Fart to Get it Back Again

Pearl Jam's new single, "The Fixer," reviewed.

I've been shitty at the internet lately. Firefox is not playing any YouTube videos for me (aka The Google Chrome Conspiracy), I'm frustrated about Verizon Wireless's lack of Flash access, and I'm being dramatic on FaceBalls (Faceslash /Faceslash). The Internet is Serious Business indeed.

Nonirregardless, I am here to talk the musics. The first thing I'm going to do is listen to the new Pearl Jam song called "The Fixer." This song is a big deal for a lot of reasons. The upcoming album Backspacer is their first without a record label's support. It also reunites them with producer Brendan O'Brien who recorded many of their early albums and recently remixed their debut album Ten for re-release. Most importantly, this album may be the first Pearl Jam album that I don't buy.

I was incredibly disappointed by their last album (the one with the avocado). There was one song that I loved ("Parachutes") but the rest of the album put me to sleep. It was one in a string of shitty albums I was buying by artists that I thought could do no wrong, but all sounded very stale. I don't know if I changed, or if they changed. Or if America changed. All I know is that if I can change and you can change, everybody can change.



I remember a joke that Eddie Vedder once told in Spin:

Q: How many members of Pearl Jam does it take a change a light bulb?
A: Change?!? We're not gonna change for anyone!

I've listened to 33 seconds of "The Fixer" and it's not bad. Pearl Jam premiered another track on The Tonight Show recently called "Got Some" and I wasn't impressed. The performance was not particularly memorable. The mix wasn't so hot. The vocals were low and weak. People accused it of plagiarizing a Devo tune that I didn't know nor cared to investigate. I'm feeling pretty neutral about "The Fixer" so far. The intro sounds familiar for some reason, and the verses are nice. The vocal melodies are not like anything I've heard them attempt before. They don't necessarily earn Eddie Vedder a gold star just yet, but it is good that after nine albums, they aren't rehashing the same old tricks. I think I just heard "When something's good/I wanna fart to get it back again." Nice. Farts.

I think I just heard the chorus. It sucked. I hope that's not really the chorus. A lot of "Yeah yeah yeah's." Like Rage Against the Cage, but not ironic.

Second verse, slightly different from the first. I think Eddie may have a cold. I thought I detected a stuffy nose earlier, and his powerful howling does not appear as bombastic as it could. Musically, the song is getting prettier as it goes, which is good. I like pretty.

1:23 - I think I may be in the bridge, but EV is beating that once-interesting vocal melody to death.

1:32 - I was wrong. THIS is the bridge. I don't believe we needed the third verse for the last 15 seconds. On the bright side, it was at least abbreviated. The bridge is ok. As a bridge, it sounds bridgey, and it bridges what needed to be bridged. The progression progresses progressively and that's progress. The third and seventh chords are a bit of a surprise and momentarily jarring. It took 8 replays of the bridge before it sounded smooth to me, but I like it.

Now we're back to that intro riff, I just realized where I've heard this before--it reminds me of a WJ and the Sweet Sacrifice riff. Check out "White Horses" on their Myspace page. WJ (Billy Alpha) was the one who showed me that Rage Against the Cage link recently. We played on a song together this weekend and he borrowed some RAtC "Uh huh's" and "Oh yeah's" for the lyrics. Rage Against the Cage borrows from Eddie Vedder, and now Pearl Jam is borrowing from WJ. "Fart to get it back again" is clearly about stealing riffs.

Or not.

OK, so the song fades which is sort of a cop-out. Maybe it's just for the streaming Myspace version, I'm not sure. I was getting bored with the "Yeah, yeah" parts anyway. The music was decent for the outro/choruses, but the lyrics should have either been more interesting, or removed completely. Or a solo or something. I'd rather have preferred something much more dramatic to wrap up the song. Like a fart sound. Or a light bulb changing.

Just to sum up here: The song is decent, but not amazing. I don't think it has a chorus, but there are still some hooks. I think I've already listened to "The Fixer" more times than The Avocado Album, but I'm still not ready to fork over any cash. I don't think I'd turn the dial if I heard it on the radio. I should mention that I did enjoy Eddie Vedder's Into the Wild soundtrack very much, so I haven't written them totally off. We'll see what I think when I'm able to preview more tracks in September.

All right, I've run out of time to dissect the new Michelle Branch song, so I'll have to leave you with a video of my band ripping off WJ and the Sweet Sacrifice, Conan O'Brien, and Eddie Vedder all at once. We also throw in Tim & Eric, Faith No More, and "Birthday Sex" for good measure. This was recorded by blogmigo Zac Clark, Rocker Tycoon a couple weeks ago at one of Jersey City's weekly Groove on Grove concerts. I encourage you to record your own video ripping it off, or write a review of talking about my once-powerful howling not being bombastic anymore. Apparently all I need to do is fart to get it back again.

EDIT VEDDER

I've got a quick update to a recent post.

The Pearl Jam Unplugged DVD being released tomorrow has achieved a very disappointing trifecta--the set is edited, rearranged, and incomplete. I will most likely not be shelling out any money for that bullshit.

Here is the original set list:

01. Oceans
02. State of Love and Trust
03. Alive
04. Black
05. Jeremy
06. Porch
07. Even Flow
08. Rockin' in the Free World

Of that set, only "Alive," "Black," "Jeremy," and "Porch" made it to the original cable broadcast. "Even Flow" had also been aired a handful of times, but always separate from MTV's half-hour Unplugged broadcast. The remaining rare tracks and in-between stage banter have been passed around on the internet for years, complete with the exciting time code on the bottom of the screen.

From what I've gathered on message boards and press releases, "Oceans" and "State of Love and Trust" have been added to the DVD. "Rockin' in the Free World" has not. Also, "Even Flow" shows up out of order. It will appear super-obviously out of order as the end of "Porch" features Eddie Vedder standing up on his stool and writing "PRO-CHOICE!!!" on his arm in black marker. Now, you'll see it written on his arm earlier in the set, before he actually writes it there. I know it sounds like a ridiculous thing to get hung up on. Just bear with me, I am about to get more insane.

At the end of "Oceans," the vocals have been altered from the original recording (I would have preferred to underline the predicate to show my outrage, but alas, Blogger has decided that underlining is not such an important tool, and I don't feel like typing out the code the old school way... so you get italics instead). Eddie Vedder has a tendency to alter his own lyrics in concert, and towards the end of the MTV version of "Oceans" he amended "Ohhhhh, ohhhhhh" to "Ohhhhh, Beth," a tribute to his girlfriend at the time. Apparently on the DVD, the references to Beth are removed and replaced with a "grunt" of some sort. No edit is made to the visual portion.

I'm assuming they thought no one would notice, but someone did, and they pointed it out on the Pearl Jam Ten Club message board. To be honest, I have not heard the unplugged version of "Oceans" that many times and would probably not have noticed myself, but now that I know, I think it's lametarded. While I am 100% on board with them remixing Ten and changing the audio, they fully disclose this on the packaging and in press releases. People are going to be buying this Ten re-release expressly for the purpose of hearing an altered version of the album. There was never any mention of the Unplugged set being altered.

They should have taken a page from Alice in Chains and Nirvana, who released (as far as I know) complete versions of their Unplugged sessions. Those packages wisely included the fuck-ups and false starts. That's the shit I love, man! The charm of live sets is realism and spontaneity. Eddie Vedder screws up the lyrics to "Black" and they kept that in there (as far as I know). Why would they change anything else? Yeah, I know it's your fucking song and you can do whatever you want with it, but it's just tacky to try to change history. I sort of embarrassed by how bothered I am by this. It just doesn't seem very Rock n' Roll to me. I can't figure out the reasoning behind this. Was her name that painful to hear? Did Beth threaten to sue? Did the band complain? I just don't get it. People, stop editing shit! GO TAKE THE FUCKING HARMONICA OUT OF FOOTSTEPS AND THROW BETH BACK IN THE OCEAN!

Keep on Rocking* in the Free World, fuckers.

(* The extra g is for Greedo Shoots First.)

In other quick news, I had a dream the other night that Sean Penn died, so I apologize to his family if The Curse of The RoBeast kills him in the next few weeks. As for Natasha Richardson, I never mentioned her name here before, but I think something must have rubbed off of Liam Neeson. Sorry.

Births & Anniversaries

First off, the Beauty's little babe joined IRL earlier this week. Maeve Lililm was born at 7:24 pm on March 3rd. No word on her Twitter name yet. Congratulations, partner.

On to the blogginating. Pearl Jam is re-releasing their debut album Ten along with a remixed version with bonus track on March 24th. I played their crazy Pearl Jam Ten Game in order to unlock tracks from the album so I could (sort of) review them for you. Personally, I've been looking forward to a remix because I think the original version is gross. My first Pearl Jam album was the much slicker Vs. and I've never really been satisfied with Ten, preferring live, remixed, and radio versions of the tracks. Hopefully now, I can stop complaining.

These were the tracks I listened to this morning:

Once - Nice mix, finally. The original Ten had way to much reverb everywhere--on snares, on vocals, on every fart recorded in the isolation booth--and I'm pleased to say that most of it is now gone. The guitars don't sound like the seventies anymore and the vocals don't sound amateur. And the bass is right up there too. I probably would have liked to see some of the mumbly background Vedder-patter removed, but I can deal with it.

Why Go - Again, most of the musical cheese here is gone, so we're just left with the corny lyrics. Yeah, it's their debut album, so they needed some aggressive stuff to go along with the purdy parts. When I personally revist Ten, I really only want to hear "Black", "Oceans", and "Release" because I'm an old pussy now I guess. When I was younger, I would listen to these "tougher, angry" tracks like "Why Go" and "Deep" because I didn't know what tough and angry was yet (Hint: it usually isn't saturated in reverb or wah-wah pedals). Ok, the song still isn't heavier, but it definitely sounds better. I noticed an extra hi-hat hit at the first "Why go home?" part that I never heard before followed by some vocal effects that are actually cornier now than they were 20 years ago. Bad Brendan O'Brien! You lose, American asshole!

Jeremy - Sounds good. I think this was remixed for the video in the first place anyway. The only major differences I hear between this mix and the already remixed remix mix are more defined background vocals throughout and some guitars cleaned up during the verses and towards the end. Actually, the drums sound better too, like they're being hit harder somehow. Improved when I didn't think there was room for improvement.

Breath - A sluggish and unnecessary take. Ok, I can hear the lyrics better, but it's still an inferior version to the one recorded for the Singles soundtrack. I know it's big deal when they do it live, but I don't care for that either. I don't want to clearly hear the line "A breath and a scream." I want to hear the line slur into the next line ("A breath and a s-Oh, reach the door...") because it simply flows better. It's not horrible, but I just can't imagine ever purposely listen to this version.

Brother - This song blows as much as it did in the 90's. I've read that band members used to fight about whether or not to ever play or record this track. This song really shouldn't have seen the light of day. I don't know why any radio stations are playing it now.

Besides "Brother" and "Breath," there are 4 other B-sides being included on the O'Brien remastered disc: "Just a Girl," "State of Love and Trust," "2,000 Mile Blues",and "Evil Little Goat." Of these, I think I'm only famililar with "State of Love and Trust" which again, I don't think can possibly be improved from the Singles movie soundtrack version. I've heard a two second snippet of "State of Love and Trust" and it sounds a little slower, but with the snare in double time. I don't know how I feel about that.

Now you may be asking "Where are the re-recorded versions of 'Alive' and 'Even Flow' I hear still on the radio that Pearl Jam already had done in the 90s for their MTV videos with drummer Dave Abruzzeze that were way better than the Ten versions"? That's what I'm asking too. I don't know the answer. I never owned those versions because they were always on expensive imports, but I thought they were so good that it ruined the album versions for me. I don't think remixes of the original will surpass those versions. They may have been on that Rearviewmirror greatest hits package that came out 5 or so years ago. I didn't buy that, so I don't know. You can do the research.

The 2-disc collection comes with the original Ten (why?) and the O'Brien remix. The Deluxe Edition comes with the MTV Unplugged DVD, which is what I'll probably be picking up. I really hope it's the complete version though, with the unaired "Even Flow," "State of Love and Trust," "Rockin' in the Free World," and "Oceans." The press release only mentions "Oceans" but the website also has "Even Flow" playing. I don't know why they wouldn't just give a complete tracklisting to appease crazies like me who are sitting here wasting precious blogspace wondering all day and night. It's nice to hear that they didn't correct Eddie Vedder's lyrical flub during "Black." Pearl Jam's Lost Dogs B-side compilation album a few years featured lots of vocal recordings on old songs and they were all awkward and inferior.

There's also a vinyl version called the Who Fucking Cares About Vinyl Edition?

The Collector's Edition has all that plus a live concert LP from Seattle entitled "You Probably Don't Need Another Pearl Jam Concert Because We Have Already Released A Thousand, But Here It Is Anyway: Live." You also get a cassette version of the original Pearl Jam demo tape called "Momma-Son." This is the one that was sent as an instrumental to Eddie Vedder and which he sang lyrics over and blah blah blah history. I've heard these tracks before. They're interesting, but like most demos, they're really nothing to ever listen to over and over again. I don't even have a cassette player. Finally, this set comes with an "Eddie Vedder style composition notebook" which I probably would've studied 20 years ago, but now I don't have any time or room for. I can't imagine that it will be as long or as personal as the Kurt Cobain diary anyway. Therefore, I have no intention of spending $125 for all that junk. Even $28 is a tough sell for the Deluxe Edition, when I don't know for sure what's on the DVD and I don't really need another copy of the original Ten mix.

I don't know what else Pearl Jam has in store: "The reissue of Ten serves as the launch of a planned two-year catalogue re-release campaign leading up to the band's 20th anniversary in 2011." Does that mean they'll be giving disc the remix and special packaging treatment? If so, it seems a little like overkill. Especially because I don't want to have to write a blog entry for each one.