[The current FAQ entry on this website for "Hose" is grossly in need of updating. The Jamming Types entry also should be modernized, if only because one can now link to the original RMP threads about it, and because while the entry somehow mentions "PornoFunk" it fails to mention the "PermaGroove" concept, which Drew Hitz coined upon seeing the 12/9/95 Albany "YEM" (by the way, Drew also coined "Fuckerpants" (aka "Prince Caspian") on RMP in fall 1997 (without an explanation), and I just popularized the term when I recapped the '97 NYE run on RMP).

As I solemnly reflect on my sucking at the Phish, I would like to thank those who have made this site what it is, especially users @SethAdam1 and @UCtweezer and @Bizarro_Jerry and @Lemuria and @ZZYZX and the members of the jamcharts teams over the years for their help curating the jam charts on this site, without which this collection would have been impossible for me to create, particularly while on my back with my right ankle elevated above my heart for 23+ hours a day (I have a few more weeks of this!). Thank you everyone who has contributed to the jam charts in the last 15 years, especially users and current/former jamchart team members @DogFacedBoy, @Westbrook, @n00b100, Rich, @cohron1, @deshpn, @ItsIce88 and @MShow96! Thanks are also due to those who worked on the jam charts published in The Phish Companion (aka the "legacy" charts), including Jeremy Goodwin, Jim Raras, Craig DeLucia, Herschel Gelman, Billy Rickards, Steve Paolini, Sean McPharlin, Jason Rose, Jeremy Welsh, Tim Wade, Syd Schwartz, Saul Wertheimer, Christian McKee, Erik Swain, Jesse Appelman, Scott Hershkowitz, Mike Preston, and Rob Kallick. (If you worked on a jam chart and I failed to mention you, PLEASE FORGIVE ME, but let me know so I can ADD YOUR NAME HERE!)

I would also like to thank the tapers for not only recording shows over the decades, but also SHARING YOUR RECORDINGS!

And, of course, THANK YOU RELISTEN! THANK YOU DANIEL SAEWITZ AND ALEC GORGE for your PRICELESS service to the improvisational rock community!

Although my primary motivation in analyzing the entirety of Phish history to create this post was to eventually bring the FAQ entries for "The Hose" and "IT" (and possibly "Jamming Types") up to date after getting Comments on the post from you, and with the assistance hopefully of other site volunteers (OR YOU??), it wasn't long before I realized I was undertaking this effort in the fortieth year of Phish's history. In honor and in acknowledgement of forty years of Phish shows, and for your amusement, this post contains photographs of sundry, material, and sometimes personal and very humiliating items and ephemera from my years as a fan. I include them here as but a small gesture of atonement for my sucking at Phish for so long.

The transcription of the NPR radio interview purportedly from spring 1994 (below) appears to be based on a recording of it that I either transcribed myself (it is in a very old TXT file on my pc) or copied from someone in the 1990's, but I cannot locate the recording in my tapes or in the RMP Google Groups archive (other than in my RMP post that includes this transcription). I say "purportedly" about the date because in this remarkable 1997 thread on RMP that I encourage you to read or at least skim about the concept of the "Hose" and "IT" and having a transcendent experience listening to music, an old friend of mine Aaron states in the thread (on April 10, 1997) that he recalls hearing this interview on NPR's Weekend Edition in his dorm room at college in fall 1994. Aaron is a brilliant dude and I have no reason to question his memory. Of course, I guess it's possible NPR re-broadcast the interview in fall 1994, as Hoist was released March 29, 1994, but I wish I had the date and recording to (re)confirm. See also this thread in September 1997, which also has some wonderful ideas from fans, and in which I explain in one of the posts in the thread why the concept of "hose" and "getting IT" aren't quite the same, as I also explain below. -charlie]

The concept of "the Hose" originated in a conversation that Trey had with Carlos Santana when Phish was opening for Santana on his tour in July 1992. In an NPR interview conducted in spring 1994 during the promotion of Hoist, Trey and Mike explained how they understood the concept:

Interviewer("Int"): I wondered how much you were all influenced by Frank Zappa?

Trey: Oh. Particularly myself and Fish, our drummer. I was heavily influenced. As a matter of fact, the two of us—(pause) I remember going and following him around for a week or so, at one point, back when he was still touring and alive. But I always liked any kind of improvised live music, be it Frank Zappa, or the Dead, or Jazz. And I think that's the One Love that we all shared. And—

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