Subject: 3/1/97 Wolfman's Brother Review Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 22:53:46 EDT From: Noggin29To: dan@archive.phish.net *Patience in 3/1/97 Wolfman's Brother* Ahh...the joys of SSP! On to the review... Wolfman's starts up after Cities. Well, actually only on SSP; it actually starts after Beauty of My Dreams, but since I don't have the tapes , my version starts up after Cities. Anyway, Wolfman's starts up with Page hitting the opening chords. Trey starts up the wah early, as usual. Verse starts at 0:26. Trey keeps up the wah effect over the chording until the "telephone is ringing" line, when he adds the ringing effect. I love little things like that =^] At 1:36, Trey adds some nice fills and continues to throughout the next verse, very heavy on the wah. Nice work from Page on the "meaningless excitement" verse, or maybe it's just because I usually can't hear everything that's going on here. Jam section begins at 3:14 over the repeated "it's the wolfman's brother" section. The jam starts off fairly normal. It starts without the vocals at 3:55 and heads directly into familiar Wolfman's ground. Page has some really nice stuff at the 4:40 mark, backing up Trey nicely. Trey peaks at 5:00 and jams around it before dropping. So far it's pure type I jamming, but still somewhat better than a typical Wolfman's imo. Fishman seems very cymbal- happy. Trey slows down the beat drastically at 5:51. Page adds some thick stuff from the clav (?) in here. Nice. Trey teases the opening jam theme at 6:58. At around the 7 min. mark, things start to become a little bit open ended, and at 7:22, the tempo changes drastically. The jam takes on a textural feel with every band member throwing in his own fill. Trey begins to take the lead while the group still plays with a textural style. Pure noodling from Trey starting at 7:45 and lasting almost a full minute. Mike is playing well here. I can't say the same for Page, who seems to be somewhat misdirected, which is something that I rarely say about Page. Mike seems to lead the band into another direction with a slower, more laid back beat, and at 9:25, the tempo starts to change again, flowing seamlessy into a new groove. Mike and Trey hook up and Page provides the fills on piano for the new groove, and I mean groove. Sounds like the jam could almost be leading to a Walk Away. Mike is slapping down some monster notes before Trey begins to use some more effects to get the group into that "one instrument" style jamming, sort of a hybrid of types II and III. Trey's guitar seems to sweep behind Mike and Page's work. The jam evolves around the beat, with the band members playing around one another wonderfully. At 12:45, Trey starts the riff that gradually slows down. Trey and Fish seem to have some ESP going, as their timing is very in sync. Wolfman's flows into Jesus Just left Chicago at 13:51, with Fishman picking up the intro drum beat to Jesus at 13:59. The transition from Wolfman's into Jesus is superb. The segue is much like the 8/3/97 Twist Around -> Jesus segue, which, imo, is not quite as good as this Wolfman's -> Jesus.. Though this Wolfman's is not much when juxtaposed with some other versions from '97, this was the one that started it all, and it definitely deserves it's praise. This is the predecessor to many of the '97 summer and fall jams. While some of the jams may sound nothing like this one, the group-oriented jam style presented here is used and improved upon many, many times through the remainder of '97. This Wolfman's can be considered the "mother" of the type III jam style. If you don't have SSP, get it. I mean, come on! I don't care if you already have the tapes, get the album. The mixing is *really* well done, and if you trade Phish tapes, it's your duty to buy the albums. I don't care what you say. Matt Musick