Welcome to MJM #169, presented by Phish.net! As usual, this week's winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip. Each person gets one guess per day, with the second “day” starting after I post the hint. A hint will be posted on Tuesday Wednesday if necessary, with the answer to follow on Wednesday Thursday. Good luck!

Answer: Well, that went a whole lot faster than I'd anticipated. A mere 90 minutes after being posted, @PersnicketyJim wins his first MJM in impressive fashion by IDing the 11/16/94 Stash, making this the first in the last three Stash MJMs to result in a Blog loss.

As many of you are aware, the Mockingbird Foundation has produced two volumes of The Phish Companion to date with a third volume on its way. In other words, my collaborators and I are to some standard or another fairly accomplished in the field of literary works about the band Phish. Although these works are predominantly fact based, there is a certain amount of leeway that is inherent in writing about the art of another. Art, whether it be visual, auditory, theatrical, or literary, can be experienced both objectively and subjectively. It is almost impossible to separate one from the other. Add social media to the mix and stir in a little bit of the natural tendency toward competition and the whole notion of crowdsourcing the quality of a given piece of art tends to become far too personal and self-serving. I therefore find myself in a predicament as I attempt to launch what will become a sporadic yet semi-irregular blog series wherein I am tasked with providing a literary review for another author’s work that is somehow related to the music of the band Phish.

Read more...