Tag: Pearl Jam

Random Shuffle: July 25, 2006 – Beat Farmers, Pearl Jam, Wilco, Bruce Hornsby & Jim Croce

“Happy Boy” – Beat Farmers
From Tales from the New West

A local radio station plays this song every Friday at 5 in the PM. It’s a great, zany way to begin the weekend. It is a short little ditty with odd little lyrics (about putting his dead dog in a drawer and forgetting about him). But it is full of bouncy beats and a chorus that goes something like “hubba hubba hubba”. For Friday rush hour traffic it is just about perfect.

There was a radio station in Oklahoma that used to play “Land of a 1,000 Dances” every Friday morning to get people prepared for the weekend. It seems strange that radio stations play the same song every week. You’d think we’d all get tired of it. Yet there is something sort of comforting about that routine. It is a full reminder that the weekend is here.

Of course, radio stations have been playing the same songs a lot more often than once a week for years now…

“Dissident” – Pearl Jam
From VS

Right around the time I bought Pearl Jam’s second album, I read an article that talked about listening to one album over and over for days and weeks. Something struck me about that concept and I began listening to VS over and over again. I both took great pleasure in listening to the album and fulfilled some secret yearning to love a piece of music so much that I couldn’t listen to anything else.

Listening to the song, and album, now I’m not sure why I couldn’t give it up. My friend Eric Berlin recently posted his top 5 favorite bands of all time and asked for everyone to release their own lists. It’s a difficult thing to do. Bands like Pearl Jam would have once topped that list. For a time in my life, I loved PJ immensely. But over the years I found other bands and let Pearl Jam slip into the background. Bands that I love right now like Wilco may, in ten years, slip away as well. So, how do you choose your all-time favorites?

“(Was I) In Your Dreams” – Wilco
From Being There

My wife put this song on the only mix tape she ever made me. It was long before we were married or even dating. It was while she was living in Canada – having a miserable time in the snow – and we had become good friends with a hint of romance simmering behind the scenes.

With every song, she included an appropriate lyric and commented on why she included it in the tape. For this song, she had to not so subtly remind me that she just liked the song and that she didn’t expect me to be dreaming of her. It was very typical of her strategy at the time to give me something that hinted at something more, but then immediately take it away.

It remains one of my least favorite Wilco tunes.

“The Way It Is” –  Bruce Hornsby
From 10/09/97

Bruce Hornsby plays this song for nearly every concert he performs. Having been written nearly 20 years ago, that adds up to thousands of performances. You’d think he’d get tired of the song. Truth is, Bruce is such a cool guy he continues to play the song because he knows his fans love it. He understands that at each performance a percentage of the folks paying to see him are people who only know his hits. To make them, happy, and for them to get their money’s worth he always plays several of his big hits, and “The Way it Is” is the biggest.

To true fans eternal joy, and to not get too bored with the songs, he often changes the arrangement. I’ve heard it done slow, fast, and with weird rhythms. That and Bruce’s insatiable desire to improvise create a thousand different versions of the song for him to play.

This performance was actually with the Roanoke Symphony. For the most part, you wouldn’t know it on this song because Bruce rocks it out pretty much. He stretches it out for 8 minutes and keeps it completely interesting.

“Time in a Bottle” – Jim Croce
From Classic Hits

Another song that stirs the old memory cords. My first true love and I were really better friends than lovers. We came to know each other in what I’ll call pivotal moments in our lives. We were both teenagers and full of angst and lust and wonderment over what would happen to us in the future.

We were the best of friends for a long time until we decided to become more. Problem was we lived some hundred miles apart and finding the time for the physical ties that belong with something more was difficult. Truth being told I had also very limited experience with the somethings more and was too shy to do much in that regard. We did spend a great deal of time writing letters (was in the time before e-mail) and chatting on the phone. Letters involved much drawing of hearts in the margins and the quoting of poetry and lyrics.

My dear once wrote the lyrics to “Time in a Bottle” for me in the margins and I treasured them dearly.

During the summer past my senior year I broke up with the young lass. In a few weeks I was headed to college many a mile away and I knew our love would not see us through. Intending to make the transition easier I ended our short-lived fling. This was during a week of summer camp and for the talent competition she sang this song to me. It was a beautiful, lovely, weepy thing, and my last true memory of the girl. A treasure for a life time.

Random Shuffle (04/17/06): The White Stripes, Ryan Adams, John Prine, Pearl Jam, & The Grateful Dead

get behind me satan “I’m Lonely (But I Aint That Lonely Yet) – The White Stripes
from Get Behind Me Satan

There was a period of about 3 years where my live music lust pretty much blocked everything else out. I had no interest in new music. The stuff I periodically heard on the radio was trash. Boy bands and Britney Spears, my life can totally live without that.

The thing was, live music moved me in ways that the typical studio album didn’t. Plus it was a lot cheaper to buy a blank CDR at about ten cents a pop than spend $18 for a studio album I wasn’t even sure was any good.

Slowly, I began coming out of my hibernation and came around to the idea that there was some good music out there that wasn’t live, that was produced in a studio, and that was worth my $18.

It is during this reemergence that my sister’s husband, Brian asked me if I had heard the new White Stripes album. I replied I hadn’t and he said I should check it out, that I would like it. I’m always a little annoyed when people tell me I’ll like something – whether it’s a song, or a movie or a book – most people have no idea what I really like, and to presume I’ll like something based on whatever is annoying. But Brian is usually pretty spot on with his recommendations (well except for talking me into seeing Shallow Hal, for which he will never be forgiven).

So, I got a copy of Get Behind Me Satan and freaking loved it. I had been hearing about the White Stripes for a while, about how they were the saviors of garage rock, but had pretty much ignored them. The album was so much more than garage rock, or punk, or just loud guitars. These were well-thought-out tunes, with insight into melody and song craft. The band could use a little filling out from their trick 2-person lineup. The songs need little more than guitar/drum, piano/drum, and solo piano. Would it kill Jack White to hire a bass player, and maybe a rhythm guitarist?

“I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet) is a nice little piano ballad. It is a far cry from the pumped-up boom of “Seven Nation Army.” It’s also one of my least favorites from the album. There just isn’t enough to it. It’s got sad little lyrics, but it’s just pling pling on the piano and mopey singing from Mr. White. This seems to be a trend in ballads these days – write moody, poetic lyrics and a bland, unmelodic bit of music to go with it.

ryan adams rock n roll “So Alive” – Ryan Adams
from Rock N Roll

Ryan Adams came to me in this same musical awakening period as the White Stripes. I forget when I actually started to dig him. I absolutely loved “New York, New York” which got all sorts of airplay just after 9/11 what with the timely lyrics and the video on the bridge overlooking the Manhattan skyline.

But after that song, I looked no further into the Ryan Adams playlist. All the cool people seemed to dig him. I think I couldn’t get past that sloppy hipster hair. But slowly, somewhere I heard another song and another and became a fan.

Adams is the king of the no melody, just pluck on your instrument while singing a super sad lyrics ballad. He drives me crazy with that stuff, especially since he can write a darn fine piece of pop music.

“So Alive” is a rather upbeat, lively piece of tuneage. It’s actually a bit U2ish in its grandiosity, albeit with a Morrissey kind of vocal thing going. The results are interesting. It’s a good song, something that could easily blare out of my car speakers on a warm sunny day. It’s not really what I expect, or want from Ryan Adams though. He has the ability to write a real hook. His best songs keep me singing them for hours after I’ve heard them, this one leaves my head soon after the last note is played.

john prine souvenirs “Hello in There” John Prine
from Souvenirs

God bless John Prine. He’s been writing songs like a mystic sage living on a mountaintop since he was but a young man. His lyrics are some of the most beautiful, moving words sung this side of Bob Dylan. He likes to say that he is an old rock and roller who has made a living writing folk songs. We are better people because of it.

Souvenirs is Prine covering himself. It is a collection of songs he wrote some 20 years before, reworked for a voice that is much more mature, and a man who has lived enough life to live in lyrics written by a man too young to know better.

“Hello In There” is a song written for old people. It’s a sad, beautiful thing that makes you want to call your grandmother after a listen. I have to admit, this new version nails the song in ways the original just couldn’t. Prine’s voice, while never smooth and pretty, has taken a rougher edge, with a maturity that fits the loneliness of old age perfectly.

pearl jam riot act “I Am Mine” – Pearl Jam
from Riot Act

Speaking of Brian turning me onto music, he’s one of the last few die-hard Pearl Jam fans out there. Like a million other teenagers I fell in love with the band with their first release, Ten. The music was straight out of the 70’s hard rock box, with lyrics that spoke of alienation and hard times. It was perfect for a long-haired, mixed-up 17-year-old.

I listened to their second album Vs for several weeks straight, without playing any other album. This was my band.

Then I went to college, met a girl who was too punk for grunge, and Pearl Jam left me behind. Their very different, and ungrunge-like third album Vitalogy didn’t help much. Periodically I heard a new single from the band and had a brief thought that I should get back into them, but never got around to it.

As stated, Brian is one of the last of the die-hards. The boy loves him some Pearl Jam. His enthusiasm for the band always gets me and always makes me want to listen to the band fresh again. So, I buy an album or download a single and dig them for a little while.

“I Am Mine” is fairly typical of what I’ve heard from new Pearl Jam. The hard rock edge is lessened by a better melody. Eddie Vedder’s deep baritone sweeps the song along. The lyrics are mysterious, sounding vaguely political and meaningful yet difficult to decipher and make sense of, yet remaining thematic and full of sing-along ability.

grateful dead dicks picks 4

“Not Fade Away” – Grateful Dead
from Dicks Picks 4

My first time seeing any member of the Grateful Dead was at a Furthur Festival in Atlanta. This was a couple of years after Jerry died, and the surviving members were just starting to play music again. Bob Weir played a set with his band, Ratdog. Mickey Hart played all kinds of worldly drums with his ensemble, Bruce Hornsby had his band, and a few other Dead-like bands were invited along as well.

At the close of the night, all the bands joined together for a jam session. They closed with this Buddy Holly classic and Dead staple. As the song ended the musicians left the stage one by one, while those still onstage kept up the beat. Lastly, there were the drummers, banging out the bop, bop bop-bop backbeat. As they, too, left the stage the entire audience kept rhythm with hand claps and their own voices. I stood there in the hot Georgia night smiling in the knowing feeling that I’d just had the time of my life. Even if the band had played that song a million times, and a thousand other audiences had sung along in the exact same way, I felt special. I felt a part of something. It was magic.

The Grateful Dead did play this song a million times. It was a concert staple from their early years. This version, taken from a show in February 1970 exemplifies the Dead’s ability to take a very simple pop song and elevate it to something far more. It is some 13 minutes in length and never has a misstep or a dull moment. The Dead never takes it to the cosmic heights of say “Dark Star” but it is transcendent just the same.