Jamband Fans

I found this posted on FB and it is friggin hilarious. Its a long read but so funny. If you want a good laugh, please read this.


Sense of Humor Rankings for Jamband Fans

1. Disco Biscuits
2. Widespread Panic
3. Umphrey’s McGee
4. String Cheese Incident
5. moe.
6. STS9
7. Grateful Dead
46,758. Phish

The range of this scale is simple: if you make fun of the Disco Biscuits to a Disco Biscuits fan they will likely get a kick out of it and join in with you; if you make fun of Phish to a Phish fan they will start plotting ways to kill your entire family.

Any human can be pushed over the edge; this exercise is based on the premise that you made a critical/disparaging/shit-talk comment to someone assuming they can take a joke about their favorite band.

The common thread amongst all these bands is that their fans overlook certain glaring flaws because they love them so damn much. All bands have their flaws, but jambands have a peculiar way of having some obvious & insurmountable flaws that diehard fans either selectively ignore or learn to love.

And setlists. A fan of any one of these bands can & will spiral into a discussion about setlist minutiae at the drop of a hat. Don’t ever let a Phish fan pontificate about opening songs at shows. They’ll tell you about that one time they called a “Tweezer” opener back in ’98 and then you’ll have to kill yourself.

And drugs. Lots and lots of f***ing drugs. These are all ‘drug bands,’ for better or worse. #droogbands

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1. Disco Biscuits

The Disco Biscuits have the fans with the best sense of humor, period. Barber is obsessed with cheesesteaks. Brownie is too stoned to keep up. Allen is actually a robot. Bisco Bashing is all over the internet and their fans pretty much go along with all of it. Because most of it is warranted. They’re sloppy as hell at times, overwhelmingly repetitive, their guitarist has been known for being too f***ed-up to play, and they often sound like some demented storm warning siren. Yet, their fans are nearly indifferent to criticism, they just don’t seem to give half a shit. Insults bounce off of them like schwill requests & bunk doses. The best part of it is: they seem to almost revel in their band’s flaws, which is why they sit perched atop this very important list. And even if a rogue uppity fan DID want to put up an argument to a hater, they’d likely be too far gone into a ketamine hallucination to make it happen.

2. Widespread Panic

There is a caricature of the Panic fan. A drunken and/or spun-out goon who needs a ride to the next tour stop and has some really shitty coke to trade for it. This isn’t too far from the truth and they all know it. But what separates Panic fans from the bands below on this list is their willingness to jump in on a bashing binge. Bust out a classic mockery of John Bell: “Owwwwww that cole cole Chilleh Wowterrr” and they will laugh their asses off. There is no denying that Bell often sounds more like stomping on a goose than a human vocalist. Yet, Panic fans embrace the hell out of it and hardly mind if anyone disagrees. They’re the white trashy aunt & uncle at your family reunion who are the REALLY HAPPY kind of drunk who laugh and chain smoke and somehow drink an entire 30 rack of Milwaukee’s Beast and eventually pass out under a truck. They’re great fun.

3. Umphrey’s McGee

This is where things start to get dicey. Umphreaks are right about in the middle on this scale – some fans will get down on bashing and some will get mildly offended. Everyone generally recognizes that Bayliss isn’t much of a singer, and that they have a tendency to turn any song into some over-shreddy, prog-jam that’s too complicated for its own good. Some fans won’t even bother trying to argue with haters, while some fans will go off & try to persuade people who will never agree that Jake is the best guitarist on the planet or that Myers can drum circles around their favorite drummer. The ones who get pissy will nearly always turn to Phish and start claiming that UM shits on Phish. UM fans are noticeably competitive, which is mostly an inferiority complex brought on by the fact that they will never be more popular than they already are.

4. String Cheese Incident

What separates Cheese from other bands on this list is the fact that girls actually attend their concerts. Every other band on this list has about a 4:1 male-to-female ratio at their shows, whereas Cheese seems split 50/50. That’s because Cheese is soft. Very soft. When your lead vocalist has the vocal register of a prepubescent girl, it’s pretty hard to even pretend to be tough. Also due to the female ratio, the argument factor is lowered because the girls are too busy Instagramming their LED angel wings to be bogged down in music discussion. But Cheese’s male fans will get pretty uppity if given the chance, especially when you call them soft. “But their jams are so dirty!” Says the half-gram of molly you shoveled down your gullet. When Cheese isn’t noodling, they can be found trying to blend electronic music & bluegrass, which nobody else does for a reason. Yet, SCI diehards will defend this to the death, claiming “natural progression” and other such justifications for poor musical decisions. It’s a confusing group who will get aggro if you give them the chance.

5. moe.

moe. has the most male-heavy fanbase on this list. The real kicker, though, is the general age of the fans. Which is: approaching the antique phase. This is a band whose fans are known to huff duster in the crowd and mix their Ensure powder with liquid nitrous, which apparently gives some type of meaning to their aimless, meandering jams which rarely reach any sort of peak or destination. moe. fans are also quite competitive, but they often try to play counterpoint to Umphrey’s by saying, “At least we have some soul.” This is little more than justification for their lazy & uneventful music which plays out like downing a combination of NyQuil and Xanax a.k.a. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. moe. fans will nearly always put up a valiant fight in defense of their band, which, due to their senility-racked minds, ends up in some pissing match over which jambands’ faults are the least annoying. At which point you’ll really need that Xanax.

6. STS9

Somehow STS9 fans are able to overlook the fact that they’re a jamband who no longer jams and mail in more setlists than any other band on this list. “But it’s all about the vibe, bro. Getting to the next level of interconnected spirits and shit.” Sure, those bunk pressies you got in a trade for your favorite hat pin are making your jaw move uncontrollably, but they don’t make ignorant words involuntarily come out of your mouth as well. STS9 fans get particularly uppity when you tell them how much better they used to be, usually deferring to some bullshit about “refining their vibe” or “aligning their chakras,” because they know deep down that this band is a shell of its former self. Clinging to the past is a dangerous game and STS9 fans are typically married to it. But with David “Captain Laptop” Murphy out of the band, maybe there’s some hope for the future.

7. Grateful Dead

Much of the vigorous defense of this band is due to the fact that Jerry Garcia is dead. Jerry is a deity in the jamband world, worshipped to the point where jokes about his ashes having healing power are actually true, man. The Dead obviously carry the most nostalgia factor on this list, many people who absolutely love this band are old as shit and spent their childhood growing up with them. So it’s easy to see why they take criticism of the band straight to their rusty, tattered lil hearts. Any slight is immediately met with an offended response, like you’ve taken a dump directly on their dinner. It can get ugly in a hurry, but if you quickly compliment their GDF Wings pin, toss a couple drops of pure liquid L on their tongue, and tell them you know from experience that their crystals are the most potent on lot, they will probably relax enough to be tolerable. But be warned: this is a vicious group who will cut you with that loose, jagged wire on their Watermelon Tourmaline Wrap without warning.

46,758. Phish

Jerry might be a deity in the jam scene, but somehow another Anointed One has risen to even greater reaches of Almighty Jam Heaven. And he’s a f***ing ginger! If you wanna see absolute rage pour out of an “enlightened” person, talk shit about Trey Anastasio to a Phish fan. There is something about this band that makes seemingly normal people suddenly obsess over Phish to the exclusion of all other music. Many Phans formerly liked the other bands on this list, but have since moved on to the high-most plane of music fan snobbery. They condescend to fans of every other band and will never hesitate to remind you that “every member of the band is a virtuoso, bro.” The Phans’ preferred habitat (aside from pounding down balloons in the lot) is the internet, where they collect in a place called PT, which is basically the tepid puddle in the abandoned corner of the internet’s sewer. Phish fans usually troll en masse every article/blog they can find and bombard the comments section like a pack of stoned internet hyenas. At some point in human history, psychologists will determine that becoming a diehard Phish fan is some sort of Adult Onset Autism, with symptoms including out-of-control, Rainman-style Trolling Syndrome, Ego Hypertrophy, Obsessive Compulsive Douchebaggery (OCDB), and Cargo Shortosis. In early 2013 some naive fashion blogger decided to write an admittedly awful article about her shitty experience at a Phish show aka White People Spinning In Circles For HOURS. It wasn’t even worth responding to, it was trash, the kind of thing any fans of any other band on this list would ignore out of simple good sense. Yet, within one day the PT crew assaulted her article with so many eGrenades that she pulled the blog entry and probably hung herself from her little brother’s treefort right afterwards. The Phish Phan is the wolverine of the jamband scene, except totally biting YOUR arm off if you even dream of any other song ever written being better than “You Enjoy Myself.” Approach them at your own risk. No amount of personal protection is too much — anything from a can of Chemical Billy to a full bear attack suit might be called upon to save your life.