Sunday, June 29, 2014

Lance Mercer Fighting Cancer


This past Father's Day, Lance Mercer was diagnosed with stage 4 non-hodgkins follicular lymphoma after checking into the hospital for a swollen lymph node.  His daughter Mackenzie has begun a Kickstarter-like campaign to raise money for his treatment.

If you enjoyed Lance's books Place/Date or 5 X 1, or you just think cancer sucks, take a moment to donate.  The original goal has already been wiped out and the new goal is $100,000.  They're already 2/3rds of the way there.

Good luck, Lance.

June 29: Pearl Jam in Oslo



Saturday, June 28, 2014

Vedder Invited to Join the Oscars Academy


Billboard reports that 271 artists (12 of which were musicians) were nominated to join the Oscars Academy this year.

Ed was previously nominated for an Oscar for the song Guaranteed from the film Into the Wild.  Pearl Jam was also nominated for the song Man of the Hour from the film Big Fish.  As of yet, no one in the band has a statue on their mantle, but now they'll have at least one more vote.

June 28: Pearl Jam in Stockholm



Friday, June 13, 2014

Details of Matt's New Supergroup Start to Flow



Dimitri Coats of Off! tweeted a teaser about a possible new side project with Matt Cameron (and Soundgarden's Ben Shepherd and Queens of the Stone Age's Alain Johannes) back in March.  Now, Coats has fleshed out a few more details in a interview with Billboard.

The name of the project still eludes us, but given that they are fleshing out at least ten songs, that may not last much longer.  You can read more about how these guys got together and about the project which was something that Matt Cameron had earlier worked on with Shepherd and Johannes, but abandoned more than five years ago in the Billboard article.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Spin Magazine Compiles Superunknown Oral History


This week was Superunknown week, and Spin Magazine released a great oral history of the album including quotes from the members of Soundgarden, producer, Adam Kaspar, Seattle musicians Jeff Ament and Tad Doyle and others.  Here are a couple of choice quotes from our favorite bassist.
You could see a little bit with Badmotorfinger that Chris was starting to stretch out songwriting-wise. I think with Temple of the Dog, too, that gave you a sense that he could go a lot of different ways and he wasn't just gonna be locked into doing a heavy, odd-time-signatured rock thing. He had a pop element to him, and then he also had kind of weirdo Syd Barrett melodies going on. I think once Matt [Cameron, drummer] and Ben got their influence on the record, that pulled it apart even more.

I probably got to know Chris the best after Andy died. We hung out probably twice a week. We'd go on bike rides, usually at night in some of the big parks in Seattle. They usually culminated with a fire on the beach and a bottle of something. I think it was a little bit of us trying to understand why Andy was dead. It helped us move through that. It was more helpful than going to a bar or just staying at home and feeling sorry for ourselves.

A song I really, really love is "Kickstand." I think that's because that's a song he wrote about his bike, and my relationship with Chris is forever tied to riding our bikes. That song really does something personal for me.
The band also made an appearance of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with Matt Cameron behind the drums to perform Spoonman and My Wave. Check out the videos below.