Welcome to the 332nd edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first and easiest for this month. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, a hint will be posted. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

*Reminder: For the first MJM of each month, only folks who have never won an MJM are allowed to answer before the hint. If you have never won an MJM, please answer as a blog comment below. If you have previously won an MJM, but you'd like to submit a guess beforethe hint, you may do so by PMing me; once the hint has been posted, everyone should answer on the blog. If that's confusing to you, check out the handy decision tree I threw together to help guide you. If you're not sure if you've won before, check in the MJM Results spreadsheet linked below.

Hint:

Answer: Congratulations to @jimsleftear, who earned his third consecutive MJM win after identifying this week's clip, drawn from the 5/13/89 Whipping Post. With this win, @jimsleftear becomes only the 19th contestant ever to record a seventh victory, thereby elevating him to the MJM Hall of Champions and Emeritus status. Although now forced to retire from regular participation, the MJM does offer the occasional opportunity for all Emeriti to test their proven credentials against the current crop of top players. In addition, you may even see a role reversal some time soon, when the likes of @jimsleftear gets to select the theme and tracks. I hope everyone had a great holiday on the 4th. Enjoy summer - Tour beckons soon!

Beyond the Pond is a bi-weekly podcast in which Brian Brinkman (@sufferingjuke) and David Goldstein (@daveg924) use the music of Phish as a gateway to introduce the listener to many other bands, the vast majority of which are not jambands. An episode generally begins with a deep dive into a designated portion of Phish improvisation, and then can spin off to any variety of musical themes and other acts, the overarching purpose being introducing the listener to as many new and different bands as possible.

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Welcome to the 331st edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the fourth and most difficult of June. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the four mystery clips. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, a hint will be posted. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

[Note - MJM host @ucpete is still unavailable. In his absence, we once again welcome MJM Hall of Fame member @wforwumbo, who has put together a fun puzzle for you to solve. Please direct any correspondence for this week's MJM to @wforwumbo.]

Hint:

Answer: Congratulations to @jimsleftear, who correctly identified the four clips, the Waves from 6/28/12, David Bowie from 6/19/95, Scents & Subtle Sounds from 7/23/03, and the Halley's Comet from 8/3/98, after figuring out that the hint, the John Deere Company logo, suggested versions from the outdoor venue in Noblesville, IN, which at one time was affectionately known as Deer Creek. This win marks the second consecutive for @jimsleftear, and his sixth overall, leaving him just one victory shy of elevation to the MJM Hall of Champions and Emeritus status (as well as forced retirement). Will he make it three in a row? Thanks again to @wforwumbo for selecting this week's theme and versions.

Welcome to the 330th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the third of June. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the three mystery clips. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, a hint will be posted. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

[Note - MJM host @ucpete is unavailable due to a family emergency. In his absence, we wecome back MJM Hall of Fame member @wforwumbo, who has cooked up some tantalizing and tasty treats for you to ponder. Please direct any correspondence for this week's MJM to @wforwumbo.]

Hint: No hint needed.

Answer: Congrats to @jimsleftear on his fifth MJM win! The great sinister ear of Jim avoided the red herring of “jams from 8/14”, instead correctly figuring out the theme of “jams from shows immediately preceding festivals” in the form of the 8/14/97 Harry Hood, 8/14/96 Runaway Jim, and the 8/12/04 Scents & Subtle Sounds. Be sure to tune in next week where the puzzles reset in difficulty with a fresh month that also brings summer tour with it!

On this week's Under the Scales, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tom about the 20th anniversary of "Story of the Ghost." Shortly after getting into the conversation, we realize we should probably call Trey to bring some more color to the conversation. We talked to him about the making of the album and much more.

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Welcome to the 329th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday! As mentioned last week, we have put together a special contest and prize for this week's MJM. Thanks to our friends at the Hachette Book Group and our regular supporters at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net, this week's winner will not only receive the usual LivePhish MP3 download code, but will also receive a copy of Fare Thee Well: The Final Chapter of the Grateful Dead's Long, Strange Trip, by Joel Selvin. Fare Thee Well is a tell-all biography of the in-fighting of the Grateful Dead in the years following Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995. The book charts the band member's journey from Garcia’s death up to the Core Four's agreement that led to the series of shows celebrating the band’s fiftieth anniversary featuring Phish's Trey Anastasio, finally allowing for the sendoff of the group revered by so many. Author Joel Selvin is an award-winning journalist and New York Times best-seller who has covered music for the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly 50 years. The book goes on sale next Tuesday, June 19th, and will ship to the winner then.

Regarding the Mystery Jam itself, as with our other special editions, this megaclip has many songs in it that you'll need to identify. Therefore, we will not be using the comments to guess this week. Instead, send an email with your guesses (for all of the clips) along with your .net username to phish.net.mjm329@gmail.com. If you have any questions, you can post them in the comments section. Do not post guesses in the comments section, or your comment will be deleted and you'll be subject to banning from future MJM participation. Also, no "trading" of answers is allowed: figure this out on your own. The first person to correctly identify the song and the date of each of the five jams will be the winner; These five jams are connected by a theme. Each person gets one guess by email – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday, after which each person gets one more guess before 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET on Wednesday. In the event that no one correctly identifies all of the Mystery Jams, the winner will be the first person to submit the most correct jams: partial credit can take home the prize, so don't be shy. Good luck!

Note: In order to receive the book, you must be able to provide a US mailing address, or be willing to pay for shipping after we receive the book on your behalf and mail it you. Also, MJM Emeriti are eligible to participate, so don't dawdle!

Update: I received a number of email responses yesterday – none from anyone with fewer than 6 MJM wins, all with multiple correct clips, a couple with all of them correct, but one clear winner. The winner has been notified, and I'll update the blog in the next couple days.

Answer: Congratulations to @justino, who correctly identifited the 6/30/06 St. Stephen (Phil & Friends with Trey), 10/18/16 Twist (Phish with Bobby as guest), 7/17/16 Cumberland Blues (Phil & Friends with Mike), 4/17/99 Dark Star (Phil & Friends with Page and Trey), and 6/27/15 St. Stephen (Fare Thee Well Tour with Trey). The theme of this week's MJM was jams from Grateful Dead / Phish collaborations. With this impressive victory, @justino comes back out of his recently forced retirement to snatch away this week's special prize. Nice work. MJM returns Monday June 18 for its 330th edition. [Please Note: MJM host extraordinaire @ucpete is currently consumed with a family emergency, and a small group of volunteers will try to fill his big shoes until he's able to return. Please be patient with the temporary staff, and be respectful of @ucpete's family situation. Thanks.]

[be sure to check out part 1 of this series if you missed it, and click the tape icon at the end of this post to see a listing of each part as the series rolls along – @ucpete]

Welcome back, everyone! @wforwumbo here with the second edition of From the Tapers’ Section, and it’s a two part installment. Part 2A, 12/30/17, is here today for your listening pleasure; part 2B will follow in two weeks (Friday, June 22nd). Rather than focus this edition on cleaning up an older tape in need of overhaul, I opted for a slightly different approach this time: I took two already fantastic recordings and made a matrix recording from them. To make a matrix, one combines multiple source recordings to create an experience that draws from aspects of each original source. Referring to and inspired by Dan Healy’s days mixing the Grateful Dead, a matrix usually has a soundboard for one its sources; but this week’s From the Tapers' Section doesn’t, as sharing a matrix recording that includes the LivePhish source is both against Phish’s open taping policy and counter to the purpose of this blog series. Let’s all embrace the AUD fully, shall we?

12/30/17 is a slightly different breed of Phish: it’s got deep jams in both sets, and the band hammers away all evening in an attempt to create as good a show as possible, taking very few breaks for air. The entire performance is fluid and cohesive, with a solid narrative and high energy between band and audience. Given the historical significance of December 30th over the past quarter century, those of us in attendance were hoping for another all-timer; amazingly, Phish was able to match and eventually surpass our lofty expectations.

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Artist Jim Pollock has just done a solid interview with Ben & Jerry's, covering some background basics as well as some aspects of his process, and his thoughts on Phish Food.

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Welcome to the 328th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first and easiest of June. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

*Reminder: For the first MJM of each month, only folks who have never won an MJM are allowed to answer before the hint. If you have never won an MJM, please answer as a blog comment below. If you have previously won an MJM, but you'd like to submit a guess beforethe hint, you may do so by PMing me; once the hint has been posted, everyone should answer on the blog. If that's confusing to you, check out the handy decision tree I threw together to help guide you. If you're not sure if you've won before, check in the MJM Results spreadsheet linked below.

NOTE: Next week's contest, MJM329 (June 11th, 2018), will be a special edition of the Mystery Jam contest, featuring a differently-themed puzzle and a chance to win an additional prize beyond the usual LivePhish code. This contest will be open to the MJM Emeritus crew, so don't think you can skip off into the sunset just yet @justino!

Answer: Congrats to @susep on their first win, quickly identifying the 7/8/99 "Fee," released in Live Bait Vol. 10 and chosen and remastered by @wforwumbo (check out Part 2A of his From the Tapers' Section series here on Friday, June 8th). Be sure to tune in next week, when we give away a special MJM prize and the competition opens up to the emeritus crew!

Beyond the Pond is a bi-weekly podcast in which Brian Brinkman (@sufferingjuke) and David Goldstein (@daveg924) use the music of Phish as a gateway to introduce the listener to many other bands, the vast majority of which are not jambands. An episode generally begins with a deep dive into a designated portion of Phish improvisation, and then can spin off to any variety of musical themes and other acts, the overarching purpose being introducing the listener to as many new and different bands as possible.

Read more...

Welcome to the 327th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday Tuesday, the most difficult of of May. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the three mystery clips, which are connected by a theme that needsn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday Thursday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Answer: After more than four years of sneaking in opportunities to listen to clips between teaching classes, on his lunch break, and almost assuredly while on the throne, @justino has finally won his seventh contest and been inducted into the MJM Hall of Fame as our 18th Emeritus! He didn't want to waltz in on a brute forced single clip victory, or even a double-double; instead, he cracked the hardest MJM of the month, and one laced with traps taboot. This week, he saw quickly ignored the December jams red herring, didn't get sucked into looking through the 275 Jam Chart versions or >100 shows played in California, and saw right through me and my handle to solve this week's puzzle, jams that were played on University of California campuses: 8/5/10 "Down with DIsease" (UC Berkeley), 12/6/94 "Weekapaug Groove" (UCSB), and the 12/1/96 "Tweezer" (UCLA). The skill of MJMers by the time they reach Emeritus status never ceases to amaze me – and creep me out!

For his efforts, which in addition to 7 overall victories include: a Trey-signed Hands on a Hardbody CD, 5 multiclip victories – including four in the past four months – and winning the first (and only - to date) MJM Race, @justino will receive two of the following:
- a copy of Hands on a Softbody (a softcore DVD featuring a Trey-autographed Trey blow-up doll named "TroiBoiToiBot")
- an honorable degree from the other UC, UC Merced: a Master's in MJMery
- inclusion on the group text between "The Boys" and "The Emeriti"
- a code good for a free LivePhish.com download
- a login and password to The Vault (don't even try if you don't have a login)
- Limited Edition "Très Close" tickets to Curveball
- the ability to choose clips for future MJMs

Congrats @justino! Who's up next? @TwiceBitten??

There's a new book about Phish (and being a fan), and it'll be featured in a streamed interview tomorrow on JEMP Radio. Andy Smith and Jason Gershuny have just released their new book 100 Things Phish Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, and will join Andy Michels on his talk/variety show All Things Reconsidered Live tomorrow (Sunday, May 27th) at 7p.m. EDT. Listen in via the station’s website or the iPhone or Android apps, or on-demand after broadcast.

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Welcome to the 326th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the third of May. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the two mystery clips. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Hint:

Answer: Congrats to @jimsleftear, who once again made fantastic use of his good ear in cracking this week's MJM and correctly identifying the 12/1/03 "Tweezer" and the 10/9/99 "Ghost" for his fourth win. As discussed in the comments section below, this week's hint was a picture of an Albanian Jam (you can tell by clicking the link because it has the word "Albania" in it), as a reference to the fact that this week's jams were Albanian Jams – both were played at Pepsi Arena (fka Knickerbocker Arena / cka Times Union Center) in Albany, NY, the site of the Fall Tour opener and a favorite of @wumbo, who once again designed and mixed this week's clips. Next week we'll step the difficulty up once more with a triple clipper for MJM327: after all, 3³ is 27. See you Tuesday!

@wforwumbo applies machine learning to binaural hearing theory, and is putting the finishing touches on his doctorate in architectural acoustics this summer. His research focuses on the effects that a room has on performed music and how we perceive sound in space – he does so by building computational models that simulate and extend human hearing. He is also a classically-trained musician and an electrical engineer with a keen interest in digital audio signal processing; he designs and implements filters and transforms to manipulate audio, which he brings to his studio production and mixing engineering work. His obsession with audio doesn’t end there though, as he has recently ventured into the tapers’ section to record live music. Thankfully for us at Phish.net HQ, @wforwumbo is a huge fan of Phish and Phish.net, and has begun contributing to the site, both working to expand and improve the Jam Charts and helping to craft (and remix!) Mystery Jam Monday puzzles. Today, he will kick off a new regular blog series, “From the Tapers’ Section,” wherein he will draw from several different parts of his massive toolkit to not only bring Phish fans brand new mixes of audience recordings from classic Phish shows, but he’ll also share both his deep technical knowledge and discerning musical perspectives of the shows and the recordings thereof. - @ucpete

Drawing from my experience as both a live taper and a studio production engineer, I frequently manipulate my back catalog of live Phish tapes to my personal preference on reference listening systems. I have spent lots of time working with studio tools; it’s a labor of love, always trying to craft and sculpt sound - to let the tape get out of the way between me and the music. I do want to make one thing explicitly clear here: I am not the definitive voice. I am not touting that these are the “correct” way to listen to shows. I’m not even claiming that these will be preferable to your current tape of a show. Because at the end of the day, the sole rule of “good” audio is that only YOU can decide what sounds best. In fact, that’s the most important bit of advice I give to everyone when they ask me about audio: trust your ears. My tastes may not be the same as yours, and that’s okay - there’s plenty of room for all of us in the fan base.

Now with that being said, one intent of this taping series is to encourage the distribution and usage of audience-recorded tapes (“AUDs”). Tape trading has an incredibly rich and storied history, and is a large part of why many of us are into Phish. One of my favorite endeavors in digging through my catalog of tapes is comparing two different recordings and correlating their strengths and weaknesses to my personal preferences. This furthers my taping and production work by thinking about how to capture and manipulate sound, including the layouts, techniques, and gear that I use. To me, it’s lots of fun to think about and understand the intricacies of a given microphone and preamp, the recording location inside of a venue, or what experience I want from a tape (immersion? stereo image? frequency balance? more Mike? etc.). This blog series is in part an attempt to share my notes and thoughts on specific tapes to highlight different aspects of a show that you might not have heard before.

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Beyond the Pond is a bi-weekly podcast in which Brian Brinkman (@sufferingjuke) and David Goldstein (@daveg924) use the music of Phish as a gateway to introduce the listener to many other bands, the vast majority of which are not jambands. An episode generally begins with a deep dive into a designated portion of Phish improvisation, and then can spin off to any variety of musical themes and other acts, the overarching purpose being introducing the listener to as many new and different bands as possible.

Read more...