[Scroll to bottom for MP3 Download of 11/19/94 "Parking Lot show"]

Years ago, when I lived in Olympia, Washington, something odd happened.  I couldn’t receive any television stations, so I attached a set of bunny ears to achieve a  few of them.  One day I decided to move my furniture around, which included plugging my TV into the outlet on the other side of the room.  When I did that, I lost all of my channels that I did get but, when I disconnected the bunny ears, a whole bunch of extra ones came through for the first time.  One of the benefits from this was that I wound up with two different PBS stations and PHISH was scheduled to be featured on Austin City Limits.  I was excited to watch the program, but I had a birthday party to attend, so I set my VCR to record it and blasted out to the soirée/BBQ.  When I returned home to check the video, I was treated to an unexpected surprise.  Although I had successfully recorded an episode of Austin City Limits, it wasn’t the episode with PHISH on it.  Apparently, at the exact same time, the WILCO/Bela Fleck Bluegrass Sessions episode was airing on the other PBS station and I had recorded that one.  Bela Fleck was performing with Tony Rice, Sam Bush, Vasser Clements, etc and the error turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Over the next year or so, I watched that footage excessively and it became one of my favorite things to space out to in awe.

Tonight, while my sister was visiting, something equally as fortunate took place in reverse.  She has recently become increasingly interested in Bluegrass music and, after her ringtone of a bluegrass breakdown went off, I decided to search out the version of “Salty Dog” that Fleck and his crew had performed on ACL all those years back.  To my surprise, after typing “Bluegrass Sessions” into a YouTube search, I found a PHISH video instead and this whole scenario came full circle.  Many of us are aware of the Vermont 4-piece‘s remarkable ability to transition through various genres and their penchant for busting out favorites like “Uncle Pen” and “Old Home Place” but, although they had demonstrated those influences in the past, this video displays a time when the quartet truly began to focus and venture seriously into such Bluegrass territory.  Posted by Youtube user jlaughli, the clip is from 1994 and was the first part of a 9 part “documentary”.  Fans of the group should really enjoy viewing this home footage, which features Mike on banjo, Page on upright bass, and even drummer, Jon Fishman playing the mandolin.  The youtube poster did not create the documentary, it was filmed by Rev. Jeff Mosier, but we’d like to give him huge props because, it is really nice to finally see it all in one place and so easily accessible.  To make it even easier to locate and view in it’s entirety, we have provided all 9 parts of the full documentary footage below.  Seeing as yesterday marks the 15 year anniversary of when the recording of this footage originally began, I feel that there is no better time for us to put this up, than now.  Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry →