Pearl Jam - Vs. POLL

There is the little tiny speck of a town that I visit often, maybe 20-30 times a year, about 35 miles north of the small city where I live. One of the few landmarks of this tiny town is a hybrid store/bar/restaurant that serves as basically the only retail 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 also a musician, after he was playing some perverted boogie woogie piano song, we started talking about music.

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

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]

https://goo.gl/maps/vkGjZANEepv95AEF9

https://i.imgur.com/ei8yK3v.jpg

I had always imagined it as a diner counter somewhere in the midwest or the plains.

Am I the only one who has always detected a slight reggae influence in this album? Particularly in the bass lines of W.M.A. and Rats (perhaps not coincidentally two of the most interesting songs).

I always felt that 'Rats' was Jeff trying to inject a little bit of Jah Wobble into things.

OH PLEASE DON"T GO OUT ON ME
DON"T GO ON ME NOW