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Q: Am I nuts, or are there Phish references everywhere?

"We never get any press or anything.
We're like an ugly little secret on the side that nobody wants to talk about."
-- Trey Anastasio,
Addicted to Noise, c. 6/95

Print - Radio - Sports - Misc. - Not Phish
See also: Television

Print mentions: Leaving aside the obvious (Spin and Guitar Player, and even USA Today and People, how about these...

  • Congressional Record: Senator Leahy (D-VT) entered comment into the 12/1/94 Congressional Record, congratulating them for their success and saying that they "have a live performance that is hard to forget." (Thanks, Drew!)
  • Quigmans: In the 8/25/97 in The Quigmans, "there is a guy getting hit on the head with a pool stick, and he has a Phish shirt on", according to Brian Cox. [Note: There have been four other sightings in comics, but I've lost track of them - anyone have any info?]
  • GQ had an eight-page article (Jan. 1997) titled "Phishstock Nation".
  • Seventeen: In a summer 1997 issue of Seventeen Magazine, one of the "Ten Guys to Avoid" (with a description and photographed model for each) was wearing a Phish shirt.
  • The Onion made light of Phish audiences in a joke piece
  • TV Guide's (5/98) review of the finale episode of Seinfeld said the characters' "accounts sparked more flashbacks than a Phish concert." Thanks to "Bubonic" <scrooge@cybercomm.net> 5/28/98
  • New York Times Magazine on 11/29/98 had a story about director Gus Van Sant and his remake of Hitchcock's Psycho. Van Sant explained that he was not ripping off the original, but rather paying tribute to it: "We're not rapping over 'Psycho.' We're not using it just as a little riff. We're doing it more like the band Phish does when they recreate the White Album at a concert." (Jesse Appelman <oso101@ix.netcom.com> 11/29/98)
  • Sports Illustrated mentioned Phish, and showed a picture of Trey with his daughters, and a quote about his love of soccer, in an issue focusing on the Women's soccer team. There was also a brief description of the band.
  • Law Review: Dan Purcell reported (5/30/97) "sitting in my Bar Review class today, second day, Contracts, somewhat amusing lecturer talking about mutual assent, offer and acceptance, the single most basic contractual concept there is, really, when I look down and in the pre-printed Bar Review material, we have this:
      3.) On October 8, C receives an invitation from Phish to join the band.
      He mails a rejection on October 9, but changes his mind and mails a
      letter of acceptance on October 10.  His rejection letter is received
      on October 11.  Is there a contract?
    The answer, of course, is No, for reasons I could explain but I doubt would be of any interest to any of you, except maybe those of you out there who already know...."
    Dan Epstein reported (12/1/97) that "the guy teaching the course is my dad (David Epstein). Since I began trading Phish tapes heavily (4 years ago), he's been using Phish in his speeches. Anyone who takes the BAR/BRI Bar review course will have my dad (either in person, or on video), and can look forward to a few Phish examples."
  • Kaplan SAT Prep: Hardy Childers noted (12/5/97) that, "In the 1998 version of the Kaplan SAT & PSAT book which helps you prepare for the SAT it has a mention of Phish. On page 127 there is a little box that reads 'Five Things More Difficult Than SAT Math.' The list reads:
      1. open-heart surgery
      2. dunking on Michael Jordan
      3. getting Phish tickets
      4. beating curfew w/o getting caught
      5. reading Moby Dick w/o falling asleep

Radio background:

  • The first 30 seconds or so of "Sparkle" was used between news segments on NPR's morning show during the 97/98 winter. (Adam R. Kurth <adam@kurth.com> 11/28/00)
  • Phish is sometimes used as a filler music background between programs on the Japanese BS (basic satellite) channel 7 (which is broadcast digitally in 32Kh mode). Dex L. <Dex@Cyberguys.com> 7/28/98
  • Howard Stern has used "Down with Disease" as background music. And on 9/16/98, in an interview with Lou Ferigno ("The Incredible Hulk"), one of the questions was "What is the Million Child March" (referring to an event in Harlem) and Lou answered "Phish". Tristan <tristancNOSPAM@hotmail.com>
  • The Damon Perry show, a nationally syndicated sports talk radio show (1510 AM in Boston) featured the first 45 seconds of "David Bowie" after a commercial break, twice. Rob <woody1180@aol.com> 10/22/98

Sports Background:

  • Troy Cryder reported (7/22/98) that "Phish has a couple of songs on a few Surf Videos(yes Its true, LLama and Wedge, I think. #35C8FF
  • Brian Farquan reported (8/6/98) that YEM is played during the opening sequence of a surfing video entitled Jacked by Tony Roberts and distributed by O'Neill.
  • Kastlerage posted (3/22/98) that Chalkdust Torture is used as background on Continuium, a skiing and snowboarding video that also features Rage and The Urge.

Other sightings: #35C8FF

  • Being sampled, #1: At the end of a Blues Traveler original tune (track #7, called "Christmas") on the third A Very Special Christmas Album (an effort for charity), John Popper sings a melody to the tune of Trey's guitar melody in "Divided Sky". The tune got at least some radio play during 12/97. Liner notes include that the song "contains elements from 'Divided Sky' written by Ernest Anastasio. (Thanks to Ryan C. Smith, Brian M. Gordon, and Craig Garneau.)
  • In Space: On 8/18/97, "Contact" was the morning music at mission control for the Mars mission:
      	MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS
      	>15 August 1997, 5:00 pm PDT
      	>
      	>Today on Mars: the Rover Sojourner continues her trek in the Rock Garden.
      	>The Earth rose on Mars today, Sol 41, at 12:15 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time
      	>and the Sun followed, rising at 3:15 a.m. Sojourner and the lander were
      	>woken to the song "Contact" by the group Phish and proceeded to perform
      	>their continuing operations.  Standard temperature and pressure
      	>measurements were taken by the lander as well as more images toward the
      	>completion of the "Super Panorama", and super-resolution images of other
      	>features in Ares Vallis.
  • The fall 1997 Crutchfield catalog used Phish as the display in the first programmable cassette deck shown.
  • Yahoo keeps a list of Phish chat rooms online.
  • While MTV hasn't mentioned Phish much, and hasn't played their video often, but www.mtv.com has covered them a handful of times, including an 8/10/98 review titled "Phish Takes Atlanta by Storm".
  • Phish is on the soundtrack for the upcoming (late '99) movie Around the Fire.

Phan Sightings:

    Several ads, movies, and videos have been reported as including someone (usually in the background) wearing a Phish shirt. For example, Tyler Penn repor#35C8FF10/98) that"In the movie Blues Brothers 2000, in the scene when the re-united Blues Brothers band play their first gig at the monster truck rally, watch when John Goodman asks the crowd to come closer to the stage, then you will see a shot of the police then #35C8FFshot of the crowd, when it comes to the shot of the crowd, you will see [at 51:15 into the movie] a guy stand up who has a purple Phish shirt on."
#35C8FF

"We're increasing our visibility right now, or it's increasing itself a little bit. Things are just surfacing in the public perception a bit for us, and it's been nice. It's not out of control or anything. We're still not pop starsour career, it's still gradual." -- Mike Gordon, jamtv.com interview, 10/30/98

Not that Ubiquitous:

    Yangety pointed out (11/18/97) that:
    - They don't have videos that run on MTV or VH-1
    - They are rarely played on the radio
    - When they ARE on the radio, it is either the single from a new album, or some songs to get people ready for a Phish show in that local area.
    - There are very few stories about them in music mags (aside from Relix) on a regular basis.....

Thanks also to Chuck Sitkoff 8/11/98.



I think partially the reason we don\'t get press is because it\'s harder to write about an intangible thing which is undoubtedly powerful despite the fact that it\'s intangible. People hear it and I know they hear it because they're showing up for concerts. -- Trey, 6/7/95 Addicted to Noise 


 
T
his page last updated February 03, 2007.
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