title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The free-floating, heavy, stainless steel barrels (stainless steel resists throat erosion better than normal barrels) for the available cartridge chamberings all have a different length, groove cutting and rifling twist rate optimised for their chambering and intended ammunition. For .243 Winchester, the twist rate is 254 mm (1 in 10 in), and for .308 Winchester/7.62×51mm NATO variants it is 305 mm (1 in 12 in), except for the suppressed-barrel variant. If the consistent accuracy requirement of an operator is no longer met, the barrel can fairly easily be renewed. This is normal practice for active high-performance precision rifle operators, who regard barrels as replaceable. The barrels are provided by Australian company Maddco Rifle Barrels (button rifled), and Scottish company Border Barrels, who cut-rifles them on Pratt & Whitney rifling benches. Twists are one turn in 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 inches for 7.62 MM depending on RFP.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: A three-position, firing pin blocking safety lever on the bolt shroud allows the bolt to be manipulated with the safety on. If the weapon is cocked, the firing pin can be felt at the end of the bolt action, making it possible in poor visibility to feel whether the weapon is ready to fire. The safety-catch of the weapon is also positioned at the rear, showing white if the safety is on, red if not.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The two-stage trigger mechanism has an adjustable trigger pull weight of 10 to 20 N (2.2 to 4.4 lb). The trigger assembly can be easily removed for cleaning by undoing two socket-head cap screws.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AW is usually equipped with an integrated bipod and it also has a monopod mounted on the buttstock.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: Accuracy International accessories for the Arctic Warfare system include a selection of PM II series telescopic sights made by Schmidt & Bender with laser filters for the military scopes, aluminium one-piece telescopic sight mounting sets, MIL-STD-1913 rails (Picatinny rails), lens hoods, various optical and kill flash filters and lens covers for telescopic sights, auxiliary iron sights for emergency use, cleaning kits, muzzle brakes/flash-hiders and suppressors, butt plates and spacers to regulate the length of pull and butt angle to the requirements of the individual shooter, buttspikes, bipod (adapters), handstops, mirage bands, soft and heavy-duty transit cases and various maintenance tools.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The Accuracy International Chassis System (AICS) can be configured for various actions (all Accuracy International and some Remington 700 receivers), triggers, and other items. The AICS version for Remington 700 receivers was introduced in 1999. U.S. distributors started selling AICS chassis systems in late 2012 for Savage Arms' Model 10 series of precision long range rifles. These Savage Arms rifles are primarily for the law enforcement applications. There are three variants of AICS chassis system. The basic variant is the AICS 1.0 with a fixed cheek-piece. The AICS 1.5 variant has a fully adjustable cheek-piece. The AICS 2.0 is a folding stock that reduces the rifle's overall length by when folded and adds to the rifle's total weight. The AICS 1.5 and 2.0 both have cheek-piece design that adjusts sideways and for height for optimal cheek position when using night vision equipment, or telescopic sights with large objective lenses. There is also a quick-adjust cheek-piece option that has a spring-loaded cheek-piece in conjunction with a quick-adjust butt plate.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AICS side panels are made from a high-strength polymer and are available in the colours olive drab, dark earth or black.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: Sling attachment points are mounted on each side of the rifle, so it can be carried flat against the back and used comfortably by left- and right-handed users. A front attachment point is situated below the fore end and can be used to anchor a target style sling or replaced by an adapter for a Harris bipod.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The United States Special Operations Command uses the AICS as the Mk 13 Mod 5 rifle chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum. The Mk 13 Mod 5 utilises the "long-action" bolt of the Remington 700/M24 receiver and has a precision barrel that can be fitted with the suppressor of the Mk 11. It has a 3-sided Modular Accessory Rail System (MARS) for mounting optics on top and Picatinny rail accessories on each side, and a folding bipod. The Mk 13 is to be gradually replaced by the Modular Sniper Rifle in US Army use.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: In April 2018, the U.S. Marine Corps announced they would be replacing the M40 sniper rifle with the Mk 13 Mod 7; the M40 had been in service with the Marines since 1966, with the latest M40A6 being upgraded in 2014. The Mk 13 chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum increases range from 1,000 metres with the M40 to 1,300 metres, giving Marine snipers similar capabilities to the U.S. Army M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: An AX series Accuracy International Chassis System (AICS) stock is also available for Remington 700 short and long bolt action based rifles.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: An AT series Accuracy International Chassis System (AICS stock) is also available for Remington 700 short and long bolt action based rifles, Savage M10 short action and Tikka T3 short action rifles.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: There are two main types of AW series models. Models offered by AI, and type classified models in service with governments. AW models are related to, but not necessarily exactly synonymous with specific models adopted by countries.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The rifle from which the Arctic Warfare family was developed. In this original form, it entered service in the UK in the mid-1980s, and designated as the L96A1 (chambered for 7.62×51mm NATO).


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The basic 'improved' version of the L96A1. The name stems from special features designed to enable operation in extremely cold climates.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: Adopted as the following (All versions mentioned are chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge and uses a 10-round detachable magazine):


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: According to the Accuracy International AW brochure, the AW can be chambered either in 7.62×51mm NATO and .243 Winchester, though on special request other calibres that will function with the AW bolt action can be fitted.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AWP is a version intended for use by law enforcement as opposed to military, with AWP standing for Arctic Warfare Police. The most notable feature is that the distinctive frame is black instead of light green. It also has a shorter barrel than the AW model. The AWP is normally chambered for 7.62×51mm NATO/.308 Winchester or .243 Winchester ammunition, though it can be chambered for other cartridges. The AWP is distinct from the Accuracy International AW AE, which also has a black finish but is a cheaper non-military version of the AW series.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AWS is specifically designed for use with subsonic ammunition which, depending on the target, gives an effective maximum range of around . Its noise levels are similar to those generated by .22 LR match ammunition. The weapon is fitted with a special .308 Winchester/7.62×51mm NATO 406 mm (16 in) long barrel which has a twist rate of 229 mm (1 in 9 in) and an integral suppressor. The AWS barrel/suppressor combination has a total length of 711 mm (28 in), which keeps the weapon's overall length within normal limits. The user can remove the barrel/suppressor combination and replace it with a standard AW or AWP barrel in about three minutes. As with all such systems, the sight will need re-zeroing after a barrel change.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The Covert system is essentially an AWS with a folding stock with a 305 mm (12 in) long barrel/suppressor combination with a 203 mm (1 in 8 in) twist rate. It is supplied in a small suitcase which houses the rifle with the stock folded and the barrel/suppressor combination detached. The polymer suitcase is lined with closed-cell foam featuring cut-outs for the stock/action/optics/bipod combination, the bolt, the suppressor, a magazine and a box of ammunition. While the Covert system's compacted size is considerably smaller than that of any conventional system, its special barrel and integral suppressor keep the weapon's overall length within normal limits when deployed.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: It is notably used by the USSOCOM 1st SFOD-D (Delta Force), the British Special Air Service and the German KSK (designated G25)


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AWM is a variant of the AW sniper rifle that is chambered for either the .300 Winchester Magnum or the .338 Lapua Magnum. It has a longer bolt compared to the AW, in order to accommodate for the larger and more powerful magnum cartridges. It is fed through a 5-round detachable magazine.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AWM that is chambered for the .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge has been adopted since its first introduction in the British army and in the Dutch army in 1996. "(See the Arctic Warfare Magnum article for the full list.)"


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The British Armed Forces adopted the AWM that is chambered for the .338 Lapua Magnum and designated it as the L115A1 and in November 2007, it was announced that the British Army, Royal Marines and RAF Regiment were to get an improved variant of the L115A1, the L115A3.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AWM-F was the first AW variant featuring a folding stock and has been adopted since its first introduction in the German Army in 1998, and by other several armies. "(See the Arctic Warfare Magnum article for the full list.)"


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The G22 ("Gewehr 22" or "Scharfschützengewehr 22") by German Army, it features a folding stock and is chambered for the .300 Winchester Magnum round (designated 7.62×67mm).


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AW50 was introduced in 2000 by the British and Australian armed forces and is an AW rifle re-engineered and chambered for .50 BMG (12.7×99mm NATO).


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The German Army adopted the AW50 and designated it as the G24 ("Gewehr 24" or "Scharfschützengewehr 24").


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AW50F is a variant of the AW50 adopted by the Australian military. It differs from the standard AW50 in that it is fitted with a folding stock (hence the "F") and Maddco barrel.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The Accuracy International AE was introduced in 2001 as a cheaper, somewhat simplified, less robust version of the L96/AW series intended for law enforcement, in place of the more expensive AWP or AW models intended for military use. The AE bolt-action differs from the larger, more angular AW design. The round AE receiver is lighter than in the AW models. The action of the AE is not permanently bonded with epoxy material to the aluminium chassis and can be removed. Unlike the AW models, the AE can not be ordered in a left-handed configuration. The AE is chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge and its barrel is long.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: In 2009, the AE was updated to the AE Mk III. The AE Mk III sniper rifle system uses AICS 5- and 10-round magazines, has a removable trigger group, and a screw-adjustable cheekpiece. An optional barrel with muzzle brake or tactical suppressor mounting facilities and a folding chassis are available.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: Accuracy International has discontinued the AE sniper rifles. In 2014, Accuracy International introduced the AT308 or the AT (Accuracy Tactical) sniper rifle, which is a more modern variant of the AE (Accuracy Enforcement) sniper rifle, and will be offered to law enforcement and civilian clients worldwide.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AT (Accuracy Tactical) model was introduced in 2014 as a cheaper alternative to the more expensive AX series which are intended for military use. The AT on the other hand is intended for law enforcement and civilian use. Like the AX series the AT continues the legacy of the Arctic Warfare sniper rifle and is also an improvement of the AE (Accuracy Enforcement) sniper rifle.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AT is chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO/.308 Winchester. It is a manual operated, bolt action sniper rifle. It features a rotary bolt with six locking lugs, arranged into three pairs at the bolt head, a polymer stock with aluminium alloy chassis, and a solid, flat-bottomed receiver made of steel, the AI (Accuracy International) muzzle brake (optional), a detachable suppressor, a 20-, 24- inch plain or threaded barrel, and a 26-inch threaded barrel only, a 10-round detachable magazine, an integral Picatinny (Mil-Std 1913) rail above the receiver for mounting various optics/scopes and an additional accessory rails can be easily bolted to the forend of the rifle for mounting various accessories, a standard stock that is made from a polymer and features fully adjustable comb and buttpad, side-folding stock that folds to the left is available, a two-stage trigger that is adjustable for trigger weight between 1.5 and 2 kg.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The Accuracy International AX long range sniper rifle series was designed for long, high-powered super magnum cartridges and was unveiled in January 2010 at the SHOT Show trade show. It is a major design evolution based on the AWM variant of the AW series and its development was according to Accuracy International partly driven by a Precision Sniper Rifle (PSR) U.S. Special Operations Command solicitation. The PSR contract was awarded in 2013 to Remington Arms for their Modular Sniper Rifle.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AX series comprises the multi calibre AXMC chambered either in .338 Lapua Magnum, .300 Winchester Magnum, and 7.62×51mm NATO/.308 Winchester, which can be reconfigured in minutes by simply changing the barrel, bolt and magazine/insert. In addition the AX series consists of the non-multi calibre AX308 chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO/.308 Winchester and the AX50 chambered in .50 BMG.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AXMC multi calibre sniper rifle is chambered either for the .338 Lapua Magnum, .300 Winchester Magnum, 7.62×51mm NATO/.308 Winchester. It features parts that dimensionally or otherwise are not interchangeable with the AW rifle series. With an AXMC calibre conversion kit, the AXMC can change calibres in minutes by exchanging the bolts, magazines and barrels. Converting to the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge, an additional magazine converter must also be fitted within the magazine port to allow the use of an Accuracy International AX308 magazine. A single shroud/firing pin assembly is provided for each multi calibre weapon system and must therefore be installed into the required bolt assembly as part of the conversion procedure.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: Compared to the AWM, the bolt action of the AXMC is longer and wider and the internal magazine is lengthened, allowing the unimpaired use of .338 Lapua Magnum cartridges loaded to the C.I.P. (Permanent International Commission for the Proof of Firearms Portable) maximum allowed overall length of .


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AXMC bolt is in diameter and the bolt, bolt head, locking ring and barrel tenon construction were designed to be significantly stronger and more capable of handling higher chamber pressures and temperatures and thus higher bolt thrust safely compared to the AWM variant. The bolt construction is significantly revised, allowing the bolt to be field stripped by hand and allowing the more complex removal of the bolt head from the bolt body with simple hand tools. Calibre changes can be accomplished by the change of a complete bolt assembly or a calibre specific bolt sleeve, which is more laborious. The interior of the bolt has a new safety feature added that will prevent the rifle from firing on a partially closed bolt. An improved leaf-spring AW 7.62 style extractor should enhance the cycling reliability of the bolt action. This extractor can be removed and reinstalled with the help of a bullet tip. The top of the receiver features a MIL-STD 1913 Picatinny rail for mounting aiming optics. The AXMC has a 30 MOA forward canted optical rail optimised for extreme long range shooting. The diameter of the barrel threading was enlarged and is unique to the AXMC. The rifle is fitted with a 27 in (686 mm) long .338 in (8.6 mm) calibre free floating fluted barrel as standard. The AXMC has a non conventional 238 mm (1:9.35 in) twist rate to adequately stabilise longer, heavier .338 calibre very-low-drag projectile designs that became more common in the 21st century. Other barrel lengths, calibres and twist rates are available as options. The two-stage trigger has a new trigger shoe that can be moved for and rearwards by 0.5 in (13 mm) and has a adjustable trigger pull. The AXMC uses new 10-round double stacked .338 Lapua Magnum steel magazines that are inserted into a revised magazine well.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: Further, the AXMC features a revised external chassis stock system with an octagonal shaped fore end which envelops the free floating barrel offering modular attachment points for user (re)movable MIL-STD 1913 Picatinny accessory rails on four sides. Several lengths of octagonal shaped fore end and Picatinny accessory rails are available as options. The folding rear of the stock can be fitted with an optional butt spike. The minimal possible length of pull was reduced compared to the AICS stocks to facilitate usage when wearing thick clothing or body armour. The stock has a left-right and height adjustable cheekpiece as standard or can be fitted with an optional quick adjustable cheekpiece. The cheekpiece contains a 4 mm hex wrench used for various adjustment, removal and (re)mounting procedures. The pistol grip can be fitted with backstraps of differing sizes that combined with the movable trigger shoe enables the trigger to be tailored to the individual shooter.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AX308 is a stand-alone 7.62×51mm NATO variant. It is chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO/.308 Winchester and has a smaller short action with a bolt diameter of . The AX308 has a 20 MOA forward canted optical rail optimised for long range shooting.


title: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

text: The AX50 is a stand-alone .50 BMG (12.7×99mm NATO) anti-materiel rifle variant that replaced the AW50. It has a bolt diameter of .


title: Phish

text: Phish is an American rock band formed in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983. The band is known for musical improvisation, extended jams, blending of genres, and a dedicated fan base. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the primary lead vocalist.


title: Phish

text: The band was formed by Anastasio, Gordon, Fishman and guitarist Jeff Holdsworth, who were joined by McConnell in 1985. Holdsworth departed the band in 1986, and the lineup has remained stable since. Phish began to perform outside of New England in the late 1980s and experienced a rise in popularity in the mid 1990s. In October 2000, the band began a two-year hiatus that ended in December 2002, but they disbanded again in August 2004. Phish reunited officially in October 2008 for subsequent reunion shows in March 2009 and since then have resumed performing regularly. All four members pursued solo careers or performed with side-projects and these projects have continued even after the band has reunited.


title: Phish

text: Phish's music blends elements of a wide variety of genres including funk, reggae, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, folk, country, jazz, blues, bluegrass, electronic music, and pop. The band is part of a movement of improvisational rock groups, inspired by the format of the Grateful Dead's live performances and colloquially known as "jam bands", that gained considerable popularity as touring concert acts in the 1990s. Phish has developed a large and dedicated following by word of mouth, the exchange of live recordings, and selling over 8 million albums and DVDs in the United States.


title: Phish

text: Phish were signed to major label Elektra Records from 1991 to 2005, when the band formed their own independent label, JEMP Records, to release archival CD and DVD sets.


title: Phish

text: Phish was formed at the University of Vermont (UVM) in 1983 by guitarists Trey Anastasio and Jeff Holdsworth, bassist Mike Gordon, and drummer Jon Fishman. Anastasio and Fishman had met that October, after Anastasio overheard Fishman playing drums in his dormitory room, and asked if he and Holdsworth could jam with him. Gordon met the trio shortly thereafter, having answered a want-ad for a bass guitarist that Anastasio had posted around the university.


title: Phish

text: The new group performed their first concert at Harris Millis Cafeteria at the University of Vermont on December 2, 1983, where they played a set of classic rock covers, including two songs by the Grateful Dead. The band performed one more concert in 1983, and then did not perform again for nearly a year, stemming from Anastasio's suspension from the university following a prank he had pulled with a friend.


title: Phish

text: Anastasio returned to his hometown of Princeton, New Jersey following the prank, and reconnected with his childhood friend Tom Marshall; The duo began a songwriting collaboration and recorded material that would appear on the "Bivouac Jaun" demo tape. Marshall and Anastasio have subsequently composed the majority of Phish's original songs throughout their career. Anastasio returned to Burlington in late 1984, and resumed performing with Gordon, Holdsworth and Fishman; The quartet eventually named themselves Phish, and they played their first concert under that name on October 23 of that year. Anastasio designed the band's logo, which featured the group's name inside a stylized fish. The band's members have given several different origins for the name Phish. In Parke Puterbaugh's 2009 book "Phish: The Biography", the origin is given as a variation on "phshhhh", an onomatopoeia of the sound of a brush on a snare drum. In the 2004 official documentary "Specimens of Beauty", Anastasio said the band was also named after Fishman, whose nickname is "Fish." In a 1996 interview, Fishman denied that the band was named after him, and said the onomatopoeic inspiration behind the name was the sound of an airplane taking off.


title: Phish

text: The band would collaborate with percussionist Marc Daubert, a friend of Anastasio's, in the fall of 1984. Daubert ceased performing with the band in early 1985. Keyboardist Page McConnell met Phish in early 1985, when he arranged for them to play a spring concert at Goddard College, the small university he attended in Plainfield, Vermont. He began performing with the band as a guest shortly thereafter, and made his live debut during the third set of their May 3, 1985 concert at UVM's Redstone Campus. In the summer of 1985, Phish went on a short hiatus while Anastasio and Fishman vacationed in Europe; during this time, McConnell offered to join the band permanently, and moved to Burlington to learn their repertoire from Gordon. McConnell officially joined Phish as a full-time band member in September 1985.


title: Phish

text: Phish performed with a five-piece lineup for about six months after McConnell joined, a period which ended when Holdsworth quit the group in March 1986 following a religious conversion. Anastasio and Fishman relocated in mid-1986 to Goddard College after a recommendation from McConnell. Phish distributed at least six experimental self-titled cassettes during this era, including "The White Tape".


title: Phish

text: While based at Goddard College, Phish began to collaborate with fellow students Richard "Nancy" Wright and Jim Pollock. Pollock and Wright were musical collaborators who made experimental recordings on multi-track cassettes, and had been introduced to Phish through McConnell, who co-hosted a radio program on WGDR with Pollock. Phish adopted a number of Nancy's songs into their own set, including "Halley's Comet", "I Didn't Know", and "Dear Mrs. Reagan", the latter song being written by Nancy and Pollock. In his book "Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America", music journalist Jesse Jarnow observed that Wright and his music were highly influential to Phish's early style and experimental sound. Wright amicably ended his association with Phish in 1989, but Pollock has continued to collaborate with Phish over the years, designing some of their album covers and concert posters.


title: Phish

text: By 1985, the group had encountered Burlington luthier Paul Languedoc, who would eventually design custom instruments for Anastasio and Gordon. In October 1986, he began working as their sound engineer. Since then, Languedoc has built exclusively for the two, and his designs and traditional wood choices have given Phish a unique instrumental identity. During the late 1980s, Phish began to play regularly at Nectar's bar and restaurant in downtown Burlington, and performed dozens of concerts across multiple residencies through March 1989. The band's 1992 album "A Picture of Nectar" was named in honor of the bar's owner, Nectar Rorris, and its cover features his face superimposed onto an orange.


title: Phish

text: As his senior project for Goddard College, Anastasio penned "The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday", a nine-song progressive rock concept album that would become Phish's second studio experiment. Recorded between 1987 and 1988, it was submitted in July of that year, accompanied by a written thesis. The song cycle that developed from the project – known as Gamehendge – grew to include an additional eight songs. The band performed the suite in concert on five occasions: in 1988, 1991, 1993, and twice in 1994 without replicating the song list. "The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday" has never received an official release, but a bootleg tape has circulated for decades, and songs such as "Wilson" and "The Lizards" remain concert staples for the band.


title: Phish

text: Beginning in the spring of 1988, members of the band began practicing in earnest, sometimes locking themselves in a room and jamming for hours on end. One such jam took place at Anastasio's apartment, with a second at Paul Languedoc's house in August 1989. They called these jam sessions "Oh Kee Pa Ceremonies", a reference to the film "A Man Called Horse". In July 1988, the band performed their first concerts outside of the northeastern United States, when they embarked on a seven-date tour in Colorado. These shows are excerpted on their 2006 live compilation "Colorado '88".


title: Phish

text: On January 26, 1989, Phish played the Paradise Rock Club in Boston; The owners of the club had never heard of Phish and refused to book them, so the band rented the club for the night. The show sold out due to the caravan of fans that had traveled to see the band. The concert was Phish's breakthrough on the northeastern regional music circuit, and the band began to book concerts at other large rock clubs, theaters, and small auditoriums throughout the area, such as the Somerville Theatre, Worcester Memorial Auditorium and Wetlands Preserve. That spring, the band self-released their debut full-length studio album, "Junta", and sold copies on cassette tape at their concerts. The album includes a studio recording of the epic "You Enjoy Myself", which is considered to be the band's signature song. Later in 1989, the band hired Chris Kuroda as their lighting director. Kuroda subsequently became well known for his artistic light shows at the group's concerts. A profile on Phish appeared in the October 1989 issue of the Deadhead magazine "Relix", which marked the first time the band had been covered in a major national music periodical.


title: Phish

text: By late 1990, Phish's concerts were becoming more and more intricate, often making a consistent effort to involve the audience in the performance. In a special "secret language", the audience would react in a certain manner based on a particular musical cue from the band. For instance, if Anastasio "teased" a motif from "The Simpsons" theme song, the audience would yell, "D'oh!" in imitation of . In 1992, Phish introduced a collaboration between audience and band called the "Big Ball Jam" in which each band member would throw a large beach ball into the audience and play a note each time his ball was hit. In so doing, the audience was helping to create an original composition. On occasion, performances of "You Enjoy Myself" and "Mike's Song" involved Gordon and Anastasio performing synchronized maneuvers and jumping on mini-trampolines while simultaneously playing their instruments. Fishman would also regularly step out from behind his drum kit during concerts to sing cover songs, which were often punctuated by him playing an Electrolux vacuum cleaner like an instrument. The band released their second album, "Lawn Boy", in September 1990 on Absolute A Go Go, a small independent label that had a distribution deal with the larger Rough Trade Records. The album had been recorded the previous year, after the band had won studio time at engineer Dan Archer's Archer Studios when they came in first place at an April 1989 battle of the bands competition in Burlington.


title: Phish

text: Phish, along with Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, and the Beatles, was one of the first bands to have a Usenet newsgroup, rec.music.phish, which launched in 1991. Aware of the band's growing popularity, Elektra Records signed them that year after they were recommended to the record label by A&R representative Sue Drew. In the summer of 1991, the band embarked on a 14-date tour of the eastern United States accompanied by a three-piece horn section dubbed the Giant Country Horns. In August of that year, Phish played an outdoor concert at their friend Amy Skelton's horse farm in Auburn, Maine that acted as a prototype for their later all-day festival events.


title: Phish

text: In 1992, the band released their third studio album, "A Picture of Nectar", their first release for the major label Elektra. Subsequently, the label also reissued the band's first two albums. Later in 1992, Phish participated in the first annual H.O.R.D.E. festival, which provided them with their first national tour of major amphitheaters. The lineup, among others, included Phish, Blues Traveler, the Spin Doctors, and Widespread Panic. That summer, the band toured Europe with the Violent Femmes and later toured Europe and the U.S. with Santana. Throughout the latter tour, Carlos Santana regularly invited some or all of the members of Phish to jam with his band during their headlining performances. The band ended 1992 with a New Year's Eve performance at the Matthews Arena in Boston, Massachusetts, a performance that was simulcast throughout the Boston area by radio station WBCN. The concert was filled with several new "secret language" cues they had taught their audience in order to deliberately confuse radio listeners.


title: Phish

text: Phish began headlining major amphitheaters in the summer of 1993. That year, the group released their fourth album, "Rift", a concept album which featured a cover painted by David Welker that referenced almost all of the songs on the record. The album was the band's first to appear on the "Billboard 200" album chart, debuting at #51 in February 1993.


title: Phish

text: In March 1994, the band released their fifth studio album "Hoist." The album featured an array of guest performers, including country singer Alison Krauss, banjoist Béla Fleck, former Sly & The Family Stone member Rose Stone, actor and trombonist Jonathan Frakes, and the horn section of R&B group Tower of Power. To promote the album, Gordon directed the band's only official music video, for its first single "Down with Disease". The clip gained some MTV airplay starting in June of that year. "Down with Disease" became a minor hit on rock radio in the United States, and was the band's first song to appear on a "Billboard" music chart when it peaked at #33 on the magazine's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart that summer. To further promote "Hoist", the band released an experimental short-subject documentary called "Tracking", also directed by Gordon, which depicted the recording sessions for the album.


title: Phish

text: Foreshadowing their future tradition of festivals, Phish coupled camping with their 1994 summer tour finale at Sugarbush North in Warren, Vermont, that show eventually being released as "Live Phish Volume 2". On Halloween of that year, the group promised to don a fan-selected "musical costume" by playing an entire album from another band. After an extensive mail-based poll, Phish performed the Beatles' White Album as the second of their three sets at the Glens Falls Civic Center in upstate New York. The "musical costume" concept subsequently became a recurring part of Phish's fall tours, with the band playing a different album whenever they had a concert scheduled for Halloween night.


title: Phish

text: In October 1994, "Crimes of the Mind", the debut album by Anastasio's friend and collaborator Steve "The Dude of Life" Pollak, was released by Elektra Records; The album, which had been recorded in 1991, was billed to "The Dude of Life and Phish" and features all four members of Phish acting as Pollak's backing band.


title: Phish

text: On December 30, 1994, the band made their first appearance on national network television when they performed "Chalk Dust Torture" on "Late Night with David Letterman". The band would go on to appear on the program seven more times before David Letterman's retirement as host in 2015. For their 1994 New Years Run, Phish played the Civic Centers in Philadelphia and Providence as well as sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden, which marked their debut performances at both venues. For the December 31 show at the Boston Garden, the band rode around the arena in a float shaped like a hot dog. The stunt was reprised at their 1999 New Year's Eve concert before the hot dog was donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the end of 1994, Phish appeared on "Pollstar"'s list of the highest grossing concert tours in the United States for the first time, as the 32nd highest grossing act, with $10.3 million in ticket sales.


title: Phish

text: Following the death of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia in the summer of 1995 and the appearance of "Down with Disease" on "Beavis and Butt-Head", the band experienced a surge in the growth of their fan base and an increased awareness in popular culture. In their tradition of playing a well-known album by another band for Halloween, Phish contracted a full horn section for their performance of The Who's "Quadrophenia" in 1995.


title: Phish

text: Phish's first live album, "A Live One", was released during the summer of 1995 and featured selections from various concerts from their 1994 winter tour. The album charted at number 18 on the "Billboard" 200 album chart, and was reported to have sold around 50,000 copies in its first week on sale. "A Live One" became Phish's first RIAA-certified gold album in November 1995. In 1997, "A Live One" became the band's first Platinum album, certified for sales of 1 million copies in the United States, and remains their best selling album to date.


title: Phish

text: Following an appearance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April 1996, the band spent the summer of that year opening for Santana on their European tour. In August 1996, the band held their first festival, The Clifford Ball, at the decommissioned Plattsburgh Air Force Base on the New York side of Lake Champlain. The festival attracted 70,000 attendees, making it both Phish's biggest concert crowd to that point and the largest single concert by attendance in the United States in 1996. Phish recorded their sixth album "Billy Breathes" in the winter and spring of 1996, and the album was issued in October of that year. Alongside traditional rock-based crescendos, the album has more acoustic guitar than their previous records, and was regarded by the band and some fans as their crowning studio achievement. The album's first single, "Free", peaked at No. 24 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart and No. 11 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and was their most successful song on both charts.


title: Phish

text: By 1997, Phish's concert improvisational ventures were developing into a new funk-inspired long form jamming style. Vermont-based ice cream conglomerate Ben & Jerry's launched "Phish Food" that year. The band officially licensed their name for use with the product, the only time they have ever allowed a third-party company to do so, and were directly involved with the creation of the flavor. Proceeds from the flavor are donated to the band's non-profit charity The WaterWheel Foundation, which raises funds for the preservation of Vermont's Lake Champlain. On August 8, 1997, Phish webcast one of their concerts live over the internet for the first time.


title: Phish

text: On August 16 and 17, 1997, Phish held their second festival, The Great Went, over two days at the Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, near the Canada–United States border. In October 1997, the band released their second live album "Slip Stitch and Pass", which featured selections from their March 1997 concert at the Markthalle Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany.


title: Phish

text: Following the Great Went, the band embarked on a fall tour that was dubbed by fans as the "Phish Destroys America" tour after a 1970s kung fu-inspired poster for the opening date in Las Vegas. The 21-date tour is considered one of the group's most popular and acclaimed tours, and several concerts were later officially released on live album sets such as "Live Phish Volume 11" in 2002. Phish ended 1997 as one of the ten highest grossing concert acts in the United States that year.


title: Phish

text: In April 1998, the band embarked on the Island Tour - a four night tour with two shows at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York on Long Island and another two at the Providence Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island. The four concerts are highly regarded by fans due to the band's exploration of a jazz-funk musical style they had been playing for the previous year, which Anastasio dubbed "cowfunk". The band performed the tour in the middle of studio sessions for their seventh album, and were inspired by the quality of their performances to further incorporate the cowfunk style into subsequent sessions. The resulting album, "The Story of the Ghost", was released in October 1998. The album's first single "Birds of a Feather", which had been premiered on the Island Tour, became a #14 hit on Billboard's Adult Alternative Songs chart. To promote "The Story of the Ghost", Phish performed several songs from the album on the public television music show "Sessions at West 54th" in October 1998, and were interviewed for the program by its host David Byrne of Talking Heads.


title: Phish

text: In the summer of 1998, The band held Lemonwheel, their second festival at Loring Air Force Base in Maine. The two-day event attracted 60,000 attendees.


title: Phish

text: The band played another summer festival in 1999, called Camp Oswego and held at the Oswego County Airport in Volney, New York. Unlike other Phish festivals, Camp Oswego featured a prominent second stage of additional performers aside from Phish, including Del McCoury, The Slip and Ozomatli.


title: Phish

text: In July 1999, the band released an album of improvisational instrumentals titled "The Siket Disc". The band followed that release with "Hampton Comes Alive", a six-disc box set released in November 1999, which contained the entirety of their performances on November 20 and 21, 1998 at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The set marked the first time that complete recordings of Phish concerts were officially released by Elektra Records.


title: Phish

text: To celebrate the new millennium, Phish hosted a two-day outdoor festival at the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida in December 1999. The festival's climactic New Year's Eve concert, referred to by fans as simply "The Show," started at 11:35 p.m. on December 31, 1999, and continued through to sunrise on January 1, 2000, approximately eight hours later. The band's performance of the song "Heavy Things" at the festival was broadcast live as part of ABC's "2000 Today" millennium coverage, giving the band their biggest television audience up to that point. 75,000 people attended the sold-out two-day festival. In 2017, "Rolling Stone" named the Big Cypress festival one of the "50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years."


title: Phish

text: Following the Big Cypress festival, the band issued their ninth studio album "Farmhouse" in May 2000. "Heavy Things", which was released as the album's first single, became the band's only song to appear on a mainstream pop radio format, reaching #29 on "Billboard"'s Adult Top 40 chart that July. The song also became the band's biggest hit to date on the Adult Alternative Songs chart, reaching #2 there. In June 2000, the band embarked on a seven-date headlining tour of Japan. In July, they taped an appearance on the PBS music show "Austin City Limits", which was aired in October.


title: Phish

text: In the summer of 2000, the band announced that they would take their first "extended time-out" following their upcoming fall tour. Anastasio officially announced the impending hiatus to the band's fans during their September 30 concert at the Thomas & Mack Center in Paradise, Nevada. During the tour's last concert on October 7, at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, the band made no reference to the hiatus, and left the stage without saying a word following their encore performance of "You Enjoy Myself", as The Beatles' "Let It Be" played over the venue's sound system.


title: Phish

text: "Bittersweet Motel", a documentary film about the band directed by Todd Phillips, was released in August 2000, shortly before the hiatus began. The documentary captures the band's 1997 and 1998 tours, the Great Went festival and the recording of "The Story of the Ghost". Phish were nominated in two categories at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2001: Best Boxed Recording Package for "Hampton Comes Alive" and Best Instrumental Rock Performance for "First Tube" from "Farmhouse".


title: Phish

text: During Phish's hiatus, Elektra Records continued to issue archival releases of the band's concerts on compact disc. Between September 2001 and May 2003, the label released 20 entries in the Live Phish Series. These multi-disc sets featured complete soundboard recordings of concerts that were particularly popular with the band and their fanbase, similar to the Grateful Dead's Dick's Picks archival series. In November 2002, the label released the band's first concert DVD, "", which featured the entirety of the September 2000 concert at which Anastasio announced the hiatus.


title: Phish

text: In April 2002, Phish guest starred on the episode "Weekend at Burnsie's" of the animated series "The Simpsons". The episode marked the band's first appearance together, albeit as animated characters, since the hiatus began. Phish provided their own voices for the episode and performed a snippet of "Run Like an Antelope".


title: Phish

text: In August 2002, Phish's manager John Paluska announced the band planned to end their hiatus that December with a New Year's Eve concert at Madison Square Garden. They also recorded "Round Room" in only four days and released it on December 10. The band had initially planned to record the new album live at the Madison Square Garden concert, but instead felt that demos they had recorded of the material were strong enough to merit release as a studio album. Four days after the release of "Round Room", the band made their only appearance as a musical guest on "Saturday Night Live", where they debuted the song "46 Days" and appeared in two comedy sketches. During their return concert on December 31, McConnell's brother was introduced as actor Tom Hanks. The impostor sang a line of the song "Wilson", prompting some media outlets to report that the actor had appeared at the concert.


title: Phish

text: Phish’s 2003 winter tour commenced in February in Inglewood, California, and included the song The Cover of "Rolling Stone" — foreshadowing their actual appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone’s March 3, 2003 issue.


title: Phish

text: At the end of the 2003 summer tour, Phish returned to Limestone, Maine for It, their first festival since Big Cypress. The event drew crowds of over 60,000 fans, and was the band's final festival to be held at Loring Air Force Base. Highlights from the festival were released on a DVD set, also called "It", in October 2004. In November and December 2003, the band celebrated its 20th anniversary with a four-show mini-tour of shows in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The December 1 show at Pepsi Arena featured a guest appearance by former member Jeff Holdsworth, who sat in with the band on five songs, including his compositions "Possum" and "Camel Walk".


title: Phish

text: On May 25, 2004, Anastasio announced on the Phish website that the band would disband at the end of their 2004 summer tour. He wrote that he had met with the other members earlier that month to discuss the "Strong feelings I’ve been having that Phish has run its course, and that we should end it now while it’s still on a high note." By the end of the meeting, he said, "We realized that after almost twenty-one years together, we were faced with the opportunity to graciously step away in unison, as a group, united in our friendship and our feelings of gratitude." The band's eleventh – and at the time final – studio album "Undermind" was released in June 2004. The band's summer 2004 began with two concerts at Keyspan Park in Brooklyn, New York. The first concert was recorded for the live album and concert documentary "", while the second featured a guest appearance by rapper Jay-Z, who performed two songs with the band. Later that summer, the band appeared on the "Late Show with David Letterman" and performed a seven-song set from atop the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater for fans who had gathered on the street.


title: Phish

text: The 2004 tour finished ended with the band's seventh summer festival on August 14 and 15, which were billed as their final performances. The Coventry festival was named for the town in Vermont that hosted the event, which was held at the nearby Newport State Airport. After Coventry, the members of the band admitted they were disappointed with their performance at the festival; In the official book "Phish: The Biography", Anastasio expressed that "Coventry itself was a nightmare. It was emotional, but it was not like we were at our finest. I certainly wasn't".


title: Phish

text: Following the break-up, the band's members remained in amicable communication with one another. The members also occasionally appeared on each other's solo albums and collaborated on side-projects.


title: Phish

text: In December 2006, Anastasio was arrested in Whitehall, New York for drug possession and driving while intoxicated, and was sentenced to 14 months in a drug court program. In 2007, while Anastasio was undergoing rehabilitation, the other members of Phish surprised him on his birthday with an instrumental recording they had made for him to play along with on guitar. During his rehabilitation, Anastasio said he "spent 24 hours a day thinking about nothing but Phish" and began discussing a reunion with the other members of the band.


title: Phish

text: In 2005, Phish formed their own record label, JEMP Records, to release archival CD and DVD sets. The label's first release was "", which was released in conjunction with Rhino Records in December 2005. The album was named the 42nd greatest live album of all time by "Rolling Stone" in April 2015. The label subsequently released several other archival live box sets, including "Colorado '88" (2006), "Vegas 96" (2007), "At the Roxy" (2008) and "The Clifford Ball" (2009).


title: Phish

text: Phish received the Jammys Lifetime Achievement Award on May 7, 2008, at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. All four members attended the ceremony and gave a speech, and both McConnell and Anastasio performed, although not together.


title: Phish

text: In response to a June 2008 rumor that Phish had reunited to record a new album, McConnell wrote a letter on the band's website updating fans on the current relations between the band's members. McConnell wrote that while the members remained friends, they were currently busy with other projects and the reunion rumors were premature. He added, "Later this year we hope to spend some time together and take a look at what possible futures we might enjoy." That September, the band played three songs at the wedding of their former tour manager Brad Sands. Later in 2008, the band reconvened at The Barn, Anastasio's farmhouse studio in Burlington, Vermont, for jamming sessions and rehearsals.


title: Phish

text: On October 1, 2008, the band announced on their website that they had officially reunited, and would play their first shows in five years in March 2009 at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The three reunion concerts were held on March 6, 7, and 8, 2009, with "Fluffhead" being the first song the band played onstage at the first show. Approximately 14,000 people attended the concerts over the course of three days, and the band made the shows available for free download on their LivePhish website for a limited time, in order to accommodate fans who were unable to attend.


title: Phish

text: When the band decided to reunite, the members agreed to limit their touring schedule, and they have typically performed about 50 concerts a year since. Following the reunion weekend, Phish embarked on a summer tour which began in May with a concert at Fenway Park in Boston. The Fenway show was followed by a 25-date tour which included performances at the 2009 edition of the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee and a four date stand at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. At Bonnaroo, Phish was joined by Bruce Springsteen on guitar for three songs.


title: Phish

text: Phish's fourteenth studio album, "Joy", produced by Steve Lillywhite, was released September 8, 2009. In October, the band held Festival 8, their first multi-day festival event since Coventry in 2004, at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.


title: Phish

text: In March 2010, Anastasio inducted Genesis, one of his favorite bands, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the museum's annual ceremony in New York City. In addition to Anastasio's speech, Phish performed the Genesis songs "Watcher of the Skies" and "No Reply at All" at the event. Phish toured in the summer and fall of 2010, and their concerts at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisconsin and the Utica Memorial Auditorium in Utica, New York were issued as CD/DVD sets in 2010 and 2011 respectively.


title: Phish

text: Phish's ninth festival, Super Ball IX, took place at the Watkins Glen International race track in Watkins Glen, New York on July 1–3, 2011. It was the first concert to take place at Watkins Glen International since Summer Jam at Watkins Glen in 1973. In September, the band played a benefit concert in Essex Junction, Vermont which raised $1.2 million for Vermont flood victim relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.


title: Phish

text: In June 2012, Phish headlined Bonnaroo 2012 with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Radiohead. During their 2013 Halloween concert at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the band played twelve new songs from their upcoming album, which at the time had the working title "Wingsuit" and would later be renamed "Fuego". Phish ended 2013 with a New Year's Eve concert that also celebrated their 30th anniversary, as they had played their first concert in December 1983. The concert featured a nine-minute montage film celebrating the band's career, and the band performed an entire set in the middle of the arena from atop an equipment truck.


title: Phish

text: Phish released "Fuego", their first studio album in five years, on June 24, 2014. The album peaked at number 7 on the "Billboard 200" album chart, and became their highest charting album since "Billy Breathes" reached the same position in 1996. During their Halloween 2014 concert at MGM Grand Las Vegas, the band performed a set consisting of ten original songs inspired by the 1964 Walt Disney Records sound effects album "Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House."


title: Phish

text: In 2015, Phish performed both a summer tour and their tenth multi-day festival event, Magnaball, was held at the Watkins International Speedway in New York in August. Phish's fourteenth studio album, "Big Boat", was released on October 7, 2016.


title: Phish

text: Phish played a 13-night concert residency at New York City's Madison Square Garden from July 21 to August 6, 2017, dubbed "The Baker's Dozen". Each concert featured a loose theme with performances of unique cover songs and a special doughnut served each night to the audience by Federal Donuts of Philadelphia. No songs were repeated during the Baker's Dozen run, with a total of 237 individual songs performed across the 13 concerts. The complete Baker's Dozen residency was released as a limited edition 36-disc box set in November 2018. A scaled-down triple CD set featuring 13 song performances, titled "", was issued simultaneously with the box set.


title: Phish

text: Phish planned to hold an eleventh summer festival, Curveball, in Watkins Glen, New York in 2018, but the festival was canceled by New York Department of Health officials, one day before it was scheduled to begin, due to water quality issues from flooding in the area. At their Halloween concert that October at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the band performed a set of all-new original material that they promoted as a "cover" of "í rokk" by Kasvot Växt, a fictional 1980s Scandinavian progressive rock band they had created. The Kasvot Växt set was released as a on Spotify on November 10, 2018. All four concerts in the 2018 Halloween run were livestreamed in 4K resolution, which marked the first time that a major musical act had ever offered a 4K livestreaming option.


title: Phish

text: "Between Me and My Mind", a documentary film directed by Steven Cantor about Anastasio's life, his Ghosts of the Forest side-project and Phish's 2017 New Year's Eve concert, was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2019. In June 2019, SiriusXM launched Phish Radio, a satellite radio station dedicated to the band's music.


title: Phish

text: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Phish postponed their 2020 summer tour until 2021. Before 2020, Phish had embarked on a summer tour every year since their 2009 reunion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Phish hosted free weekly "Dinner and a Movie" webcasts of archival performances on Tuesday evenings until Labor Day weekend, after which they were hosted monthly.


title: Phish

text: Phish released their fifteenth studio album "Sigma Oasis" on April 2, 2020. The album was premiered through a listening party on their LivePhish app, SiriusXM radio station and Facebook page. The album consists entirely of material the band had been performing in concert over the course of the previous decade, but had yet to appear on a studio release.


title: Phish

text: In January 2021, Anastasio told "Pollstar" that the band was unable to perform or rehearse together due to COVID-19 restrictions and quarantine rules currently in place in the New England states, but said "As soon as it's feasible, we'll be back."


title: Phish

text: Phish performed their first concert since the start of the pandemic on July 28, 2021, having not performed since February 23, 2020. Beginning with their concerts at The Gorge Amphitheatre in late August, the band began requiring attendees to show proof of vaccination or a negative test for COVID-19. During their 2021 Halloween concert, Phish debuted a set of new original science fiction-themed material under the guise of the fictional band Sci-Fi Soldier. According to "Pollstar", Phish were the ninth highest grossing concert act in the world in 2021, with a $44.4 million gross from 35 concerts. Phish also had the fifth highest concert ticket sales in the world in 2021, with 572,626 tickets sold. Due to an increase of cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in New York City, Phish postponed their 2021 New Year's Eve concerts at Madison Square Garden from December 2021 to April 2022. On December 31, 2021, Phish performed a three-set New Year's Eve concert without an audience from a soundstage they dubbed for the show, "The Ninth Cube." Phish released "Get More Down", a studio version of their Sci-Fi Soldier material, on October 31, 2022.


title: Phish

text: Phish's popularity grew in the 1990s due to fans sharing concert recordings that had been taped by audience members and distributed online for free. Phish were among the first musical acts to utilize the internet to grow their fanbase, with fans using file-sharing websites such as etree and BitTorrent to share concerts.


title: Phish

text: In 1998, "Rolling Stone" described Phish as "the most important band of the '90s." Phish have been named as an influence by other acts in the jam band scene, including Umphrey's McGee and the Disco Biscuits Other musicians have also counted Phish as an influence, including Adam Levine and James Valentine of Maroon 5, Ed O'Brien of Radiohead, Brandon Boyd of Incubus, and reggae musician Matisyahu.


title: Phish

text: Phish's festival events in the 1990s inspired the foundation of the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee, which was first held in 2002. Co-founder Rick Farman, a Phish fan, consulted Phish managers Richard Glasgow and John Paluska about festival infrastructure during the early stages of planning. The festivals also inspired other jam band-oriented concert events, such as the Disco Biscuits' Camp Bisco, Electric Forest Festival, and the Big Ears Festival.


title: Phish

text: While Phish has had eight of their singles appear on "Billboard"'s Adult Alternative Songs chart since its inception in 1996, even the band's most successful songs would not be recognizable to the average music listener. Phish are well known to their loyal fans, called Phishheads, but the group's music and fan culture are otherwise polarizing to general audiences. The tribal nature of Phish supporters has encouraged comparisons of Phishheads to the Juggalos, followers of the hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse. Phish heavily contributes to music based tourism with their "traveling communities" of fans, and they have been simultaneously hailed and criticized for their near-constant tour dates, which bring with them the capital value of tourism and necessitates the increased security and community planning that come with any music festival. Jordan Hoffman of Thrillist explains "the solace many find in attending religious services is somewhat mirrored for me in seeing Phish," and even though Phish fans are generally considered welcoming and friendly, the reception of the group from the outside is often one of unease and confusion. The BBC listed Phish as one of "Eight smash US acts that Britain never understood" along with fellow jam bands Dave Matthews Band and Blues Traveler. In describing the band to a British audience, BBC journalist Stephen Dowling wrote "Attending a Phish gig has become a rite of summer passage for American teens in the same way that attending Glastonbury has for British teenagers."


title: Phish

text: Phish has performed 64 concerts at Madison Square Garden since their debut performance there in 1994. The band have performed the third-most concerts at the venue of any musical act, behind only Billy Joel and Elton John. In 2019, "Billboard" ranked Phish as the 33rd highest-grossing concert touring act of the 2010s.


title: Phish

text: According to "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide", the music of Phish is "oriented around group improvisation and super-extended grooves". Their songs draw on a range of rock-oriented influences, including funk, jazz fusion, progressive rock, bluegrass, and psychedelic rock. Some Phish songs use different vocal approaches, such as a cappella (unaccompanied) sections of barbershop quartet-style vocal harmonies. The band began to include barbershop segments in their concerts in 1993, when the four members began taking lessons from McConnell's landlord, who was a judge at barbershop competitions. In the 1997 official biography, "The Phish Book", Anastasio coined the term "cow-funk" to describe the band's late 1990s funk and jazz-funk-influenced playing style, observing that "What we’re doing now is really more about groove than funk. Good funk, real funk, is not played by four white guys from Vermont."


title: Phish

text: Phish were often compared to the Grateful Dead during the 1990s, a comparison that the band members often resisted or distanced themselves from. The two bands were compared due to their emphasis on live performances, improvisational jamming style, musical similarities, and traveling fanbase. In November 1995, Anastasio told the "Baltimore Sun" "When we first came into the awareness of the media, it would always be the Dead or Zappa they'd compare us to. All of these bands I love, you know? But I got very sensitive about it." Early in their career, Phish would occasionally cover Grateful Dead songs in concert, but the band stopped doing so by the late 1980s. In "Phish: The Biography", Parke Puterbaugh observed "The bottom line is while it's impossible to imagine Phish without the Grateful Dead as forebears, many other musicians figured as influences upon them. Some of them - such as Carlos Santana and Frank Zappa - were arguably at least as significant as the Grateful Dead. In reality, the media certainly overplayed the Grateful Dead connection and Phish probably underplayed it, at least in their first decade." Anastasio has also cited progressive rock artists such as King Crimson and Genesis as significant influences on Phish's early material. In a 2019 "New York Times" interview, he observed, "If you listen to the first couple of Phish albums, they don’t sound anything like the Grateful Dead. I was more interested in Yes."


title: Phish

text: In his 2018 book "Twilight of the Gods", music critic Steven Hyden wrote that he found the Grateful Dead and Phish to have "significantly different reference points" in terms of influence and style. The Grateful Dead, Hyden explained, were "informed by the totality of American music from the first sixty years of the twentieth century: Blues, country, folk, jazz, and early rock 'n' roll," while Phish's music contains elements of "hopped-up bluegrass, jazzy disco, porno-movie funk, Broadway theatricality, and shockingly sincere barbershop harmonies. But it all stems from classic rock." Hyden observed that "If the Dead encompasses American music from roughly 1900 to 1967, Phish picks up the story right through the AOR era, from '68 to around the time "Stop Making Sense" debuted in theaters in the mid-eighties."


title: Phish

text: The driving force behind Phish is the popularity of their concerts and the fan culture surrounding the event. Each a production unto itself, the band is known to consistently change set lists and details, as well as the addition of their own antics to ensure that no two shows are ever the same. With fans flocking to venues hours before they open, the concert is the centerpiece of an event that includes a temporary community in the parking lot similar to the "Shakedown Street" bazaar held outside Grateful Dead concerts.


title: Phish

text: Similar to the Grateful Dead, Phish concerts typically feature two sets, with an intermission in between. During concerts, songs often segue into one another, or produce improvisational jams that can last 10 minutes or more depending on the song. Several regularly performed songs in Phish's repertoire have never appeared on one of their studio albums; these include "Possum", "Mike's Song", "I Am Hydrogen", "Weekapaug Groove", "Harry Hood", "Runaway Jim", "Suzy Greenberg", "AC/DC Bag" and "The Lizards", all of which date to 1990 or earlier and have been played by Phish over 300 times in concert.


title: Phish

text: Chris Kuroda, who has been Phish's lighting director since 1989, creates elaborate light displays during the band's concerts that are sometimes improvised in a similar fashion to their music. Justin Taylor of "The Baffler" wrote, "You could hate this music with every fiber of your being and still be ready to give Chris Kuroda a MacArthur "genius" grant for what he achieves with his light rig." Kuroda is often referred to by fans as the unofficial fifth member of the band, and has been given the nickname "CK5".


title: Phish

text: Since Phish fans began to discuss the band's live performances on the internet in the late 1990s, they have developed a widely used framework for analyzing the varied forms of improvisation that would regularly occur during a given show. A January 1997 post by Phish fan John Flynn on the rec.music.phish Usenet group first defined the two "types" of jamming that Phish performs in concert. Flynn wrote: "I think Phish jamming falls into two types of jamming: 1) Jamming that is based around a fixed chord progression 2) Jamming that improvises chord progressions, rhythms, and the whole structure of the music." Since then, Phish fans have used the terms "Type 1" and "Type 2" and Flynn's definitions to contextualize the structure of Phish's shows and songs.


title: Phish

text: Because Phish's reputation is so grounded in their live performances, concert recordings are commonly traded commodities. In December 2002, the band launched the LivePhish website, from which official soundboard recordings can be purchased. Legal field recordings produced by tapers with boom microphones from the audience in compliance with Phish's tape trading policy are frequently traded on any number of music message boards. Although technically not allowed, live videos of Phish shows are also traded by fans and are tolerated as long as they are for non-profit, personal use. Phish fans have been noted for their extensive collections of fan-taped concert recordings; owning recordings of entire tours and years is widespread.


title: Phish

text: Fans' recordings are generally sourced from the officially designated tapers' section at each show, by fans with devoted sound recording rigs. Tickets for the tapers' section are acquired separately from regular audience tickets, and directly from the band's website, instead of the venue or a service like Ticketmaster. However, tapers are also required to purchase a general admission ticket for concerts. The band disallowed tapers from patching directly into Paul Languedoc's soundboard in 1990, after a fan unplugged some of his equipment during a concert that June.


title: Phish

text: In 2014, the band launched their own on-demand streaming service, LivePhish+. The platform features hundreds of soundboard recordings of the band's concerts for streaming, including all of their shows from 2002 onwards, as well as all of their studio albums. Phish continues to allow fans to tape and distribute audience recordings of their concerts after the launch of the LivePhish storefront and streaming services.


title: Phish

text: Several books on Phish have been published, including two official publications: "The Phish Book", a 1998 coffee table book credited to the band members and journalist Richard Gehr which focused on the band's activities during 1996 and 1997, and "Phish: The Biography", a semi-official biographical book written by music journalist and Phish fan Parke Puterbaugh, was published in 2009 and was based on interviews with the four band members, their friends and crew. An installment of the 33⅓ book series on "A Live One", written by Walter Holland, was published in 2015. The 2013 book "You Don't Know Me but You Don't Like Me: Phish, Insane Clown Posse, and My Misadventures with Two of Music's Most Maligned Tribes", written by music critic Nathan Rabin, compares and contrasts the fanbases of Phish and Insane Clown Posse.


title: Phish

text: In addition to books, there have been multiple podcasts which have focused on Phish, its music and fanbase as their central topics of discussion. Among the first was "Analyze Phish", which was hosted by comedians Harris Wittels and Scott Aukerman for the Earwolf podcast network, and ran for ten episodes posted between 2011 and 2014. The podcast followed Wittels, a devoted fan of the band, in his humorous attempts to get Aukerman to enjoy their music. Despite its truncated run, "Analyze Phish" inspired Phish lyricist Tom Marshall to start his own Phish podcast, "Under the Scales", in 2016. In 2018, Marshall co-founded the Osiris Podcasting Network, which hosts "Under the Scales" and other music podcasts, many of which are devoted to Phish or other jam bands. In September 2019, C13Originals debuted "Long May They Run", a music documentary podcast series; The first season, consisting of 10 episodes, focused on Phish's history and influence on the live music scene. In November 2019, the Osiris Podcasting Network premiered "After Midnight," a five-episode documentary series exploring the creation, execution, and aftermath of Phish's 1999 Big Cypress festival.


title: Phish

text: Seattle Seahawks fans began mimicking Phish's song "Wilson" by chanting the song's opening line when quarterback Russell Wilson took the field during games. The new tradition started after Anastasio made the suggestion at shows in Seattle. The story behind the "Wilson" chant was featured in a 2014 documentary short by NFL Films.


title: Flag of South Korea

text: The national flag of South Korea, also known as the Taegukgi (also spelled as "Taegeukgi", ) and colloquially known as the flag of Korea, has three parts: a white rectangular background, a red and blue Taegeuk in its center, accompanied by four black trigrams, one in each corner. Flags similar to the current Taegeukgi were used as the national flag of Korea by the Joseon dynasty, the Korean Empire, as well as the Korean government-in-exile during Japanese rule. South Korea adopted the Taegukgi as its national flag when it gained independence from Japan on 15 August 1945.


title: Flag of South Korea

text: The flag's field is white, a traditional color in Korean culture that was common in the daily attire of 19th-century Koreans and still appears in contemporary versions of traditional Korean garments such as the hanbok. The color represents peace and purity.


title: Flag of South Korea

text: The circle in the flag's center symbolizes balance in the world. The blue half represents the sky, and the red half represents the land.


title: Flag of South Korea

text: Together, the trigrams represent movement and harmony as fundamental principles. Each trigram (hangeul: [gwae]; hanja: ) represents one of the four classical elements, as described below:


title: Flag of South Korea

text: In 1876, the absence of a national flag became an issue for Korea, at the time reigned over by the Joseon dynasty. Before 1876, Korea did not have a national flag, but the king had his own royal standard. The lack of a national flag became a quandary during negotiations for the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876, at which the delegate of Japan displayed the Japanese national flag, whereas the Joseon dynasty had no corresponding national symbol to exhibit. At that time, some proposed to create a national flag, but the Joseon government looked upon the matter as unimportant and unnecessary. By 1880, the proliferation of foreign negotiations led to the need for a national flag. The most popular proposal was described in the "Korea Strategy" papers, written by the Chinese delegate Huang Zunxian. It proffered to incorporate the flag of the Qing dynasty of China into that of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. In response to the Chinese proposal, the Joseon government dispatched delegate Lee Young-Sook to consider the scheme with Chinese statesman and diplomat Li Hongzhang. Li agreed with some elements of Huang's suggestion while accepting that Korea would make some alterations. The Qing government assented to Li's conclusions, but the degree of enthusiasm with which the Joseon government explored this proposal is unknown.


title: Flag of South Korea

text: The issue remained unpursued for a period but reemerged with the negotiation of the United States–Korea Treaty of 1882, also known as the Shufeldt Treaty. The US emissary Robert Wilson Shufeldt suggested that Korea adopt a national flag to represent its sovereignty. The king of Joseon, Kojong, ordered government officials Sin Heon and Kim Hong-jip to begin working on a new flag. Kim Hong-jip in turn asked delegate Lee Eung-jun to create the first design, which Lee Eung-jun presented to the Chinese official Ma Jianzhong. Ma Jianzhong argued against Huang Zunxian's proposal that Korea adopt the flag of the Qing dynasty, and proposed a modified dragon flag. Kojong rejected this idea. Ma suggested Lee Eung-jun's "Taegeuk" and Eight Trigrams flag. Kim and Ma proposed changes to it: Kim proposed changing the red to blue and white; Ma proposed a white field, a red and black "Taegeuk", black Eight Trigrams, and a red border. On 22 August 1882, Park Yeong-hyo presented a scale model of the Taegukgi to the Joseon government. Park Yeong-hyo became the first person to use the Taegukgi in the Empire of Japan in 1882. The 2 October 1882 issue of the Japanese newspaper "Jiji shimpō" credited Kojong as the designer of the Taegukgi (i.e., a flag with a red and blue "Taegeuk" and four trigrams). On 27 January 1883, the Joseon government officially promulgated the Taegukgi to be used as the official national flag.


title: Flag of South Korea

text: In 1919, a flag similar to the current South Korean flag was used by the provisional Korean government-in-exile based in China.


title: Flag of South Korea

text: After the restoration of Korean independence in 1945, the "Taegukgi" remained in use after the southern portion of Korea became a republic under the influence of the United States but also used by the People's Republic of Korea. At the same time, the flag of the United States was also used by the United States Army Military Government in Korea along with the "Taegukgi". Following the establishment of the South Korean state in August 1948, the current flag was declared official by the government of South Korea on 15 October 1949, although it had been used as the "de facto" national flag before then.


title: Flag of South Korea

text: In February 1984, the exact dimensional specifications of the flag were codified. In October 1997, the precise color scheme of the flag was fixed via presidential decree for the first time.


title: Flag of South Korea

text: The name of the South Korean flag is used in the title of a 2004 film about the Korean War, "Tae Guk Gi".


title: Flag of South Korea

text: Observers such as "The Times Literary Supplement"s Colin Marshall and Korea scholar Brian Reynolds Myers have noted that the South Korean flag in the context of the country's society is often used as an ethnic flag, representing a grander nationalistic idea of a racialized (Korean) people rather than merely symbolizing the (South Korean) state itself as national flags do in other countries. Myers argues that: "When the average [South Korean] man sees the [South Korean] flag, he feels fraternity with [ethnic] Koreans around the world." Myers also stated in a 2011 thesis that: "Judging from the yin-yang flag's universal popularity in South Korea, even among those who deny the legitimacy of the Republic of Korea, it evidently evokes the [Korean race] race first and the [South Korean] state second."


title: Flag of South Korea

text: The South Korean flag is considered by a large part of the country's citizens to represent the "Korean race" rather than solely the South Korean state; consequently flag desecration by the country's citizens is rare when compared to other countries, where citizens may desecrate their own national flags as political statements. Thus those South Korean citizens opposed to the state's actions or even its existence will still treat their national flag with reverence and respect: "There is therefore none of the parodying or deliberate desecration of the state flag that one encounters in the countercultures of other countries."


title: Flag of South Korea

text: Regardless of frequency, the South Korean "Criminal Act" punishes desecration of the South Korean national flag in various ways:


title: Flag of South Korea

text: South Korea also criminalizes not just desecration of the South Korean flag, but the flags of other countries as well:


title: Flag of South Korea

text: The width and height are in the ratio of 3 to 2. There are five sections on the flag, the taegeuk and the four groups of bars. The diameter of the circle is half of the height. The top of the taegeuk should be red and the bottom of the taegeuk should be blue. The groups of bars are put in the four corners of the flag.


title: Flag of South Korea

text: The Taegukgi's colors are specified in the "Ordinance Act of the Law concerning the National Flag of the Republic of Korea." () The color scheme was unspecified until 1997, when the South Korean government decided to standardize specifications for the flag. In October 1997, a Presidential ordinance on the standard specification of the South Korean flag was promulgated, and that specification was acceded by the "National Flag Law" in July 2007.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market manipulation.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: In addition to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which created it, the SEC enforces the Securities Act of 1933, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, and other statutes. The SEC was created by Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (now codified as and commonly referred to as the Exchange Act or the 1934 Act).


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The SEC has a three-part mission: to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: To achieve its mandate, the SEC enforces the statutory requirement that public companies and other regulated companies submit quarterly and annual reports, as well as other periodic reports. In addition to annual financial reports, company executives must provide a narrative account, called the "management discussion and analysis" (MD&A), that outlines the previous year of operations and explains how the company fared in that time period. MD&A will usually also touch on the upcoming year, outlining future goals and approaches to new projects. In an attempt to level the playing field for all investors, the SEC maintains an online database called EDGAR (the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system) online from which investors can access this and other information filed with the agency.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: Quarterly and semiannual reports from public companies are crucial for investors to make sound decisions when investing in the capital markets. Unlike banking, investment in the capital markets is not guaranteed by the federal government. The potential for big gains needs to be weighed against that of sizable losses. Mandatory disclosure of financial and other information about the issuer and the security itself gives private individuals as well as large institutions the same basic facts about the public companies they invest in, thereby increasing public scrutiny while reducing insider trading and fraud.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The SEC makes reports available to the public through the EDGAR system. The SEC also offers publications on investment-related topics for public education. The same online system also takes tips and complaints from investors to help the SEC track down violators of the securities laws. The SEC adheres to a strict policy of never commenting on the existence or status of an ongoing investigation.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: Prior to the enactment of the federal securities laws and the creation of the SEC, securities trading was governed by so-called blue sky laws. These laws were enacted and enforced at the state level and regulated the offering and sale of securities to protect the public from fraud. Though the specific provisions of these laws varied among states, they all required the registration of all securities offerings and sales, as well as of every U.S. stockbroker and brokerage firm. However, blue sky laws were generally considered ineffective. For example, as early as 1915, the Investment Bankers Association told its members that they could circumvent blue sky laws by making securities offerings across state lines through the mail.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The SEC's authority was established by the Securities Act of 1933 and Securities Exchange Act of 1934; both laws are considered parts of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: After the Pecora Commission hearings on abuses and frauds in securities markets, Congress passed the Securities Act of 1933 (), which federally regulates original issues of securities across state lines, primarily by requiring that issuing companies register distributions prior to sale so that investors may access basic financial information and make informed decisions. For the first year of the law's enactment, the enforcement of the statute rested with the Federal Trade Commission.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The subsequent Securities Exchange Act of 1934 () regulates secondary markets for securities. The 1934 Act regulates secondary trading between individuals and companies which are often unrelated to the original issuers of securities. Entities under the SEC's authority include securities exchanges with physical trading floors such as the New York Stock Exchange, self-regulatory organizations, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, NASDAQ, alternative trading systems, and any other persons engaged in transactions for the accounts of others. Section 4 of the 1934 Act transferred the FTC's enforcement authority under the 1933 Act to the newly created Securities and Exchange Commission and tasked the new Commission with enforcing both Acts.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: In 1934, Roosevelt named his friend Joseph P. Kennedy, a self-made multimillionaire, financier, and leader among the Irish-American community, as chairman of the SEC. Roosevelt chose Kennedy partly based on his experience on Wall Street, as a man who knew the markets well enough to clean them up. Two of the other five commissioners were James M. Landis and Ferdinand Pecora. Kennedy added a number of intelligent young lawyers to the SEC staff, including William O. Douglas and Abe Fortas, both of whom later became Supreme Court Justices.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: Kennedy's team defined four missions for the new Commission: (1) to restore investor confidence in the securities market, which had practically collapsed; (2) to restore integrity to securities markets by prosecuting and eliminating fraudulent and unsound practices targeting investors; (3) to end million-dollar insider trading by top officials of major corporations; and (4) to establish a complex and universal system of registration for securities sold in America, with a clear-cut set of deadlines, rules and guidelines. The SEC succeeded; Kennedy reassured the American business community that they would no longer be deceived and tricked and taken advantage of by Wall Street. He became a cheerleader for ordinary investors to return to the market and enable the economy to grow again.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: Since 1994, most registration statements (and associated materials) filed with the SEC can be accessed via the SEC's online system, EDGAR.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: In 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society introduced an online gallery to illustrate changes in the US securities market structure since the 1930s. The online gallery features a narrative history supported by dozens of documents, papers, interviews, photos and videos.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The commission has five commissioners who are appointed by the President of the United States. No more than three Commissioners may belong to the same political party. Their terms last five years and are staggered so that one commissioner's term ends on June 5 of each year. Service may continue up to eighteen additional months past term expiration.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The president also designates one of the commissioners as chairman, the SEC's top executive. However, the president does not possess the power to fire the appointed Commissioners, a provision that was made to ensure the independence of the SEC. This issue arose during the 2008 presidential election in connection with the ensuing financial crises.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: Corporation Finance is the division that oversees the disclosure made by public companies, as well as the registration of transactions, such as mergers, made by companies. The division is also responsible for operating EDGAR.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The Trading and Markets division oversees self-regulatory organizations (SRO's) such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) and all broker-dealer firms and investment houses. This division also interprets proposed changes to regulations and monitors operations of the industry. In practice, the SEC delegates most of its enforcement and rulemaking authority to FINRA. In fact, all trading firms not regulated by other SROs must register as a member of FINRA. Individuals trading securities must pass exams administered by FINRA to become registered representatives.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The Investment Management Division oversees registered investment companies, which include mutual funds, as well as registered investment advisors. These entities are subject to extensive regulation under various federal securities laws. The Division of Investment Management administers various federal securities laws, in particular, the Investment Company Act of 1940 and Investment Advisers Act of 1940. This division's responsibilities include:


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The Enforcement Division investigates violations of the securities laws and regulations to bring legal actions against alleged violators. It is the largest division in terms of both headcount and budget, and its resources have been increased by more than half since the financial crisis of 2007–2008. The SEC can bring a civil action in a U.S. District Court, or an administrative proceeding which is heard by an independent administrative law judge (ALJ). The SEC does not have criminal authority but may refer matters to state and federal prosecutors.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The Economic and Risk Analysis Division (DERA) was created in September 2009 to integrate financial economics and rigorous data analytics into the core mission of the SEC. The Division is involved across the entire range of SEC activities, including policy-making, rule-making, enforcement, and examination. As the agency's "think tank," DERA relies on a variety of academic disciplines, quantitative and non-quantitative approaches, and knowledge of market institutions and practices to help the Commission approach complex matters in a fresh light. DERA also assists in the commission's efforts to identify, analyze, and respond to risks and trends, including those associated with new financial products and strategies. Through the range and nature of its activities, DERA serves the critical function of promoting collaborative efforts throughout the agency and breaking through silos that might otherwise limit the impact of the agency's institutional expertise. The Division's activities include providing detailed, high-quality economic and statistical analyses, and specific subject-matter expertise to the Commission and other Divisions/Offices and developing customized, analytic tools and analyses to proactively detect market risks indicative of possible violations of the Federal securities laws. Using data, DERA staff create analytic programs designed to detect patterns identifying risks, enabling Commission divisions and offices to deploy scarce resources targeting possible misconduct. DERA also houses the commission's Chief Economist.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: Comment letters are issued by the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance in response to a company's public filing. This letter, initially private, contains an itemized list of requests from the SEC. Each comment in the letter asks the filer to provide additional information, modify their submitted filing, or change the way they disclose in future filings. The filer must reply to each item in the comment letter. The SEC may then reply back with follow-up comments. This correspondence is later made public.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: In October 2001 the SEC wrote to CA, Inc., covering 15 items, mostly about CA's accounting, including 5 about revenue recognition. The chief executive officer of CA, to whom the letter was addressed, pleaded guilty to fraud at CA in 2004.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: In June 2004, the SEC announced that it would publicly post all comment letters, to give investors access to the information in them. An analysis of regulatory filings in May 2006 over the prior 12 months indicated, that the SEC had not accomplished what it said it would do. The analysis found 212 companies that had reported receiving comment letters from the SEC, but only 21 letters for these companies were posted on the SEC's website. John W. White, the head of the Division of Corporation Finance, told the "New York Times" in 2006: "We have now resolved the hurdles of posting the information... We expect a significant number of new postings in the coming months."


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: No-action letters are letters by the SEC staff indicating that the staff will not recommend to the Commission that the SEC undertake enforcement action against a person or company if that entity engages in a particular action. These letters are sent in response to requests made when the legal status of an activity is not clear. These letters are publicly released and increase the body of knowledge on what exactly is and is not allowed. They represent the staff's interpretations of the securities laws and, while persuasive, are not binding on the courts.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: One such use, from 1975 to 2007, was with the nationally recognized statistical rating organization (NRSRO), a credit rating agency that issues credit ratings that the SEC permits other financial firms to use for certain regulatory purposes.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: In the latest Center for Effective Government analysis of 15 federal agencies which receive the most Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests published in 2015 (using 2012 and 2013 data, the most recent years available), the SEC was among the 5 lowest performers, earned a D− by scoring 61 out of a possible 100 points, i.e. did not earn a satisfactory overall grade. It had deteriorated from a D− in 2013.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The SEC announced on September 17, 2008, strict new rules to prohibit all forms of "naked short selling" as a measure to reduce volatility in turbulent markets.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The SEC investigated cases involving individuals attempting to manipulate the market by passing false rumors about certain financial institutions. The commission has also investigated trading irregularities and abusive short-selling practices. Hedge fund managers, broker-dealers, and institutional investors were also asked to disclose under oath certain information pertaining to their positions in credit default swaps. The commission also negotiated the largest settlements in the history of the SEC (approximately $51 billion in all) on behalf of investors who purchased auction rate securities from six different financial institutions.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: The SEC has been criticized "for being too 'tentative and fearful' in confronting wrongdoing on Wall Street", and for doing "an especially poor job of holding executives accountable".


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: Christopher Cox, the former SEC chairman, has recognized the organization's multiple failures in relation to the Bernard Madoff fraud. Starting with an investigation in 1992 into a Madoff feeder fund that only invested with Madoff, and which, according to the SEC, promised "curiously steady" returns, the SEC did not investigate indications that something was amiss in Madoff's investment firm. The SEC has been accused of missing numerous red flags and ignoring tips on Madoff's alleged fraud.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: As a result, Cox said that an investigation would ensue into "all staff contact and relationships with the Madoff family and firm, and their impact, if any, on decisions by staff regarding the firm". SEC Assistant Director of the Office of Compliance Investigations Eric Swanson had met Madoff's niece, Shana Madoff, when Swanson was conducting an SEC examination of whether Bernard Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme because she was the firm's compliance attorney. The investigation was closed, and Swanson subsequently left the SEC, and married Shana Madoff.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: Approximately 45 percent of institutional investors thought that better oversight by the SEC could have prevented the Madoff fraud. Harry Markopolos complained to the SEC's Boston office in 2000, telling the SEC staff they should investigate Madoff because it was impossible to legally make the profits Madoff claimed using the investment strategies that he said he used.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: In June 2010, the SEC settled a wrongful termination lawsuit with former SEC enforcement lawyer Gary J. Aguirre, who was terminated in September 2005 following his attempt to subpoena Wall Street figure John J. Mack in an insider trading case involving hedge fund Pequot Capital Management; Mary Jo White, who later served as chair of the


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: SEC, was at the time representing Morgan Stanley and was involved in this case. While the insider case was dropped at the time, a month prior to the SEC's settlement with Aguirre the SEC filed charges against Pequot. The Senate released a report in August 2007 detailing the issue and calling for reform of the SEC.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: On September 26, 2016, Democratic senator Mark Warner sent a letter to the SEC, asking them to evaluate whether the current disclosure regime was adequate, citing the low number of companies' disclosures to date.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: In 2009, the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group, sent a letter to Congress criticizing the SEC for failing to implement more than half of the recommendations made to it by its Inspector General. According to POGO, in the prior two years, the SEC had taken no action on 27 out of 52 recommended reforms suggested in Inspector General reports, and still had a "pending" status on 197 of the 312 recommendations made in audit reports. Some of the recommendations included imposing disciplinary action on SEC employees who receive improper gifts or other favors from financial companies, and investigating and reporting the causes of the failures to detect the Madoff ponzi scheme.


title: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

text: In a 2011 article by Matt Taibbi in "Rolling Stone", former SEC employees were interviewed and commented negatively on the SEC's Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Going to the OIG was "well-known to be a career-killer".