Friday, August 30, 2013

Don Pendelton Officially Announced as Lightning Bolt Artist

Here are the tracks, in order, per Pearl Jam:
http://instagram.com/p/dp0e6ZpnA8/

It's been rumored for a while, but now Jeff Ament has made it official with the release of all the Lightning Bolt track art, that Dan Pendelton (who worked on Jeff's solo album, While My Heart Beats) was the artist behind the great concepts we've been drooling over all week.


http://instagram.com/p/dp0e6ZpnA8/

Infallible & Pendulum

http://instagram.com/p/dpuJ71JnFP/

http://instagram.com/p/dpxPafpnLM/

Made In America - 10/11/2013


Showtime just uploaded a trailer for Ron Howard's Made In American Documentary.  It will air in about six weeks on October 11th.  You can check out the trailer above.  The Hollywood Reporter had this to say.
The film, which is produced by RadicalMedia and Participant Media, features performances and interviews related to "making it in America," as its title suggests, with a diverse roster of musicians, including Passion Pit, Pearl Jam, Run D.M.C., Skrillex and Kanye West, among several others.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Evil Little Goats, Episode 8, Is Now Available


The latest episode of Evil Little Goats, Shadow, is now available.
Pearl Jam’s debut album, Ten, turns 22 today and you can celebrate the occasion by listening to the eighth episode of Evil Little Goats, an unofficial Pearl Jam fan podcast. During the episode, simply titled Shadow, Jeremy and I discuss Shadow’s upcoming performance at Easy Street Records (it’s tonight at 7 p.m. btw), Matt Cameron’s drumtastical new project Drumgasm, Pearl Jam’s Lightning Bolt activity and more. Oh, and in case you’re curious, we actually don’t discuss Ten at all, but we’ll be sure to address that mistake on the next episode.
Listen at Guerrillacandy.com or below.

Swallowed Whole

http://instagram.com/p/diD6TIJnI4/

Yellow Moon

http://instagram.com/p/dhwhHlJnNm/


Shadow 45 Now Available via Ten Club / iTunes


Shadow's vinyl single Shadow / Tonight the Lights Go Out is now available via Ten Club ($7.99 plus $4.99 domestic S&H) and iTunes.
Formed circa 1982, Shadow features Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Danny Newcomb, and brothers Chris and Rick Friel.

This new 10-inch single features two classic Shadow anthems that haven't been heard in 30 years!

Side 1: Shadow
Side 2: Tonight The Lights Go Out

Limited Quantity Available
Members Only. Limit 1 per member

Sirens

https://vine.co/v/hiqQ1U20uUZ

OK. We lied.  We'll drop the Lightning Bolt track art right here as its revealed throughout the week.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Lightning Bolt Tracklist Begins a Slow Reveal


It seems that our Future Days are filled with song titles. Pearl Jam has begun to push out their tracklist via their social media outlets (PearlJam.com, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram). Their Twitter post says "#PJTrackReveal Day 1." Which would lead one to believe that we'll get one track per day for the next twelve days. They're doing it by progressively releasing the artwork throughout the day, much like we saw for Mind Your Manners.

Keep your eyes on the social outlet of your choice.  We'll spare you the post per day (or by hour as they post pieces of artwork) and report the full tracklist for you at the end.

Mind Your Manners Shirt


You've heard the song.  You've watched the video.  Now you can own the shirt.

Ten Club is helping you get read for October's tour with new Mind Your Manners t-shirts, available on their website for $24.99 plus S+H.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

A Guided Tour of No Code: Present Tense

PRESENT TENSE
[A Guided Tour of No Code]
There is a case to be made for ending No Code on Around the Bend , but in many ways Present Tense is the obvious way to close out the record. The principle journey is completed here, the hidden insights made manifest. It is a concluding paragraph, reprising the journey of the previous nine songs, and it does so quite effectively. No Code is about searching for a guide, finding someone or something to help you navigate the road we’re all traveling (and those same travel metaphors reappear here). And while previous songs have pointed the way there is a gentle confidence in Present Tense that wasn’t necessary there before, suggesting that we have at least begun learning how to decipher the code. After a long stretch of songs about feeling lost, it is almost a relief to know that there is a path, and that we are tantalizingly close to it.

It’s not the most striking piece of music in the catalog, but it is completely appropriate for the mood--warm, deep, memories of once raw wounds finally starting to heal. The transition from Lukin to Present Tense is a bit abrupt, but it is entirely possible the music doesn’t have the same impact if it isn’t following a run of songs about broken and suffering people. There are some call backs to Sometimes, both in the very precise way the song begins--like each note is , a particular memory--and the quasi spiritual journey of the outro. The chorus takes stock of those individual moments, and it weighs them, judging, but the intention of forgiving, rather than punishing. The song builds in fairly subtle ways, and the climax in the second chorus feels organic--earned within the journey of the song (or perhaps the record as a whole. The outro is exploratory, searching, running to find something but confident it’ll get there. There is the haze of voices--whether they are judging, blaming, forgiving, spurring us on or holding us back isn’t clear--but the music pushes us past them with an increasing level of urgency until we finally make it through. We’re clear of the past, in the present tense. We don’t stop there--the music keeps going (and the fade out implies that nothing is finished), but we’re able to walk towards the future having made our peace with the past, ready to accept the future, and moving in a permanent present tense. 

Eddie’s vocals are restrained, as is typical for the record.--no screaming in places where there would have been in the past. There’s an unwilligness to completely destroy the tranquility and stillness--and besides, yelling at someone is a terrible way to get them to listen. There’s an interesting juxtaposition here with Leash--it’s a song that is also looking for answers, but assumes that it is external walls that hide them. And so Leash attempts to batter them down, and looks to make up for the lack of answers with an intensity of conviction. The harder you believe the more likely they are to exist. Present Tense can be more subtle because it found them. 

The lyrics are pretty straightforward. Let go of the past so you can grow in the present. I talked about the tree as a metaphor during the In My Tree post, so there’s no need to go through that again. And the travel metaphors are all here, alongside some specific references to knowledge and learning--reminding the listener that there is something here they are supposed to be taking away. A few things are worth commenting on. The song seems to urge us not just to let the past go (and we are the person holding both the lock and the key--the only one who can forgive us and who seemingly cannot), but to not worry too much about the future. Accepting our powerless (recall Sometimes) means understanding that there are limits to what we can control. Life may be getting harder, but you can’t predict what’s going to happen next and there are limits to how much you can prepare. And, of course, if you spend your time anxious about or anticipating the future you end up missing right now. It’s not simply the past you need to let go of. You also need to abandon the conceit that life can be controlled. It can only be lived.







OTHER SONGS IN THIS SERIES: 
Sometimes
Present Tense
Mankind
I'm Open
Around the Bend

OTHER GUIDED TOUR SERIES: 
Ten 
Vs. 
Vitalogy 
No Code 
Yield 
Binaural 
Riot Act 
Pearl Jam 
Backspacer

Saturday, August 24, 2013

New Podcasts Available (Evil Little Goats and Given To Cast)


My apologies for letting these slip by, but you can now get the 7th installment of Evil Little Goats and a "new" episode of Given To Cast (7-26-2013).  Stream both below or visit their pages to subscribe.


EVIL LITTLE GOATS #7

The latest episode of Evil Little Goats is now live and ready for your enjoyment. During this episode, titled “I’d Rather be with a Lightning Bolt,” Jeremy and I talk about Brendan O’Brien, do a little walk through of Backspacer, discuss Shadow and ramble on about a few other Pearl Jam topics. We do all of this not only because we can, but because this is a podcast about Pearl Jam so it wouldn’t make much sense if we started gushing about our love, or lack thereof, for Mumford & Sons.

GIVEN TO CAST, 7/26/2013

The latest podcast is up with all the new music from Wrigley show and the two demos that were leaked this week. Also, we are joined by show contributor, Joe Little of Come To The Porch dot net with his review of the show and events prior to the concert. Enjoy!

Friday, August 23, 2013

The Mind Your Manners Video & Review



A REVIEW OF THE MIND YOUR MANNERS VIDEO
by stip

We have our first video from Lightning Bolt (for Mind Your Manners), and it tells us quite a bit about how the band interprets the song (and possibly acts as a guide for how to understand the album).  Someone on the Red Mosquito message board (Farmer John) described it as the love child of Do the Evolution and The Fixer videos, and that’s a pretty good bumper sticker description of the video.  We have the images of a collapsing civilization that was the hallmark of the DTE animation (although much of this is actual film footage, underscoring the severity of what’s at stake) with the silly rock star theatrics of The Fixer.  Whether or not they fit together is up to the viewer, although I’ll speculate in a minute as to why they may have tried to merge them together.

My initial impression of the song Mind Your Manners was that it was an anti-religious screed (given the opening ‘I found myself believing that I needed God’ and the chorus it isn’t hard to see why), but it seemed like there was a deeper, more interesting message hovering just below the surface, and it comes to the fore in the visuals of the video. This is not a song about religion in the ‘isn’t organized religion horrible’ sense. Religious hypocrisy is too easy a target to be all that compelling.  It is instead a song about learning to see what is happening to the world around us, and being prepared to take steps to do something about. In fact, most of the religious imagery in the video has nothing to do with churches.

Instead we’re given a series of occasionally striking, occasionally subtle, occasionally heavy handed visual representations of a world collapsing in on itself.  Often the first appearance is animated, but then we’re given the real thing to remind us that this is actually happening.
  • Tidal waves, floods forest fires, floods, avalanches, sun blasted deserts where there used to be trees, tornadoes,
  • War (bombs, tanks, gunfire)
  • Pollution, smoke stacks, oil spills,  (animated, and real), poisoned air (the statue of liberty in a gas mask--a nice shot at America’s failure to lead on environmental issues))
  • Greed (the printing presses)
  • Democracy (or the United States) in chains (the barbed wire imagery on the flag)
  • The lightning bolt striking the puritanical looking figure (the rapture or a comment on hypocrisy. both?)
  • Hour glasses counting down the time we have left


This is all framed by the 1960s PSA video on manners, and it sheds light on the pre-chorus.  If this is the world around us why aren’t we howling with outrage.  Why are our problems marginalized, diminished, if they are even talked about at all? How often did impending environmental collapse or the serious structural weaknesses in the US economy come up during the 2012 election?  Why can’t our political and corporate leaders actually address what is at stake?  Why isn’t the declining state of our civilization an issue given the gravity it deserves?  Because people in power fear disruption. Disrupting the status quo.  Disrupting their ability to get elected Disrupting their legitimacy.  Even if the emperor has no clothes, as the story teaches us, it’s rude to point that out. Mind your manners.

So where does the religion come in?  There is plenty of religious imagery in the video--the lost soul stumbling through the woods (a fairly traditional metaphor for spiritual striving), the ascension up to heaven, escaping this tortured world, being directed by God (who flicks the pilgrim onto the cloud and sends him back--there is no real agency from the seeker). This song is a critique of the idea of theodicy--the belief that this is the best of all possible worlds, that the problems that exist are beyond us, and that attempts to deal with them will just make things worse. Therefore, they aren’t our problem and we are no longer morally obligated to deal with them.  It’s a philosophy of passivity. Originally this is a religious concept, but the idea can be easily appropriated by free market fundamentalists, social Darwinists, or anyone who argues that we lack the ability to DO something about the world.  And fuck it. It hardly matters anyway. As long as your soul is squared away with God it’ll all work out all right for YOU in the end.

But what if that’s wrong. What if we can do better?  What if we HAVE to? In the video, god kicks the ascending man out of heaven and back down to Earth. He’s stuck here. Trapped. For better or worse. So he might as well try and make it a place he can live in.   And so during the second chorus we are confronted with images of destruction reversing itself. If we stop accepting we can do ‘something else’.

This is not the work of heroes.  This is a project anyone and everyone has to engage. And so while the rock star cheesiness is in the video in part because it’s playful (do you really think Danny Clinch included that because he thinks it looks cool?), and in part as a juxtaposition with how serious the problems that face us are.  But I think it may also be meant to signify that there aren’t heroes that are going to make this better. There aren’t 20 people that are going to sit down in a room and solve our problems.  Nor is it enough for some celebrity to draw attention to these things, since in the end a celebrity is just some silhouetted asshole jumping up and down in front of a blue screen. After all, we frequently get this footage from within a TV in the video, implying that we’re passively being dictated to, or that being a spectator is not enough.   If the world is going to save itself, we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves, all of us, and get to work.




VIDEO CREDITS

Director: Danny Clinch
Producer: Lindha Narvaez
DP: Vance Burberry
Editor: Grant James, Paul Greenhouse
Visual Effects: S77
Animation: Andy Smetanka
Color: Marshall Plante
Production Company: Milkt Films

SONG CREDITS

Words: Eddie Vedder
Music: Mike McCready



Thursday, August 22, 2013

Ten Club's Sustainability Plan

Last year, Pearl Jam partnered with UPS to improve the shipment of their tour supplies.  Now UPS has worked with the Ten Club to improve shipments to Pearl Jam fans.  In the video below Manager, Tim Bierman, and Shipping Head, Rob Skinner, explain how it works and give you some really wicked glimpses into the Ten Club warehouse.


You can read more at MNN.com:
UPS provided 100 percent recyclable boxes with tape-free enclosures and soy-based ink. The boxes are also printed with the carbon neutral shipping insignia, signifying the purchase of carbon offsets to balance out emissions produced in the transportation of the mailing. All supplies for the project were sourced locally.

Mind Your Manners Video Coming Tomorrow!

Pearl Jam lit up their Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+, and Official News page with teasers that we can expect a video from Mind Your Manners to hit YouTube tomorrow at 12pm EST.







Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Shadow To Appear At Easy Street Records


Easy Street Records and the Ten Club have announced that Mike McCready's band, Shadow, formed when he was in high school, will be reuniting in honor of Easy Street's 25th Anniversary Celebration.  They'll be performing in store, for free, this coming Tuesday, August 27th.  You'll also have a chance to purchase a 10" vinyl single of their long out-of-print songs Shadow and Tonight the Lights Go Out.
Free and All Ages! West Seattle Store, 4559 California Ave SW, (206) 938-3279

Easy Street's 25th Anniversary celebration continues with a very special event - a Shadow reunion show & record release party! Formed circa 1982, Shadow features Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Danny Newcomb, and brothers in rock Chris and Rick Friel. They'll be taking the stage to celebrate the release of a new 10-inch single featuring two classic Shadow anthems that haven't been heard in 30 years! Taking an already outer-limits event into the stratosphere, they're also bringing Sweet Water with them! Take a ride on the Rock 'n' Roll Time Machine with Shadow and Sweet Water August 27th at 7pm - it's free and all-ages!

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Pearl Jam Upgrades Their iTunes Store


iTunes has recently upgraded the Pearl Jam store to include a lot more, previously out-of-print, live material for $10.99 each. Though it doesn't include all the shows (where exactly is North America 2000, Japan 2003, and Australia 2003?), but there has been a dump of fifty-four shows in their entirety.*



We don't know if more is coming, but as of today you can get all of the shows from Europe 2000, North America 2003, this year's South American Lollapalooza, and the four Vault releases** including the previously unavailable January 17th, 1992 show at the Moore Theater.



If any part of your collection has been lagging, log on and grab what you can.  It's a good day to be a fan of live Pearl Jam.



* Some shows are incomplete as edits are occasionally made due to technical or philosophical reasons.
** The REAL Vault #1 release was Las Vegas, November 30, 1993, but that has since been stricken from the record, and Live in NYC 12/31/92 is not part of the numbered vault release series.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Mind Your Manners (Matt Only)

Every wonder what it would be like to live inside Matt's drums while he played Mind Your Manners?  Wonder no more.

Stream Drumgasm

Spin Magazine interviewed Janet Weiss about the Drumgasm album that she recorded with Matt Cameron and Zach Hill.



As an added bonus, you can stream the whole album from their website.  Check out what Janet has to say about teaming up with one of the Top 5 Pearl Jam drummers to date.
Sleater-Kinney, around the same time, was doing some touring with Pearl Jam. Matt Cameron had always been one of my favorites — I'm a huge Soundgarden fan. So getting to meet him and know him and share a stage with him was a really big deal for me. We forged a friendship, and Matt and I would sort of marvel about Zach — as probably every drummer on the planet does. I just came up with the idea: What if we just rented a studio for a weekend? We didn't have any plan as to what was gonna happen.
If you like what you hear, head over to Jackpot Records and pick up the LP.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

A Guided Tour of No Code: Lukin

Like Habit, this was one of the first songs written for No Code, and while it does not really fit in with the rest of the record, it may very well have inspired it. Lukin is a musical tantrum.. Maybe the song was meant to be a primal scream--a kind of stress relief. But if so it is inadequate, and points to the need for something a bit deeper, more substantive, more permanent. 

The song feels vaguely claustrophobic, like walls are closing in with a deceptive speed (the siren accents are distant and gentle, and gives you a sensation in the back of your mind like the rest of the song isn’t as frenetic as it actually is). Eddie’s shrieking vocals are hard to listen to. Angry, but there is a ‘woe is me’ feel to them that is a bit of a turn off. As with Habit it’s the lack of empathy that makes it difficult to relate. This is one man’s private hell.

The lyrics match the claustrophobic sentiment. The verses describe an intense feeling of alienation--you get the feeling that the worst part about losing your keys is that it is going to force you to spend time around people that are alien to you, that judge you, that want something from you. An invasive intimacy. Like a virus. Stopping off at a friend’s for a beer doesn’t make the rest of the world any less relentless, and as soon as he leaves things just got worse.

We’ve all had days where we felt like that. But this doesn’t just seem to be about a bad day. It feels more like a ground state--and an unsustainable one at that. In that respect Lukin poses the problem the rest of No Code attempts to solve, and Present Tense may very well be the most efficient summation of the insights the album offers.




OTHER SONGS IN THIS SERIES: 
Sometimes
Lukin
Present Tense
Mankind
I'm Open
Around the Bend

OTHER GUIDED TOUR SERIES: 
Ten 
Vs. 
Vitalogy 
No Code 
Yield 
Binaural 
Riot Act 
Pearl Jam 
Backspacer

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Brad's Shame and Interiors Now Available for Pre-Order


Brad has announced the re-issue of their first two albums, Shame and Interiors, now available for purchase at their Establishment Store and Merch Now.

These are part of a plan by Brad's label, Razor and Tie, to reissue the band's full catalog.  Currently, there is a bevy of options available.  You can get the albums on CD, vinyl, with a t-shirt, or bundled with other albums.
Set for release September 30th 2013, the esteemed albums will feature new artwork created and freshly re-designed by Brad drummer, Regan Hagar. Both Shame and Interiors will be available on CD (in digi-soft packs) and gatefold vinyl.

The CD re-issue of Interiors features two bonus tracks, ‘Séance’ and ‘Heaven Help’ (both previously unavailable in the U.S.) while the vinyl edition of Interiors will include and feature the same bonus tracks via a separate, 7-inch, special edition pressing contained within the gatefold. As an added treat, the Interiors vinyl will also include for the time ever, all the original studio recording intros from the band members prior to the start of each song. 

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Did the Lightning Bolt Tracklisting Leak?

Well, at this point, we've seen three or four tracklists for Pearl Jam's upcoming album, Lightning Bolt, and all have proven to be mostly, if not completely, fake.  Now, PearlJamOnline has been sent a picture of another.  Though I could probably fashion a similar document on my laptop, we're not getting the fake vibe off of this one.  It incorporates all the rumors to date, including known song titles (Infallible, Siren(s), Lightning Bolt, [Our] Future Days) and a track from Ukulele Songs (Sleeping By Myself).  



Too much to hope for?  Not really, we expected something soon, but ya' gotta hope Where's The Sponge? is a better song than the title would imply.

Ed & Neil Finn Record Studio Cover of Throw Your Arms Around Me


Next month, September 27th, Liberation Music will be releasing a Hunters & Collectors tribute album.  Eddie Vedder and Neil Finn appear on track #2, a tune we probably all have on our Pearl Jam bootlegs, Throw Your Arms Around Me.

You can learn more and check out the full tracklisting at NeilFinn.com:
Formed in Melbourne in 1981, Hunters & Collectors became an integral part of Australian music culture through their unique songs and sounds and legendary pub gigs. They took us on an incredible journey as they evolved from an experimental post-punk/agit-funk collective with up to a dozen members into a streamlined and visceral rock and roll outfit that made a profound connection with audiences across the country. The Hunnas, as they became known, featured a powerful blend of guitars, drums, bass and brass, fronted by Mark Seymour’s intense vocals and presence.

Disbanding in 1998, Hunters & Collectors left behind a legacy of great rock and roll moments, memories and a proud catalogue of recorded music, including nine studio albums, three live alb ums and numerous EPs and singles.

Friday, August 9, 2013

A Guided Tour of No Code: Red Mosqutio

[A Guided Tour of No Code]
RED MOSQUITO
In many ways Red Mosquito serves as the bridge track between Vitalogy and No Code, looking to reprise the embattled spiritual crisis of the former that the later attempts to resolve. It is a song about being trapped, slowly drained, and powerless to stop it. What’s worse is the subtle implication that this is also all somehow your fault (something that Present Tense will attempt to put to rest). But underneath all this the song pleads for a guide--someone to show the subject a way out. In that respect the song within the album (written before most of it) is pining for the album itself. 

The title and principle image of the song is inspired--one of their best. A mosquito is a parasite. It stalks you. It drains your blood (and a red mosquito will have fed, and red is the color of the devil). The bite itches, and scratching it will drive you mad. It can kill you. Swat one and another takes its place. And for all that it is a small thing, practically invisible--revealing its presence through a high pitched buzzing that whispers in your ear. 

Musically this song is a masterpiece, a cacophonous but somehow melodic s wall of fuzzy guitars (with Mike’s leads buzzing loudly in your ear--the way that a mosquito’s whine blots out all other noise when you’re being harassed by it) occasionally kept at bay by what would be a gentle, even peaceful melody if not for the fact that Mike’s mosquito keeps flitting in and out of it. 

Even though the song gives license for Eddie to really let loose he plays this one restrained--like someone resigned to their fate but whose wounds are still raw enough to feel bitter and indignant (especially the points where Eddie is in his higher register). There is also a sense that he’s pleading for an audience--urging the listener not to make the same mistakes he did--to ensure others know what he knows before it’s too late for them. Before they are bitten. It’s too late for him, but maybe he can save someone else. 

Lyrically this is one of the best songs on the album, probably second only to hail hail. The song is in part about temptation, and being stuck (the forced cessation of movement) by it--a ‘be careful what you wish for’ song. We begin with the singer trapped in a room, staring outside, taunted by the visible freedom that remains closed to him. He pines for something just out of reach, only vaguely aware of the passage of time, his thoughts elsewhere.

He’s not alone--the red mosquito is trapped in there with him. It embodies temptation, or better, the price of it--the lingering costs of getting what you want and discovering that it isn’t really what you want. It’s not that the mosquito is literally the devil. The devil reference is intended instead designed to call up the image of the Faustian bargain. You can have your heart’s desire now, but payment is fast coming due. The entire second verse is full of stalker imagery (a nice segue into Lukin, perhaps)--climbing up hills (already difficult) without any traction. Barely ahead of the inevitable reckoning and slowly being bled. Unable to go back and change things (recall that he’s trapped where he is---locked in his room or incapable of running fast enough/far enough).

Still, despite the presence of the third party tormentor here, one is left with the sense that really the person torturing the singer, the person bleeding him dry, may be himself. His own regrets over poor choices and past decisions that it is seemingly too late to change. If he knew now what I knew then (a line he’ll come back to in I’m Open) things could have been different (a sentiment reprised from Hard to Imagine--he’s been playing with this idea for a while). Payment is due, but it is something he may owe to himself, and if he figures out a way to let go, to forgive himself (he could not have known then what he knows now, and so that’s not a grudge that makes sense to carry--and even if he could have, there’s still no reason not to let go of it--the person who pays the price for your regrets is you) he can move forward. He can leave. Present Tense will pick up where this leaves off, but before we can get there we have to go through Lukin.


OTHER SONGS IN THIS SERIES: 
Sometimes
Red Mosquito
Lukin
Present Tense
Mankind
I'm Open
Around the Bend

OTHER GUIDED TOUR SERIES: 
Ten 
Vs. 
Vitalogy 
No Code 
Yield 
Binaural 
Riot Act 
Pearl Jam 
Backspacer

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Boston, Phoenix, and Calgary Get Second Chance Tickets


If you missed out on Pearl Jam tickets, you may have another chance to get them, depending on where you live.  The Ten Club just sent members this e-mail.

Ten Club is happy to offer a second chance ticket sale for the Phoenix, Calgary, and the second Worcester show. These tickets are either left over from the first ticket sale, or have been added to inventory. As a result there are very few tickets, however we wanted to offer them to the Ten Club first.
Oct-16 Worcester, MA - GA Standing
Oct-16 Worcester, MA - Reserved Seating
Nov-19 Phoenix, AZ - GA Standing
Dec-02 Calgary, AB - GA Standing 

*For a full list of shows on this tour visit: http://pearljam.com/tour


A Ten Club ticket drawing will be held for all members active as of yesterday August 6th for a chance to purchase Ten Club tickets to these shows.


For your convenience you have 2 days from today to enter before names are selected. This drawing entry period opens today August 7th and closes Friday August 9th at 10am PT. Names will not be drawn until Friday August 9th.
If you're a member of Ten Club, check your e-mail for more details.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

A Guided Tour of No Code: Habit

[A Guided Tour of No Code]

HABIT
There are a few songs on No Code that feel out of place to me. Habit is one. It’s not that it is a bad song. It’s just that it doesn’t fit. This is a record about accepting limitations---your own and others. It urges you to make peace with yourself and the world . It’s not that it says don’t fight, or refuse to change. But it reminds you that crashing headfirst into barriers you can’t change is exhausting, and probably counterproductive. Which is exactly what Habit is about. So unless Habit is meant to be a step back--a reminder of what hasn’t worked--I’m not sure why it is here. Perhaps that is why Eddie sings the way he does. You scream the way he screams when you aren’t interested in dialogue. Maybe he is trying to drown this song out (the message, anyway).

The riff is heavy, brash, almost petulant. It’s one of the better punk riffs, and is an excellent platform for a self righteous and extremely judgmental set of lyrics (alongside a grating chorus), and a vocal performance that shrieks itself hoarse, and almost entirely abandons the empathy that defines Eddie’s best (and average work) for something that is frankly just a little obnoxious. Digster noted earlier that Eddie rarely screams on this record, and it is telling that the places where he does are also the songs that are most at odds with the album itself.

Basically Habit is the musical equivalent of the first time a newly minted atheist reads Bertrand Russell’s ‘Why I Am Not A Christian’ This is not a song about being happy with your righteous self. It is a song about judging those who have the audacity not to copy your righteousness. 

Save You, in a lot of ways, is probably the song that Habit should have been, at least in the context of this album. Save You has the same singer confronting weakness, but the frustration in that song is from vulnerability that comes from investing yourself in someone else’s life and the fear that it’s all for nothing. Habit is its narcissistic cousin, for whom weakness in others becomes a way to revel in your own reflected strength.

All of this makes the ‘speaking as a child of the 90s’ lyric particularly obnoxious. It’s not a good line to begin with (forgivable perhaps, for the Against the 70s call back), but if you are going to peg yourself as a spokeschild for the 90s there were better songs with better messages to do that with. It could just be tongue in cheek, but if it is I’m not sure what the song is satirizing. Maybe the earnestness of the times? That’s a possibility, but if so it’s also maybe a bit out of place on what is an understated but still extremely earnest album.

The ending outro, which is a great piece of music and the highlight of the song, simply reinforces the lack of empathy and moral complexity in the song itself. It is loud, violent, cacophonous, but oddly self serving. It draws no conclusions. It offers no new directions. It’s a musical affirmation of an angry and judgmental superiority


OTHER SONGS IN THIS SERIES: 
Sometimes
Habit
Red Mosquito
Lukin
Present Tense
Mankind
I'm Open
Around the Bend

OTHER GUIDED TOUR SERIES: 
Ten 
Vs. 
Vitalogy 
No Code 
Yield 
Binaural 
Riot Act 
Pearl Jam 
Backspacer