Phish

Phish: Live in Utica 2010

Amazon Price: $23.77 (as of 06/03/2012)

The Utica box set features the complete October 20, 2010 performance on 2 DVDs and 2 CDs. The box set presents three hours of crucial Phish in an intimate venue with an inspired audience that returned the energy at every turn.

The nearly three hours of music on the Utica box set was recorded with 60 channels of digital multi-track and beautifully mixed and mastered, appearing on the DVD's in 5.1 Dolby surround and full-resolution, uncompressed PCM stereo. The video was shot with 8 cameras (16:9 widescreen), recorded and post-edited in High Definition. Combining a stellar performance with gorgeous improvisation and a healthy sense of adventure, Utica makes it clear that the band is back and playing for keeps.

Phish: The Biography

by: Parke Puterbaugh

Amazon Price: $3.10 (as of 06/03/2012)

In the wake of Phish's wildly successful summer reunion tour, journalist and Rolling Stone contributor Puterbaugh delivers a consistently lucid and revelatory look at the 26-year-long career of the legendary jam band. Puterbaugh's solid and intelligent take on how Phish blends both seriousness and whimsy into rock, jazz, funk, country and experimental music (sometimes in the same song) will satisfy newcomers as well as the band's obsessively knowledgeable fans. In the process, Puterbaugh definitely demolishes the media's reflexively drawn comparisons of Phish to the Grateful Dead just because both played long improvisational concerts for hardcore fans. Much of the book's success stems from Puterbaugh's experience as in-house PR writer for the band from 1995 until its 2004 breakup. His insider access allows him to get never-before-published comments and insights from the band, its management, archivists, crew and close friends. His solid reporting produces the best account so far of Phish's college-era birth and growth in Burlington, Vt. And his exclusive interview with Trey Anastasio provides a frank look at how the guitarist's drug addiction brought down the band, how his recovery led to their reunion and why there's no reason that Phish couldn't go on for quite some time.