Cameronn Crowe's Pearl Jam doc trailer

[Guest Len B'stard]

Yeah, but as you get credibility as a social phenomenon you lose the music. Nirvana and Scratch Acid are TERRIBLE.

Right, see, here's the difference. This is sort of what i'm getting at. With all due respect to you (and i mean that quite sincerely so don't take this bad) but there's a dichotomy here. You seem to have pretty sort of mainstream tastes as well as, if i may be so bold, a degree of disdain for kinda alternative or perhaps more abrasive types of music, i dunno, i suppose you could tell me better than i can tell you obviously but, OK, you got that split here. Without the music, to my mind, as a social phenomenon, you don't exist. If i'm discussing something, especially musical, in terms of a social phenomenon, it's usually a granted that the music is good or good in my opinion or i wouldn't be talking about it.

Also, what you're saying is not even true. Vedder was the only newcomer in the band. Everyone else had been in the Seattle music scene for years in Mother Love Bone and Green River and whatever. You say they destroyed the scene when they were some of the people who created it?

Yeah but MLB are MLB, GR are GR and PR are PR, they're not indivisible dude.

Besides, all they did was create music for themselves and for their fans. (Disregarding the socialist message that came later) And that's what matters, everything else is bullshit. When I put on Pearl Jam on iTunes I listen to songs not to grunge movements and historical significance.

Right but as i say, i don't think Pearl Jam are good, i think they're OK, passable, middle of the road at best. But thats not it, thats not the point, the point is...their brand of rock n roll, it already had/has a place, you could sell a band like that to the mainstream at anytime from the 60s onwards, now alternative music didn't have that and it was finally getting that and bands like PJ ruined it, with PJ as the foremost standard bearer for that kinda shit grunge. It would just be nice, or would've been nice, for once, to not have the charts saturated with this kind of fuckin pale tripe. Just once, please? I mean look, you've had your fuckin classic rock fuckin...whatever since God knows when, wouldn't it've been nice to just see where the more abrasive type of music would've taken us if allowed to flourish?

For a moment there, it was beautiful, it was wonderful, mainstream record labels were fucking clueless cuz the music was such that they couldn't work it out, there was no template other than "bands from Seattle, bands from Seattle, quick, quick, sign em!!" there was no musical prescedent, they couldn't like...suss it out. And then out comes Pearl Jam and...the storms kind of over after that. It's like, OK, the grunge crowd accept this!! It sounds like Lynrd fuckin Skynard, we'll sell em this, YAY!!!, we're in the drivers seat again, cool!!! And we have a new commodity, we get it now, yeah, flannel shirts, hoarse voices, bingo, perfect formula.

It just totally totally took the balls away from anything that that movement could've become and it's really fucking sad. How cool would it've been to like, turn on the radio in the morning and hear something Cannibal by Scratch Acid on the radio, how fuckin beautiful would that have been? It's making me smile just thinking about!!

Mainstream music fans are just lazy turds (don't take that wrong ) who just want everything to sound like something else until everything sounds like everything else, they want genres and fuckin...y'know, whatever and y'know what? Great, thats all good if thats what you're into but there's a fair few folk who ain't and it'd be nice to be represented by something in the mainstream for longer than 5 minutes before you guys ambush it and turn it into a shopping scheme as a certain Mr Lydon once put it in the mid 70s.

It REALLY meant something more than just a fashionable little pose to a lot of people that some of the good music out there got heard and this was a window of oppertunity that was effectively shut by major record labels swooping on PJ-esque classic rock throwback bullshit and totally neutering and, to some degree, scaring bands away from the more abrasive aspects of the grunge movement, which was the only interesting thing about it anyway.

And more than that, Pearl Jam are just not a very good band. There's nothing interesting about them.

It's like YAY!!! Finally!! A grunge band that i can listen to with my parents!! Now we're really rockin'!!

Just for once it would've been nice to see the lunatics take over the asylum, just once. Something fun and new and fresh and exciting. Something that doesn't make sense, something that confuses and galvanises folks.

Edited July 28, 2011 by sugaraylen

[GivenToFly]

^Well then blame the record labels for pushing an army of Pearl Jam clones, not the band themselves for playing the music they love.

It comes down to this idea that artists have some kind of responsibility? Like they answer to history? I think that's crap.

If I became a musician now (I have no talent, but suppose I hit my head or got struck by lightning and developed some) I wouldn't care about being innovative or imitative. I would just write and play the music that I would enjoy hearing. Of course there's a good chance it's gonna sound like other people's stuff but that makes sense because that's also music that I like hearing, so there's bound to be a lot in common.

If innovation is there, it's very good, but it's gotta be natural. If you're being experimental just for the sake of being experimental the end results just sounds bad.

[GivenToFly]

their brand of rock n roll, it already had/has a place

And that I also don't agree with. Music is timeless. Or should be. If something is dependent for its quality on a particular social status quo than in my book it loses points. Should something that is worth listening to just step aside because it was 25 years too late and it needs to clear airwaves for somebody else? Than GNR should never have existed. And I think we can all agree that would have been an immense loss.

[Guest Len B'stard]

^Well then blame the record labels for pushing an army of Pearl Jam clones, not the band themselves for playing the music they love.

I think there's a degree of dishonesty on the part of the artist there too though.

It comes down to this idea that artists have some kind of responsibility? Like they answer to history? I think that's crap.

I agree with you but then i'm not holding them accountable nor could I, i'm just providing the context within which my conclusions belong and those conclusions are not exclusively based on their place in history although i suppose it is sort of a part of it.

If I became a musician now (I have no talent, but suppose I hit my head or got struck by lightning and developed some) I wouldn't care about being innovative or imitative. I would just write and play the music that I would enjoy hearing. Of course there's a good chance it's gonna sound like other people's stuff but that makes sense because that's also music that I like hearing, so there's bound to be a lot in common.

See now i would care about that, in fact it'd be a priority to me to not be immitative, to not be someone else, i don't think that being different is a choice, we ARE different by default, each and every one of us. After that its a straight choice in being honest and reflecting who and what you are or just copying someone elses shit. Why work hard to kill the very thing that makes you cool and special in the first place, if it was me i'd work hard to expand on and explore whatever it was that I bought to the table, whether that be a style of playing or...whatever.

See, thats a totally alien concept to me, the idea that if i'm making something it's gonna sound like someone elses work because i like other peoples work, as a notion that to me thats like...foul. There's something unsettling about it. When i see Johnny Rotten or Iggy Pop or Johnny Ramone or whatever person i listen to them and go 'yeah, i wanna be LIKE that' not "i wannabe THAT', does that make sense, i dunno if i'm explaining myself well. I would've thought a person would take cues like, wow, i love how that person does his own thing and it's a reflection of him and it's unique and cool, thats amazing, i wanna make my own unique and cool thing.

That attitude is precisely why music is so fucked, this idea that you gotta be someone else, i think it's silly and disgressive and pointless. You never ever ever look like someone else anyway, you just look like you doing a take off on someone else. Just cuz i like The Sex Pistols and all that but honestly, i'd look a right fuckin prat if i walked around the streets in 2011 with an Anarchy in the UK shirt and green spikey hair and bondage trousers, thats someone elses life and someones elses thing, it's not mine, it's not my identity. i mean it is to a point because it's what i grew up on, it can inform what i do, it can effect what i do...but for me to replicate it or try to replicate it is just ridiculous and would look sound and be inauthentic. It's just such anathema to me...to immitate. There's something sickening about it. Deeply sickening.

If innovation is there, it's very good, but it's gotta be natural. If you're being experimental just for the sake of being experimental the end results just sounds bad.

Definitely, agree with you 100% on that. But it goes back to what i was saying about like...if something is a true and authentic representation of oneself then it will always be different anyway. When i listen to your band (you know what i mean) i wanna hear you, i'm interested in you, i paid a ticket to come see you, i don't wanna hear The Rolling fucking Stones for the 45th millionth time in the history of rock n roll, The Rolling Stones already exist, you be you, not them.

And that I also don't agree with. Music is timeless. Or should be. If something is dependent for its quality on a particular social status quo than in my book it loses points. Should something that is worth listening to just step aside because it was 25 years too late and it needs to clear airwaves for somebody else? Than GNR should never have existed. And I think we can all agree that would have been an immense loss.

I think you misunderstood me a little there, by 'has it's place' i meant that basically that music is catered to in the mainstream i.e. a Pearl Jam type band, even then, wouldn't've had a great deal of trouble getting a record deal but the more 'alternative' stuff wouldn't. So, y'know, what i'm saying in effect is that PJ really didn't need a movement to get on the back of, they could've made it, to some degree, without that. But here's the rub, would they have gotten as big if not for the banner of grunge that was really taking off at that point? The answer to that, i think, is no and i think it has a lot to do with why PJ were so closely aligned to that movement and that says a lot about an artists integrity. Myself, if i was Eddie Vedder or a member of Pearl Jam, i'd've done my best to distance myself from grunge as much as possible, as a matter of personal pride and integrity. Also, people ain't stupid, it was recognised instantly by a fair few that PJ were...something a little inauthentic in the context of the seattle movement. I didn't invent this whole like, cross-section of people that were and still are critical of PJ for these sorts of reasons.

Every movement has their PJ too, Punk had The Stranglers, these sort of older pub rock guys that got off on the coattails of punk and, in the end, did sort of go in their own direction anyway but used it as a springboard to acclaim, THAT i think is phoney and spurious especially if it has a negative effect on some bands that could've got a chance but didn't. And they did the ugliest of things to it too, watered it down.

No decent band ever aligns itself to a movement anyway, cept the people that start it and alls they're usually saying is 'hey, those other guys copied us'...and the best bands out of the whole Seattle thing didn't..

This is how you kill music, by immitating to a point where everything looks like a 4th or 5th generation photocopy of something that happened whilst your grandad was a lad. Immitation is not a form of flattery, it's a form of making yourself look like a dick. When was the last time someone copied something you did or someone else did and you gave em respect for it?

Edited July 28, 2011 by sugaraylen

[GivenToFly]

Myself, if i was Eddie Vedder or a member of Pearl Jam, i'd've done my best to distance myself from grunge as much as possible, as a matter of personal pride and integrity.

They did. The stylistic change after the second album is significant and from there one they just spread all over the spectrum. They also willingly stepped out of the limelight at the peak of their popularity.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Myself, if i was Eddie Vedder or a member of Pearl Jam, i'd've done my best to distance myself from grunge as much as possible, as a matter of personal pride and integrity.

They did. The stylistic change after the second album is significant and from there one they just spread all over the spectrum. They also willingly stepped out of the limelight at the peak of their popularity.

Yeah, right after going Ten shooting through the roof on the coattails of grunge, shrewd move.

[WhazUp]

Yeah, but as you get credibility as a social phenomenon you lose the music. Nirvana and Scratch Acid are TERRIBLE.

Right, see, here's the difference. This is sort of what i'm getting at. With all due respect to you (and i mean that quite sincerely so don't take this bad) but there's a dichotomy here. You seem to have pretty sort of mainstream tastes as well as, if i may be so bold, a degree of disdain for kinda alternative or perhaps more abrasive types of music, i dunno, i suppose you could tell me better than i can tell you obviously but, OK, you got that split here. Without the music, to my mind, as a social phenomenon, you don't exist. If i'm discussing something, especially musical, in terms of a social phenomenon, it's usually a granted that the music is good or good in my opinion or i wouldn't be talking about it.

Also, what you're saying is not even true. Vedder was the only newcomer in the band. Everyone else had been in the Seattle music scene for years in Mother Love Bone and Green River and whatever. You say they destroyed the scene when they were some of the people who created it?

Yeah but MLB are MLB, GR are GR and PR are PR, they're not indivisible dude.

Besides, all they did was create music for themselves and for their fans. (Disregarding the socialist message that came later) And that's what matters, everything else is bullshit. When I put on Pearl Jam on iTunes I listen to songs not to grunge movements and historical significance.

Right but as i say, i don't think Pearl Jam are good, i think they're OK, passable, middle of the road at best. But thats not it, thats not the point, the point is...their brand of rock n roll, it already had/has a place, you could sell a band like that to the mainstream at anytime from the 60s onwards, now alternative music didn't have that and it was finally getting that and bands like PJ ruined it, with PJ as the foremost standard bearer for that kinda shit grunge. It would just be nice, or would've been nice, for once, to not have the charts saturated with this kind of fuckin pale tripe. Just once, please? I mean look, you've had your fuckin classic rock fuckin...whatever since God knows when, wouldn't it've been nice to just see where the more abrasive type of music would've taken us if allowed to flourish?

For a moment there, it was beautiful, it was wonderful, mainstream record labels were fucking clueless cuz the music was such that they couldn't work it out, there was no template other than "bands from Seattle, bands from Seattle, quick, quick, sign em!!" there was no musical prescedent, they couldn't like...suss it out. And then out comes Pearl Jam and...the storms kind of over after that. It's like, OK, the grunge crowd accept this!! It sounds like Lynrd fuckin Skynard, we'll sell em this, YAY!!!, we're in the drivers seat again, cool!!! And we have a new commodity, we get it now, yeah, flannel shirts, hoarse voices, bingo, perfect formula.

It just totally totally took the balls away from anything that that movement could've become and it's really fucking sad. How cool would it've been to like, turn on the radio in the morning and hear something Cannibal by Scratch Acid on the radio, how fuckin beautiful would that have been? It's making me smile just thinking about!!

Mainstream music fans are just lazy turds (don't take that wrong ) who just want everything to sound like something else until everything sounds like everything else, they want genres and fuckin...y'know, whatever and y'know what? Great, thats all good if thats what you're into but there's a fair few folk who ain't and it'd be nice to be represented by something in the mainstream for longer than 5 minutes before you guys ambush it and turn it into a shopping scheme as a certain Mr Lydon once put it in the mid 70s.

It REALLY meant something more than just a fashionable little pose to a lot of people that some of the good music out there got heard and this was a window of oppertunity that was effectively shut by major record labels swooping on PJ-esque classic rock throwback bullshit and totally neutering and, to some degree, scaring bands away from the more abrasive aspects of the grunge movement, which was the only interesting thing about it anyway.

And more than that, Pearl Jam are just not a very good band. There's nothing interesting about them.

It's like YAY!!! Finally!! A grunge band that i can listen to with my parents!! Now we're really rockin'!!

Just for once it would've been nice to see the lunatics take over the asylum, just once. Something fun and new and fresh and exciting. Something that doesn't make sense, something that confuses and galvanises folks.

First off, I would like to say I enjoy reading your posts man! Its cool to see someone who has passion for this stuff and is very knowlegeble. But I always considered the media to be the downfall of what was going down in Seattle at the time. Pearl Jam were just making music that they loved and they had a point to their existence. The media was the force that said "let's put this on MTV, market the shit out of it, and put light on these Seattle bands". And Eddie Vedder even decided to stop making music videos in the 90s after Jeremy was released because the overexposure from that music video took the song and turned it into something that Ed never wanted it to be. They fought against ticketmaster because they charged way too much, they consistently changed their musical direction with each album throwing even the hard-core Pearl Jam fans for a loop, and they made music that to me is unique and special.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Watched the video to Jeremy yesterday for the first time since back when it came out. God it's hilairious

[chevelle]

And we have a new commodity, we get it now, yeah, flannel shirts, hoarse voices, bingo, perfect formula.

How sad is it that this formula is still in effect so many years after grunge? Fuckin' Nickelback and Daughtry and Hinder and Three Days Grace, it all sounds the same.

[Guest Len B'stard]

And we have a new commodity, we get it now, yeah, flannel shirts, hoarse voices, bingo, perfect formula.

How sad is it that this formula is still in effect so many years after grunge? Fuckin' Nickelback and Daughtry and Hinder and Three Days Grace, it all sounds the same.

right, exactly and this is the point i was making earlier on about like...the negative effects of a band like Pearl Jam appropriating something like the Seattle movement as a springboard to success. You have a band with a few disparate icons of a given movement with all the musical and attitudal (it's a word now, damn you!) stuff shaved off what you're left with is like...something the men in suits approve of...and they're that clueless that they stick to this shit...but not only that you get other bands coming up in the shadow of that, like the ones you've mentioned and they're all gonna be shit...invariably...cuz they come from shit.

It has such a damaging effect to the art form and to people tastes and, conversely, the entire culture. I get het up about these things but it's only cuz music is about all i care about. Grunge should have been Americas punk...and it was i suppose to a point...but the notion was that if it could ever "conquer" America, that asthetic would have a lasting impact on music but it didn't cuz record companies and corporations and oppertunistic bands fucked it up.

I mean, you can probably even tell from the documentarys about em who the real boys are. I implore someone, ANYONE to watch saaaaayyy...We Jam Econo, the documentary about the minutemen and then watch this Pearl Jam doc and tell me which one got the once over from some cocksucker that works for a corporation and which didn't.

Integrity is something that is immediately obvious in most cases, at least i feel it is. And i don't think bands like Pearl Jam know the meaning of the word in the same way bands like Black Flag, Fugazi, The Minutemen, The Slits did....or even The Clash.

But hey, thats the way with every movement and perhaps it's a good thing cuz when something goes over-ground and EVERYBODY takes a peek, you're gonna have a certain amount of "in thing" folk coming to it or even appropriating it but it's worth ten thousand or a thousand or 50 or 4 good honest people to relate to and be influenced and effected by a good honest artist or band. Least i think so.

I think it's important to never cling. Grunge, Punk, whatever movement, it all has a sell by date but the basic message, the basic truth of honesty and integrity, thats always the same and thats probably the key...thing, the best any of us can really glean from it all...at least in a broad sense.

Edited July 30, 2011 by sugaraylen

[WhazUp]

But like I said, wouldn't the media be the problem not Pearl Jam? Ten came out in 1991, and most of the instrumental music was written in 1990, before grunge exploded. Pearl Jam were not riding the mainstream wave because at that point in time there was no wave, or at least if there was it didn't have a lot of traction until Nevermind came out. Pearl Jams music may be more radio freindly than let's say Mudhoney and Green River but at least to me the integrity was there. PJ writes the music they want to write, further evidenced by the constant change in sound. All in all wasn't it the men in suits who did the damage by marketing the "Seattle sound" thus ramming it to the ground?

Edited July 31, 2011 by WhazUp

[Guest Len B'stard]

But like I said, wouldn't the media be the problem not Pearl Jam? Ten came out in 1991, and most of the instrumental music was written in 1990, before grunge exploded. Pearl Jam were not riding the mainstream wave because at that point in time there was no wave, or at least if there was it didn't have a lot of traction until Nevermind came out. Pearl Jams music may be more radio freindly than let's say Mudhoney and Green River but at least to me the integrity was there. PJ writes the music they want to write, further evidenced by the constant change in sound. All in all wasn't it the men in suits who did the damage by marketing the "Seattle sound" thus ramming it to the ground?

From the late 80s onwards the corporate peepers were on Seattle though, there's was a definite like...sense that something was gonna come out of that place. Granted, no one could've known it'd do what it did but it's not like in 1990 the wheels weren't in motion, bands were getting courted/signed at that time in Seattle. Yeah, overall it's the money men, it's always the money man but bands like Pearl Jams very existence didn't help Some of the guitar work in Ten, ugh, it's disgusting that that was being passed of as alternative music.

[WhazUp]

To me, as long as the music sounds good and it has emotion behind it I don't care what the fuck its called haha. I love Pearl Jams music because I love the instrumentals and ithe lyrics are thoughtful and have substance to them. And that's all I need to enjoy the music

[Guest Len B'stard]

To me, as long as the music sounds good and it has emotion behind it I don't care what the fuck its called haha. I love Pearl Jams music because I love the instrumentals and ithe lyrics are thoughtful and have substance to them. And that's all I need to enjoy the music

I get what you're saying the idea is that music that kowtows to commerce is by extension lacking in quality and integrity.

[GivenToFly]

There some theaters doing early screenings on the 20th. I won't be able to go unfortunately, because I'll be traveling that day. Damn, had it been 21st or later, I would have gone. Anyone going?

I haven't given Pearl Jam that much attention in the past 2 years or so, but I'm really curious about this.

[Guest Len B'stard]

i'd like to see it too actually but i ain't paying for it, downloading motherfucker that i am

[WhazUp]

i'd like to see it too actually but i ain't paying for it, downloading motherfucker that i am

Really I didn't think you would actually be willing to sit through 2 hours of Pearl Jam based on your posts lol

[GivenToFly]

Temple of the Dog reunion this weekend at the PJ20 festival.

[dalsh327]

It's supposed to be airing on public television this fall.

[Angelica]

i'd like to see it too actually but i ain't paying for it, downloading motherfucker that i am

You have to see it, if only for the footage of Kurt and Eddie slow dancing at the 92 VMA's.

It's really lovely. A total valentine from Crowe to the band and their fans, but that was to be expected as they have a long standing friendship and Cameron Crowe is well...Cameron Crowe. The footage of the (diabolically wasted) band at the MTV Singles launch party is gold. Every so often, Ed talks some unbelievably pompous shit and stares meaningfully off into the distance, and I can't figure out why I don't want to smack him as would be my first reaction with anyone else.

[LCG]

I've just come back from seeing it. I thought it was excellent.

You have to see it, if only for the footage of Kurt and Eddie slow dancing at the 92 VMA's.

It's really lovely. A total valentine from Crowe to the band and their fans, but that was to be expected as they have a long standing friendship and Cameron Crowe is well...Cameron Crowe. The footage of the (diabolically wasted) band at the MTV Singles launch party is gold. Every so often, Ed talks some unbelievably pompous shit and stares meaningfully off into the distance, and I can't figure out why I don't want to smack him as would be my first reaction with anyone else.

I completely agree!

[WhazUp]

I am seeing it this Saturday in LA

I am pumped!!

[Spoon87]

Spectacular movie! Loved every minute of it. Stone with his dirty cup are well worth the money alone!

"Oh look, there's a Grammy!"