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- [00:02]
Ford BlueCruise Announcer
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- [00:31]
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- [01:03]
Brian
Osiris. All right, Happy Holidays to everyone out there. Good morning to everyone who is just waking up from their night one sleep. Hope everyone is safe and warm and happy. I know you guys are getting a ton of snow up in the Northeast, so hopefully everyone is having no travel issues and are enjoying themselves as they are getting set for night two at msg. This is the Helping friendly podcast. I am Brian, that is Megan. Megan, how are you doing? You just drove down from where did you come from? My goodness, you've been all over.
- [01:52]
Megan
Yeah, I was in the mountains, I was in the Berkshires and I was hosting 14 people and I left this morning at 6:30, woke my kids up, was like we're going back to the city, let's go and threw them in the car and drove down here. It was really icy in the mountains, a little dangerous. But once we got in the big roads we were fine and drove down in the rain. Super foggy, could not see anything. Luckily, my friend, fog, fog, tons of fog. It's raining, very foggy. We were driving over the Whitestone Bridge and we could not see the city at all. Completely foggy. But my friend's plane landed so I picked her up at LaGuardia, came home ready to record the podcast. Get changed, gonna go to Relics, host a little little pre party and we're gonna do a little 28th recap. Just like a short little talk about last night's show that we'll put out at another time before our big recap that we're gonna do later in this week.
- [02:45]
Brian
You are in. We are in very different modes right now because it is the holiday run is loc. You are running around, you are going to events, you are picking people up at the airport, you are probably preparing great plates of cured meats and cheeses and drinks that you've concocted for people. You're hosting galore while going to fish while consumed with whatever fish is doing at the end of the year. I am currently wearing sweatpants. I put on a collared shirt just for the podcast.
- [03:18]
Megan
Thanks. Appreciate that.
- [03:20]
Brian
This is what you guys get at this time of year for me. We just took down our Christmas tree. That was the big project here already.
- [03:27]
Megan
Wow.
- [03:28]
Brian
Yeah, we're. We're a 27th everything is gone type of.
- [03:33]
Megan
Yeah, I get it.
- [03:35]
Brian
I. I embrace Christmas music. I've cultivated a great playlist of great Christmas music and great Christmas albums. So we start Christmas music the Friday after Thanksgiving. We get our tree, we get the house set up. I put the lights up outside, and basically from there until the 27th of Dec, we're in holiday mode. We're watching all the movies. The house is dimly lit. The vibes are all set. We're eating cookies at like 8:30, 9 o' clock at night that you shouldn't be eating. But, like, there's just cookies in the house. So, like, you're gonna eat the cookies. I make all the meals. And then on the 27th, it's like, all right, guys, now it's fish holiday. All this stuff is out. So we let it stay one night. It's all out. And now we get to go cleanly into the new year.
- [04:26]
Megan
I appreciate that. I like the definitive end. We get a little bit of a late start because we celebrate up in the mountains, so we don't get our tree until a little bit later. So we usually let it go through the new year, and then we'll take it down the first weekend in January, usually.
- [04:41]
Brian
Upside down. The weekend of Valentine's Day. That's the official. Wow.
- [04:48]
Megan
Quite a while.
- [04:50]
Brian
Well, it's a full Saturday. Getting them up. Why would I take them down after five weeks?
- [04:56]
Megan
You do have a really nice setup. I've seen that. It looks nice. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. I was really upset because I have this kind of thing I do in the front of the house with, like, boughs of pine and lights, and I wrap them around the stoop, and then half of my lights of that aren't working this morning or this year. And so I literally had half lit and half. Not so frustrating.
- [05:19]
Brian
I get it. I get it. It's challenging. We're getting notes from our producer that I turned in to hear about fish. What is this random ch. No one cares I apologize, Jim Ladd, if this is your first time listening to the podcast. We tend to do about like 30 minutes of drive time radio, just like what's happening Chatter. But we'll get to the program. We do apologize sincerely to you. We didn't want to mess up your December 29th. We are going to be talking about you Enjoy Myself today. Today is our mountain Rushmore. You Enjoy Myself episode. It is our year end Mount Rushmore episode. Our set one conclusion Mount Rushm episode, if you will. We're going to talk briefly about what this series has meant to us, what our thoughts are here. At the end of the first year that we have done this, we got a bunch more songs that like, we've been kicking around about, you know, how do we cover these? When do we cover these? What would be the structure going forward? Maybe we'll think about a few songs that we didn't do this year that that could have fit in as well. Or before we do that and we will go through our four Mount Rushmore. You Enjoy Myself. We will stay on schedule, I promise. Jim, we're here for you. I do want to get your thoughts. Meg, I know you're hosting a 1228 recap show shortly. Give me your two sentence. What was last night's show? What was the highlight for you?
- [06:46]
Megan
I thought it was a good opener. I really like the Wolfmans and the theme. I thought they both had some really hypnotic jamming that I enjoyed. I thought they kind of dipped into it a little bit in Wolfman's. But I thought the theme had some really, really great looping and just some nice hypnotic work from the guys that I was really enjoying. I've listened to it this morning on the drive back, the second set. And yeah, I thought it sounded good. I thought the first Oblivion and Down With Disease, the beginning of the second set, they felt a little searching. I think they were trying to. Felt like they were looking for a place to land in their jamming, but I feel like they really found it. And wolf bands, I mean, I'm sorry, in theme.
- [07:23]
Brian
Yeah, yeah. No, it was an interesting show in the sense that, like, I've kind of come to just accept what a 1228 show tends to be outside. You know, we just did our Fish Holiday Run draft episode and, you know, if you look at what we all picked for 1228, there are some really choice shows out there. The 98 run, the 2020 or excuse me, the 1995 run, the 2003 run, that all kick off with really 1228 shows. Ryan Storm selected the 2021 for some reason. I think it's because I was thinking about this. It was his first ever 1228 show, and so he had to pick it. He probably won't say that, but, you know, we know it's true. So ultimately, 1228 are. They're scattered goods. And I kind of just gotten to the point where, like, I'm just happy that Fish is back for a New Year's Eve run. The break between whenever fall tour ends and the New Year's Eve run, like, that's closed. Like, we're now we're back in, like, this routine. There's just kind of like, it's not the, oh, my God, they're back on stage excitement, it's the, oh, cool. Like, they're. They're back, they're doing their thing. And I kind of expect these 1228 shows to be them figuring out what is going to work for the next couple of nights, specifically the next two nights. Like, you want them to leave this show with a really solid piece of improvisation, some song selections off the table that you don't want to hear later in critical moments of the run. Maybe like, working out some kinks where you're like, okay, they're not going to be working out the kinks on the 29th or the 30th. And then a piece of improvisation that you can walk away from and be like, thematically, that's something they can build on. And I think to all of that, it was an up and down show with some flow issues, especially in the middle of the second set. But what you noted, the Wolfman's Brother and the theme from the bottom, specifically, I was texting with a few buddies that really felt like Fish tapping into natural information society in this. Like, let's set a groove. Let's just harmonize and build off of and churn off of that groove as a. As a collective unit. Nobody stray too far from it, say, a little bit within the groove, but let the groove just kind of guide us. And in both of those jams, they're not. They're not the kind of like, let's race to the ends of the cosmos and see what is, you know, possible and see how far astray from each other we can get. That you hear in some of the more abstract jamming, it's more, let's all lock in and let's stay connected and let's stay tight. And that's a really cool approach. I was really into what both of those jams Said what both of those jams were trying to do. I agree with you. Oblivion and disease felt searching. It felt like to you, to your point, in Wolfman's and in Theme, they just fell into this groove that drove them forward. And Theme from the bottom, that made my list. That's a. That's a really, really nice jam for a 1228 show.
- [10:38]
Megan
Yeah, I agree. I think that Trey did a nice job with his effect pedal. Like it didn't feel too heavy. It felt like he was using it in a really great way. I just felt like that jam. Listening back to theme, it's because it's a groove jam. It's a little bit. It's a little tricky how hard it is to do that well. And I think it can easily seem easier than it is, I think. And I think it's a beautiful jam. I'm excited to listen back to it again and see what they have in store. I mean, last year, tonight I saw my longest fish jam of all time in person outside of a secret set with that Ruby Waves. So last year's. The last two years, 29th shows have been absolute bangers. So no pressure for tonight. No pressure.
- [11:21]
Brian
Three years. Three years 22 has an incredible 29 show. Big fluff head opener into your pet cat.
- [11:30]
Megan
That was so fun. Was that the quadriplegic?
- [11:33]
Brian
No, no. Maybe. I don't know. I don't remember that that happening. But the Ruby waves in the second set. David Bowie in the second set. There's a really good yam in the second set. 29th and 30th of 2022 were both fantastic. 29th of 23, 29th of 24 were both great. So this is one of the bigger nights of the overall year. Yeah, this is one of the bigger. I mean there Nothing for the two of us, nothing gets bigger than 1229 and 1230. This is. I'm a huge sports fan. I'm a huge politics nerd. This is election day and the super bowl. Like if those were back. Huge, huge. Like I.
- [12:20]
Megan
My favorite nights of the year. I'm excited.
- [12:24]
Brian
If we could do 24 hour CNN style coverage of this, we would do it because like there's. There's so much to be said. There's. There's so much we have said and there's so much we have never actually said about these shows. You know what I'm saying? So just looking at our list, our draft last. Last week we had four 1229 shows, four 1230 shows and then two additional 1230 shows were drafted because.
- [12:52]
Megan
It'S the best two nights of fish. Since I don't go to the 28th, I only do the 29th and 30th. I'm fine with the show like last night being like, you know, just like a little bit of a warm up show. Save the goods when I get there.
- [13:04]
Brian
Because last night and last night felt I was texting with a friend following the theme. I was like, okay, we're good. I don't have any concerns. I don't have any worries. Like they figured it out. Yeah, Hindsight, the kind of jams ending early on in set two don't matter as much because they finally connected. And it sounds more like a nice fluid piece in hindsight. Really nice single encore slave to close things out. I'm excited. I'm really excited for tonight. I can't wait to webcast. I can't wait for you to be there. I got a bunch of friends who are there as well. It's a big show for you guys. Covering MSG in full the morning of New Year's Day. We'll, we'll send out links for that. We're going to be talking about MSG 2025 thoughts on 2025 fish. Overall, it should be good. We're very excited about doing that and that will close out 2025 HF pod and 2025 fish. We'll do it properly. Start of 2026. We'll look back and then we'll, we'll move forward. Today though, we are closing out the Mount Rushmore series for 2025. We've been doing this since March when we launched it with Bathtub Gin. We've gone through a number of fish songs throughout the last nine months. We've covered Gin Hood, Light Rock and Roll, MoMA, Dance no Men's Disease, 2001, Karini, ACDC, Bag Sigma, Oasis, Ghost Waves, Ikyulys, Cross Eyed and Painless, Fluff Head, Wave of Hope, Possum Slave, and now you Enjoy Myself. Meg, before we dive into you Enjoy Myself, just what have your thoughts been on this series over the year? Any songs that you have found newfound love for, newfound appreciation for any that prove to be particularly challenging for you?
- [15:12]
Megan
I've really enjoyed this exercise. I think when we originally decided to do this, we had thought about how could we produce really thoughtful content without doing something as challenging as covering a tour a week like we were doing the year before. And this proved almost as time consuming in a way because when you're listening to the same song, you have to listen closer to hear the differences. So if you're listening to an entire tour, you can easily pick out highlights and look at set lists and look at timings and be like, okay, I need to listen to this, this, this, and things kind of pop out because it's so variable when you're listening to say 41 versions of youf Enjoy Myself, you really need to listen closely. And so it's forced me to listen in a way that challenged me and I really loved it. It was really cool to listen to songs chronologically in this way and have them evolve throughout the years and see how some songs have evolved so dramatically and some have stayed really within their container and how some songs really peaked at certain points. And it's kind of a capture of a moment in time for the band. And other songs have been a vehicle that have allowed the band to evolve through them. And I just find that fascinating. And the whole process has been really, really enlightening. I really enjoyed it. I think that some of the songs that I thought I was going to be bored with, I wasn't. You know, some of the songs like obviously Hood, Slave, Yam, they're not boring songs, but they are composed and they are less variable than a lot of the songs, like A Disease or A Ghost, where you're going to have these huge monster jams that go everywhere. And I have really enjoyed these because you really get to distill them down to their essence and think about what makes these songs so important to the Fish canon and so definitive of the Fish experience. And I really like that.
- [17:22]
Brian
Yeah, it's a really good breakdown. I mean, I think I went in of One Mind to the series, which was, yes, that this would allow us to continue to do a project driven show that was not bound to kill us the way that listening to full tours did. But it ends up being a different type of, you know, appreciated torture. Because you live in these songs for, you know, however long you're listening to this and you're kind of going back and you're double checking, you know, you're going through and you're chat, you're. You're challenging yourself of like, what does this song actually mean beyond just the versions that I love? What is to your point? Like some of these songs, we selected versions from like kind of a Tight Window. You know, obviously certain songs like Light are all from the 2010s, because that's a song from the 2010s. But Harry Hood, we have songs all from 93 through 1997 because we really kind of Came to the conclusion, like, that is the definitive peak of this overall song. Whereas something like the Ghost, we have versions from 97 to 2018 because Ghost has gone through a lot of changes. It's adjusted how it's jammed. A song like Cross Eyed, we have versions from 1996 to 2017. Because this is a song that has changed how we think of it. Possum 92 to 95, because that is the very specific slave 94 to 97, this is the very specific window where these songs were the preeminent songs within the Fish canon. I found that part of the process to be really enlightening about how this band both chooses to evolve and evolves just based on what songs are interesting to them during this point in time. It would be interesting to me to hear if a song like Slave to the Traffic Light was debuted in the mid 2010s what it would sound like today. Because you've got to imagine if they approached that song the way that they approach Blaison or Everything's Right or no man in no Man's Land, they would have found the exit point from Slave to the Traffic Light, whereas because of when it peaks in the early to mid-90s, it's at a point where the band was doubling down on the sounds within their songs and kind of expanding those. And so, like a song like Slave, the best versions all sound like Slaves. The Traffic Light, the best version of Possum, all sound like Possum. But some of these other songs, the whole reason you listen to them is the type 2 jamming. So kind of figuring out the difference between that has been really enjoyable. I will say, from a programming standpoint, I don't think we've revealed this, but you Enjoy Myself was going to be a very early song in our overall project here. I think it was going to be in May. And I am usually six songs ahead of you guys listening just based on my listening patterns. And I was deep in you Enjoy Myself, while also deep in trying to understand what spring tour meant. And I think I texted you guys, like, you guys are going to be so overwhelmed by this at this time of year. I can just tell based on how we're all listening, where we're all at, like, it's going to kill us all. Can we just move this to the end of the year?
- [20:51]
Megan
I forgot about that.
- [20:53]
Brian
It's. And the reason I say it is because, like, I felt like we had an entire year of training for the. You Enjoy Myself Totally. And I'll say, like, I. I feel Less confident about this Mount Rushmore than any others that we've done thus far. Say, maybe Down With Disease, because we're leaving off, like, 15 versions that could be on any justified Mount Rushmore. Like, I. There's no way to select four versions of. Of you Enjoy Be like, these are definitive. I think that we. I think our approach came as close as we possibly could. And I'm. I'm really excited for us to talk through it, but I definitely feel coming out of this, like, you give me a slightly different argument for what you enjoy myself means for Fish. And I could give you three additional, you know, versions. There's one that would not leave, but there's like, there's a rotating three. Okay, I could see the argument for that. You know what I'm saying?
- [21:53]
Megan
100%. I agree. This is one of the more challenging ones. I did get overwhelmed a little bit. We talked about it. I think that a song that's as important to Phish, it's kind of the theme song of Phish. It's the emotional core of this band in so many ways. Trey has said it defined the first five years of the band's existence in a lot of ways. And when you're trying to choose the ones that will stand for that, I'm really excited by the decisions we made, because I think it does. We could have easily done what we did for, like, Possum or Hood and had a really tight window because there is definitely a peak year for Yam. But I think by taking a song like Yam and. And putting it through the process we did, I think it's a cooler way to look at the song, especially being that this is so definitive of who Fish is. I'm talking a lot of code, like, maybe we just have to get to it, but, yeah, we're going to get to it.
- [22:59]
Brian
There's one version I'm really excited to talk about that when listening back through. I sent it to a number of good friends who are some of the most trusted people I have in my life about Fish, and they had not yet heard this version. And it's properly celebrated on fish.net on the jam chart. Huge props to them. I've got to imagine when old, old vets were getting into this band in the early to mid-90s, this was a tentpole version. This is a version that deserves more attention and more time listened to. And so I'm excited that we get to highlight it here. What do you have from a stat standpoint about Yen before we get started?
- [23:44]
Megan
Well, this Song was written by Trey in 1985 while he was vacationing and performing as a street musician with Fishmen in Europe. I love this story because I also went to Europe when I was 19 and I was following Fish when I was doing that. And so I've always loved this parallel that they were in Europe when they were in college, just like I was, and that I was following them. And so I've always loved thinking of them writing that. There is a very kind of weird, cartoony vocal outing of youf Enjoy Myself on the White Tape. And that was debuted in 1986, but the song debuted live with the band on February 3, 1986 at Hunts in Burlington. And this version was 10 minutes long. So they're already kind of where they want to be with YAM when they debut it live. It's usually composed of five segments or sections. An opening composed section, a section featuring the lyrics. Then there's the part when Paige drives the jam and the Tramp section. There's a jam segment, a bass and drum segment, and the vocal jam. And the opening is really complex. It has evolved through the years, become really spacey and ethereal at times, sometimes including a bass solo from Mike and sometimes it's stretched out to 10 minutes. I love when the intro to Yam gets stretched out. So fun. Then we have the lyrics in the Tramp section. And this first happened that Mike and jumped on the mini trampolines on May 20, 1989. So they've been doing that for so long. I love thinking about this song being so early in the band and them already doing these fun things, figuring things.
- [25:19]
Brian
Out within the song that make unique and like, make them worth coming back to that, you know, little oddities like, are able to be dropped into the song in a way that will be expanded.
- [25:29]
Megan
Yes. And it's so indicative of whose Fish is. I remember when I was in Europe watching them open for Santana in. I think that was in Italy. They, the Tramps got rolled out for yam and everybody was like. All these Italian people were thinking like, what is this? What is this band doing? And we were just jumping like so excited, jumping with them. And it was just who the band is is this funny, playful band. Then we have the jam section, which is very widely. When you think about the early jam sections of yam, it's usually a tray led solo. But now it's much more full group improv. And Trey sometimes likes to take a minute to dance on stage during these. And it's often a reflection of the band's current improv style. Then, of course, we have the drum and bass section, and that was a regular part of yam from, like, 1988 to 1996. And it kind of comes and goes now. And then 1989 is the beginning of the vocal jam. And I didn't know this, but I was reading this on fish.net, that the idea for the vocal improv came from a former voice teacher of the band who suggested they infuse their singing with some of the energy created by playing their instruments. So whoever that guy is or woman, I'm just. I'm not a fan. No, thank you. I've listened to so many vocal jams in the past two weeks that I'm good. I'm good with vocal jams. My favorite versions of the song, all of my notes are, like, not that offensive vocal jam, because that's really the best you can hope for that. It's not going to be offensive. But there's a really great breakdown of each section with times on fish.net, that Charlie wrote in the 90s. And you can kind of look that up if you want to get more into it. But this has been played 622 times, and there are 202 jam chart entries, so it has a 32% chance of jamming. Brian curated 41 versions for HF pod top versions, and there are seven live bait versions, but only two of those are after 1995.
- [27:35]
Brian
Yeah. This is a wonderful breakdown of each segment. Do you. Do you have a section of you enjoy Myself. You prefer over the others?
- [27:46]
Megan
I mean, I'm always here for the jam. I love how the. How the tramp section kind of leads into the jam. I like it when it's, like, really funky, dancy, classic Yam during the tramp section, and then it leads into this, like, really killer jam that starts off really energetic and then goes somewhere totally different. But I really am a fan of the trend lately of cutting the vocal short, the vocal jam super short, and then coming back into the jam and picking up that kind of classic yam jam. I love that.
- [28:19]
Brian
It's interesting. Yeah, No, I. And I love that approach. That is something it made listening to this project or this specific song actually, I think a lot more challenging than it would have been five years ago, because there are a lot of versions from the 2020s that you absolutely have to hear now to understand where Yem has gone from an evolutionary standpoint of what they're still trying to say with Yem. And it's funny and what I'm about to say. I don't know if our producer is still hanging out in the chat, but I might get ripped apart for what I'm about to say, which is not the first time it's happened. So, you know, I. I'm happy for it. But this is. This is the one song we've done this year where the more I listen to it, the less I wanted to hear the jam, because.
- [29:09]
Megan
Interesting.
- [29:11]
Brian
At the end of the day, this jam is kind of just white funk vamping. It's a lot of that. There are subversions, which we're going to talk about that, that get beyond that, but when they just stay in the yem jam mode, it's a lot of just, like, throw on the wah pedal. Let's vamp for five minutes, and then let's go into the vocal gym.
- [29:33]
Megan
I like that, though, because I like to dance.
- [29:37]
Brian
I thought I liked it. And then I listened to 41 versions, and I was like, I don't think I really like this as much as I thought I did. It does get a little. Yeah, it feels a little like a movie that has, you know, 15 minutes left, and then the director adds an additional 20 minutes, and you're suddenly like, where are we at right now? What is going on right now? Right now, like, every movie since, I don't know, 2015. The. The vocal jam, I'm definitely much more open to than you are. We've definitely. We've talked about this on air. We've talked about this personally. And you describing it as a, like, specific exercise makes a lot of sense to me. I hadn't read that. Just the fact that, like, you guys are already so prolific with your instruments. Why don't you try to work on your vocals while doing what you're already really good at? From an instrumentation standpoint, I think that there are some really great vocal jams. They are few and far between, I will give you that. I'm a huge fan of the 10 7, 2001, which, like, you can hear the band just not wanting to sing the last note because the last note means that whatever they've built is ending, and it's a really beautiful and sad version. That said, I'm definitely, like, into the idea of the band cutting off the vocal jam and adding another jam segment, especially with what they've been able to do in recent versions, because I think that what the vocal jam was from an exercise standpoint has probably worn out. Like, at this point in time, like, they don't need to. They don't need to prove anything with that. It was, it was much more impactful in the 90s. All that's to be said, I found the intro, and specifically the Nirvana segment is probably my favorite part of this song and probably my favorite part of listening back through all these versions. And there are so many versions in the mid-90s where the band is playing so fast but so tight that they get through all the segments perfectly.
- [31:40]
Megan
And.
- [31:41]
Brian
And they can kind of do the thing that they do in the, like, 11, 14, 95 stash, where they can kind of mess around within the composition of these songs and kind of give you different tones, sometimes staccato, sometimes an extended mic segment. But when you get to the Nirvana segment, it's the band, like, at the top of their game, realizing what they can do with time and space and patience. And I love that. So I love that.
- [32:09]
Megan
But yeah, I found some killer versions.
- [32:12]
Brian
I was really expecting, like, 30 great yem jams where I'd be like, wow. Like, you know the way you feel when you watch the Godfather where you're like, okay, okay, this is the best. Yeah, it's like, you know, the Godfather 1 and 2. Like, everyone says it's the best. And then you rewatch it, you know, maybe it's been like five, 10 years. You're a little cynical going in, like, is it really? Or is this just what everyone says? And you watch and you're like, okay, I, I. No argument for me there. And 100% yam is the fish song. Like, unquestionably the Fish song. But I was shocked by how mid-90s wetlands the funk jamming sounded. You know, we both just read Sharon in the Groove. Like, I spent a lot of time listening to, like, 90s jam bands as a result of reading that book. And, like, a lot of them are super fun. They do have deficiencies when it comes to expanding beyond the funk jam. That's, like, the biggest limitation for a lot of jam bands. For me, Fish always broke beyond that. And when you listen to Fish playing, like a mid-90s yam art, you're like, okay, you guys kind of are that same band.
- [33:28]
Megan
But yeah, I mean, I think, though, what's interesting is that this isn't really a jam vehicle. Like, I think 30% on the jam charts is super generous. And I think it also has a lot to do with the intro because the jam part of it rarely goes anywhere huge except for when it does. But I think that there's even the versions we're going to talk about, the ones that go pretty, like, far afield in the jam are so incredible what they find. But those are definitely the exceptions to the rule with yam.
- [34:09]
Brian
Yes. Which I think we're gonna. We're gonna share. Should we share our first yam Rushmore? Have we. We've done our Christmas chatter. We've done our MSG Night one chatter. We've done our what is you, myself mean chatter. Is there any other banter we need to get through before we give you our four Rushmores?
- [34:28]
Megan
I don't think so. I'm so excited for this first one, too.
- [34:32]
Brian
Why don't you kick us off with the first one? Because this was. I will just quickly intro this, that this was one I loved and I had in my honorable mentions. I did not have the courage to put this in my potential top four. Meg threw it in her top four convinced me that this was the right move to go to. And this kind of sets up where we go with yem. So. So we're going to get. We're going to kick things off with a curveball. Why don't you go first?
- [35:01]
Megan
Yeah. This is not. No one mentioned this in the chat. As we've been talking about on Socials, as we've been talking about yam and the best versions. And it surprised me. I don't know that I'd ever heard it before, which is crazy, but I got into fish in 94 90, late 93 94, and I had never heard this version before. And it's the second to last song in the second set of a show in 1991, and it takes place at Dartmouth, and it's 1124 91. And it is an absolutely thrilling version. It demonstrates how powerful this song was to the band in their first decade. Unbelievable contributions from everyone. They sound so locked in and collaborative. It is super tight, it's super crisp. And the swell in the jam in 12 minutes in is so unbelievably tight and awesome. The way that Paige is playing the organ throughout the whole first half of this jam, he just sounds absolutely possessed. And I think that page on the organ is so quintessential yam. And this is the perfect example of it. And the peak is so massive and so bright. It's just pure joy. Absolute ownership from Trey. It's that early 90s look at what I can do. I'm so good on this guitar, Trey. And then after the swell, it gets really quiet. And it, to me, is a little bit of ahead of its time in terms of dynamics. When I think of this type of dynamics, I think of like 93, 94. But this 91 version is so dynamic. They get super quiet and then they build it back up again, and then they get quiet again before the jam. And it's just the vocal jam. Excuse me. And it is. If you have never heard this or if it's been a while, put this on, it's going to just blow you away, I think.
- [37:03]
Brian
Yeah. I mean, I think that one of the challenges for a lot of people when they go back to listen to, let's call it 89 to 92 fish is Paige's piano. And the fact that, like, the kind of swell of sound that we would get when they would move into theaters and amphitheaters and arenas, that really defines Fish's sound. You know, it's. It is like this propulsive arena rock sound. You don't get as much in the early 90s and the late 80s, plus a lot of set lists that read as slight deviations of the night before and two nights before that. You know, they're very much. There's a huge structure in place. And the shame in that is that the band was so young and so fast and so tight and starting to discover what they could do. And you get versions like this. And so a jam like this that may not have gotten talked about in recent years may have passed a lot of people by, is very, very clear proof of why listening to the 89 to 92 period is so rewarding, even if it feels rote and repetitive at times like that. This version had a very similar impact on me when I listened to it in this series. I. I don't know if I'd heard this before. I am very proud of my 80s fish listening. I'm very proud of my 1992 fish listening. @ some point in the future, I will be doing a dedicated 89 and 91 project, because there's a lot. There's still gaps, there's still gaps. And this was probably a gap for me, but listening to this version, the reason why I said all that is that this sounds like 1993, 1994, 1995 fish. Just without the gear, without the technology, without the stadium. It's clearly there. And this is one of those. Like, my. My biggest note for this was there are better versions to come in 92 to 94, to be sure. But the template is set. And that, I think, is why we wanted to have this be the first version on our Mount Rushmore. The template for what a great yam is is set with this Version you will hear variations of kind of the Waiting so Long jam, the Tweezer Reprise type of groove. These like cherry picking of songs, you know, songs within our catalog, songs that influence us but you may not be aware of, and throwing those into jams and then kind of messing around with the chords and the keys and the pacing of those and letting those types of. Of teases almost impact where the jam is going to go. That's a lot of what we're going to hear from fish through summer 94. Yeah, you know, like by fall 94 they're going to start really relying on in the moment improvisation and where that's going to take them. Obviously there's some carryover throughout, you know, their history. They'll always do self referential stuff. They'll always do kind of COVID referential stuff. But like that being a focus of jamming really dies down in fall 94. But here in late 1991 and via you Enjoy Myself, you can hear that this is clearly where the band is going to take the next step. Teases, you know, infusion of our own songs into the jamming. That's going to push the band.
- [40:32]
Megan
Forward. Yeah, I felt like it was really important to have like you're saying, a template set for this song and a really early version. You know, obviously there are some unbelievable versions that we're going to skip over because we chose this one that come a few years later. But there's something so pure about this version. It is kind of the quintessential perfect yam. In the same way that we wanted to do that when we had Slave and Hood too. You need like the kind of basic perfect example of that song before you see where it goes off. And this to me is the version that rocked me the most when I listened to it. And thank goodness we have re listened so we can hear it. And thank goodness the Tapers taped this for.
- [41:17]
Brian
Us. Big shout out, Ed. Guessing it won't make Rushmore, but 111691 is worth a shout out ahead, another ahead of its time jam. Real group stuff. Very good. That is the Ms. Mr. P or excuse me, Mrs. Pizza. Shit. Yeah, from Washington D.C. that is a fantastic.
- [41:36]
Megan
Version. So good. I love Mike in that version. He's so.
- [41:39]
Brian
Good. Exactly. Yeah, Mike is amazing. And it really just shows like there's. There's a need for a deeper dive into fall of 91 because clearly there's a lot happening here at this point in time as the band is, you know, they're on the grind that they've been on since 1989, where they're circling the country three or four times, going to all the colleges. They're right in the middle of that. The. And it's a very interesting point because they're not. They can't yet see that Madison Square Garden is possible, but they know that whatever they're doing is working. And that's a really exciting point in time. Like George W. Bush as president. Exactly. The template is set. You serve your terms, you do your thing, you don't campaign, and then at the end, you say, it's time for someone else. Good or bad, it's time for someone else. That's the fucking template. You know, that's what we're setting. All right, let's move on to our second. You enjoy myself and this one. So I feel like with all of these, we're gonna have to, like, qualify and give you guys all this, like, detailed breakdown because this was really freaking.
- [42:52]
Megan
Hard. So.
- [42:54]
Brian
Hard. So there's an argument to be made, and I think we almost made it, that you just pick an August 93A94 and two 95S and call.
- [43:07]
Megan
It.
- [43:08]
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- [43:39]
Lawrence Lanahan
Responsibly. This is Lawrence Lanahan, journalist, musician, and host of Rearranged, an Osiris Media podcast about music arranging. Once a song is written, arrangers make musical decisions that shape how we end up hearing the song. And we're not just talking about adding orchestral accompaniment like horns and strings, or doing a cover version of a song. Arrangement can be putting happy music over dark lyrics, using samples, recording all acoustic, even tiny decisions like putting an electronic loop into an acoustic song to draw your attention to an important turn of phrase. It's all arranging. Rearranged Episodes are documentary essays where I use arrangements to answer some big questions like what is a song and what can a song become? And how can the sound of a song change the meaning you take from it? Listening this way has changed my relationship with music. Tune in to Rearranged and maybe it'll happen for you too. Learn.
- [44:42]
Brian
More@Rerangedpodcast.Com Osiris. With a if, if, if this. If these were the jams tacked on to a different Fish song, I think we could do that. But because it's you Enjoy Myself. Because it's a song that like. It was clearly a traumatic moment for the band when they messed up the intro on 1303 and then again on 3609. It was pretty clear why they played it in a nondescript spot on the first night of Coventry. Because they just had to move like they had to just get past. They couldn't have it be the thing hanging over their heads that they could mess up at the end of the festival. It was. There's a clear reason it was the last song played in 1.0. There's a clear reason during early 3.0, every two shows for like a three year period in time, you gotta you Enjoy Myself to close the second set. Every run seemed to close the undrawn myself. For the longest time, this has been the Fish song. And Trey called it the Fish song. He said at one point, you know, in prison he would do bodily harm to himself just to have the chance to play you Enjoy Myself with his bandmates. Again, like this song defines the band. So it.
- [45:54]
Megan
Requires. You said that in a very respectful way, Brian. Nice.
- [45:57]
Brian
Job. This is a children program, you know. Yeah. Family friendly here. As long as we stay on topic. Have to stay on.
- [46:06]
Megan
Topic. Yes, we'll.
- [46:08]
Brian
Try. We'll try. Because of what you Enjoy Myself is we had to give you a smattering across. So this version, I'm going to say, is our lone 94, 95 representation. Deep breath. I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 versions alone from 94 and 95 in my honorable mentions. Like this is. This is really. I have a lot.
- [46:38]
Megan
Too. I kept like starring all of the ones because it's just. Yeah. I mean, 1995, I think, is the absolute peak year VM when it's just absolutely. So many versions are just absolutely incredible. And I think 94 has unbelievable versions too. So it's. It's hard to nail, to narrow this down. But I think Fish is a band about evolution. And so if you're going to choose the Fish song and talk about its Mount Rushmore, you have to show its.
- [47:07]
Brian
Evolution. Exactly. And so with that, our second Mount Rushmore, you enjoy myself is 1031, 1995 from the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, Illinois, venue that I know very well. I've seen many Many shows there. I saw my first Fish show there in 2003. It is a complete dump in the sweetest way possible. And the Ban played their Halloween show that year covering Quadrophenia, and they came out for the third set and they opened the third set with a 40 minute version of you Enjoy Myself jam charted with here at all costs. You up in the ass vocal jam. This is not just a long, bloated version of a jam vehicle. This is a combination of everything the band has been working through for the past year within their statement song. It is wild, it is far reaching, it is pretty relentless. It is unafraid to go to places that I think a lot of other bands would just completely avoid on a night like this. Like a holiday spectacle show, it is pushing the music further just to see what's around the corner, just to see what's there. Maybe it'll scare everyone, maybe it'll lead to something brilliant. Who knows? But just that, that, that, that journey which, which I think for us, that that is the thing that excites us the most about Fish. So many years later, you get that within this, it is sprawling, it is relentless. It is. It is a band that, that, you know, they've just played one of the tightest rock albums of all time and they nailed it. And it really says a lot about, like, where they're going with their sound. But then 30 minutes later they come out on stage and they say, well, let's just go free jazz again. And that combination of that 95 energy and consistency and, you know, connectivity around like a raging groove in an arena will be combined over the next two months to create probably two of the strongest months that the band has ever played. That exploration plus that energy, that tenacity, that all is here within this show. And, and this is a version that, like, I hate when I'm about to say, I recommend listening to every 19, 95, 94, 95 and even 96 version of you enjoy myself. Those fall 90 versions, like 11, 19, stunning stuff, but if you had to just hear one, this is the one that I would.
- [50:09]
Megan
Hear. Yeah, I think this is the greatest version of you Enjoy Myself that's ever been played. It is epic. It's narrative, exploratory, effortless. To me it sounds like it's being driven by the muse. Like the music feels like it's playing the band. You can get completely lost in this jam. This is like, like the Providence Bowie of yem. It has like a cool, bluesy end to it and the vocal jam is like, whispering and funny and it's great. Yeah, this is. This version's amazing, and I don't think anybody is surprised that it's on our list, but I think it. It is good to stand in for what the band was doing in 94 and 95, which is pushing the.
- [50:50]
Brian
Boundaries. Exactly. Even as Ed here says, you could have a Mount Rushmore of 95 yams and you could. I mean, like, this is my Honorable mention from 94 to 96. 11, 23, 94, 6, 29, 95, 10, 14, 95, 11, 18, 95. I'm going to pause there to not give away what we are not going to include before.
- [51:14]
Megan
People. Yeah.
- [51:15]
Brian
Exactly. Really start revolting against.
- [51:18]
Megan
Us. I mean, there's so many good ones. You have, like, Red Rocks, 94. Great Woods, 94. The Fox in 94. I mean, Jones Beach 95 is awesome. The Austin 95 version is great. Like, there's so many great versions before this.
- [51:33]
Brian
Tons. This one just. This has everything that you would want within all of those. And then it's maximalized even further. It's an amazing jam. It's an amazing version. 11, 14, 95. Very good version. Maybe the best second set closer ever. I mean, that is. Having that yem in the same set as that stash really says a lot about where Fish was at in 1995. And I. The argument I have for this is that this jam is part of the, like, key template setting of where Fish is going to go throughout November, December 1995, and where they're going to continue pushing as we move forward, which we will do once we get back from a very quick break. All right, so we have crowned two Rushmore. You enjoy myself. We have crowned 1124, 1991, and 1031. 1995. We are making a pretty drastic decision here again, and I'm going to give it to Meg to make this decision and announce it to our audience and explain our rationale for why we are skipping a few versions of Yam and jumping ahead a couple of years to another.
- [52:56]
Megan
Version. Yeah, I'll explain. Basically, we had two 95s on this list for a long time. And the second 1995 version, we had no surprise to anyone from one of the greatest Fish shows of all time that someone really smart drafted last week. And that is 1231, 95. You know, it's. Duh. This is unbelievable, this version. The playing from Trey in this version is absolutely insane. But we didn't put it on here because we decided we really wanted to show, like, we Were speaking about earlier, the evolution of the song and how the song has come to define or demonstrate where the band is in their improvisation. And so we are skipping ahead to some of my favorite Fish ever, which is summer 1997. It is.
- [53:55]
Brian
Just. Now you. Now you tell me that this is the reason that we're doing.
- [53:59]
Megan
It. Yeah, yeah. I might have kept that a little bit from Brian, but, you know, summer 97, man, there's just something about it. And it is so filled with swagger and joy and the discovery of a new love. You know, that's what summer 97 sounds like to me. And you hear them playing the funk in this version at shoreline from July 31, 1997, that is really embodies the way that they would play funk in a way that isn't going to offend Brian. That is going to be really smart and groove oriented and sophisticated and joyful and really just about locking into that groove. And this version doesn't even have a bass and drum section. It is just pure, pure groove. And you put this on, you're just gonna feel.
- [54:55]
Brian
Good. Yeah. I mean, for me, as we set our thesis for what yout Enjoy Myself was, the big thing that gets me is as Phish shifts, so does Yem. By the summer of 97, they are a very different band than they were in the fall of 1995. And we hear certain decisions being made, certain songs go away. Tweezer is basically gone for the majority of 1997, save for a couple versions here and there. Susie Greenberg's gone. A lot of Phish songs, a lot of Fish tropes that defined the band throughout their rise into late 1996 are gone as the band is trying to reinvent what it means to be Fish. A song like youe Enjoy Myself isn't necessarily gone. It's a little bit more scattered in the versions that are played. But when it appears, it really showcases the way that Fish has changed. They're locked here in a minimalistic funk jamming space which just showcases demand and constant evolution. And this now redefines like you Enjoy Myself has a chance here at this point in time to kind of be retired as the Fish song. It has carried them through. What you said about, like, the first five years of Fish are defined by you Enjoy Myself. The jamming style and the breaking out from that kind of funk vamping is. Is starting, like, by 94, 95, 96, they're starting to figure out different avenues outside of you Enjoy Myself. But as they're going through a conscious reinvention during this period in time. There's a real clear argument to be made that Fish could have. And I'm not advocating for this, but maybe should have shelved you Enjoy Myself as they're trying to reinvent because it sounds so much like Younger Fishes, you know, every time it's played. But you get a version like this and. And most of These versions from 1997, 11, 28, 97 is an excellent example of this, where 7, 9. 97 is another excellent example of this, where the band is figuring out within youn Enjoy Myself. What can we do to shift and evolve and allow this song to push us forward while allowing ourselves to push this song forward forward. So you get really interesting jamming decisions that are made within here. You get things like the Santa Claus Is Coming to Town tease that, like, turns into a strange, you know, jam segment within. It's very hypnotic. It's very like they're in this locked in minimalistic groove, not unlike what we heard last night in the Theme.
- [57:34]
Megan
Autumn. I was just thinking that, yeah, like, this.
- [57:37]
Brian
Is. This is like 97 and 2025 fish meeting each other. But you hear the band and applying the lessons that they have been working through within the previous 12 months, basically since Remain In Light and applying them to youo Enjoy Myself in a really systematic way. I think without where youe Enjoy Myself will go, which we'll talk about here with the next version, but without where it's going to go, a version like this doesn't resonate as much. Maybe, like, maybe, maybe if, like, we don't get the great 4.0 versions, we're not looking to a version like this. But I think that what this version says about Fish is that they are going to push forward a song like this. It's not just going to stay as a 1990s song the way that Slave or Possum.
- [58:30]
Megan
Have. Absolutely. And it's going to be a vehicle for whatever their improvisational style is at the moment. And I think that that's important to.
- [58:41]
Brian
Highlight. Absolutely. It's also a killer version and so fun. And then we get this outstanding second set, Runaway Gym, as well. This is a show that it just. It needs to be released. Why have we not yet released 731 97? I don't.
- [59:00]
Megan
Understand. I don't.
- [59:01]
Brian
Know. All right, we got one more version. Now. This is kind of the last big decision that we had to make, which was, do we talk about you Enjoy myself beyond the 90s, or do we keep it as a 90s Rushmore? The debate Here is essentially that since definitely since 1024, 21, the band has looked at you Enjoy Myself as a current channel vehicle. And versions that we had on our larger list were 1024-218722-83024 and 42725. Those are four really fantastic versions of you Enjoy Myself. That prior to the 4.0 era, not knowing that those versions would come along and be standout jams within their respective years, you Enjoy Myself was becoming something of like an aging classic rock star where you go to hear the hits and you don't expect much more. But what you Enjoy Myself has done in the 2020s is not unlike what Bob Dylan has done since releasing Time out of Mind, where you suddenly have to reconsider this artist during a late period in their career, because now these records that are coming out impact the way that you hear the great records that they wrote in their 20s. The difference there, you know, the Beatles are a 60s band because there are no Beatles records beyond the 60s. The only albums that matter, obviously, are the 60s albums. If the Beatles somehow survived and put out an incredible record in the 2010s Akin with. With Tempest or Triplicate or Rough and Rowdy ways, we would look at Revolver and Stars and Peppers in a very different way. It's. It's a. It's a strange thing. I think up until 4.0, there was one way really to look at you Enjoy Myself, and that was it was. It is the Fish song. But it is no longer at the frontier of where Fish is going from a jamming standpoint. Now, when you hear you Enjoy Myself tonight or tomorrow, there is a really good chance that it's going to be one of the highlights of the show. It will probably be dropped in an unconventional space. They will probably do a cool jam segment, do the vocal jam, and then come back in with another jam segment. So all of this is a roundabout way of saying we really considered a 4.0 version for this because of what the band, what the song means for the band. However, there's a version that we ultimately settled on. And settling is not the nicest way to say it, because I love this.
- [61:47]
Megan
Version. I love this.
- [61:49]
Brian
Version. I love this version a.
- [61:50]
Megan
Lot. Love.
- [61:52]
Brian
It. This version, to me, says where the band will go with this song. It just took them a couple of decades to get there. And that is from the palace at Auburn Hills 12 to 1999, thus cementing you enjoy myself as a 90s Mount Rushmore. But I think with good reason, yeah, this Version. To me, the thing that really signifies why this song should be on our list is the fact that everything that Fish is going to do with yam for the next 25 years is coded. In this tragically beautiful and haunting jam, the band figures out a way outside of the funk, vamping into new melodies, new keys, new tones of which how to describe whatever in the hell wash your feet and drive me to frenzy is supposed to mean from a coded standpoint. Like, that vibe of this song is now transferred into the chords that they find in here that ultimately lead into a really gorgeous little drummer boy. But like the. The. The jamming style within this hints at different places the band is going to go in. Not as much 2.0, but really when they get back on their feet in mid 3.0, like 2012, 2013, where melody becomes a much bigger part of the jam. It's not so much about noise and experimentation. It's more about can these guys connect around a melody, build that up, find another melody within there, and take that forward. A lot of the jamming styles I think we hear in modern day Fish are kind of rooted in a jam like this that feels both of its time in 1999, but also really forward.
- [63:40]
Megan
Thinking. Absolutely. You know, Brian and I love indie rock, and this is the indie rock version. Like, it is just. It's so gauzy and layered and juicy, and they're. How they're singing at the ends. Like, I kept playing this on loop today when I was driving back because it's just so beautiful. It just has this like. Like droning quality. Yeah, it's just so pretty how they're. Like. This repetitive melody is just absolutely stunning. It's one of those places that you find yourself with Fish when they've landed on something that sounds like it's been written already and the jam has released. You know, it just sounds composed and it's. It sounds like an indie rock song. It's amazing. And the jam has a satisfying ending to it, too. And then it leads into this vocal jam that's really soft, but then, of course, becomes a little silly. And Fish is singing I will make love to you on my drum. And it's just so funny, but it's also not aggressively annoying. It's kind of sweet and funny, and it just has, like this perfect, understated quality. You know, the millennial sound that Fish was so locked into in the 99 to me, has always been one of my favorites because it's so sophisticated and it's so effortless and when you listen to this jam, it just sounds like a band that just knows what they're doing. I was listening to Beach House this week and I was thinking about.
- [65:11]
Brian
How like very, very beach house coated.
- [65:13]
Megan
Right when we talk about like 2012 and 13 fish was. Trey was listening to all that you hear. This sounds like a predecessor to that. It sounds like a beach House jam and I absolutely love it. I think if you had to take one segment of all of these jams that was my favorite, I think that would be out of all of the four versions we've chosen. I think that segment in the middle of this jam is my.
- [65:39]
Brian
Favorite. Well, I think that that is one of the challenging aspects of doing the yam Rushmore is when I look at my larger list, I think my favorite segments, it's absolutely this part of 629.95. Part of the groove is in the heart 11 1996, where you hear the combo between goofy cover referential Fish and the forward thinking and minimalistic groovefish. 10-10-99 has a really beautiful version. And then 10 24, 21, the second jam from the Forum, which I definitely considered even in spite of my, you know, avoidance of attendance bias within the Mount Rushmore selection. But what it ultimately comes down to is that the, the segment from 12299 is the most. You referenced Beach House. I I, to me it sounds like Deer Hunter as well. Like the, the 2000s, early 2000s indie rock kind of revival that almost like fusion of electronic with baroque, like, you know, well, classically trained musicians who are rooted in the minor key when they're writing songs. Bands like, like Grizzly Bear, bands like the national, you know, Deer Hunter, Beach House. Like when I think of like my dream scenario of an indie band that jams which, you know, Goose still tries to maintain that they will one day be the jury is is increasingly further and further.
- [67:25]
Megan
Out. We'll see, I don't know, indie groove.
- [67:28]
Brian
Band. Indie groove, sure, sure. That fusion of indy and jam you hear in 12, 299. And it also for the Fish aspect, like I said earlier, it to me sounds like the band figuring out 25 years early. How are we going to take this song further? Obviously in 1999, their focus is on Big Cypress. And this is a band that's about to go on hiatus and is about to break up and go through a really traumatic period. From a personal standpoint, they're not thinking about the 2020s and how they're going to play this song. But when you feel hear them jamming yem now it does not sound like them jamming yem in 1995. It sounds like them jamming yem in the palace of Auburn Hills on 12th June 99 to.
- [68:12]
Megan
Me. Yeah, I'm glad you highlighted that forum version from 102421 because that would would have been my 4.0 choice. Just because of how sophisticated and jazzy and how that lead up to Sci Fi Soldier, how great they were playing on that tour. It's just, just the. They were balancing like using effects and growling ness and then also just having a, you know, space funk dance party. So it was. I love that version. People haven't listened to that in a while. It's fun one show music.
- [68:46]
Brian
Today. Pretty blown away going back and listening to that. It got the asterisk in the HM of like are we actually going to put this as Because I have very vivid memories of watching that version and being really blown away. Like there's a lot of shock in that. And that weekend I saw Phoenix Mix Chula and then the forum, like you're just seeing fish like play at such a high level and then you take a step back and you listen to it with like kind of the historical perspective and you're suddenly just like, oh my God, is this one of the best weekends of fish of all time? So I mean that's, that's a topic for a different day. You've all heard us talk gush about fall 2021, but yes, we definitely considered that life. Boy 7 here says there's something about that millennial sound in December 1999. We talked about that in our winter 99 top 25 tours. Like they, they, they play the same style over and over again, but it's so few shows and in such a condensed period in time that you kind of don't care like they and it's so good, right? Like this sound is in the limb by limb the next night in a split open and melt in the tweezer from Raleigh. In so many other jams there's a bunch of sands with the Haley's from Portland. Like I could go on but you don't care that it's the same sound over and over again because it's just. It's locked in. It's so haunting. It's so. It's so beautiful in the saddest way possible. I I love that sound and I, I can't get enough of it. So our you enjoy myself are 112491 from Dartmouth College 103195 from the Rosemont Horizon now, I think still the Allstate Arena. I don't.
- [70:33]
Megan
Know. I haven't been back in a very long.
- [70:36]
Brian
Time. Fish is playing. Oh no, they played the United center now. Jesus. My God. They've even. They've moved up 73197 from shoreline and 12299 from the palace at Auburn Hills. Just shy of two years removed from a stunning second set from the palace that whenever we get around to a tweezer Rushmore, we'll probably be on there. Hint, hint. Any regrets about this list? Any thoughts about this before we.
- [71:04]
Megan
Jump? No, I'm really proud of it. I think we debated the 97. That was probably our biggest risk, I think. But I'm super proud of this and I feel like highlighting a version that not many people may have heard of from 91 or have heard of and haven't listened to in a long time is. Is one of the reasons we wanted to do this series. So I'm really proud of.
- [71:22]
Brian
It. Yeah, I think that one of the things with a series like this is you have to identify a couple of the versions that everyone is going to be thinking about because you don't want to go too off base. But we didn't select 12 9, 95. And you and I didn't get in a fight about that. And the audience hasn't revolted about that. They've revolted about all the things. Things, but not about that, you know, And I'm actually, I'm really proud of you guys out there for not revolting about 129 95, because I consulted with a few friends and said like, am I putting myself up for jam ban crucifixion? And they, they were like, no, I think. I think you should go with where your heart is. You have good rationale here. I think we made the right call. I also, as we're talking about it, there's like 17 other versions that we could have put in here. This was a very, very difficult Rushmore. Probably the hardest of the year, I think.
- [72:16]
Megan
So. Yeah. And I think not having 123195 is tough for me, but I do think that it's better to have a larger variation and you know, it tells the story of the band. And I think that's what we wanted to do here with.
- [72:28]
Brian
Yem. Well, we haven't talked about that, but that was the last we were debating 1231.95 or 73197. And our rationale was essentially in any other situation, the 123195 yam is one of the greatest gems that, that you've heard during probably the greatest show the band has ever played. And it comes so late in the show. It's so impressive. It closes out this massive year of Yam, but what difference does it tell us between 1031 and 731 97? So this was a hard one. This and Disease were the hardest for me this year. There were so many different directions we could go, but I'm proud of this. We will be pausing Rushmore for the time being. We'll be coming back with it as it is right now. But this was a really good 10 month project that I'm excited to do again at some.
- [73:26]
Megan
Point. Absolutely. I learned so much and really enjoyed building out these lists and making live Fish playlists with all these versions and going to re listen and pulling up ones I hadn't heard in so long and, and it's really cool to listen to the same song throughout the years with Phish. That's a band that you can really watch them evolve through songs in a way that's really particular to.
- [73:50]
Brian
Them. We should definitely put out a list of all of our current Rushmores for 2025 because if you're looking for a playlist of great jams to listen to, some Big Fish songs and four great versions from east east, you know, you could, you can listen through them, take notes about what we got wrong, what we got right, you know, all that sort of.
- [74:12]
Megan
Stuff. I'll make a public version of our spreadsheet and put it.
- [74:15]
Brian
Out. Perfect. Well, thank you all for hanging with us here this morning as we talked through you enjoy myself and you know, quick update on holiday jams, holiday vibes, all that good stuff. Hope everyone has a great 1229 and 1230. As a reminder, we will be back on New Year's Day, New Year's morning. To recap, MSG talk about fish 2025. Hope you guys all have a wonderful remainder of the 2025 year and of your holiday run. We will see you all.
- [74:50]
Megan
Soon. Thanks everyone. Have fun.
- [74:52]
Brian
Tonight. Sam.