Pearl Jam - C or D?

I mean, what kind of fucking egomania would possess a group to pull such a stunt, other than to fleece its fans? It isn't as if Beddie Wedder were Frank Zappa, whose boots from different shows one would want to hear (alright, I confess, I would want to hear). Or that PJ is the Grateful Dead, with an exceedingly loyal and devoted fan-base (any valid criticisms of the band's actual music and the fanbase notwithstanding). I mean, it's as if Foreigner or Foghat decided to dump a shitload of live CDs on the market during their respective heights of popularity. And that's just what Pearl Jam is -- the Foreigner or the Foghat of the Nineties.

OK, honestly? I've never heard them. Twenty ghastly seconds of "Jeremy" and then the whole of that same song on a jukebox and that is knowingly it. I feel rather proud of that. Why did anyone like grunge, can someone remind me?

If I want to listen to Blackfoot, I'll go straight to the source.

Sorry for the pun. I see a lot of folks here sticking to the first impression 'Ten' gave them, which turned them off to the band. I can fully understand that, because I for one can't listen to that record anymore without cringing. But, and I stress this, even as my musical tastes evolved (and I, like many of you I'd bet, must thank the grunge-hype for pointing me in that direction in the first place) I found Pearl Jam to remain interesting, both for their music (evolving from archaic bluesrock - yes, high krustyvalue indeed! - to a more substantial indie-oriented sound that wouldn't look too bad on a GBV or Superchunk) as well as their ethos (quite a popular word here, but you gotta appreciate what they do as a major-label act).

As for the bootleg issue. I think one of the reasons why they did it (apart from making obscene amounts of cash at the cost of about $300 per recording) is that, as Pearl Jam always condoned people taping their shows, there were tons of shit quality recordings going around at high prices. So why the hell not help folks out get a decent recording of a show they were at (or missed, after all these years I still never got to actually see them play live because shows still get sold out within minutes) AND make some cash? Makes sense to me.

In conclusion: classic, classic, classic.

Love them or hate them, this is totally untrue. From their first record on up through the most recent, they've always written lots of highly melodic pop tunes. In terms of music science, you just can't fucking dispute that.

I was actually talking to somebody at the TV On the Radio show this past Friday who was wearing a Pearl Jam t-shirt. He was a big fan and said they still put on a good show (not that I'd ever seen them live anyway).

I guess I'll go with classic.

I'll always have a big soft spot for them, and I revisit them every so often with some fondness.

tvotr and pj are not so far away from each other. except pj have more memorable songs. so far.

xpost - I see little similarity between tvotr and pj. I'm with you on the second sentence, though.

That's for sure.

I suppose you could say that about a lot of "rock" bands, though.

I don't know, I think the guy just likes Pearl Jam, amongst many other types of bands and genres of music. We only discussed Pearl Jam when I noticed his t-shirt. The rest of the time, we talked about any number of other bands.

The Gen-X Bruce Springsteen.

Anyway, Ten has its moments, the best of which, you're right Dan, is "Black." I didn't really follow them much after that.

Also, out of curiosity, does anyone here rate the guitarists and/or rhythm section?

This seems like a very valid point to me, even though it seems like a vague statement. Something about it intuitively makes sense.

The vocal drone thing was actually kind of cool, thinking about it now. They did have a distinctive sound that way. Do you think that approach might have been influenced by Jane's at all? I'd like to hear the collaboration with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (to whom I'm listening now.)

I've also realized I like in retrospect: The Tragically Hip.

1. Porch
2. Oceans
3. In My Tree
4. Who You Are
5. Do the Evolution
6. All Those Yesterdays
7. Corduroy
8. Bugs
9. Present Tense
10.Given to Fly

Their music: classic. Stone Gossard's record label: classic. Eddie Veddar's duet with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (who he studied with at one point) on the Dead Man Walking soundtrack: classic.

However, calling Pearl Jam a "grunge" band: DUD!!!!!

Allegedly the new album's cover.

Still OTM nearly 4 years later.

"all these...
i got bugs
i got bugs in my room
bugs in my bed
bugs in my ears
their eggs in my head
bugs in my pockets
bugs in my shoes
bugs in the way i feel about you
bugs on my window
trying to get in
they don't go nowhere
waiting, waiting...
bugs on my ceiling
crowded the floor
standing, sitting, kneeling...
a few block the door
and now the question's:
do i kill them?
become their friend?
do i eat them?
raw or well done?
do i trick them?
i don't think they're that dumb
do i join them?
looks like that's the one
i got bugs on my skin
tickle my nausea
i let it happen again
they're always takin' over
i see they surround me, i see...
see them deciding my fate
oh, that which was once...was once up to me...
now it's too late
i got bugs in my room...one on one
that's when i had a chance
i'll just stop now
i'll become naked
and with the...i'll become one"

Oh yeah!! Now I'm ready for some shots and good times!

Otherwise, Pearl Jam is a horrible, horrible nightmare.

Most of Vitalogy, No Code, and Yield sound great.

Yup. But I'll stand by the quiet songs on the first one.

I don't understand the Pearl Jam hatred. Compared to other bands on the radio like Nickelback, Creed and Fuel, they're the Beatles, Elvis and Dave Clarke 5 combined.

They're also one of the best cover bands around, with killer versions of Let My Love Open the Door, and tons of others. Eddie Vedder does a great version of X's Poor Girl, backed by teh Supersuckers.

i really like courderoy. that's a good song.

i find them kinda loveable now, for just keepin' on keepin' on....but i don't really ever listen to them.

http://digicollage.com/music/pearl_jam.jpg

OK, I have to admit I really dig the opening trio on their new record. They've gone all Accelerate on us, 11 tracks in 36 minutes.

yeah, uptempo single and short running time have me feeling pretty optimistic about picking this up this weekend

That's right, I need to make sure I swing by Target on Sunday.

'Fixer' has a great Replacement-y feel that they haven't really done before...I'm really excited to hear the rest of the album.

yeah...the idea of PJ of all bands doing kind of a tight poppy almost new wave record is strangely appealing

what Simon said.

New album arrived today...the fast songs are awesome, so tight and rocking, like they're digging around in their rock/punk/metal roots finally. The slower tempo ones are pretty cool...only jarring note is the one that sounds like an outtake from Into The Wild. Not a bad thing, just kind of glaring. But overall, cool!! Can easily throw this on repeat. Easily, and happily. And occasionally dance while I'm doing it!

I like Pearl Jam but we all agree this is the worst album cover of 2009, right?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8c/Pearl_jam_backspacer.jpg

Must check this out, didn't care for the last couple.

i like the presence of multiple eugene levys on the sleeve... the album is ACE.

i fucking h8 Tom Tomorrow and his smug unfunny comix. on the other hand, i'm not sure Pearl Jam has ever had a good album cover.

I dunno — their batting average is pretty low, but the cover of Ten is as great and iconic as its reputation suggests, imo.

the covers of their singles are beautiful on occasion; ex.:

http://991.com/newgallery/Pearl-Jam-Wishlist-112261.jpg

(the PEARL JAM font is pretty fugly, to be fair)

also

http://www.ugo.com/music/songs-about-school/images/entries/Jeremy.jpg

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/4159/64902.jpg
(front)

http://www.o-level.net/data/olevel/_/70726f647563742f393933393236393535362e6a70670032353000.png
(back)

duuuuud

I'm not in love with the Tom Tomorrow art...and there's a TERRIBLE rendering of the whole band on the last page of the cd booklet. All of his people end up looking like porn blowup doll versions of themselves. But the music's good!

I really love this.

I think Matt Cameron joining the band has been a great unifier...the whole rhythm section on this album is really noticeable, and so tight and interesting.

I dunno...on 2 listens I'm still kinda just grateful that this is better than the last couple albums, but I still feel like they haven't used Cameron much to his full potential since Binaural.

Really? I feel like Matt's beats are a real driving force on the fast-paced songs, like Fixer and Supersonic, where everything kind of merges in behind his beatz.

Yeah those songs are good, and I might like his work on the new album as I listen to it more. But I feel like at first they were maybe trying to give him something to sink his teeth into given that Pearl Jam's songs tend to be more rhythmically straightforward than Soundgarden's, but nowadays he/they are content to just do those meat'n'potatoes uptempo rock songs.

love the kinda unassuming way they throw in weird time signatures on "Fixer" though

When I delete "Amongst the Waves," I can listen to this all day.

I want to throw out there the idea - and I could be crazy - that Eddie is trying to sing like Corin Tucker in spots on this record. I love "Got Some," but every time I listen to it, especially after the "got some if you need it..." part, I feel like I wish she was singing it instead.

Every time I hear "Got Some," I think, "damn, I guess Ament was listening to those opening acts."

I want to throw out there the idea - and I could be crazy - that Eddie is trying to sing like Corin Tucker in spots on this record.

you know i have always said, since 'dig me out' first came out, that corin has a very vedder-esque vocal.

So a real return to form then, eh? People seem to be really liking this.

i don't know if its so much a return to form - its leaner, tighter, 'punk'-er than they've gone before. but its a great record, very engaged and wild-eyed.

xxxp

The only time I ever saw either Pearl Jam or Sleater-Kinney was when they toured together. There's definitely a mutual admiration society going on there.

From the first time I heard S-K (One Beat), I thought that they were at least coming from the same place as Pearl Jam. Interesting that they toured together.

That tour was dispiriting. When S-K came onstage, the shall we say loutish elements of PJ's audience started to snicker. "Who are these dikes?" a dude a few feet away from me said. And S-K lost some of their dynamism and tension in an open-air setting. But, yeah, great idea for a tour.

From the first time I heard S-K (One Beat), I thought that they were at least coming from the same place as Pearl Jam.

i hear a lot of vedder in corin's vocals. they've chosen some of my favourite bands to tour with them in the past, thinking My Morning Jacket and Dismemberment Plan and Monkeywrench in particular (Tim Kerr plays Wembley Arena!)

They are 20 years old today. I feel really old now.

I dunno. That seems about right to me. Some albums that I loved in 1991 still feel like they came out yesterday, but Ten feels ANCIENT.

I don't think they are 20 years old today.

During my sophomore year, they played on my university campus (midweek, on the steps of the gym for free) and they were going by Mookie Blaylock at the time, but that was 19 years ago.

Remember: 20 years ago, Andrew Wood died and the Mother Love Bone debut was released, I know Stone and Jeff are careerist but that seems pretty "fast".

*off to wiki*

Okay I'm wrong:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080109033804/http://www.pearljam.com/timeline/

Opened this thread because two weeks ago I saw Corin Tucker in Seattle and Eddie Vedder came out and sang for the encore. My wife is a massive S-K fan and was 15 when Ten came out and kind of lost her shit in a giddy teenage girl way.

I really wish I had yelled for them to play Hunger Strike.

Ten, Vs., Vitalogy, Riot Act = c
Yield = mostly c, with some d
No Code = somewhere in the middle of c and d
the album after Riot Act = somewhere in the middle of d and c
Binaural = d

backspacer = haven'th eard

I actually pulled out the hits comp the other day (since my daughter had been listening to the Lullaby Pearl Jam disc that showed up), and I think most of the stuff holds up pretty well. At the least, big bands from the past 20 years whose catalog can support a double-disc best-of (with lots of stuff left off, too) are pretty rare. I'll even rep for "Ten," esp. the remixed version that came out and took away some of the gloppier dated production flourishes.

PJ and Radiohead are two acts that sort of owe a lot to R.E.M. by osmosis, even if the connection is rarely direct. PJ in particular, though, really tempers its more objectionable aspects (like the incessant Jimi worship) by leaning in R.E.M.'s direction.

So I went to see Eddie Vedder's solo show here in Chicago last night. I originally had no intention of going because, really, two hours of Eddie + ukelele didn't exactly sound promising, but I was gifted a free ticket. Turns out that the whole marketing of this tour as a support for Ukelele Songs is a bit misleading, he only played the first six or so songs on his ukelele before switching over to various guitars (and a mandolin!) for the rest of the show (barring a set closing "Dream A Little Dream". Anyway, it ended up a fantastic show. Great versions of lots of Pearl Jam hits and rarities, plus tons of covers (John Doe's "4th of July", "Crazy Mary", "Let My Love Open the Door" and a great version of Springsteen's "Open All Night" among others). My favorite was this slowed down version of "Lukin" with a mini-string session.

Eddie's a really great entertainer, which I had kinda forgotten. Told lots of funny stories between songs and threw everything into it. Even the duet with Glen Hansard (who played a great opening set, I never really understood the love for him before now) on "Falling Slowly" was really good.

his new solo dvd is fun.

Also, it was super cute to see him pull up all the little kids in the crowd up onto stage for "Hard Sun".

I've had "I Am Mine" in my iPod for a few days; good tune.

yeah i'm not super into the solo albums but i feel like Eddie would be a fun solo show. he did that weird version of "Lukin" when PJ played Austin City Limits and i loved the hell out of it.

Its a really great version! I still haven't seen that ACL set.

I don't think Eddie Vedder has ever penned a lyric that speaks to me more than "open the fridge, now I know life's worth." Truly the voice of my generation.

al- you went to ACL? or you just found the show streaming online someplace?

i saw their set on the Austin City Limits tv series on PBS

ohhh right

Anyone watched the documentary yet? Opens here this weekend.

The only showing here in Chicago sold out, so I'll be waiting til the DVD comes out in October.

yeah i'm sure i'll watch it on DVD at some point, possibly as part of the PEARL JAM BOUGHT A ZOO Cameron Crowe party pack. but i'm listening to the soundtrack right now! the live stuff so far is cool but i'm more curious about the demos on disc 2.

"Got Some" is about a "drug dealer," but added what the drug the dealer is selling is actually a great rock song."

"Got Some" is about a "drug dealer," but added what the drug the dealer is selling is actually a great rock song."

haha where is that from? eddie said that to me almost verbatim in an interview a couple of summers ago

wikipedia

I went on NY radio today and debated Jeanne Fury about the merits of Pearl Jam vs. Nirvana. Vernon Reid called in to say we should have been talking about Soundgarden instead.

whoa!

I know, right? It was awesome. (And I kinda secretly agreed with him.)

lol cool

Hahah nice.

ha, awesome!!

I saw the doc tonight. Soooo much great early footage. Lots of laughs, a few sad bits, great overview of the last 20 years. Felt like a very well thought out loveletter, to the band, and to the fans as well. Feel like it's what Crowe should have been doing all along.

zmog, pearl jam fanboys, i have a bit of trivia for you...

There is the little tiny speck of a town that I visit often, maybe 20-30 times a year, about 35 miles north of San Francisco....

There is a little tiny store/bar/restaurant that serves as basically the only business in about a 10 mile radius.

I was in there the other day and had a much longer conversation than usual with the man who is often working there.

He is a musician, he was singing some perverted boogie woogie piano song and we started talking about music.

For some reason he brought up that in the early 90s, Pearl Jam stayed at a ranch nearby while record... and that Eddie Vedder wrote the song "Elderly Woman..." about the former owner of the store/bar/restaurant who has since passed.

Here's the website of the all-in-one convenience store/post office/bar/restaurant:
http://www.ranchonicasio.com/history.htm

Recording

For its second album, Pearl Jam felt the pressures of trying to match the success of its debut album, Ten. In a 2002 interview, guitarist Mike McCready said, "The band was blown up pretty big and everything was pretty crazy."[1] Vs. was the first Pearl Jam album to have production duties handled by producer Brendan O'Brien. It was also the band's first album with drummer Dave Abbruzzese, who had joined the band in August 1991 and toured for the album Ten. Rehearsals for Vs. began in February 1993 at Potatohead Studio in Seattle, Washington. The band then moved to The Site in Nicasio, California in March 1993 to begin recording. Abbruzzese called the tranquil recording site "paradise" while lead vocalist Eddie Vedder said, "I fucking hate it here...I've had a hard time...How do you make a rock record here?"[2]

Anyways, I have zero desire to listen to PJ at all but this song I don't mind.

Isn't "The Site" the same place that Fleetwood Mac recorded "Rumours"?

The second half of Backspacer isn't working for me today.

unperson:

listening to the podcast you did, vernon reid part is great...good discussion

but i think you're very, very wrong about nirvana's "legacy" being only shit like the vines and silverchair

i think you find nirvana at the root of a lot of people -- lots of people i know at least -- who make all kinds of music from electronic to punk to metal or whatever...it really was a galvanizing force for ppl who were -- as you say -- the right age...and i think people might have started out in little kids grunge bands but i know for me i would not be playing music today (in a hip hop band) if not for nirvana

Isn't "The Site" the same place that Fleetwood Mac recorded "Rumours"?

― Janet Snakehole (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 9:07 AM (3 hours ago)

Nope, that was The Record Plant in Sausalito. Close though!

m@tt otm

Yeah, I realize a whole part of unperson's "thing" is being deliberately contrarian and turning against easy, popular opinion, but he is just 100% wrong on that regard.

well, any hugely popular band is gonna have positive/negative impacts. nirvana's impact at this point is kinda like the doors.

i'm kind of over judging bands based on their "impact." they impacted nothing more than record labels search for copy-cat bands.

if it were up to nirvana their "impact" would have been the bands who they wore on their t-shirts when they played out... unless i'm mistaken these bands did not include silverchair and the vines. that was a record label decision. you can't blame nirvana or pearl jam for something that was out of their control.

the Smackdown debate was quite disappointing. If we're going to play the absurd who-had-cooler-record-collections game, then Jeanne Fury had to acknowledge Eddie Vedder's interest in Talking Heads, Split Enz, Sonic Youth, and Sleater Kinney.

and "Teenage angst has paid off well/Now I'm bored and old" sounded glamorous and jaded in the best way when I was nineteen; now it's just stupid, especially when the music attached to it such a (th)dud.

that song has a great thdud

Jesus Christ, Alfred.

Better songs on that record, gentlemen.

we are, after all, self-appointed judges judging more than they have sold.

"you can't blame nirvana or pearl jam for something that was out of their control."
i don't know if it's a question of control really but i feel like despite vedder's earnest progressiveness, pearl jam's music just appealed more to republicans on a spiritual level, and to the extent that this kind of conservatism is embodied in the music itself, there's a case to hold it against them.

wtf

that's twaddle

all i'm sayin is the right wingers at my school loved pearl jam, hated nirvana, except for the one who was into madonna and newt gingrich.

pearl jam's music just appealed more to republicans on a spiritual level

what does this even mean?

to the extent that this kind of conservatism is embodied in the music itself

How do you embody conservatism in music? Even on a formalist level -- if that's what you mean by "music itself" -- the worst PJ songs (sometime at the beginning of their career, to my ears) offer a tension between Vedder's vocals and the rest of the band that's exactly the kind of dialectic I want in music.

all i'm sayin is the right wingers at my school loved pearl jam, hated nirvana, except for the one who was into madonna and newt gingrich.

It must pain you that Rush Limbaugh uses "My City Was Gone" and McCain used "Running on Empty."

Vedder did 9/11

i mean spiritual because on a literal level the lyrics are quite progressive and i really don't understand how it could appeal to pro-lifers, so it must be on some deeper level, like whatever weird chemical it is in big macs that make them addictive.

well then blame the Big Macs that conservatives eat more than San Francisco liberals.

but... pearl jam are the big macs!

nirvana is in-n-out (this sort of breaks down given in-n-out's weird christian evangelism but...)

actually the in-n-out/mcdonald's thing does hold in other ways -- nirvana has a more limited menu, corresponding to, say a narrower range and smaller discography, but is generally of higher quality -- pearl jam certainly outsells nirvana and has more market penetration -- nirvana's fries are not as tasty, but are probably better for you.

::burp::

also, pearl jam's christmas single club = happy meal! is that thing still running? i sort of regret not getting the lifetime membership thing to the ten club and to mcsweeneys, because they both ended up delivering goods long after you'd think they would have stopped.

The thing is, is that everybody liked Pearl Jam.

it didn't seem like that when i was a little PJ fan in middle school -- lots of kids not into rock at all of course but even the rock kids seemed to be quickly moving into different factions (Nirvana kids, GNR kids, Metallica kids, lots of kids who liked all of the above but thought Pearl Jam wasn't as good as the others)

Well, I didn't mean that everybody liked them as much as they bridged a ton of the subcultures in my high school from the blue-haired kids to the AP students to the lacrosse team at a saturation point that I didn't really feel like the others did.

I think that Pearl Jam has done the major label arena-packing thing about as well as any band has ever done it. The live CD scheme alone was/is enough for me to defend them for life (remember when there were 200+ Pearl Jam CDs in the racks at Tower?), but the band has been really adept at pushing politics and new business models without alienating its base. And the bassist prints unique posters for each concert, which is really cool. Plus, very different setlists every night, good covers, good taste in the old acts it aligns itself with, etc. And the songs really aren't that bad. And the guitarists are really good. And so on.

lol @ Pearl Jam or their fans being "conservative" or "Republican", these guys are about as left as any mainstream rock is right now and so are most of their fans. I mean, when they played Lolla in Chicago a few years back they wrote and performed an anti BP Oil song that night because of the (at the time) ongoing issue of BP wanting to dump more waste into Lake Michigan. That argument is just plain silly and shows someone with little understanding of the band and a wide majority of their fans. I'm sure they do have their share of right-wingers in the audience, but every time I've seen them perform and Eddie's pulled out an anti-war, anti-Bush, or liberal talking point there had been way more cheers than anything else. Its not like these guys are Kid Rock or the Dixie Chicks.

Anyway... the PJ20 soundtrack thing is really good, some fantastic performance on the first disc. I'm glad to finally have a "proper" recording of the Unplugged "Black" to replace dodgy boots I've had. I wish they'd release the whole performance now though.

I'll concede this: when I saw them in 2003, the audience response to Vedder's Bush remarks was at best tepid, and downright hostile an hour earlier during Sleater Kinney's performance (one neanderthal in front of me: "Where the fuck did they get these dykes?"). But this show took place at the height of Bush's popularity.

Yeah I guess there are a couple of those bootlegs from circa 2000 and later that featured some tepid responses to Vedder rants now that I think about it. But, still, I don't think its fair to say the band draws in a higher concentration of conservatives than any other popular touring band.

If anything I'd say they do, or did, attract a certain "bro", frat boy element, not necessarily conservative but at the very least ignorant or politically apathetic. They just want to make out with their girl to "Better Man" & hi-five during "Evenflow".

and why not indeed.

Evenflow has probably inspired more high-fiving than volunteering at soup kitchens, it is true.

I saw Pearl Jam play one of the Vote for Change shows in Grand Rapids, MI, and when the band gave a shout-out to the Dixie Chicks, who were playing ... I want to say Cleveland? Anyway, when they thanked the Dixie Chicks a good portion of the crowd booed, though Vedder chastised them for booing. PJ fans total mix of earnest alt-fans and frat bros.

"Evenflow has probably inspired more high-fiving than volunteering at soup kitchens, it is true."

this might be one of those "is lincoln's head facing left or right on the penny" kind of questions, but without looking,
can you remember if the cover of ten is a group-high five or locked hands?

Is it just me or is Pearl Jam's live stuff a lot sloppier now than it was during the first third of the career?

oh and: facing right, hi-five, brah

Their lives shows in the last eight years have been tremendous.

What is it that people like about Pearl Jam? The rock beat? That "grungy" guitaur? Or the heartfelt lyrics? Why does PJ irritate me like my place of employment? Is it because they are bland like khakis? Where is the beef?
― Worker Drone, Wednesday, May 29, 2002 5:00 PM (9 years ago) Bookmark

well, it reminds me of Jeanne Fury's remark. She dislikes Pearl Jam in part because they're such bro in contrast to the "femme" Kurt Cobain.

*such bros

Did we ever do a S/D on their live releases? I could have sworn there was something, but didn't see it in search.

there is something effortlessly masculine about pearl jam. maybe this quality is crucial to the riddle of their fratservative appeal?

http://nogoodforme.filmstills.org/images/EddieVedderAnthonyKiedisKissing.jpg

For sure, the band is not afraid of guitar solos and drum fills. Those things are sort of by default "masculine."

also masculine: kissing a dude in a backwards baseball cap. (to be fair, grohl probably rocked the backwards cap, too, but then again foo fighters is almost on mascu-parity with pearl jam)

That's Anthony Kiedis, by the way.

When Rolling Stone ran the photo someone wrote a letter: "Please cancel my subscription."

didn't jeff ament regularly rock the backwards cap? i have the impression he sometimes wore a fur cap for some reason.

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/5073/Jeff+Ament.jpg

Ugh – he probably smells like an unwashed Pekinese.

may your first hat be a masculine hat...

I saw Pearl Jam cover Fugazi's "Suggestion" once in '93 or '94.

xp http://sowhat.no.sapo.pt/kiss.jpg

http://flavorwire.com/207658/here-is-a-video-of-kurt-cobain-and-eddie-vedder-slow-dancing

was this at the event where axl rose demands satisfaction from kurt over a courtney snap?

I love that clip

yes (to Philip)

Matt Cameron's solo demo that became "The Fixer" is so cool to hear, i had no idea how much of that song came directly from him

matt's brought so much to the band... hope he never goes back to soundgarden full-time, much as i loved soundgarden.

and that clip of eddie and kurt is wonderful - cannot wait to see this movie...

Cameron has definitely helped bring the band together as a unit, especially in their songwriting. Good collaborative vibes. And he sings great harmonies, too. Love the Cameron.

Matt Cameron's great but so much more suited to Soundgarden imo (although since both bands are older and not as constantly active as they used to be i see no reason why he can't juggle both). i feel like he fits into Pearl Jam's social dynamic more than their music, i'm still constantly comparing how he plays songs from the first 5 albums to the studio versions and often not favorably.

Matt Cameron's solo demo that became "The Fixer" is so cool to hear, i had no idea how much of that song came directly from him

Most of the verses and chorus, according to that new coffee table book. Vedder transformed it into a pop song.

if you listen to "Need To Know" on the PJ20 soundtrack, it's pretty much the music that's the same, the vocals don't much at all like what ended up as "The Fixer"

wrrrrrrrororororroror /yarl

Mr Veg stumbled onto this and we watched some of it last night. It's pretty great!

My favorite thing about their South American shows is that they always frontload the setlist with all the songs they know the crowd chants the best to...like they even chant the guitar break in Do The Evolution and Eddie just rolls right along with it

Anyway, good show, no surprises on the setlist but they look like they're having fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orgWG3clWlo

Never been more than a casual fan, but just watched PJ20 on Netflix. Kinda hard not to admire the way they've done it as a band.

It's not that this band is incapable of writing a memorable tune, they just don't have enough great ones IMO. Too many songs/riffs that are not quite there.

i disagree but w/e

So much of this band is not quite there, but its ability to connect despite that sort of redefines "there." It's almost as if it's never been able to go the full R.E.M., whether by design or by default, but usually does fine with what it has.

you're gonna have to define "the full R.E.M." here

Hmm. I guess PJ has yet to abandon hard rock? They've never had to release a "return to rockin'" album. In some ways, the electric guitars and big drums are like a comfort blanket, but maybe they prevent the band from doing more interesting things.

Just spitballin' here.

PJ always had much more of a default meat and potatoes hard rock thing than R.E.M., though. plenty of quiet songs and acoustic shows, but those were always clear deviations from the rockin' norm. Eddie goes off with his ukulele if he wants to do something quiet.

I do think it's true that they could stand to take a few more chances - they've not released an even mildly "experimental" (by mainstream rock band terms) record since, I dunno, Binaural? I did appreciate how snappy the last one was, mind.

Pearl Jam's default hard rock may not have hindered the group but may have hampered it. What made REM so great was its ability to make an album like Out of Time or Automatic the norm. Pearl Jam has yet to release its own paradigm shifting album, but it may be too late for that.

Like, you can hear the band (or at least Vedder?) pushing against constrictions, but it's subtle, unlike REM, or Radiohead, or even U2, who have made radical reinvention the norm.

fwiw there's definitely a pretty wide perception that the more offbeat sounds on the albums from Vitalogy through Binaural were too out there for most of their audience and deliberately pared down their fanbase, and every album since then has had lots of 'their most radio-friendly/Ten-like album in x years' reviews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-QYAWXK7fo

How many other acts with a "pared down" fanbase can fill the places this band does? I'd counter that PJ is one of the few bands (like I guess Wilco?) which has somehow kept its old fans onboard despite it all. There are still Wilco fans who go most nuts for "AM" stuff.

the offbeat stuff in the old days was more Eddie being pissed off and contrarian than experimental. and it was more annoying than anything

Now that the band are so tight & chill, I'd be interested to hear what they could do, experiment-wise

yeah PJ's shunning stardom was kind of a 'playing the long game' survival mechanism -- i do wonder if they'd be playing to bigger crowds, or even crowds as big, now if they'd kept making videos and never made any remotely weird records or fought ticketmaster etc.

it's a shame Matt Cameron seemed to push them into slightly new territory at first and then settled into something more predictable, which i'm sure will just continue now that he's got Soundgarden to do their Soundgarden-y time signature stuff with again.

how is Automatic For The People a paradigm shifter -- fully articulate lyrics to pin down the mope?

btw PJ has been killing it with ballads for at least fifteen years.

I dunno, I kind of prefer PJ as a barnburner rock band than, well, whatever they were in the early years. I've long wanted to just make a mix of their punchy uptempo songs for car listening. Maybe today's the day.

yeah, i was surprised when "Off He Goes" killed the No Code poll or whatever, i think the slower and more lyric-driven the more their songwriting weaknesses become apparent.

we really should do a PJ trax poll someday -- they don't feel like 'ilm darlings' but there's enough fans on here to make it worthwhile and the catalog is certainly deep enough

I'd be into that.

"Off He Goes" sounds to me like Vedder attempting to write his own version of this, written by one of his idols:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfjNRz-ZoBM

always sounded like a Neil pastiche to me but that's perceptive, hadn't heard that song before. Eddie's Finn fandom is definitely one of the coolest underestimated influences of his.

I was the big Crowded House fan in my crew, so hearing Eddie and the boys do other Finn Bros stuff like "I See Red" persuaded a couple to check out the House comp..

btw PJ has been killing it with ballads for at least fifteen years.

at first i thought i agreed with ship but i guess my favorite songs off their records are almost always ballads or ballad-ish. "low light," "light years" (albeit this one fights mightily with ultimate pj barnburner "insignificance"), "thumbing my way," "nothingman," etc.

you like "Come Back"?

i have been thinking about a PJ trax poll for a long time, it would be good

Come Back is great, imo

you like "Come Back"?

haven't heard the self titled or backspacer yet

oh man! You should!

urgent and key!!!

i guess i've always meant to but my pj phase passed a long time ago, a product of having listened to them a ton in high school to the point of memorizing the records. will still visit them

xpost I consider Out of Time and Automatic paradigm shifters in that they redefined REM as a chamber pop group rather than a rock band. And this is what totally broke them into the mainstream, no less.

If someone does a tracks poll, please don't limit to studio albums. There are some great tunes that were not on their proper albums. Just a heads up.

Just finally watched PJ20. For some reason, I always thought it was more of a live document with some interview bits. Didn't realize it was a full-on interview/archival footage fest. A+

PJ are the one band where I prefer the live recordings to the studio albums - ill never BJ another traditional batch of new songs by these dudes, onstage even the lamest material finds full voice and gets scuffed nicely by the audience

PJ20 is great, yeah. Seriously, 15 year old me PEED her pants at some of the early footage

Josh, we disagree. R.E.M. were never a rock band in the sense that your binary defines them.

on Murmur they were recording chamber pop albeit more rhythmically interesting than the usual.

I get that. And R.E.M. was pretty all over the place. But if I had never heard the band and you told me they were a rock and roll act, then played me Out of Time or Automatic, I wouldn't get it. While REM was always more, rock pretty much gets at the first several records: guys with guitars over drums. The fact that those two albums turned out to be the biggest sellers, by far, gets at something even more unusual about them. And regardless, PJ has never come close to putting out something similarly divergent, however much it might at times share a similar vocabulary.

Echoing previous comments, the self-titled is really good for the most part. "Parachutes" is easily my favorite Gossard tune. Only track I could do totally without is "Gone."

Yeah Parachutes is beautiful. I actually really like Gone. I dunno if I could cull anything off that album, it's one I can easily repeat-listen

While REM was always more, rock pretty much gets at the first several records: guys with guitars over drums.

I just can't get with this at all. Like, that's some really vague defining going on there, to make this theorem work. And really, the last thing Pearl Jam need to do is to be more like U2 or Radiohead (fuck me please no).

And REM, up to and including Automatic, were always critics faves, Pearl Jam have *never really been so. They're coming from different sides of the binary you're trying to set up. And Eddie, from my experience, is pretty much the antithesis of Stipe, and thank fucking god much as I love a fair chunk of REM.

Anyway, they're announcing a new LP soon, aren't they?

there's a countdown clock, supposedly to that announcement and/or a new single in a couple days: http://pearljam.com/countdown#PearlJam2013

I was using "like" as it should be used: Pearl Jam could have been like REM or U2 or Radiohead, which is not the same as Pearl Jam should sound like. They're all very different, very popular bands. But from my perspective, the others have done more to shake up their sound than Pearl Jam has, which is not to say that Pearl Jam has not shaken up its sound, just that it defaults pretty safe. Which is perhaps why PJ in theory is a little better than PJ in practice. I've gone through phases of listening to the band a lot, and phases of nada, but I've seen the band live a bunch, which appears to be its milieu.

Anyway, you can definitely hear how REM has been an influence on both PJ and Radiohead, even though neither sounds much like REM. You're right that PJ was never a critic fave, but they've also been pretty comfortable in their little niche. I've never heard the radical searching and shifting that the aforementioned acts have done (esp. U2, like them or not), and maybe PJ doesn't want or need to do that. But then, I've never liked "Yellow Ledbetter," which for some is the ultimate PJ song but for me is the band at its most safe and generic.

Still thinking out loud here - I have no grand "theorem" - but in many ways I do think PJ has pushed itself politically as a means of challenging its fans. The music may not veer far, but the band has been pretty in your face about its interests, maybe even more than Radiohead and certainly more than U2. I saw a Vote for Change show in Grand Rapids, MI, and when Vedder thanked the Dixie Chicks for playing a show the same night in Ohio, some fans booed, and he, to his credit, paused the show and chastised the haters. I was struck by the reaction, since PJ does not disguise its politics, yet still attracts the odd meathead or two. I mean, I've seen Springsteen booed a few times, too, for similar reasons, but he's much more subtle than PJ with on-stage politics.

(I do think it's revisionism to think REM was received as much more than a really good rock band for the first half of its career, though.)

Pearl Jam could have been Grand Funk Railroad

Pearl Jam shaking up their sound is exactly where they fucked up - this is a band that lost their mainstream audience to Creed.

They were a sensitive hard rock group in tune with the times with a singer who sounded like Cher and an audience young enough to hear that as "passion" rather than Cher. They screamed "don't look at us!" long enough that the fans stopped identifying with the "us" and when they brought out the bongos many a yarling monotheist was happy to take the heartland they weren't comfortable with.

U2 and REM were iconic cult bands who grew more pop with each album. Pearl Jam's debut went 10x platinum and everything since has sold less. REM had nothing to teach them ("alternative" commercial instincts fucked them both over commercially from 96 on) and all U2 could have taught them is to "flaunt it."

and if anything Radiohead learned from Pearl Jam - as long as your emotive singer stays recognizable and you keep your cred, you'll still be a big draw even after your sales taper.

But if I had never heard the band and you told me they were a rock and roll act, then played me Out of Time or Automatic, I wouldn't get it.

not even by the time you got to "ignoreland"?

this is wayyyy too much time to spend on discussing an ill-considered false binary, bring on the new PJ single already

A considerable chunk of its fanbase -- maybe its entire fanbase -- is meatheads though who, as croup says, also like Creed.

i think the "not for you" memo did successfully push the circle apart a bit between those bands on the venn diagram. There a lot of grad students with PJ, Foo, Coldplay and Kings Of Leon but no Creed.

Pearl Jam nurtured the cult and left the casual fans to Creed the same way Radiohead did for Coldplay. or how Kanye seems to be doing now for J. Cole.

This thread's been prompting some relistens. I like Backspacer less than I remember - I dig the S-K vibe of "Got Some," actually I like the whole opening trio. But it's really hit-or-miss after that. Miss the heftier production of the s/t.

in many ways I do think PJ has pushed itself politically as a means of challenging its fans. The music may not veer far, but the band has been pretty in your face about its interests

totally agree about this.

also, out of time is a pretty patchy album imo. it was Losing My Religion that made them mainstream, not the rest of the tracks on the album.

Don't forget "The One I Love" and "Stand."

Pearl Jam nurtured the cult and left the casual fans to Creed the same way Radiohead did for Coldplay.

also otm.

a considerable chunk of pj's fans might be meatheads, but i struggle to think of artists of their stature for whom that's not true. you can't blame a band for their fans (not that i'm saying you were, alfred).

personally, i'm not bothered about whether pj get experimental or not. for me they've always been more Springsteen-esque heart-on-sleeve, right on stadium rock than REM or U2, and they do it very well - i don't think they need to reinvent their wheel especially. That Eddie's never quite gotten entirely comfortable with being a stadium-size frontman - especially post-Roskilde tragedy - kind of makes them a better big-venue experience, also.

listened to Vs. on the way to work the other day for the first time in ages, and it blew me away. such a taut, powerful record. and jesus, someone show me the modern young band of according stature writing about the kind of stuff vedder was writing about - if anything, lyrics like WMA and Glorified G seem even more controversial today than they were in 1993.

agreed, alfred - i was talking more specifically in the sense of Out Of Time breaking the group "mainstream", though as you say, they were at least half of the way there by the time of Green.

REM def. was on the way there - heck, Green is as varied and chamber rocky as Automatic - but the point stands that after the stuff of Document and Green gave the guys a foothold, it was the sensitive chamber-y stuff - Religion, Everybody Hurts, Man on the Moon, etc, - that broke the band big, which is an odd trajectory.

for me they've always been more Springsteen-esque heart-on-sleeve

What got me/us on this road is the fact that for all their Springsteen-esque heart on sleeve bigness, PJ has long fallen a little short on the anthem front. Ten, of course, is packed with them. The other albums, slightly less so. I have no idea if that's been by design or a product of limitation. And I certainly don't mean that this is a bad thing, either. Just talking.

tbf they only averaged like 3-6 giant anthems on the rest of their 90s albums, which is pretty good for any band that didn't make Ten

i think PJ purposefully evaded anthemicism to a certain extent, once eddie began to become uncomfortable with the trajectory of his fame. their - to my mind - most experimental and least-anthemic album, no code, is also my favourite of theirs.

quick question: who prefers the remaster of Ten, with a lot of the rick parashar reverb excise, that came with the deluxe reissue a few years back? i think i do.

to the original, i mean.

i was excited about that when it came out, because i prefer the sound of the Brendan O'Brien albums so much that that album feels like a sore thumb in their catalog now, but actually listening to it there was a little bit of an uncanny valley effect going on. it served some songs well, but for the most part i had no desire to replace the originals in my iPod like i hoped to.

I have no idea if that's been by design or a product of limitation

The last two albums have their share of anthems, including the lead singles of each. Def a conscious move.

can't blame a band for their fans (not that i'm saying you were, alfred).

otherwise I'd loathe Dylan.

i definitely wouldn't replace them. but i feel a lot of that airy sound made the album sound dated, like it had aged quite badly. i don't know, maybe i'm just over familiar with the album and it made it seem a little fresh again, for a bit.

i dig the remaster a lot. I love being able to hear them sound like, I dunno, like a band playing in a room together. the effects were really unneccessary given how good those songs were, and made the songs colder somehow

the drum machines were dated in 1991!

I listened to Ten for the first time in eons when the remaster came out, and it sounded like ti was recorded in the world's biggest empty locker room. Remaster fixed that.

(PJ at its most REM)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr-iwhABAX8

Not that big into REM, but "Unemployable" is in my top 5 for PJ songs since 1999. Possibly #1.

Unemployable, The Fixer, Get Right, and 2 others... maybe Parachutes.

I never get the urge to listen to Ten.

Ten is the reason i am cautious not to overplay albums i love. it was my first favorite album, and the first album i ruined for myself with overexposure.

granted, i owned like ten CDs at the time, it's easier to rotate different records now.

yeah i don't listen to it much now, it's permanently in my head forever

I think Ten is fine, when I play it. It's such a definitive outlier in their catalog, like, I dunno, Appetite for Destruction.

I remember when the album came out and they played the Troc in Philly and all of my friends were too cool to come along so I stayed home. Or even, I'm not sure too cool is the right way to put it. Just on a totally different plane. But then, I didn't want to go see Nirvana when they played JC Dobbs, so I guess we're even.

I don't think Pearl Jam could have sustained an entire career with their Ten sound. I love the album, it has great songs, but I do feel like the production makes it dated, and I think the world would have passed them by completely as opposed to now, where they're still a fairly successful band, but don't do the major numbers they did at the onset of their career.

Admittedly, I'm mostly a fan of Ten through Vitalogy, Yield, and Riot Act, but I think they easily made the right career mood. and most 'diehard' PJ heads fav albums/tracks are usually not from Ten.

tbf pretty much every big alt band that made a big breakthrough album in '90-'91 made a major adjustment in their studio sound/production choices by the next album to adjust to the new status quo. of course, a lot of them adjusted to sound more Butch Vig/Nirvana, while Nirvana chose to switch it up from that.

My problem is that PJ post Ten worried too much over what they didn't want to be, rather than accentuate the strengths they did have. As a result I see a patchy back catalogue with a lack of real identity and band whose legacy is destined to be Ten...and some other stuff that was less anthemic but did ok.

The thing is I can get PJ's post-Ten sound and songwriting better elsewhere.

Watched PJ20; I admit I had no idea about Vedder's real-life dad issues. In any case, the whole band seem like pretty genuine dudes.

My problem is that PJ post Ten worried too much over what they didn't want to be, rather than accentuate the strengths they did have.

diff strokes, I guess, but to my ears they stopped worrying and learned to love their bombs around '98.

I concur w/ that, I much prefer the stuff they've done post-hysteria.

same here, never really had time for them til vitalogy

yeah the dad thing I knew from the Ten liner notes : the lyrics to Alive ended with "Edward Louis Severson III" and he said in interviews about his dad and stuff

he famously sent Pete Townsend a father's day card as a teenager, thanking him for Quadrophenia <3

tbh their discomfort with where they were coming from and what they were becoming circa Ten is what makes Vs, Vitalogy and No Code such electrifying, intriguing records for me. And that's part of their natural evolution - kudos to them for developing beyond the sound of their smash hit debut, for having complicated feelings about that sound, for not being satisfied with it.

ps does anyone know if no code might be reissued, deluxe-style, in the future? i am jonesing for a copy on vinyl but the prices on ebay are way, way beyond my comfort zone.

I wonder if the dudes did have problems with it, or more that they were willing to compromise to keep Eddie happy. Like, I'm sure half the guys would have been happy staying in "Ten" mode, esp. given how cheeseball rocker they get on stage.

Who was the first to cut their hair?

their fans

Stephen Malkmus' girlfriend.

When I interviewed them in 2009 for MOJO, Mike for one admitted that he wanted to do more, to tour more, to release Black as a single and keep making videos. the piece is up here, https://steviechick.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/pearl-jam/, but specifically he said “I wanted to do more of it... I remember thinking, this is our big shot; let’s not piss it away, let’s enjoy it…”

Who was the first to cut their hair?

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, July 7, 2013 9:55 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's sad that I know this, but: Stone!

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/archive-pearl_jam-431x300.jpg

hard to say for sure since Jeff has hidden his hairline under all sorts of headgear over the years, though.

hmmm the hair is the least of their problems in that photo

Yeah, talk about stuck between stations.

stone totally did cut his hair first, and sort of signalled in interviews that he was more into funk and hip-hop at that point than rock. jeff's hairline and the hats... it's weird. He's sort of stopped wearing them in recent years and seems to have a fine head of hair. maybe its plugs? i remember kim gordon and julie cafritz ragging on him for being bald circa the first free kitten record. but maybe he was never balding and just liked wearing hats.

I more I read about the Sonic Youth folks, the more and more they sound like big assholes.

For the longest time people thought Neil Peart was dying just because he liked wearing a hat.

its hard to stay humble when you have the ability to kill people with your big fucking dick xpost

not people, christgau

i had a 'jeff hat' that I wore through senior high school and my first year of uni

I own a pair of Target shorts a lot like Gossard's.

I have Dave Abbrusseze's shrunken skull in a jar on my bedside cabinet.

In case you were wondering whatever happened to him.

does the hair keep growing

only the soul patch, bizarrely enough

lmao this thread

Ditching Dave was sort of an early mistake on purpose. This band really needed a great drummer, and didn't get one again until Matt. Iirc correctly, Dave was fired for being too good, basically. Like these dudes weren't already a bunch of mega-musos.

I think Dave was fired for not really fitting in with the band, in terms of their beliefs and personalities. Glorified g was partly inspired by Dave's offhand comment that he owned a gun and thought nothing of it, which shocked Vedder.

Also, in terms of 'mistakes', I think Jack Irons was a great drummer, and his work on No Code in particular is fine.

will not take this Jack Irons slander

*air drums to "in my tree"* *literally can't*

loool i'm sure *Dave* said he was fired for being too good

Jack Irons on No Code unfuckwithable

Abruzzese has some amazing performances on Vs/Vitalogy but his rototoms and splash cymbals and stuff really were a little too flashy and cheesy for the band's sound, he coulda been in the Spin Doctors or something.

i've been meaning to make playlists of, like, the top 10 PJ songs from each of the 4 major drummers (Kruzen, Abruzzese, Irons and Cameron), i really feel like they were a different band in each of those lineups. loved Vedder's comment in the doc about how each drummer change was like a heart transplant.

I thought the breaking point with Dave, as reported, was when he consented to an interview with a drum mag without the band's permission.

Jack Irons is a plodder. Which perhaps suited the group, but not as well as, say, Matt Cameron or Edie Brickel's drummer.

'plodder' isn't really right but he certainly had the right feel for some of their most Neil Young-like tracks (plus their album backing Neil himself, who had nice things to say about Irons)

this Spin interview has most of the band, incl Dave, agreeing that it was his lack of ideological sympatico with the band that saw him leave http://www.fivehorizons.com/archive/articles/spin801.shtml

jack irons a plodder? that's unpossible!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYVLfFZmEg

That's cool, but Dave does the exact same thing but groovier on "W.M.A."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z3t32wlItI

if you love dave so much why dont you marry him

Yesterday it was "they should have made an Automatic For The People" today it's "they should have kept Dave." Excited for tomorrow.

Look at the photos again.

xpost

"In My Tree" is so much more awesome than "W.M.A." it's almost funny

what's everyone's least favorite? Binaural is mine. It might be better than what I thought at the time, but in summer 2000 I was not at all in a PJ head space.

Yea i didnt dig Binaural either

I like a lot of Binaural.

I think I'd go

Vitalogy > Yield > No Code > s/t > Binaural > Backspacer > Ten > Vs. > Riot Act

Riot Act for me, Binaural close second

Vitalogy > No Code > Ten > Yield > Vs. > Binaural > Backspacer > Riot Act > s/t

"In My Tree" is such a jam, if we polled these guys my #1 easy, & the drumming is the main reason why: he doesn't ride the cymbals so they hit harder, and I make a rock face every time they pop

Riot Act just has kind of a bad vibe feel. Love Boat Captain is the only reprieve for me

yeah 'in my tree' is rad

Can anything really challenge "Bushleaguer" as their worst song ever?

why so beleaguered?

ugh Bushleaguer :(

Dudes, I never said they should have kept Dave. Just that I think they do better with a more expressive drummer.

I also never said they should have made an album like "Automatic." I just think they might have made more interesting albums if they weren't always in rock mode. Though of course there are plenty of cool non-rock things scattered throughout the catalog.

Like, I am at best a casual fan, but I have always been intrigued enough by the band and its potential - and actual accomplishments - to follow along.

I never saw Dave as expressive so much as he liked to hit things hard

some patches of his playing had soul

he had soul but he wasn't a soldier

i've probably yelled about this here before but they left the best songs off of binaural. "sad" is probably my favorite pj song

i love riot act bc it's so dark and weird and cameron seems more fused to the band but yeah it's waaaay too long

a great song from the back half of riot act

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp48rFR92W8

how do you leave this off a record and not feel regret about it literally all the time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V-DHL9xzfI

I like "Green Disease." I'd like it more were it not for "G...R..EED" etc

haha i think it's cute

I'm Riot Act fan. I think it was a "cleaner" album in that some of the normally rough edges were smoothed out (and Eddie didn't yell) but despite that, I thought the songs were tightly written.

I'm listening to "Backspacer" for the first time. Solid!

"The Fixer" is fun to sing in the car.

yeah it's a pretty good rocker. a few bung notes here and there (Johnny Guitar's not a favorite).

i think 'just breathe' is one of their lovelier songs, it always makes me bawl

Supersonic is my favorite

"Just Breathe" sounds like a cousin of "Man of the Hour."

it does! I never thought of that

lol they changed the lyrics of Supersonic for one of their Seattle shows <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q90VmGGzxTY

i love the concept and much of the execution of backspacer, i just miss mike's solos

Why am I enjoying this thread so much?

we cool

There's a nice detente to the Pearl Jam debate, or lack thereof. The band pretty smartly ceded the center to others early on, which by default left it just enough left of center, straddling the totally palatable place between "alternative" and "mainstream." Which is to say, there's nothing not-mainstream about the band, particularly, save the fact that it is not (at all) distant bastard relative Nickelback, but that's a pretty huge difference. People might not like Pearl Jam, but I don't think many truly hate them anymore, which is total counter the animus engendered by the, well, alternative.

REM, Radiohead and yes, even U2 did much the same thing. There were enough pale imitators and opportunistic copycats that even at their most insufferable they became totally defensible by dint of not being ... Coldplay, I guess.

So I watched the documentary PJ20 and actually really enjoyed it. They do seem to have dignity to them as a band. Stone Gossard seems like a nice guy.

Yeah, I mean it's basically a love letter to them from Cameron Crowe, but even with that knowledge they still seem like grounded and dignified fellas.

http://pearljam.com/countdown

Tour + a new 3-day countdown clock.

North American tour. But still another countdown clock set for three days from now, maybe that'll be the new album or single.

(xpost - beat me to it)

But of course no other Chicago stop, since they completely fucked up the pre-sales for the Wrigley shows and fucked a lot of people over.

Did they? It's the same weekend as the Pitchfork Fest. And Phish. Lots of committed fans scattered in different directions that weekend.

OAKLAND WOOOOOOOO

mr veg already called me this morning to give me the good news <3

Well, I guess they didn't really fuck it up, but I guess the Wrigleyville area has been really bitching about all the big concerts lately so apparently the residents asked for some exclusive first rights to tickets or something. Anyway, there was a special pre-pre-sale for Wrigleyville residents which ended up eating up way, way, way more than the band expected. Almost all of the residents bought the max allowed to flip. So even Ten Club members ended up being completely shut out of even getting a shot at tickets at face price. Last time I checked, tickets were going for upwards of $500 a pop on StubHub. I like Pearl Jam a lot and I'd have loved to have seen a show at Wrigley, but not for that much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK1njeQdAVk

At just after 1:00, is that a snippet of something new? It may not be, but it doesn't immediately sound familiar either.

pumped that there's a Baltimore date, hopefully I'll get to see it.

started making playlists of fav songs from each drummer/era, goddamn i love these Jack Irons songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhODYyZVL6Y

spin spin spin the black circle

It's so cute when they write punk tunes

Production's got a dispiriting digital sheen to it, moreso than usual?

Backspacer was produced extremely "clear" too.

True, but things like the many Vedder vocal overdubs and too-clean starts and stops feel like another step further.

Eew. I like this song, and I'm sure I'll like many of the other songs on the album, but it's an album called Lightning Bolt and its cover looks like clipart.

Really? Lightning Bolt?

http://cdn.antiquiet.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/lb_cover.jpg

super meh

Sounds a little like Clutch w out the fury. I like it, good hook.

like the song quite a bit. art is whatever, but its better than the avocado one and the more i think about it, they really haven't had a decent cover since Vitalogy and even the ones before that sucked

I like the song when it shifts away from the Spin the Black circle style -- it's growing on me

And I like the mostly red/black version of the album cover, rather than the white one which looks odd to me.
But with the red background, from slightly further away, it looks like a cyclops robot!

pretty big fan of the no code polaroids

Vitalogy, No Code and Binaural are all faves, art-wise. The rest range from "eh" to "God, No!"

otm. no code artwork/packaging was kinda legendary to me as a teenager.

The cassette version of No Code was released in 8 or 9 different versions. I had the one with the bloodshot eyeball.

The ultra bleak/dour Riot Act cover suits the contents.

That cover is awful. For fuck's sake.

nov 26 Oracle Arena, Oakland - reserved fanclub tickets purchased :D :D

I have been whining for soooooooooo long about when am I going to get a real concert when are they going to tour when when when and now I am v happy

albums are nice but the live show is where it's at for me with these guys

Did anyone else call them "Pearl Cream" when they first came out? Oh that was just me and my gang? Ok.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaD_fvehAaU

I am beyond pissed that they're doing Pittsburgh but not Cleveland.

more like hurl spam

^such a joy

Loving all the grunge discussion on ILM these days, both here and in the Soundgarden album poll-threads. Tuning in for a proper revival.

Plus, finally got around to check out the O'Brien-remix of "Ten". Packs a good punch.

Wow, didn't go last night, but I guess the Pearl Jam show - like Pitchfork and Phish - got screwed up by the thunderstorms. The band played 7 songs, then Wrigley Field was evacuated. But PJ tweeted that it planned to play a full set, and indeed went on at midnight for another two hours. Show ended at 2am, 32-songs and three hours past curfew.

Haha awesome.

I looked at their London setlist from the other night, it was so close to my ideal PJ set. Really hope I get to see the Baltimore show on this tour.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/07/live-review-pearl-jam-at-chicagos-wrigley-field-719/

some dude, my blood ran cold until i realised the pj show was in london ontario and not london england.

lol sorry, the PJ twitter was just listing off the setlist with #PJLondon so it didn't even occur to me which London it might be

New track from Lightning Bolt, "Sirens"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQXP6TDtW0w

Ok, I unabashedly love "Sirens" and it has me really excited for the album. I mean, I know it's Pearl Jam ballad by numbers, but it's the best one they've pulled off in a long time.

it gets good by the end but the beginning is pretty corny. will prob need to appreciate in the context of the album. kinda love "Mind Your Manners" now, though.

first few times i listened to sirens i thought it was crazy corny, but after playing it a bunch of times i gave in and love it now. the album has a number of moments like that - it's their most 'accessible' album in a long time, in my opinion, but it's good.

they've been making "their most 'accessible' album in a long time" for so long that i kinda wish they'd go back to being a little weird again tbh. but i love them, i'm still excited to hear this.

this is definitely a not-remotely-weird album. and i was disappointed at first. but it's a grower.

i like the big chorus & mikey's short guitar solo...verses might take a bit to grown on me, they feel kinda wordy & clunky somehow atm

new album streaming on itunes now fyi

'infallible' my favorite track right now -- something faintly 'tremor christ' about it, dunno if it's the bassline or just the beat or something, but it's hooked me!

my but aren't there a lot of pearl jam threads…I suppose this one will do, but if there is another one more suitable, my bad…

from the instant I heard them — opening for RHCP in 1991— I despised this band. Have never ever heard a song by them that did not make my skin crawl. Wrote a takedown of them in 1996 called "pearl Sham" which was, pre-innuhnet, the most controversial thing I ever scribbled.

Awful awful rhythm section. entire band is predicated on a rigorous, almost anti-pleasure foundation, as if rock and roll is serious business, no friviolity, like the Who if they never had a past as fun, hormonally-jacked up teenage hooligans …plus they looked really fucking stupid when they came out…

So this is just to say that while I think the band is dreadful, like many acts I don't like, I find them interesting. So when I turned on VH1 Classic and saw they were playing the cameron Crowe doc on the band (perhaps some reading these words has also been on the mega-Eagles thread where CC's annotations on each song have been reproduced)…I watched most of it. and what I might share from having watched it?

1. Eddie vedder seems kinda stupid. like, other acts I viscerally dislike that approach the altitude of iconic success seem to have a frontperson or a creative axis that appears to be bright. but he seems to be a dopey surfer who thinks he's smart…

2. did not address that they got rid of Dave abrrusezze cuz he was a happy rock drummer who could have found himself playing with Pretty Boy Floyd but hit the fuckin lottery, but had the gall to do an interview with Modern Drummer. How dare he!

3. again, the other guys seem to be nice, super-fuckin' lucky dudes…but yikes! mother love bone? was that andy wood guy any good? seems. from my limited understanding, to be a guy who had his eye on Trixter or Warrant and then got into Jane's addiction or some shit…

Pearl Jam are one of those bands that I used to love when I was 12-14 or so and now when I hear them I simply cannot believe I used to like them.

I'm what Christgau used to say about Elvis Costello: an admiring non-fan. So everything you said except for the part about the bleh rhythm section is wrong, veronica. Sorry.

and they've written at least a dozen songs that top the Eagles. Now HERE'S a band with good album tracks worth rediscovering.

definitely

now that is a gauntlet thrown down! I am truly interested as to which 12 songs by PJ that Herr Sotosyn, a contributor of some note on this forum, are better than the cream of the Henley frey and co.

please enlighten me as I think anyone who believes that is truly fucked and must also be a "PJ is vaguely tethered to some nebulous notion of indie rock/ seattle realness that is intrinsically better than post-Laurel canyon navel-gazing" dead-ender. both paradigms are smug and self-satisfied.

put 'em up! which 12 PJ are better than the bloody corpus of the eagles!

also: does Vedder not seem kinda dumb?

just as I was writing this, my wife is watching the Portlandia bit where carrie brownstein can't deal with the prospective boyfriend who has an eddie V. tattoo…

Carrie brownstein: a great great comic actress who was in a truly shitty rock band that inexplicably many people thought was the savior of music in the 90s, etc etc…

ok now we're getting crazy wrong, A DISSUHDENT IS HEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

I don't care whether Vedder is dumb -- that's biographical info. He's a good singer, often the best part of his band.

Faithfull
Wishlist
Sometimes
Worldwide Suicide
Unemployable
Yellow Moon
In My Tree
Given to Fly
Dissident
In Hiding
Last Kiss
The Fixer

There's twelve.

from my tree of smug self-satisfaction

when albini prank called evan dando and eddie vedder, it was vedder who figured it out.

i love a few of those, but for the most part that list is a pretty bizarre highlight reel imo. soto taste is a wild unpredictable beast as ever.

I avoided the first-three-albums-are-awesome line.

hey i love No Code and Yield, i'd just never single out "Faithfull" or "Sometimes"

Sometimes might make my top 20. I love it.

Also Veronica I can't fight you with words but let's meet in the parking lot & sort this out :)

hang on you call eddie vedder dumb and yet you're proud of a feature you titled 'pearl Sham'? WE ARE THRU THE LOOKING GLASS HERE PEOPLE

Results 1 - 10 of about 256 for gaydiohead. (0.28 seconds)

how bout Mookie GAYlock

how about mother love BONE? wait, no. fuck. hmmm.

was that andy wood guy any good? seems. from my limited understanding, to be a guy who had his eye on Trixter or Warrant and then got into Jane's addiction or some shit…

iirc his idols were freddie mercury and david lee roth.

I personally don't have much time for MLB beyond Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns tbh.

yeah, other than that they were basically trixter/warrant.

but like, talking about stardogs and shit.

Im quite disappointed with the new one

It's like the two most recent predecessors...a few great barnburners, maybe one good ballad, and totally disposable. I can't figure out if it's disappointing that they've settled into a comfort zone or if it's nice that they've earned the right to do that.

I prefer its predecessors but I've spun "Getaway" and "Sirens" a fuckton the last two weeks.

wtf at this sirens love

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/brainwash/siren.gif

oh who am i kidding sirens may well be great for people who's grown and evolved with pearl jam, i don't think i've heard a full-length since no code

"Sirens" sounded awful on first listen but has grown on me a lil in the context of both the album and hearing it on the radio. And I've mostly not thought much of downtempo tracks from their later albums.

^^^pretty much exactly how I felt/feel about it

sheesh! you guys aren't kidding! were a lot of you were in your early teens when they came out? that would explain a lot…

I suppose vedder is not a substandard singer, but his instincts as such are dreadful…and I would say that since his persona is being a guy with big thoughts and having noble motives as a public figure, that he seems dopey would be relevant.

the PJ doc is on VH1 classic now…Mother love bone part is on now, but this sounds like bog-standard late 80s alterna-metal…Wood looks and acts like the singer from Bulletboys…and Ament insists on playing fretless, and yet he never seems to figure out how to make it sound good…

oh no MLB are terrible

"Chloe Dancer" (or the first part of "Crown of Thorns" if you will) is pretty great, mostly just solo piano but yeah I can do without the hairmetal boogie though.

Green River are probably more notable than listenable, but their early recordings with Steve Turner on lead guitar are worth checking out if you've never heard them.

I love MLB

super glam, ridiculous lyrics, it's like a fun not taking ourselves serious version of The Cult who would have been way more fun if Astbury didnt act like She Sells Sanctuary is a ~meaningful song~

90% of the band was powered by the force of Wood's personality alone so if you don't like him or his steez then MLB collapses like Jenga. Like T. Rex. You have to buy in.

But anyway. This Is Shangrila! cmon.

hey Veronica what were the two deep cuts from The Long Run that you rode for?

I like everything on it a lot (cept for the last tune) but yeah I rilly rilly like what someone on ILM seven years ago called the dark heart of the Long Run, "king of hollywood" and "those shoes."

I like 'shoes" a lot.....didn't have the strength for the long run of that thread, tho....

If you have even the slightest inclination to see them on this tour, DO IT. Saw them last night in Oakland - no opener, they played for 3 and a half hours. 37 song setlist. Crazy good fun.

!

The band is so tight now that Eddie can be 3 bottles of wine trashed and it's still a killer set. Everyone's smiling and having a cool time, such an awesome vibe these days.

I wish I had some extra cash, I'd hit a couple more dates :)

Gah, still pissed I'm not seeing them on this tour. I'm still IA about the Wrigley Field ticketing fiasco and them subsequently not coming here again this year.

My friend that came to the show last night is seeing them in Seattle and Vancouver as well...I'm normally a 'one show is enough nbd' person but ;_;

UK shows not announced yet as far as I know...

yeah I haven't seen anything else, just the Australia dates for big Day out in Jan

:)

Pearl Jam
Spokane Arena
Spokane, WA
2013-11-30

THE SHOW: This was the first time PJ had played in Spokane since June of 1993, and I think this will go down as one of the classic Pearl Jam shows. The venue was relatively small (12,000 seats) and this, along with a less-drunk-than-usual Ed Vedder resulted in more back-and-forth from the audience than your average show. This was highlighted by a crowd-initiated “protest” (as Eddie called it) to get Stone Gossard to sing. Vedder remarked that he asks Gossard if he wants to sing every night and he always says no. The frontman says that Stone “isn’t ready to slay that dragon but the gauntlet has been thrown.” Then, 5 songs into the first encore set, Stone steps up for “Don’t Gimme No Lip”, the first time played since 21 Nov 2006, and Stones only vocals on this tour.

More audience participation, and a bit of PJ history: Midway through the first set, Eddie noted a fan-held sign that said “Will cut hair for Brain of J” and checked out the sign-holder, who held up some serious dreads hanging down to his thighs. Eddie said “Alright, let’s keep that in mind”, and then, during the first encore, brings the guy up on stage, Jeff Ament finds an electric razor somewhere, and they let the guy headbang to “Brain” one final time with his crazy dreads before shaving him onstage to some improv jazzy haircut music.

haha i'd be disappointed if i was at a show and Eddie pressured Stone to sing and he did "Don't Gimme No Lip" instead of "Mankind"

I haven’t really paid much attention to PJ in years, but casually checking out this recent revive, I’m finding it hilarious that amongst serious Pearl Jam fans, Eddie is totally known as a drunk.

That is so amazing Maresnest. I'd love to see PJ live. The new album is okay I guess... So EV is a proper lush now is he?

i mean, who knows if he drinks like that on nights that he's not playing a show. but given how much they tour, that may be kind of an irrelevant distinction.

He didn't seem drunk when he toured here solo last year, but I think he's been working his way through a bottle of red every PJ show for a looooong ass time. I'm guessing it's not "a problem" per se. I mean, they're a Seattle band, if hypodermics aren't involved then it's a bonus.

red wine isn't proper alcohol anyway.

by my count in Oakland he went through at least 2, poss 3 bottles himself and handed out at 2 to share with the audience

back in the day when he and Beth broke up, there were some epic drunk shows, that was when it first started or at least that he was openly swigging from the bottle at the mike. for a while a bottle of wine was a signifier for 'you're in for a crazy show'.

he's a goob without the wine anyway so all the falling over and forgetting lyrics would probably still happen anyway <3

we were looking at the setlist for the Key Arena show on the weekend, they pulled out some great stuff for that show too

but Spokane sounds awesome. lol @ that dude getting his head shaved on stage

we were looking at the setlist for the Key Arena show on the weekend, they pulled out some great stuff for that show too

Yeah, Let Me Sleep!

right?! loved that they finally pulled that out for one of the holiday shows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VLAGhOetAk

This is as much a guitar nerd post as a PJ post, but I was just going over "Born to Run" with my guitar teacher, and that song features the E/G# chord, which is basically the weirdest chord that doesn't sound weird. Maybe because it's a piano-type chord? Anyway, I've only come across it one other time (though I know it pops up here and there) in the tricky bridge to Huey Lewis's "Power of Love," but my guitar teacher recently played a benefit backing Eddie Vedder and noted the intro to "Better Man" (which I think he had to learn) is a bunch of variations of that E/G# chord. Now, Vedder isn't much of a guitarist, but he's solid enough, so our theory is that "Better Man" (which quickly gets really, really simple and repetitive) was written while or sometime after Vedder was trying to figure out "Born to Run." Like, it's a really, really conspicuously awkward chord, especially for beginners/me, so our theory is that he sat around making the chord shape, practicing it, moving it around, and that turned into "Better Man." Anyway, just a fun theory.

I feel like E/G# is somewhat common.

Based on the first sentence I thought this was going to be about how "Unemployable" sounds like "Born In The USA."

It's really not that common, though, not on guitar songs; "Born to Run" was I believe written on piano, which is where I think E/G# pops up more. So, like, Elton John and stuff.

It's just an inversion of a major chord, it's not weird at all. D/F# is basically the same and that pops up in lots of guitar songs.

Well, I find it weird! Or at least super awkward. And have only come across it in two songs. Well, three now: "Power of Love," "Born to Run" and "Better Man." Talking about this one:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MJdjxDvQjJs/Uym9P9rothI/AAAAAAAAA7M/AlVD9gIqyik/s1600/E-G%23+Chord.png

It's not that weird in context of the song. It starts off on this version of D/F#:

https://jsmusicschool.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/df.png

And then he just shifts it up two frets on the next line to E/G#.

I'd say he strummed the first chord, thought it sounded good, moved his fingers up a bit and hey presto.

Try it as xx6454

The way I've shown is how Vedder actually plays it, though - with the G# on the low E.

Anyway, I still miss Jack Irons in Pearl Jam.

It hasn't been quite the same since he left.

hey spenno

Hey!

matt cameron's a great drummer though, and a pretty great songwriter too.

Oh, for sure; I miss Jack's contribution to the band's sound a lot but it's no knock on Matt. Evacuation and In the Moonlight are among my favourite late-period Pearl Jam songs.

Well, it's no knock on Matt's ABILITY anyway. I'd have been tempted at one point to say that his talents were being somewhat wasted in Pearl Jam but at least Soundgarden are back together now so I don't think that's true anymore.

He's a great drummer but I think Pearl Jam's previous drummers were arguably a better fit for their core sound.

I'd have been tempted at one point to say that his talents were being somewhat wasted in Pearl Jam but at least Soundgarden are back together now so I don't think that's true anymore.

Yeah. Though I would be bummed to see SG and find it was Matt Chamberlain and not Matt Cameron playing (not sure who drummed at Hyde Park last summer, was p sure in was Cameron)

Yeah, that was Cameron - Hyde Park was one of the only Soundgarden shows he played at in 2014, Chamberlain played the rest for the most part.

I get the impression that was a one-off arrangement for last year though, Cameron's played at every Soundgarden show since.

Funnily enough, I'd be thrilled to see Chamberlain sit in with Pearl Jam (again). He's a GREAT drummer and his style seems a lot more suited to them than Soundgarden.

Chamberlain's a great session drummer. I even liked him back in Edie Brickell's band, and he was an integral part of Tori Amos' band sound, too, and he's great when he plays with Jon Brion. Not sure how well he ultimately fits PJ, though. I mean, he's a session guy and can fit in anywhere, in the end, but I actually like Cameron's contributions.

E/G# is a very common inversion, it's just E major with the 3rd in the bass instead of the root. I've seen inversions like that in countless songs. On guitar, I tend to just play a standard E major chord but use my little finger to fret the G# on the low E string. Using chords like this is great for creating descending basslines, e.g. A E/G# D/F# E, or ascending basslines, e.g.: F D/F# G E/G# A.

oh yeah, chamberlain was in pj between krusen and abbrusseze, wasn't he?

Soundgarden getting a Cameron replacement while he does PJ shows irritated me so much...I get it from a logistical standpoint, because PJ has a bigger repertoire and changes setlists dramatically from night to night, so it's easier for a guy to come in and learn a set that Soundgarden plays every night than to keep up with the demands of a PJ tour. But Cameron is Soundgarden's backbone more fundamentally than any drummer has been for PJ. Totally agree that having Jack Irons back for one tour would've been wonderful.

Jack was beautifully loose, No Code is so great partly bcz of him.

But Cameron is good! He's a great fit, and while maybe he's not someones technical cup of tea, he's a keen collaborator, plus his steadiness & easygoingness has helped glue the band together in a positive way. They are a better band collectively for having him imo

But it would def suck seeing Soundgarden without him, that's some bullshit

Maybe he needs cloning to play both bands at the same time

oh yeah, chamberlain was in pj between krusen and abbrusseze, wasn't he?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM0zINtulhM

It was recorded live, so that's his playing too.

yeah Cameron is good with PJ...I wish more of their work with him had the interesting spark he brought to the best parts of Binaural, but that's more down to the band already being on a creative decline by the time he joined.

I wish more of their work with him had the interesting spark he brought to the best parts of Binaural, but that's more down to the band already being on a creative decline by the time he joined.

That said, Matt does seem like more of a cerebral, 'straight' drummer (in terms of feel) that someone like Irons or Abbruzzese who, despite having very different styles, both seem like looser, groovier players which I think fits right in with the band's expansive 70s rock thing.

If anybody is interested, this bod has a really good YT channel in which they sync the soundboard recordings of full gigs to crowd digicam footage, I know there's a lot of this stuff to be found out there but this guy/girl is especially good at putting them together.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn-WEUogXBFbwfm3nmGN3rw

Getting a little too into the rhythms of even flow at the bar ...will bring it down a notch

Nah, take it up a notch buddy