[Post is courtesy of dot net user @dmg924.]

Beyond the Pond is a bi-weekly podcast in which Brian Brinkman (@sufferingjuke on Twitter) and David Goldstein (@daveg924 on Twitter) use the music of Phish as a gateway to introduce the listener to many other bands, the vast majority of which are not jambands. An episode generally begins with a deep dive into a designated portion of Phish improvisation, and then can spin off to any variety of musical themes and other acts, the overarching purpose being introducing the listener to as many new and different bands as possible.

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The 2017 Jam of the Year tournament starts today! This is an annual Phish.net forum tradition in which we sort 64 of the hottest jams from the previous year into a single-elimination bracket. Each week, we pit jams against each other in one-on-one matchups and, as a forum member, you get to vote on which jam you prefer out of each matchup. The jam with more votes moves on to the next round — and we keep going until we have a winner! We encourage you to join the conversation about which jams you want to vote for — the more voices, the merrier.

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Welcome to the 312th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the second-easiest of February. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and date of these two mystery clips, which are connected by a theme that needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. After the hint, each person gets one more guess before the contest ends Wednesday, and the winner announced shortly thereafter. Good luck!

Answer: We've hit #17 in '18! With this week's win, @12_29_97_4eva can finally stop worrying about having skipped 12/30/97, knowing he has reached the pinnacle of Phish fandom by the longer, more circuitious, more rewarding path: by becoming the 17th MJM Emeritus! This week's MJM was one of those "easy if you're paying attention" contests: not only did we get our sixth and seventh consecutive '99 clips, but I said the winner would have to identify the correct "songs and date" (plural and singular, respectively). A careful reader would assume that either I committed a typographical error, or that both songs came from the same show; a longtime careful reader would know that it's simply unrealistic for me to leave a typographical error in an MJM post. Alas, @12_29_97_4eva quickly identified the 7/26/99 "Wolfman's Brother" and the 7/26/99 "Jam."

@12_29_97_4eva: Kevin has activated your login to The Vault; Paul is adding the lacquer to your personalized MiniDoc©; Mike said he asked his assistant to ship you four of his favorite Sephora LipStyx; @FunkyCFunkyDo is in your closet, burning the rest of your pants; @RabeldyNugs is yelling at you to get off his lawn; and The Boys just sent a really funny (but highly NSFW) GIF of Fishman with the caption "time for the meatspin" to the iMessage text thread. I notice you haven't thumbs-up'd or "haha"'d it yet – Fish gets really bummed when we don't (oh, and he hates "lol" so only write it in uppercase and only if you are actually laughing out loud – sometimes he FaceTimes you to double check), so I hope for all our sakes you don't have an Android phone... All seriousness aside, welcome to the club! (Took you long enough...). I'd also like to take this moment to announce the unveiling of the MJM Hall of Fame – see the MJM Results spreadsheet below, in the second tab. The MJM HoF currently comprises 17 MJM Emeritus winners, and three MJM hosts – with an overlap of two between those two groups. If you're an Emeritus and I have missed or misquoted any of your remarkable feats, please let me know and I will rectify the situation immediately. MJM313 on Monday.

ICYMI: HQ Trivia's Scott Rogowsky is a Phish fan, and relix has an article about his work and Phish memories here. Notably, Scott's first show was Nassau 2/28/2003, inarguably among the greatest shows in Phish history (and there have been a lot of excellent shows at the Coliseum).

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Welcome to the 311th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first* and easiest of February. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday, or as soon as necessary. Good luck!

*Reminder: For the first MJM of each month, only folks who have never won an MJM are allowed to answer before the hint. If you have never won an MJM, please answer as a blog comment below. If you have previously won an MJM, but you'd like to submit a guess before the hint, you may do so by PMing me; once the hint has been posted, everyone should answer on the blog. If that's confusing to you, check out the handy decision tree I threw together to help guide you. If you're not sure if you've won before, check in the MJM Results spreadsheet linked below.

Hint:

Answer: Congrats to @Patwich on his second MJM win overall, earning another LivePhish code after answering correctly right after the hint dropped. This week's hint, "I think you know where you are" atop Zack Ertz worming his way into the endzone for the GWTD, referred to Minneapolis, MN, the site of Super Bowl LII. The line is also a reference to the epic July '97 shows in Amsterdam, which featured Trey yelling "I think you know where you are // you're on the back of the worm," a reference to Trey and his good friend Chris Cottrell (RIP) wandering the streets of Amsterdam the night before the first show. At one point they realized there were "giant 100 foot long sand worms swimming just below the surface of the water in the canals right next to [them]." I'm not sure what color those worms were, but the Red Red one debuted on that same European Summer '97 tour. Phish only played the song once in Minneapolis, but the 10/2/99 "Piper" was a doozy. MJM312: you know what to do.

Welcome to the 310th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the most difficult and final MJM of January. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the four mystery clips – these clips are connected by a theme that needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday, or as soon as necessary. Special thanks to the newest member of the MJM Emeritus Crew, @wforwumbo, for constructing this week's contest. Good luck!

Answer: Congrats to @12_29_97_4eva, who was stuck on five wins for an entire year, but now only needs one more MJM victory to reach the promised land! After falling briefly into the "Ghost" trap, he picked apart @wforwumbo's 1999 theme and quickly identified the 7/23/99 "Ghost," the 12/11/99 "Ghost," the 7/21/99 "My Left Toe," and the massive 9/18/99 "Boogie on Reggae Woman." MJM311 and the difficulty will drop shortly: it's n00b week, let's see some new faces!

Welcome to the 309th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the penultimate of January. From a difficulty standpoint, this week's is no joke. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of all three mystery clips, which are connected by a theme – the theme needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday, or as soon as necessary. Good luck!

Hint: Sometimes you have to read the show notes to figure out the MJM.

Answer: W for WOW. @wforwumbo won his first MJM (#288) in August 2017, identifying the 11/27/96 "Diseezer." At the time, I had no idea he'd end up breaking MJM records... after nine winless weeks, @wforwumbo reemerged to claim his second MJM (#298), and a few weeks later, he started his record-breaking streak of winning four consecutive MJMs, #302 - #305. With this week's win, his seventh overall, and six in the past 12 MJMs, @wforwumbo has also set the record for fewest MJMs from first to seventh win: 22 MJMs. For his efforts, not only will he be providing next week's puzzle, but he'll also receive his customary key to The Vault, backstage passes to the show of my choosing this summer (but I won't be telling him which show it is), the password to MIke's Hotline's voicemail, VIP access to the Phish.net staff tent city at Watkins Glen, and of course, he'll be added to the group text with Trey, Mike, Page, Fish, and the other 15 MJM Emeritus champions. Either that, or another LivePhish code. Definitely one or the other. Congrats!

Did I forget to mention Memphis? This week's clips were the 6/22/12 "Twist," the 7/3/95 "David Bowie," and the 2/25/97 "Prince Caspian" outro, which of course sounds nearly exactly like a "Coil" outro (but I'm not that cruel!).

Welcome to the 308th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the middle of five January MJMs. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of all three mystery clips, which are connected by a theme – the theme needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Thursday, or as soon as necessary. Good luck!

Answer: Congrats to @The_Blob for taking down his second and second consecutive MJM, beating out @12_29_97_4eva and @wforwumbo by mere seconds – the first three-way virtual tie in MJM history. Alas, @The_Blob's comment went live first, as he recognized the "3.0, 2.0, 1.0 – Time for the Meatstick!" theme, correctly identifying the 7/15/16 "Meatstick," the 8/2/03 "Meatstick," and the 7/15/99 "Meatstick." MJM309 on Monday: won't you come out to play?

[Michael Hamad (@MikeHamad on dot net and Twitter), who you may know for his "setlist schematics" (including a recent one for UM's latest album), offers the following for your consideration. -charlie]

I get frustrated when Phish jams sound like other Phish jams. I crave the unknown. It’s where I’m at. I’m supremely jaded.

This feeling came over me most recently on Dec. 30, 2017, during the 28-minute-long “Down With Disease.” Let me walk you through it.

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The latest from Be MORE Now Films, "Focus" is a short film set to the music of "Everything's Right" from the Baker's Dozen. (And you'll likely recognize some folks in cameos!)

Welcome to the 307th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the second and second-easiest of January. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of each of the two mystery clips (sorry for not fixing this sooner), which are connected by a theme that needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday, or as soon as necessary. Good luck!

Answer: For the first time in four months and only the third time in the past year, we have back-to-back first time MJM winners. This week, @The_Blob quickly put the smack down on the two-clip MJM, identifying the 12/28/98 "Wolfman's Brother" and the 10/31/98 "Wolfman's Brother." I had a clever hint all ready to go and everything. Let's take MLK Day off and reconvene Tuesday for MJM308, cool?

[Post is courtesy of dot net user @swittersdc.]

Well, that was quite a run, huh? On this episode of HF Pod, we break down the incredible 4 nights of Phish at MSG. We also included our live podcast we recorded at American Beauty on 12.29, as part of the PhanArt show.

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Happy New Year! Welcome to the 306th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, on Tuesday, the first* and easiest of January. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Thursday. Good luck!

*Reminder: For the first MJM of each month, only folks who have never won an MJM are allowed to answer before the hint. If you have never won an MJM, please answer as a blog comment below. If you have previously won an MJM, but you'd like to submit a guess before the hint, you may do so by PMing me; once the hint has been posted, everyone should answer on the blog. If that's confusing to you, check out the handy decision tree I threw together to help guide you. If you're not sure if you've won before, check in the MJM Results spreadsheet linked below.

Hint:

Answer: Congrats to @serpent_deflector on his first MJM win! Shortly thereafter the hint, which was a picture of peyote cactus – "Cactus" being Mike's nickname, hinting at "Mike's Song" (and other things, as explained in the comments) – @serpent_deflector correctly identified the 8/3/88 "Mike's Song." Some folks got thrown for a loop by the "Dave's Energy Guide" tease about 17 seconds in, which wasn't listed on the phish.net setlists at the time of the MJM, but thanks to the setlist team, it is now listed. Come back next week for MJM307, a puzzle I'm really excited about...

[After covering hundreds of hockey and basketball events at and for Madison Square Garden over the past two decades, Emmy Award winning writer, David Kolb has officially crossed over to cover his other love, music -- more precisely, Phish! The native New Yorker, who was first introduced to Phish in the 90's by his long-lost Bear Stearns co-worker, Frank "Chip" Tolve, won his Emmy for his coverage of the New York Rangers' run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2014.]

The challenge following-up the universally recognized epic 12/30 show loomed large, yet seemed to be no problem, when the show kicked off with a bit of a surprise. Trey opened blasting out the first bar of "Carini," while letting out a smile, restoring any energy that might have been lost overnight. It was a quick way to let us know, the night, would be no letdown!

Unlike the previous shows during this New Year’s run, my perspective changed from my incredible G.A. floor position -- several feet from the stage, to row 17 of section 118, helping gain perspective of what was about to unfold. The first three shows were outstanding, particularly Saturday’s wonder.

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[For this recap we are pleased to welcome Brian Brinkman (@howard_roark), co-host of the Beyond the Pond podcast.]

Following two strong shows on 12/28 and 12/29, Phish climbed on stage on Saturday, December 30 with an opportunity to elevate the 2017 New Year’s Eve Run to a rare status. Most years, the band needs a night or two to settle into the NYE run, thus producing a show or two that’s of a lesser quality than the best of the run. Think: 12/28/97, 12/27/10, 12/29/12, and 12/29/16. It’s often understandable that there will be a “dud” in the run, seeing as the band is focusing all their energy on four shows in the middle of winter, when their main approach is across month-long tours.

What made 2017’s NYE Run different, heading into 12/30, is that both 12/28 and 12/29 had produced spectacular jams in “No Men In No Men’s Land,” “Twist,” “Chalk Dust Torture,” “Ghost,” and “Split Open & Melt,” as well as solid micro jams in songs like “Tube,” “Your Pet Cat,” “Everything’s Right,” “Blaze On,” and “I Always Wanted It This Way.” The song selection had been inspired for the most part, and the overall flow of each show had been purposeful. Halfway through the run, the band had failed to produce a dud, and were poised to bring MSG to its knees, rightfully honoring their banner hanging in the rafters.

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