Why Phish Radio On SiriusXM Is An Important Fan Portal To The Phish Multiverse

The band Phish has been a constant in my life since age 14 when I first attended a show with my best friend Corey. Since that show in Fall 2000, Phish has been a profound source of joy and escape – a musical fabric connecting me with friends, family, and familiar strangers over the years.

As a fan, the live Phish experience is the nucleus of this tapestry. But Phish’s gravitational orbit isn’t limited just to physically attending a show: It’s how you prepare and anticipate shows with your friends, how you follow a tour along every single night, how you geek out over minutia that indicates something new – like a new JEDI switch on Trey Anastasio’s rig or Jon Fishman’s digital sample button for pure musical mischief.

“Yeahhhhh…”

There is no stasis in what makes Phish Phish. Phish is that of an organism, constantly evolving – that’s always been their entire vibe.

As a fan, it’s helpful to think of Phish kind of like a comic book cinematic universe. There’s 38+ years of history, there’s lore, there’s character development, there are inside jokes that get dug up years – sometimes decades – later. There are complex opuses like “YEM”, “Fluffhead”, “Divided Sky”, and “Reba”. There are rapturous crowd-pleasers like “Tweezer”. There are songs that launch abstract sonic journeys into deep space, complete with ambient soundscapes and lockstep grooves. There are gags, silly bits, and moments of levity, followed by heart-aching ballads and rock ‘n roll bliss. It’s all so deeply serious, musically, while also being deeply fun and self-deprecating – including the fan culture around the band, best enjoyed as a group with a few companions on the ride.

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Phish Radio started as a pop-up channel in 2018, complete with an Ask Trey segment that tackles a tough question amongst Phish fans: To woo or not to woo?

Since launching full-time in June 2019, SiriusXM’s Phish Radio (Channel 29) has become a vital portal to this vast Phish multi-verse. It’s where fans can hear the band talk about what they do in their own words, along with listening to treasured moments from the band’s archive and live broadcasts from the band’s tour stops across the country.

Here’s are a bucket full of thoughts on the many ways Phish Radio is a big part of the glue in the magnet of the overall Phish experience.

SIGN-UP FOR SIRIUSXM HERE – STREAM THREE MONTHS FREE ON THE SXM APP

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Phish Live from the 9th Cube

New Year’s Eve is a special night in the Phish universe. There have been 22 Phish New Year’s shows over the years, all storied performances in their own.

When a COVID surge press pause on the band’s return to Madison Square Garden, they pivoted to the metaverse.

On New Year’s Eve 2021, Phish performed a free, three-set show from “the Ninth Cube” – a space and concept filled with the band’s hallmark mystique and intrigue (actual location: the Rock Lititz facility in Lititz, Pennsylvania).

As part of Phish’s Dinner And A Movie series, production costs for the show were generously underwritten by SiriusXM to make the stream free, with the show available to watch now until March 1 via The SiriusXM app.

The show features some fun banter between the band and with fans, along with a “Time Turns Elastic” bust-out, a funky You Enjoy Myself jam with Page adding some fun texture on the Wurlitzer, and a blissful Harry Hood – all captured in stunning audio quality.

Related: 7 Highlights From Phish’s Live From The 9th Cube NYE Show + How To Watch via SiriusXM

How to watch Phish Live from the 9th Cube via SiriusXM App

Step 1: You can sign-up for SiriusXM here, with your first three months free for new subscribers via the SXM app.

Step 2: Download the SiriusXM app on your desired device. If you have a smart TV, you can download the SiriusXM app and watch on supported smart TVs from LG, Samsung and Sony. SiriusXM is also available on a wide range of media players and connected devices from Samsung, LG, Roku, Sony, Amazon, and other manufacturers that you can connect to your television. More information on supported devices here via SiriusXM.

Step 3: Once you’re logged in, pull up Phish Radio and select On-Demand video, where you’ll see two videos labeled Phish: New Year’s Eve Concert, Live from the 9th Cube Set I, Set 2, and Set 3, as pictured below.

 

Ask Phish interviews

Back in November, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon, Page McConnell, and Trey Anastasio took part in an exclusive listener Q&A session called “Ask Phish” on SiriusXM Phish Radio. Here’s how it works: Phish Radio asks listeners to record and submit a voice memo asking the band a question. Then the four guys in Phish respond, round-robin, to questions of all kinds.

The most recent “Ask Phish” session was released in a four-part special, which you can listen to via Sirius XM  here.

For example: Ever wonder how the guys in Phish eat when they’re on the road? They have a private chef, Jim Hamilton.

Or whether the band might ever return to Europe? Or what celebrities the guys in Phish would be starstruck by?

The latter is a question that was asked by ESPN’s Bob Wischusen, the radio voice of the New York Jets, on Part I of Ask Phish.

Trey’s answer? “Nick Mangold, the greatest football player in the history of the game.” Page? Nick Mason, the drummer for Pink Floyd.

Fishman? It’s exactly the kind of answer you’d expect from the legendary Bob Weaver:

“I hit on Carole King once without knowing it was Carole King. And I knocked Prince flat on his ass by accident at Paisley Park. And I didn’t know it was Prince at the time either! So, in neither of those situations did I have the opportunity to be starstruck but I probably would have been.”

Mike Gordon?

Billy Murray.

 

 

 

2021 Year in Review with Trey Anastasio

Looking back, 2021 was an all-timer of a year for Phish. The band crisscrossed the country aggressively, with notable runs in Atlantic City, The Gorge, Shoreline, Las Vegas, and more.

In an exclusive interview in December, Phish Radio’s Ari Fink sat down with Trey Anastasio to tie a neat little bow on the year, recapping the year.

You can currently listen to the interview on Phish Radio via the SiriusX App.

A couple of newsworthy tidbits from the conversation:

• Trey talks about his showbiz stunts, including almost knocking himself out on rollerblades in Buffalo in 1991 and the famous hot dog ride at Boston Garden on New Year’s Eve 1994, of which Trey was (yikes!) accidentally not harnessed in for.
• Trey mentioned having “spies” in the fanbase that inform him about Phish songs that fans are itching to hear.
• Trey mentions the surreal feeling of TAB playing at Bonnaroo before what became the Beastie Boys last ever show.
• Trey shared which actors should play Phish in a biopic, including Jeremy Strong from Succession as bassist Mike Gordon.

You can listen to the interview in full via SiriusXM Phish Radio.

The Errant Path with Jonathan Fishman

The musical ethos around Phish isn’t binary. It doesn’t start and stop with Phish – It’s really about open-mindedness and embracing a spectrum of all music and what does into it. Different genres and styles get thrown into the gumbo, resulting in a kind of musical alchemy.

Nowhere is this more apparent than Jonathan Fishman’s The Errant Path radio show.

The show is a glimpse behind the curtain into what the guys in Phish listen to.

The Errant Path is where Fish talks about what he’s listening to at that moment in time, peppering the show with personal anecdotes and recollections about how a record influenced him or the rest of the guys in Phish. The genres featured throughout the show are vast: Reagee, world beat, funk, classic rock.

Don’t miss Fishman’s interview with Bootsy Collins, in episode 40. It’s an illuminating conversation about the career of the legendary bass player, a driving force with James Brown and Parliament-Funkadelic.

New episodes are broadcast on Wednesdays at 7PM ET.

Live broadcasts from select Phish shows

This goes without saying – Phish’s music is front-and-center on Phish Radio. A rarity from 1993 that you’ve never heard before? A replay of a show from the most recent summer tour? You’ll hear it all, across all Phish eras.

Occasionally, the stars align for a live Phish audio simulcast too. For example, Phish Radio broadcast all four shows from Phish’s four-night Halloween run in Las Vegas – A nice way of easing the FOMO for those who couldn’t make it to the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

 

Crowd Control guest DJ shows

Every Phish fan has that moment of euphoria that hooked them for life; the moments where faces were melted by the band, causing them to come back night after night for more.

Phish Radio’s Crowd Control show is where fans can talk about those experiences and how the music left its mark. Fans build playlists of their favorite Phish concert moments, unpacking what it was like to experience it live at a show. The hour-long show is quite a flashback when someone else’s moment of Phish bliss, as gushed about on-air, intersects with a show that you were also in attendance at.

The moment ends, but Crowd Control is a total recall experience in the best way possible, making good vibes and memories flood back all over again.

Trey Anastasio’s ‘Rubber Jungle Live’ series

Trey unplugged, in an intimate acoustic show from his apartment in New York City.

This solo set, available for relistening via SiriusXM, features some new tunes and rarities, including “Evolve”, “Welcome To The Jungle”, “Snowflakes In The Sand”, “A Little More Time”, “Tour Bus Window”, and a tune called “Quantegy.” It also features some recent Phish staples, like “Sigma Oasis, Brian & Robert, and “Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S.”

SIGN-UP FOR SIRIUSXM HERE – STREAM THREE MONTHS FREE ON THE SXM APP

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