Trapped In Time is the tumblelog of Matt Simpson. Matt is the co-owner of Maven Web Solutions. His business partner is Eugene. They also blog live music with Todd at The Butter Room, whose latest project is Jamwich.
Matt has two min pins, Forbin & Floyd. He often blogs about music and is a Phishhead who went on 2009 summer tour. In addition to traveling, Matt takes photos. Proud Hoosier and Chicagoan.
Matt Suggests: Annicka, Autumn, Brian, Chris, Christina, Drew, Elle, Jim, Josh, Irick, Katrina, Kaylie, Kelly, Megan, Michael and Michael, Mills, Nikki, Shannon, Sharon, Stacey and Terz, amongst others.
This is a common scene in our office most days. Eugene gets up, Forbin jumps into his chair, and then plays dumb when he returns, acting as if he’d been sitting there for hours. Ah, schemes to get attention. Far smarter than you’d give a golf ball-sized brain credit for.
Who’s driving the car? WHO IS DRIVING THE CAR?
Forbin drives the car.
What Phish coming back does to you seeing other shows (not that I am helping the collective attitude with my text)
Eugene and Forbin
Phish’s comeback is personally meaningful to me not so much because of the music, but because of the relationships in my life that in one way or another tie back to the band and its music.
On the first day of my sophomore year at Indiana University, my financial accounting course began with personal introductions, sharing a little about yourself and how you spent your summer. I shared that I had traveled to Europe and subsequently returned to see the last six shows performed by my favorite band, Phish. I talked about being part of one of the craziest concert experiences ever, which involved walking over 13 miles to see the last two shows the band would perform (as we knew then).
Two classmates shared that they too had spent time over the summer seeing live music festivals, and after class they came up to me. From that moment on, Eugene and I became best friends. We took classes together, studied together, partied together, and developed one of the best friendships I’ve had in my life. Our last semester of college we planned a month-long backpacking trip to Europe, which is still probably my favorite traveling experience.
Two years later, we have become roommates in Chicago, started a company together, and had the pleasure of living with Forbin, aptly named after a character in a Phish song. He’s our little buddy, and probably loves Eugene just about as much as me. While we work in our office, he’ll lay down next to us in our chairs or on our laps, and follows us around like he’s our shadow.
I have dozens of other friends I’ve met through Phish, including my good friend Zak who I got to know through a Phish message board in late 2003. We saw the band in Las Vegas in 2004 and have met up for other concerts around the country in the years that followed. In March dozens of my friends will be with me to celebrate not just a band and their music, but the lasting friendships that have grown from the experiences and music that brought us together in the first place.
Fun fact: In many ways tumblr would not be possible without Phish. Sounds extreme, right? Not actually. Phish has had one of the largest online communities since the early days of the Internet, starting with message boards and expanding rapidly through a message board that now features over 50,000 registered users, and logging more daily pageviews than 95% of the Internet.
| — | Euphonic Brew, after hearing Duke Ellington come across my iTunes, and following my assertion that I was about to drop some Coldplay just for him. Hey, I like them every now and then, here and there. He most certainly does not like them anywhere. |
