Jon Fishman

Acoustic Army, obviously.

Anytime you see John Fishman with an acoustic guitar in his hand playing music on a stool, that's something, you know, like nobody that's seen them since 95, December 8th, 1995.

If you started seeing them after that, you have never seen an Acoustic Army before.

That really sticks out.

At that point, they started as a band in 1983.

They were going to the University of Vermont in Burlington and Trey met Fishman on like move-in day because he heard a dude drumming and he went into his dorm room and just fell in love with the guy and was like, that's my guy, you know, and the two of them just like have this insane musical connection where they

are the part of Fish is Trey and Fishman.

Mike is amazing, and so is Paige.

But Mike joined them, like joined Paige and Trey at Burlington, University of Vermont.

It's still kind of a little bit daylights, dusk.

It's not quite dark yet.

I remember first thing I noticed that Fishman was up there.

And when we did Oysterhead, we were all at Trey's Barn recording.

And John Fishman had this little shitty little Ludwig set that was scattered around, pieces everywhere, detritus flopping in the breeze.

Oh, I love a shitty Ludwig.

Stuart put it together and started drumming and sounded just like fucking Stuart Copeland.

Trey Anastasio of Phish.

My buddy, Bill Huber, who had gone to Taft with Trey, got Trey and an, a person Trey was with, who I c- have never figured out if it was Fishman or not, but, like, another long-haired guy, to play the music at that Trips Festival.

And a, a bunch of bill the cat acid was partaken of, and two long-haired guys we didn't know played, like, 200 Grateful Dead songs over the course of, like, five hours on miniature guitars, uh, that, in a, in a two-guitar arrangement that, and vocal arrangement that they had for all those songs.

And it was only years later that I, I read somewhere about Trey having his friend, Paul Languedoc, make miniature guitars so they could go busking in Europe that summer.

And so I assume this was, like, prep for that or part of that deal.

All of that tracks, though I don't think it would've been Jon Fishman playing the second guitar.

We spoke with Trey Anastasio during our Playing Dead episodes about the importance of Dead music to him, but also the importance of putting Dead covers aside in order for Phish to find their own collective voice.

It was a good time to be a band playing Dead music in the Northeast, with an incredible untapped demand.

It was great.

After bathtub gin, Trey introduces that the next song, these lyrics were written by quote, a Maine resident, John Fishman.

And they play gumbo.

Of course, as we all know that Fishman lives in Maine and he's a selectman, I think, right.

That's

right.

Selectman, resident of Maine.

He's playing some really impressive fills, but for the most part, he's just keeping down the beat.

I'm a drummer, and as it turns out, our seats offered me a great

view of John Fishman's drumming.

Holy mother of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Great band, and Fishman is a wildly underrated drummer.