introverted and outgoing. He is warm and congenial, wary and reserved. He is spontaneous and process-oriented. He is low-key and high-strung. He is an utterly unique individual who willingly submerges himself within a group dynamic. He’s also hilarious in a subtle way, possessing a dry wit and deadpan delivery.
The youngest member of Phish, Gordon was born on June 3, 1965, in Waltham, Massachusetts. He spent most of his childhood in Sudbury, another town within commuting distance of Boston, where the family moved when he was three and a half. His father, Bob Gordon, founded a chain of convenience stores (Store 24) in New England. His mother, Marjorie Minkin, is a renowned artist, painting large abstract shapes on various media, including Lexan—a thick, clear plastic—in bright, iridescent colors.
For many years, from 1987 and well into the 1990s, Minkin painted Phish’s stage backdrops. She troubled herself to measure the wall space behind the band at Nectar’s (seven feet by twenty feet) to get it exactly right. Later on, when the venues got larger, she painted a series of four-feet-by-eight-feet sheets that hung side-by-side. Her work explores the interplay of light and color, and Chris Kuroda’s lights brought out different properties in the paint that made them come alive. His illumination of her paintings was another aspect of the band’s shows that was uniquely Phish.
Born into a family of observant Jews, Gordon had what he calls a “very religious upbringing.” He spent much of his youth roaming the outdoors. Near Gordon’s home in Sudbury were acres of fields and streams that he explored with his friend Steve Andelman. Down the hill is a network of five square miles of fields and paths. “My whole childhood was spent walking through these fields,” he reminisced. “There are stone walls hundreds of years old. It was just magical going there with my various friends, exploring streams and climbing trees.” For more on this, listen to “Andelmans’ Yard,” a dreamlike, autobiographical reverie from Gordon’s 2008 solo album, The Green Sparrow .
He credits music with helping him break out of his shell socially. He played bass in a few high-school groups, including the Tombstone Blues Band. There’s a charming picture of Gordon with his fellow adolescent bluesmen, instruments clutched earnestly while wearing matching half-sleeve baseball jerseys with “Tombstone Blues Band” printed across the chest. Gordon moved on to more contemporary sounds with The Edge, which included numbers by Talking Heads and the Police in its repertoire.
As Phish’s most devout Deadhead, Gordon has freely acknowledged the role of bassist Phil Lesh in shaping his approach to the instrument. But Gordon remains open to any and all sources of expertise and artistry across the musical spectrum. He immerses himself completely, almost obsessively, in his effort at continuous improvement. In one recent year, for instance, he spent a few hours a day learning Benny Goodman’s clarinet solos on the bass guitar. He’s also the band member who brought the bluegrass element to Phish. Perhaps the simplest way to explain his perspective is to observe that he’s into honoring roots while breaking new ground, too.
Gordon also has an interest in cinema that has paralleled his career in music. He studied film at UVM, and one professor in particular, Ted Lyman, became something of a mentor. As a cineaste, he cites as his favorite directors such existential wits as Woody Allen and David Lynch, as well as the linchpins of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. He has wielded the camera for Phish’s
lone video (“Down With Disease”); for Tracking , a half-hour documentary about the making of Phish’s fifth album, Hoist ; and for two full-length films, Outside Out (a cryptic, quasi-comedic tale featuring Col. Bruce Hampton as an anarchic mentor) and Rising Low (a fine documentary about bass players and bass
The youngest member of Phish, Gordon was born on June 3, 1965, in Waltham, Massachusetts. He spent most of his childhood in Sudbury, another town within commuting distance of Boston, where the family moved when he was three and a half. His father, Bob Gordon, founded a chain of convenience stores (Store 24) in New England. His mother, Marjorie Minkin, is a renowned artist, painting large abstract shapes on various media, including Lexan—a thick, clear plastic—in bright, iridescent colors.
For many years, from 1987 and well into the 1990s, Minkin painted Phish’s stage backdrops. She troubled herself to measure the wall space behind the band at Nectar’s (seven feet by twenty feet) to get it exactly right. Later on, when the venues got larger, she painted a series of four-feet-by-eight-feet sheets that hung side-by-side. Her work explores the interplay of light and color, and Chris Kuroda’s lights brought out different properties in the paint that made them come alive. His illumination of her paintings was another aspect of the band’s shows that was uniquely Phish.
Born into a family of observant Jews, Gordon had what he calls a “very religious upbringing.” He spent much of his youth roaming the outdoors. Near Gordon’s home in Sudbury were acres of fields and streams that he explored with his friend Steve Andelman. Down the hill is a network of five square miles of fields and paths. “My whole childhood was spent walking through these fields,” he reminisced. “There are stone walls hundreds of years old. It was just magical going there with my various friends, exploring streams and climbing trees.” For more on this, listen to “Andelmans’ Yard,” a dreamlike, autobiographical reverie from Gordon’s 2008 solo album, The Green Sparrow .
He credits music with helping him break out of his shell socially. He played bass in a few high-school groups, including the Tombstone Blues Band. There’s a charming picture of Gordon with his fellow adolescent bluesmen, instruments clutched earnestly while wearing matching half-sleeve baseball jerseys with “Tombstone Blues Band” printed across the chest. Gordon moved on to more contemporary sounds with The Edge, which included numbers by Talking Heads and the Police in its repertoire.
As Phish’s most devout Deadhead, Gordon has freely acknowledged the role of bassist Phil Lesh in shaping his approach to the instrument. But Gordon remains open to any and all sources of expertise and artistry across the musical spectrum. He immerses himself completely, almost obsessively, in his effort at continuous improvement. In one recent year, for instance, he spent a few hours a day learning Benny Goodman’s clarinet solos on the bass guitar. He’s also the band member who brought the bluegrass element to Phish. Perhaps the simplest way to explain his perspective is to observe that he’s into honoring roots while breaking new ground, too.
Gordon also has an interest in cinema that has paralleled his career in music. He studied film at UVM, and one professor in particular, Ted Lyman, became something of a mentor. As a cineaste, he cites as his favorite directors such existential wits as Woody Allen and David Lynch, as well as the linchpins of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. He has wielded the camera for Phish’s
lone video (“Down With Disease”); for Tracking , a half-hour documentary about the making of Phish’s fifth album, Hoist ; and for two full-length films, Outside Out (a cryptic, quasi-comedic tale featuring Col. Bruce Hampton as an anarchic mentor) and Rising Low (a fine documentary about bass players and bass
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