About six years ago, Lawn Memo contacted me out of the blue. He was familiar with my Phish writing and asked me to pen a guest post on his site The Daily Ghost. I was well aware of his pet project... a blog devoted to recapping and reviewing every live performance of Ghost by Phish. I met a significant amount of music nerds in my day, but The Daily Ghost was the tip of the Phish-geek iceberg. I eventually met Lawn Memo while walking into a show at The Gorge many moons ago. I recognized him because he wore a bicycle helmet. It was his shtick and a good one because out of all the weird shit people wore to Phish shows, no one wore a bike helmet.
I first started writing for The Daily Ghost in 2013 when Lawn Memo asked me if I would be interested in writing about one of my favorite jams from one of the San Francisco shows from the previous summer tour. I said no problem, and cranked out something about Simple from 8/18/12.
Every summer since then, Memo tapped me to write about a different show and my favorite jam from that night. His latest installment has been published... 21 in 21 of 2017... which covers the best of the best jams that Phish played in the summer of 2017, including their kickass run at MSG for the Bakers Dozen shows.
Lawn Memo gave me first crack at picking a show from the Bakers Dozen. I saw all 13, but picked the Strawberry Donut show, or Night 2 of 13 because I actually saw most of the show with memo. we sat behind the stage and hilarity ensued. We also caught a badass cover of Shuggie Otis' Starwbery Letter 23, which fit the theme of Strawberry Donut night.
Check out my contribution, which I subtitled Chekov's Strawberry Gun and Page's New Palate.
Memo hosts an annual series on the best summer jams and I've been fortunate enough to write about a show from the last six summers. I've mostly covered west coast show. I guess you can call me Memo's West Coast beat reporter... covering shows in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, The Gorge, and Denver.
Last summer, I got to write about that gnarly jammed out Tube from Chula Vista, CA.
Here's an index of my contributions to The Daily Ghost...
7/22/17 Bakers Dozen Night 2 - MSG, NYC - MOMA DanceLawnMemo is not just the President, he's also a client! Memo contributed to his own series. Read his heady take on Bakers Dozen Night 8, which also happened to be his 100th show.
7/23/16 Chula Vista, CA - TUBE
7/25/15 L.A. Forum - No Man's Land
8/30/14 Dick's, Colorado - Carini > Light
7/26/13 The Gorge, WA - Crosseyed > Twist > Steam
8/18/12 San Francisco, CA - Simple
If you're interested in the best Phish jams from last year, check out Summer Jams Series from 2017 which includes some of your favorite Twitter personalities and Phishy writers.
And if you haven't checked out the infamous Daily Ghost, then what are you waiting for?
