Phish

Last month brought us the reunion of Phish, the American jam band that amassed an enormous cult following of hippies and free-spirited college students through decades of relentless touring.  Carrying on the torch passed to them by the Grateful Dead in the ’60s, Phish fans developed a habit of packing up their VW buses and following the quartet around the country to experience their diverse and unpredictable live shows, each with a unique setlist culled from the band’s massive repertoire and filled with improvisational jams and extended instrumental solos.

News of the reunion made me look back and marvel at how much this little band from Vermont has accomplished.  While they never took the Billboard charts by storm, Phish made millions of dollars by connecting with their audience in a way many artists with a number one single never do: by making each show a unique, interactive entity that one must attend to truly experience.

That sounded like fun to me, so I couldn’t help but wonder how I could channel my inner-Anastasio for some new musical inspirations for my songwriting.  I wanted something that would make me think musically in ways I normally wouldn’t–something that would force me to break my mold of standard songwriting.  I also wanted a professional studio drummer to record it, since my guitar skills wouldn’t likely translate to a drum track that would do my idea much justice.

So I ordered this month’s free drum track, which I’ve called “Jam Band Song,” for the purposes of having a sweet groove just to noodle and jam over until I come up with something really cool.  This drum track is an upbeat mover in the style of Phish’s “First Tube,” a song the band tends to extend into a 15-minute live opus.  But just laying down a killer beat isn’t quite enough to inspire a truly authentic jam band feel.  A jam band must interact and react to each member’s nuances and ideas, so this drum track evolves and changes to give it the humanness that a drum loop just can’t provide.

Then again, maybe this free drum track will inspire someone out there to write the next big hit song after all.  What can you come up with?

TO DOWNLOAD THIS FREE TRACK CLICK HERE

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Free Drum Tracks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.