M a t t h e w D a l l m a n

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Saturday, September 20, 2003

TREY ANASTASIO is a true musician. My own history with his music probably isn't all that different than your average Phish addict. I started listening to that band around 1992 and was quickly hooked. I traded bootlegs like a champ, and I collected probably 300 shows. I've attended 20-odd meat-space shows, though none in the last 4 years. I saw some pretty jaw-dropping shows, including the Mud Island Tennessee show with a 53-min Tweezer, and their 2nd Halloween show in Chicago, famous for their rendition of The Who's Quadropenia, yet in my opinion had a first set to end all first sets.

The cliche is true: Phish must be heard live. The energy of the live shows can be intense, hysterical, and they are great entertainers. Even now, I listen to a couple of their records pretty regularly -- especially Farmhouse. All in all, however, after soaking in the band's Hose solid for 7 years straight, I have moved on knowing that the music is a part of my daily breath.

All of which made the development of Trey's recent project all the more amazing, and from my point of view, quite needed. I'm talking about his solo project, the Trey Anastasio Band, an amazing ten-piece band, including 5 kickin' horns. Trey has talked a great deal about this band, and his conceptions as the out-and-out leader. A recent quote from Trey is worth repeating in full. Talking about the band, he relates the following:

"And he [Ernie Stires, his music mentor] said to me at one point, he said, 'now your head is out of the muck enough to see that there's a mountain to start climbing'. Well, you know that's music. I don't think you ever necessarily do it. But I could articulate it a little more through this album. You take Last Tube as an example -- I think it's all in there. Where it's a very -- it's a cross-rhythmic piece of music that grooves very hard. There's probably 30 musicians playing. There's bit of improvisation and bits of charted-out part depending on who the musician was. Like the bass clarinet lines are written out and the trombone lines and trumpet lines are improvised because the musicians I was working with, the trumpet player, was a great improviser -- Nicholas Dayton. The bass clarinet player is a classical musician.