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Connecticut jam quartet Eggy is one of the headliners for the third annual Music on the Mountain. The band’s simple name – right at home in a scene known for playful, goofy language – is much more complicated below the surface.
“It's a bit of a bittersweet story, which is that when Jake and I were starting our band back in high school, we had a buddy named Eddie Torrence, and his old nickname back when he was a kid was Eggy, So, we were teasing him - let's call the band Eggy, let's call the band Eggy. And the more he puts up a fight, the more we want to do it," explained Eggy keyboardist Dani Battat. “About six, seven years later, he passed away from a heroin overdose, and we lost him. But I think one of the most serendipitous things is like, man, we get to carry his name around, and when we see people wearing a T-shirt that says Eggy, when people are chanting the name Eggy, I want them to know that really comes from a deep and meaningful place, and it's inspired by a really beautiful soul, who's not with us physically anymore, but is with us every step of the way. And I wish that he was able to get the help that he needed at the time that he needed it.”
Saturday’s festival at the base of Okemo Mountain is part of a larger effort to make sure people like Eddie – or, Eggy – are getting that crucial help from the music community. The event is part of a weekend-long fundraiser for the Divided Sky Foundation, the residential recovery center founded by Anastasio of Phish and Melanie Gulde - the singer, guitarist, and songwriter’s drug court case manager from a DUI and drug possession arrest in 2006. Anastasio explained why he undertook the project in a promotional video for the Divided Sky facility in Ludlow that opened in November 2023.
“When someone gets sober, they kind of feel like something is ending. But it's not true. It's actually something is beginning," said Anastasio. "I'm just a guy who was given the gift of recovery and joined the community, and I want to help in any way I can.”
Music on the Mountain producer Bill Taylor is also the music director at the Phoenix, which bills itself as a nationwide movement to create sober spaces for people to work on recovery in solidarity.
“Anything from going to see live music to biking to climbing," he told WAMC. "We have some physical locations around the country, which are basically gyms. We have one in Boston, one in Denver, one coming online in Philly, one that just came online in Vegas. So, it's a strong community of people in recovery who use the power of connection and community coming together to enhance their recovery.”
Taylor says the jam band world, with its deep associations with substance use and debauchery, has also created some of the strongest recovery groups for decades. They’ll be well represented at Music on the Mountain.
“We have 20 yellow balloon groups coming that weekend, and these are basically sobriety groups that are connected to a specific band," he explained. "So, Phish has one called the Phellowship, and on and on. So, this has become kind of a gathering point for folks that are a part of those, essentially, recovery-focused groups of individuals who really love a certain style of music. So, I think what we're finding in general is that people who find sobriety, they want to live their lives in a meaningful way, and music plays a big role in that.”
That was true for Jay Osborn.
“I think the way I got connected was- I mean, if you simply wear a Phish shirt or a Grateful Dead shirt, something like that, to a 12-step meeting, your people will find you,” said Osborn.
He’s seen the Vermont band 129 times.
“I can't say that there's certain songs I'm chasing, or certain things, or the stats of like, Oh, I've seen them play ‘Runaway Jim,’ like, 95 times, I don't know." Osborn told WAMC. "I've seen them a bunch of times. Some shows were more memorable than others, I guess. But then again, in my experience, there's no such thing as a bad Phish show. They're all great.”
Osborn – who lives in Ludlow – is the nonprofit volunteer coordinator for the Phellowship, the aforementioned sober Phish fan group that’s tabled at concerts for around 30 years. They followed the foundation laid by the Wharf Rats, the sober contingent of Grateful Dead followers who first carved out space for people in recovery at shows back in the early 1980s.
“It's a pretty vast and growing support community of likeminded people that support each other in a drug and alcohol-free environment around our tables and our booths at shows," said Osborn. "We offer traction in an otherwise slippery environment, basically, for those of us that have gotten sick and tired of being sick and tired. We jumped on this side of the fence, and it's much greener.”
Osborn says the newest waves of jam band enthusiasts seem to be steering clear of the hard partying environment long prevalent in the culture.
“It does seem that the younger generations -- starting in teens, the 20-somethings, 30-somethings -- that getting wasted isn't really a theme so much anymore, or really cool," he told WAMC. "You see a lot of younger folks that just don't indulge in all of that stuff the way a lot of us old heads used to in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s. So it certainly seems to be a bit of a trend, and it's taking off and growing, I think, like wildfire.”
As a member of the Phellowship, Osborn knows wherever his favorite band takes him, he’ll find family.
“Some of my normie friends that are like, you're driving halfway across the country following this band out there and back- Why are you going alone? I do because my people are going to be at the shows," he said. "I just have the nice solitude, quiet time to travel and do my thing, and rest assured that my people will be at the shows. It's just such a beautiful community through and through.”
