Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!

... from Stone Gossard and the Hank Khoir.






NOTE: This isn't an official release from The Hank Khoir as far as I can tell, but it's definitely more than the average Pearl Jam fan has heard from this band.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Win a Signed Pearl Jam Poster


If you've still got a picture of that year you dressed like Eddie Vedder for Halloween, now might be the time to bust it out.  Upload your photo to facebook and tag it "Pearl Jam," and you'll be entered into a chance to win a signed poster.
Enter by Monday: The Night Of The Living Pearl Jam costume contest. Winner gets a signed PJ poster.


Upload a photo of you in your best PJ-themed Halloween costume to your Facebook page AND TAG PEARL JAM in the photo by Monday 10/31. Then "like" your favorites here http://on.fb.me/pjphotos and the band will pick the winner.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Quick Sip with Sam Calagione



Take a look at this short video of Sam Calgione, owner of Dogfish Head brewery as he samples Faithfull Ale and talks about the tastes you can expect. As Sam puts it, is a tribute to the "fruit-forward, aggressive pinot noirs and Mexican lagers" drunk by Pearl Jam while on stage.

Keep an eye out at your local retail locations. Faithfull Ale should be arriving soon.

October 28: Soundgarden in New Orleans

Thursday, October 27, 2011

A Guided Tour of Riot Act: Green Disease

(A Guided Tour of Riot Act)
GREEN DISEASE
There is an interesting juxtaposition between the music and subject matter of Green Disease. The music isn’t quite danceable but it is somewhat lighthearted, almost as if the only way to respond to the mess that’s been made of our world is to say ‘fuck it’. But it is a disingenuous dismissal and the song knows it, since underneath the jaunty melody there are some discordant guitar parts showing that there is something clearly wrong underneath the surface (that sounds more than a little like parts of Help Help, anticipating that song nicely, especially during the verses). I would like the discordant part of the song to be a little more prominent. It’s too buried, and they go for a similar affect with a lot more success in World Wide Suicide.

Lyrically the song falls short as well—thematically it’s right on the money but the lyrics don’t quite manage the weight they’ve been asked to bear. Part of the problem is that the song comes a bit too late in the record. Most of the album is a response to post 9-11/post Bush alienation, and yet it isn’t until the 10th song on the record that they finally begin to address the reasons WHY they feel that alienation (it doesn’t help that the Green Disease—Help Help—Bu$hleaguer stretch is arguably the weakest three song block on the record).  

The title itself isn’t all that ambiguous, but using Green Disease instead of Greed Disease was a nice touch, unfortunately ruined by the immature G-R-E-E-D lyrical beginning, and the utter lack of enthusiasm with which Eddie delivers it probably shows he’s not too happy with the lyric either. It’s too obvious, which is one of Eddie’s difficulties as a political lyricist. Because he feels so passionately he has trouble moving past superficial lyrics, since the superficiality/cliché is felt by him as a living truth. The problem is just greed, and sometimes the simple answers are the right ones, but Eddie’s lyrical talent is with misdirection, metaphor, and making emotional abstractions accessible and immediate. He often runs into trouble when he tries to be direct.

So the song is about greed, although this can be taken in a couple of different directions. One is an indictment of a morally vacuous acquisitive culture made by political philosopher Leo Strauss (others have made this argument obviously, but I love his phrase) –the problem with Americans is that they spend their lives in “the joyless pursuit of joy”—the way in which we spend our lives chasing happiness instead of being happy (see soon forget). But other than some intimations Eddie doesn’t really go in that direction. After all, the problem there isn’t greed—the problem is a limited and enervated understanding of happiness.

Instead he makes the more traditional critique—the problem is the desire for money---both because money means power (and the people who pursue it this way rarely have the best interests of others at heart) and by making money and acquisition an end, the other values that are so important to us (love, community, solidarity—the causes of lasting happiness) drop out. Whatever cannot be quantified is useless, and has no value. For instance, we’ve spent the last 8 years measuring the comparative well being of America by its GDP—how much the aggregate wealth of the country has increased. Of no concern is either the distribution of that wealth (it isn’t greed, or is less so, if we all benefit) or other non-monetary indicators of happiness (health, leisure time, stable homes, a clean environment). If it isn’t green it has no value. If it doesn’t generate more green it is a waste of time. 

But that’s only part of the problem. It’s not simply that some people have this priority. Attached to this worldview was a ruthlessly destructive public policy that told us that anything we do collectively as a people is doomed to fail, that responsibility for each other was something private, that we are ultimately isolated and alone. I still have a pamphlet I got from the government in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (which gives a prophetic air to the the ‘tell the captain this boat’s not safe and we’re drowning lyric) saying that the only thing to do in case of flooding is make sure you have flood insurance. That’s it. Don’t look to your state, because they will not help you, and if they have their way, they will ensure that they cannot help you, that our capacity to envision a world of collective responsibility and collective security is being taken away from us.  

That’s the real tragedy of Green Disease—not that we have a world full of greedy people, but that they are working to ensure that greed becomes more than a choice. If given their way our right to live in a world defined by compassion and cooperation is taken from us, and that we’re sundered from each other and thrust back into a state of nature where we’re engaged in a day to day struggle for survival where we cannot depend on anyone other than ourselves, a war of all against all and a life “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Thomas Hobbes). At least for those of us on the bottom. The people at the top, the ones who are (temporarily) ahead might live lives that are materially comfortable, but only at the cost of their humanity.

 This is, I think, what Eddie is trying to get at with Green Disease, but in the end it lacks the immediacy of a World Wide Suicide, the bite of a Comatose or a Do the Evolution, the righteousness of Grievance, the sympathy of Insignificance, or the wisdom of Marker. Green Disease is certainly an earnest song, but in the end (because of the music perhaps) it is a little too petulant and maybe a little too obvious to pull it off.
OTHER SONGS IN THIS SERIES:  
Can't Keep 
Save You  
Love Boat Captain  
Cropduster  
Ghost  
 I Am Mine  
Thumbing My Way  
You Are  
Get Right  
Green Disease  
Help Help  
Bu$hleaguer  
1/2 Full  
Arc  
All Or None    

OTHER GUIDED TOUR SERIES:  
Vs.  
Vitalogy 
Binaural  
Backspacer

Monday, October 24, 2011

Not For You on IMDB

Presumably for the celebration of Pearl Jam Twenty's DVD/Blu-Ray release, Pearl Jam and Cameron Crowe have released a video for Not For You made up of archival footage from the Boycott Ticketmaster Tour. You got a glimpse in the movie, but the full video is streaming right now at the Internet Movie Database.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Vs./Vitalogy Special Offer


Didn't cash in on the Vs. and Vitalogy Super Deluxe Collector's Box earlier this year?  Well, now you have no excuses.  The Ten Club has eliminated the shipping costs, thrown in a copy of Live From The Moore Theater, and are even giving you a chance at winning an autographed box.
The first 500 fans to order the Vs/Vitalogy Super DeLuxe Collectors Box will also receive the 1991 "Live From the Moore Theater" Vault show #1 CD that members received at the PJ20 Destination Weekend at Alpine Valley. Of those 500 orders, exactly 8 of those box sets will be signed by the 5 members of Pearl Jam. You could receive one of the 8 signed copies (randomly distributed).

Skating Saves Lives


Pearl Jam Calgary, Canada 9-21-2011



Jeff Ament was recently on hand for the dedication of a skate park in the Pine Ridge Native American  Reservation, for which he was a major contributor, to encourage the use of skating as a safe outlet for negative emotions.
According the Ament, it is important for people to have the opportunity to have a physical outlet, especially when there are many negative things going on in their lives. “In my world, when really artistic people come up on a rough time, like if they hurt themselves and can’t play sports, or their band breaks up, or something happens that they can’t do what they do, it’s easy to turn to drinking and doing drugs, but skating is something positive they can turn to.” said Ament.

All That's Sacred, Episode #84

All That's Sacred, Episode #84 is now available.

Ed is appearing at Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit this weekend at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA. If you're not lucky enough to be there in person, you can apparently stream online here. You can also support the cause and relive highlights from years past with a new 25th Anniversary DVD and CD release available 10/24. Here on ATS #84, we're revisiting some of PJ's many BSB appearances dating back to 1992.

Despite taking place in a giant outdoor amphitheater, PJ's sets at Bridge always feel pretty organic and intimate. I think part of that is due to Neil's insistence that all the music be performed stripped-down and acoustic. This leads to some pretty cool renditions, experimentations, and collaborations.

Ultimately what makes Bridge so special are the kids that the event is recognizing and benefiting. They are present and active participants throughout the weekend and share the stage with all the bands. Neil and his wife Pegi should be commended and proud of the work they've done to create such a cool a event for such a worthy cause. You can learn more about the Bridge School and how to support on their website.

Cheers! Donny 

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

A Guided Tour of Riot Act: Get Right

(A Guided Tour of Riot Act)
GET RIGHT

If Get Right was a b-side I’d like it a lot more. It’s got a fun, crunchy rhythm and it’s an enjoyable song with nothing at stake. Nothing particularly memorable, but nothing really insipid either and because it aspires to nothing it can’t be held accountable for its failure to get there. 

 Having said that, Get Right has no business being on Riot Act. Perhaps they justified the song as a moment of levity or to serve as a breather, but You Are is not nearly as emotionally draining as a song like Thumbing My Way, and Green Disease has enough false sunshine in it to have served that purpose equally well. I’m not going to even try to argue that the song is there to serve as an inward retreat/escape (when your whole world collapses what is there left for you to do except get high) since the lyrics are terrible and I’m not inclined to give Matt Cameron the benefit of the doubt on this one. This is no Severed Hand. All Get Right does is disrupt the emotional narrative of the record. It’s a momentum killer, and given the fact that Riot Act is probably too long to begin with (too many songs anyway) I just can’t defend the presence of Get Right anywhere on it. This song’s inclusion was a conceptual mistake, and the record suffers for it.


OTHER SONGS IN THIS SERIES: 
Can't Keep 
Save You 
Love Boat Captain 
Cropduster 
Ghost 
 I Am Mine 
Thumbing My Way 
You Are 
Get Right 
Green Disease 
Help Help 
Bu$hleaguer 
1/2 Full 
Arc 
All Or None 


OTHER GUIDED TOUR SERIES: 
Vs. 
Vitalogy
Binaural 
Backspacer

Monday, October 17, 2011

Pearl Jam Zombie T



Head over to the Ten Club Goods Section to pick up a Pearl Jam Zombie T-shirt.  Only available through October 31st.  $24.99 ($7.50 domestic shipping)
Feeling a little "zombified"? Maybe this will help. These will only be around for a short time. Order now through Halloween (October 31) to make sure you get one.
This item ONLY available for order through midnight Pacific Daylight Time, October 31. After that, it's "dead". Get it?

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Mike McCready Talks PJ20

The television premiere of Cameron Crowe's Pearl Jam Twenty is coming this Friday, October 21st at 9pm on PBS (check local listings).  Here from Mike McCready what the experience was like for him.


Friday, October 14, 2011

Pearl Jam Coming to the Cover of Classic Rock Magazine


Pearl Jam is featured on the cover of this month's Classic Rock Magazine.  Among a 6-8 page spread, the magazine celebrates PJ20 with a list of 20 songs that built the band.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

All That's Sacred, Episode #83

All That's Sacred, Episode #83 is now available.

Even though it's downtime between tour legs, the guys appear to be keeping pretty busy. I imagine they want to stay on top of their game in anticipation of November and the upcoming South American tour. 2005 set the bar pretty high. I wasn't at any of those shows nor am I able to attend any of these upcoming gigs. Regardless, I am a huge fan of the energy on those bootlegs and recognize that this next leg is sure to be another event and spectacle. I'm thinking they maybe saved the best for last in closing out this year that has been PJ20.

Enjoy #83 as we catch up and prepare.

Olé! Donny

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

A Guided Tour of Riot Act: You Are

(A Guided Tour of Riot Act)
YOU ARE


You Are is one of the potentially redemptive moments on Riot Act, and the last one to appear on the record. Riot Act is in large measure a record about a lost, or failing, faith—faith in love, faith in each other, and faith in ourselves. The final third of the record consists of songs groping in the dark with nothing to hold onto, which suggests that the earlier attempts at preserving a weakened faith (Save You, Love Boat Captain, I am Mine) had failed. It’s worth looking at You Are in that light. 

 You Are is one of the more muscular songs in PJ’s catalogue, with a grinding, solid strength to it. It’s a plow truck in the middle of a terrible winter storm, headlights giving off a hazy shine in the dark and cluttered night, enduring where others cannot go. It belongs in Pearl Jam’s collection of ‘car’ songs, but this is the first one that really emphasizes solidity rather than speed. Musically it’s strong song, probably the finest thing Matt’s written during his tenure with Pearl Jam. 

 Lyrically it is hit or miss. There are some terrific lines here (the opening sequence “this broken wheel is coming undone/and the road’s exploded” is one of my favorite set of lyrics to start any of their songs) alongside some clichés whose truth does not negate their triteness (Love is a tower). The music gives some of these lyrics a pass because it is so atmospheric—Love may be a tower, but it is one that is perilously difficult to reach, and you can just as easily imagine You Are being an ad for the Marines with that one brave solider risking his life scaling the perilous cliff face, with jagged rocks and crashing waves below him ensuring his death should he falter—and the music does convey that sense of risk. You Are is a song about uncertain certainty. Love is the rock in the subject’s life, and within it the promise of security and salvation—but there is no guarantee that the love will endure, and without it, we’re lost. The vocals are key here. There is a confidence in the written lyrics that is utterly lacking in the delivery itself. Eddie lacks confidence, sounds worn down by a constant struggle that he is no longer really sure he can win. He’s exhausted (listen for the muted deep breath before the first ‘love is a tower’ lyric) but still enduring. The outcome is unknown—the song can play out both ways, which means we need to look for the resolution in the rest of the record, the way Riot Act itself plays out, and in the context of the album itself the answer is not encouraging. 

 I remember reading somewhere that this song was originally called Undone. Presumably they changed it from Undone to You Are after Undone was written, but the original title is suggestive. Undone as a title doesn’t negate the central importance of love as sanctuary in an otherwise uncertain existence, but it does seem to indicate that that this sanctuary is lost to the subject, which plays nicely into the larger themes present in the record.



OTHER SONGS IN THIS SERIES:
Can't Keep
Save You
Love Boat Captain
Cropduster
Ghost
I Am Mine
Thumbing My Way
You Are
Get Right
Green Disease
Help Help
Bu$hleaguer
1/2 Full
Arc
All Or None


OTHER GUIDED TOUR SERIES:
Vs.
Vitalogy
Binaural
Backspacer

Better Man to Appear on 25th Anniversary Bridge School DVD

Rolling Stone has a video of Pearl Jam playing an alternative take on Better Man from the upcoming DVD and/or CD release(s), The Bridge School Concerts: 25th Anniversary Edition.




Reprise Records is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the annual Bridge School Benefit Concerts with retrospective DVD and CD sets featuring some of the best performances at the shows from over the years. In this clip from the DVD set, Bridge School mainstays Pearl Jam play a muted, haunting rendition of their hit "Better Man," with Eddie Vedder putting a slightly different spin on his usual melodic phrasing.


The sets, which include acoustic performances by superstars such as Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, R.E.M., Tom Petty, Metallica, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, will hit stores on October 24th. All the proceeds will go the Bridge School charity.
I'll have to leave it to the commentors to help me out with the exact date of the performance.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Chris Cornell Talks About Crowe's Pearl Jam Twenty

PJ20 - 9.4.2011 - Alpine Valley, East Troy WI
Chris Cornell was recently interviewed by HitFix about his experience being part of Pearl Jam Twenty.  He had some great things to say about Cameron Crowe and Mother Love Bone.
He knew where to lead the questioning and what to ask and was also very interested and/or entertained by the answers, so it was a couple of hours of an interview where it was just, kind of, my memory being sparked by the questions, remembering all these different things.


I also felt like the years of Cameron as a filmmaker combined with Cameron as a music journalist came together brilliantly. It very much has his personality and some of his humor and just the essence of a Cameron Crowe film, it’s there, it’s in there. It’s not distanced from either side. You don’t get the feeling like you’re distanced from the band or from Cameron as a filmmaker. It all seemed to come together perfectly and coexist really well, I think, with Pearl Jam's history and their legacy. Being sort of in the middle of it, I felt like this captured what it felt like to me. And I don’t think there’s another person who would have been able to do that that well.
To read the full article, visit HitFix.com.

PJ20, How Ya' Doin'?

"Just fine, thank you."


PEARL JAM TWENTY, THE BOOK
Pearl Jam Twenty debuted at #6 on the New York Times Best Sellers List for the week of October 2nd.


PEARL JAM TWENTY, THE SOUNDTRACK
Pearl Jam Twenty debuted at #1 on the Alternative Album Chart and the Hard Rock Album Chart, #2 on the Top Rock Album Chart, #10 on the Billboard 200, #12 on the Canadian Album Chart, and #20 on Digital Album Chart.


PEARL JAM TWENTY, THE MOVIE
Pearl Jam Twenty took in $124,000 at the box office through October 2nd.  Granted, that's not enough to topple Lion King 3D or Dolphin Tale, but Mario at Given To Cast may be able to give you reason to celebrate a "#1" slot.

October 6: Mike McCready in Seattle



PJ20 - 9.4.2011 - Alpine Valley, East Troy WI


Tuesday, October 4, 2011

A Guided Tour of Riot Act: Thumbing My Way

(A Guided Tour of Riot Act)
THUMBING MY WAY


People have argued on Red Mosquito that Thumbing My Way is a hopeful song, and I emphatically disagree. In fact, I think the only song in PJ’s catalogue that might be more depressing is All or None. Other than possibly Ghost, it is the first hopelessly lost song on the record, and the fact that it follows I am Mine adds to the effect. That moment of clarity and inspiration at the end of I Am Mine, the high point of the record, is immediately beaten back down, signaling that the narrator of the record has tried his best, and that his best just isn’t good enough. Thumbing My Way is a song about enduring in a dark, empty, lonely world while being almost entirely devoid of faith that things will get better. This is not a political song, but it fits in with theme of succumbing to a totalizing desolation that runs through Riot Act (political, social, and personal).


Pearl Jam has written plenty of songs about struggling with a sense of personal loneliness and insignificance, but there is has always been a vibrancy to Eddie’s voice, a softness or even lushness to the music, a sense of depth that hints at the possibilities of things getting better. Almost all of that is absent here. The music is start and unadorned, and when the extra guitars chime in at the start of the second verse they sound almost distorted or corrupted, as if they are meant to chime, to herald new possibilities, but find themselves highjacked by a lack of faith and conviction (compare this to Elderly Woman, where they play a similar musical role but sound very very different). Vocally Eddie plays this one perfectly for what the song needs. He sounds more defeated here than almost anywhere on Riot Act (except for possibly All or None). Even the moments where he’s supposed to break away (I let go of the rope thinking that’s what held me back) he sounds defeated. This isn’t laziness as there is a lot of subtlety and nuance in the way he delivers the lyrics. He just sounds beaten, and it’s a deliberate effect. It doesn’t make the song enjoyable to listen to, but such a lonely song shouldn’t be enjoyable. The place where he is writing from could make for a compelling artistic statement, but not easy listening. There is no joy, no anger, no transcendence, no confrontation, not even any healing. No moment to draw the listener in


Lyrically this may be the best written song on Riot Act. The central image, despite the slightly awkward phrasing (I’m not a huge fan of the line ‘thumbing my way’) is very powerful, and with the music paints a picture of a solitary, insignificant man walking alone along a vast empty stretch of highway, shivering in the winter, keeping his thumb outstretched hoping for a ride, but not expecting one, doubting he deserves one (this is part of the song’s darkness—the narrator doesn’t think he is worth loving, worth saving), or even caring if he gets it. He endures because he doesn’t know what else to do, but he has no destination, and without any place to go, no hope for the future. It’s telling that he’s trying to thumb his way back to heaven. He can’t go home, and so at best he can hope for some form of imaginary salvation that he has no faith in ever reaching


As the narrator walks his lonely road he’s left with nothing but his thoughts of how his life went wrong, wondering what he could have done to salvage the relationship that destroyed him—at some times he’s reluctant to blame himself (there’s no wrong or right but I’m sure there’s good and bad—he knows the outcome is unacceptable even if he’s reluctant to assign responsibility) but at other points he knows that he fucked up, perhaps irrevocably (the rusted signs set of lyrics speaks to the singer having fallen victim to some kind of destructive temptation). The rope lyrics bring us back to themes from Love Boat Captain (and PJ’s catalogue in general)—that true independence and true freedom is found in love and solidarity with others. The mistake that was made seems to have been mistaking the obligations that come with love and with relationships as something standing in the way of his independence and happiness, instead of its foundations. It is hard to find optimism in a song with lyrics like “I let go of a rope thinking that’s what held me back, and in time I’ve realized it’s now wrapped around my neck”.


The moment of light that people sometimes pick up on in the song is the ‘no matter how cold the winter there’s a springtime ahead’ lyric. It’s a bit of a cliché, but powerful sentiments usually are, and whenever we’re lost we need to hope that things are going to be better. But as Eddie makes clear in the song, he doesn’t believe it. Rather than face the future he hangs his head down, shuffles his feet and counts his steps towards…nowhere. There’s no destination, just a future of walking alone, punctuated by meaningless rides that can’t take him anywhere since he has nowhere to go. And though he beings the final verse repeating that sentiment he immediately negates it “I smile, but who am I kidding.” He’s in such a dark place he draws no power, no hope, from that sentiment. He recognizes it as empty words devoid of any real promise.


Marx wrote that “religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” It is what we turn to when we have lost faith in the possibilities of this world. And so it is fitting that the final image of the song is the singer extending his finger, trying to find his way (and here hitchhiking is not an image of freedom or independence, but a mark of his powerlessness—a recognition that his happiness is dependent on other people, that we can’t reach that destination without them to give us a ride) to an imaginary salvation, since there is nothing left for him here. And so Thumbing My Way is ultimately meant to be a cautionary tale, a warning to cherish the love that we have, because without it we’re lost.



OTHER SONGS IN THIS SERIES:
Can't Keep
Save You
Love Boat Captain
Cropduster
Ghost
I Am Mine
Thumbing My Way
You Are
Get Right
Green Disease
Help Help
Bu$hleaguer
1/2 Full
Arc
All Or None


OTHER GUIDED TOUR SERIES:
Vs.
Vitalogy
Binaural
Backspacer

Retirement of the TSIS PJ20 Page



September 2011 was one of the best months in Pearl Jam history.  If your inner fanboy didn't seep out, you are either not a Pearl Jam fan (which makes me wonder why you read this blog) or you have no soul.


At any rate, we're removing the PJ20 link from the top our page.  I'm sure you'll forget that page ever existed once the DVD comes out, if you haven't already.  Still, if you want to revisit it, we'll keep the page indefinitely, so you can visit all the awesome news that came out related to the festival, book, movie, and soundtrack.  

Saturday, October 1, 2011

A Reflection on Pearl Jam Twenty

I have finally finished the Pearl Jam Twenty book, and managed to make it to the movie. I sat down this morning to write a review of them and discovered I couldn’t really do it—at least not right now. There are things I could praise, there are things I could criticize, there are moments whose inclusion I could pine for, but these would just reflect my own idiosyncratic desires—asking that they be even more customized for my experience of the band. And I am not sure I can make any sense of Pearl Jam Twenty beyond that experience. The book and film were less an in-depth account of the band’s history, their music, and more an opportunity to reflect on the journey we’ve taken together. This was part love letter and part old photo album, a renewal of marriage vows, a reminder of how hot fire can burn. It is easy to forget because, above all else, Pearl Jam is so familiar, such a constant, a part of the canvas I’ve lived my life on, and a part of who I have become.

I discovered Pearl Jam in a fairly circuitous way. I was a sophomore in high school. It was the spring of 1992. I was not a serious music fan, listening to hair metal and late 80s hold overs. It just wasn’t very important to me. The one musician I really cared about was Weird Al Yankovich, who I had loved growing up. I had heard of Nirvana but had no idea what their music sounded like, and when he released his Smells Like Nirvana video I thought it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. But besides loving the video I actually really liked the song, so I went out and bought Nevermind on tape, so I could hear the original. It was an epiphanal experience. I had no idea music was supposed to sound like this. I listened to that tape nonstop, probably 3-4 times a day, for the entire summer. I am not sure I played anything else.
In the fall of 1992 I decided to get a CD player, which meant I needed cds So I joined Columbia House and got Nevermind, Madonna and Prince’s greatest hits, and some Poison records. I was vaguely a fan of some of R.E.M’s hits so I thought I’d get Out of Time, Automatic for the People, and Eponymous. I had one CD left, and I had heard that Pearl Jam was similar to Nirvana, so without knowing a single Pearl Jam song I thought I’d give them a try.

I was in my bedroom doing my math homework the first time I played Ten, and it was all over. This wasn’t exactly the bolt of lightning that Nevermind was. Nevermind destroyed my understanding of what music was, and opened up the possibilities of what it could be. Ten felt more like fate or destiny—that this was the record I was waiting my whole life for, and that going forward there would be Pearl Jam and then everything else. Almost twenty years later this is still the case.

Even today, for all the time I have spent listening to these albums (I have been listening to those first three records for over half my life now), it is still hard to put into words exactly what moves me about them. I was never a depressed or alienated teenager. I couldn’t really relate to the lyrics. But there was something so elemental, so primal, about those first albums—there was a story here that had to be told. If it didn’t get out someone was going to get hurt, but if we took the time to listen somewhere in that story was salvation. There was a fierce urgency about the music, and a sense of power and conviction. It was magnetic. It still is. And it was intimate and communal at the same time, something intensely private yet still universal. As amazing as those records sounded, it wasn’t just the music (although these are all tremendous songs) or the vocals (although Eddie during this period is untouchable). I could not have articulated this back then (and don’t know that I can do it now), but these songs fulfilled a deeply spiritual and deeply human desire to be a part something greater than yourself, to belong, to know that you are not alone, that we are all in this together. These records taught me that the struggle has meaning.

And through that they helped shape who I am. I can’t say that Pearl Jam was the soundtrack to my life, since that calls into mind specific memories attached to specific songs (for the first date we play this song, for graduation we play this song) and I never made any of those specific connections. The music was more background than soundtrack—something ever present that touched everything without ever moving itself to the foreground. Maybe I was reluctant to pin one of the songs down, since once it belongs to a memory it belongs to that moment, and not to me. Even the most critical experiences of my life (my first crushing breakup, my wedding, the birth of my child) aren’t associated with a particular Pearl Jam song. I have always looked elsewhere for music to help me get through or celebrate those moments. Pearl Jam was too internal for that, too much a part of me, and I couldn’t separate them enough (or didn’t want to) for those songs to provide some kind of external reference point.

Over time the music changed. The songs lost their car crash desperation, but this makes sense. That kind of intensity is not sustainable. It makes sense to miss it, but not to mourn it, nor to resent its absence. Instead Pearl Jam’s music became less elemental and more organic. There was something more gentle and spacious about it as it sought to figure out how to belong to the world instead of rail against it. If those early albums are defined by the tragedy and frustration and rage at being uprooted, the records since then are characterized by their attempts to find the ground. If those early records sought to define a problem, everything after Vitalogy is an attempt to offer a solution—they try to show us how to live. Some albums are more successful than others, but answers are a lot tougher than questions. Wisdom comes not only from experience, but also from no longer wanting to be a child, from letting go of your innocence, and Eddie in particular seems reluctant to do that. Some people would rather be students than teachers. But that uncertainty, the longing, the reluctance, the wish that someone else could come along and just hand us the answers so we don’t have to come up with them ourselves, that’s what gives the willingness to go out there and try to find the answers anyway its character and its power. In their own ways each of these later albums are tragic heroes.

One of the things that have kept me following the band for so long is that their growth mirrors my own. They came along at a perfect time in my life because (and despite the age difference) we grew up together. We railed at the injustice of the world at the same time, we had to learn to make our peace with it at the same time, and together we had to figure out how to do so without burying the part of ourselves that was, and still is outraged by the need to make peace. That was what I needed. I never wanted someone to blaze a trail for me as much as I wanted someone to walk beside me as I traveled down the path that was already there.

And so while I never looked to Pearl Jam for answers, I did look to them for inspiration, not to tell me how to feel, but to figure out how to express what I was feeling, in a way more passionate and more pure than I could ever do myself. I remember how stifled I felt in the early 2000s, and how desperate I was for Riot Act to be an angry, howling record that could counteract my own sense of powerlessness. Instead I got a record that felt as defeated as I did. Four years later, the first time I heard World Wide Suicide (and then later when S/T came screaming out the gate) it is almost impossible to describe the feeling of relief, the weight that was off my chest. I could breathe again. I was in graduate school at the time, and I knew how to describe exactly what was going on in the world, why it was tragic, and why I hated it. But I still felt like I couldn’t find my voice until Pearl Jam found theirs.

In a lot of ways I am a bad fan. I do not read the bios (I actually learned a lot of history from the PJ 20 book), and care little about their personal lives (although I hope they are happy). I share their politics, but that is just a coincidence. I don’t follow most of the side projects. I don’t like a number of their most significant musical influences. Hell, I rarely listen to the bootlegs. But there is no other band I have such a deep and personal relationship with. But I suspect I am not alone. The fierce loyalty and intense criticism they engender amongst their fans, the way that a song you love feels like a personal triumph and a song you don’t feels like a betrayal--this is something you can only direct at something you love as a part of yourself.

The Pearl Jam Twenty movie was a visual representation and reminder of all that. Sometimes all I listen to is Pearl Jam and sometimes I don’t touch them for weeks or months. Sometimes the fire burns hot and sometimes it lies waiting, simmering, waiting to roar back to life. I have the same relationship with my best friends from college. We spent every moment of four years together. I can no longer see them that often, but when we get together it’s like we never left. They helped shape who I am, and so I always carry them with me. The relationship ebbs and flows but it is foundational, and always there.

And so when I walked out of Pearl Jam Twenty what I felt more than anything else was a profound sense of gratitude. For Mike and Stone and Eddie and Jeff. For Boom and the drummers. For the people who process my ticket orders and press the cds. For the person who sent me that awesome surfboard logo fitted hat that I lost on my honeymoon. For anyone who has played a small part in the last twenty years shaping who I have become and will continue to play a role in who I am becoming.

Thank you.
Thank you for the gifts you have given me.
Thank you for the debts I cannot repay.
Thank you for everything.

Eddie Vedder and Liam Finn

Last night, Eddie hopped on stage at a Liam Finn.  They ripped out a performance of Habit and a cover of the Split Endz' I See Red.  This morning, of course, you can check it out on YouTube.


Mother on Jimmy Fallon



The rumors of Matt Cameron carrying lead vocals on Pearl Jam's cover of Pink Floyd's Mother turned out to be just that, but if you're one of Stone's Bitches, you're gonna be a fan of this video (originally shot on September 8th).  Stone puts the rhythm in rhythm guitarist.