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Ed Vedder’s soundtrack for the film Into the Wild is very, very good, and entirely worth buying even if only for the song Long Nights.

I thought Eddie Vedder was born in 1963.  That would mean that I was coming right upon the day where I would be the same age as he when Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten was released.  Turns out, I misremembered.  He was born in 1964.  That means I reached this age last year.  In fact, I’m older than all the artists on Ten were when it was released.  So, everyone who knows me, realize that all that accomplishment on Ten was by people younger than me.  Impressive.

If that’s not humbling enough, think about the fact that Robert Plant was just twenty years old when Led Zeppelin’s first album was released.

(Look at those low used prices below!  No, I don’t get a kickback when you buy used merch from Amazon.  Just, seriously, if you don’t own the CDs, shell out the seven dollars it would cost to pick them both up.)

Holy [something].  Or whatever the secular equivalent of holy is.  Majestic [something].

It’s not their Led Zeppelin IV — not an album for which each song could, individually, be coupled with fifty minutes of filler and still be historic — but it is amazing.  Yes, I’m saying this as a rabid PJ fan, but you might want to take my word this time anyway.

The single, World Wide Suicide, the mind-blowing Marker in the Sand, and Gone could each carry an album.  Severed Hand could carry a boxed set.  World Wide Suicide, Gone, and Severed Hand could top modern rock charts, and Marker in the Sand could top album rock charts.  Come Back may even be sadder than Thumbing My Way from Riot Act.  I was sobbing, and had to go wake up my wife, and it’s going to be a long time before I can listen to it without crying.  Big Wave is a wonderful, passionate Darwinian surfing song.

Unemployable and Army Reserve are both striking character portraits.  One wonders if Life Wasted is written to the same person as their previous works Save You and All Those Yesterdays, or if Ed has more than his fair share of self-destructive friends (either way, he, she, or they have my best wishes.)  Inside Job is a masterful, sprawling close to the album, and the band are unfathomably gracious, emotionally, not to make us end on Gone or Come Back, which they easily could have done.

The number of stylistic touches in Ed’s voice on the album, the range of musical influences inspiring the songs, the tightly woven unity of the different composers’ works — man, I’m rambling.  I cannot honestly say, “Even if you’ve never liked a Pearl Jam album, check this out.”  But I can certainly say, “If you’ve ever liked a Pearl Jam album, get it as soon as possible.”

And, as always, try to listen on good studio monitor headphones the first time.

If I don’t lose control
Explore and not explode
A preternatural other plane
With the power to maintain

Like a tear in all we know
Once dissolved, we are free to grow
“What is human, what is more?”
I’ll answer this when I get home.

Pearl Jam on Letterman Thursday, May 4th.

Pearl Jam on SNL April 15th.

Second [Pearl Jam] Forum Show Added: “That�s right. A second show has been added in LA. Stay tuned for further updates!

If you reserved rollover tickets for this show, your credit card will be charged. A confirmation email will be sent closer to the show date, but in the meantime, you can check your profile in the pearljam.com Goods section to view your orders.”

I thought Pearl Jam would send an email update when West Coast shows were announced, as they have with the East Coast shows. I was wrong, and missed the window to buy tix for the LA Forum show. There is a possible second show being added, on contingent presale from 10am to 10pm PST on 31 March (tomorrow).

Pearl Jam’s new news feed is http://www.pearljam.com/flat/pj-rss2.xml.  Use it in your favorite reader, such as the Google Reader I discussed recently.

X ROCK radio is reporting a new Pearl Jam album sometime in 2005.

Pearl Jam. Queensrÿche, unplugged. Mudhoney headlining with David Cross. And all proceeds to help fund progressive political causes. Interested? Only catch is they’re on weeknights in Seattle, which is a long way from L.A. But if you’re in the area, go.  And let me know how it was.

I somehow missed a great Onion A.V. Club interview of Eddie Vedder from November 2002.

The final setlist for Pearl Jam’s 12 November release “Riot Act”, courtesy of The [Official] Pearl Jam Rumor Pit.

1. Can’t Keep
2. Save You
3. Love Boat Captain
4. Cropduster
5. Ghost
6. I Am Mine
7. Thumbing My  Way
8. You Are
9. Get Right
10. Green Disease
11. helphelp
12. Bushleaguer
13. 1/2 Full
14. Arc
15. All or None

With less than two months to go, I am as always getting into my pre-release hyperventilation stage.  15 songs!  I hope that some are longer format and not of their recent sub-three minute pattern.

Apparently the single “I Am Mine” is allowed to be played officially tomorrow, 18 September.  The only problem with their traditional pre-release singles is that I listen to them so much that they never quite seem to fit into the album once released, as they have built an identy all their own.  It happened with “Who You Are”, it happened to “Given to Fly”, it happened, to a certain degree, to “Nothing As It Seems”.  Regarding “Given To Fly”, I am surprised when the song comes on every time I listen to Yield, which I admit is bizarre.

Saturday evening I visited Instrumental Music here in Thousand Oaks to pick up a new set of guitar strings.  After I picked them out, Jenn was very patient and waited while I played around like a kid in a toyshop.  My gaze had fixed on a gorgeous black Les Paul, and I pulled it down and plugged it in.  When I first started picking through a chord I heard one of the worst mis-tunings I have ever encountered, made worse by the (intentional) distortion on the amp.  I’m going to see if I can give this explanation in a few sentences rather than my normal multi-paragraphs.  A guitar, as you may know, is usually tuned E-A-D-G-B-E, low to high.  This means that on a tempered scale the dashes in the previous list represent 5, 5, 5, 4, and 5 half steps, respectively.  Someone, presumably a beginner shopping at the store, had tuned the guitar with 5, 5, 5, 5, and 5 half steps, leaving the final tuning E-A-D-G-C-F.  This makes an E Major-shaped chord resolve as E-B-E-G#-C-F, giving us E-F dissonance (twice) as well as B-C dissonance, and generating what is surely one of the most revolting sounds known to man.  After I fixed the tuning it out sounded great.

I’m still thinking about it; this guitar is a beauty.  It lists for $1K, the shop carried it for $800, and I am now waiting on Guitar Center’s next “blowout sale”.  If I can get the price under $500 I can probably rationalize the purchase (Jenn, who will eventually read this post, might not agree that $500 is rationalizable.)

I have been surfing around reading more about these guitars, including a return visit to the indispensable Pearl Jam Rumor Pit, a site that is far more than its name would suggest.  Part of its role is apparently to give patronizing and dismissive non-answers to banal questions, as well as to questions that, while not banal, seem to suggest sarcastic answers.  Thus this rather amusing exchange from 3 August 1997:

Q: What type of strings does Stone [Gossard] use on his Les Paul?

A: Metal ones

While I’m on the topic, I want to share this passage from Ed’s gear page:

Q: I’m curious about Ed’s guitar setup and was wondering if you would mind
assisting me.  It’s widely reported that Ed doesn’t use effects pedals.  How does
he switch between clean and dirty tones in songs like “Not For You” and
“Corduroy”? …

A: You are correct that Ed typically does not use guitar effect pedals … At times [he] has experimented with using various distortion pedals, but one has never stuck - either because he wasn’t happy with the distortion, or because he doesn’t want to fuss with a foot pedal by his microphone stand.  On top of that, Ed’s really interested in guitars with distortion and/or effects built on-board the guitar, such as in the vintage, Italian-made Vox guitars that he owns.  With those guitars he can turn the distortion, and/or other effects, on and off at the flip of a switch right on the guitar itself.  It’s a pretty neat concept, but whereas the Vox guitars naturally sound O.K., they don’t sound great.  So far though, Ed’s never taken one of the Vox’s out on tour with him….

So if he uses no effect pedals live, and no Vox guitars live, then how does he get his distortion??  Well, it’s actually a little bit purer approach.  First of all, most of the time Ed plays his guitars using only the front (neck) pickup.  This pickup typically has a thicker, muddier tone due to its position along the length of the string.  And so with the positioning of that pickup, it’s a little easier to “overdrive” your amp with your strumming/picking technique.  Second, Ed sets his amp tone by first dialing in a loud, clean, full tone.  (Clean being the important word there.)  He adjusts his input gain right to the point where the “clean” tone is on the verge of distorting slightly.  Once this is set, his sound (clean or dirty) is controlled purely with his hands, changing with the intensity he chooses to strum the strings with.  If he picks more delicately, he can achieve a cleaner tone.  If he picks harder and more aggressively, he can achieve a distorted tone.  Cool, huh?