Showing posts with label Pearl Jam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pearl Jam. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

I'd Rather Be...


Just watched the final episode of The Bear Season Two. We've been dragging this out because I love it so much, but after doing episodes 8 and 9 Monday night, there was no way we could not do 10 last night. Emotional wrecking ball - good, bad, ugly... ALL the feels. I don't think I've ever seen a show quite like this, and these 'real-time' episodes just blow me away.

I've always loved Pearl Jam's Animal; Out of the 12 (?) tracks on the original release of Pearl Jam's second album Vs., the opening two tracks, Go and Animal, are among the best the band ever did. The album slides into wishy-washy territory from there for me; I dig about three more songs on it, and while I don't necessarily dislike the rest, none of them are in the "I have to have that available to me for when I need to hear it" territory that Ten and those five or so songs from Vs. are. I wish I could say I connected with anything else Pearl Jam ever did after this, but aside from giving a thumbs up to a few songs from the first album with Matt Cameron on drums (2002's Riot Act, I think), I respect the hell out of them and 100% think they tow their own line, but just never really cared. Still, this was PERFECTLY placed in this episode, and I applaud everyone involved in making this tour de force of a show that is as bite-sized as shows tend to come these days (short episodes, short seasons, nothing missing. Trim the fat, Jeff).




NCBD:

Small Pull this week, but I'm looking forward to both of these titles quite a bit.


I know I'm still relatively new to Something is Killing the Children, picking up with the series around issue #16, but having this recent hiatus in the middle of the current storyline was difficult, to say the least. I've been waiting for this book to come back with a fervor I don't possess very often these days, so I can't wait to read this one. NOTE: That's a variant cover I posted above; almost no way I'm going to end up with that, but still wanted to post it, because hot damn, that's rad!!!


I LOVE that, so far, the X-Men books are sticking to Magneto's death. It's so funny; I've always disliked the Magneto character, and just when he becomes one of my favorites, he's gone. Thus is life, and thus is good freakin' writing. I'm not foolish enough to think ol' Mags will stay dead, but for now, in the era where none of the mutants ever die for good because resurrection is a plot point, having a meaningful, lasting death of a major character is thrilling. 

Also, I really love the 'team' in X-Men: Red. It's not really a team at all, and feels a bit like a super Sci-Fi version of my favorite era of the book, Claremont's Dissolution and Rebirth, when the team took the Reavers' old base in the abandoned town in the Australian Outback. 




Back:

My good friend Jonathan Grimm sent me a link to a Kickstarter some friends of his are doing. I backed the instant I read the first paragraph of the recap: 

When Black Sabbath (not the Beatles) became the world’s most famous band, the universe was changed, musically and otherwise. Lost arts, like Alchemy, were made common, schools taught about transfiguration and alternate science, Demons were summoned and some stuck around.


Drumsticks of Doom sounds awesome and these guys are in their last 37 hours and they are oh so close, so if you're even remotely interested, go HERE and throw down!



Playlist:

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST
Jim Willaims - Possessor OST
Metallica - 72 Seasons
Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission
Agnes Obel - Aventine



Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
 

• Seven of Swords
• VI: The Lovers
• Seven of Wands

Two sevens and a six, eh? Numbers alone, this shows steps, consecutive or otherwise. Seven of Swords (Intellect) and Seven of Wands (Will) can work together or against one another. Combined with The Lovers, I'd say it's a harmonious union. 



Saturday, March 7, 2020

Superblood Wolfmoon and The Invisible Man!



There are two singles out right now from Pearl Jam's forthcoming album Gigaton, which you can pre-order HERE. Both songs are fantastic, but I feel like "Dance of the Clairvoyants" is the one everyone's talking about because of the Talking Heads-vibe that song has. I wanted to post "Superblood Wolfmoon" because it's also fantastic!

Here's where I offer my take on Pearl Jam. I've always respected them. I've always thought they make the music they want to make, and that's amazing in the era they started in and transitioned through. However, previously, my love of their music went like this: All of their debut, Ten. Both songs on the Singles soundtrack. About half of the follow-up Vs. About a third of Vitalogy, and then I tuned out. After Ten their ballads - the stuff that, through no fault of their own, ruled the FM airwaves while I was in high school - all just sounded like audio burlap to me. Drab, scratchy, and uncomfortable. Yet I applauded them for years when friends who were into them would play me their records. I just never really heard any of that stuff, some weird bug in my ear always turned the noise of my brain up and drowned out what was coming in through my ear. I've always wanted something to come along and push me into taking a walk through that now back catalogue, and these two songs may have done just that.

Thanks to Mr. Brown for always forwarding me the newest stuff when he hears it, and for Keller for curating youtube sessions that made me realize just what an unbelievably good person Eddie Vedder is; if I dive back into Pearl Jam's music now, it's largely because of knowing that.

**

K and I ventured out to the local theatre last night and saw Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man. Loved it! Awesome use and sustaining of tension; great atmosphere of fear and helplessness, made especially palpable by Elizabeth Moss' teeth-grinding performance. Really hits the notes on that sweet spot that exists between horror and psychological thrillers - think Pacific Heights and Jacob's Ladder as an example. Oh, and Whannell was not lying; to those who said the trailer gives away the entire movie, that is most definitely not the case.



**

Playlist:

Spotlights - Love and Decay
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
The Jesus Lizard - Head
Pearl Jame - Gigaton (pre-release singles)
Pearl Jam - Vs

**

Card:


I've been out of touch with my Craft for the last three days. Time to get back on that horse and ride.

Friday, March 23, 2018

2018: March 23rd, 4:34 PM



It’d been quite some time since I’d jammed the Singles OST. For an album that was a staple of my earlier life, Singles has essentially sat dormant on my shelf for years. Last night however, after spending another commute home with The Verve’s A Storm In Heaven as a soundtrack to unexpected Southern California rain, Singles caught my eye in the newly stocked CD wallet that now inhabits my car. The thought of traveling back to that sonic space rooted in ‘grunge’ seemed just what the doctor ordered.

And it was.

Later, driving to the new pad to sign the lease and take possession of the keys, the rain-slicked streets of Redondo Beach and balmy beach air* felt welcoming in the same way San Pedro now feels dismal. After the formalities, I drove over to my favorite beer store - now five minutes by car - and picked up some celebratory beverages: a twelve of Sierra Nevada in bottles and a six of Three Weavers’ Seafarer Kolsch. Windows down and Singles once again cranked, Eddie Vedder’s voice sounded like pure rocket fuel for a future where maybe all this highfalutin ‘re-contextualization’ might pay-off with some of the disparate or abandoned elements of my personality coming together into something stronger and more productive. It felt good.

Now, today, we’re almost finished moving. Keller and Kenta are irreplaceable in their fervor at moving my shit from the location they know to the one we will all acclimate to together. Tonight we dine and unwind in the new crib. 



Playlist from yesterday:

The Verve - Storm in Heaven
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Mastodon - Once More Round the Sun
Interpol - El Pintor
Converge - The Dusk in Us
Singles - OST

Card of the day:




Makes sense - I feel as though I am definitely on the right path. 

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Pearl Jam - Porch on SNL 1992


I'd never seen this before. Not the biggest Pearl Jam fan - love first and most of the second record, pretty much stopped after that. I've always respected them as a band though, even if it's a once in a blue moon event for me to actually throw one of those two records on to listen to.

Until recently. I spoke about the reasons why I am currently indoctrinating myself with music from my high school years in this week's edition of The Joup Friday Album. Both those first two PJ records fit into that, especially the first one and especially this song. I got chills watching this a minute ago, so I had to jot it down here for posterity's sake. Enjoy.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Oceansize - Saturday Morning Breakfast Show



My friend Jacob from Blue Karma gave me Effloresce by Oceansize as an introduction to the band. After picking at it off and on for a few months the full weight and majesty of this beautifully crafted record really hit home about a week or two ago. I've pretty much been listening to it everyday since. All the tracks are fantastic, but this one hit me with a double whammy when it dawned on me that at ~330 they go into part of Pearl Jam's Ocean. I found this to be a brilliant little homage - the kind of thing a lot of bands do live but that I don't remember ever seeing done on an album before. It's a nice little tip of the hat that really adds some extra emotional weight to an already outstanding track.