Lephsetz

Two worlds colliding. Bob Lefsetz and Phish. Its kind of like when your home friends start hanging out with your camp friends. Weren't these two groups supposed to exist on different planes. And with the different turfs merging, it gets a bit awkward. But ultimately your interested to see how the assimilation works.

I have been reading the musings and rantings of Bob Lefsetz since probably the last time I saw Phish which was around December 2003 (20th Anniversary show in Boston). Bob is a music lover first and foremost as well as a music industry insider and outsider all at the same time. His e-mail "letters" serve primarily to rail against the music industry that he perceives is running itself into the ground. But above all that, Bob understands the power of music. And he has taken the liberty over the last couple of days to discuss his thoughts on Phish and how they represent what is GOOD in music...predominantly passion, energy, creativity, and the NEED for its fans to be at the show. Some of the quotes are:

the band is cooking, it's positively alive!

A true star doesn't play to everybody, he plays to those who care and who come to care. Phish has a rabid fanbase that paid $49.50 for tickets and much more flying to the gig in this somewhat remote location, because they had to be there! People won't cross the road to go to the show of the Top Forty wonder, but they'll load up their credit card to attend what they truly believe is an event. And you've got to be in the building.

And Phish's fans believe the band can play. Rather than go on television shows, doing a promotional junket advertising their return, Phish practiced. Their audience demands excellence. That's what Phish has to deliver to insure their return. Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers have one big tour. A great act plays for the ages, it can't afford to fuck up. You follow this sound, all the way to the Hampton Coliseum, in Nowheresville, Virginia. You can't help but dance to that fine fine sound, YOUR LIFE IS SAVED BY ROCK AND ROLL!

It's got more vibrancy than all the pap made on machines and auto-tuned that comes out of the speakers of the radio stations people still listen to. Radio is dead because the music it plays has lost its exuberance.

And my favorite:

And that's what we're looking for, not robotic repetition, but live, breathing humanity. This is the way out. Pay attention. Throw out what you know about downloading, piracy, pricing...that's all history. It's about music.