\n<\/p>\n
As a longtime Vermont politician<\/a> at the federal level, Senator Bernie Sanders<\/strong> has become a mascot for the state\u2019s independent, hippie spirit to the rest of the nation. So it was probably inevitable that The New Yorker<\/em><\/a>\u2019s deeply reported look at another Vermont icon, the beloved jam band Phish, would include a verdict from the politician.<\/p>\n In a comment to the magazine\u2019s Amanda Petrusich,<\/strong> Sanders heaped praise on his constituents, revealing himself to be a true phan. \u201cPhish is one of the great American rock bands, and they represent a lot of what I love about Vermont,\u201d he said. \u201cThey create community, experiment creatively, and have an enormous amount of discipline around their music.\u201d<\/p>\n Phish, which front man Trey Anastasio<\/strong> founded when he and two of his bandmates, bassist Mike Gordon<\/strong> and drummer Jon Fishman,<\/strong> were students at the University of Vermont in 1983, actually dates back to Sanders\u2019s tenure as the mayor of Burlington. The band is well known for its extended, meandering takes on their recorded output in front of large, appropriately loose audiences, so \u201cdiscipline\u201d might not be the first word you would use to describe them. But, as Petrusich documents, the band\u2019s improvisational chops have been honed through years of practice, precise attention to detail, and encyclopedic musical knowledge of figures ranging from legends Arnold Schoenberg and Leonard Bernstein to newcomers like M.J. Lenderman<\/strong> and Mitski.<\/strong><\/p>\n