Root Down in the Shadow

At some point in high school, I abandoned buying baseball & football cards and started putting my spending money into building my music collection.  I had done the Columbia House & BMG music clubs.  However I didn't just want the cds, I wanted more.  Rather than writing letters to athletes to get items autographed, I started checking out fan 'zines and fan clubs. My first entry into fan clubs brought me to Pearl Jam's Ten Club .  From what I can remember, I simply just sent a letter away to the address listed inside of the Ten Club liner notes on Ten .  It was immediately a great match for me, as my thirst for new music was insatiable.  I had never really purchased cassettes, and I had obtained an awesome Technics stereo system with a turntable.  Little did I know that, the perk of Ten Club was holiday vinyl!  My first Pearl Ja m vinyl and Ten Club release was 'Angel/Ramblings'.  Released on Dec 31 1993, this is probably the las...

In 1992, Pearl Jam took their grunge sound to television.  They had two very successful appearances with SNL & MTV Unplugged .  The sixth song from the TV appearance, and 7th for the DVD release (with the Ten re-issue ) was 'Porch'.  Besides the obvious difference of the acoustic guitar, the song is extended with a long Mike McCready guitar solo & Eddie Vedder improv.  Also without the electric, the guitar seems more rhythmic.  The song is self edited by Eddie, but the political statement is not muted at all.  Outside of some incredibly young looking and long haired members of the band, the highlights of the video are as follows: 0:49 Eddie Vedder's growl (I'm not sure why this seems so much different than the album) 1:32 Mike McCready guitar solo (including Eddie Vedder falling off of his stool) 2:07 Jeff Ament's drum acrobatics 2:18 the guitar portion speeding up 2:25 Eddie Vedder starts his self tattoo "PRO-CHOICE" on his arm 3:12 Edd...

Yield may not be Pearl Jam 's most famous album ( Ten), nor critically acclaimed album (Vs) but it has been my most favorite Pearl Jam disc to date.  Yield straddles the rock and art divide that so many   Pearl Jam albums only find themselves on one side of.    In my opinion, the album never really took off, as 'Do the Evolution' was featured as the first single  with it's graphic comic book style video.  'Do the Evolution' from Yield by Pearl Jam The 'Do The Evolution' video was a bit odd, and there was really nothing in the song that I felt like singing along to... EVER! On the other hand, gems such as the rockin' "Brain of J', ballad 'Low Light'or my favorite 'In Hiding' would have been much better choices from Yield , but didn't really see the light of day. My Pearl Jam Yield  favorite 'In Hiding' featured on Single Video Theory The one successful track from the 1998 Pearl Jam album was 'Giv...

I debated about this song most of the last 24 hours.  Do I write about a seldom heard Pearl Jam song (again), or touch on another song that folks might know.  But after hearing back from my likely initial source for this song,(Thanks Joe!!!!!!!!) I felt I had to go for the first choice.   Today's pick for Pearl Jam Song of the Week , has been a treasured song to me for so long, and this blog has served as a reminder to another who also treasured it according to Joe, "I haven't heard it in a good, long while." So here goes:  Pearl Jam ' Sonic Reducer' has been a favorite of mine since high school.  I really don't know what came first, getting some tapes from Joe or getting my own bootlegs first.  Either way, at some point in high school, I got my hands on the song.  The song was from the Ten era.  From what I can tell, it first became available to fans on the bands vinyl 45 christmas single. Each year the Pearl Jam Ten Club, gives out a freebi...

Some of you may know, my all-time favorite band is Pearl Jam.  I'm not from Seattle, so I didn't know them from the beginning, I didn't have cable, so I missed 'Alive', and subsequently 'Even Flow ' the first times around, but by 'Jeremy' I was hooked.  My love for Pearl Jam grew strong, but exploded prior to the release of 'Vitalogy'. I acquired two Pearl Jam bootlegs 'No Fuckin' Messiah' and 'New Songs'.  I had an early and raw view of what was to become their third album a few weeks later, but also some cover songs, live tracks, and "B sides".  Cover songs of 'I Won't Back Down' from Tom Petty, 'I've Got a Feeling' from the Beetles, and 'Dock of the Bay' from Otis Redding were phenomenal.   Live acoustic versions of 'Wash' and 'Porch' from the Virgin Megastore in Paris were incredible.  Even better were raw live versions of 'Better Man' and 'Satan...