Subject: Drinking 2/15/91 Gin
Date: 15 Jan 1997 09:26:26 GMT
From: benjy eisen <benji@ezonline.com>
BathtubGinFiles #2 2/15/91 Colonial Theater; Keene, NH
Stats: Set II Total time: 6:57 0:00 starts immediately from the ending of David Bowie (which came complete with a Silent Jam and all). No segue, but no long pause either. Opening sounds like Trey is trying to play around with the intro. a little, *implying* rather than playing some notes (he does this on some Mike's Songs) and I can't really tell if he's honestly trying to spice it up, or if he is just bored...probably not the latter, but it sounds like it to my 1996 ears. Some botches too. Page jumps in at 0:15 and, of course, goes a little schizo (he's a nice boy, Really...) settling into some trills after some temper-tantrum chop-chord ranting, (as is his usual course for this section) trilling out of it until 0:45 with the start of the... Lyrics Segment (:45), which is standard but how suprising is that? 1:17->1:25 in-between verses has Page doing more trill-work and again in-between the verses at 1:57->2:12 (ending with some chordal outbursts) until lyrics again... "Here comes the joker" But the joke is on us, folks: FAUCET: 2:26 start. Goes smoothly enough, some extremely minor blemishes from Trey but overall fairly smooth and prestine. Singing with the Faucet begins at the 3:06 mark. Standard if there ever was such a thing. Some vamping-like emphasis (a usual occurance) at 3:40something then right back into the extremely standard but *fairly* flawless Singing w/the Faucet Theme. WATER FROM THE FAUCET at 4:20 (seriously folks...) first with Trey continuting verbatum the theme lick, Page chopping chords, Mike chopping up some notes thereby leaving no sustained-bass foundation, but by 4:30 the band is back and Trey has settled onto some unharmonius suspension of some of the The Lick's notes. Sounds, nay, *Feels* like pulling teeth. Towards the 5:00 mark, a very choppy un-sustained, almost muted run-through of The Lick. Quickly decends back into the muck as seen while sitting on a dentist chair. No DRILLING - just PULLING! By 5:20 some real ugly tooth-pulling is going on. In the 5:30's we get a "Bathtub Gin" from Mike, 5:40ish has some real dark, low 'doc tooth pulls -from the 'doc, and not the Doc.)!! - - Reminds me of the dentist scene in Little Shop of Horrors. 6:06 Mike sings "Bathtub Gin" and from there the jam continues on into its murkiness. But if there is one thing unique about this murkiness it's that the band is swimming through it while holding hands - they are all *extremely* together on this improvisational experimentation and for that, I salute them; they're listening to each other. Some funky subtle rhythm changes and funk-in-muck - sounds like it could quite possibly be an early take on some of the murky It's Ice jams from '96, (such as the summer ones and parts of MSG 10/22). Fish turns it *briefly* into a *stomp* around 6:30, some bass a la the DwD intro in the 6:30's continuing onward - so Mike, it's only '91 and you've already found out how to use your effects and make your bass sound like some deep, dark outer-space cave! Mike continues with it and lets out a higher pitched half-assed "Bathtub" from his mouth at 6:47. Some "aw-ahh" from Trey maybe and then quick stop....tight on the stop, I give them that much. These sounds got *really* UGLY really fast but thoughout it all, the entire band was together and each contributed their bit to these sounds of hell. This was the type of Gin that comes with a black label on it and used by mean Evil Men named "Big Red" who then trudge home from the bar, in 5 feet of snow, cursing and mumbling about how they're gonna kill that damned bastard. And they trudge one step at a time. Well, clocking in at a total time of 6:57 Big Red obviously didn't have too far to walk. But for that short while of time, Phish managed to transform themselves into this one guy; into mean Big Red. And although he may be evil and he may be ugly, the four of them became the one of him - one of Phish's finest and most praise-worthy qualities (their togetherness that is, and how, when they want to, they can really listen to each other quite well). Now I don't esp. like Big Red, at least not when he's drunk on Bathtub Gin (he's much nicer in freezers of Tweezer or when he-be-40 with David Bowie) but even when he's drunk, at least this time, he's trully a function of the four-made-one. So all in all this version was ugly, disharmonius and unexplored but exploratory and tight all the same. Rating: 78 Proof. (C+) You'll get a buzz, but may be looking for something a little stronger. till then, Walk with light my friends, Benjy