My ticket stubs for Phish’s 4-night New Year’s run at Madison Square Garden in NYC. Each stub measures 2.75×6.5 inches (The same size as PTBM tickets) and is printed on 14 Pt paper (slightly thicker than actual stubs), printed by Fireball Printing in Philadelphia.
I continued to paint clouds for this run as I did for the Albany run. This time around, it focused the worm’s eye view of the city. Ever since I was a kid, this has always been one of my favorite things to do when coming into the city. The movement of the clouds and the feeling that the buildings were about to topple gave off a feeling of uncertainty and excitement. Not unlike a Phish show!
The artwork for the stub was a series of watercolor paintings on 8.5 x 11 paper. I plan to make the original paintings available for sale soon.
I currently have a limited number of ticket stubs available in my shop: joseeen.etsy.com. I will also be at the PhanArt show at Hill Country BBQ on December 30th with my tickets as well as fall and summer tour ticket stubs.
The music of Phish has been a source of inspiration for my art for over twenty years now! One particular part of Phish’s catalog that I have often gravitated towards would have to be their Gamehendge Saga, a series of songs from Trey Anastasio’s college thesis. Over the years, I have revisited themes from these songs and incorporated them into a lot of my artwork.
“Esther Suite” 2003 linocut series
I first got into Phish in 2000, after which they promptly went on hiatus. Going off to college, I was able to acquire tapes and CDs of shows, met other fans, and set out to learn more about the band, the music, and the culture.
One thing I noticed about the music of Phish was how easy it was to visualize the lyrics into drawings. In 2003 I created a linocut series of block prints inspired by the song “Esther”, a Gamehendge-adjacent song. At the time, I was unaware that there was a whole scene of artists creating work inspired by Phish; I just felt the song worked great as a series of prints!
“Gamehendge Suite” 2013
Once Phish reunited in 2009, I was regularly going to shows but wasn’t really creating too much artwork inspired by them. By 2012 I was making spray-painted canvas panels of antelope crossing signs that I would sell while walking around the lots before shows. In 2013 I decided to begin illustrating Phish songs. Each painting was mixed media on 8.5×11 paper. I had intended to draw the rest of the songs in the same framed design, but never got a chance to finish them.
“The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday” 2014
In 2014 I began working on a lot more Phish-inspired art, which led to several art commissions. One of these was to create a portfolio of illustrations of all the Gamehendge songs. This consisted of the 9 songs from “The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday” and additional songs that are related to the Gamehendge saga. I ended up creating 12+ ink and watercolor paintings for this series. I would end up using these paintings in my illustrated setlists, which I had begun doing that same year.
Tales from the Land of Gamehendge 2014
2015 Summer Tour Setlist Headers
In 2015 I focused mainly on my illustrated setlists, which had gained traction shortly after being introduced the year before. I started doing more of them with physical ink and watercolor, with the previous year’s setlist art being mainly ink drawings that were digitally colored. For that year’s summer tour setlist art, I decided to create the headers as illustrations inspired by Gamehendge songs. They were challenging to create, but a lot of fun figuring out how to approach the songs in a different way than I had done previously.
Thrilling, Chilling, Summer Tour 2018
In 2018 I created a series of show prints inspired by vintage monster movie posters. I ended up creating 17 posters for the summer, fall, and NYE runs, and of course, had to incorporate some Gamehendge characters in a few!
Dürer inspired series 2019
In 2019 I returned to my love of block printing. For the Phish runs that year I created a series of 11×14 block prints inspired by the work of Albrecht Dürer. 15 show prints were created in total, with a few Gamehendge characters tossed in.
2022 Tour Prints
In 2022, concert tickets went digital, which meant that there were no more Phish Tickets by Mail (PTBMs). The beauty of these tickets was that they featured cool art and looked way better in a fan’s ticket stub collection than a boring Ticketmaster ticket stub. A casual mention from my wife resulted in me creating my own ticket stubs modeled after PTBMs! The art for these stubs was inspired by the venue location and Phish songs. Each illustration I created was designed to create a larger image when the stubs were lined up vertically.
Most prints are available in my shop, although some older work may no longer be available. Joseeen.etsy.com
I had stopped creating my setlist art last year to focus on my ticket stubs, but when Phish played Gamehendge for the first time since 1994, I felt I had no choice but to create one for this historic show!
Tube contained teases of the theme to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Harpua was unfinished. During the Harpua narration, Trey talked about some of the Harpuas and Phish shows at Madison Square Garden of the past 40 years, a bed appeared from beneath the front of the stage, with an actor playing Jimmy and a puppet version of Poster Nutbag. Trey interrupted the song before the “I want a dog” lyric. Trey said Jimmy had lacked a strong female influence over the years, and introduced actress Annie Golden as Jimmy’s grandmother. While consoling Jimmy, she told him it was time to tell the truth about the owner of Harpua. After telling Jimmy that the old man had given the puppet to Esther and helped Reba make liquid meat, a book was brought, and a glowing rhombus rose to frame the entire stage. The band then began the first performance of the Gamehendge saga since July 8, 1994, with Golden and Trey providing the narration and performers acting out the parts of Colonel Forbin, Rutherford, the AC/DC Bag, Tela, Errand Wolfe (later billed in post-show credits as “The Wolf”), and the Sloth. The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday, The Lizards, Tela, Wilson, Divided Sky, Colonel Forbin’s Ascent, and Fly Famous Mockingbird featured an off-stage backing chorus. The multi-beast and McGrupp were also performed by puppets. Tela performed acrobatics on wires during her song, with Jo Lampert (as the Wolf) providing additional vocals during Wilson. The Sloth’s lyrics were changed to “I’m squeezing that Charmin. Thank you, Mr. Whipple. I’m still squeezing that Charmin. Thank you, Mr. Whipple.” Colonel Forbin ascended the rhombus during Colonel Forbin’s Ascent (which had lyrics changed to “weary body”), and a large Famous Mockingbird puppet (with a top hat) flew over the crowd during Fly Famous Mockingbird, which also featured Annie Golden on additional vocals. Before Melt, Trey asked Jimmy’s grandmother if she knew that the mountain was a volcano, and the Lizards reappeared to dance to the ensuing Melt jam, eventually leaving the stage one by one as the rhombus was lowered again.
2023 was a very busy year for me, my time being taken up by the Phish ticket stubs I have been creating for every show this year. I did manage to find some time to work on some illustrated setlists via commissions I took on. I have a long history with these setlists, which I started making in 2014 and created for nearly every show until 2022. At this point, including commissions, I’ve made over 340 illustrated setlists! I’ve always enjoyed making them, many actually being created while live-streaming the shows. This year I finally made the decision of retiring the illustrated setlists, but still keeping commissions open.
My ticket stubs for Phish’s 4-night New Year’s run at Madison Square Garden in NYC. Each stub measures 2.75×6.5 inches (The same size as PTBM tickets) and is printed on 14 Pt paper (slightly thicker than actual stubs), printed by Fireball Printing in Philadelphia.
For this run, I found inspiration in the public monuments in New York City to which I made some artistic changes. Night 1 is based on the Peace Monument found on the lawn of the UN building. Night 2 is based on Isamu Noguchi’s Red Cube in the Financial District. For nights 3 and 4 I was inspired by the Atlas and Prometheus statues, found outside Rockefeller Center.
The artwork for each stub was watercolor paintings on 6×9 paper. They were then scanned. The ticket stub design was based on the 2018 PTBM (Phish tickets by mail) ticket stubs, which feature a vertical format.
I currently have a limited number of ticket stubs available in my shop: joseeen.etsy.com. I will also be at the PhanArt show at Hill Country BBQ on December 30th with my tickets as well as fall and summer tour ticket stubs.
Not just reading the book, 