Jacob

Soundgarden. Chris Cornell NEEDS his old band and style and sound back.

Everything up til the end of Melon Collie is awesome. Gish is by far their best album.

The funny thing is that the unreleased album MACHINA II is better than the released album MACHINA: The Machines Of God...... but then again, also is Playing With Fire by K-Fed.

yea man, Parachutes is great. In fact, all of Pearl Jam by Pearl Jam is great. Ten is a good place to start if you're getting into Pearl Jam too. And also, if you dig Pearl Jam... you may like Soundgarden too. Check out the cd Superunknown by them.

This documentary follows a film-maker named Mark Borchardt, and his friend Mike Schank, as they struggle to make an independent movie. It is funny as hell. Just wondering if anyone else has seen it? Or knows whatever happened to these two guys.

Yes!

I concur. Ten is an awesome cd but The Avacado Album is by far their best. Binaural is also very good. And yes, Lost Dogs is a great collection. It's really great to see Pearl Jam just rocking out and having a good time on the B-sides. It is like listening to Pearl Jam as what the band really is like, as opposed to all the edited and serious stuff they have on their albums. Especially when it comes to the Riot Act b-sides like Down and Undone. That being said, Hard To Imagine is the best Pearl Jam song ever.

My goal this summer is to try and finish the Tommyknockers by Stephen King, without skipping through pages of useless character backstories.

Indiana Jones! 7 / 10

Dashboard Confessional / U2, Sleater-Kinney/Pearl Jam, My Morning Jacket/Pearl Jam, Chris Cornell, Matthew Good, Bruce Springsteen, The Verve, Gordon Lightfoot, Queens of the Stone Age. to come: Matthew Good, John Mayer, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Oasis

They are pretty much Canada's answer to the Foo Fighters.

Damn right!

Sometimes I gotta call into question the stylistic decisions of those guys. Not Chris though, Chris always knows what looks good.hahaha

Its funny how Stone went from being such a pure rocker in style, to looking like a relative of Bill Gates. hahah

As well, I'd like to take this oppurtunity to mention that Temple Of The Dog is an awesome band.

hahah, jeez. Thats quite the comment from the man himself. haha Also, during my first time seeing Pearl Jam (it was really good! hahaha), at one point Eddie is like "Hey guys! Stone Gossard! Standing right beside me over there!" points to Stone. And then Stone shyly steps to the microphone and is like "uh, hi!" to which everyone responds "YOU FUCKING ROCK STONE!" haha

Yea, thats true, Eddie is such a jokester in concert. He has some memorable quotes. Not sure about this duet business, I'd say a few years ago, perhaps more now. I know because I found a video of it on YouTube. Oh yes, thats right. haha My favorite Eddie moment from my experience would be this "I was looking out my hotel window today and I saw this giant tower you guys have. Back in Seatltle we have one of those two, and it made me feel a little homesick. Its good to know that both our cities sport rather large erections." haha And then Vedder in the middle of Do The Evolution "Admire me, admire my clone, admire my son, admire Stone!"

Yes, guitar solos are good, in moderation of course. haha And yes, I'm afraid Michael McCready has been chained down. The day I saw them last, May 9th, was apparently his 1st year anniversary, or so Eddie mumbled to us.

I find that a lot with collaborative efforts, its gets really easy to tell who wrote what. Like, throughout the Pearl Jam discography, you can really tell who wrote which songs. Matt Cameron writes really complex songs, and following his time in Soundgarden, his writing in Pearl Jam is really reminiscent of Soundgarden style songs. Listening to Evacuation, for example, when compared to the song Mailman, gives rise to real similarities. Jeff Ament's songs really are defined by their riffs. Think of the song God's Dice, and the riff is what comes to mind. Mike McCready is really bluesy in his song-writing, as can be seen with Yellow Ledbetter, Come Back, all of his early guitar leads on Ten, his live cover of Little Wing, and etc... Stone Gossard is really punky with his songwriting, as can be witnessed by Mankind, Don't Gimme No Lip (DON'T GIMMME NONE! hahah, and his riff work on Vs. Eddie is by far the most George Harrisonesque member of the group. When Ed writes, he is usually really introspective, or is introspective while reflecting on the state of the world. Ed's songs are very cryptic (everything on Vitalogy, and No Code), as well, Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Parting Ways (one of my favorites), and Gone. As well, his solo work really shows an Eastern influence (his collaborations with Indian musicians for the version of Long Road found on Dead Man Walking). As well, the song Dead Man reflects middle-eastern style reminiscent melodies.

jesus.......god only knows what Chris Cornell would put into a new Temple of the Dog album at this point. I'm thinking that he will dig up something that'll serve as a sign of the times, kinda like the song Safe and Sound off his excellent solo album Carry On (hahaha). What I think will happen, is that it'll be like Pearl Jam where on albums like everything since No Code, individual members contribute songs. Like Stone's awesome Mankind haha, and let us not forget, Don't Gimme No Lip. hahahah. So, I think we can suspect songs from all over the spectrum. Songs from Cameron, McCready, Ament, Gossard, Vedder, and Cornell. And if this soundtrack is basically going to be a Vedder solo album......I'm fuckin psyched. haha. Release date dear?

An entire soundtrack of new material? Or is just like, two songs and then the rest of it is a score? haha. Yes, even within the band too, sometimes the artist really explore stuff that usually doesn't work out. For example , the Smashing Pumpkins and Adore. And for Pearl Jam (although their move was self-conscious) No Code.

ahha, yea, I knew about that trilogy of songs. You bring up very good points. Well, now that I think of it, we should try and consider what Ed isn't doing as a songwriter in Pearl Jam, and perhaps consider what he'd want to do when not as part of Pearl Jam. For example, Maynard James Keenan of Tool writes songs specifically about spiritual matters and extremely meditative inner journeys in the hopes finding some sort of transcendental truth or revelation. The entire album Lateralus is a prime example of that. Though Tool started out in the same vein as Rage Against the Machine (with that hack Morello haha), witnessed in the extremely angry lyrics and songwriting of Opiate and Undertow. The band, however. moved away from pure metal and into progressive-rock/heavy metal. AEnima, though still being pretty fucking disturbing and angry, attacks politics, relgiion, genetics, certain fans haha, and etc.... The song AEnema relates a belief of Maynard's that a flood is needed to purify Los Angeles. The final track Third Eye takes the listener through an inner journey to some sort of revelation to be found in the midst of all thats wrong in the modern world. With A Perfect Circle however, Maynard is almost like a totally different person. I mean, jesus, Maynard wrote an introspective song about a failed relationship with the song 3 Libras. And as well A Perfect Circle released a terrible album of covers of political songs called Emotive. Though there are two original, and one very disturbing song to be found on it. In my opinion, I think that different bands bring out different qualities in the songwriter, as seen with Maynard from Tool/A Perfect Circle. I think the best thing to do would be to look to Ed's solo material for Sean Penn's new movie, as well as previous projects. I haven't heard his new solo stuff yet, so I wouldn't be able to go into detail about it. Also, one has to consider Chris Cornell, and the input he'd give.

Very true. Looking back at Ten though, the strong majority of Vedder's lyrics are presented as 1st person interior monologues from various people. Once is about a man on the verge of a mental breakdown. Evenflow seems to be ablout the same person, but now from an external perspective. And so on. Vedder has always shined when writing songs about women. Why Go, which tells the story of female child who is neglected by her doctors at the mental ward where she resides. Daughter is a similar story of a girl who is neglected, but this time by her parents who seem to be embarassed by her mental deficiencies. Of course, Betterman, the story of Vedder's mom. Something really interesting I found is that Vedder comes back to his mentally disturbed and deficient characters throughout his entire career. In chronological order: Why Go, Daughter, Immortality, I'm Open, Nothing as it Seems, etc... It seems that Vedder always seems to be relating lyrics of a person caught in some kind of internal crisis, always feeling that the odds are against him. This can perhaps best be summed up in the opening lines of Sometimes "Large fingers pushing paint, you're god and you've got big hands, the colours blend, the challenges you give man..." It seems though with The Avacado/Zombie Album though, that Vedder has reached a turning point, as expressed in opening track Life Wasted "Yes, comfort is an energy, but why let the sad song play" and then he proceeds to laugh off his old self it seems. And then of course rumbles through the chorus that "I've faced it, a life wasted, I'm never going back again".

hm, thats true. Cornell isn't the political type when it comes to lyrics at all. The closest to political that Cornell gets is in songs like Hands All Over where he is expressing environmental concerns and criticizing the pwers that be fuckin up the environment. I think that Eddie and Cornell would find some sort of middle-ground where they would write introspective material, while simultaneously acting as a sign of the times. Sort of like in songs like Gone where Eddie is commenting on the horrors of reality in and outside America, and how he yearns to make a new start and "get out of this town". Also, the same sort of thing found in songs like "Safe and Sound" by Chris Cornell. As well seen in Preaching The End Of The World. Either that or they could do the whole Springsteen thing where they act basically as narrators, like on Pearl Jam's song Unemployable, or Chris Cornell's Ghosts.

thats for you to hypothesize damnit! hahaha