
The Business of Phish - nthitz
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/48216173465/the-business-of-phish
======
bratsche
I really like Phish a lot, as my coworkers will attest since I have shitloads
of their live shows filling up my iTunes album list. They're really one of the
best live bands going now, definitely one of the best live bands of all time.

As the article says, their studio albums aren't that interesting. Especially
after you've had a taste of their live shows. It's not just them, though. Once
you start getting into live music more, everyone's studio albums sound bland.
Go listen to Led Zeppelin's "How The West Was Won" (3 CD set made from a live
show in LA around 1971 or so).. after that the Led Zeppelin studio albums just
aren't as good as they used to be. Same goes for almost every band that I've
heard live, or that I've heard live recordings of.

I think that's what Phish really has going for themselves, business-wise. Most
bands you hear on the radio aren't really that good at their instruments, but
with recording technology you really don't need to be that good. That's why
you've got some artists who basically exist because they've got the right
look. But Phish can go out there and perform 60 live shows in a year and feel
confident enough in the performance that within a few hours the show will be
available for download from livephish.com, and they can do this because
they're actually really good musicians. They're able to fill this desire for
good quality, energetic, live performances instead of bland studio recordings
in a way that no other band has ever been able (or even tried) to do before.

~~~
cynicalkane
> Once you start getting into live music more, everyone's studio albums sound
> bland

Speak for yourself. Some of us like the possibilities the recording studio
yields as an instrument. And by "some of us" I mean "most of the music
listening public".

Led Zeppelin, in particular, is well-known for their pioneering studio work.
Most of Zeppelin's most famous songs are studio tricks. Stairway to Heaven--
too many instruments to do with four people live. When the Levee breaks--tapes
slowed down and run backwards. Achilles' Last Stand--a dozen or so overtracked
guitars. Kashmir--the famous "hallway echo" on the drums with a phaser on top,
multiple mellotrons, multi-tracked everything, &c. What's especially good
about their studio albums is that they sound natural and alive, but this was
another studio trick by splicing together the freshest takes, inventing new
natural-sounding mic setups, etc.

They were also known for lazy, lackluster live performances, especially as
Page and Bonham sunk deeper into substance abuse. So that's a very strange
example. I don't really like the implied attitude that live music is best, and
we are required to like it over "bland" studio music, and it's strange that
you picked the most un-bland studio band since The Beatles.

~~~
bratsche
I _was_ speaking for myself. Since this is Hacker News and people are
interested in business, I wanted to talk about what's unique about Phish and
what they're providing that nobody else is willing (and quite frankly, able)
to. While there are some bands that I prefer in their studio-album form, my
overwhelming preference tends toward the excitement of live shows if they're
good. I was originally a music student before I switched to writing software,
and so perhaps my hours spent in the practice room shaped my appreciation for
music more in the direction of the performance. But the real point of my
original post is that in the world of pop and rock, _almost everyone_ is
leaning on the studio to craft their music and very few are properly _good_ at
singing or playing their instruments. And that's the interesting part about
Phish, because they're not necessarily very good songwriters (sorry fellow
Phish fans, but their lyrics are just not very good ;) ) but they are actually
very good musicians and performers. Even if you don't get into their music
that much, you kind of have to hand it to them for being basically the only
band out there that is willing to sell you a download of their concert almost
immediately after it's done.

I'm aware that Led Zeppelin wasn't a famously great live band. Even Jimmy Page
has written about how difficult it is to find any decent recordings of live
shows of theirs. But "How the West Was Won", even though it has had a lot of
studio enhancement work to it, is just so much more exciting than their studio
recordings. It has a more improvisational feel to it in many places, and you
get a sense of ensemble and of reaction between the band members and between
them and the audience.

I didn't mean to say that _all_ live music is, by definition, better and I
certainly didn't say you're _required_ to like live music. I'm sorry you're
choosing to interpret my original comment as some kind of personal attack on
your music listening habits, but I hope you'll get over it.

~~~
cynicalkane
I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole, but you're still mixing
taste and judgment. It sounds like you are _judging_ live music as Good and
studio albums as Bad, not describing your own taste.

If you're not telling people they should listen to live music and then studio
albums will sound bland, then don't say things like, "Once you getting in to
live music more, studio albums sound bland". Then you turn your nose at albums
that both critics and the masses absolutely love, and would say are the
opposite of bland. (And of course you have to add how you're a trained
musician, throw in some passive-aggressive insults at the end, &c. This sort
of stuff is not done in the service of discussion or appreciation of music.)

~~~
bratsche
Sorry, that wasn't my original intent. I'm just not a great writer. My intent
was to describe more of the perspective of a someone interested in something
that mostly doesn't exist elsewhere.

------
moron4hire
That was an incredibly long article. I like the (now I can't seem to figure
out who it is from) quote, "I'm sorry this letter is so long, I didn't have
time to make it shorter." There was a lot of history-of-the-band in the middle
that didn't really feel absolutely necessary. It started to feel like a lot of
fan self indulgence.

That said, it did convey the very important lesson: don't go into debt. When
talking about bands going on a meteoric rise, being pushed by their record
labels, you're talking about bands going into debt to the record label. As
long as you're not in debt, you don't have people banging on your door asking
for money. And that's when you can do whatever you want to do, make things as
good as you want to make them, and create something truly special.

It sounds like that is what happened to Phish when they first broke up,
instead they fell into a kind of perceived debt to their production staff.
They weren't very interested in playing, but they couldn't do whatever it was
they actually wanted to do, because they had people to pay.

And based on my own experiences with debt, I can see how that feeling can lead
to substance abuse. My own life has become so incredibly much happier now that
I know I don't have that debt hanging over me. And it comes back whenever I
have someone knocking on my door, saying I owe them money (i.e. taxes).

So stay out of debt, kids. Whatever you do, stay out of debt. College isn't
worth it. Believe me, people were starting to question whether or not college
was worth the debt when I started 10 years ago, and the situation has
certainly not improved over time.

~~~
hello_newman
The article was long, you summarized it nicely. But I love the last line of
your comment;

"College isn't worth it. Believe me, people were starting to question whether
or not college was worth the debt when I started 10 years ago, and the
situation has certainly not improved over time."

You know, I wish someone would have told me this when I was 18 (21 now). You
DO NOT need a college education. Sure, it helps, no doubt. But IMO it only
really helps if it is one of the top schools (MIT, Stanford, Harvard etc) and
if you look at tuition costs often times those schools aren't that much more
expensive then some B/C level school.

I think the problem started with the parents of my generation. My parents
(along with their peers) were taught college was the universal way to succeed
which transferred over into what adults preached to kids my age. I think being
in college (back in the day) made you stand out. But with every kid being
taught that same thing, how can you stand out if everyone is doing the same
thing? Doesn't it defeat the purpose? Sure, the argument is it makes you a
well rounded student, no doubt it does that. But spending 80k+ on learning
about the annual rainfall in Brazil doesn't do you much good for your job
prospects.

I think my generation should make their own education. I personally dropped
out of school to learn software, got accepted into Dev Bootcamp and will be
continuing my education there. Don't ever let school stand in the way of your
education.

Here is a great article on the subject. This kid was a Thiel Fellow and has
spent the 100k he was rewarded (as part of the fellowship) to write and focus
on education. It's a great read and his book looks pretty good.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/03/05/dale-
step...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/03/05/dale-stephens-
ditch-college-and-create-your-own-educational-experience/)

~~~
doktrin
> _This kid was a Thiel Fellow and has spent the 100k he was rewarded (as part
> of the fellowship) to write and focus on education._

It's never been too clear to me what that Thiel fellow ever really
accomplished. On the surface, it seems that he got his fellowship, dropped
out, and has since made a tidy business out of talking about his experience.
Maybe I'm being too harsh on the guy, but he strikes me as a self-help guru
for the education sphere.

> _I think my generation should make their own education. I personally dropped
> out of school to learn software, got accepted into Dev Bootcamp and will be
> continuing my education there. Don't ever let school stand in the way of
> your education._

Somewhat ironically, my interest in pursuing a full CS/EE education increased
dramatically after attending DBC. Either way, congrats & good luck. I have
nothing but praise for the staff there. I'm sure it will be a positive
experience.

~~~
Evbn
CS/EE is one degree that will easily pay for itself, later if not sooner.
English Writing is not.

~~~
moron4hire
Depends on what you pay for it. It is also one of the jobs that you can
potentially learn without a degree. Sure, it might _eventually_ pay for
itself, but that is a long time of living in debt that is not fun.

------
gruseom
Didn't Phish inherit the Deadheads after the Grateful Dead stopped performing?
That's a unique situation and hardly a business model.

~~~
EvanKelly
I'm not sure that's generally the case, though I'm sure it does happen.

My dad and my uncles (all born in the 1950s and 1960s) were serious Deadheads.
They've gone to over 100 Grateful Dead shows a piece. None of them really have
any fondness for Phish, but I have no idea why.

I know my anecdote can be countered by several of the opposite side, but as a
laymen to jam music, I can definitely hear a very fundamental difference
between Grateful Dead music and Phish music.

~~~
Jgrubb
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Phish's lyrics are offensively awful to
the ears of most deadheads.

~~~
EvanKelly
Exactly. My dad always reiterates how important lyrics are to him. We have a
very nice hardback copy of Box of Rain by Robert Hunter in the house.

------
bratsche
This article kind of reminds me that there was a piece on NPR a few months ago
about Nickelback, and how despite the fact that every person I know hates that
band apparently they're wildly successful from a business perspective. The
main guy in the band basically treats it entirely like a business, they're
very efficient in how they run their tours, etc.

[http://www.npr.org/2012/11/10/164858831/love-to-hate-
nickelb...](http://www.npr.org/2012/11/10/164858831/love-to-hate-nickelback-
jokes-on-you)

~~~
sswezey
To be fair, that article is just a link to a Businessweek article which goes
more in-depth: [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-08/genius-
the-n...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-08/genius-the-
nickelback-story)

~~~
bratsche
Oh, I didn't even know that. I heard them talking about it on NPR a few months
ago so I did a quick Google search specifically for NPR and Nickelback and
that was the link it gave me.

------
papaver
thats the magic of jam bands. its amazing getting lost in a jam, feeling the
transition from one song to another, forgetting the bad has been playing non-
stop for the last 30 minutes. its the newness that is most attractive for me.
its the closest live music that comes to dj's spinning live. you don't know
what your gonna get till its time.

its sad to see this type of music dwindle away when it was so rampant during
the 60's. its magical feeling the energy from a band that can talk to each
other through their music. its the same magic that happens between basketball
players when they are in the zone and can pass the ball without looking to
their team members.

magical.

~~~
dos1
Hippy :) I kid of course. I've never been able to get in to the jam bands.
Many of my friends love Phish, the Dead, Umphrey's McGee, The Big Wu etc etc.
I've tried to get in to their music, but every time they do those long jams I
get bored.

What's interesting though is that I love a good solid 20 minute epic trance
tune. It's basically the same thing, so I'm not really sure why I prefer
electronic "jam" music over more traditional jam bands.

~~~
opminion
There is also the whole world of Jazz.

------
redwood
It feels wrong to write a long piece on Phish without mentioning LSD. Phish
continued the legacy of the grateful dead and inherited much of the 'family's
cultural traits and people... And an undeniably big part of that family was
always acid.

It's not that you needed to be on it to enjoy their (great) music, or that the
band was always on it... Rather it's that it's always consistently available
in their circle and this allows countless people to get _turned on_ to a whole
new part of life through their relationship with going to a show. This helps
makes many people's first Phish show one of their peak life experiences.

------
aviswanathan
I think Phish's style is really similar to the Allman Brothers' back in their
heyday. Although I doubt they profited massively from it, Live At Fillmore
East is a jam rocker's dream album.

This article brings up an interesting thought: back in the '60s and '70s when
most rock bands extended improvisations into their concerts (Led Zep, Hendrix,
Floyd, etc.), did none of them think of recording and distributing each live
show as a standalone piece like Phish? Or were they perhaps already
'mainstream enough'?

~~~
timdev2
At some point, probably in the 70s, Frank Zappa began obsessively multi-
tracking nearly-all performances (at significant cost back then). This led to
a bunch of interesting output, including things like compositions based on an
improvised guitar solo, separated from it's original backing, and placed in a
completely different harmonic context. Also, lots of straight-up live
compilations (with some overdubs), chiefly the You Can't Do That On Stage Any
More (YCDTOSA) series, which is a six volume set of double-CDs.

For most people, back in those days, getting a sufficiently high-quality
recording of a live show was prohibitively expensive.

Like Phish, Zappa was very much a cottage industry, unmolested by mainstream
music industry stuff after the very early days.

------
logn
I attribute part of their success to an attitude they brought to their work.
They were extremely serious about their music, about their shows, and about
the fans. But they didn't take themselves seriously. Trey pretty much sums all
of this up well in one of their documentaries.

With this attitude of theirs they also came on the scene at a good time. In
the mid 90s, grunge rock was dying or dead, and the serious bands such as
Nirvana gave way to materialistic hip hop, commercial rock, and (remember?)
swing. Phish, at least for me, filled the void of grunge rock and opened me up
to a whole new world of music. I could get really into Phish because I knew
they approached their music with such care. It's hard to invest time in
appreciating something and studying it when you have doubt that there's
actually no substance or skill underneath, at least when it's not the most
approachable material. Phish really never disappointed in that regard.

Further, it's hard to overstate the genius of two people in Phish: Trey and
their lyricist Tom. Trey is not only incredibly skilled, he has an enormous
amount of energy and enthusiasm powered directly by the crowd. If you watch
him play, he's so tuned in to everything around him, you can feel that he's
not really focused on the guitar (the physical aspect or the theory). It's not
a challenge for him to manipulate it which lets him focus on playing with the
rest of the band and the crowd which he does so well. The best analogy I see
is what a touch typist experiences with the keyboard. You really don't think
about typing. Now imagine being able to type messages live to people and every
character you type is truly thrilling and enjoyable to your audience, and oh
you can write in rhymed iambic pentameter without trying.

And Tom's lyrics I think are simply fantastic. Round Room I think really shows
his true excellence. He can craft together 3 or 4 meaning and themes at once
without making it seem like a big stretch. And he has such a soothing tone it
sounds like a children's book sometimes, but the meaning is really almost
beyond the realm of being able to consciously analyze it, yet not reaching the
level of absurd.

------
cju
A nice (and shorter) article from Marco Arment on Phish:
<http://www.marco.org/2011/05/26/geek-intro-to-phish>

------
northband
I'm hoping to make a pilgrimage to the Gorge this year. I'm happy to see this
article here on Hacker News as Phish has been a central point in my life for
going on 20 years.

