Backspacer

The four-star reviews are in.

Rolling Stone: 

Fans of Pearl Jam's chest-beating angst mode might look for some metaphorical resonance in 'Amongst the Waves.' Yet the more you listen, the more it just sounds like Vedder's spending a nice day surfing. After toughing out the Bush years, Pearl Jam aren't in the mood for brooding; at long last, surf's up.

Los Angeles Times:

A thousand rock 'n' roll clichés have been built around the idea that guts and glory belong to the young. Pearl Jam's ninth studio album, "Backspacer," due out Sunday (Sept. 20), makes the opposite argument. Its 11 breakneck rockers and candidly emotional ballads, adding up to barely more than a half hour of optimally toned catharsis, gain power from the band's calm but constant awareness of life's ticking clock.

Spin:

For the first time in years, Pearl Jam are seizing the moment rather than wallowing in it.

Chicago Tribune:

But the taut songwriting on “Backspacer” is a bracing reminder of a less-celebrated facet of Pearl Jam’s personality, the step-on-it-and-go attack of “Spin the Black Circle,” “Lukin” or “Do the Evolution.”

I’ve yet to hear the album in full, but what I’ve heard—“The Fixer,” “Got Some,” “Force of Nature,” “The End,”  "Just Breathe" and the below “Unthought Known”—work. It’s not their best effort, but I’m not sure that’s the point. There’s no big message here. It’s simply a record of five guys playing songs together, with a lifetime of experiences at their feet. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Pearl Jam’s never going to scale again the stratospheric levels of success and creativity they reached in the 1990s. They are, thankfully, a vastly different band now. And their fans, myself included, are vastly different people than when we were teenagers. We stopped waiting for Pearl Jam’s “11” years ago.

Pittsburgh Pirates: 17 Years of Suck

Yesterday, while the Yankees were busy putting a stranglehold on the American League East, the Pittsburgh Pirates lost to the Chicago Cubs, ensuring a 17th consecutive losing season, the worst such mark in all of professional sports. All of four of them. I can’t say I’m necessarily surprised at the Pirates two-decades-long futility. Even their promotional gigs and Hot Stove reports are a joke. The Pirates are seemingly redefining the definition of bad. In this decade alone, they’ve lost at least 87 games a year, bottoming out (at least thus far) at 100 losses in 2001.

The last time the Bucs were good was in 1992, when Atlanta’s Francisco Cabrera singled off Stan Belinda to score David Justice and Sid Bream for the tying and winning runs, respectively, in Game 7 of the ALCS. To put that into perspective, 1992 was the same year Pearl Jam’s Ten and Radiohead’s Pablo Honey debuted. And Bill Clinton was still a month away from winning his first term as president. After the ALCS, the team went into a protracted rebuilding phase, letting Barry Bonds sign with the San Francisco Giants, among other questionable moves. They’ve yet to recover. Ron Cook, a sportswriter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, sums it up nicely:

Here's one final depressing way to blow the Pirates' ignominious march to history into perspective: Kids who graduated from college this spring aren't old enough to remember when they had a winning team.

Stars and Stripes and Mike McCready

Earlier this week, on May 19, Pearl Jam's Mike McCready played the Star-Spangled Banner before the Mariners-Angels game to promote the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America. McCready, Pearl Jam's so-called "secret weapon," has been living with Chron's disease and ulcerative colitis for 20 years, since he was still shredding with his first band, Shadow, in Los Angeles. McCready announced his condition seven years ago, in 2002, to help raise awareness and funding for the CCFA. He recently testified before a Washington state legislative committee to mandate emergency access to private businesses' bathrooms for people with Crohn's, colitis and other related disorders. Governor Chris Gregoire signed the bill on May 12, which proves McCready is much more persuasive lobbyist than his band mates. 

In recognition of McCready's work, then, and just in time for Memorial Day, here's a clip of McCready biting into Francis Scott Key's anthem, a la Jimmy Hendrix. Please note the impressive four-set Marshall stack behind him, and, later, Pearl Jam's second-place finish in the Mariners' Fan Pulse poll. Enjoy. 



(UPDATE: I'm pretty sure McCready's performance discredits Ludovic Hunter-Tilney's facile argument. This one, too. Also this one. And, yup, this one.)

Mookie Blaylock

Because it's Friday, I thought I'd bring your attention to a pretty cool feature the guys from Pearl Jam (or at least their people) put together in anticipation of the band's March reissue of their debut album, Ten.


It's a 3-dimensional puzzle, which, once assembled, lets you enjoy a few remastered tracks,a couple of live tracks and a few from the band's 1992 Unplugged performance. Once all the tracks are unlocked, a bonus "Master/Slave" video plays. It's worth the look, and the time. Be careful, though: the game is incredibly addictive and, at first, a little frustrating and completely disorienting. 

Also, because it's Friday, here's my own bonus clip of Pearl Jam's first official gig. It's at the Off Ramp, in 1990, when they were still known as Mookie Blaylock. First song, first show, the Holy Grail of Pearl Jam bootlegs. 

Who are You?

As of five minutes ago, I'd never heard of Bettye Lavette. Or, if I had, I'd forgotten. After watching her version of "Love Reign o'er Me," however, I doubt I'll ever let her name-- or her pipes-- slip so easily from my memory. Lavette performed Pete Townshend's amazing song last month at the Kennedy Center Honors in recognition of the Who, the first rock band to receive the prestigious cultural award. (Take that, Mr. McCartney!)

Lavette's interpretation of Townshend's best seems wholly appropriate for this morning's historic festivities. Enjoy. 

For those keeping score at home, you can listen to the Who's original version here and, for my money, the best straight-up cover of the song, plus a killer bonus cover of "The Real Me," here. Enjoy, again and again. 

UPDATE: The bastards at VH1 removed the bonus links to Pearl Jam's version of "Love Reign o'er Me" and "The Real Me." You'll have to find these covers yourself. 

(Thanks to the lovely GHS for bringing Ms. Lavette to my attention.)