His attention to quality and detail while on Phish tour leave you skipping the couch for his uploads the next morning.

I’m happy to see he managed to hit Primus in NYC as well:

…how can we top it this year @JDSphinx?!

Birds of a Feather by Keller Williams feat. Al Schnier of moe. guesting at Club Nokia in LA Live on 2.4.12
(thanks smasher69!)

MUST WATCH – MUST WATCH – MUST WATCH – MUST WATCH – MUST WATCH – MUST WATCH – MUST WATCH – MUST WATCH – MUST WATCH

With each track is a blurb about it…when it was written, why it was written, where it was recorded, etc. It’s been an incredible treasure trove of information that phans have been waiting many years for.

Last Friday, another tune popped up on Tom’s account and it was “Farmhouse” …however Tom did not provide the blurb for this one…Trey did…

I’ll post it here for listening/reading purposes but I highly recommend going over to Tom’s Soundcloud page and exploring it. Some great stuff there and hopefully more in the future:

Hi everyone,
I know Tom is writing these blurbs, but I wanted to write one. Tom and I have been writing and four-tracking together for over thirty years now, and I have so many incredible memories of our adventures: I could probably fill a book writing about them. One of my favorites is about the songs Farmhouse and Bug.
In the nineties Tom and I began renting houses in the Stowe area of Vermont and disappearing for long weekends to hang out together and write. To be perfectly honest, the hanging out part was even more important to me than the writing. With Phish’s exponential growth in the mid nineties came a whirlwind of confusion and frantic energy that I don’t think any of us in the band were completely prepared for. Our quiet little scene in Burlington and on the road exploded. Suddenly the idea of hiding out alone for three days and nights on a farm with one of my oldest friends became a precious idea that I anxiously looked forward to for weeks in advance of our trips. At that time I had neither a cell phone nor a computer, so when we disappeared, we really disappeared.
Farmhouse was written and recorded in the first five minutes of one of those trips. I picked up Tom at the airport in this cool old 1970′s RV that I had bought that had an eight track player in it, and we drove to the farmhouse we had rented. It was kind of late since Tom had left from work, and we pulled over for a second and jumped out next to a field. When we looked up at the sky, it was exploding with these deep greenish colors that we soon realized were the northern lights. We stood there and just stared in awe. We continued on, and found our house down a long secluded dirt road. We walked in and I ran over to the gear and picked up a guitar while Tom plugged in a Mic. there were some sliding glass doors that we opened, and though it wasn’t as intense as it had been when we pulled over, we could still see traces of the northern lights thru the door. Mostly, we were both buzzing from that magical feeling of being completely alone, and knowing that we didn’t have to talk to or see a single soul for three whole days and nights, which to both of us was heaven.
I started strumming and Tom started singing, and since he didn’t have any lyrics, he reached over and grabbed the note that the owner of the house had left for us and began reading it, verbatim.
“Welcome! This is a farmhouse, we have cluster flies, alas, and this time of year is bad…”
And on it went from there. I love the chorus, “I never ever saw the northern lights, I never really heard of cluster flies!”
After that I quickly constructed all the instruments. I will always to this day believe that this version of Farmhouse is the perennial version, mostly because of the genuine joy in Tom’s inspired and spontaneous vocal. Also, for the record, of course we immediately recognized that it sounded similar to “No woman no cry”, and sort of threw that “be all right” thing in specifically for that reason, amidst the frenzy of laughing and singing. It felt like the perfect sentiment for our escape. “in the farmhouse things will be alright”.
I don’t think Tom and I have ever written a single song for any reason other than to entertain ourselves. We don’t really think about the fact that anyone will ever hear this stuff. It’s in the moment. If we took the time to think about it more, we would probably edit ourselves into submission, and take a lot of the joy and spontaneity out of the songs. I know for a fact that if Tom had his way, “Yanked on my tunic and dangled my stash” would not be in the public consciousness. Personally, I happen to love that line. -Trey.
[TOM'S note: I added the "alas", that wasn't on the note. No one has written "alas" -- and meant it -- since the 19th century. Some of the songs I'm posting, this one included, were released in 2000 on a CD of 25 demos that Trey and I recorded in 1997 called "Trampled by Lambs and Pecked by the Dove" which is available on LivePhish.com. Also...Trey didn't write much about Bug, so I'll release that if/when he writes another "blurb"...or I'll write one...soon!]

Anyway I’m back and off to an amazing start. Good friends, good times aplenty already and I met/shook hands with Phish bassist Mike Gordon last Friday. Gordo and a few other musicians did a live re-imagining of, “Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks” which is a tribute Brian Eno did about the NASA moon landings. They played the original movie on a screen in the background and they all just jammed some slow spacey/drone sounds. Not what you would expect at all and that’s what he said when Jen and I spoke to him. “Well that was different huh?” then went on to say that him and Fishman used to listen to the original soundtrack a lot back in the day and stuff.

…still speechless. What can top that in 2012?

TIME TO FIND OUT

Tom Marshall is to Phish what Robert Hunter is to the Grateful Dead.

Tom, an early childhood friend of Anastasios, has penned an incredible well of tunes for the band since they first began performing together in ’83.

Back then, it was old recording equipment in a barn…a cassette recorder captured the scents and subtle sounds.

Today?  Tom is embracing the web and his newly created Twitter account to bring those same recordings to the fans.

He is releasing these tracks, both new and oldies from the 80′s, via the rising SoundCloud music hosting service and alerting everyone via tweets as he does it.

Each song has a personal description that Tom attaches explaining the setting or concept behind the track. For example here’s the original “Backwards Down the Number Line” from the most recent album Joy

“This one was the one that reunited Trey and me again after a long silence in September 2007.Trey was in Saratoga Springs, NY, working very hard in his Drug Court program — helping himself, helping others…but not communicating with anyone…on purpose.His dad was key to breaking the silence and said I could email Trey a Happy Birthday and he “might answer”.At first I thought he was joking, because until that moment, Trey NEVER used email!So I sent off a birthday poem…these lyrics.2 hours later I received an “Oh My God, Tom” email.Then soon after, a phone call where he played me this song.Our writing conquered the chasm…the rift.The thing we did best and did forever, songwriting, reignited our friendship.”

So far he has posted 11 tracks and has talked to Trey who is equally excited about releasing more via the same method…so be sure to bookmark the soundcloud link below!

Tom Marshall on SoundCloud

This means taking the Metro North train into the city and then a subway to my office.

I can already see you wondering, “Okay, but how do you get TO the train?”

Wonder no more folks…

Apologies for the shaky video; perhaps attaching the camera to the front reflector wasn’t the BEST idea. I’m trying to work with different formats to make it fit the screen better, reduce shaking and also at least be somewhat in HD. Ugh…don’t get too motion sick

Ain’t much more to say!

(oh and they found the run away Cobra from the bronx zoo..yay!)