A Brief History of the Phish Musical Universe
(As pieced together by Phish historian Alex Grosby with no assistance from Phish Inc, Red Light Management, or members of the band)
Some will tell you that “The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday” is Phish’s only rock opera. These people would be wrong. “The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday” (aka Gamehendge) is only the first phase of a long musical narrative that has expanded in recent years as the multiverse split open and melt.
It all begins a long time ago, before the first ice age, in the land of Gamehendge. An indigenous people known as “The Lizards” inhabited a forest somewhere on the southern tip of the island now known as Greenland. In this land, the Lizards used to have ceremonies at an object called the Rhombus. According to Lizards scholar Trey Anastasio,
“The divided sky chant is part of an ancient ritual dating back to the pre-Wilson years of She purity in Gamehendge. After listening to the
sacred sounds for a sloping lawn, three chosen subjects eat a special
root collected at the base of the enormous mountain that rises in the
center of the forest. The root is believed to contain the spirit of
Icculus, who lives at the top of the mountain. After eating the root,
they venture into a vast field at sundown. The field is deep green,
and stretches as far as the eye can see in all directions. In the
center of the field stands an enormous black rhombus. They climb the
rhombus and begin to sing, paying homage to the gods of the night sky.”
Not noted by Anastasio, the sacred sounds produced by the Rhombus were actually the Vibration of Life, transmitted by its ability to transcend time and space, allowing it to play sounds from not only the distant past and the future at the same time. Part of this is alleged to exist in a book known as the Helping Friendly Book, written by Icculus. However, those who have read the book succumb to avarice and greed and do not share its contents.
Years later, Gamehendge had been overthrown by the traveller Wilson and the beauty of the forest had been destroyed for a city called Prussia. Wilson declared himself king and locked the Helping Friendly Book in his castle tower. Part of this was documented in an old song entitled “Punch You in the Eye” as an Inuit person recalled being swept to Gamehendge from their home land in their kayak. Revolutionaries sought to free Gamehendge from Wilson. A former Lizard, Rutherford the Brave, remembered the transdimensional power of the Rhombus and used it to summon a military hero from the future. This is how in the late 1970s, one Colonel Forbin (Retired) found himself transported from modern-day Long Island to Gamehendge. Colonel Forbin tried his best, and is one of the few mortals to meet Icculus face to face, but when the Helping Friendly Book was given to revolutionary leader Errand Wolfe, he too succumbed to the avarice and greed, failing to free the Lizards from their doom.
Thousands of years passed and the Rhombus became buried under new land masses as tectonic plates shifted and new settlements came and went. That is until the late 1970s, almost coinciding with the transport of Colonel Forbin. This new wave of energy was discovered by the Icelandic government under the ground in Greenland. Excavation began and by 1981, in coalition with other Scandanavian nations, the Subterranean Arctic NeuroTechnology Orientation Station or “S.A.N.T.O.S” was operational.
Having been ordered into mandatory service, the station was manned by four men, Jules Haugen, Clief Jårvinen, and Georg and Horst Guomundursen. These men were also musicians. Working on the Niu Teningur or “Nine Cubes” project, the 9th Cube was actually the ancient Rhombus from Gamehendge. It had been bent through years of pressure from the added layers of Earth. Using its natural transdimensional power alongside 8 power stations to amplify the signal, the band was able to travel through space and time. The radio inside the station would not only play music airing in 1981 but also pick up music from ancient worlds, the classics of pre-20th century Europe, African-American spirituals, the Grand Ole Opry, and more. It also went forward picking up music that had yet to be written; grunge, gangsta rap, pop-punk, Radiohead, Billie Eilish, and more.
Being fans of Frank Zappa, the men stationed at S.A.N.T.O.S. kept coming back to one band in particular. A foursome who would reverberate in their minds forever. The little Vermont outfit of Phish. Sweeping multi-part instrumentals, cow funk, Plinko funk, extended jams, it all helped them grit through the long days at work. Being musicians themselves, they would play covers of this mysterious music but not understanding the lyrics, make up their own. After their service was over, the man regrouped in Stavanger, Norway to record their new sounds. However, they forgot a lot of how it went exactly. So they did their best to replicate it, taking the band name Kasvot Växt and writing/recording the now classic album í rokk. The album was released on a small label called Elektrisk Tung and the band was never heard from again.
Or so they thought. The truth was during their playing along with the radio at S.A.N.T.O.S, they actually had been transported one afternoon to Las Vegas, Nevada on the future timeline of October 31, 2018. They thought there were listening to Phish. What actually was happening was they were beamed into the arena through the Nine Cubes, taking the form of Phish and playing their own original music. This cosmic syngery, created a paradox where it was assumed that Phish was covering an album but at the same time, Kasvot Växt was broadcasting live into the arena and taking the form of Phish.
The 9th Cube was actually also used by Phish themselves before the 2018 Interdimensional Crossrip. Phish had been on the road to Colorado to play at the Roma in Telluride. However somewhere in upstate New York, they ran out of gas and has gotten locked inside a storage shed. Summoning his own knowledge of Lizards lore and the Rhombus, Trey Anastasio used the Vibration of Life to power The 9th Cube from their remote location and beam their image through time in a way we see today. Like many events in the multiverse, they are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The band is actually stuck in that same storage shed in the Finger Lakes but by using the The 9th Cube, they have been able to play their music without actually leaving the storage shed. This was exposed when the band summoned their fans to the Finger Lakes for the first time in 2011 and has been common knowledge since. This is why also there is an alternate version of Trey Anastasio that tours with the Trey Anastasio Band with a totally different sound and attitude from Phish. Same goes for Mike Gordon and his band. Page McConnell and Vida Blue. Jon Fishman’s various appearances and quite life as a farmer. They are actually different multiverse versions existing at the same time.
The Crossrip of 2018 also had far reaching consequences in the future. The broadcasts of both Phish and Kasvot Växt dominating the 9th Cube through time created a society where all of their daily functions are based on the teachings of Kasvot Växt and í rokk. However, the streams were crossed and sometimes Phish lyrics can be heard scattered among the sayings from Kasvot Växt like “Blank Space where my mind should be” and “Guyute was the last living pig.” This society has also unearthed the work of Lizards scholar Trey Anastasio, opting to worship a new deity based on Icculus, known as Holy Blankenstein. 4 members of this society formed a peacekeeping force called Sci-Fi Soldier.
In the year 4680, while cleaning up an infestation of Moss Piglets, Sci-Fi Soldier found a disturbance in their history called the Howling. It was traced to the year 2071. Being only the second mortals to meet Holy Blankenstein (aka Icculus), they were told of a point in history when the Howling could be stopped on October 31, 2021. Using the power of the 9th Cube to transcend space-time in their Pocket Operated NeuroTechnology Orientation Station (the size of the 8 cubes has shrunk but it still uses the Vibration of Life emitted by the 9th Cube,) Sci-Fi Soldier was able to travel back in time to the inflection point to get a message across to humanity to try and stop the Howling and save the world. It’ll be interesting to see how the Crossrip of 2021 will effect the future of not only Phish but humanity. We don’t know yet if it stopped the Howling but the 9th Cube will be fired up again by the Vibration of Life as Phish themselves once again take the reigns from their storage unit to send a message in troubled times on December 31, 2021. And that is all the moments so far in the Phish Musical Universe.
