(Interviewer Benjy Eisen:) What was the most unexpected challenge of writing your first real score?

(Trey Anastasio:) It's been a steep learning curve. I've learned that in the theater the story is everything. Every lyric, every line and every musical gesture has to propel the journey of a given character or the overall plot. We've had workshops that take place over two or three week periods. In the workshops, actors run thru each number with minimal props and blocking. Sometimes a song doesn't land the way we expected it to. The solution is often not what I would have anticipated.

In one case, there was a song that Amanda and I had written that we were particularly excited about. When the actor sang it in the workshop, it didn't have the same emotional impact as it did on the demo. Amanda, Doug and I huddled up in the hallway to talk about it. I suggested re-writing the song, but Doug disagreed. He explained that in this case, he didn't think that the issue was the song. He felt that the character needed a few more lines of dialogue to set the song up, so that the audience understood the intent behind the song before they heard it. He changed the actor's lines, we ran it again and it was stunning. This was a complete revelation to me. In the past, I've habitually led with the music. I've learned so much from this experience.

Read more, full interview at: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-phishs-trey-anastasio-talks-about-his-first-musical-20111031#ixzz1cPMtLVnt

Congratulations to Phish.netter and r.m.p. digester Benjy Eisen for doing this interview with Trey in Rolling Stone.

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Benjy Eisen

Just as we've done for the last 73 weeks, the Blog is proud to bring you another Mystery Jam. As usual, we will be playing for an MP3 download, courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. The rules haven't changed: you need to correctly identify the song and the date to win. Post your guess in the comments. One guess per person per day (with the second “day” starting after I post the hint). The hint will come on Tuesday and the answer will be posted on Wednesday. Good luck...

Tuesday Hint: No hint needed this week.

Wednesday Answer: Congrats to RabeldyNugs on his league leading seventh win with the 6/9/00 "Tweezer." MJ75 coming up Monday...

We did this gig with Lou Reed in Germany. I was getting ready to go on, and I was walking across this field behind the stage. It was this kind of cool outdoor venue, and there was Lou Reed sitting there. So I went up to talk to him, introduce myself and everything, he was really nice, and I asked him a couple of questions about what he’s up to these days, blah-blah-blah. And then he was standing there and we went to go onstage, and as I was walking onstage he said, ‘Show ‘em how to rock and roll. After all, we invented it.’ I said, “Oh, okay,” and walked onstage. And as we started playing I got really confused and couldn’t tell if he had meant Americans or the Velvet Underground. I thought both statements could be true. So I spent the whole set trying to figure that one out. I still haven’t figured it out. I still sit there scratching my head every night while we’re playing: Did he mean Americans…?