The Target...There's No Escape!

Lyrics to "Target" by Snapcase. Not so much a battlecry against Target, rather more about self-determination and freedoms of oneself. I'm actually referring to Pearl Jam and their recent lovefest with the mega-corporation. Pearl Jam of 1996 would not be very pleased with the actions of Pearl Jam 2010 for what they've done to their good name.

Let's break it down:

- The band that once fought Ticketmaster for charging too many fees is now charging more for base tickets than nearly every other band in their space (Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters, and even most tickets for Tom Petty, an artist notorious for price-gouging).

- The band that despised corporate promotional concepts and campaigns to sell their art is now locked into a deal with Target. This deal has forsaken all retail besides Target (with the exception of the indie stores and iTunes), featured the band in a Target commercial and most recently, had them headline a 3 song set for Target executives, along with other rock pioneers such as Nick Jonas, Lady Antibellum and Norah Jones.

- The best live band in the world has only toured briefly and in shorter and shorter spurts since 2006, leading the fans to realize that the band knows their fans will travel farther and farther to see them, making more money and playing less dates. So much for that carbon footprint campaign the band was behind in 2006-07...

- Backspacer is not exactly their best album. It just isn't. The songs are good but not great and Pearl Jam has never made an album of just good songs. It feels rushed, half-done and lyrically empty. Still better than 99.9% of what's currently being released, but not up to par.

- Licensing and sync deals abound for PJ music and even Ed solo material. "Rise" is currently being used as the campaign music for the new season of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch. If Ed loves the show, then cool. If not, this is just sad.

The bottom line is that groups like the Black Eyed Peas and artits like Snoop Dogg are Pop Stars and business models for pop culture. They sell themselves as a product and like it or not, the music is secondary. It's not a knock at them as musicians...It's simply a statement of image and product over art. Bands like Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and more are huge rock bands that don't need to go that route...The music does all the talking and the paychecks come regardless. Just ask...well, Radiohead and NIN.

I guess that's my main point here: WHY USE YOUR ART TO DEEPEN YOUR WALLETS WHEN IT'S ALREADY OVERFLOWING?

"Green Disease" Live at The Showbox (2002):

New Jams

Been a while, yet again. Life is tricky. It's great to be super busy but also great to have five minutes to come up for air. I have 30 seconds, so here's what has been pleasuring my earholes for the past few weeks:

- Burnt By The Sun: Heart of Darkness (Relapse)
- 16: Bridges To Burn (Relapse)
- Dredg: The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion (Ohlone)
- Cave In: Planets of Old (Hydra Head)
- Jesu: Infinity (Avalanche)
- 65daysofstatic: Escape From New York (Monotreme)
- City of Ships: Look What God Did To Us (Translation Loss)
- Birds of Prey: The Hellpreacher (Relapse)
- Clutch: Strange Cousins From The West (Weathermaker)...and read MANHUNT too. The song "Abraham Lincoln" on this LP is based on this amazing book.

..and the hopes that the new Pearl Jam album is more awesome that the 4 songs I've heard from it.

Pretty New Things

Just a quick update on a few new items that are most impressive:

- Young Widows 7" vinyl series (Temporary Residence)
- Pelican- Ephemeral 12" EP (Southern Lord)
- Coliseum- True Quiet/Last Wave 7" (Deathwish)
- Champions of Sound 2x7"- Unreleased gems from Stove Bredsky, Zozobra, Pelican and Kayo Dot (Hydra Head)
- Pearl Jam- Fan Club X-Mas 7" (Monkeywrench), yes just arrived in July...The Christmas single. Even late for Flag Day this year, dudes.
- Poison The Well- The Tropic Rot (Ferret)
- Killswitch Engage- s/t (Roadrunner)
- Disappearer- The Clearing (Magic Bullet)

Here's to a great week!

Disappearer- Unreleased Demo Track/Video:

Pearl Jam Loves Turtles

The new PJ album will hit streets on 9/22 (possibly) and after their 3-minute appearance on Conan last night and their much-publicized deal with Target, there's a lot of info suddenly out there. The new song "Get Some" is pretty awesome. Ed didn't quite have a great night vocally but it was killer to see a song so bass/drum driven. It was almost Police-like, circa 1978. Like a long lost b-side. It has that familiar feel like "Save You", "Spin The Black Circle" and other vicious PJ tracks from years past, but it also has jerky start-stop breaks and a very infectious chorus. Look, nothing works better than some great power chords. We all know this.

Yes, the Target deal seems like horseshit, but it might be a good deal for the band and Target has always been an eco-friendly company, something that probably seems very attractive to Pearl Jam. They promise to still put the record out thru the indies and of course the Ten Club.

Oh yeah, the album is going to be called Backspacer...Either a reference to the backspace key on turn-of-the-century typrwriters or that damn turtle Stone Gossard sponsored in some stupid race for jerks. I hope it's the former cause the latter is fucking lame.

Bottom line: New Pearl Jam music is always a good thing.

Check it out if you missed it:

Ten is Old Enough to Buy Lotto

It was August of 1991 and I just saw the "Alive" video on MTV and had my mind blown and life changed forever. A band actually PLAYING during a video. God bless you, Josh Taft. I love Pearl Jam. The band that could've been bigger than U2 but chose to not be douche bags and took the hard road all the way instead. They chose to make weirder and weirder (and better) records to aleinate their fly-by-night fans and critics. This kept them together all these years and made them the only non-Mudhoney Seattle band that is still in it's somewhat original incarnation.

The Ten deluxe edition comes out this tuesday, March 24th. Four versions will be available, including a Super Awesome deluxe edition (CD w/ bonus tracks, new mix CD w/ bonus tracks, MTV Unplugged DVD (finally!), Drop In The Park live show 2LP 180g, 2LP 180g of Ten and a ton of passes, tickets, replica notebook and replica original copy of the "Mamasan" cassette of the demos Ed sent back to Jeff and Stone with the first PJ songs on them: "Once", "Alive" and "Footsteps"). I know.

Ten is not my favorite PJ album. In fact, it's my least favorite. Still, it's groundbreaking and set the tone for what was to come over the past 18 years. The band turns 20 in 2011 and will celebrate by re-releasing all of their studio albums in this super-deluxe fasion before then.

All I'm saying is bring that shit on. And thanks for once again, emptying my wallet.

Here's to 20 more years!

"Deep" Live in a small-ass club in SF (1991):

"Wash" from Tower Records, Yonkers NY 1991:

"PJ EPK from 1991":

Mother Love Blog

Really, what can't Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament do? They are reuniting Green River for two nights at Sub Pop Fest in Seattle in less that two weeks, rock balls out of nutsacks with Pearl Jam and at one point, were poised to be the next big thing with Mother Love Bone. Led by the next Freddie Mercury, Andrew Wood, MLB rose up and quickly separated themselves from everything else going on the the Pacific Northwest. It was flamboyant, but not glam. It was rock, but not cock rock. It was awesome.

The rest of the story is history: Deal signed, heroin overdose, Andrew's untimely death, sadness, Mookie Blaylock forms, Temple of the Dog, Pearl Jam. And just for the record, Ed is not and never was a member of Temple of the Dog. Just saying...

With the rise of all things Seattle-related in the early 90's, Polygram/Mercury released everything MLB ever officially recorded and saw through in one package. It was Apple, Shine and for the lucky first few, a bonus disc with "Lady Godiva Blues". "Gentle Groove", "Stardog Champion", "This is Shangrala" and the epic "Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns" sound as fresh today as when they were written. This was going to be THAT band. They were that good.

"I ain't gonna let you down..."

This Shit Is Out of Control

Pearl Jam is on tour. They are playing shit that they never EVER play, or have ever played period. WMA, All Night, Education, Evacuation, Love Reign Over Me, Can't Keep, Light Years, Who You Are, Sometimes...And I can go on like this.

They destroyed Bonnaroo and played an hour longer longer than they were supposed to play, making Douchye West bitch and moan that he didn't get to put his Epcot Center glow costume on at 2am. Boo fucking hoo. You suck and you're overrated. Your sunglasses look like the rear window guard of a '87 Datsun.

Pearl Jam > Fucking Everything

"Who You Are"

Go Tell Everybody

"Go Tell Somebody" was the working title of the brand new King's X record before it was changed to XV. These three Texans meant that shit. XV is not only their best record in 10 years, it might be their crossover record. Don't get me wrong, KX has been promised the brass ring so many times it's not even remotely funny anymore. From the hopeful MTV support of "It's Love" to the Headbangers Ball play of "Dogman" and on to their switch to be Metal Blade's #1 Priority in 1998, this band can't could never catch a break and ride that wave to mainstream success. Fortunately, their music took on different shapes and forms and made them the #1 band on the planet for musicians to be fans of. Just as Pearl Jam, Chris Cornell (not today, maybe seven years ago...Douche bag), Alice In Chains, Dream Theater, Iron Maiden, Porcupine Tree...Shall I go on?

I discovered King's X a bit late. It was 1996 and they had just released Ear Candy, still one of my favorites. i went back and discovered their earlier records but was really a fan of the Dogman and Tapehead LP's. So raw and detuned, yet so beautifully harmonic (three-part harmonies).

Without me going off about how many times I've seen them, following the band around the South in 1998 and 2000, and hanging out with the amazing Dug Pinnick, the bottom line is that King's X are what their new album ad says they are: "Rock Royalty".

The new LP is unbelievable good and fresh and sounds like a band that is hungry once more. Check out Ty, Jerry and Dug's solo and side project material (Poundhound, Supershine, The Mob, Platypus, Jughead, The Jelly Jam, Galactic Cowboys, and the forthcoming Montana w/Jeff and Mike of Pearl Jam) and go tell every motherfucker you know about XV!

"Dogman"
"Julia"

Chris Bore-nell

Dear Chris Cornell,

You bore me. You used to rock. Hell, you rock harder live now than ever before. However, your last record was novice bullshit at best and from the looks of what's to come in the future (I'm looking at you, post-fat current buffed on roids Timbaland), the forcast calls for a shitstorm of epic proportions.

Do you even remember how good you used to be? Matt Cameron seemed to noitce it and joined FUCKING PEARL JAM...And only a mere four months after the demise of Soundgarden. Now it took you two years, but you put out Euphoria Morning in 1999 and it is a gem, a brilliant downtrodden, Jack Daniels-soaked album. Seriously, a masterpiece. Then you formed Audioslave and put out three amazing LP's, each one standing alone from the other two. Then you threw us for a loop and quit while promoting Revelations somewhere in Sweden, where you performed songs from your entire history acoustically and got me so pumped for your second solo disc. Why did you do this to me? Do you not like me? You must not.

Carry On is horrible, Chris. I don't know what you decided not to drink/smoke/inhale/shoot up this time around, but you need that shit...and badly. How badly? Just listen to 10 seconds of "Poison Eye" or "You Know My Name" or view a clip of the ridiculous video for "No Such Thing" and you'll know the answer for yourself. In fact, I think you already know, as you played nearly no songs off Carry On on the debut tour for the album itself!

Listen, this third album collabo with Timbaland is quite possibly the worst idea in the history of the music industry, including such groundbreaking acts like Milli Vanilli, Right Said Fred and Limp Bizkit...Even worse than a possible Yanni/Cannibal Corpse Dance Remix EP. Consider what you did in Soundgarden and cut off the head before it's too late.

To get you motivated to do so, please view the clip below from your past and notice how good it is. Seriously, take notice. Ever wonder why Ben, Kim, Hiro and Matt don't call anymore? They are ashamed to know you.

Thanks Chris. Don't take this too hard. Just warm up to a bottle of Jack, a pack of Reds and write some good songs. I know you have it in you somewhere.

Never bother me again-
S&U

Like A Stone

(My accountant. Nah, just Stoney)

Yes, I love me some Audioslave and all that was Chris Cornell (up until Carry On, which is about as appealing as a turd on a hoagie roll), but this post is about Stone Gossard. Lots of talk about Mr. Gossard this evening over dinner with some friends and my lovely wife. Turns out, he rules.

Do yourself a big favor and dig through the bargain bins for Bayleaf, Stone's only solo album and a serious fucking gem. Every song on this beast is awesome, and not just regular awesome...Angelina Jolie circa 1998 awesome. I bought this thing twice. Once through Pearl Jam's Ten Club for an absurd price, then again thru CD Now for an even bat-shittier price...As a Japanese import with one bonus track, the well-worth-it "Can't Stop". Ranging from Neil Young worship ("Bayleaf"), to Queens of the Stone Age to-the-note rip-off ("Pigeon"), to R&B/funk heaven ("Cadillac"), this LP is truly a favorite in my vast collection. Ty from Green Apple Quickstep lends vocals to three tracks, which just mixes it up, not taking away from the beauty of the record.

It's a damn shame that this got as much love as a Brad record, which also sucks. One of my favorite albums and definitely the strongest side project/solo record in my collection. Just a brilliant glimpse into the world of Stone Gossard in 2001. Rumor is that a follow-up is on the horizon, as well as a completed new Brad LP called Best Friends, already in the can for two years with no release date. Oh, and a new Shawn Smith LP, The Diamond Hand, is due in March via Sound Vs. Silence Records. Cop that shit.

1993 with Brad "20th Century"...Ass-shakin' music

My Baby's In Love With Eddie Vedder

First of all, Weird Al rules. Secondly, she is and we just scored tickets to two of his upcoming few solo shows in support of his solo debut effort, the Into The Wild Soundtrack. It's called the April Fools Tour, so who knows who might show up at these dates. Maybe Pearl Jam? Maybe Neil Young? Maybe Sleater-Kinney? Jesus, I hope not the latter. Only seen them five thousand times, thank you very much Pearl Jam.

Whatever, I'm stoked. The places he's playing hold no more than 2K each, if that. I don't care if he plays a medley of acapella Bad Radio jams or plays "Bugs" for two hours straight (awesome). Whatever he plays is fine by me. It's gonna have to be...He let's his daughter pick out the setlist.

Seattle's Best Kept Secret

Is Shawn Smith really Seattle's Best Kept Secret? Hey, Billboard.com seems to think so and I'm not one to argue mainstream press for one of my all-time favorites. I supposed Mr. Smith is a "secret" because most people just eat what they get fed. They never step outside the box of Top 40 and Wal-Mart mainstream country records to see what beauty lies just a few feet away.

If you are not familiar with Shawn Smith, good fucking God, listen up. Singer/songwriter for so many amazing projects: Brad, Satchel, Pigeonhed, Forever Breakers, From The North, and a slew of simply beautiful solo records. He's been called the Grunge answer to Prince, and while he never made one note of grungy music, he definitely rocks the Prince thing hard. Instead of a skinny black guy, you get a pear-shaped white guy.

My wife and I got to witness Brad rock the Bowery Ballroom in 2003, on tour to support their third LP, "Welcome To Discovery Park". Now, most know that Brad is rounded out by Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard (and other friends from Seattle: Jeremy Toback and Regan Hagar), but what we didn't know is that there's a hardcore fan base that are die-hard Brad/Satchel/Shawn fans that do not like Pearl Jam and follow Brad around the world just like PJ fans do. We were front and center as Brad killed it, playing tracks from all three studio albums, a few Satchel cuts and an unbelievable cover of "Bennie and The Jets".

Satchel is basically just Brad without Stone Gossard (even though he did produce their debut, ESL). Their two albums are right up there with the best of Brad. Then we have the solo records. So good. The first two (including a sick live record) were out of print for years. In fact, I bought two burns off eBay years ago for $80. Yes, their that good. His last release, Shield Of Thorns, was released in 2004, along with the reissues of his first two records, which I had to purchase again. This was followed by a rarities comp, "Brad Vs. Satchel", combining b-sides ad rarities from the last Satchel LP sessions and outtakes from the WTDP sessions for Brad. Holds its own with the best of them. If you want to buy anything from Shawn, you can go to his website and check out the Hoookah link, including rarities, b-sides and tracks from new projects that haven't made it to CD yet: www.shawnsmith.co.uk

Sadly, not many people are in the know of this amazing musician. Even those hardcore within the PJ circuit don't know who Brad is (or any of the other fantastic PJ side projects like Wellwater Conspiracy, Stone Gossard's amazing solo record, Three Fish, The Rockfords, etc). The thing is, the people that know and love Shawn's music are not casual about it...They're (we're) hardcore about it. Shit, I've considered flying to Seattle on many an occasion just to see Shawn play a small club or lounge/bar on just a few days notice. Hell, I'm thinking about it right now. Enjoy now, pay later!

Stuff to check out:

Jeremy Toback (Brad, Satchel)- 3 releases (2 CD's, 1 EP) from the late 90's.
Stone Gossard- Bayleaf
Shawn Smith- Shield Of Thorns
Satchel- The Family
Brad- Interiors (the best record of any of these projects)
Twilight Singers- Twilight (Greg Dulli from the Afghan Whigs, features Shawn on a few tracks)

Check this out and then buy it all:

Brad- "The Day Brings"

Satchel- "Suffering"

Dave A Is Nice

Pearl Jam fan? Me too. How cool is that?!

Those of you that love the Pearl Jams know all about Dave Abbruzzese and the monster drummer he is. I know most PJ fans suck the toes of Jack Irons and he's pretty decent. I mean, this band has had it's share of some of the best rock drummers alive today (Matt Cameron, Matt Chaimberlain, Dave Krusen), but Dave A just plays in a way that makes me want to be a better musician.

His side project-turned full-time gig in the late 90's, Green Romance Orchestra, is killer. Go to their new MySpace page to check em out and to purchase their debut CD fro 1997, which has been out of print for quite some time. Dave does some great drumming, as well as singing, playing guitar, various percussion instruments and writes a bunch of the music.

I read a great article about him yesterday and his new wife and a forthcoming solo album in the works. It promises to rule. Sorry Jack Irons, "Attention Dimension" was a stinker. Even Eddie couldn't help you on your horrific cover of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". Don't cover Pink Floyd.

In conclusion, Dave A is awesome. I believe this picture does the trick.