Jonathan Hart hosts the Osiris network’s Brokedown Podcast that explores the music and history of the Grateful Dead. Below, Jonathan details fellow Osiris podcast, Beyond The Pond.
Phishheads, like Deadheads before them, often tend to live their lives exclusively listening to the vast array of live shows from their favorite band without taking the time to look around for other music. Beyond The Pond, hosted by Brian Brinkman and David Goldstein, launched in April of 2017 with a singular mission: broaden the musical perspective of the notoriously myopic Phish fan. While not every fan will agree with or fit this stereotype, it certainly provides a substantial springboard for the show. For each episode, they select a singular, noteworthy Phish jam and break it down to identify significant themes. These themes serve as a launching point to explore the catalogs and sounds of other artists. They also explore new releases from bands that excite them and may be relevant to listeners.
Every other Tuesday they drop a new episode featuring music and discussion. Despite being geographically diverse (David lives in New York and Brian in Colorado), the hosts come together with an intimate warmth, good humor and wealth of knowledge to amuse, entertain, and inform.
Over more than 50 episodes, David and Brian have covered top Phish jams ranging from the early days in the 1980s to highlights from recent shows. These have included such great jams such as “The Curtain With” from Pete’s Phabulous Phish Fest in 1988, the Nassau “Tweezer” in 2003, to a breakdown of the highlights from Riviera Maya in 2019. For a 2017 episode on the Riverport “Bathtub Gin” from July 29, 1998, they connect the dots from one of Phish’s most legendary performances to likes of The Meters, Orgone, Thundercat and St. Vincent.
Many episodes of Beyond The Pond include guests ranging from fellow podcasters to writers such as Steven Hyden (author of Twilight Of The Gods: A Journey To The End Of Classic Rock), Phish lyricist Tom Marshall, journalist Grayson Haver Curry, Beyond Beyond Is Beyond label heads Mike Newman and Dom Miniaci and Umphrey’s McGee keyboardist Joel Cummins. Each guest brings an additional perspective as a fan and expands the range of new, non-Phish music discussed in each episode.
Other episodes focus not on specific jams but on broader themes, such as Episode 16, which featured a look at Phish’s bluegrass influence. Episode 28 looked at the Wingsuit set from Halloween 2013 with Osiris co-founder and Helping Friendly Podcast co-host RJ Bee. Episode 31 took a close look at female artists, and Episodes 33 and 34 featured a two-show deep-dive into U2.
As the decade draws to a close, Beyond The Pond is currently producing additional episodes recapping the best albums from each year of this waning decade. This will culminate in a year and decade recapping of the best new music for the 2010s. Each of these bonus episodes is packed with top-notch recommendations. All of these, along with the songs and albums suggested in the regular episodes are compiled into the Beyond The Pond Songs Playlist on Spotify (see below).
Brian and David show little sign of slowing down so subscribe now on your favorite podcast hosting platform. Beyond The Pond episode notes can be found on the Medium page.
