Friday, March 18, 2011

Meet Your Blogger: TheColorsBlend.com




ON-LINE PERSONA: @thecolorsblend (twitter) / CB3115 (Synergy)


WEBSITE: http://www.thecolorsblend.com

I started the site back in 1997. Sort of the ‘wild west’ days of poster collecting before amazing sites like expressobeans or GigPosters existed. I’d scour the internet, eBay, and hound artists and fans for all the images of Pearl Jam posters I could find. Here we are 14 years later and poster information is plentiful elsewhere, but I still really enjoy the focus of a Pearl Jam-only site.

If you haven’t checked it out lately, take a look because the site was just completely redone. There are a bunch of new features including the ability to search for prints and also upload your own images of posters.


REAL NAME: Chris



LOCATION: The Dirty South, USA




OK, WELL, IT'S SAFE TO SAY THAT PEARL JAM IS YOUR OBSESSION.  WHY PEARL JAM?
I feel like Pearl Jam has been relevant and completely enjoyable to me at every point of my life. There are not many things, other than family, baseball and Cadbury Mini Eggs, that I can say have that same magical power.

FAVORITE ALBUM: 
That’s like asking who my favorite family member is or which toe I’d most like to cut off. Thank God Al Gore invented the iPod so I wouldn't have to make choices like that. That is to say, I like them all in their own right.

FAVORITE SONG(S):
See the previous answer. I will say at different times in my life, some have had special meaning… Present Tense, Corduroy, In My Tree, Given to Fly, Amongst the Waves, Around the Bend… I could keep going for pages.




FAVORITE BAND MEMBER:
It’s too simple to say Eddie because I love great lyrics and he never ceases to amaze, but obviously we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for each of the guys playing their role. I’ve never met any members of the band, but whenever I hear or read interviews, I’m surprised at how different the guys seem to be. But in spite, or maybe because, of those differences they make it work and crank out some killer tunes. I guess my favorite band member is the band itself.

HOW MANY SHOWS HAVE YOU ATTENDED? 
Sadly only 20. My first was in ’94. It was funny reading JR’s interview because I completely understand his sentiments regarding traveling for concerts. But after spending a good part of the 90’s and early ‘00’s touring with Phish, I look back now and wonder why I didn’t make more of an effort to do the same with Pearl Jam. I hope I can rectify that in 2011 and beyond.





WHAT WAS YOUR GREATEST PEARL JAM EXPERIENCE?  
Hard to choose the best, but I’ll give a couple:


Each of my live experiences certainly has its place. But I was lucky enough to catch them back-to-back nights in London in 2000 during a 6-week trip through Europe. A few weeks before those shows I met some fans in Venice in a music store the day Binaural was released, and ended up traveling with them for a week or so (unfortunately not a Alex DeLarge–style record store encounter, but still fun!). I’ve got some great memories of that trip and the shows were great.


Last year we (thecolorsblend.com) worked with an artist to design and print a poster of Eddie that we then “sold” in return for donations directly to Pearl Jam-related charities. That was a pretty rewarding experience and I received some incredibly kind feedback from fans. Nothing compared to what Wishlist Foundation does on a regular basis, but I was proud of what we accomplished. Pearl Jam has a great community and I feel lucky to be a part of it. 




HOW EXTENSIVE IS YOUR PEARL JAM COLLECTION? 
Thankfully a lot more manageable than it used to be. I spent about 15 years building it and over the last few years have tried as best as I can to dismantle portions of it. It’s tough. I’m a collector at heart and love archiving “things” which is a bad mix if you don’t want to end up on an episode of Hoarders holding a 6-year-old pack of Skittles, sitting on a pile of clothes with the tags still on, with an inordinate number of cats scurrying around you and eating out of old orange sherbet containers. When my parents moved out of their house a few years back they found a box with about 25 PJ shirts from the 90’s, some vinyls and about 100 shows on Maxell XLII’s (hah!) all of which I had totally forgotten about. That was when I realized I had a problem.


I’ve finally convinced myself that archiving digitally can be almost as much fun as physically… and doing so leaves my house a) with a lot more space for living, and b) cat free. I’ve been slowly scanning a lot of the ephemera I have and giving away the originals. 


I’ve still got a pretty large PJ vinyl collection, a flat file full of posters, and basically everything the Ten Club has ever sent me, including some signed stuff I won from one of the contests. I’ll always keep the fan created stuff like Kathy Davis’ Footsteps and Jessica Letkemann’s Tickle My Nausea magazines. I’ve constantly been impressed by the amount of work some people put into this band. Sad thing is most of my collection is sitting in a storage unit waiting to be loved again. 




IS THERE A SPECIFIC LYRIC THAT MOVES YOU?  
So many of them for a bunch of different reasons. But from a literal standpoint, it’s hard to disagree with “I know I was born and I know that I’ll die, the in between is mine.” [I Am Mine]












WHAT ELSE IS ON YOUR IPOD RIGHT NOW?
Who needs an iPod when you have XM channel 39?


I’ll cheat and say with Eddie now on tour in Australia, I’ve been listening to a lot of the past bootlegs from his solo shows. I’m really hoping we’ll get some official release(s) from this current tour. 




WHEN YOU WALK AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Seeing live music and trying to be outside as much as possible. I’m starting to get a little ‘business class’ from sitting in front of a computer for too long. Golf, softball... Man I feel old. And after about 10 years off, I’ve been skateboarding a lot again too. I may regret it but, until I break bones (again), I’ll keep doing it.




WHAT PASSIONS DO YOU HAVE BEYOND PEARL JAM?
I’m a sucker for any live music, going to be a good summer for some shows. And baseball. I usually don’t miss a Yankees game. I probably couldn’t survive without the MLB package and XM. 




WHAT IS YOUR GUILTY PLEASURE?
Spending way too much time on the Internet. It’s hard not to when there’s so much good junk out there! #winning




SO, WHAT'S THE SECRET TO YOUR SUCCESS?

Hard to imagine anyone cares enough to have read this far through my ramblings, (see what I did there?) but I’d like to take the opportunity to say thanks to TSIS for a great site, and acknowledge all the other folks out there that run Pearl Jam sites. They’ve all come a long way over the years and without them the Pearl Jam experience wouldn’t be nearly as fun. Shouts to the folks at Two Feet Thick, BRY, Gremmie.netpjcollectors.com, and countless others. Hope to meet all of you on tour someday.

And special thanks to Gare and T for their help with the new site.






OTHER BLOGGERS IN THIS SERIES
KathyTFT, TwoFeetThick.com
Donny, All That's Sacred
Jason Leung, This All Encompassing Trip
Jed, Twitter.com/DirtyFrankDahmr
Matt, Gremmie.net
Stip, The SkyIScrape.com
Victor Nogales, PJCollectors.com
John Reynolds, TwoFeetThick.com