A Phan on Phish

Live Improvised Music in Five Performative Commitments

Bibliographic Data

ID2408376
AuthorsJnan A Blau
Year2010
Volume10
Issue4
Pages307-319
Publication date2010-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCulture Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1532-7086 • E-ISSN: 1552-356X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1532708610365320
OpenAlexW3209993694
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited24

Explored as a series of five interrelated performative commitments, the author takes seriously the notion that live musical performance, especially when it is pervaded by an improvisational ethos, can be quite powerful and well worth close examination. In particular, the band Phish, with its devout subcultural following of 'phans,' is mined as a rich site for critical, theoretical, and descriptive fodder. The author writes as both a phan and a scholar, drawing from his own experiences seeing Phish live on many occasions as well as from an interdisciplinary body of scholarly literature. The essay provides insight not only into the Phish phenomenon but also into the intersections of performance, communication, popular music, and critical cultural studies

Aesthetics · Art · Ethos · Improvisation · Linguistics · Musical · Performative utterance · Visual arts · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Theatre and Performance Studies · Philosophy

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