Pearl Jam - A Rare Breed

Every now and then a band comes along that are truly inspiring and make a real difference

The other night I was watching the superb film about the twentieth anniversary of Pearl Jam forming and watching the whole film made me realise what an amazing band of people they were

Now, I know the film I watched was obviously about a band who were at their peak fifteen to twenty years ago, but I realised this is/was a band of principles and standards who slowly got on with their music while bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden took most of the plaudits and accolades from the so called Grunge scene formed around Seattle. I felt I had to do some sort of ‘tribute’ to them

I remember reading a review years ago about Pearl Jam when the reviewer reported that Eddie Vedder (the band’s singer) sounded like a man who was about to throw himself off a cliff! I thought this was a brilliant description so went to the nearest record shop and bout “10” (not the film with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek)

Listening to the album for the first time absolutely blew my head off! I remember listening to the pure aggression of Vedder’s voice and stunning prominence of the duel lead guitars. But realising that the album (of course a debut for an up and coming band at the time) was not over-produced! Sometimes that can mean the best sound a band of the means can produce (think Led Zep 1 and Never Mind the Bollocks for a two examples)

Of course it wasn’t just the songs that made Pearl Jam an instantly stunning band, you got the feeling they were truly on the side of the kids who went to see them and bought their records. This is prominent in their action against Ticketmaster.

At the time (and for most of today’s gig going public) people had to buy tickets for gigs from organisations like Ticketmaster. This, of course includes a barrage of un-necessary and un-wanted booking fees that generally resulted in people having to pay $30 in the USA to see bands play live. Pearl Jam decided to select venues to play in that didn’t rely on them and their management and Ticketmaster getting into bed together.

All of this I greatly applaud! Can you imagine any of the spastics from X Factor such as Alexander Burke or them four Super Queggs in Take Splatt refusing to play a concert these days due to extortionate ticket pricing? Er, I don’t think so. Chances are they’d be in serious breach of their contract (and sponsorship) and be banished to play in Butlins (then again, that’s where most of them end up anyway)

My final point comes courtesy of a mate who has genuinely superb taste in music (apart from some stuff he claims he used during his DJ years) who is also a fan of Pearl Jam. His words really do describe them to a tee – “one of the most criminally under-rated bands of all time”. Having lived in the shadow of the afore mentioned Nirvana and Soundgarden it was a bang on the money description that I have quite a few opinions on

I think I’ve done a previous Blog about bands in the mainstream who actually deserve to be there and bands who aren’t who do (if that makes sense).

Now, most bands think plaudits and accolades aren’t for them. Some of them actually shun them and refuse to attend and others such as Chumbawumba and Jarvis Cocker decide to vent their spleens in different ways that we won’t go into here.

Now i’m not talking about all the pomp and ceremony that usually go with award ceremonies as personally, in the highly unlikely scenario of being in a successful band, and i were nominated for some sort of award, I would also shun them as they are simply a load of bollocks. Pearl jam felt the same here!

But what really does disappoint me is the artistic credit some bands don’t receive compared to the tripe that is banded about these days and labelled as ‘influential’

There have been many many bands over the course of music history who have not received such accolade and praise where it is undoubtedly due, Pearl Jam are one of them bands

Their influence will have a much longer affect

Mol