Lawn Boy

Lawn Boy is Phish's second official studio album, released on September 21, 1990, on the Absolute A Go Go Records and Rough Trade labels on cassette, single-LP vinyl and CD (with CD bonus track Fee). Vinyl LPs of the original Absolute A Go Go release are still known to circulate. The album was later re-mastered by Bob Ludwig and re-released on CD and cassette by Elektra Records June 30, 1992.

The songs on Lawn Boy include many of the progressive rock and fusion elements featured on the band's first studio album, Junta, as well as incorporating elements of bluegrass, jazz and barbershop quartet.

According to Phish Archivist Kevin Shapiro: Lawn Boy was recorded and mixed at Archer Studios in Winooski, VT in 1989 and 1990 on 16-track 2" tape and was mixed to 1/4" stereo reels. The band won the initial studio time with a first-place Rock Rumble performance on April 21, 1989 at a downtown Burlington, VT club called The Front. The Lawn Boy sessions that followed consisted of mostly live takes with a few effects and overdubs. Engineer Dan Archer acquired a baby grand piano specifically for the recording, Fishman played his drums squeezed into a vocal isolation booth and the band utilized local musicians including members of what would soon be called the Giant Country Horns. Like Junta before it, Phish self-produced Lawn Boy on a hands-on level, surrounding the console for group fades without aid of automation.

Lawn-Boy

In 1934, the original Lawn-Boy lawn mower was manufactured by the Evinrude Company, becoming the first one-handed reel power mower introduced to the American public. Evinrude purchased Johnson Motor Wheel Company from a New York stock brokerage firm a year later, and in 1936 they merged with the Outboard Marine and Manufacturing Company (OMC), continuing production of Lawn-Boy mowers until 1939, when it was temporarily put on hold to manufacture outboard motors for World War II. In 1946 and after the war, Joel G. (Jack) Doyle built the first rotary lawnmower for the Rotary Power Mower Company of Kansas City, Missouri. Doyle accumulated orders for these mowers from Sears Roebuck, Gimbles, Spiegel, and other businesses. OMC then bought RPM in 1952, and changed the brand of the rotary lawn mower to the Lawn-Boy name.

In the 1950s, RPM facilities were converted to production line manufacturing to meet the high number of orders from bigger retailers such as Sears Roebuck and Spiegel. Also, newer, quieter engines were introduced to reduce sound.