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This song was written by Trey and myself, and eventually released by Phish on Undermind.  But long before that, I released it featuring singing by a great band called The Saras.  Check it out -- it also features a COMPLETE set of lyrics (AHEM Trey!...somehow a verse was overlooked by Phish!)

Nothing

From my band's Amfibian album with the same name, here's Skip the Goodbyes featuring Trey on guitar!

Skip the Goodbyes

Mike and Trey in the studio create an awesome version of a song that Trey and I wrote a long time ago...this came out on an unofficial leaked project called "Flotsam Five" -- this wasn't a Phish release or anything, and no one knows anything about it -- but it had a compilation of interesting songs.

Backwards Food For Backwards Folks

The ORIGINAL "I am Hydrogen". Me on keys, Marc Daubert on acoustic and Trey on his Ibanez...and a Fender amp I think.Recorded on a stereo recording Walkman (cassette). In this configuration we called the band Bivouac.I think in 1984


I Am Hydrogen

This song, "Silent in the Morning" was eventually released on Rift, and split into two songs: Horse and Silent in the Morning, for some reason I never was made aware of.Anyway -- this is the very first version, and it was recorded in late 1991 in my house in Princeton NJ on a Fostex 4-Track cassette machine in my "studio" -- a room that would be eventually occupied by my (then nonexistent) daughter.  Trey's on acoustic.  Singing along with Trey and myself are Marc Daubert, and our late good friend Amanda Lake.


Silent in the Morning

Sometime in late 1992 I handed Trey these lyrics inspired by the rhythm of the song Pocahontas by Neil Young.  Trey wrote this one completely by himself soon thereafter in his home studio in Vermont, and the first time I heard it was over the phone and we both flipped out over how cool it was.  Trey's interesting overdubbed solo carried through to the studio version as well to my delight.  Phish started playing it in early 1993 when it came out on Rift.  One of my live favorites, I always think back to this first version when I hear it...

The Wedge

October 2003.  Trey and I had a very productive 2003 with two great writing sessions.  This was post-hiatus, and post Round Room, but pre-break up.  4 of these 8 songs we wrote at this session (back in a Stowe, Vermont farmhouse) would wind up on Undermind.  Some Undermind tracks also came from an earlier writing session in Nantucket which Trey and I plan to release as well -- in fact we mixed and created an album called Men From Nantucket which may have leaked, but no matter -- we're going to release it when we agree upon the best way to do so.  Anyway -- the party was ON...these songs are raw tequila-fueled energy...mixed with a hint of the looming breakup later in 2004...which although neither of us specifically knew about yet, seemed to pervade the mood of Undermind...and thus this session.  Stay tuned -- I want to release most of the songs from this session -- while we're on the topic.  I am changing mediums though...moving to a different way of presenting the music...soon...

A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing

This is a song we wrote twice.  We have a few of those actually...where we have an idea and revisit it later, sometimes years later.  This first time was the same session as A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing, Oct 2003 in Vermont.  This was a poem of quiet desperation that my friend Scott Herman and I emailed to each other when we were deep in work-misery.  Trey turned it into a cool jam, and then later (the next time we rearranged it in 2009 in New York for the album Joy) a rock anthem.  I love this version -- it jams at the end...the "band" remember is Trey on drums, Trey on guitar(s), Trey on bass, Trey on keys, Trey on vocals...etc... Multi-tracking heaven.  Maybe I'm singing somewhere in there...

Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan

I get asked about the meaning of this one a lot.  This was written in October 1997...the same session as Farmhouse (see below).  In fact, I believe we plowed right into this one after the success of Farmhouse...a very quickly put-together song, but still with a good amount of soul and happiness.  With our confidence up, we quickly got BOGged down...this one took forever.  It started with that little piano riff, and got pretty thick pretty fast.  We were experimenting with a lot of different techniques...like singing every-other syllable in alternate speakers.  In other words for the line "there've been times that I wonder and times that I don't" -- we only sang "There've...times...I...der...times...I..." on the left track and then the alternating syllables: "...been...that...won...and...that...don't" on the right track.  it came out strangely...and eventually we sang the whole thing correctly on top of it, but you can hear it in this recording if you listen carefully.  This recording broke one of our unspoken rules:  record carefully and QUICKLY...to maximize our productivity.  Our previous two Vermont Farmhouse sessions had yielded about 5 or 6 songs per day.  We were deeply into the morning of the second day and our tally was only 1.5 songs.  Eventually we took advice from the lyrics and realized that it doesn't matter and finished Bug after a few hours of sleep the next day.  Despite being the "slow" song...it's one of our favorites because it answered a lot of important questions for us as writers.  It does leave an important one unanswered however.  So what does it mean?  {this track, like several others that appear on my SoundCloud, is part of a compilation of 25 original recordings that Trey and I released in 2000 called "Trampled by Lambs and Pecked by the Dove" which is now available on LivePhish.com.)

This was recorded in a house overlooking the Hudson River in April 2010.  An alternate title is "I See a Boat"...and THAT is a long story.  I'll attempt to shorten it considerably:  in Europe somewhere, in June 1997, after a Phish show and subsequent partying, Trey mentioned to me that I should be inspired to write beautiful music by the beautiful cities we were visiting...London, Vienna, Prague, etc...  I agreed with him.  But he actually pressed me to write one right away!  All I could come up with at the time -- since I was sinking deeply into my bed -- was "I See a Boat" -- it was all I could say...inspired by a horrible oil painting near my bed of a boat on the ocean.  It was a very short song with no melody.  He kind of let me off the hook, seeing that I was not suddenly going to bound out of bed and compose a masterpiece.  Of course I knew that wouldn't be the last I'd hear about it...it became the subject of some jokes at my expense...comparing my writing with that of say...Robert Hunter...who apparently composed Brokedown Palace, Ripple and To Lay me Down in one afternoon while visiting London.  When Trey held up my composition next to those, I had to admit..my European writing submission came up a bit short.  Fast forward to 2010:  a boat cruised by on the river capturing our attention.  I said "I See a Boat" to remind Trey of our running joke.  He grabbed a guitar -- I suppose to finally finish the song we started in 1997 -- and we came up with this.  He was able to play it with his band shortly thereafter at a benefit for the big oil spill in the Gulf.  Apart from that, this would be a true "From the Dungeon" release.

Sailboat Man

This is a song Trey and I wrote in 1997 in Stowe, Vermont -- in the same session we wrote Bug and Farmhouse.  This has been released before on Trey's and my album of demos called "Trampled by Lambs and Pecked by the Dove" which came out in 2000 and is available on LivePhish.com.  It never turned into a Phish song unfortunately, but it has the distinction of being the only "Christmas song" we've ever written.  This one was written/recorded in the same "lounge style" of song as Lawn Boy.

Blue and Shiny

This is a song that Anthony Krizan and I wrote with/for the McLovins.  I wrote the words with Jake in mind -- after a conversation we had -- knowing that singing them, he can feel the weird isolation from stage that happens up there...when people expect one thing based on your stage persona...and then are puzzled to find someone different.  This version includes some very tasty guitar by Anthony that never made it into the McLovins "Who Knows?" album version. 

Hesitate MIX

My band Amfibian's take on The Wedge.  This version was released on a 2001 CD created for charity by the Mockingbird Foundation called "Sharing in the Groove"  I was honored to be included among some awesome acts performing Phish covers on this CD including Little Feat, Dave Matthews, Jimmy Buffett, John Scofield, etc...  This was a version of my band that featured Scott Metzger and Chris Harford on guitars.

A tip of the hat to Vegas or Atlantic City?  I don't know.  We wrote this in 2011 when we were writing songs for Trey's album "Traveler".  This one fell by the wayside...and probably should have stayed there...but it has a beat that won't quit and it became the unofficial theme for me and my friends during the Atlantic City shows at Bader Field in June 2012.

HotBox

This was recorded in 1993 sometime.  Trey did it all by himself on a cassette multitrack.  I only supplied him the words on a piece of paper.  This version rocks and clearly displays how Trey's vision for the song was the blueprint for the Hoist version which followed in 1994.  The image of Aquitana is courtesy of my friend H. Spencer Young in NYC. @hspenceryoung
(This song is one of many demos of Phish songs recorded by Trey and myself and released in 2000 as "Trampled by Lambs and Pecked by the Dove" which is available at livephish.com)

Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan

ThunderBurn