CALIFORNIA LAWYER Magazine, February 2001 (p. 19), http://www.publishersweekly.com, “Good Works”
Rarely do good works start in bars — at least not the type where rock bands blast away while college students swill beer.
C. Andrew Dirksen, however, is not your typical lawyer. In 1989 the Boston College undergraduate went to The Paradise Bar to hear the rock band Phish. His enthusiam for the group grew during his years in law shool, and by 1997 he was routinely reviewing the band’s music and concerts online. So when a fellow Phish fan, Craig Delucia of Deloitte and Touche, conceived the idea of doing a book about the band that would raise money for charity, Dirksen signed on to help manage the project.
Over the past four years, Dirksen estimates he has donated more than 700 hours to The Phish Companion, which was published last year by Miller Freeman, and the Mockingbird Foundation, the nonprofit corporation that brought it together. All proceeds from the book will go directly to nonprofit work in music education for children.
Dirksen, who practices antitrust law at San Francisco’s Gold Bennett Cera and Sidener, was not the only California lawyer involved. Dan Purcell, an associated at Keker and Van Nest, is also on the board of The Mockingbird Foundation and helped define the philanthropic goals of the group. The group’s first grants are open for application and will range from $50 to $5,000 to develop the musical talents of children, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds.
-Katrina Dervey
Lest there be any doubt, we want to clarify that all of the Mockingbird Foundation’s net proceeds are going to music education for children. We had small administrative costs such as postage, xeroxing, and New York State incorporation fees, and some research costs such as some photographic development. But those are already a small percentage of proceeds, and become an even smaller fraction as your purchasing support continues.
We have no paid staff, wages, salaries, executive compensation, honorariums, office, rent, assets, or loans. We did this because we love this band, because we wanted you to have the most complete and accurate guide to the band, and because we wanted to do a good thing for charity.
The Foundation will make grants of up to $5,000, to as many nonprofit groups at a time as we have proceeds, and will continue to give away whatever royalties come in, from however many books and albums you buy. We look forward to announcing the first beneficiaries early in 2001, and meanwhile hope that you enjoy The Phish Companion.
We are holding the first copies of the book, which just arrived today. It should be in your mailbox (if you preordered) or at a local bookstore (if you still need it) within a matter of days. It is already shipping from the distributors’ warehouses.
We are proud to say that we expect you to find it every bit as helpful and friendly as you and we together had hoped this book would be. And we want to thank you for the contributions, words of support, and preorders which have ensured the project’s success. In a great sense, you are the Mockingbird Foundation and this is your book.
MOCKINGBIRD FOUNDATION RELEASES FUNDING GUIDELINES;
INVITES LETTERS OF INQUIRY on MUSIC EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN
The Mockingbird Foundation today released funding guidelines regarding its planned disbursement of charitable funds to support music education. The guidelines clarify the Foundation’s interest area, invite letters of inquiry in solicitation of funding, and outline the application process. The guidelines are available at http://www.phish.net/mockingbird/funding/.
The Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation founded by Phish fans, is publishing a book about the band and its music. “The Phish Companion” will be an encyclopedic desk reference published by Miller Freeman, and is now available for pre-order at http://www.books.mfi.com/phish.html. The Foundation is also producing an album of acts covering Phish’s music, “Sharing in the Groove”.
The Foundation’s members, as well as those contributing material to the book and album, are not receiving any financial compensation for their efforts. The Foundation takes its name from a character in several Phish songs, the Famous Mockingbird, who helps a wayward society by retrieving the book of knowledge from an evil invader and returning it to the people.
Phish was founded at the University of Vermont and includes guitarist Trey Anastasio, drummer Jon Fishman, bassist Mike Gordon, and keyboardist Page McConnell. The band has toured the country for seventeen years, slowly becoming one of the nation’s most successfull live acts despite lack of play on radio or MTV. They recently released “Farmhouse,” their tenth studio effort, which sold 88,776 copies in its first week. Their millennium celebration at the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida was one of the largest and top-grossing New Year’s concerts in the world, and included an eight-hour set that began at midnight. The band’s official website is at http://www.phish.com/.
Little Feat’s new album, Chinese Work Songs, will be released Tuesday, June 20. The album includes a cover of Phish’s “Sample in a Jar,” chosen in connection with Little Feat’s participation with the Mockingbird Foundation. A sample clip is available online, streamed via Liquid Audio. The full single is at radio stations, but a station near you may not get it until you request that they play it.
The single will also be streamed on the web, as a feature on the Little Feat Radio Hour, a weekly syndicated radio broadcast. This week’s edition will be a two-hour special, featuring Feat’s new album, in its entirety, as well as interviews with the band. The show is typically broadcast through a network of radio stations, but this two-hour special will be broadcast only locally (Humbolt) and live on the web. Phish fans have been invited to “test the servers”, and we’ve been assured that volume won’t be a problem, so listen in for Feat’s comments on Phish and “Sample in a Jar.” (Thursday June 15, 6-8pm PST)
A future edition of the Little Feat Radio Hour will focus on Phish and the Mockingbird Foundation’s album of bands covering Phish, all for charity. That show will include archive tracks of Phish covering Little Feat, as well as Q&A with Mockingbird director Ellis Godard, probably tracks from the Mockingbird Foundation album, and possibly some call-in.
For more information:
http://www.littlefeatradiohour.com
On January 17, 1999, the following message was posted to rec.music.phish:
Hey, all! It’s the New Year…a time for celebration and joy. It’s also the time of year where you always wind up hearing from people and getting those updates on their lives and what they’ve been up to lately. So, I thought I’d take a quick minute and update everyone on the state of the Mockingbird Project, especially since so many people asked me about it on the fall tour.
The project is moving along really nicely. Thanks to your help (because this truly is YOUR book), we’ve compiled a fantastic manuscript. It includes wonderful essays and show reviews that all of you wrote, song histories for every song ever played (though we’re still finishing this section up), pages upon pages of Phish stats, great pictures and artwork (though we could always use more), and the most complete and accurate setlist file known to man. This year we ran our first tape tree, handed out crossword puzzles at shows that kept many fans entertained at setbreak, and worked hard towards creating a book that we can all be proud of.
That isn’t to say, though, that it’s been the smoothest ride. We all love doing this, but it’s not our lives; it’s a hobby. Work and “real life” often interfere. I even resigned from the project for about three months because I was so burned out from devoting my free time to it. But it’s all for the best. When I came back in late August, I was more energized than ever and I remain so to this day.
So where are we? We’re trying to find a publisher. Believe me, it’s not the easiest task in the world. We’ve discussed self-publishing. or self-publishing the first edition and trying to find a commercial publisher later on down the line. There’s advantages there, and drawbacks as well. We have also had conversations with a few publishers and literary agents, and we’re following up on leads that turned up, but we don’t have anything concrete in that area. It’s hard trying to shop a book around, because we need to find a publisher who doesn’t expect our work to fit into some cookie-cutter genre or niche.
The main thing we need right now is more leads on publishers and literary agents. If you know of any, or if you are one and have an interest in helping, please email me or Ellis Godard and let him know.
So we play the waiting game. Personally, I think it’s for the best because this book is a lot like a stew, created by all of us adding a little something, and the longer a stew sits the better it tastes because it is always improving. We continue to find ways to make the bphook even better, or clearer, or better organized. But there will be a book. It seems to be the most frequently asked question I hear on tour: “Craig, haven’t you guys finished yet? Does this mean the book won’t happen?” Of course not. I think you all know that we have too many stubborn SOBs involved in this project to give up after all the hard work we’ve put in ;^)
So please be patient with us. We’ve all worked really hard, and I’m proud of the work we’ve accomplished, and it will all come to fruition really soon.
Have a safe and happy new year, everyone, and I’ll hopefully see you and meet more of you this coming summer.
Craig DeLucia
In their Fall Tour 1998 issue, Surrender to the Flow (a magazine “for tour kids, by tour kids”) featured the following article on the Foundation. Much thanks to them for helping us to spread the word!
“Who Are These People?”, by Christy Articola
The Phish phenomenon and subculture that we all are so obviously aware of has spawned a number of non-band affiliated groups run by concerned and amazingly motivated fans. The energy put forth by these groups is something that I personally am always amazed by and their presence on the lot has undoubtedly changed the scene as we know it for the better forever. However, it’s somewhat likely that not every concert goer knows what each and every one of these groups is all about, so I have therefore thrown together this article to claify and explain the purposes, hopes, dreams, and aspirations of five of th >most visible lot entities. I certainly hope that this helps to clarify the answers to many questions people may have stumbled across in their travels…and, of course, it will hopefully aid you in geting involved if you’re interested. I’ll start out with the good ol’ Mockingbird Foundation.
The Mockingbird Foundation was founded in fall of 1996 by a group of fourteen Phish fans from various walks of life. After reading a thread on rec.music.phish about various books about the band, these friends got together and decided to create their own. It is still in production due to the massive amount of information Mockingbird Foundation members are attempting to include. This book is to be written, overall, by the fans, and is to the draw on the experiences of everyone who enjoys Phish rather than simply focus on the thoughts and feelings of one particular individual or group. The main purpose of this book is to provide the most accurate and literary book on Phish’s music available which will include setlists, reviews, essays, and many other sections of interest on the music and history of the band we all love.
Perhaps the most intriguing and noteworthy piece of information about this group is the fact that all proceeds from the book, when published, will go to charity. That’s right, the book is being produced by hardworking fans who simply want to give back to the community we have all grown to be a part of, and therefore will be donating all revenue received from the sale of this book to charitable causes. They have even gone as far as to legally incorporate themselves, in the State of New York, as a Non-Profit Corporation.
It is this group’s hope that hundreds of fans, both on and off the internet, will contribute to this project and that the final lists of acknowledgments and credits will be absolutely gargantuan. By contributing to this book, fans everywhere can know that they helped create a fan based project that will benefit worthy charities and further spread the word to the world as a whole about our favorite band. The Mockingbird Foundation’s website stresses that the project can only be a success if all fans participate in whatever facet they can.
Look for Mockingbird Foundation representatives on the lot during fall tour; their fliers that explain what they’re trying to do are very informative and have really, really fun and tricky crossword puzzles on the back to allow you to test your own Phish knowledge. The Mockingbird Foundation can be contacted via the web at www.phish.net/mockingbird/ or by writing to them at:The Mockingbird Foundation, Inc.; PO Box 1483; Brookline, MA 02146. Or, cybergeek, you can even email them: mockingbird@netspace.org. They’d love to hear from you. Find out how you can help.
