Month: September 2018

Least to Most: Pearl Jam – No Code

/ Tony / 11 Comments

“It’s a record that is semi-unprofessional. We were just kind of winging it and trying stuff that maybe didn’t quite work… But you listen to it ten years later and go, ‘Fuck! That’s jamming!'”
Stone Gossard

July 12th 1995, in the middle of a heatwave in Chicago (one that accounted for 739 heat-related deaths in five days), Pearl Jam were feeling the itch. The night before they had played a massive 31-song set to 47,000 fans at the city’s Soldier Field and wanted to make the most of the energy from the show (and Vitalogy tour), they entered a studio at Chicago Recording Company to lay down some songs for their next album. No rest for the wicked. Jeff Ament would later admit that “I don’t think we’d quite figured out how to schedule ourselves at that point.” They were there for a week with songs like ‘Off He Goes’ and ‘In My Tree’ coming from those sessions.

Recording proper for No Code picked up in the start of 1996 and marked the start of a tense period for the band. For one thing, Jeff Ament didn’t know that work was underway until three days into sessions and “wasn’t super involved with that record on any level.” Meanwhile there were persistent rumours of a power-struggle within Pearl Jam – that Eddie was taking control of the band over Stone and Jeff with Ament even walking out of sessions on several occasions on what he perceived as Vedder’s stifling of his own writing. Whereas the bass player now says that “really what was happening was that Ed was bringing in complete songs and nobody else was. The cream was floating to the top.”

Vedder was hitting new pay dirt as a songwriter – writing increasingly personal and reflective songs as well as making jumps in his melody and hook writing. ‘Off He Goes’ is actually a song as an apology for his being a shit friend.

A look at the songwriting credits shows that a large chunk of No Code‘s songs are all-Vedder and the singer was behind every lyric with the exception of Stone Gossard’s ‘Mankind’.

Meanwhile the band were still playing shows. Jack Irons pointed out that “It was difficult to tour and play these shows that were two or three hours long and then force ourselves to produce something in a studio,” while Brendan O’Brien (behind the desk for his third Pearl Jam album) would also add that “Ed’s typically the guy who finishes off the songs…But by the end of No Code, he was so burnt, it was so much work for him.”

Why were the band so tired? It could be down to the strain of the Vitalogy tour – this was their first without playing Ticketmaster venues which meant a huge amount of work went into organising every show, something that Gossard stated took the fun out of being in the band. It could be the fact that in 1995 the band, minus Vedder, had backed Neil Young on his Mirror Ball album and European tour. It could also be the fact that this was the band’s fourth album in just five years – No Code and Ten were both released five years apart to the day – and they simply hadn’t stopped since.

BUT. But but but…. No Code is, despite all this, a fucking awesome album and one that is bristling with their finest songs. It’s not a first-listen album. It was the third Pearl Jam album I bought as I’d love ‘Red Mosquito’ so much after hearing it on Live on Two Legs – this was pre-Amazon and when you could only really get what the music shop had in on a given day or order specific titles – and it took me a while to grow to love this album as much as I do but every time I do I hear more and more that blows me away.

The only reason I don’t say out-and-out that this is their finest is that I genuinely feel the sound-quality detracts from these songs. It could be the fact they were deliberately trying to take the commercial edge off (Kurt Cobain and In Utero have a lot to answer for) or – as Brendan O’Brien would point out – the issues and technical hiccups from working at Stone Gossard’s Studio Litho. But the songs sound restrained, even tired – no real surprise. Mike McCready would later say “I think we kind of rushed it a little bit” as the songs were more jam-session than finished but his and Vedder’s ‘Present Tense’ is easily in my Pearl Jam Top Five and always elicits a suitable rapturous response when played live:

Oddly enough, when the band almost re-made No Code with Yield  a couple of years later with a deliberately accessible sound and more sharing of the songwriting, the sound was perfect but the songs weren’t quite as strong.

Speaking of strong, No Code isn’t all experimentation. There’s a volley of some of Pearl Jam’s fiercest rockers on amongst its thirteen tracks with Hail Hail’, ‘Lukin’ and ‘Habit’.

From it’s hushed opener ‘Sometimes’ – compared to the forceful openings of the three previous albums – to the roaring ‘Habit’ and ‘Lukin’ via the tribal rhythms of ‘In My Tree’ and up to the sedate closer ‘Around The Bend’, No Code is Pearl Jam’s most diverse record and one of their strongest collection of songs. If only the sound / mix were as clear as it deserved to be this would be top of this list every day for me.

Spinning The New… 2

/ Tony / 4 Comments

Taking a momentary pause from the Pearl Jam series for, as those playing along at home may have sussed our, the final three all dropped between 1993 and 1996 and I thought it was time to take a quick gander at the newer stuff spinning right now.

This is fairly genre-specific. I’m not about to jump any sharks and start discussing Eminem’s ‘diss track’ (this is something that baffles me as a concept) or even start talking about the new Paul McCartney stuff (some of the worst material I’ve heard from the former Fab that didn’t involve frogs). While I have heard the new Smashing Pumpkins track I must have dozed off listening to it so it’s not going to be appearing here.

Mogwai – We’re Not Done Yet (End Title)

Another year another new Mogwai album. Well, sort of. These dons of post-rock have seemingly hit a real stride in terms of output as there’s a been a release per year of late alternating between ‘studio’ and ‘soundtrack’ album. Their soundtrack albums are different to their ‘own’ as the music is, obviously enough, written to suit someone else’s vision / story but each have been strong and worth additions to their catalogue (take Atomic as a prime example). Kin the film would appear to be destined to be seen by nobody: a box office and critical bomb. Kin the soundtrack should be heard by many – it’s a great, moody, sci-fi soundtrack that feels like it could just as easily blend into the background on Stranger Things (yes, I’m a very recent convert all binge-watched up to speed).

Jim James – Just A Fool

Back in 2015 My Morning Jacket were talking up the possibility of a very quick follow up the then-new The Waterfall on the back of how much material they’d written and recorded in those sessions. It hasn’t happened and can’t see it happening any time soon. Instead we got three solo albums from Jim James: one patchy, one a continuation of his covers project and this year’s Uniform Distortion which I picked up from the record store while collecting my pre-order of Kin. Uniform Distortion feels actually like a very fine MMJ album and is well worth exploring.

Kurt Vile – Loading Zones

There’s a new Kurt Vile album dropping later this year and I’ve already got it on pre-order. I got hooked on Vile’s sound following Smoke Ring For My Halo. There’s something hypnotic about Vile’s sound and once you’re hooked.. well.

J Mascis – See You At The Movies

Oddly enough, there’s a direct line between Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis and Kurt Vile in terms of style and sound and the two have often shared a track. It’s fitting, then, that Mascis has a new solo record dropping this autumn too – his solo work is less wall-of-sound guitar than the Dino albums but he’s started mixing his trademark guitar solos and shredding into his folksier / acoustic solo stuff to strong results so I’m looking forward to Elastic Days – also on pre-order from my not-quite local dealer.

Least to Most: Pearl Jam – Yield

/ Tony / 9 Comments

“There was probably a middle period where we didn’t write so much. The middle records. Maybe the third record, I think I was just writing a bunch of songs on guitar myself. But now it’s, like, a total collective. It’s all of us in there with our hammers and claws, banging it out.”
Eddie Vedder

There’s so much to love about Pearl Jam’s fifth studio album, Yield. As Vedder was keen to point out at the time of the album’s release – it marked a return to a more collaborative approach to songwriting that had been missing (though not perhaps to the degree as that opening quote suggests) from the band’s previous two albums. In fact, Yield features only two songs solely written by Vedder, making it their most collaborative effort since Vs and one that would only later be matched by Pearl Jam.

So what changed? “I remember there being a stressful conversation, bordering on an argument…. we had to tun a corner on people relating to whatever they wrote as being a song, and not just a riff. It had to have space. It had to have to allow another part, which might potentially be an important part.” It took a while, from Vedder’s point of view, but by the time of Yield, drummer Jack Irons noticed a a movement toward having everybody participate more.” Ed’s call for more complete ideas to be bought to the table – I’m guessing that penning a fifth album in six years was starting to feel daunting- meant that for the first time on a Pearl Jam album (with the exception of No Code‘s ‘Mankind’) the “all lyrics by Eddie Vedder” label was missing: Gossard and Amend both contributed two songs apiece with music and lyrics, including one of my favourite Pearl Jam songs, ‘Low Light’ – a Jeff Ament composition:

All this means that the album has a real blend of styles yet remains one of their most cohesive and accessible albums. Partly, if not totally looking at the couple that followed sound-wise, to the decision to ultimately get Brendan O’Brien involved again. Well… turns out it wasn’t their decision and that’s something else I love about this album.

When they wound down touring behind No Code and began writing the material for their next album (they’d still not mastered taking a break) the guys knew they wanted the album to be more accessible but wanted to produce it themselves. Turned out O’Brien wasn’t impressed – “I remember getting on a conference call… they said they were going to make the next record a little more listener friendly. But then they said ‘We want to try it on our own and maybe bring you in at the end to help us finish it am mix it’. And I said ‘What?! Listen! I helped you on this last record. I went through all that with you guys to get to this. And now you’re telling me you want to make a more commercial-sounding record without my help? You’re out of your mind!”

So enraged was O’Brien that he demanded they tell him in person why they thought it was a good idea to go it alone, got on a plane to Seattle the next day. They sat round a kitchen table, talked it out and then started working. He wouldn’t go home for a few weeks. Perhaps like that it sounds a bit arrogant but there’s no denying the band had done their best work with O’Brien and he deserved a shot, not only that but the band were also glad of his involvement: “I’m very glad Brendan flew up. I’m glad we didn’t produce Yield ourselves… to have someone you respect that has equal or better ears than you. I don’t know if we would have had that perspective at the time,” Mike McCready would later recall.

For his involvement – McCready’s songs on Yield included one of Pearl Jam’s finest moments, a tune that the album almost centres around:

Coming out of a dark time in his life and, feeling that it was behind him, was penning tunes that “were kind of celebratory. ‘Given to Fly’ musically was kind of that statement. That’s why there’s all the peaks and valleys in it.” It, and Vedder’s ‘Wishlist’ is one of the band’s most beloved songs. It’s also one that I would sing as a lullaby to my son when he was just a baby – the fact that he’s at school now as I write this makes me treasure this song all the more and only highlights how personal my connection to this batch of songs is. It’s a funny old thing, music, and how much it can tie itself to your memories.

Back to the ‘so many things to love’ – for some reason the birth of this song itself makes me smile: McCready had some studio time booked with a mutual friend and invited Vedder to join (“It looked like a boring ‘Hard Copy’ that night, so I dediced to go in the studio”) and ‘Wishlisht’ “popped out” – originally twice as long with a lot more ‘wishes’ but it’s a real example of the organic way in which so much of Yield seems to have come about.

In a way, Yield is an album of ends and beginnings. This was the band’s last album of the 90’s and feels like it contains some of the last vestiges of their earlier ‘rough / raw’ edges like the tough ‘Brain of J’ and ‘Pilate’ and the blistering ‘Do The Evolution’ that marked the band’s return to offering a music video for the first time since a clip had been made for ‘Oceans’ – Jeff Ament had said at the time “Ten years from now, I don’t want people to remember our songs as videos.” That being said, the band themselves didn’t appear in the video:

‘Do The Evolution’ came about in the same way as ‘Wishlist’ – though with guitarist Stone Gossard finding Vedder in the studio with no weekend plans and wanting something on the album that was a little more rock other than ‘Brain of J’ – itself a holdover from 1995.

It was also the band’s last album with Brendan O’Brien for a while – he wouldn’t get the call to sit behind the big desk for another ten years – and the last with drummer Jack Irons. Having quietly battled a bipolar condition since his midtwenties, the drummer had since said good bye to his medications and found that touring wasn’t going to work with his approach to getting healthy naturally after suffering through a ‘major manic episode’ during the Australian tour to promote Yield: “I stuck to my guns, but, unfortunately, that meant not being in Pearl Jam anymore. It wasn’t that simple. I was really not well.”

So, some seven / eight years after drumming on the demo tape that was sent to Vedder and a little under a year since Soundgarden split, Matt Cameron got asked “what are you doing this summer?”, learnt 80 songs in under two weeks and took up residence on Pearl Jam’s drum seat.

I think Jack Irons is an often underrated drummer for Pearl Jam. Perhaps overlooked as a place-holder between their BIG TWO: Dave Abbruzzese and Matt Cameron. Not only was he an amazing referral service in slipping Vedder the original demo tape but he had a real propulsive drum sound as well as a real interest in experimenting and pushing the envelope – what he would call his ‘weird suff’. But check out the drums throughout No Code and Yield and there’s a very distinct difference in styles that drives those tunes on in a different direction:

The somewhat reluctant return to the music video format that ‘Do The Evolution’ marked and the determined embrace of a more accessible sound seemed to look like some of the angst that the band had carried with them since their initial era was beginning to thaw and so, Yield also feels like the ushering in of the new ‘mature’ Pearl Jam that we know today. Hell, tired of the slog that was the No Code tour the promotion of Yield would mark the band’s return to full scale touring and use of Ticketmaster. It was as though the band had started to feel more like reaching out after spending so long saying ‘no’.

It worked: ‘Given To Fly’ was a prominent feature on the radio (it topped what those crazy Americans call the ‘Mainstream Rock Charts’ for six weeks) with second single ‘Wishlist’ faring strong too. Yield tore up the charts when it was released and while it didn’t hit the top spot it beat No Code in first-week sales and the subsequent tour was such a success that the band capture it on their first – and still finest – live album Live On Two Legs.

There’s nothing to find fault in on Yield – although I don’t have as much fondness for ‘Red Dot’ and ‘Push Me / Pull Me’ as I do the rest of the album. I also love the fact that, having seemed to push the bulk of their Ten audience away for so long, that by the time the band finally released the commercial sounding album that audience had been waiting for,  it had stopped listening. This was one for those that had stayed in touch. Here they sound free – as though for the first time they’ve shaken off the cloud of trying not to make an album that sounds like Ten 2.

Why is this number four and not number one? We’re now at the point where there’s really nothing between these albums and, on any given day, I could just as easily proclaim Yield Pearl Jam’s finest album – especially if I’d just listened to it. But, when I drew up the list for this series, it sits here and that feels pretty ok still.

Highlights – All of it.

Book Review: The Lion Tamer Who Lost by Louise Beech

/ Tony / Leave a comment

From the PR: “Be careful what you wish for…  Long ago, Andrew made a childhood wish, and kept it in a silver box. When it finally comes true, he wishes he hadn’t… Long ago, Ben made a promise and he had a dream: to travel to Africa to volunteer at a lion reserve.

When he finally makes it, it isn’t for the reasons he imagined… Ben and Andrew keep meeting in unexpected places, and the intense relationship that develops seems to be guided by fate. Or is it? What if the very thing that draws them together is tainted by past secrets that threaten everything?

A dark, consuming drama that shifts from Zimbabwe to England, and then back into the past, The Lion Tamer Who Lost is also a devastatingly beautiful love story, with a tragic heart…”

Hmmm… once again I find myself sitting here wondering how to review a book and how to review one as enjoyable and brilliantly written as The Lion Tamer Who Lost without giving away any spoilers.

I think I’ll start by saying that Louise Beech is a sod. I’ve used the analogy before but reading one of Louise’s novels is akin to watching a Pixar film: you know (or you bloody well should by now) that there’s gonna be an emotional punch to the gut coming up and you start with your guard up but she’s so good at pulling you into the story and the characters that you’re so immersed in it that you forget and then it really flaws you. Only this time she does it twice!!

This is not a bad thing. In fact, there is not a single bad thing about The Lion Tamer Who Lost. I thoroughly enjoyed every page and, once again, Louise Beech refuses to shy away from subject matters that other writers may fear to touch.

For a non-thriller (I have no idea what ‘genre’ most novels are these days nor do I care to) there’s a huge amount of mystery and suspense in The Lion Tamer Who Lost and it really keeps you gripped  – from the moment it’s hinted at – “He came here for the now. For this. He surveys again the new and beautiful land. Every day, every moment, he tries to hard not to think about…” – in the opening pages it’s a case of “what? what is it???” and a real desire to find out exactly what Ben escaped in England even as you’re drawn into the ongoing drama unfolding in Zimbabwe.

As to how Louise Beech reveals ‘it’… it’s clear she’s really hit her stride as a writer now. The narrative ducks and dives between moments of drama and revelation in the past and present and across different character voices as fragments become whole and viewpoints become fully rounded and the whole story is woven masterfully together.

Oh and it’s bloody funny too and charming and warm throughout, written with real attention to character detail and little nuances that make these more than just entries on a page (or Kindle or whatever you substitute print, binding and bookshops for 😉 ) and really helps you get pulled in to the story and root for a positive outcome for them – lookout: here comes that Pixar Punch from Mrs Beach!

Put simply, The Lion Tamer Who Lost is a bloody brilliant, absorbing and compelling read that will knock you sideways with its emotional honesty and power. I genuinely look forward to the next novel from Louise.

My thanks, as always, to Karen at Orenda Books – a purveyor  of nothing but the finest fiction – for my copy.

Least to Most: Pearl Jam – Ten

/ Tony / 9 Comments

“It all just fell together. No one really compromised toward each other at all. It was kind of a phenomenon, in a way. We’d all played music for six, seven, eight years and been in different bands, and we were feeling something that we’d never really felt before, with all the honesty and the way it was all coming out.”

Here we go then – the one where it all started. It would be somewhat redundant to try and offer one of my semi-reviews of such a well known and covered album so this one’s more about my relationship with Ten.

First, though; a quick, potted history on how Pearl Jam and Ten came to be…. On March 16th 1989 Andrew Wood was found in a comatose state by his girlfriend after od’ing on heroin. A prominent figure on the nascent Seattle music scene, Wood was the lead singer of Mother Love Bone a band which he’d formed with a drummer called Regan Hagar and two other blokes called Jeff Amend and Stone Gossard – both already established figures on the ‘scene’ thanks to their former band Green River, a band that could quite credibly claim to be the first ‘grunge’ band. Mother Love Bone had earlier signed to PolyGram and were awaiting the release of their album Apple. Three days after Wood’s overdose he was removed from life support and was shortly pronounced dead.

Wood’s death was a blow to the scene. In a way it was the first turning point and the wake up call to the reality of drug abuse that it hadn’t yet experienced -but that’s a different post. Gossard and Ament were devastated. Stone ducked out of sight and began writing harder edged music and began jamming with local guitarist Mike McCready who, in turn, realised they were on to something and encouraged Stone to reconnect with Jeff Ament. The three put together an eight song instrumental demo tape – with McCready’s former bandmate Chris Friel drumming on a couple and Matt Cameron, in a strange twist of fate, on the rest – to send out to find a permanent drummer and singer.

In the late summer of 1990, Ament and Gossard travelled to LA and gave a copy of their demo to Jack Irons hoping the former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer would join their band. Irons couldn’t – he’d just signed up to a tour with another band in the name of guaranteed income for his just-about-to-start family but agreed to pass it on to any singers he knew. Turns out he knew a guy called Eddie Vedder who could hold a note…

Ten and Nevermind (released a month after Pearl Jam’s debut) became cultural phenomenons and ushered in a wave of commercial success and radio airplay that had been hitherto unknown to alternative rock and represented the breaking of the damn for the ‘grunge’ scene. It’s sold more than 13 million copies and remains the band’s calling card – their most commercially successful album and, in many case, the only album by the band that some people own.

And… I can’t blame those people for whom Ten represents the sole Pearl Jam marker in their collection. I mean – take a look at that mid-section: ‘Even Flow’, ‘Alive’, ‘Why Go’, Black’, ‘Jeremy’, ‘Oceans’ in one six-song burst. As debuts go, Ten is up there with the finest.

It’s one of hell of an addictive entry drug. I vividly remember my first taste in what was either late ’98 or early ’99. I’d tried to buy Yield not long after it came out based on a shite load of good reviews I’d read but the shop didn’t have the actual CD in – this was one of those places that displayed the cases which you’d take to the till and pay for before they pulled the disc from a little cardboard sleeve behind the counter in an effort to reduce theft – and bought OK Computer instead and had that avenue of sound opened up instead. But, sometime later, during my first year at Uni I dropped into a now long gone local independent called Ricard’s Records and picked up Ten and Live on Two Legs (again based on reviews). Both would serve as great entry drugs but it was Ten I first slipped into my car’s CD player that day and sat there hooked as the brief interlude of ‘Master/Slave’ gave way to the force of ‘Once’. That power, the dynamics and then Vedder’s voice! By the time I got to Pearl Jam I’d already had the misfortune to hear all the imitators before hearing the dude that stated that way of singing. And what was he singing? ‘I admit it’? ‘I am livid’? The inlay offered no real help.

I listened to it three times before letting it move on to the next tune and already knew I had a new favourite song. I’d later discover that ‘Once’ formed part of the Momma-Son trilogy with ‘Footsteps’ and ‘Alive’ – the three songs that Vedder put lyrics and vocals to from Jeff and Stone’s demo and that it, the middle of the trilogy, was about a man’s descent into madness and becoming a serial killer. All I knew then was that it fucking rocked my speakers out and I had it cranked up enough to pick up the “You think I got my eyes closed but I’m lookin’ at you the whole fuckin’ time…” mumble in the break down.  Then there’s ‘Even Flow’… I mean yeah sure now I’ve heard it more times than I care to but hearing that for the first time.. and ‘Jeremy’, I mean, shit; this is the good stuff:

Not to mention ‘Black’ – the ballad that every ballad they’d later put out would be benchmarked against. I remember hearing that and just… you know it all connects. Yes there’s a degree of angst/cliche to all that early Pearl Jam and Seattle stuff that doesn’t necessarily age well but then, just seven years or so removed from its release, it still sounded fresh and genuine. It’s one of those things that warmed Kurt Cobain to them, eventually; Vedder really fucking means it. He’s not going through the motions.

But beyond those clutch of songs that everyone knows and still receive regular radio play closing on three decades on – the deep cuts on Ten are the best – ‘Oceans’, ‘Garden’ and ‘Release’ are what sealed the deal for me. The whole father-son thing was a big thing for Vedder in those early Pearl Jam records and it was all over this one: “Oh dear Dad, can you see me now?  I am myself, like you somehow. I’ll wait up in the dark, for you to speak to me. I’ll open up.. Release Meeee… Release meeeeeee” I mean yeah you could eat the angst with a spoon but – again – the force in that performance.

I fell headlong into consuming as much of this new-to-me band as I could and it all starts with Ten.  So…. why is it not at number one for me or higher up this list? Essentially: I don’t think Ten is representative of the band. The diversity and experimentation that would be the highlights of their studio albums hadn’t yet really began and while they’d played a fair few shows by the point they recorded the dynamic and tightness of the band wasn’t 100% there.

Not only that but I think the production and mix of Ten robs the songs of a lot of their punch. It’s all sort of lost in a kind of wash. In my digital ‘shelves’ I’ve got a boot labelled “First Week Rehearsal Demos” and, accuracy of the label aside, the versions of the same songs on that are a lot rawer and more powerful. Even Eddie’s vocals sound a little odd on the finished Ten compared to both demos and early live shows… even compared to his tracks on Temple of the Dog‘s ‘Hunger Strike’.

The band themselves obviously weren’t that keen on the final sound – they wouldn’t work with Rick Parashar on their next album and their next, long term producer Brendan O’Brien would be pestered by Jeff Ament to remix Ten for years before finally doing so in 2009, as Jeff stated: “somewhere in the late nineties, I found a rough mix tape of Ten. I played it on cassette and that’s when I started saying, ‘we have to remix Ten.’ It would usually happen after we’d been in a club or something, and we’d hear a song from it. It was like “Ugh! This is killing me!” At one point, I told Brendan I’d pay him to just do a version for me so if I had to listen to a song to relearn it or whatever, I’d hear the proper version.”

Essentially, very soon after recording, the songs from Ten took on a new harder, faster sound than what was captured and it very soon ceased to be a reflection of the band Pearl Jam were on their way to becoming. So, as much as I love Ten as the entry point into a long-lasting love of the band and the songs on it are faultless – it’s the live versions of those songs and O’Brien’s remix that I reach for more than my battered cd of the original studio album.