14 years ago today, a dozen Phish fans formally incorporated their efforts to build intellectual property related to the band Phish and their music, to protect that intellectual property, and to begin distributing it for the benefit of music education for children. The Mockingbird Foundation’s Articles of Incorporation, filed March 26, 1997, included a mission that was ballsy but prescient, and one we’re proud to have accomplished and to be continuing to develop:
The purpose or purposes for which the Corporation is to be formed are as follows: To engage in the study, publication, distribution and dissemination of books and other published materials in written, electronic and/or recorded form concerning the music, history, performances and biographies of the musical group Phish and other contemporary popular musical groups and performers, and on such related areas of interest as the technical aspects of the tape recording of live concert music; to hold and deal in the copyrights, trademarks and other indicia of intellectual property protecting the work products produced by those collectively engaged in such study and publication: to distribute any net income from the publication of such published or licensed materials for such qualified not-for-profit charitable, educational, cultural or other purposes as may be permitted by law and as the directors of the corporation deem to be consistent with the purposes of this corporation and the public interest. To do any other act or thing incidental to or connected with the foregoing purposes or in advancement thereof, but not for the pecuniary profit or financial gain of its members, directors, or officers….
In the ensuing years, the Mockingbird Foundation has distributed 193 grants, in 42 states, totalling more than $620,000.
This coming Monday, the Foundation will announce recipients of grants in its 14th round of competitive funding. In coming weeks, we’ll announce several new efforts, and look forward to your participation in them.
The board members, working groups, and volunteers associated with Mockingbird appreciate your many years of support, and look forward to continuing our efforts for decades to come.
MBIRD RELEASES ORGANIZATIONAL CHART, MANAGEMENT CHANGES
New President, New Board Member, New Committees, & more
Organizational Chart[Saratoga Springs, NY] – The Mockingbird Foundation today released an organizational chart which both codifies and formalizes the relationships among its constituent offices and working groups, including a half dozen important management changes which the Foundation announced simultaneously. The chart is intended to serve internal purposes, such as clarifying the organizational structure beyond Phish’s breakup, as well as external purposes, such as enunciating the careful design of authority and responsibility within the organization.
“This Foundation is run by dozens of fans, through a half dozen working groups, and a decade of informal patterns of authority and responsibility in conjunction with the formal structure,” said Executive Director Ellis Godard. “This chart identifies those relationships, so that the Foundation’s administration is as clear as its mission.”
The charted structure distinguishes between three working aspects of the Foundation:
* Directors of Operations manage grant applications, Internet presence, volunteer efforts, media relations, and artistic branding, and are filled on an ongoing basis by board approval or appointment.
* Directors of Special Projects manage Foundation flyers, events, albums, and merchandise, and are approved or appointed by the board on a case-by-case basis.
* Ongoing Projects currently include The Phish Companion, but may soon include additional projects that are still maturing and of which the status (ongoing vs. special) is therefore not yet certain.
The chart also reflects important separations of duty in the Foundation’s administration, website, and book.
* Dan Hantman has been named as the new President of the Board. His role will, among other things, include consensus-building within and direction from the Board to other offices and operating bodies of the Foundation. The role of President has been separated from that of Executive Director of the Foundation, a position which Ellis Godard will continue to fill. The Executive Director’s authority and responsibility has been narrowed to Operational aspects of the Foundation, while the Executive Committee will now take on oversight and development of Ongoing and Special Projects.
* Dan Hantman, who has been the Foundation’s webmaster since its inception, will also now serve as an Internet Liaison from the board to the new webmaster, Julia Mordaunt, who also designs and maintains the Mimi Fishman Foundation website and an important archive of articles about Phish (phisharchive.com).
* For The Phish Companion, a division of labor between administrative and production issues utilized for the second edition has been formalized as Executive Editor and Managing Editor in order to provide clarity as the Foundation begins plans for the third edition.
The chart also includes two important additions to the organization’s structure, both of which codify relationships with external volunteers.
* The first addition, conceived at a board meeting 1/3/02 and so currently titled the Hampton Committee, will review feedback to the second edition of The Phish Companion and advise the Managing Editor on production issues, just as the Literary Agent advises the Executive Editor on adminstrative issues.
* The second addition, announced last week, is an Advisory Panel of Phish luminaries and professional colleagues who support the Foundation and are willing to provide advice on certain issues as needs arise.
Additionally, Jim Raras has accepted an invitation to join the Board of Directors, bringing the size of the current board to 12. Jim has worked mightily on both editions of the book, and has provided important guidance and insight on several related aspects of Foundation activities. In addition to the development of new Special and Ongoing Projects, the Foundation board anticipates continuing its organizational development on an ongoing basis, including the re-engagement of emeritus directors over the next six months.
The Mockingbird Foundation is a leading provider of historical information about the band Phish and its music. Conceived in 1996, and founded in 1997, the Foundation is operated entirely by volunteers, without any salaries or paid staff. It fundraises for music education for children by celebrating the music of Phish. Its comprehensive books, innovative recordings, creative donation premiums, and special events for the Phish fan community have raised more than $250K and funded scores of grants so far. The Foundation will release a second edition of The Phish Companion this summer, and will announce its next round of grant recipients in October.
Phish is a rock band from Burlington, VT. They began on December 2, 1983; became one of the highest grossing and most beloved touring acts in history; and will perform their final show on August 15, 2004, in Coventry, VT. The band’s net proceeds from its livephish.com music distribution service are donated to the Mockingbird Foundation.
Artistic and Production Directors Begin Immediately
The Mockingbird Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of two new volunteer positions which will coordinate artistic and production needs of various Foundation projects. Both positions, as with all Mockingbird roles, are entirely volunteer, including no compensation in order to maximize the charitable contributions generated by their generous services.
Heather Hanly has volunteered as and been appointed Artistic Director. Heather designed the Foundation’s logo, which appears on all Foundation items, and has been an important contributor in coordinating and designing other graphic needs of the foundation for several years. When not volunteering, she is a freelance designer in Oakland, California and goes by the name Hanly Design.
Phillip Zerbo has been appointed Production Director. Phillip has served a leading role in advancing the content of The Phish Companion towards the second edition, due out next spring. He is the editor of both the venue file and the sideshow chapter, and serves as at-large editor and proofreader for the book as a whole. In this new capacity he will play a central role in directing layout and production services for the new edition. Phillip is a freelance writer and editor living on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
The Mockingbird Foundation was incorporated in 1997 by fans of the band Phish. Through various projects, including the 928-page Phish Companion and the double-album tribute Sharin’ in the Groove, the Foundation has generated nearly $200,000 in charitable grants. All net proceeds from all of the Foundation’s projects support music education for children.
The Mockingbird Foundation invites parents, teachers, schools, camps, churches, and friends to send photographs of your relative, neighbor, or youth group playing music. Submissions will be compiled into a large mosaic, printed in poster form, from which all proceeds will directly benefit music education for children. To illustrate our plan, for now we have a low-resolution draft using images from CD covers.
Original photographs may be mailed to 6948 Luther Circle, Moorpark, CA 93021. Digital images (either from a digital camera, or which you have scanned) can be emailed to ellis(at)mockingbirdfoundation.org. Both the youth (18 years old or younger) and their instrument(s) should be clearly visible, though pictures of youth singing or dancing are welcomed as well. Submissions become the property of the Mockingbird Foundation, for use in fundraising and related promotions.
The Mockingbird Foundation was organized in 1996 and incorporated in 1997 by a group of Phish fans dedicated to funding music education for children on an all-volunteer basis. The Foundation has no paid staff, no salaries, no office, no debt, and few assets. Thus far, the Foundation has made over $170,000 in grants of $5,000 or less. We anticipate additional grants, and additional projects, to be announced this coming fall and winter.
MOCKINGBIRD FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES ONLINE PHISH SETLIST ARCHIVE
Fans encouraged to participate via contributions and new mailing list
The Mockingbird Foundation is proud to announce the release of a free, web-based version of its Phish setlists file. Originally published as a section of the Foundation’s 928-page book The Phish Companion the Mockingbird setlists are now available online at http://www.mockingbirdfoundation.org/setlists/
The result of countless hours of research, incorporating the submissions of hundreds of Phish fans, and featuring the support and assistance of Phish archivist Kevin Shapiro, the Mockingbird Foundation’s setlist file is the most complete and accurate record of live Phish performances in existence. The document released today is the version contained in the second printing of The Phish Companion. A team of volunteers continues to add to the archive in anticipation of future editions of that book, and fans are encouraged to contribute by submitting corrections and additions to mockingbird@mockingbirdfoundation.org.
With this release, the definitive Phish setlists archive is now freely available to all Phish fans. The online Mockingbird setlist archive is for the personal, non-commercial use of Phish fans only, and may not be reproduced in any manner. (See the website for a full copyright notice.) Special permission has also been granted for the use of the Mockingbird Foundation setlist archive by the popular “ZZYZX’s Phish Stats” Web site (a free, non-commercial, fan-run site), available at http://www.ihoz.com/PhishStats.html.
The Mockingbird Foundation setlists archive was compiled with two principal goals: raising funds for charity via the sale of THE PHISH COMPANION, and preserving the tradition of fan-based documentation of Phishtory. Revenues from the book and other Mockingbird products have enabled the Foundation to make important contributions to music education programs across the country. The Mockingbird Foundation is proud of these efforts, and such fundraising will remain its guiding purpose.
Therefore, the Foundation encourages all Phish fans who make use of this free resource to contribute to Mockingbird’s charitable fundraising program. All amounts, large and small, are disbursed swiftly in effective grants to worthy music education groups.
MBIRD-NEWS MAILING LIST
In order to better communicate its good works, the Mockingbird Foundation has also launched an electronic mailing list for interested fans and community members. Subscribers will receive occasional updates about the Foundation’s works, and will learn about ways to participate in Mockingbird activities. Mailings will be kept to a reasonable minimum; we plan only to inform our subscribers of key items of interest to them. Users may unsubscribe at any time, and subscribers’ email addresses will never be shared with any outside party.
To subscribe to MBIRD-NEWS, send an email to listserv@lists.netspace.org with a message body of “subscribe mbird-news” on a line by itself. Alternatively, see http://www.mockingbirdfoundation.org/mbird-news.html for a web-based subscription form.
The Mockingbird Foundation, Inc. is an all-volunteer, non-profit organization founded in 1997 by fans of the band Phish. The Foundation has released THE PHISH COMPANION, a 928-book about the band and its music, and SHARIN’ IN THE GROOVE, a double-disc tribute album. The Foundation has no paid staff, and all net proceeds go to charity, supporting music education for children. To date the Mockingbird Foundation has disbursed over $170,000 in grants to worthy programs. Full information about the Mockingbird Foundation and its activities is available at http://www.mockingbirdfoundation.org/.
Helps Fund Music Education with Phish Book
Many people have a favorite band. Fewer write a book about it, and almost none give away the proceeds. But that’s what a local antitrust lawyer helped do, in a unique publishing effort.
Charlie Dirksen has put in countless hours researching one of the biggest rock acts. He has been a major force behind a mold-busting book. But as part of the Mockingbird Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit incorporated under the laws of the state of New York, Charlie will not benefit from his contribution.
The Foundation works almost exclusively via the Internet, in a cooperative effort of 1488 contributors investing thousands of hours. The result of their work is definitively the most complete and accurate book about the band and their music, an encyclopedic desk reference of epic proportions published by San Francisco-based publisher Miller Freeman, Inc. The book will hit store shelves in the next few weeks.
The Phish Companion has been a labor of love for many people over many years, Dirksen explained. It has been an enormously rewarding project. Other fans write books, but not with official help and not for charity. Other bands have fans, but not like Phish.
Over the past 18 years, the Vermont quartet has become the world’s most consistent touring act, with sell-out shows worldwide. Their dozen albums have done well without radio play, MTV exposure, or significant promotion. Their continuing legacy is recorded in dozens of mailing lists, hundreds of websites, and thousands of live shows in circulation among devotees. “Now,” Dirksen is proud to say, “there’s a book that matches that intensity, in scope and integrity.”
The Phish Companion includes the most complete information available about every Phish performance and every song Phish has performed. It also includes interviews, discography, dictionary, show reviews, tape notes, tour summaries, essays and poetry, charts and graphs, maps, and much more. The table of contents is available via fax by contacting the book’s project director, Ellis Godard.
The book also has heart. None of those contributing to the book or working for the Foundation are receiving any financial compensation. All of the group’s proceeds are going directly to nonprofit work in music education for children. And that same charitable spirit continues to motivate Charlie Dirksen’s contributions to the Phish community.
MOCKINGBIRD FOUNDATION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ATTENDS
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MUSIC EDUCATION IN TORONTO
Mockingbird Foundation Executive Director Ellis Godard is participating in a panel discussion on music advocacy at Toronto 2000, an international conference on music education held this week in Toronto. The panel also includes June Hinckely, Immediate Past-President of the Music Educators National Conference; Pat Page, Executive Director of the American Music Conference; Mary Luehrsen, Music Program Officer of the Texaco Foundation; George Bishop; and Tayloe Harding, Chair of the College Music Society Committee on Advocacy, and moderator of the panel. The panel will be held at 8:15 pm on November 1 in the Shertaon Grand Ballroom East. Mr. Godard will be available following the panel, or via email to ellis@www.phish.net.
Godard brings to the panel insight on an innovative effort to support music education. The Mockingbird Foundation was incorporated in 1997 by Phish fans in order to undertake fan-related projects entirely for charity. The first major undertaking, The Phish Companion, is an encyclopedic desk reference to the band and their music. The book, published by Miller-Freeman, is over 975 pages and will be in stores by Thanksgiving. The second project, Sharing in the Groove, is an album of diverse acts, each of whom was or represents an influence on Phish, playing Phish’s original music. All of the Foundation’s proceeds from both projects will go to charity, supporting music education for children.
The Mockingbird Foundation is proud to announce that it has been successful in its application to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for 501(c)3 designation as a tax-exempt organization. This status has been declared effective with the Foundation’s date of inception, March 26, 1997 [and was reconfirmed in 2007]. All donations to the Foundation are fully tax-deductible.
Donations of any amount can be made by check or money order, payable to the Mockingbird Foundation and mailed to 6948 Luther Circle, Moorpark, CA 93021, or made online. Donations will be immediately deposited to the Foundation’s account to help finance charitable disbursements, which are already underway and which continue on a regular basis. The Foundation will send a letter (or e-mail, if you prefer) confirming your donation for tax purposes. If you would like to donate money to the Foundation in someone else’s name as a gift (in honor or in memory), you and the honoree (or family of the remembered) will also receive a letter.
The Mockingbird Foundation is a nonprofit public benefit corporation with no salaries, paid staff, office, or debts. All of the funds received by the Foundation (minus minor administrative expenses) benefit music education for children. We do not have the resources or expertise to provide tax advice, but do note that taxpayers may benefit by itemizing a tax-deductible contribution. We therefore welcome donations of any amount as a tax-deductible means for Phish fans and other music lovers to help support our efforts. Details about the most recent beneficiaries, as well as the Foundation’s full history of grants, are available at the Mockingbird website, www.mockingbirdfoundation.org (or simply www.mbird.org).
POST STAR, June 10, 2001, http://www.poststar.com
Making the Music Pay
Local Phish-Loving Couple Raising Cash and Giving It Away
QUEENSBURY — As the band members of Phish swim their separate ways this summer, the Mockingbird Foundation — formed by a local couple and a dozen Phish phanatics across the country — has taken flight and is soaring.
Jack Lebowitz and Kat Griffin (The Jackleens)Jack Lebowitz, an environmental lawyer in Saratoga Springs, has been penning recording contracts for a two-disc Phish tribute album featuring Dave Matthews, Jimmy Buffett, Arlo Guthrie and other artists that the foundation will release on June 26.
The “Sharin’ in the Groove” CD follows in the wake of “The Phish Companion,” a 915-page encyclopedic compilation of Phish phacts and lore that the foundation got Backbeat Books of San Francisco to publish on Nov. 30.
Lebowitz and his wife, Kathleen Griffin, who live on Garrison Road in Queensbury, were the art and photo editors for the book, and Lebowitz, the foundation’s counsel, wrote the chapters on taping and tape trading. The book’s first printing of 25,000 copies sold out in two weeks, and a second printing is going strong.
The board members, who mostly hail from the West Coast, aren’t in it for the money. They’re all volunteers, and all proceeds from the book and the CD go to children’s music charities.
The Mockingbird Foundation, incorporated in March 1997, has Lebowitz’s law firm in Saratoga Springs — Lemery MacKrell Greisler on Railroad Place — as its legal address. But the Web site — mockingbirdfoundation.org — is its connection to the world.
The foundation just awarded the first round of $10,500 in grants from book sales. Children in 11 rural village schools in Alaska will be learning traditional Athabascan music on native fiddles and instruments, thanks to a $5,000 grant. Other recipients include the New Mexico Jazz Workshop, where 15 scholarships for music camp will go to needy kids; and the Art Sanctuary program in Philadelphia, where 50 to 80 children in the inner-city will be learning West African drumming.
The next round of grants is due in July, and Lebowitz, Griffin and others on the grants panel are culling 225 applications from around the country and close to home.
After 17 years of touring, the members of Phish — who met as freshmen at the University of Vermont in Burlington and played their first gig in a UVM dorm in December 1983 — announced that their October concert in California would be their last for a while: they were taking a break. Singer/guitarist Trey Anastasio will go solo at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on Aug. 5, but whether or not Phish ever get back together is anybody’s guess.
“The band is aware of the foundation. They’re moved that their music is bringing joy and good things to kids who are in need,” Griffin said. “Their music just keeps on giving.”
The foundation’s good deeds are getting noticed: the Mockingbird Foundation has been nominated for a Jammy Award, sponsored by Jambands.com, to be presented June 28 at a concert and ceremony at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City.
Lebowitz and Griffin might not make it to New York, but they’re bringing the whole family — daughter, Annie, 16, a junior at Glens Falls High; and son Gavin, 18, a senior who plays in the Glens Falls High orchestra and jazz band — to the CD release party at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco on July 12. An East Coast celebration is being planned.
Annie and Gavin are thanked in the acknowledgments in “The Phish Companion” for handing out hundreds of flyers at Phish shows last summer. After being dragged to their first Phish concert at SPAC when they were 9 and 11 — “Can we leave now? When’s it going to be over?” Griffin recalls them saying — their attitude has changed dramatically through the years.
The family has piled in a van and headed north to Limestone, Maine, and south to Big Cypress, Florida, for Phish festivals, where fans are like one big extended family, Griffin said. The book includes a photo of their mini-van’s license plate: “DVD SKY,” short for “Divided Sky” — “my favorite, favorite Phish song” — and bumper sticker — “This car climbed Mt. Icculus” — a mythic Phish mountain strangers stop and ask about.
“Sharin’ in the Groove” is a family affair, too. Guest artists who performed with the band on stage or who were influenced by their music are donating their time and talent for a good cause.
RollingStone.com and MTV News Online has published blurbs about the tribute CD, which includes:
– Arlo Guthrie of “Alice’s Restaurant” fame, who followed in the footsteps of his famous folk father, Woody Guthrie, performs the Phish hit “Bouncing Around the Room” with his son’s band, Xavier.
– David Hidalgo and Louie Perez of Los Lobos perform “Chalkdust Torture” with their sons, Dave Jr. and Louis III, under the name, Los Villains.
– Dave Matthews, who opened three Phish concerts and shared the stage with them at least twice, performs “Waste,” his first solo studio release.
– Jimmy Buffett of “Margaritaville” fame, who played with Phish in Florida and has his own frenetic followers, performs “Gumbo” with his Coral Reef Band.
– The Tom Tom Club, with Chris and Tina of the Talking Heads — a big Phish influence — perform “Sand.”
– The Wailers play Phish’s only reggae original, “Makisupa Policeman.”
– Hot Tuna, with Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane, with vocals by Vanessa Kaukonen, perform “Alumni Blues.”
– The Vermont Youth Orchestra, which includes 83 kids from 27 schools in Vermont and New York , play “My Friend/Guyute.”
Little Feat, Lake Trout, Sons Seals …. the list of artists goes on.“As this thing snowballs, we’re getting a lot of help from people in the music industry,” said Lebowitz. “People want to help out… It’s a feel good thing.”
“One of the reasons the foundation was formed was to assure people early on, and literary contributors, that we weren’t going to be making money off their efforts,” Lebowitz said.
In March 1997, the Mockingbird Foundation was incorporated, with Ellis Godard, a sociologist in Santa Cruz, California, as executive director. The only paid staff member is an accountant, for all the IRS charity filings, said Lebowitz, who does all the literary and record contracts and other legal work for free.
“My law office is the closest thing to a physical address,” he said.
After deciding not to self-publish, getting a literary agent was the next step. Griffin sent out letters of inquiry, and the rejection letters piled up..
“We went through a period when things were getting dark. We didn’t have an agent. People kept asking when it’s coming out. People were starting to say we were like vapor-ware,” Griffin said.
Then an agent found them and got a contract with Miller Freeman, now called Backbeat Books, six months later. The contract was signed May 4, 1999; the book was announced on Dec. 21, 1999; and “The Phish Companion” was published on Nov. 30, 2000, selling for $22.95 at major bookstores and on-line.
After the first royalty check from December sales, the next check in July will determine how much money can be given away.
Newspapers from Toronto to Hartford to San Francisco reviewed the book.
Forbes magazine gave it a plug in January: “Ever since Phish, the enigmatic Grateful Dead-esque jam band, went on hiatus this fall after 17 years of touring, its phans have felt bereft. Some business executives are so hooked on the quirky group that they privately admit to having rescheduled meetings in order to catch performances. Until Phish gets back onstage, here’s a temporary fix…”
Phish lyricist Tom Marshall, whose band Amfibian is featured on the CD, wrote the forward to book. But the fans were the primary contributors.
Several fans wrote about the Halloween concert at the Glens Falls Civic Center in 1994, one of the most memorable Phish concerts ever.
Dean Budnick of Cambridge, Mass., described the “the 8,000-seat arena built in the 1970s primarily for hockey” that is “nestled in the middle of a mildly decrepit old industrial town, forty miles north of Albany.”
The concert started at 10 p.m. and ended at 3:20 a.m.
“…The situation outside deteriorated closer to 9:30, with hundreds of the ticketless indulging in the Halloween spirit and antagonizing the crush of people pushing and struggling to get in,” Budnick wrote.
Phish played a cover of the Beatles’ entire “White” album, and the drummer pulled his dress over his head during the “you become naked” part of the Beatles’ song, “Revolution,” leaving nothing to the imagination.
First prize for best costume went to someone dressed as a “Mound” bar, a Phish song title. A guy dressed as a cobalt blue vacuum cleaner came in second, and a woman in a Hood milk carton came in third.
This summer, band members are off doing individual musical and film pursuits.
“They don’t know if they’ll ever get together,” said Lebowitz.
“Two of them have kids, and I can’t imagine how difficult it must be … on the road,” Griffin said. “I can’t imagine that this is a permanent split. They’re going to go into Phish-withdrawal too” — something Phish fans have been suffering for eight months.
SIDEBAR: Phish Phacts
“The Phish Companion” traces every known performance and every known song — including the order and number of times and the days it was played — by the Burlington-based foursome, back to their University of Vermont and Goddard College days.
A sampling of their biographies:
– Trey’s real name is Ernesto Guiseppe Anastasio III; his mother Dina was editor of Sesame Street Magazine; and his father Ernie was executive vice president of Educational Testing Services, which administers the SATs.
– Keyboardist Page McConnell’s father, a doctor, helped develop Tylenol.
– Bass player Mike Gordon’s father founded the Store 24 convenience store chain.
– Drummer Jon “Fish” Fishman’s father is an orthodontist and sculptor.Their first gig: Dec. 2, 1983. Trey, Mike and Jon play as the “Blackwood Convention” at a Christmas semiformal in Gordon’s dorm at UVM in Burlington, with Jeff Holdsworth on rhythm guitar.
Some local gigs:
– Aug. 21, 1987. Ian McLean’s farm in Hebron, Washington County.
– May 28, 1989. McLean’s party at Connie Condon’s farm in Hebron.
– March 8, 1990. Aiko’s bar on Caroline Street, Saratoga Springs.
– Oct. 5 1990. Skidmore College gym, Saratoga Springs.
– Oct. 31, 1994. Glens Falls Civic Center.
– July 10, 1994; June 26, 1995. Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
– Aug. 16-17, 1996. Plattsburgh Air Force Base.Phish played at the Palace Theater in Albany on May 5, 1993 — Lebowitz’s first Phish show — and the band played six concerts at the Pepsi Arena in Albany, formerly the Knickerbocker Arena, from 1995 to 2000.
Notable photo in the book:
– “Halloween 1995, Jack and Kat,” p. 551. Lebowitz and Griffin, in costume at a Chicago Phish concert, wear wigs, goggles and the blue dresses with orange donuts made famous by the Phish drummer. A vacuum cleaner hose — one of Fishman’s musical devices — rests on her shoulders like a stole.Phacts not in the book:
– As a Glens Falls High School student in the 1960s, Lebowitz was a stringer for the Glens Falls Times and Post Star back when Warren County Judge John Austin was city editor.
– A Grateful Dead fan at Wesleyan University, “a big Deadhead school,” Lebowitz met Griffin, a graduate of Ohio State, when they lived near Lake George. They married on Leap Day, 1980
The Mockingbird Foundation has started the Mockingbird Volunteer Corps. The MVC is a cooperative structure to assist fellow fans in lending support to the Foundation, which generates charitable proceeds from Phish fandom. More information is available at http://www.mockingbirdfoundation.org/mvc.html, part of the Foundation’s new domain name registration.
The Foundation successfully filed its New York State Charities registration in January. That registration was accepted by the Bureau, and the Foundation has been assigned a NY Charities registration number. Funding Chair Kristen Godard anticipates that the board will make its first major disbursements in March. Initial disbursements were made in January, to the American Music Conference and the International Music Educators Conference.
The Foundation maintains no office or paid staff, and donates all of its net income to music education for children. Income is generated from the 928-page book The Phish Companion (published by Backbeat Books, formerly Miller Freeman, Inc.)and from the forthcoming two-CD charity Phish cover album Sharing in the Groove. The book’s first printing of 24,000 was gone within weeks, and its second printing is selling quickly. The album enters post-production in April and is expected to be released by June.
The Mockingbird Foundation was founded in 1997. Incorporated on an all-volunteer basis by fans of the band Phish, it is the first and only nonprofit grantmaking entity organized by fans of a rock band. The Phish Companion is the most comprehensive, encyclopedic reference on a rock band assembled for charitable purposes.
Phish is a Vermont-based rock quartet that draws on diverse influences including jazz, classical, and bluegrass. One of the most improvisational rock bands in music history, Phish is currently on a hiatus of unknown duration.
