Customer Reviews

Phish (The White Tape)

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If you're not a hardcore phan, you'll still get a few laughs out of this, from the sheer absurdity of songs like "NO2", "Minkin", and "**** Your Face" (not sure if I'm allowed to say the name of that song here). Mike Gordon is responsible for most of the weird stuff here.

This album is sort of painful to listen to, not because the music is bad, but because whoever mastered the album left a terrible high pitched edge in most of the songs, which gets to be a bit of an icepick in the ear after a while.

Just so you know, there is a lot of very weird stuff on here. "He Ent to the Bog" is an experimental song with telephone jokes about hamburgers being recited in the background.

"Letter To Jimmy Page" actually reminds me somewhat of Jimmy Pages early guitar playing style, interestingly enough.

"Minkin" is a hilarious advertisment for Marjorie Minkin paintings, done by Mike Gordon. Later, I discovered that Marjorie Minkin is a real person! She's a contemporary artist who's friends with Mike Gordon. It's definitely a laugh.



I wish PHiSH would work on releasing the original "Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday". That would be amazing. It's a great work of literature in itself.

Although Junta is Phish's first official "album" (and an excellent one at that), it doesn't really represent the band's true musical roots and development. This mid-80s collection is a worthwhile purchase for anyone who wants to delve deeper into Phish's origins.

Most of the White Tape is made up of solo compositions by Trey and Mike, many of which were never performed live. Trey has some lovely acoustic instrumentals (And So To Bed, Aftermath) while Mike contributes some truly bizarre novelty pieces (F*** Your Face, He Ent To The Bog, Minkin.) But what really makes this collection interesting is the stripped-down versions of classic early Phish tunes -- Slave To The Traffic Light, now a hard-rocking, 10-minute stage epic, is given a sprightly, reggae-flavored treatment here, while Run Like an Antelope is performed in a slightly bluegrass fashion.

Only three of the songs -- Alumni Blues, AC/DC Bag and Dog Log -- feature the Phish line-up we've come to know and love, so the album may take some getting used to. Also, with the exception of those three songs, everything here was recorded on a four-track machine, so the sound quality isn't the best. Still, it should be a worthwhile purchase for anyone wanting to know what Phish was up to during their fledgling days at Goddard College.