The Mockingbird Foundation and The Phish Companion, 3rd Edition, will get some news coverage over the radio waves (and through the interconnected series of tubes) on Tuesday morning, courtesy of Vermont Public Radio.

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Welcome to the 240th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday. The winner will receive an MP3 download 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 jam clips, which are connected by a theme. Each person gets one guess – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Hint:

Answer: Congrats to @dbertsch, who enters a class of now 39 multiple MJM winners with his second win and LivePhish code, both on multiclip MJMs. He must have recognized the picture taken of the HP Hood milk plant in Burlington, VT, just across the street from where the band lived when they wrote a song about Mr. Hood himself. Specials thanks to Anne Rothwell and the kind folks at thehoodplant.com for allowing me to use one of their photos for this week's hint – it's really cool that they acknowledge Phish on their site taboot: check it out! @dbertsch correctly identified the 7/18/03 Harry Hood (from the jam) and the 3/14/92 Harry Hood (from the improvisational intro) – two clips that, in combination with the versions from the past couple years, highlight the storied improvisational history of this fan-favorite tune since 1985. Stay tuned for next week's MJM, the final and most difficult MJM of September (before we reset the difficulty meter to "low" the week after), which will be an experiment with yet another new format.

On Sunday night, tune in to Power Radio 88 from 6-7pm EST for a Q&A with Phish Companion co-editor and Mockingbird Foundation Board President, Marco Walsh.

Listen here:

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Welcome to the 239th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday. The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip. Each person gets one guess – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Note: As with MJM 237, this video MJM does not have audio. While I may use video with audio for future MJMs, these silent MJMs will rely on your ability to pick up on visual cues to identify these clips without any music. In the interest of fairness, I won't be using any video that can't be found on YouTube or Vimeo – I will be screen capturing from those sites directly, not from my own collection.

Answer: Congrats to first-time winner, @Franklin, who won this week's video-sans-audio MJM by correctly identifying the 7/6/13 Split Open and Melt in stunningly quick fashion (18 minutes?!), and takes home a download code for any show from LivePhish.com. Next week's MJM will be harder than those from the past two weeks, but it won't be as hard as the last of the month. Won't you come out to play?

Uncomfortable truths are sometimes easier to acknowledge after the passage of time. This is especially true when there is a happy ending involved. So it goes with Phish's 2016 summer tour. Let's be clear: Heading into Dick’s, 2016 wasn’t just below average—it was among the most puzzling and disappointing stretches of the band's career.

Phish has always had highs and lows—many more of the former than the latter—but there was always an explanation for the lows. In retrospect, 1996 was about the band re-inventing itself after the peak of 1995. We all know the explanation for 2004, though the band still managed to scale massive peaks even during that time of trouble. In 2009, Phish was still getting their sea legs under them. But 2016 hadn’t provided an easy answer, at least not yet.

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Welcome to the 238th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first and easiest MJM of September. Happy Labor Day to you all, especially those who got their asses handed to them at Dick's this weekend*! The winner will receive an MP3 download courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery jam clip. Each person gets one guess – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday, after which each person gets one more guess before I reveal the correct answer on Wednesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

*I'm writing this before Dick's has started, wishfully thinking there'll be another "Ass Handed."

Hint:

Answer: Congrats to first-time winner @courvoisier, who climbed right back in the saddle after a near win last week and correctly identified the 7/15/16 Chalk Dust Torture from the Gorge (located in George, WA), taking home a LivePhish code for his efforts. After consecutive strong showings, is he the next savant to take MJM by storm? Or will one of the multiple MJM winners swoop back in when the level of difficulty jumps up another notch? Find out on Monday when we're back with MJM239.

[This guest recap is courtesy of Dr. Stephanie Jenkins, who teaches the "Philosophy School of Phish" and other courses at Oregon State University. Special thanks to Yaron Marcus for his feedback on this recap and for the photos! -charlie]

On the second of three sold-out nights at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, Phish springboarded off the energy from night one to deliver an overall excellent show last night. It featured a number of tight, energetic jams, an unexpected opener, and a contender for the best first set of the summer. While the setlist did not contain any bust-outs or heavily-chased songs, Phish laid down a memorable, polished show that highlights the versatility of the band with the perfect balance of beautiful, reflective peaks and dark, sublime rock.

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Phish got right down to business last night at Dick’s… so we’ll do the same. Roaring out of the gates with “Ghost,” the band offered only the second show-opening Ghost since the ‘90s, the other also being at Dick’s (8/31/13, the “MOST SHOWS SPELL SOMETHING” gig). Rounding out at a little over ten minutes, it was still too early to sense that this was a night where IT was happening.

Photo by Herschel Gelman.

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Phish closed out the Lockn’ Festival on Sunday night with a solid performance of mostly classic fare to cap the four-day festival that featured many of the top names in improvisational rock and roll. Phish’s headlining slot on Friday night defied the low expectations that often accompany festival performances, as Phish offered one of the most highly-regarded shows of 2016 featuring expanded treatments of fan-favorites such as “Ghost,” “Bathtub Gin,” and “You Enjoy Myself.”

Outstanding performances from many other acts throughout the weekend helped raise the bar for the finale, including standout performances by Umphrey’s McGee, Ween, My Morning Jacket, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, two different Phil Lesh and Friends ensembles (including one with Fish and Page), and two jaw-dropping late-night performances from Joe Russo’s Almost Dead. Let’s turn to the action and see how today’s jamband heavyweight champ responded.

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Note: Starting this week, the MJM will provide more variety in terms of both the format and the difficulty of MJMs each week. Generally, every month will start with an easier MJM, and each MJM thereafter will increase in difficulty until the last MJM of each month. In other words, expect to see classic single-clip MJMs near the beginning of each month, and multi-clip + theme MJMs towards the end of each month, with other formats and levels of difficulty in between. Enjoy, and as always, constructive feedback is always welcome.

Answer: Congrats to first-time winner, @queenesther, who by identifying the 8/19/12 Light (-> Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley) by sight alone, takes home two LivePhish codes! Yes, @courvoisier was technically more accurate because @queenesther didn't mention the -> Sally, but ultimately I decided to award the code to the latter contestant because the video only features ~15 seconds of Sally, and @queenesther was 19 minutes quicker. Stay tuned on Monday, especially you MJM n00bs, when we'll have our first and easiest MJM of September.

If you’ve been a fan for a minute, you’ve heard of “festival Phish.”

It’s the mostly pejorative term for a set that’s preciously curated for non-fans who really rolled up to see Bruce Springsteen, Matt & Kim, or some craft yoga emo battalion with seven snare drummers, five fiddles, and three artisanal washboards—but decided to stick it out and finally, passively, see what Phish is all about. These dilute sets nearly always seem to include a “Moma Dance,” a “Down With Disease,” a “Joy,” and a generous helping of unapologetic ripcords.

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Hey Phish fans! It's me, The Book! Phish takes the stage at LOCKN' this weekend—with a free stream! Psyched? You bet I am! The kind folks who created me at The Mockingbird Foundation and phish.net ran a photo contest to celebrate my birth. Imagine, fans taking pictures of little ol' me! I'm only a little more than two months old, and already it feels like I've been everywhere!

What a summer it has been already! When you think summer—aside from Phish tour—you think the beach! My favorite beach visit this summer was to Morocco! Check out this shot of me from @YomeNetSan, who won third place in the contest! #ReadTheBook! It will save your life!

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Don't miss this wonderful article about Lars Fisk and his work in the New York Times, which includes some words from Trey about Mr. Fisk's work at Superball IX.

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And then there was one. Welcome to MJM Week 236, the tenth and final week of our Hall of Champions Series, Volume I. We welcome Emeritus Champion @schvice into the recording studio, where he has picked out this week's theme and tracks, all for your listening pleasure. @schvice recently gained Emeritus status, after winning his seventh MJM in Week 232, when he successfully navigated a challenging Gamehendge-based course set by @mcgrupp81. Where once he was the bane of the Blog, foiling themes and jams thought unsolvable, now @schvice has (thankfully) gone to the Dark Side, hoping that he can lead the Blog to that elusive victory number 17. Only one way to find out: let it rip.

To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of each of the three mystery jam clips, and answer what they share in common. Each person gets one attempt per day, with the second “day” starting after the Blog posts the hint -- each answer should contain three songs / dates, along with the commonality between them. No sharing or trading of answers is allowed. A hint will be posted on Tuesday if necessary, with the answer to follow on Wednesday. The winner will receive one MP3 code good for a free download of any show, courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. Good luck!

Hint:

Answer: It took a well-crafted triplet and a creative hint from the 10th and most recent MJM Emeritus @schvice, but for only the 17th time in 236 attempts, the Blog snags the W! As some users noted, the title of the video used for the hint is Mike Reed plays Groove Holmes' 1966 "Misty" up-tempo, on the Hammond Organ [emphasis mine]. The keen observer will note that the title is a play on "Mike's Groove," and the Mike in the video is certainly grooving along to the 50 year old tune; but even more fitting is the song played: "Misty." Fans well-versed in Phish's early material may recall that "I Am Hydrogen" has seldom-spoke lyrics that were used a half dozen times in the early days: "I walk awakening on the misty fields of forever." This week's "Mike's Groove" MJM consists of the 4/29/93 Weekapaug Groove, the 4/24/87 I Am Hydrogen, and the 7/12/96 Mike's Song. We'd like to once again thank @schvice and all of the MJM Emeriti for participating and crafting these awesome MJMs, and we hope to keep them involved and leverage their expertise in other ways in the future. Tune back in on Monday, when @ucpete takes over as your helping friendly host, and keep your eyes and ears peeled for some new tweaks in how the MJM is run. It has not escaped our notice that the multiclip format may be a turn-off to the unintiated, so expect a mix of classic single-clip MJMs, meta-puzzles, and other MJM shenanigans to take the sting out of Monday for everyone!

Special Thanks: I'd like to thank @ucpete for letting me be the Invisible Hand behind MJM for the past 10 weeks, helping each Emeritus Champion with crystalizing a theme, fine tuning the jam track samples, concocting the hint, and generally ensuring that the process runs smoothly. I had a blast getting to know each Emertitus Champion, and these guys, all ten, are not only great guys, but they really, really know their Phish. Thanks again @ucpete for handing the keys over and letting me take the cruise ship out for an extended journey. It was a great ride, but all good things must end, and with today's Emeritus/Blog victory (nice MJM @schvice!), I commend the MJM controls back to your good care. Enjoy what's left of summer everyone. DFB.