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Pearl Jam
After listening to Nirvana in about 1993 I was introduced to Pearl Jam. I quickly became a huge fan of their music, and in particular got really into their Vs album (with the excellent Dave Abbruzzese on drums), which was released around that time. The early Pearl Jam albums were characterized by epic songs such as Alive, Jeremy and Dissident, powered by the unique emotiveness of Eddie Vedder's baritone voice. Later Pearl Jam releases have sounded less well-produced and in truth that epic feel is not found in later albums. With Vitalogy onwards, many of Pearl Jam's best songs have, in my opinion, been the ballads and acoustic pieces. Betterman and Light Years fall into this category. Pearl jam remain a great live band to this day (I saw them a few years ago in London and they were awesome), giving long concerts and definitely not shying away from playing the old classics that are big crowd-pleasers. If you're a real Pearl Jam fan you have to get hold of Lost Dogs, which is a compilation of their B-sides and various non-album tracks.
- Live video footage - Pearl Jam have become extremely fond of filming their own concerts, and have released DVD sets such as Touring Band 2000 and Live At The Garden. An article explaining their (relatively) simple set up for this can be found here.
- Drummers - Pearl Jam have had a number of different drummers. Dave Krusen played on Ten but left shortly afterwards to be replaced by Dave Abbruzzese. In fact, it is Abbruzzese who plays on "Dirty Frank" and the live version of "Alive" that are included as bonus tracks on the European version of Ten. Abbruzzese played on Vs. and most of Vitalogy, but was fired after that amid rumours that he and Eddie Vedder didn't get along. Jack Irons took over from Abbruzzese, playing on a couple of tracks on Vitalogy and on the next two records, No Code and Yield. At this point Irons left because of illness, and Matt Cameron of Soundgarden picked up the sticks, playing on the live album Live On Two Legs. Cameron has played on Pearl Jam's last two studio albums, Binaural and Riot Act, and he seems likely to be Pearl's Jam permanent drummer for the foreseeable future.
- Mike McCready - Mike McCready plays most (but not all) of the guitar solos in Pearl Jam's repertoire. His blues-rock style was influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards and Stevie Ray Vaughan, amongst others (see Given To Wail for details on Mike's influences). Although he likes a variety of guitars, Mike usually plays Fender Stratocasters. He has been known to use Dunlop Tortex .88mm picks.
Also on myrocksite.com: a review of Pearl Jam (the album) and a review of Rearview Mirror: The Best Of Pearl Jam
DiscographyTen 1991
Vs. 1993 Vitalogy 1994 No Code 1996 Yield 1998 Binaural 2000 Riot Act 2002 Lost Dogs (compilation album)2003 Rearview Mirror: The Best of Pearl Jam 2004 Pearl Jam 2006 Backspacer 2009 DVDs
Single Video Theory 1998
Touring Band 2000 2001 Live At The Garden 2003 Live At The Showbox 2003 Band membersEddie Vedder, vocals, guitar
Stone Gossard, guitar Mike McCready, guitar Jeff Ament, bass Matt Cameron, drums |
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Books about Pearl Jam
Links
Pearl Jam Ten Club Recently redesigned!Pearl Jam Synergy at Sony Music
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