Mike Gordon - Inside In

FOUR YEARS IN THE MAKING, Mike Gordon, bassist and founding member of the seminal rock band PHISH, releases his highly-anticipated solo debut.

INSIDE IN started with the film. OUTSIDE OUT is Mike Gordon's first full-length feature, an ambitious project that was conceived, shot and edited over a period of almost four years. Part experimental narrative, part "mock-infomercial", the film stars Col. Bruce Hampton as a guitar teacher who "unlearns" his students all they ever knew. In addition to everything else he did on the film, Mike also wrote and recorded music for the film's soundtrack, building an extensive home studio to be able to record it.

With the theatrical and dvd releases behind him, mike went back to the mostly instrumental soundtrack and significantly reworked the material, creating songs out of jams and adding lyrics to pieces that previously had none. Though there's obviously a link between film and album, it is only loosely a soundtrack. Mike specifically wanted to create an album that stood apart from the film. And it does in a big way

WHO IS MIKE GORDON?

Gordon was a college freshman when Phish was formed in 1983. Over the course of thirteen albums and thousands of concerts, the band earned a reputation for musical imagination, instrumental chops and improvisation. By the mid-1990s Phish had become one of the top concert draws in the country. In 1994, Gordon directed the rock video, DOWN WITH DISEASE, and a short film, TRACKING, to accompany the release of Phish's "Hoist" album. In 1996, he began directing his first feature, OUTSIDE OUT – an "experimental narrative" – which went on to win an Audience Award at SXSW 2000. After completing RISING LOW, a documentary about the sessions that produced the Gov't Mule album "The Deep End", Gordon collaborated with legendary guitarist, Leo Kottke, to record a duet album, "Clone". He also reworked the music from OUTSIDE OUT in order to produce a soundtrack CD, aptly titled, "Inside In."

MIKE GORDON ON INSIDE IN

"My first feature length movie, Outside Out, was my "baby." It took 5,000 hours of work over four years (in between my day job as rock-star, playing bass for Phish) Eventually, the movie was done and it won an audience award at the South By Southwest film festival. What audiences seemed to like best about the film was the music. A lot of attention had gone into mixing songs, jams, and sound effects.

Sometimes I spent an hour panning a sound from left to right, to get it to feel just right. I had actually built a recording studio from the ground up just for the sake of writing and recording this music. I really got into standing there with a bass on, grooving hard, and knowing that I had never been a writer/band leader until that moment. Once the movie was finished, I was excited to start right away in the business of warping the score into new forms that would become Inside In. In several cases background music was edited into songs with new lyrics and added instruments. All of the lyrics are related to concepts in the movie, but the record is designed to stand apart from and be enjoyable without ever seeing the flick.

Since I seem to balance several careers, and since I wanted to take the time to allow Inside In to evolve naturally without pressure, the CD also took four years to complete. Somewhere in that time period I realized that I fell in love with Inside In, even more than I love Outside Out. The overall flow and vibe of this record seem to represent me quite well, with "warts and all." I had a peak experience or two driving and listening to the album, or listening in bed with headphones on. When the mixing was done I rented a cool sportscar and drove the perimeter of Manhattan cranking the album, with engineer Jared, and my friends Andy and Simon. We were going fast. It was really fun. "

--Mike Gordon '03

THE PLAYERS

Mike Gordon - All guitars and basses - plates, keyboards, banjo, accordion, blue button, washing machine, dryer, vibe tube, pedal steel, bass harmonica, percussion (6, 54, 109)
Jon Fishman - drums (1, 11, 15)
Russ Lawton - drums (2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13, 14)
Bela Fleck - banjo (2, 13, 14)
Jeff Coffin - clarinet (2, 13)
Craig Johnson - trumpet (2, 5, 13)s
Col. Bruce Hampton, Ret. - guitar wumps (2, 7), vocals (7)
Future Man - percussion (2)
James Harvey - piano (4, 5, 7, 10), trombone (2, 13), clavinet (6)
Gordon Stone - pedal steel (2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13, 14)
Buddy Cage - pedal steel (14)
Vassar Clements - fiddle (14)
Gabe Jarrett - drums (8,9)
Jared Slomoff - background vocals (8, 9, 12), trumpet (11)
Heloise Williams - vocals (15)
Jeff Lawson - additional hi-hat (7)
Stuart Paton - percussion (7)
Jimi Stout - affected speaking (3)
Elizabeth Combs Beglin - affected speaking (3)
Ida James - talking (6)

TRACK LISTING

CREDITS

Produced by Mike Gordon
Bone Delay, Outside Out, The Beltless Buckler, Soulfood Man, and Exit Wound mixed by Malcolm Burn. All other tracks mixed by Mike Gordon and Jared Slomoff.
Recorded and Engineered by Jeff Lawson and Jared Slomoff at Cactus Unlimited, Ltd.
Mastered by Fred Kevorkian at Absolute Audio
Cover art: Andrew Cunningham
Project Coordination: Beth Montuori
Management: John Paluska, Jason Colton, Beth Montuori, Megan Criss
Phish Archives: Kevin Shapiro assisted by Rob O'Day, Kevin Monty
All Songs Copyright 1999, 2002 Mike Gordon, Who Is She? Music, Inc. (BMI)