektar". {by the by Electra had nothing at all to do with Picture of Nektar the band went off and did it on their own and handed the finished product to the label.)Electra records promptly produced NO AIRPLAY for the band through their legendary radio promotions department. Now this, of course, could be a function of the band being ahead of their time, radio stations not knowing how to fit the band into the first waves of grunge rock or many other cheap excuses. I'm sure the VP of promotions used them all. Now I know, 'cause I seen it done, that radio play can be miraculously produced for even the most mundane vanilla pudding music with the clever application of CASH. Electra's grudging response to the lack of radio play is to purchase some advertising space in Billboard, Cashbox, Friday Morning Quarterback etc. These magazines are what the music business calls "the trades". Supposedly these magazines are read diligently by radio programmers. In reality the advertisements are ignored and the only part of the magazines that exercises influence is the charts. Who's up? Who's down? This makes all the difference. Good music, bad music doesn't seem to have much to do with it. If it did the Clash's second album would have stayed at number one for a year. [I realize that I'm ramblin', but hey, everyone in the music biz talks too much]The depressing flip side of that coin is that the utter junk that you hear spilling from your radio is a pretty good measure of what the music biz (radio stations,labels, critics) think you should be listening to and loving.Eee Gads! Is anything better proof of the music biz's lack of taste. (and a soul I might add) So..... back to Phish. The lack of attention for Phish was more than a little uncanny. Record labels release hundreds and hundreds of CDs that no one ever hears about so what's so odd about Phish's lack of attention. Well all those unknown releases are from bands that couldn't fill a hatbox with their fans. At this time Phish was routinely playing 5000 seat shows in the Northeast and about to break into every state west of the Mississippi. Their live draw was so good that sold out shows were plagued by hordes of fans outside the venues trying to buy their way in! It was obvious to anyone that stopped to notice that Phish was no ordinary band.The problem seemed to be that no one in the music business had any interest in stopping to notice. You see, Phish was a band that deadheads liked and at that time in the biz everyone hated deadheads.

Now don't feel bad if you consider yourself a deadhead (like my wife, bless her). Phish, Dave Matthews and Hootie have taught the music business a, painful lesson.If you were to ask anyone in the biz now they will wax poetic about their long established blissful love of everything that the Deadhead culture has produced or stands for.Don't try to have them sit through "kansas city, 8.15.74" on a crappy cassette deck. They will shit themselves in their haste to leave the room.

The disaster at radio left the band with one standard avenue to continue promoting Picture of Nektar- Video. Their contract provided for funding of a video associated with each release. Funding is a funny way to put it. The way it goes with all things at major labels is "Don't worry guys we'll pay for the whole damn thing. As a matter of fact we will decide on the budget and it's gonna be big!Since we are paying for it we will cram our vanilla pudding ideas down your throat and micro manage the production and edit until it costs 50% more than anyone imagined and has little to do with the band, music or fans. Oh yeah,did we forget to mention this clause down here, ya know page 63 paragraph 12. d)? Yeah that's the one that says that the label keeps all of the profit except for the miserly artist royalty payment and a nickel a song to the songwriters. And it also says that the money we spend on the recording, video, radio promotions,tour support (like us flying out in a private jet to see you play), mastering and even the damn plastic box that the CD comes in gets paid back out of your cut." Yes, that's right the band pays for it all and the label gets control.(PS I believe that Phish may have avoided this particular trap but then again who knows...I'm not gonna tell everything on a website...)

So here we have those lovable rascals the boys in Phish (by the way Fish really does have a screw loose somewhere. I swear in his last life he was Winnie the Pooh)with a their first big major label album and no commercial radio play. So it is decided by the mysterious powers at Rockefeller Center that MTV will be the way to "break" the band. Now it never seemed to occur to the label people that the band had already broken. Geez they were on fire on the road. All the label had to do was "arrange"(see above) for radio play so the rest of the damn country could hear it and trot out to their local record hop. Well a video was made. Lunches were taken.[here I find I must explain the Biz's horrible misuse of the English language in order to get the story right. In the music biz or I hear Hollywood, you don't have a meeting or have lunch. You say something extremely vain like " I decided to take a meeting with Mr. Big" or "Don't worry I'll take a few lunches with the people at E network and we'll get what we want"]Meetings were taken inside the hallowed of MTV. Big moves were happening. The gods at Rockefeller Center were moving the chess pieces to make it all happen. And then....

MTV replied. It was one of those moments that sticks with you. I was looking out of my office at Go Go into the parking lot of the Chinese Take Out. It a fine day, an old codger was pushing a kid's bicycle across the lot with one hand while chugging something from a paper bag with the other. I had been on hold for fifteen minutes at MTV. Someone I knew for years, long before the existence of the unwinking eye called MTV, was in the meeting as the voice of "Marketing". He clicked on the line. "Hey, we just finished. It was a long one" he explained meaning the meeting.

"Yeah so what'd they say?" I fully expected that the video would be shot down.

"I'll tell ya but please don't tell John until A & R can give him the good news."

Now my heart thumped, perhaps there was a God of Things as they Ought to Be.

"Don't worry I won't steal anyone's thunder."

"Well it's like this. The video's a non starter of course. There's no way it'll ever get play beyond a spin or two on my show."

He controlled the hip late Sunday night "alternative" show. Now I was back to having a knot in my stomach. I knew they'd get screwed.

"What the hell. That's not good news. Have you guys looked at their live show numbers?"

"Calm down! We've got something better for them." I waited in fear. I knew MTV and had been at the mercy of their "meetings" for years.

Here's a few brilliant examples.

"Well the videos great we decided to spin it as soon as you edit out the scenes with Mike wearing the Clash T shirt"

"What? That's a third of the video! What's wrong with him wearing a Clash T shirt?"

"We aren't playing the Clash right now and we wouldn't want Columbia to get a big head because we did them a favor."

"No go. The videos too indie."

"But we are trying to get it on the Indie show."

"Well promotions has decided that Indie is not really indie anymore we're gonna hold all the spots for major labels."

"Well it will only get played twice."

"Why?"

"Well it looks too good for an indie video and they aren't big enough to be in regular rotation. It just looks like you spent too much on it. The effects are amazing and the story line is killer. No one will believe it's indie."

"Are you kidding? We only spent $1400 on the whole damn thing and we ARE AN INDIE LABEL!"

"That doesn't matter."

You get the picture. It is easy to fill your converse with sweat while on hold at MTV.

"Look we've got a new idea for a show and we want them involved."

'Oh god!' I thought.

"I'm listening"

Out in the parking lot the old man sat down on the curb and then deftly pushed the bicycle out in front of an oncoming car.

"OK, ya ready. It's like this. We've got this hot new director.We've been studying the Real World's numbers and Zing a new show's been created. It's gonna run every weekend and we want Phish involved."

"A New Show?" The old man ran away from raging driver.

"Yeah it's got a great new demo.(that's demographics for the rest of us. Ya know the study of all of us as little charts) It's gonna be a game show that's targeted at the 7 to 12's.And we want Phish to be the house band! Man I wish that I had thought of it. It's a killer idea."

"You want Phish to be the house band on a kid's show?"

"That's right!"

"Are you fuckin' kiddin' me?" I replied as courteously as I could considering I had a T rex's temper.

"Waaa. What the hell's wrong? This is gonna be great. We shot pilots in June and July and then the show goes live, well taped to air of course, but will bill it as live, in August. And here's the best part. Regular pay. The guys will get 40 k each for each season with bumps if it does well."

I stared up at my Calendar. June, July and August were black with penciled dates of label artists, including fifty or so for Phish.

I was at a loss to reply in a rational manner.

"That's the summer tour season." I mumbled.

The driver stalked back to his car. The old man had got away.

'Thank god' I thought.

"So what!"he continued unaware of the utter melancholy that poured back down the phone line," We're talkin' about regular pay. Since when does a band turn its nose up at regular pay."

So there it was. I don't know if it was the brilliant staff at Electra, the awe inspiringly brilliant staff at MTV or some demon called up from the sixth level of hell that thought up this insult but it was downright genius. Here was the hottest live band in America. Their music filled my head with echoes of Zappa at the Palladium on Halloween night - Hot Tuna roaring for six hours in front of a wall of amps - The Tubes gyrating while saran wrap clad go go girls bumped and shook in the strobes. These guys could trot out Ellington or Debussy, Dylan or Deep Purple and kill with it every time. They were great and the kids that fought to see them knew it. Perhaps these companies that seemed to be staffed with nothing more than Badger's Asses just didn't have a clue what really counted unless the charts or the critics tipped them in advance. I know in the case of Phish they did their damndest to ignore them and when confronted in the cold office lights they collectively snapped their frat boy towels at each other's bums and mouthed platitudes about how stupid we all were to listen to stuff like that.