With the obvious sophomoric exceptions, this has been a very enjoyable discussion, which is what I hope it was meant to elicit. I like and buy the "order vs disorder" viewpoint, especially since the author doesn't attempt to declare one theory as better or more important than the other. 2 roads diverged, I guess. I don't want to tread over some pretty heavily trampled areas, but I do have to put my $.02 on the Phil chops comment. I think that argument has little merit to it after '68 or so. Yes, in '65 bass was a brand new instrument and it did take a little bit of time to master it, but he mastered it in his way. I use that last phrase very intentionally, and that is what I want to talk about since it hasn't been covered yet.

Phil's position in the Dead is structurally different from Mike's job with Phish, and his job has changed over the years whereas Gordon's hasn't. Phish fans have commented about the changes musically between 1.0, 2.0 & 3.0, but in all three incarnations the members have been the same exact 4 people. The Grateful Dead have had 6 different people play keyboards in the band! The band started with 1 drummer (and Billy K is not a jazz drummer, but an R&B drummer), then they had 2, then back to 1, then the 2nd one came back. I would argue that, especially after Mickey came back in '76, they had 1 drummer & 1 percussionist. Keyboard-wise, they had one originally, then added a 2nd who did the heavy lifting, then back to the original 1, then added a different 2nd one when the original one started to get sick, then the original one died so they kept the 2nd one (who was actually the third one, lost yet?) as the only one, which worked for a while until it stopped working, so they swapped the one for another one, which worked for a really long time (in Dead-keys timelines anyway), then they had 2 new guys, and then one of those stopped playing with them. Whew, anyone else confused?

I guess what I was trying to point out with the different incarnations is that while they kept the same name, it is hard to say they were the same band. Musicians & music will always evolve, especially in such an organic environment, but the band had whole appendages fall off and new ones added on seemingly every few years. When almost all of those changes take place in the "rhythm section", and the band also has a "rhythm" guitarist, the role of the bass player is not the same as what it would be in a stable quartet. Phil's style is the direct result of this, and a musician of lesser "chops" would not have lasted so long, much less blossomed. Lastly, comparing the "chops" of a recent liver-transplantee pushing 60 with someone in their early 30's is not exactly apples to apples.

I find it difficult to draw direct comparisons between Phish and the Grateful Dead for another reason. While there was some co-mingling at the end, I don't think anyone would call the two bands "contemporaries". Comparing bands of different eras is an extremely tricky thing to do. I am not trying to bring up the tired "Phish wouldn't have existed without the Dead" argument I have heard too many times to count, since musically Phish is obviously inspired as much by Zappa, King Crimson and the Talking Heads as by the Dead. On stage, there is little musical theory that is shared, but off-stage Phish has borrowed heavily. 2 sets + encore, unique set-lists nightly, and the general feeling that albums are just snapshots in time, whereas the live show is the ongoing story of the bands' life are just some of the ideas that started with the Dead and flowed onto the next generation. For most its career, the Dead were driving in uncharted territory while Phish has been able to learn from some of the mistakes of the bands that came before them, though obviously not all lessons have been learned.