The Business of Phish

http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/48216173465/the-business-of-phish

by nthitz • 13 years ago

96 67 13 years ago

blog.priceonomics.com

I think Phish's style is really similar to the Allman Brothers' back in their heyday. Although I doubt they profited massively from it, Live At Fillmore East is a jam rocker's dream album.

This article brings up an interesting thought: back in the '60s and '70s when most rock bands extended improvisations into their concerts (Led Zep, Hendrix, Floyd, etc.), did none of them think of recording and distributing each live show as a standalone piece like Phish? Or were they perhaps already 'mainstream enough'?

timdev2• 13 years ago

At some point, probably in the 70s, Frank Zappa began obsessively multi-tracking nearly-all performances (at significant cost back then). This led to a bunch of interesting output, including things like compositions based on an improvised guitar solo, separated from it's original backing, and placed in a completely different harmonic context. Also, lots of straight-up live compilations (with some overdubs), chiefly the You Can't Do That On Stage Any More (YCDTOSA) series, which is a six volume set of double-CDs.

For most people, back in those days, getting a sufficiently high-quality recording of a live show was prohibitively expensive.

Like Phish, Zappa was very much a cottage industry, unmolested by mainstream music industry stuff after the very early days.

Jgrubb5• 13 years ago

Two things..

The Allman's Fillmore album (iirc) was their first #1 album, released within weeks of Dwayne's death. That album more or less cemented their financial viability to this day.

Recording live shows was not the trivial matter back in the analog era that it is today. You basically needed a trucks worth of absurdly expensive and delicate equipment to be set up and torn down every night, whereas most bands that multitrack their shows today plug one cable into their digital soundboard and that's all there is to it. Also, Phish's isn't releasing multitracks on livephish, those are most likely 4 track blends of the stereo soundboard feed mixed with a pair of crowd mics.

moron4hire5• 13 years ago

That was an incredibly long article. I like the (now I can't seem to figure out who it is from) quote, "I'm sorry this letter is so long, I didn't have time to make it shorter." There was a lot of history-of-the-band in the middle that didn't really feel absolutely necessary. It started to feel like a lot of fan self indulgence.

That said, it did convey the very important lesson: don't go into debt. When talking about bands going on a meteoric rise, being pushed by their record labels, you're talking about bands going into debt to the record label. As long as you're not in debt, you don't have people banging on your door asking for money. And that's when you can do whatever you want to do, make things as good as you want to make them, and create something truly special.

It sounds like that is what happened to Phish when they first broke up, instead they fell into a kind of perceived debt to their production staff. They weren't very interested in playing, but they couldn't do whatever it was they actually wanted to do, because they had people to pay.

And based on my own experiences with debt, I can see how that feeling can lead to substance abuse. My own life has become so incredibly much happier now that I know I don't have that debt hanging over me. And it comes back whenever I have someone knocking on my door, saying I owe them money (i.e. taxes).

So stay out of debt, kids. Whatever you do, stay out of debt. College isn't worth it. Believe me, people were starting to question whether or not college was worth the debt when I started 10 years ago, and the situation has certainly not improved over time.

lpolovets2• 13 years ago

FYI, I believe that quote is from Blaise Pascal (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal#Sourced, 2nd bullet point)

Jgrubb5• 13 years ago

I thought it was Mark Twain.

hello_newman• 13 years ago

The article was long, you summarized it nicely. But I love the last line of your comment;

"College isn't worth it. Believe me, people were starting to question whether or not college was worth the debt when I started 10 years ago, and the situation has certainly not improved over time."

You know, I wish someone would have told me this when I was 18 (21 now). You DO NOT need a college education. Sure, it helps, no doubt. But IMO it only really helps if it is one of the top schools (MIT, Stanford, Harvard etc) and if you look at tuition costs often times those schools aren't that much more expensive then some B/C level school.

I think the problem started with the parents of my generation. My parents (along with their peers) were taught college was the universal way to succeed which transferred over into what adults preached to kids my age. I think being in college (back in the day) made you stand out. But with every kid being taught that same thing, how can you stand out if everyone is doing the same thing? Doesn't it defeat the purpose? Sure, the argument is it makes you a well rounded student, no doubt it does that. But spending 80k+ on learning about the annual rainfall in Brazil doesn't do you much good for your job prospects.

I think my generation should make their own education. I personally dropped out of school to learn software, got accepted into Dev Bootcamp and will be continuing my education there. Don't ever let school stand in the way of your education.

Here is a great article on the subject. This kid was a Thiel Fellow and has spent the 100k he was rewarded (as part of the fellowship) to write and focus on education. It's a great read and his book looks pretty good.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/03/05/dale-step...

doktrin• 13 years ago

> This kid was a Thiel Fellow and has spent the 100k he was rewarded (as part of the fellowship) to write and focus on education.

It's never been too clear to me what that Thiel fellow ever really accomplished. On the surface, it seems that he got his fellowship, dropped out, and has since made a tidy business out of talking about his experience. Maybe I'm being too harsh on the guy, but he strikes me as a self-help guru for the education sphere.

> I think my generation should make their own education. I personally dropped out of school to learn software, got accepted into Dev Bootcamp and will be continuing my education there. Don't ever let school stand in the way of your education.

Somewhat ironically, my interest in pursuing a full CS/EE education increased dramatically after attending DBC. Either way, congrats & good luck. I have nothing but praise for the staff there. I'm sure it will be a positive experience.

JacobAldridge• 13 years ago

"College isn't worth it."

I got the complete opposite message from this article. The Phish guys basically spent their college years creating the platform for their future success - would that have ever happened if they'd gone into the workforce instead? Or if they'd had the pressure of "I'm a full time musician" rather than "I'm at college, it's cool if I just want to jam for 8 hours a day because I love it".

Just because people drop out of college or don't use their degree, doesn't mean it's not worth it.

All of your points on debt though are excellent. Be aware that there is such a thing as good debt, but it's not a common experience whereas your lessons are well worth sharing.

moron4hire5• 13 years ago

You're reinforcing my point. If you go to college, spend money on tuition, and don't use your degree, you've wasted all that money--that you likely went into massive debt to acquire--for something you could have done without spending all of that money on tuition.

I'm not saying "don't spend time not working to train for what you want to do". Don't conflate education with learning. I'm saying "don't spend money on colleges". My old university, a public school, advertises "$8 to $10k a semester for in-state students living on campus full-time". Having been through their system I know whatever they advertise is a crock of shit, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt here for a minute. Holy shit, $20k a year for just crappy place to live and shitty food to eat--if that is how you are treating it because you won't end up using your degree--is insanely expensive.

So after 3 years of this, you've spent upwards of $60k on no degree. I don't think the degree itself would have been worth $80k to finish it (actually, more like $100k, because most of the people I now didn't finish their computer science degrees there in 4 years, me included). I'd have much rather ended those 5 years with project experience--and business experience!--under my belt and a little money because I'd been selling my own projects.

We talk about runways with startups and how working lean extends your runway because the money is a fixed entity. Going to college is just not working lean. You're spending upwards of $55/day, just to live and practice your craft. There are LOTS of ways to live on a lot less than $55/day.

leoedin2• 13 years ago

The advantages of college are numerous and can be far, far greater than the award of a degree. For me, college was a fantastic opportunity to develop as a person. Even if I'd fallen out of high school into the job I have now (which I wouldn't have, because a prerequisite is an engineering degree), I wouldn't have had nearly the opportunities to meet people, develop myself, take up hobbies, discover what I enjoy (and don't enjoy) in life - basically, to grow. A 9-5 is very restrictive compared to the freedom of long summers, flexible working hours and impromtu socialising of college.

It's worth saying that not everyone gets the same out of it. I know enough people who sat stoned on their couch for 3 or 4 years to know that every individual extracts a different amount of value from college. Additionally, I live in the UK, where fees were (until last year anyway) $5000 a year. Some of the fees people face at US colleges are outrageous. The experience is simply not worth $50,000/year.

moron4hire5• 13 years ago

Oh, this tired, old trope.

Why should even the ideal version of this "Life Experience" cost anything to anyone? Why does it have to take place at a college?

And so you're telling me that now you have a job, your personal development has ceased? that you don't develop yourself, try to meet people, take up hobbies, or discover what you enjoy?

This is the problem! When you're in massive amounts of debt, you're constantly working. You become a slave to a wage and you are less than a whole person.

Why would you ever work a 9 to 5 for someone else unless you had no choice?

gruseom4• 13 years ago

Didn't Phish inherit the Deadheads after the Grateful Dead stopped performing? That's a unique situation and hardly a business model.

fowkswe• 13 years ago

This certainly helped, but they were already on their way. The jam band scene, as lame as it might have been, was a hot trend in the mid nineties into the early 2000's and I think Phish benefitted as much from this as they did Jerry's passing.

EvanKelly3• 13 years ago

I'm not sure that's generally the case, though I'm sure it does happen.

My dad and my uncles (all born in the 1950s and 1960s) were serious Deadheads. They've gone to over 100 Grateful Dead shows a piece. None of them really have any fondness for Phish, but I have no idea why.

I know my anecdote can be countered by several of the opposite side, but as a laymen to jam music, I can definitely hear a very fundamental difference between Grateful Dead music and Phish music.

gruseom4• 13 years ago

Whom if anyone do they follow now?

Jgrubb5• 13 years ago

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Phish's lyrics are offensively awful to the ears of most deadheads.

Evbn6• 13 years ago

Phish gets the next generation of deadheads, born in the 70s

chez17• 13 years ago

That's really not the case. They were already selling out stadiums by the time Jerry died. Reread that last statement. There is so much hate for this band people stop thinking. More importantly, they're music is wildly different as well. All hippies aren't mindless drones with the exact same taste.

hardtke• 13 years ago

They did have a monopoly on trustafarians (wealthy college students that want to follow a band for the summer) after the Grateful Dead stopped touring. There is a new supply of trustafarians every year.

gruseom4• 13 years ago

I didn't mean to slander Phish! I know literally nothing (else?) about them.

weisser• 13 years ago

No they didn't but replacing a company that no longer exists (for reasons other than a lack of demand) is actually a really interesting business model.

tom_b2• 13 years ago

A bit. However (and this entirely dates me), I saw Phish off and on from the '93 period forward and it was clear the audience was growing at an unbelievable pace prior to Jerry Garcia's death. I remember a show in 1994 in Winston Salem where the opening band was Dave Matthews. And half the coliseum was curtained off (most of the top of Lawrence Joel?) . . .

I think later that same year I saw a really nice Phish show in Boone and the crowd felt larger. A few years later people seemed incredulous at the thought of Phish shows with four-digit-sized audiences . . .

What was super interesting to me at the time was how intensely the audience was "bonded" to Phish shows. We were already joking a bit about how they had a group of "lifestyle" followers. In the current lingo, I would have said they had gone viral already. Fun times.

sbuccini2• 13 years ago

Man, Winston-Salem? I can't believe they'd come through there. Boone does seem like a more natural fit.

pfarrell• 13 years ago

Our view from indianapolis was

  '94 Murat (2000 seats sold out)
  '95 1 night at Deer Creek (20k and not sold out)
  Jerry's death 
  '96 3 sold out nights at Deer Creek

They were on their way up, but the deadheads swamped the scene. Also, that's when it became apparent the band was getting heavily into hard drugs. The musicianship was what brought me to their shows (these guys played a credible fugue based on the theme to NPR's "All Things Considered"). When that skill was gone, so was I.

redwood2• 13 years ago

Yes: ones who were young enough to want a new band for their generation, but with much of the same cultural legacy. Absolutely. It's even been acknowledged by the bands. Sure they're musically different, but the festival vibe, touring vibe, acid trail: all similar.

bratsche6• 13 years ago

I really like Phish a lot, as my coworkers will attest since I have shitloads of their live shows filling up my iTunes album list. They're really one of the best live bands going now, definitely one of the best live bands of all time.

As the article says, their studio albums aren't that interesting. Especially after you've had a taste of their live shows. It's not just them, though. Once you start getting into live music more, everyone's studio albums sound bland. Go listen to Led Zeppelin's "How The West Was Won" (3 CD set made from a live show in LA around 1971 or so).. after that the Led Zeppelin studio albums just aren't as good as they used to be. Same goes for almost every band that I've heard live, or that I've heard live recordings of.

I think that's what Phish really has going for themselves, business-wise. Most bands you hear on the radio aren't really that good at their instruments, but with recording technology you really don't need to be that good. That's why you've got some artists who basically exist because they've got the right look. But Phish can go out there and perform 60 live shows in a year and feel confident enough in the performance that within a few hours the show will be available for download from livephish.com, and they can do this because they're actually really good musicians. They're able to fill this desire for good quality, energetic, live performances instead of bland studio recordings in a way that no other band has ever been able (or even tried) to do before.

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

>Most bands you hear on the radio aren't really that good at their instruments, but with recording technology you really don't need to be that good. That's why you've got some artists who basically exist because they've got the right look.

I would beg and steal to have a world where mainstream artists were actually _good at music_ again.

GuiA3• 13 years ago

Your great grandparents said that, your grand parents said that, your parents said that, your children will say that, and so will your grandchildren.

cynicalkane2• 13 years ago

> Once you start getting into live music more, everyone's studio albums sound bland

Speak for yourself. Some of us like the possibilities the recording studio yields as an instrument. And by "some of us" I mean "most of the music listening public".

Led Zeppelin, in particular, is well-known for their pioneering studio work. Most of Zeppelin's most famous songs are studio tricks. Stairway to Heaven--too many instruments to do with four people live. When the Levee breaks--tapes slowed down and run backwards. Achilles' Last Stand--a dozen or so overtracked guitars. Kashmir--the famous "hallway echo" on the drums with a phaser on top, multiple mellotrons, multi-tracked everything, &c. What's especially good about their studio albums is that they sound natural and alive, but this was another studio trick by splicing together the freshest takes, inventing new natural-sounding mic setups, etc.

They were also known for lazy, lackluster live performances, especially as Page and Bonham sunk deeper into substance abuse. So that's a very strange example. I don't really like the implied attitude that live music is best, and we are required to like it over "bland" studio music, and it's strange that you picked the most un-bland studio band since The Beatles.

bratsche6• 13 years ago

I was speaking for myself. Since this is Hacker News and people are interested in business, I wanted to talk about what's unique about Phish and what they're providing that nobody else is willing (and quite frankly, able) to. While there are some bands that I prefer in their studio-album form, my overwhelming preference tends toward the excitement of live shows if they're good. I was originally a music student before I switched to writing software, and so perhaps my hours spent in the practice room shaped my appreciation for music more in the direction of the performance. But the real point of my original post is that in the world of pop and rock, almost everyone is leaning on the studio to craft their music and very few are properly good at singing or playing their instruments. And that's the interesting part about Phish, because they're not necessarily very good songwriters (sorry fellow Phish fans, but their lyrics are just not very good ;) ) but they are actually very good musicians and performers. Even if you don't get into their music that much, you kind of have to hand it to them for being basically the only band out there that is willing to sell you a download of their concert almost immediately after it's done.

I'm aware that Led Zeppelin wasn't a famously great live band. Even Jimmy Page has written about how difficult it is to find any decent recordings of live shows of theirs. But "How the West Was Won", even though it has had a lot of studio enhancement work to it, is just so much more exciting than their studio recordings. It has a more improvisational feel to it in many places, and you get a sense of ensemble and of reaction between the band members and between them and the audience.

I didn't mean to say that all live music is, by definition, better and I certainly didn't say you're required to like live music. I'm sorry you're choosing to interpret my original comment as some kind of personal attack on your music listening habits, but I hope you'll get over it.

defen• 13 years ago

> They were also known for lazy, lackluster live performances, especially as Page and Bonham sunk deeper into substance abuse.

Really? I was under the impression that Led Zeppelin had some of the most legendary concerts of all time. I'm not denying that Page was a wizard in the studio...but have you listened to any of the bootlegs? Here's one from 1970, recorded by some guy in the audience with a tape recorder, and it's pretty damn heavy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4quuwZmUitI

andrewhillman• 13 years ago

The article made it sound like Phish sells a lot of live albums. Every ticket purchased includes a free download of the show off the soundboard. I am a huge phish fan and have been to an embarrassing number of shows. Phish makes the majority of money from touring touring and more touring. When they do a deal with a venue, they take home way more than the average band.

slouch• 13 years ago

Spot on, although I think the most recent album, Joy, is fantastic and a pleasure to hear anytime. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have adopted the same download model (sans download codes included with ticket purchases) for the most recent tour and are running http://livechilipeppers.com/. I bought the Bonnaroo set I saw last year and was really informed how good of a live band Phish really is (because of how unmagical the RHCP recording was).

leoedin2• 13 years ago

I love high energy live music. Nights spent dancing next to big bands full of horns and drums and stage energy are among my absolute all-time best experiences. However, I'm not sure if I can agree with you that live music, especially in the "rock" band genre (of guitars and drum kits and a singer) is always better live. In my experience almost every band I've seen live has suffered from poor mixing and the speakers turned up far too much. All the subtlety that made them my favourite bands is blasted away.

bratsche6• 13 years ago

This article kind of reminds me that there was a piece on NPR a few months ago about Nickelback, and how despite the fact that every person I know hates that band apparently they're wildly successful from a business perspective. The main guy in the band basically treats it entirely like a business, they're very efficient in how they run their tours, etc.

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/10/164858831/love-to-hate-nickelb...

sswezey• 13 years ago

To be fair, that article is just a link to a Businessweek article which goes more in-depth: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-08/genius-the-n...

bratsche6• 13 years ago

Oh, I didn't even know that. I heard them talking about it on NPR a few months ago so I did a quick Google search specifically for NPR and Nickelback and that was the link it gave me.

papaver• 13 years ago

thats the magic of jam bands. its amazing getting lost in a jam, feeling the transition from one song to another, forgetting the bad has been playing non-stop for the last 30 minutes. its the newness that is most attractive for me. its the closest live music that comes to dj's spinning live. you don't know what your gonna get till its time.

its sad to see this type of music dwindle away when it was so rampant during the 60's. its magical feeling the energy from a band that can talk to each other through their music. its the same magic that happens between basketball players when they are in the zone and can pass the ball without looking to their team members.

magical.

dos1• 13 years ago

Hippy :) I kid of course. I've never been able to get in to the jam bands. Many of my friends love Phish, the Dead, Umphrey's McGee, The Big Wu etc etc. I've tried to get in to their music, but every time they do those long jams I get bored.

What's interesting though is that I love a good solid 20 minute epic trance tune. It's basically the same thing, so I'm not really sure why I prefer electronic "jam" music over more traditional jam bands.

opminion• 13 years ago

There is also the whole world of Jazz.

redwood2• 13 years ago

It feels wrong to write a long piece on Phish without mentioning LSD. Phish continued the legacy of the grateful dead and inherited much of the 'family's cultural traits and people... And an undeniably big part of that family was always acid.

It's not that you needed to be on it to enjoy their (great) music, or that the band was always on it... Rather it's that it's always consistently available in their circle and this allows countless people to get turned on to a whole new part of life through their relationship with going to a show. This helps makes many people's first Phish show one of their peak life experiences.

northband• 13 years ago

I'm hoping to make a pilgrimage to the Gorge this year. I'm happy to see this article here on Hacker News as Phish has been a central point in my life for going on 20 years.

logn• 13 years ago

I attribute part of their success to an attitude they brought to their work. They were extremely serious about their music, about their shows, and about the fans. But they didn't take themselves seriously. Trey pretty much sums all of this up well in one of their documentaries.

With this attitude of theirs they also came on the scene at a good time. In the mid 90s, grunge rock was dying or dead, and the serious bands such as Nirvana gave way to materialistic hip hop, commercial rock, and (remember?) swing. Phish, at least for me, filled the void of grunge rock and opened me up to a whole new world of music. I could get really into Phish because I knew they approached their music with such care. It's hard to invest time in appreciating something and studying it when you have doubt that there's actually no substance or skill underneath, at least when it's not the most approachable material. Phish really never disappointed in that regard.

Further, it's hard to overstate the genius of two people in Phish: Trey and their lyricist Tom. Trey is not only incredibly skilled, he has an enormous amount of energy and enthusiasm powered directly by the crowd. If you watch him play, he's so tuned in to everything around him, you can feel that he's not really focused on the guitar (the physical aspect or the theory). It's not a challenge for him to manipulate it which lets him focus on playing with the rest of the band and the crowd which he does so well. The best analogy I see is what a touch typist experiences with the keyboard. You really don't think about typing. Now imagine being able to type messages live to people and every character you type is truly thrilling and enjoyable to your audience, and oh you can write in rhymed iambic pentameter without trying.

And Tom's lyrics I think are simply fantastic. Round Room I think really shows his true excellence. He can craft together 3 or 4 meaning and themes at once without making it seem like a big stretch. And he has such a soothing tone it sounds like a children's book sometimes, but the meaning is really almost beyond the realm of being able to consciously analyze it, yet not reaching the level of absurd.

cju• 13 years ago

A nice (and shorter) article from Marco Arment on Phish: http://www.marco.org/2011/05/26/geek-intro-to-phish

The Business of Phish

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