‘Look what I picked up at Record Store Day,’ my friend Dave emailed me the other day, along with the picture below.
Ahh, yes, Record Store Day. Curses. I keep forgetting it each year. The above look like two fine additions to anyone’s record collection. Continue reading
Riot Act turned 14 earlier this month, along with its immediate predecessor Binaural a somewhat underrated album in the middle of the Pearl Jam pack.* Both albums were critically acclaimed on release, but over time their lustre has seemingly dimmed for many (though not for me; they remain strong personal favourites). Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it’s the early albums, along with the more overtly straightforward rock contained in Yield, that continue to have find more favour generally, as evidenced by this Rolling Stone readers’ poll from July 2013.**
Pearl Jam are touring South America this month, so a chance to share a few songs from the tour, along with the posters. Continue reading
Funny, I’d expected McCready to gravitate towards my Fender Squier Stratocaster in honour of his namesake,* but it would seem it’s the Vintage SG-type guitar that’s taken his fancy. This little chap is clearly ready to rock.** Perhaps he’s dreaming up a few Thayil-style solos… Continue reading
“Thoughts on Montage of Heck?” my friend Eric tweeted me the other day. “It might be my favorite rock doc ever — totally overpowering and draining emotionally.”
Tuatara. Barrett Martin is, umm, he’s, errr, you figure it out.
With his jazz background, Barrett Martin has always been a different type of drummer to other well-known Seattle mainstays wielding their drumsticks: during his time in Screaming Trees and with Mad Season, he revealed his ear for tribal rhythms, never better exemplified than how live he added extra depth, groove and propulsion to the lengthy jam of ‘All Alone’ and ‘November Hotel’ from the latter band’s timeless Above album.
Mad Season back in the day (l-r): McCready, Saunders, Staley, Martin.
Mad Season are gigging at the end of the month, as part of the Seattle Symphony’s Sonic Evolution series; the event is taking place at Benaroya Hall on 30 January, and will feature orchestral and solo arrangements of some of their songs.*
Today (6 January) is the 12th day of Christmas, so it’s my last chance until next December to get this post written whilst maintaining a veneer of topicality. We took down the Christmas tree this evening; doesn’t Christmas whizz by these days?!
In recent years (since 2009, as you’ll soon figure out), Becky has put her innate cracked-but-crafty* talents into practice by making me Pearl Jam-related Christmas cards, and this seems an opportune moment to present a gallery of her mighty fine creations, in reverse chronological order.**
2014 Christmas card
Carrying on my (charmingly intermittent) series on Pearl Jam posters, here’s this autumn’s harvest from their 12-date North American tour, along with notes about a few of the gigs. Click on the dates themselves to see setlists; professional bootleg recordings are available from the Bootleg page on the Pearl Jam website. The Bridge School concerts and Ed’s solo gig are being saved for separate posts.
Further to my recent post about next weekend’s Bridge School concert, here are Pearl Jam playing ‘Walk With Me’ with Neil Young at the 2010 concert.
It’s the lead-off song on Young’s 2010 album Le Noise (his thirty-first studio album, apparently), and the video’s from The Kids Are Twenty, disc two of the PJ20 deluxe edition.
www.radioseattle.co.uk
radio seattle 