PureVolume

Members: Drew, Josh, The Chris, Amy

We're basically a high school band that isn't angry, we like to jam, we like the Grateful Dead. Our favorite song is All Along the Watchtower...and we like bringing a lot of energy to our set while still being easy to listen to.

TTF is:
Chris - Drums, Vocals
Drew - Rhythm Guitar, Vocals
Emma - Rhythm Guitar, Vocals
Josh - Bass, Vocals
Amy - Lead Guitar, Vocals

Hey, Amy here, to talk about the name Trip the Fish. Trip was a goldfish my dorm had a little while back at Mountain School. [the name comes as a compromise between Trey and Kip, but that's another story entirely.] It died. Feeling a certain inexplicable emotional attachment to that little fish--which appeared to have died of the black death--my dorm-mates left him in the common room, floating in his mason jar. After a day or so, the smell of dead fish had saturated every corner of the dorm. I said, "We need to flush that fish, it smells terrible in here." Eventually the argument over what to do with Trip lasted about a week and ended with me branded as "Satan." A few months later, after returning home and forming a band with Drew and Josh and Chris, I named it "Trip the Fish," mostly to pay respect for Trip, but also just because it's a cool name once you get used to it, and TTF just rolls off your tongue.

By the way, here's a little bio of our band that I wrote up:
Trip The Fish was formed at the end of the winter of 2005 by drummer Chris Carhart and bassist Josh Zeidel when they asked Amy Weston if she'd play guitar in their band, then named The Obscene Gestures. She had played with Drew Trafton as a two piece acoustic act tentatively known as Trip The Fish for the last few months, and agreed to join the band only if he could join too. Amy's background before joining The Obscene Gestures was largely folk driven, having played banjo for three years and mandolin for about half a year, as long as she'd been playing guitar, and it consisted of a large repertoire of celtic folk music, as well as a handful of Grateful Dead and Phish songs. Drew had been largely classic-rock-oriented, lending another creative twist to the folk/psychadelic influences of Amy and Josh and the pop-rock influences of Chris.
Soon after the band's genesis several mediocre performances revealed Trip the Fish to be a bewilderingly diverse musical blend, and revealed the tensions that the band was struggling to overcome as they searched for their unique sound. Trip The Fish stuck though, as a mediocre campus band.
Over the summer, TTF managed to slowly build a small fanbase simply by word of mouth, mostly thanks to people who had liked the group at the WPEA Battle of the Bands that spring. They managed to play one show during the summer, but for the most part they were seperated by distances and inconveniences. Upon returning to campus in the Fall, though, a couple of long practice sessions revealed Trip to be a much bigger fish than it had been the spring before. The group soon landed an outdoor gig on campus in mid-October. Though the band was only part of the larger festivities of the event, their 45-minute set really let them showcase some of their strengths; with Amy on both guitar and mandolin during the performance, Josh, Amy, and Drew all singing, and Chris showing off his loose, improvisational drumming style. The set consisted of a few Grateful Dead covers, as well as several originalsincluding the fan favorite Sold My Soul To Nintendoand a powerful performance of Dylan's All Along The Watchtower.
After the success at PEA Earth Fest, Trip The Fish moved on to their next performance, at the much-anticipated Academy Rock Assembly. Despite being given a measly three-and-a-half minute set, TTF proved to be a favorite among the crowd of around a thousand with their high energy romp through the eighties' hit 99 Red Balloons.
By the time Drew left for ten weeks in Mexico starting at the beginning of January, Trip The Fish had established a large fanbase on campus and is now looking to expand more into the local music scene.