[Please pardon this semi-threadjack, everyone, and if I'm off-base in commenting here, drop me a PM and lemme know. For realsies!]

Andrew sez -

"For those of us that can't (or aren't interested in) listening to every minute of record Phish, it's nice to have someone whose tastes you can even remotely trust to provide a "i recommend this / move along, nothing to see here" guide post-tour."

The recent prominence of 'Mr Miner' (Dave Calarco) in online Phish fandom drives home the complexity of this matter for me. He and I have had angry words online a few times, partly because until recently I didn't understand his appeal for his readers, which is exactly what you're saying: it's about sharing taste rather than textual worth.

In Miner's case, I get what you're saying: he generally responds well to a specific kind of good show; once you know what he likes, it's easy to tell from his reviews what you're getting in a show. That's true of Charlie's Phish-writing too. That's what's been most useful over the years: Charlie's tastes in Phish have historically been extraordinarily, even weirdly specific (I'm not saying 'narrow,' here, though maybe that word applies too), and by favoring a particular kind of 'hose' jam over the years, he's made it really clear how to find that kind of thing. Our tastes mostly line up around the 'hose,' or historically did so, so I've read his reviews with some interest since the mid-90's even if I find them lacking in some ways. (Miner, by comparison, is a late-90's Phish kid, and his ideal shows seem to be Big Cypress, 6/14/00, etc. In more recent years I've come to share more of his Phish tastes, with reservations.)

Now, Miner is a nightmarishly bad writer. That's his deal. Whatever. Charlie's reviews have a different character entirely: far more taxonomic in aim, 'this version of song XXX is a 7.4 but see versions A, B, and C first.' He's a geek (and a lawyer), obviously, and he writes like one. An abundance of evaluative language with very little description. He writes reference material.

What confuses me in Charlie's case is that most of my other geek-reads are produced by folks who are *expert in their fields.* When I disagree with Charlie about a given show, his reviews have absolutely *zero value* for me; they don't teach. I admit to egotism, i.e. I want to be a 'good writer,' but far more importantly, I value broadly-useful reviews, the stuff that both denotes and *evokes*.

And I think the best kind of debate we could be having, as fans, would differ from reviews like this, as magical incantations differ from recipes. I'm not sure listmaking really moves the ball as far downfield as we in the phish.net have historically convinced ourselves. That's just me, though. As @terms_of_the_dance wants: some other dude's opinion.

(I'd cite John Clute's metallically dense sci-fi book reviews as perfect examples of material that's both reference-worthy (he wrote an encyclopedia that reads much like his magazine work) and unbelievably rich literary stuff on its own. We need more of that!)

OK, done for real. Again, apologies if this is too far off-topic - and too, for talking about Charlie in the third-person when he's 'right here,' as it were!