Below is an occasionally serious and somewhat incomplete attempt to introduce you to the core of folks working for the Foundation. By no means is it an exhaustive list of the more than 1,500 volunteers and supporters listed in The Phish Companion itself.

Aaron Rosenthal (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion) went bonkers for the music of Phish right around the same time he began questioning his chosen career path (circa 1994), and this was no coincidence. With few living classical composers to serve as inspiring role models, he quickly found himself devoting more time and energy to the music and magic of Phish than to the world of modern classical music. Several years later, Aaron is starting to learn to balance the two very divergent musical worlds in his life -- by taking what he loves from both live Phish and dead classical music -- but he still considers Big Cypress to be the greatest musical experience of his life.

Billy Rickards (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Jamming Table Contributor, Antelope guru), got hooked on Phish immediately following his first show on 7/15/92. Fifty-some shows and a mountain of tapes later he still feeds an unhealthy Phish addiciton by making yearly pilgrimmages to the mainland for summer tour. He lives on the Big Island of Hawaii and actively campaigns for Phish to play a real island tour.

Bradley Lonard (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion)

Charlie Dirksen (Board Member, Foundation Co-Counsel, Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Jamming Tunes Editor, Setlist Working Group Member) saw his first Phish show in 1937 and has been part of the online Phish.Net community since 1954. He is known widely for significant contributions to that community, including innumerable tape offers, superb commentary, and extensive reviews of thousands of versions of YEM and Mike's Song. And I met him at a urinal.

Charlz Franz (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Setlist Working Group Member; founding Board Member, emeritus) began reading rec.music.phish and got his first Phish tapes in a 2-for-1 B/P in the spring of 1995. His first show was 11-22-95 Landover, MD. He also serves on the Phish.Net Digest Working Group.

Chris Bertolet (Board Member, Major Contributor to The Phish Companion, Grammar Boy) was a commercial banker in Baltimore until the backwards-masked voices in the album "Rift" told him to move to Los Angeles and write for a living. During the 8/6/96 Tweezer at Red Rocks, he was abducted by time-travelling Mayans, who asked him to tell the world that they're very sorry about all those human sacrifices.

Chris Glushko (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion) has seen around 50 shows since he first caught the band at MSG in 1994. Chris has been actively trading tapes since Summer '95 when he found out that listening to 200 versions of Reba was perfectly suited for his obsessive-compulsive personality. Back in 1996, Chris started posting to rec.music.phish for the simple reason of irritating Charlie Dirksen; however his greatest accomplishment was getting Paul Languedoc to turn up Mike Gordon's bass in Summer 97 by starting an army known as PLM.

Christian McKee (major contributor) is a fervent music listener who saw Phish for the first time with his father in the fall of 1995, and started reading rec.music.phish shortly thereafter. He has made some modest contributions to the Mockingbird Project, and enjoys writing his "Jams I Like" series, which can be found on the web.

Craig DeLucia (Project Founder, Setlists Sensei) heads up the setlists section of the book. He has also been heavily involved in the Song Histories section. A die-hard fan since 1994, Craig also enjoys his day job, as an accountant, and his night job, as the lead singer of Backyard Green. He just returned from a three-month foreign job assignment.

Dan Hantman (Board Member, Webmaster/Internet Development, Contributor to The Phish Companion) has worked for the Foundation in a variety of capacities, primarily focused on Internet promotion. He is also Assistant Phish.Net Webmaster and current custodian of the Helping Phriendly Book. You can identify him at shows as the guy yelling "Yay, Pavement!"

Dan Purcell (Board Member, Major Contributor to The Phish Companion) first saw Phish in 1989 and thought they were 'weird.' Something about their music stuck with him, though, because two years later he was still humming the chorus to 'Lizards.' He finally conceded large portions of his life to the band after making the long drive to Red Rocks in 1995.

Dan Seideman (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion) began work on this project as a member of the setlist working group and as co-editor of the Show Reviews section. He has been seeing Phish since 1994 and has been known to juggle both final exams and shows on several notable occasions. He is completing a Bachelor's degree at Amherst College and plans to move to New York City to begin his career as an investment banker.

David Shulman (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion) saw his first Phish show in August 1993. In addition to being an avid Phish tape/CDR collector, he is the Executive Director of the Mimi Fishman Foundation, a charitable organization David and Mimi started in 1999. David also spent several years as a regional editor for Jambands.com, dating back to the first online issue.

David "ZZYZX" Steinberg (aka "The Timer", Board Member, Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Stats Editor) first saw Phish at the Chance in Poughkeepsie and has seen them once or twice since then. He created the Phish Stats website and is responsible for the stats section of the book. Give him a cookie and he'll be your friend.

Ellis Godard (Executive Director, Phish Companion Editor and Sharin' in the Groove Producer) saw his first Phish show in 1990, has been part of the online Phish.Net community since 1991, and has seen over 80 shows. He has maintained the Phish.Net Frequently Asked Questions File for over seven years, circa 1993-1995 also maintained the Helping Phriendly Book, and is part of the Phish.Net Digest Working Group. He is completing a doctoral program in Sociology from the University of Virginia, and will be writing his dissertation (on conflict management in cyberspace) in Santa Cruz, CA.

Erik Swain (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Guestbook Editor) saw his first show in 1993 when he was a senior at Princeton University, but it took 12/29/96 and 12/2/97 to turn him into a raving, drooling die-hard. A trade magazine editor who still lives in New Jersey, he also enjoys Neil Young, fantasy sports, and generally making a spectacle of himself at various clubs in New York and Philadelphia.

Herschel Gelman (Board Member)

Jack Lebowitz (Board Member, Foundation Co-Counsel, Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Images Co-Coordinator) by day, a relatively mild-mannered environmental attorney in Saratoga Springs, New York. A "Deadhead" since 1970, Jack was quickly convinced that Phish was "the real deal" at his first show on 5/6/93 (Palace Theatre, Albany, NY). He has since seen 41 other Phish shows, and caught innumerable other jamband and jazz acts with his wife, and fellow Mockingbird contributor, Kat Griffin. With Kat, parents of two teen-aged children; sometimes seen at shows with their kids Gavin and Annie and/or a flock of their proto-tourkid friends.

Jeremy D. Goodwin (Board Member, Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Editor of several sections, Song Histories writer, resident "Stash" expert) resides in Swampscott, Massachusetts. He graduated from George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs in 1999, with a degree in Political Communication. He is a journalist, working mainly for the Swampscott Reporter and the Marblehead Reporter, on the North Shore of Massachusetts. He is also working towards completion of his first novel, a postmodern "adventure tale". Jeremy is the editor or co-editor of several Companion sections, including Show Reviews, Venue Information, and the Travel Log. He is also the person behind the mockingbird@www.phish.net address. He first saw Phish in 1995. It took sixty shows to finally catch a Forbin's, in Vegas.

Jim Raras (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion) began work on this project as a member of the setlist working group and as co-editor of the Show Reviews section. He currently lives outside of Boston, and spends a good chunk of his time attending and taping live shows in the area. In addition, Jim enjoys archiving Phish (and other taper friendly bands) DATs to losslessly compressed data files for for future fans to enjoy after DATs have long rotted.

Julia "FahtHarpua" Mordaunt (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Setlists and Song Histories) currently resides in Buffalo, New York. In her free time, she loves to travel, write, relax with friends, and of course -- groove to Phish. She was first introduced to Phish by her older brother (whom she will be forever in debt to because of that fact) in 1992. Two of her most memorable Phish shows were 10/9/94 and 8/9/98. She is currently a Film major at the University of Buffalo. Already writing her own scripts, Julia hopes one day, to be writing and directing her films wherever she lands in the near future. You can spot her at Phish shows with a Super 8 glued to her face (well, not literally). She is also a member of the Phish.Net Digest working group, and serves as a moderator.

Kat Griffin (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Images Co-Coordinator, Spiritual Sensei) has been dancing at Phish shows ever since having her mind blown by the Weedsport 7/15/93 Divided Sky. By day she works at a hospital laboratory in upstate New York and can pass herself off as a "grownup" if she has to. By nights and weekends, she catches as much live music as possible. One of her hobbies is providing a "Band Bed and Breakfast" experience for road-weary musicians traveling through her area. She continues to entertain her child within by boogying to the music, and will do so until she is just a poof of light and love hovering in the air.

Kim Hannula (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Essays Editor) should have been introduced to Phish at a free show at Stanford in 1992, but she was too busy working on her dissertation. When she finally saw Phish in 1993, she liked them so much that she moved to Vermont, where she first got paid to tell college students how cool rocks are. She now continues her work in Colorado. Her favorite Phish experience was the 12/9/95 YEM, which she still considers her personal birthday present.

Marcie Vogel (Board Member, PR Specialist) saw her first Phish show in 1989 and was immediately hooked. She became active in the online Phish community in 1993, and has seen well over 100 Phish shows. Among her many volunteer efforts, she has coordinated the Phish.Net t-shirt campaign and has assisted many bands with their on-line presence. Currently living in Boulder, CO, she works for SCI Fidelity (The String Cheese Incident's label) managing the Grass Roots Promotions and good energy campaigns and continues her work with the Home Grown Music Network, helping to spread live music to the world.

Mark Toscano (Board Member, Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Song Histories Editor) has been a fan since mid-1994, and saw his first show (a horn show!) in Davis, CA on December 2 of that year. His pupils are twice as large as those of an average adult male, and he has visited 42 of our nation's 50 glorious states. He loves movies, and works as Assistant Director of the venerable experimental film distributor Canyon Cinema. He lives in Berkeley, California, where he spends entirely too much money on buying music and not enough on paying monthly bills. He thinks you should listen to Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, The Boredoms, and Eugene Chadbourne. He thinks you should watch the films of Luis Buñuel, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Buster Keaton. He also wants to make sure you all know that silent films only look sped up and silly because they're often shown at the wrong speed. He is currently scratching his left ear.

Martin Acaster (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion) - Through a long and sometimes painful series of regression therapy sessions, Mr. Acaster's muddled psyche has revealed that his involvement with both The Phish and The Mockingbird Foundation has been as part of a covert "black ops" mission masterminded by extra-dimensional non-physical entities who identify themselves only as agents of T.I.M.E. Martin was drawn into this sometimes nefarious but undeniably hilarious life path one fall evening in 1984 where upon his entering the Boston Garden to see The Kinks, a leather-jacketed thug lolling against the "first urine of the morning yellow" hued wall, who may or may not have resembled a young "Cactus", sold the unwitting high school student a capsule containing the essence of mescalito. Forever changed by this experience Mr. Acaster had an undeniable urge to seek out the source of his enlightenment and unravel the mysterious chant that had emanated from the cavernously cycloptic eye socket of Ray Davies during the last half of the show (T.I.M.E. for the meatstick...bury the meatstick...take out the meatstick T.I.M.E.). Martin is spending "the hiatus" compiling a shockingly synchroneous manifesto detailing the truth behind the "Secret Agenda", traveling to an undisclosed cybernetic laboratory to have his striking facial features surgically altered so that he may walk the lots of Trey Tour unnoticed by militant members of the Stardog Posse, all the while developing a leisure consultancy firm designed to aid the somnambulent masses in their quest to enjoy their sometimes meaningless lives. For further information contact Mr. Acaster directly via telepathy.

Matt King (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Setlists) After having blown off a Fall '91 show, first saw Phish on 7/25/92 and has never looked back. Forsaking the bulk of his college career to focus on obtaining as many tapes as one human can amass, he's been an ardent chronicler of all things setlist related. After graduating from UVM in 1999, Matt went on to focus on his own musical career, playing bass for The Halogens, touring up and down the East Coast with their melodic blend of spacerock.

Mike Preston (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion)

Phil Nazzaro (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion) started receiving Phish tapes mixed in with the Grateful Dead stuff he was trading for in early 1990. For some reason he waited until 12/28/90 to see his first show; but immediately began seeing them every chance he got. He has now seen "somewhere around 100 shows...who knows?", been on Phish.net since 1994, and has been taping for 4 years.

Saul E. Wertheimer (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion) is known internationally simply as "sauldude." He saw his first show on 6/18/94, and although he had no clue what was going on, he distinctly remembers thinking, "this is really cool" throughout the show. He still claims that the seconnd set of 10/31/96 didn't actually occur.

Syd Schwartz (Recording Industry Consultant, Major Contributor to The Phish Companion) is a mystery. His musical mindset underwent a radical paradigm shift during the 11/27/92 Divided Sky, and he has since caught about 50 shows with 4/30/93 still his favorite. Plugged into phish.net since 1993, Syd currently lives with his wife Kiki and new daughter Emily Jade in New York City where he co-manages a kosher Mexican restaurant called La Casa Hadasah with fellow Mockingdude Charlz Franz. (Actually, we works for a serious record company, plugging such acts as Creed.)

Phillip Zerbo (Major Contributor to The Phish Companion: Side Shows Editor) is a huge fan of the band Phish, and has been actively involved in various improvisational music "communities" for the past 20 years. He founded the Phish.Net Digest.