Page on XPN

I have been enjoying the new 'Tapers Section' of dead.net and I promise some thoughts on the spate of shows on my docket soon. The thesis is clearly stealing focus from this project (and many others, so don't feel too bad). I have been particularly enjoying the week of my birthday, 1/26, as there are precious few deadshows from late January it was exciting to get some high quality downloads available. One quibble with the format is that the Dead have to realize that lots of people will be downloading the audio content and while the 'roundup' at the end of each post is nice it hardly makes it convenient. Since these seem to be readily available I have been eschewing downloading to simply stream the cuts using winamp.

Now, on to the subject matter. If you have the time or energy head on over to NPR, via WXPN's site, to check out David Dye's interview with Page McConnell. I will be listening to it shortly to see how it compares to Matt Reilly's interview with Page on XPN's own Jamnation program. I heard the latter but not the former. I've always been struck by Page's, hmm, earnestness? and it seemed on display in this interview. I have to admit, when I first heard that Page was releasing a solo album I was plenty skeptical (and still am). But after hearing this interview I am more apt to check it out.

Some interesting tidbits:

- when Matt Reilly referred to Phish's status as 'on hiatus' Page was quick to point out that 'hiatus' is a bad word to describe their current situation. That 'broken up' is much better since it implies a finality.

- when asked about the inclusion of his former Phish band-mates on the new album he described it thusly (paraphrase): Well, you have to remember that me and the engineer/producer spent about a year-and-a-half in the studio working on this thing. Jon Fishman came in for like a day to play some drums. On another day Mike came in and laid down some tracks and on another day Trey came in and helped out. So it really isn't a collaboration by any stretch. He added that while they may not work together they do genuinely enjoy each other's company, despite also mentioning that years on the road take serious toll.

- He said that 'H.O.R.D.E.' was a terrible name to describe the 'genre' of music that is now generally referred to simply as 'jam-band'. In fact, the discussion was about the term 'jam-band' and Page went out of his way to proclaim his disdain for 'H.O.R.D.E.' I guess he either has a problem with John Popper or Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere.