Video Of The Week: Pearl Jam

Remember in 1995-1996, when the Smashing Pumpkins could do no wrong and went full-artistic with a double album (Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness) as well as a five-CD set of b-sides to accompany it (The Aeroplane Flies High), producing high-budget stop-motion videos for off-kilter singles like 33 and paying tribute to the films of Georges Méliès (Tonight, Tonight) to go with the heroin chic of Zero?

It looks like that's what Josh Wakely was going for when he pitched Pearl Jam his idea for a video based on their new single Retrograde - not the safest bet as a single:

There are nice images and familiar themes - the "end of the world" / Global Warming / nature fights back theme of Gigaton is omnipresent, there are waves and water galore, the idea of people mixed with tarot cards is neat - but the animation doesn't rock my boat, unfortunately.

This one's a nice effort but a miss. Still, it's the best new video out this week.

Video Of The Week: Pearl Jam

When I first heard Pearl Jam's Superblood Wolfmoon last month, ahead of their new record Gigaton's release, I felt a tad underwhelmed by the song. It had a decent riff, but the lyrics seemed too juvenile at first glance, and I got to hoping they wouldn't play it too often on their upcoming tour, where I'd be seeing them at least twice (Ottawa and Québec).

I didn't listen to it that often, for that reason, but once in a while I would hear it on the radio - and I never listen to the radio, but sometimes when my kid won't sleep, I'll tune in to CHOM (Montréal's last remaining rock station) and dance with him in my arms for a while, and it invariably played.

It's been stuck in my head for a couple of weeks now. The hook is addictive. And Keith Ross and the Tiny Concert animation crew did a fine job of capturing the band's energy in their primitive drawings and giving them life in the official video:

I always feel kind of bad when keyboardist Boom Gaspar is left out of the picture, though. The poor guy's been playing with the band since 2002 and still hasn't gotten promoted to "band member", instead remaining officially a "session and touring musician". Yeah, for one band.

Video Of The Week: Pearl Jam

It's been getting easier in the past 10-15 years to hear direct influences of Pearl Jam's newer songs, from the b-side Down sounding like a less-distorted version of AC/DC's You Shook Me (All Night Long); many people hear a Talking Heads influence in their latest video out today, Dance Of The Clairvoyants, but if you keep in mind The Heads have also influenced modern bands like Arcade Fire, you might also detect an eerie similarity to the Montréal band's own Reflektor:

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather they wear their influences on their sleeve and be true to it in their hearts, it's just that the Rock And Roll Hall Of Famers are clearly on a path where they are a lot less ahead of the curve than when they led the rock world.

Sure, with Gigaton, a record that dives head-first into political messaging and the urgency of global warming, their message is still on point, but the the edge no longer cuts.

Director Ryan Cory does a good job of merging the band's energy (and the track's dance-ability) with images of the earth's beauty and strength. Notice how guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament - essentially the band's founders and co-conspirators since the mid-1980s in Green River, then Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone - have switched instruments, with Gossard playing (and having come up with) the bass parts and Ament carrying his axe like a rockabilly twanger. 

They're no longer reinventing rock, but at least they're reinventing themselves. And the song's pretty good, too!

Video Of A Generation: Pearl Jam

To celebrate the band's upcoming induction in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Pearl Jam's official videographer, Kevin Shuss, compiled 25 years' worth of video material set to the tune of their first single, Alive:

There are tons of special guests in there, from Neil Young to members of The Ramones to every drummer in the band's history to Chris Cornell to Ben Harper to the band appearing with or opening for the likes of The Rolling Stones and The Who... it's a neat little compilation/celebration.

Video Of The Week: Pearl Jam

As I'm nearing the end of a streak of sadness, I decided to cap it off with Pearl Jam's ''official video'' for Just Breathe from their 2009 record Backspacer, which is actually taken from a TV broadcast of their appearance on the 2009 Austin City Limits show. It's fitting, though, as the band has always preferred either live videos or not appearing in them at all - they have a bit of an issue with any type of middle ground or compromise when it comes to their art and public appearances, and become intense when both get combined.

If it sounds reminiscent of Eddie Vedder's 2007 soundtrack for Into The Wild, it's because it it: there was a chord in the song Tuolumne that he decided to play with and expand on two years later, which became Just Breathe, which is one of the many PJ songs dealing with death and cycles ending. Many people deem it the best at conveying that message, while I'm partial to Man Of The Hour from the Tim Burton film Big Fish.

Still, Just Breathe has now replaced Yellow Ledbetter as the sad Pearl Jam song playing in movies and TV shows that want to end on a teary note.

It was covered by Willie Nelson on his 2012 album Heroes.

Pearl Jam: Lou Reed Tribute

As tributes came left and right to mark the passing of Lou Reed these past few days, my favourite band got in the mix and covered one of the Velvet Underground's hardest songs - not because it's complicated by any stretch of the imagination, but because it's repetitive and almost toneless. The song is Waiting For The Man; it's from their show in Baltimore last Sunday:



Notice how even Eddie Vedder can't stop himself from moving into his actual, loud voice for the last verse...

Video Of The Week: Pearl Jam

I've been holding back featuring this video for two reasons, mostly: one, it's relatively plain - just a performance video - and also, I don't usually want to showcase Pearl Jam songs where the lyrics aren't top-notch.

In this case, the power-ballad called Sirens, lead singer Eddie Vedder says the line ''Hear the sirens'' three times before saying anything else - and it isn't even the chorus, it's just a verse. Well, technically, he doesn't say it at all during the chorus, but the more he says it, the less I want to hear sirens.

Still, it's a good slow song, and if it can mean it will replace such songs as Daughter (a song now just barely tolerated just to see what classic Vedder will tag at the end rather than for the song itself), Betterman or Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town in their setlists, it'll have made the world better place.

Video Of The Week: Pearl Jam

Here's another one that's grown on me, the lead-off single to Pearl Jam's forthcoming (and ridiculously titled) album Lightning Bolt. As is their habit, PJ made people aware of Mind Your Manners little by little: first through a 15-second clip, then 30 seconds, then audio-only, and now a full, half-animated video.

With verses and riffage reminiscent of Minor Threat and Dead Kennedys (and PJ's own Blood, as well as Spin The Black Circle and Comatose), the Seattle veterans go soft-hardcore punk, if such a thing even exists, but from the second listen on, they actually make it believable - and listenable.

Of course, the days when frontman Eddie Vedder's lyrics were almost like sung poetry (in the vein of Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and Richard Desjardins) are far removed (which pretty much happened around 1998's Yield, when he started letting other band members write some), but there remains familiar enough reference points throughout to appease long-time fans as well as new ones, such as the ever-present visual theme of water as a force to be reckoned with.

I was hoping Vedder would take a cue from his pals from Queens Of The Stone Age and invite other songwriters and guest musicians on board for this record - perhaps the Queen leader himself, Josh Homme - after sub-par showings for the eponymous Avocado record and the uneven, great-at-the-time-but-I-grew-tired-of Backspacer, but this is showing some promise, at least on the catchiness and earworm level for now.

Like Nine Inch Nails' Came Back Hauted, it gets better at every listen, and can easily take my mind of Macklemore and Robin Thicke when they start getting embedded in my brain.

Fallon Does Vedder In Tribute To Jeremy Lin

Jimmy Fallon can't remember the lines he writes for himself, can't really read, is awful at telling jokes and not really excellent at interviewing people either.

But he can sure do music impressions.

Last night, in a tribute to both Jeremy Lin and Pearl Jam, he did an impression of Eddie Vedder circa 1992 that was spot-on, to say the least...

Justice Has Been Served... Better Late Than Never

After 18 years of millions of supporters' efforts surrealistically being ignored by the American Justice System, the West Memphis Three have finally been released, acquitted of murder. Well, technically, they were forced to plead guilty to a lesser charge so they cannot sue the State of Arkansas, but they were released.

Tons of artists such as Pearl Jam (whose singer Eddie Vedder was in attendance accompanied by Johnny Depp, who has joined him in fund-raising concerts), the Dixie Chicks, X, Anthrax, and Sage Francis had publicly taken their side and asked for a new trial - and even less political acts such as My Chemical Romance, Soul Coughing and Mandy Moore went to Twitter to approve of the reversal.

Many books - including the seminal Devil's Knot by Mara Leveritt and WM3 member Damien Echols himself's Almost Home - as well as the documentary Paradise Lost by Joe Berlinger had brought the subject to light, but Vedder's and the Dixie Chicks' voices took it to the mainstream, raising funds for their new legal defense, which included DNA testing and countless hours of lawyers sifting through Arkansas paperwork.

Now comes the treacherous work, though, the flip-side, if you will: these kids had better walk straight for a long while, because hundreds of very public figures have put their asses and reputations on the line for them, and should one of them falter and lead a life of crime and get caught, the backlash/backfire could be grandiose; cries of ''they were criminals'' will erupt and might even affect the other two's lives as well.

So here begins the next biggest battle of their lives...

Video Of The Week: Eddie Vedder

I had wanted to feature this video for two weeks, but decided against it, first with a small tribute to an important creator who had passed away, then with the cheese that I couldn't get out of my head, but I finally have a chance to feature Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder - whose band will play Montréal on September 7th and Ottawa on my birthday a week later! - singing Can't Keep from his ''new'' solo album Ukelele Songs.

I single out the word ''new'' because many Pearl Jam fans had had their hands on some version of the songs on that album for years now, and Can't Keep itself is from PJ'S Riot Act record, not a ''cover'' per se because, like three-quarters of all PJ songs, it was written by Vedder alone.

Once again, the video's is themed around water, with Vedder simply singing the song solo, on his ukelele, atop a mountain on a small island surrounded by water. Simple stuff, but very effective.








Here's a version by Pearl Jam, should you feel like comparing:

Johnny Depp Accompanies Eddie Vedder

It happened at the Voices For Justice Rally, last Saturday, September 4th, to benefit the West Memphis 3.

If you don't know who the West Memphis 3 are, you're better off searching for information online, there's a wealth of it available, but, real quickly, it's these 3 teems who were convicted of the murder of three children over a decade ago - without any kind of evidence whatsoever apart from the fact that they were the only three in their small town who dressed in black and had Metallica t-shirts.

And the kids didn't have enough money to hire good enough lawyers, so they lost. One got Life, one got Life plus 40 years, and one got sentenced to death row. Way to go, Arkansas.

In 2007, DNA evidence was uncovered pitting one of the victims' stepfather at the scene of the crime - and none of the WM3.

John Cusack's Public Nose Job

I think Chris Chelios and/or Eddie Vedder will have a talk with John Cusack, maybe tell him he shouldn't pick his nose on national TV.

Then again, there isn't much to do but drink at a baseball game, and neither of them are holding a drink. Although Vedder doesn't have a good track record of being drunk at a Chicago Cubs game.

Hard to believe a team that hasn't won a championship in 102 years has so many famous fans...

(from deadspin, originally)

Video of the Week: Pearl Jam

Part 2 of my ''Favourite Videos Of All Time'' posts... good thing, too, because I have to get back to newer stuff that I've been listening to (and, of course, watching).

There are two sides when it comes to Pearl Jam - the I Hate and the I Love. Few people are ambiguous. You'll have guessed that if this is one of my two favourite videos of all time, I'm on the I Love team...

My passion for them, though, really is objective. As a matter of fact, I once made fun of people who liked them, back in the 'Jeremy' days, by rocking my head and torso like I was having a seizure and singing 'Jeremy spoke in... spoke in...' to people I knew loved them.

Then I saw them live... It was like witnessing the Second Coming, if you're religious. That Eddie Vedder character can really interact with a crowd, and that Jeff Ament dude can sure jump, and that Mike McCready guy can sure fire up his guitar with fiery solos.

And the songs were good too. All the songs apart from 'Jeremy'. Well, 'Jeremy' too, but it's been overplayed, for sure. But 'Black', 'Alive', 'Why Go', 'Garden' - top-quality stuff. Back then, I was also big on 'Even Flow', more than now, after having witnessed it a dozen times live (at least). And that second record, Vs, better than the first. And their willingness to go to bat for their fans, and their will to shed a part of their fanbase that they disagreed with (and thus a flood of more 'artistic' records like Vitalogy and, my personal favourite, No Code)... and their disdain for the video-making process and the way tehy're presented by networks like MTV...

It all led to them, in 1992, at the height of their popularity, after winning 5 MTV Awards for 'Jeremy' (and, I think, a Grammy for it as well)... until 1998's 'Do The Evolution' - in which they don't even appear.

'Do The Evolution' is Todd McFarlane's first all-animated video (ahead of the one he did for Korn just a few months later) and first aired, in Canada, the day after their 1998 Toronto performance (August 22nd, officially in barrie, Ontario, a great fucking show, of course). It depicts the evolution of mankind, through wars, famine and genocide - and paints a pretty bleak picture of where we come from and where we're headed, with a bit of the old 'History Repeats Itself' thrown in for good measure.

It was groundbreaking then, but because PJ had gone under the radar in those years, many people not only have yet to see their greatest video, they have also yet to hear one of their best songs - period. It's their loss. I present it here anyway, because I'm a good person, but those who don't like them likely won't even bother, but if they did, they'll be amazed that the whole thing still stands today - both the message and the quality of the art.

Soundgarden: Professional Assholes

I was waiting so impatiently for August 19th, 1994 to arrive. 364 days after the best show I've ever seen (Pearl Jam, 1993-08-20, Verdun Auditorium), it was Soundgarden's turn to rock the Auditorium.

Those two bands had so much in common, they were practically sister bands: Pearl Jam had come to be only after the death (by overdose) of Andy Wood, lead singer of Mother Love Bone, when half the band (Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard) went looking for something new. As ''luck'' would have it, Chris Cornell, leader of Soundgarden, was his roommate. When Wood died, Cornell, his bandmates and a few friends who had known him got together to record the Temple Of The Dog record, 10 songs released in 1991 in tribute to Wood, most written entirely by Cornell, except three where Gossard created the music to accompany Cornell's words.

One of those songs, Times Of Trouble, was later re-made by Pearl Jam, keeping the music, but with Eddie Vedder creating new lyrics and vocal pieces for a track now named Footsteps.

And Soundgarden's drummer, Matt Cameron, was actually behind the kit for the demos Pearl Jam recorded when they were shopping their songs to labels; he has also been their permanent drummer since a 1998 accident caused Jack Irons to forfeit the Yield tour, never to return.

So when 1994 came around, Soundgarden were touring what turned out to be their most successful record, Superunknown, a record on which they seemingly abandoned their previous ''heavy metal'' sound in favour of a more subtle and subdued approach reminiscent of Pearl Jam's sound, while Cornell himself, at the time known for his high-pitched squeals, like most of his contemporaries, took on a Vedder-like low growl where lyrics were now mumbled instead. But the songs were very strong.

They had lost some originality but were following some pretty solid footsteps, as PJ, at the time, could do no wrong: consecutive record-breaking release dates, taking over airwaves for pirate radio shows, fighting for low concert ticket prices, and a reputation for being the best live act in the world.

It was a no-brainer when came the time to purchase my show tickets. The show's date and the place where it was set to happen made the coincidences look like an alignment of stars any fortune teller would call ''fate''.

All summer long, as the sounds of Black Hole Sun took over from the riff-mania that was Spoonman on the radio and on TV music channels, as interest grew for this sold-out show, I looked forward to a night of awesomeness. I was even more excited when they announced the Reverend Horton Heat was going to open for them; we were getting top-notch talent, the same show Americans were getting, which to this day is still a little unusual. There are still acts who can't make it through the border and have to be replaced by local talent, which dims the overall spectacularness of the evening more often than not.

The day before, I had gone to the local HMV record store as I had a habit of doing when downtown, and purchased a CD (I forget which one) and a poster - that I still have. A typical band poster where all members can be seen from head to toe in front of a generic landscape that seemingly never ends. The band was Jesus Lizard, who are coming back in town this Fall, as it so happens, after perhaps a decade on hiatus.

After that, I went to see a movie at Place Alexis-Nihon, which no longer exists, but there's an AMC theater accross the street from where it used to be... where our hockey team used to play (Le Forum, the Temple Of Hockey in the Mecca of hockey, but I digress). I forget which movie, and who I was with, but I'll never forget what happened there.

An usher, having realized I was wearing a Soundgarden T-shirt (basically the Badmotorfinger album cover) came up to me to tell me ''hey man, 'The Dude from Soundgarden', your shirt, he's HERE, he's watching a movie right now, you want to meet him? His movie ends in like 5 minutes, I'll catch him when he gets out''.

And catch him he did. There was Kim Thayill, lead guitarist and one of the hairiest humans on the planet, accompanied by two, uh, ladies (one on each arm), stepping out of the screening room, and the usher forcing himself onto him like a bulimic running for an empty toilet stall, knocking other people on his way there. He points to me, in the distance yet at the front of my lane, and he (the usher) looks like a hyperventilating Britney Spears fan who wants her to be ''left alone'' - you know the type.

And there comes Thayill, with his two, uh, escorts, walking over to me.

''I guess you want an autograph?'', he asks, a black Sharpie pen already on him.

''Uh, yeah, sure, why not'' I answer, looking in my pocket for him to sign my movie ticket stub since I didn't have anything else to write on, really, when he takes my poster from out of my hands and signs its back, the white part, behind where the picture is, and he leaves.

I turn to the person I was with and tell her: ''the bastard! He ruined my Jesus Lizard poster!''

Indeed, what kind of motherfucker signs a poster without checking if he's on it first? He could have killed two birds with one stone just by attempting to sign the picture at least, where he'd have seen it wasn't his band on it...

So I left the theater angry after seeing a movie I don't even remember anymore (possibly Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, but who knows, really?) and went home to dream about how great the next day's performance was going to be. Because if there's one thing I've learned from television, it's that stars can sometimes be total jerk-offs all the while doing their job (be it acting, singing, playing music, directing, or ''being Paris Hilton'', whatever she does) very well.

The day went by pretty quickly and can be summed up pretty easily: a bunch of friends and I, separately or together, at some point, were all getting ready to go to the show. Verdun Auditorium is situated on the island of Montréal, close to downtown, and is two blocks away from a subway station, in a district called Verdun. In 1994, it was its own city but has since been incorporated into Montréal, so they could have a reason for their streets to be filthy, and to pay higher property taxes. The Auditorium is one of the warmest amphitheaters in the city for rock shows, which is ironic considering it's a small-to-mid-size hockey arena (sitting upwards of 5000 people per game).

Reverend Horton Heat rocks the house and, indeed, brings the heat in. We all resort to drinking beer because it is cheaper than water but also because the place is boiling; the walls are wet from sweat and condensation, people are fainting, it will be a night to remember for those of us who will stay awake to see all of it.

Soundgarden takes the stage and, as is to be expected, girls go wild for Cornell and a frenzy develops up front, where most of the people I know are, including my friend Sylvie, who hopes to be as lucky as last year, when she spent most of Pearl Jam's show making out with a total stranger whose name she never got and whom she never saw again. I'm at the right-hand of the stage, crowd-wise, left-hand side for the band, right in front of bass player Ben Shepherd.

By the fourth of fith song in, the heat is unbearable. I get a flash that sometimes, at Verdun, firemen hose people when it gets too hot, but none of them are in sight. Shepherd, however, has over a dozen water bottles on his bass amp, and drinks from them often. At song six, he feigns giving one to an audience member, then proceeds to just empty it out on the fucking stage. Just like that, wasting the water, taunting us. And he does it again and again.

Thayill is at the other end completely, totally ignoring the crowd, more often than not facing drummer Matt Cameron, the rest of the time looking at the floor. Cornell, for his part, tries to be the rock god he's always dreamed of being, what with Bono-like arm extensions to the ceiling and to the crowd and, of course, the inevitable Jesus Christ Pose.

But rock stars attract teenage girls, and apparently Cornell, true to his indie/street-cred reputation of a real and faithful and loving married man wanted nothing of it, so when Black Hole Sun started and little girls were throwing their hands up to Cornell who had let go of his guitar and was strutting at the edge of the stage pretending to mingle with fans, all he could think of doing was hitting them on the hands with his microphone, not in a ''high-five'' kind of way, but more like a ''I will break your fingers'' kind of way... which was so wrong.

After two hours of bad-sounding half-assed rocking in an arena that was too hot, Cornell and co. left the building - and so did 5000 of us, most of us extremely disappointed, some of us angered, at least one of us thinking Soundgarden were nothing but Professional Assholes.

P.S.: Matt Cameron, hidden behind his drum kit for the whole of the evening, did nothing asshole-y, I must admit. But I think I still begrudge him his former bandmates because as of today, 2009, he is still the only member of Pearl Jam I wouldn't follow blindly. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that he replaced my favourite drummer (Irons) in my favourite band...