I close my eyes and hear her scream.

“What the fuck? Phish! Not Phish! Anything but Phish!”

I rush into the bathroom to see my date, a punk rock girl named Jana, slashing through three large Case Logics.

“There has to be hundreds,” she shrieks on a domestic violence level.

“337, actually,” I said.

“337! Actually! You said you liked the Talking Heads. You played ‘Crosseyed and Painless’ on the guitar. You’re the only person I know who’s memorized the words to ‘Cities.’”

“Actually,” I say to her back as she grabs her coat and makes for the door, “Phish does a great version of ‘Cities.’”

Slam. That was the last I saw of her.

Why? Don't ask why. (Photo | Danshinneman)

I make it a habit to hide my Phish CDs and dozens of Parking Lot T-shirts in the medicine cabinet when I go out on dates, because telling someone you like Phish is similar to being seen on Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator.” Once they find out I like Phish, no matter how much I assure them I really don’t like that type of music, in fact think the Disco Biscuits and Umphrey’s McGee are the low point of American music, they flee in horror. It doesn’t matter how many Miles Davis or Steve Reich or M. Ward albums I own. Phishhead is a character trait they simply cannot accept—no matter how much I talk about Kierkegaard.

As a logical person with a growing desire to make a couple copies of myself, you would think I would take this anathema out into the woods, shoot it in the neck, and bury it in a shallow grave. Yet I still, with pleasure, call up on my iTunes the soundboard recording from the Phish concert performed two nights. And on Tuesday I will slink down to the nTelos Pavilion to see the band for the fifty-sixth time. My actions raise questions. Some of them start with why, and some start with how. Why do I like Phish? Why does the man in the dress play the vacuum? How could I spend $600 to see a rock band? How can a version of “Harry Hood” bring tears to my eyes?

When Phish reunited at the Hampton Coliseum last year, fifteen people I’ve known since high school came to town. Of the fifteen, I was the only one who wasn’t a property owner. Only two people didn’t have advanced degrees. Two doctors, three lawyers, one college professor, one head of IT, etc. Yes, we drank beer and smoked pot, but so do you.

From a 2003 show.

None other than NPR’s Carrie Brownstein put the typical hipster dismissal of Phish to the test. She found “it’s easy to be surprised by a Phish song and hear hints of classical music, the grandiosity of a Who rock opera, or the melodic prowess of Lennon/McCartney (or maybe Garcia/Lesh.

“If jamming scares you, then Phish’s music will be harder to take. But I like the jam, particularly in the live setting. And many of the great live bands playing today incorporate some element of jamming, sometimes to the chagrin of their fans. Stephen Malkmus (whether with Pavement or The Jicks), Yo La Tengo, Arcade Fire and Wilco are but a few of the bands that like to change up their songs on stage. And if you love Television and its wiry, taut albums but never saw the group live, then you wouldn’t know that those terse songs were jammed out Dead-style in concert, sometimes stretching well beyond the 10-minute mark.”

Personally, I like Phish because I love to dance, but I hate drum machines. [Sidenote: If you have the time, check out Barbara Ehrenreich’s Dancing in the Streets. She covertly makes the case that drumming should never be too far removed from a series of hambone slaps and claps. In other words, you shouldn’t dance to a computer program.] I like Phish because they can do an A capella version of “Free Bird.” I like Phish because this Halloween they called on Sharon Jones to perform a spot on version of the Rolling Stones’ classic Exile on Main Street in its entirety. I like Phish because I have been playing music for twenty-nine years and writing about it for ten, and I have never seen a tighter band. I like Phish because ever summer I can, like Puck and Oberon, forget my demanding job and join in bacchanal rites, dance my ass off, see old friends, and then return to work re-invigorated.

And that right there is why so many people despise the band. Trey Anastasio, the group’s frontman, said it best when speaking of the haters: “It’s almost like they’re offended by the fact that so many people are enjoying something they don’t like.”

Trey. (Photo | phish.com)

My ex-girlfriend hated them and continued to hate them even when Brownstein (who founded her favorite band Sleater-Kinney) gave her critical appreciation. My current girlfriend-type-person accepts my interest in twenty minute guitar solos begrudgingly.  My mother, a music teacher, and the person who started giving me piano lessons when I was three, loves them. Her appreciation (like that of any objective and informed person) for their musicianship is boundless. Doesn’t mean she listens to them all the time or any time unless she is at my house, but anyone who has picked up the guitar and tried to strum a few chords must stand in awe of Trey Anastasio’s clever and nimble fingers. He really is that good.

There’s a hearty chance this article will spark yet another hipster v. hippie culture war. Before ya’ll break out your all caps and exclamation points, I have some words for both camps. Hipsters, find yourself a copy of Gamehenge ’09 from the uber-hip label, Little Fury Things. Then we can talk. Hippies, the battle for us is lost before it has begun. We like all “their” music too, so there is no way we can return fire. We can’t troll a Sonic Youth message board and call the music lame because we love Sonic Youth. So just forget about it, and I’ll see you at the show.