Great Lakes Breakdown
11/20/94, Madison, WI, Dane County Exposition Center
Even with yesterday’s lengthy purge, it’s hard for me to escape the gravitational pull of all the bluegrass this week. So let’s put a bow on Reverend Jeff Mosier’s Bluegrass Bootcamp and simply rank their sets together during this five-night swing through the Midwest, re-listening to them all and picking out the best parts so you won’t have to. As stated yesterday, the Parking Lot Jam after 11/19/94 is the easy #1, so consider this listicle the race for the silver medal.
#5: 11/19/94, Bloomington, IN
If you rule the after-show hootenanny out of bounds, this night’s bluegrass segment is the most stock mini-set of the week, with frequent fliers I'm Blue, I'm Lonesome and My Long Journey Home joined by the second consecutive Little Tiny Butter Biscuits, aka Trey’s Fiddle Spectacular. I’m not even sure I trust the show notes that Rev. Jeff Mosier played with them on this trio of songs; at one point, a heckler yells “Where’s the Reverend?” and Fish responds, “The Reverend is dead! The good Reverend has passed away. We don’t need him any more, obviously.”
Fortunately, one song from this show’s soundcheck circulates widely and adds a little extra salt: a slow version of “Fixin’ To Die” with Trey on lead vocals. It’s an easy song to Blues Hammer, but the band (again without Rev. Mosier’s help) arranges it to sound like a sleepy Alumni Blues. It’s very soundchecky, but an interesting multi-tasking of their bluegrass homework material into their typical warm-up routine.
#4: 11/20/94, Madison, WI
On Mosier’s last night with the band, he comes out earlier than ever and gets to join in on a soaring version of If I Could. It’s not easy to hear his banjo contributions, but when they peek through it adds a nice bit of twang where the Alison Krauss-shaped hole usually sits. From there they move into the acoustic setup, with one more Trey fiddle appearance, a My Long Journey Home that makes it 5 for 5 during Mosier Week, and one (official) debut: The Dillards’ “Dooley,” which carries over some of the insane energy from the surprise set of the night before in its call-and-response vocals.
#3: 11/16/94, Ann Arbor, MI
The first Mosier show picks up right where he left off with the return of “Pig in a Pen,” the final song played in his last appearance with the band on 2/21/93 at The Roxy. That kicks off a first set-closing run of electric bluegrass, Phish at their usual instruments with Mosier playing banjo and taking most of the lead vocals. I’m much more fond of electric Phish-grass, where Fishman can set a punk rock pace that livens up the whole endeavor and you get to hear Mike’s inventive basslines instead of Page’s timid standup.
This segment plays out like a typical guest appearance, but provides the rarity of Phish playing in waltz time, and the Foggy Mountain Breakdown > Swing Low Sweet Chariot argues that a ragged segue or two might have livened up the acoustic recitals. Like, say, the second bluegrass segment of the night, which is Mosier-free and features the debuts of I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome and My Long Journey Home, with a truly wretched Fishman mandolin solo.
#2: 11/18/94, East Lansing, MI
Speaking of wretched solos, here’s Trey’s official debut on fiddle for the instrumental Little Tiny Butter Biscuits, which is either a moving tribute to John Cale’s viola on “The Black Angel’s Death Song” or, uh, just pretty bad. This is another acoustic set where the Mosier contributions are minimal: he plays spoons on The Old Home Place (1994 being the year of Spoonman, after all), and apparently doubles Mike’s banjo elsewhere. But his influence is best felt when he returns for the encore, piloting the one stats-eligible “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms” into the best bluegrass choogle of the week. He sticks around for Runaway Jim too, and though it’s hard to hear much more than the occasional plunka-plunka deep in the mix, the band maneuvers into an uncharacteristically quiet jam to try to give him some room, producing a unique encore version of the song.
#1: 11/17/94, Dayton, OH
The encore really was the best place for these segments, saving the actual sets from any jarring stop-short skids. This one even creates a bit of a set flow all its own, starting out with just Phish doing I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome and Nellie Kane — my favorite of their bluegrass material. This Nellie Kane is even a little different than the other 70 versions, using that alternate vocal melody that I spotted in the rehearsal on The Bluegrass Sessions video. When Mosier joins in, it’s to debut his spoon percussion...though you kind of have to take their word for it, since spoons don’t translate all that well to tape.
Then they move to electric instruments for the week’s real gem, playing “To France,” a fun little instrumental written by Mosier for the Aquarium Rescue Unit. It’s 2-½ minutes of quirky jazz-grass fusion that makes me wish Phish had gone that direction instead of the more traditional recreations; but then again, quirky jazz-grass fusion was kind of what ARU was already there for. “To France” gradually builds into a livelier arrangement of “Fixin’ To Die,” much more capably sung by Rev. Jeff, and featuring some hot sauce solos in between the verses with all the Phishy counterpoints that have been missing from the other bluegrass tunes. It’s a much less deferential take on the genre, and all the more thrilling for it.
Let’s close out the run with something I found in the taper notes on phish.in too late to use in yesterday’s post: a remembrance from Rev. Jeff Mosier of the week, and the Parking Lot Jam in particular. It’s touching, and a good reminder of why this extended sit-in helped shape the future of Phish, even if the results at the time didn’t always translate to tape:
This is the first time i've heard this, but thousands have ask me about it over the years. To me it captures the true spirit of Phish. It happened as we were walking to the bus to leave the venue. Somebody said play us one and we said sure and the roadies got our stuff. i was already holding my banjo which probably started the whole thing. I was on tour with them to teach them bluegrass and had been playing with them on stage some at night. Hoist was being released at the time and i actually played with them on that material at night as well as the bgrass set. though they really didn't know bgrass and had just been playing for a short while, this truly captured the spirit of the music because of their openess, talent, and what i call that "wonderful phish curiosity". i was touched to hear this because when you boil it all down this is what it's all about. the people just want to hear the music and truly i didn't wanna leave. you can hear the joy. i lead the jam as phish had never really done that before. when we got on the bus they were so happy that we did it and i think they felt, maybe for the first time,the true spirit of what bgrass and folk music is all about. the jam turned out to be the most important thing that i taught them. thanks for sharing it. i am touched.