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The Unlikely Corporate Rock Band: Phish Page 5
One
of the many other items available in the "Dry Goods"
section is the recent release of an on-going collector's series
of archived shows appropriately titled "The Live Phish Series".
The series plans to release six discs twice a year to their website
as well as record stores from Phish's extensive vault of soundboard
recordings, very similar to the concept of the Grateful Dead's
"Dick's Picks" series. The extreme cynic might raise
a flag given that Phish has encouraged taping and trading shows
thus most shows, including those released, should be readily accessible
for little or no cost, but that might be a hasty assumption. Phish
has apparently carefully selected key shows in their history that
are fairly rare even on tape trees. Also, from my own experience
as a music lover, I can without hesitation suggest that fans can
easily appreciate the difference between a mastered soundboard
recording and a cheap bootleg. Thus
the overly commercialistic qualities of the "Live Phish"
endeavor lie not in the conception of the series but rather in
the mass marketing of it. Pearl Jam embarked on a similar, even
more grandiose project by releasing every show from both their
European and North American tours in 2000. While Pearl Jam's website
offered the double disc "official bootlegs" for a bargain
price of $9.99 plus shipping, Phish's shows are going for an average
of $22.00 each. Simply looking at the price might be unfair to
Phish as the artwork is much more elaborate and the sets are three
discs rather than two (although this still does not make the prices
equally proportional). The main indicator of Phish's commercial
saturation comes along with the other products associated with
the series. There is a custom "Live Phish" CD organizing
case ($30), a poster print with the cumulative cover art ($35),
"Live Phish" bumper stickers to promote the series,
and several t-shirts sporting the "Live Phish" emblem
($16-18). Of course, this is a good old-fashioned corporate way
to make more money and promote records, but definitely not the
sign of a band that is uninfluenced by or not part of the commercial
vehicle of the music industry.
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