**Edit to Add: See the comments from a reader, the first track may not be from Wendell session. I am looking into it. Anyway, I’ll leave the post up so the tracks can be heard, but I might be fully wrong on the source. Stay tuned!**
**Edit to Add Part Deux: Please disregard original post. The first track, now amended to read 1995, was recorded sometime in early 1995, not 1990 as originally posted below. Thanks to Kevin Hollo for bringing my lack of fact checking to the forefront! Either way, I think both versions are worth a listen or two.**
Here’s another quickie post from the Wendell Studios session….This is the Strange Design from that session, 5 years before it made it’s debut on stage. I never realized it was such an old song. While we’re on it, I’ve included the studio version of Strange Design that was recorded for the Billy Breathes album but was cut from the LP and only made it onto the “Free” CD single… This song really hit home for me on New Years ’95…Other times, not so much, but depending on your mood it can be great (kinda like Waste)…I think the studio versions are pretty interesting (I especially like the ’96 version) and it’s cool to hear the progression…
Studio Version 1995:
Studio Version 1996:
backinmydaydotnet 
How do you know it’s from the Wendell sessions? All the track listings I’ve seen for that date do not make mention of it, and there’s nothing in the .net Song History to indicate it was played before 1995.
Interestingly, someone (Trey? Probably not Trey) is playing pedal or lap steel, one of my favorite instruments. Now I’m really intrigued…
Actually Kevin, I am not positive and this is not part of the download that I received for Wendell Sessions. I found it on my iTunes and it is labeled as Wendell 6/17/90. Not sure where/who I got it from. It is the second to last track, sandwiched between Glide II and Grind. There is a very good chance it could be from another session (Bearsville?). Contrary to popular belief, I don’t know everything about Phish, even though I might pretend too! I’ll look into to it a little more to see if I can get a definite answer. I got my Wendell Studios session from: http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=7210 which ends at Runaway Jim, but somehow in my iTunes, those other three tracks follow the Jim. I’ll see what I can find out. Good eye!
You’re right Kevin, I got official confirmation from Shapiro that the Strange Design I purported to be from 1990 is actually from a session recorded around the time of the Lowell show (5/95). I’m going to modify the post (and my iTunes tags!) Thanks!
Glad to help clear that up! I guess it pays to know the other Kevin, too 😉
Either way, they are both interesting cuts. Hard to believe (actually, it isn’t) they could record such vastly different feels of the same song. What strikes me most about the second version is that bizarre strumming pattern. It sounds like it could be backed with a beatbox? The fluttering drums on top of it really change the dynamic from cool and reflective to tense and dramatic. The pedal steel line is so haunting, as most of them are.
Songs like these make me dream of a different life story for Phish, where they end up critic’s darlings like Wilco, making strange and smart alt-country pop records, or retiring to Nashville to make straight-up country music.
Yeah, I thought it was cool to hear both versions side by side..As always, thanks for the thoughtful input!
how can i download these 2 songs