Trey Anastasio has been involved in no less then 10 different side projects. Including Jazz Mandolin Project, 1993; Bad Hat, 1994; Surrender to the Air, 1996; 8 Foot Fluorescent Tubes, 1998; Phil Lesh and Friends, April 99; Vermont Youth Orchestra, 2001; Oysterhead, Fall 2001; Dave Matthews and Friends, winter ’03-’04; Trey Anastasio solo acoustic; Trey Anastasio Band, and Ghosts Of The Forest.

Trey played on Ernie Stires’ 1997 LP, Samson Riffs. As Ruth Horowitz reported in Seven Days back in Sept 97 “Half way through “Geulah Papyrus,” a straight-ahead Phish song about a spider and a fly, the music breaks into a short theme and variation in which counterpoint melodies weave in and out like silk strands in a web. The piece, “The Asse Festival”, was written by lead guitarist Trey Anastasio and dedicated to his friend and mentor, Cornwall composer Ernie Stires”

Jon Fishman is the man with 100 names. Here are a few notable ones. Fish, Henrietta, Tubbs, Jon the Fishman, Moses Brown, Moses Heaps, and Moses Dewitt, Moses Yastrzemski, J. Edgar Hoover, Vinnie Barbarino, Phil Collins, Zero man, Johnny B. Fishman, Hankrietta, Tommy Dorsey, The Piper, Sans Bag the Piper, Tubbs the Beast Boy, Eye Ball Man, Little Jon and Friar Tubbs, Jon, Friar Tubbs, Henrietta Fieldberg, Henrietta Tubman, Chuck Norris, Greasy Fizeek, Ron Jaworski, Marco Esquandolas, Luke Skywalker, Sneezeblood Eyeball, Forrest Gump, and Morton Charlton Heston. Of course this just scratches the surface.

Bassist Mike Gordon is also a filmmaker, directing the “Down with Disease” video and Tracking that showed the creative process behind Hoist.

Page McConnel’s Dad, Dr Jack helped develop Tylenol when he worked for McNeil.

Jerry Garcia’s solo project, Dave Mathews Band and Phish shared a manager – founder of Red Light Management Coran Capshaw.

They sat at the bar, as old and etched
with a thousand stories, of the Hotel
Fandangos Millionaires Room (where all the stars come
to shine in Weezenhawk) last Tuesday,
Frederick had brought the I-Ching
and in a late night toss
they saw it was time to head back
to the pyramids. They paid their tab
then hopped in a cab to JFK:

Henry asks “What goes on in the temples
at night?”, ”Ancient Egyptian burials,
prehaps a sacrifice or two”
replied Frederick, “You see
Hathor was the cow goddess
and she gave birth to Osiris the King
who was deemed as having the most desirable phallus
in the palace.  It was”, “diamond blue”
Gerorge interupted “a high erect prick
for Isis’s thighs, like a monster
bass swimming up the Nile in a hot eclipse evening
with clear eyes.  That’s the key.”
“To what” asks Henry,  Frederick says “Everything.”

Henry understood much less now
then when they were at the bar and as they entered
the airport he began to cry, wailing
something like “There’s not yet a word created
to do you guys justice and lets go home.”
They calmed him down and he continued
“There’s going to be a double suicide,
George is going to die
In a plane crash and I’m going to do the same
so I can be with him,

don’t look at me that way,
this is a tragedy.”  George said “You’re crazy man,
we’ve got a plane to catch in twenty minutes”
and went off to the bathroom.Henry continued
to cry and Frederick was silent for a second, thinking
the whole thing as relivant as the fact that water spins
clockwise south of the equator, something
so arbirary being so consistent,

he took a last pull off his cigarette
and turned to Henry “Things ain’t what they used to be,
moving in a kind of off-hand dexterity
toward the millenium.  We were in DC the first time
you started with this shit and it still makes me think
of the same two things;
the sculpture you made out of ashtrays
in Ferdonia that blocked Miss Whittlemeyers window
and got the priest and rabbi after us.” He was silent again,
getting lost in the image. “What’s the other thing
Fred”?”, “That somewhere, Henry, a Sphinx is laughing.”