1990 TheMakingofPearlJam by Jessica Letkemann

7/27/2019 1990 TheMakingofPearlJam by Jessica Letkemann

1/23


2/23

there is so much more tothe story of how pearl jamformed than has ever been

shared. to uncover it, Iinterviewed eddie vedder,

stone gossard, jeff ament,matt Cameron, chriscornell & other key

players, I dug up original1990 PJ artifacts & hunted

down rare audio, Itriangulated dates &gathered every fact. to

celebrate Pearl Jam's 20thbirthday, I'm proud to

present the fruits of over10 years of exhaustive

original research. brew apot of coffee, fire up your

printer, & prepare for along, engrossing read in

unprecedented detail aboutthe events of 1990,the year that a series of

magically wildcoincidences broughttogether the unlikelygroup of people that

became pearl jam.Jessica letkemann, October 2010

MusicF

orRhinos

1990

The

Making

of

Pea

rlJa

m

byJessicaLetkemann

aTwoFeetT

hick.com

Production

winterThe new decade had dawned brightly for 23-year-oStone Gossard, 26-year-old Jeff Ament and their Mother Love Bonbandmates. The band's first full-length album,Apple, was in the canmanager Kelly Curtis was planning a tour to follow its release in Apand frontman Andy Wood was clean. Their first gig of 1990 was twdays after New Year's day (five days before Andy's 24th birthday) aVogue, the little club that by then had the words MOTHER LOVE BONpainted across the outside of the building. The hopeful and excitedwas buoyed further, Andy noted from the stage, by the birth of Kefirst child, a daughter1, earlier that day.

January passed with a late-month headlining set at Legends in TacoFebruary also went by in a blur for them as, 1200 miles south in SaDiego at a low-ceilinged club called the Bacchanal nestled betweenAM/PM market and a hardware store in a nondescript strip mall, EdVedder took the stage fronting a band called Bad Radio one last timthe same pre-Valentine's day that Nelson Mandela was finally freedEddie made sure to mention that fact to the half empty club, whichfestooned with huge expressive charcoals of Albert Einstein and PeTownshend that would later find their way into the studio as Pearl recorded Ten. Pouncing manically around the smallish stage with his

cargo shorts' crotch x-ed out in silver duct tape and his long brownmane layered in a classic late-80s skater cut, Eddie's stance, his lookeven his vocals evoked the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He had recentlydecided to quit Bad Radio. Just two weeks before this chilly Sundayat the Bacchanal, what was supposed to be his final gig with the baa benefit: the Rain Forest Music Fest, February 23 at the East CountPerforming Arts Center had been cancelled because the venue'

1She was the baby surrounded by the band members in a photo in the liner notes

Mother Love Bone's Apple and on the cover of Pearl Jam's 1992 "Jeremy" single.2A day short of one year la ter, he played there fronting Mookie Blaylock/Pearl Jam


3/23

music for rhinos 1990: The making of Pearl Jamby Jessica Letkemanna twofeetthick.com product

2

board feared that a rock audience would damage the plush 1200 seater.Pogoing on the Bacchanal stage with his Kiedis in full strut and his blackTelecaster at hand, Vedder knew his future was somewhere else.Mike McCready, meanwhile, was still very much in musical hibernation afterthe breakup of his longtime band Shadow. He still played his guitaroccasionally, but his routine mostly revolved around work at an Italianplace called Julia's3, reading up on political theory, and the classes he wastaking at Shoreline Community College in pursuit of the degree he hadn't

had interest in during the Shadow years.It's surprising that Stone and Mike had never been in a band together. Theymet and became friends as tweens at Madrona School in 1977, but Mikehad veered off into metal and joined Warrior while Stone was still overhalf a decade from even picking up the guitar. There hadn't been anopportunity, no matter how incestuous music in Seattle became in theensuing years, for them to team up. Stone had leapt from high school intoGreen River and had been on a seemingly set course since then. Mike hadridden Warrior into Shadow and then had put his guitar away. Now, ofcourse, Stone was in Love Bone and they were about to hit the big time 4.

Chance stepped in that February by way of a house party that bothguitarists happened to attend. Mike hadn't felt like going and fellowmusician Pete Droge5 had had to talk him into it. Bummed, tired, or just

3A half-block from Julia's, on a quiet residential street in the Wallingford section of

Seattle sometime in early 1990, the City of Seattle re-laid the sidewalks, and someone,perhaps a guitarist on his way to work (possibly someone who was buddies with Stone toboot), had paused to draw in the wet cement. First, the wedded, feathered 'VH' logo ofVan Halen, and then the words 'Mother Love Bone.'4

Ironically, Mother Love Bone once opened for Shadow at Seattle's Gorilla Gardens club. 5

Droge, who had recently worked alongside McCready at a pizza place called Piecora's,

also had the distinction of having replaced Gossard in future Soundgarden bassist BenShepherd's band March Of Crimes in 1983 when he was only 15.

not in the mood, Mike got drunk and retreated into a corner with a gHe put on a Stevie Ray Vaughn record and blissed out playing licks aloto it, oblivious to the room around him. During his reverie, Stone Gohappened to walk by and was immediately impressed. McCready, for part, was psyched that Stone had liked his noodling. The moment pasbut the spark was filed in Stone's mind. It would be only a few monthbefore he would retrieve it.

springIn March, the PolyGram Records machine behind MLB'sApple groundgear. There were interviews to do, and the three-month-long nationajust weeks away in May. Unlike Eddie at that February Bad Radio gig, one in Mother Love Bone knew that their 10-song set at the CentralTavern that second Friday of March would be the band's last. The finasong of the night was "Crown Of Thorns."Six days later on March 15, Andy gave an interview, his last, to Rip'sMichael Browning. The next night, a Friday night, after 116 days clean,Andy decided to blow off a meeting with Kelly and a prospective MotLove Bone tour manager to get a fix. He brought the heroin back to tQueen Anne apartment he shared with fiance, Xana LaFuente. At ha

past ten, Xana returned to find Andy face down on their bed, unconsbut alive.Rushed to Harborview Medical Center, he was in a coma all weekendhis condition was deteriorating. On Monday, Toni and David Woodconsulted with their youngest son's doctors and made the impossibledecision to pull the plug. Over the next three hours, nearly two-dozenfamily members visited him, followed by many of his friends. Xana, alofollowed and cut a lock of his hair. After waiting for Andy's old roommSoundgarden singer Chris Cornell, to arrive from the airport after rusback to Seattle from tour, Andy's parents, Xana, his brothers Kevin anBrian, Kelly, and bandmates Stone, Jeff, Bruce Fairweather, and Greg

ABacchanaladforBadRadio'slastshoww

ithEddieVedder

(Feb.1

1,1

990),intheSanDiegoReader.


4/23


Gilmore gathered around his bed, the doctors stopped the machines. Withhis idol Freddie Mercury singing in the background, Andy died.Those close to Andy arranged a public memorial at the ParamountTheater downtown five days after he passed away. Everyone who'd evermet him, it seemed, (and many who didn't) attended, ducking into thespacious theater under a marquee that read "Andy Wood R.I.P.""[It] was even worse than I expected," Mudhoney's Mark Arm wrote in Rip

magazine six years later.A "The place reeked of incense, a tape of howling

noises (wolves I assume) played over the p.a. system. Druids roamed thestage holding candles. The place was packed with people who didn't seemto know who Andy was, just that this was some sort of rock event thatyou were supposed to go to. After Andy's father said a few words, peoplewere free to get up and say a few words themselves if they felt the need.This ran the gamut from a druid (who kept calling Andy 'Randy') speakinghokey 'new age' drivel, to Narcotics Anonymous confessionals. The onlypeople who made any sense were Andy's longtime friends Mara West and

[Malfunkshun drummer] Regan Hagar6 who had the guts to call bullshit on

the whole deal."One other person talking sense that night, however, had been Andy's dad.Despite his grief, David Wood took the mic and called out to the

remaining members of Mother Love Bone. Continue on, he told them.Find success. Be on TV. Find a new singer, "but whatever you do," he

begged them, "make sure he's not a junkie."B

In the weeks that followed, Jeff, Stone, Greg, and Bruce began to deal withwhat would become of their band. The tour, clearly, couldn't happen, but

6Hagar, who was the drummer of the proto-Mother Love Bone band Lords Of The

Wasteland in addition to playing in Malfunkshun with Andy Wood from 1980-1987,

rejoins the Pearl Jam story in 1992 as drummer of Stone Gossard's side-band Brad andin 1994 as co-founder, with Gossard, of Loosegroove Records.

the record was still in the can. As spring bloomed, they agreed it shoucome out anyway, and PolyGram scheduled a release date in July. Thebassist and one guitarist walked in one direction, and the second guitaand the drummer walked in the other. Bruce and Greg quickly formedBlind Horse7 and forged ahead. Stone and Jeff had been playing toget

for six years but neither one jumped into planning a musical futuretogether.For the time being there was LuvCo., an informal cover band with a s

line-up that played Skynyrd and Aerosmith hits for kicks. LuvCo. playeonly four shows around Seattle during the first half of the year and coamong the members of its freeform line-up, Jeff Ament, Mike McCreaRichard Stuverud (who rejoins the story a few years down the road wJeff in Three Fish), Shawn Smith (who comes back into the picture in years with Stone in Brad), and Chris Friel (formerly of McCready's Shawho jumps back into the story in a few months with Stone's demos). was a pretty low key thing, just for fun," Shawn Smith told me a few ye

laterC. Serious or not, it was in LuvCo., that Jeff was first personally

acquainted with Mike's playing.

summer

Not long after Stone remembered seeing McCready and deciding to him over to jam in mid-June, Eddie was climbing into ex-Red Hot ChilPeppers drummer Jack Irons' big black car in L.A. on July 23 to head ofor a camping trip in Yosemite National Park with fellow Chilis and otL.A. musicians. Crucially, the trip would keep Eddie Vedder fresh in JacIrons' mind when a certain guitarist and bassist came calling that summ

7The lineage of Blind Horse is pretty confusing. Before War Babies, and probably

same time he was in LuvCo., Richard Stuverud was in Blind Horse. Tom Gunn, whobeen in LuvCo., went on to War Babies.

AndyWood'shandwrittensetllistforMotherLoveBone's

last-evershow,March9,1

990atSeattle'sCentralTavern.


5/23


4

Meanwhile, after LuvCo. fizzled, Richard Stuverud asked Jeff to join his realband, War Babies. Stuverud and Ament had become fast friends and asidefrom bands, they spent plenty of time during this period just jamming."Playing with Richard, I kind of got my love for playing music back," Jeff told

me in 1999D. "And a lot of that love was just us two playing together, like

playing grooves together. And then at the same time, Stone and I weretalking every day. We'd ride our bikes down to the center of town andhave discussions about things. He told me that he had played a coupletimes with Mike McCready and he'd written a few songs. And he wantedto know if I'd come and, you know, listen to the songs or play along orwhatever.""After Andy died, I was kind of questioning whether I wanted to play musicanymore," said Jeff, who was considering going the route McCready hadtaken and getting that graphic design degree he'd abandoned in 1983 tochase his musical dreams. "And right at the same time, the guys in WarBabies had just gotten rid of their bass player and they asked me if Iwanted to at least play these few shows with them. So I went out andplayed with them, went in the studio with them. [It was] the summer of'90."

Jeff had two choices laying before him, and he took both at first. There was

Stone's embryonic project, with its possible PolyGram backing (they weretechnically still signed) and the chance to continue playing with Stone(marking their third band together). But there was also War Babies, whowere also managed by Kelly Curtis and who, by mid-June, had signed arecord deal with Columbia. They had gigs lined up, and were set to startrecording their debut album in November. Jeff was invited along for theride. Among the gigs he played with them were at least two at the CentralTavern, one right before they got signed where Andy's Xana, members ofQueensryche and Alice in Chains (who themselves had recently signed toColumbia) spent a fleeting moment hanging out informally in front of theclub. He played a second War Babies Central show on June 16, just after

they signed. A few days later, they also opened for XYZ from L.A. at Moore.8

STONE GOSSARD DEMOS"At that point, after Andy died, Stone was the only person [from Mot

Love Bone] writing on a really consistent level," Jeff explained. GossarMcCready were honing riffs into songs in Gossard's parents' attic in CHill, the same space where Green River and Mother Love Bone had ogathered."It takes somebody to jump off a cliff, [to] just do it," Gossard told me

recentlyE, recalling his drive to put together a new band after Mother

Bone. "I had the personality type that said let's just keep going."Mike, for his part, lobbied Stone to invite Jeff and showed up at a WaBabies gig to convince him. Jeff says he agreed to "listen to the songs o

play along or whatever."F

Up in the attic, Stone Mike and Jeff jammed

Gossard riffs that formed the basis of later songs that had been born bwhen Andy Wood was still treading the boards, preaching the good-tlove rock gospel. "Dollar Short," the music that would come to be PeaJam's "Alive," had started life as a full-on Mother Love Bone song, Gosreveals. Complete with Andy Wood lyrics, Gossard remembers that Meven performed it at a Portland gig. "I think we played it at the last Mo

8War Babies also played a benefit for friend Kristen Barry at the Off Ramp on Tu

August 21 opening for Alice In Chains and others, but it's unknown if Jeff was on ba

8.17.90 Seattle Post-Intelligencerarticle previewed a Mother Love Bone listening that was being held the next night at Parker's. Curiously, the piece mentioned that of Man, Mother Love Bone, and another band will perform a live show." Obviously,

Mother Love Bone wasn 't there, per se. But, i s it possible that the surviving membeup on stage? Or could Gossard's new crew have jammed at this gig?

Left & Below Right: Ed's journal notesabout the Yosemite trip with Jack Irons (July23,1990) from the 2009 Ten deluxeedition. Below Left: Mother Love Bonewritten into the sidewalk cement in 1990near Julia's, where Mike McCready worked.PHOTO BY JESSICA LETKEMANN


6/23


Love Bone show at Satyricon9," he says. "There's a taper down in Portland

who might have it. I've never heard it [again], but I'm super curious."G

The

riff "Troubled Times" not only became the Temple of the Dog song "TimesOf Trouble" and Pearl Jam's "Footsteps," it had also been a half-finishedMother Love Bone song called "So Pleasing" that Andy Wood gave

salacious, off-the-cuff lyrics.For the new band, other songs evolved that summer, complexarchitectures of chord progressions and interlocking parts. Lyric- andsingerless, Gossard gave these compositions riff-based working titles like"Richards E" ("Something about it reminded me of Keith Richards," he says)and "Agyptian Crave" ("It was kind of an eastern scale except it was in thekey of A.") "I've got tapes and tapes and tapes of things just named 'Riff 1','Riff 2' which I'll never look at again because I need to remember," Gossardexplains. "I need the name to remind me of it. So [the riff titles were] just aloose association thing."With a dozen of these written, Stone was ready to complete the line upwith a drummer and a singer. He decided to borrow a drummer so thatthey could record his instrumentals. Soundgarden's Matt Cameron, whothey were already about to work with on Chris Cornell's Andy Woodtribute Temple of the Dog (more on that later), readily agreed to pinch hit.

The resulting demo would be the calling card for potential bandmates."Matt Cameron was the best drummer in town, everybody knew it," saysGossard. "So when I wanted to do demos, I was like, 'I don't have adrummer [but] maybe I can just get a guy to come in: Matt. It didn'trequire him to be in the band. It was just the idea that, God, he's thegreatest [and] maybe he wants to do it."

9Per a flyer of the show, Mother Love Bone played Satyricon on August 3, 1989.

Without a recording it's unclear if this is the show Stone is talking about. Portland is areasonable drive from Seattle, so MLB likely played there fairly often.

Cameron had been one of the most admired drummers in the smallSeattle scene since his mid-80s days with Jack Endino (later engineer osome of the most noted records of the era) and Daniel House in SkinYard. Soundgarden had managed to land him in 1986. "I knew [StoneJeff] from when I first started playing with Skin Yard," Cameron told m

1999

H

. "They went to Skin Yard shows. I met them at parties and sawthem around.""For sure, in terms of learning Pearl Jam music -- what became Ten, thwas all starting with Mike and I in the attic of my parents' house. Welearned the arrangements first and got a hold of Jeff again and Matt,"

Gossard saysI.

"Matt and Jeff were probably learning them together ri

away [after] Mike had had a first or second pass at something so he haleast a rough idea of what he was gonna do."With Jeff onboard and Cameron filling in, rehearsals continued in mutfriend and fellow musician Kristen Barry's basement as well as at Gossrented house. Stone mapped out the songs on giant sheets seeminglystraight out of a boardroom brainstorming session. "I remember Stone

had written out these big charts, like big paper presentation tablaturecharts. And he was writing out the letter G four times to the letter E. was fond of writing out charts," Cameron laughed at the memory whe

talking to me in 1999."They were just pieces of cardboard boxes basically just sort of cut ouGossard explains. " I didn't really know how and still don't know howto write any real charts, but it had four of these things and three of ththings just so we could look at something while he's playing and knowmany phrases we were going to do before we made a change."The makeshift group entered Chris Hanzsek and Jack Endino's Reciprostudio on NW Leary Way in August for the Stone Gossard Demos sesHanzsek, who had engineered both Soundgarden and Green River'scontributions to the seminal Seattle compilation Deep Six four years e

"It takes somebody to jumpoff a cliff, [to] just do it. had the personality type thatsaid let's just keep going."

-Stone Gossar

on starting a new banafter Mother Love Bon


7/23


6

was behind the boards. Over two consecutive weekends, McCready,Ament, and Gossard hammered out twelve instrumentals10 withCameron and McCready's ex-Shadow bandmate Chris Friel sitting in ondrums when Cameron wasn't available. Drafted by McCready, it's Frielwho drums on the instrumental demos they made of "Troubled Times"and "E Ballad." In a 2002 email exchange with me, Endino remembered

that Hanzsek labeled the raw reels "Stone and Co."J

When they went into Reciprocal, "I'm sure I had my charts," Stone laughs. "Iwas very driven... I was pretty excited that it was going from song ideas inyour head to arrangements with bass and drums that sounded likesomebody could, you know, sing on 'em."And so it was that even as they were recording that August, "Stone andCo." also retreated to their new Galleria Potatohead basement rehearsalspace to audition singers and drummers.

wanted: singer & DrummerMichael Goldstone, the young A&R guy who'd signed Mother Love Boneto PolyGram was eager to bring this new project over to new his gig atEpic. Goldstone was among the first to get a copy of the Stone GossardDemos, which had been edited down to five instrumentals. At a party in

early September, Goldstone ran into Jack Irons, who he knew from theearly '80s pre-Chili-Peppers band What is This?, which had briefly beensigned to Goldstone's earlier employer, MCA. One version of the story hasit that Goldstone sent Irons the tape; the story Stone and Jeff most oftentell is that they personally gave it to Jack. Another version has it that Stoneand/or Jeff stopped by Irons' place in L.A. while on a Love Bone publicity

10Full Stone Gossard Demos 1990 tracklist: The King, Dollar Short, Richards E, E

Ballad, Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald, Weird A, 7Up, Doobee E, Agyptian Crave, TroubledTimes, Evil E, Folk D. Edmund Fitzgerald is no relation to the Gordon Lightfoot song.

jaunt, found that Jack wasn't home and left the tape with his wife-to-bNo matter exactly how the cassette reached Jack, it certainly did. Stonand Jeff were definitely in Los Angeles more than once, including a stia few days starting sometime before September 13 for the ConcreteFoundations Forum metal convention at the Sheraton Plaza La Reina LAX to promote Love Bone, scout for players, and do interviews,according to a little blurb in Seattle's Rocketweekly newspaper at the During those trips in August and September they would talk with botLos Angeles Times and Rolling Stone. Interestingly, they were sure tomention their call for new bandmates in the RS interview11 and Jeff

expressly said they had their heart set on a singer that was anything bAndy Wood: "To go out and find another singer who looked like Andand maybe sang a little bit like Andy would just be prostitution." Shortafter the September 20 issue hit the stands on September 7, they hadfound their guys.Jack had been trying to reconnect with Alain Johannes from What Is Tand Natasha Schneider since before he'd walked away from the ChiliPeppers, blinded with grief overhis best friend and bandmate HillelSlovak's heroin overdose on June 27, 1988. By fall 1990, Jack had not finally put together Eleven with Johannes and Schneider, he had agreehit the road with Red Kross in mid-September. Additionally, his first cwas on the way. Drumming for Gossard's new project, therefore, wassomething Jack could sign on for, but he did agree to pass the tape aloto a more likely drummer or singer. Jack and our workaholic surfer-songwriter-singer Eddie Vedder, meanwhile, had been close friends sithey'd met at a November 21, 1989 Joe Strummer gig at the Bacchan

11The Rolling Stone piece, by writer Dave DiMartino, also ran an odd photo of "M

Love Bone" taken for the magazine: Bruce Fairweather, Stone, and Jeff but no Greg

Gilmore. Jeff, poignantly, is in a LuvCo. t-shirt and Team Love Bone shorts. Rolling StSept. 20, 1990, page 24.

Left: one of the twoReciprocal studio-labeledaudio reels containingthe Stone GossardDemos 1990. Below:the circa 1990 logo ofReciprocal.


8/23


where Ed was a roadie and Jack had been Strummer's tour drummer.Fresh from the Yosemite trip, it was Eddie that sprang to Jack's mind.In the months since 25-year-old Eddie Vedder had left Bad Radio, he'dhooked up with drummer Brad Wilk and guitarist Kyle Baer to form ashort-lived L.A. based funk-rock band called Indian Style. "I'd been playing

with Brad since high school," Baer told BAM magazine in 1992

K

. "We werein party bands together. I was into Led Zeppelin, the Clash, and theRamones. When we finally got it together, we had a sort of Chili Pepperishfunk thing, and Eddie Vedder was the singer. We were called Indian Style."Shortly thereafter Wilk hooked up with Tom Morello, who, like Eddie, wasa SoCal transplant from the Chicago area, and moved on to the then-forming Rage Against the Machine.12 Baer put together Greta, which

released a couple of records on PolyGram13 before crumbling in the mid'90s. And Vedder, Vedder was looking for a new gig, possibly on his own.Irons' copy of Gossard's tape found him first.Jack quickly recommended Vedder to Stone and Stone gave the OK topass along the tape to him. "Jack had just been hanging out with Eddie andEd had been coming up from San Diego and hanging out with [hisgirlfriend] Beth, who worked in L.A. at the time," Jeff explained to me in

1999L. "Jack and Ed were playing basketball one day and Jack said, 'hey man

I got this tape by these guys...'"And so it was that Jack gave the SG Demos to Ed during a basketball gamein L.A. Typically, the pair played on Friday nights, but it's unclear if Jack

12Michael Goldstone, who signed both Mother Love Bone and Pearl Jam, would also

end up signing Rage Against The Machine in 1991.13

Greta's two albums are No Biting (1993) and This is Greta! (1995). Incidentally,

both were released on PolyGram's Stardog imprint, which had been named by andcreated for Mother Love Bone back in 1988 and resurrected in 1991 to release records

by Ugly Kid Joe and "alternative/metal street level bands," according to an Aug. 25, 1992PolyGram press release.

handed it over during the normal weekly game (and then Ed sat on it few days) or if they played hoops randomly on September 12, aWednesday (jibbing with the oft-told idea that Ed was inspiredimmediately).Either way, three hours of highway south from L.A. in San Diego, Edarrived at work for his graveyard shift at a Chevron petroleum warehjust as the date crossed into September 13 at midnight, and he beganreally listen to the tape. Five instrumentals. "Dollar Short," "TroubledTimes," "E Ballad," "Richard E" and "Agyptian Crave." He listened to theover and over that night at work.

9.13.1990 Momma-s0nEight AM on September 13, he clocked out, threw his board into the of his black '89 Toyota pick-up truck, and hit Pacific Beach as the fog cin off the ocean. The music rolled with the waves as he surfed. Difficuthemes from his own teen years surfaced and lyrics began to coalescehis mind. By the time he got out of the water, three melodies and setslyrics were forming. He raced to his girlfriend's place in nearby MissioBeach because it was much closer than his own digs out east near theBacchanal. The words might slip away if he didn't hurry.

Still wet that Thursday morning, he scribbled outlines on sticky notes work, pulled out his trusty four-track, and began to sing. Out came thrsongs, a brief rock opera shades of his beloved Who's Tommy. "The fi

thing that was written was these three songs," Ed said on stage in 199

"Without even knowing these guys, we kind of wrote music together.

was this cool, little mini opera... about birth incest and death.""Dollar Short" became "Alive," Act One, where Eddie shoehorned wideyed autobiography about the lies surrounding his parentage into thegroove, rounding out the developing storyline with some fiction abou

incest. The story told in "Alive," Eddie explained to me in 1999N

, was

'Alive' was about "this strange twist in mylife having to do with a father that

didn't know was my father until laterin my adolescent years...I would catchlooks on my mom's face once in a

while. I think she was seeing my realdad in me. He had been long passed[away]. Sometimes we're a little bit

like carbon copies, you know.-Eddie vedde


9/23


8

inspired by "a situation I felt I could draw from... this strange twist in my lifehaving to do with a father that I didn't know was my father until later in myadolescent years. And then looking back and realizing the whole time that Iwas growing up I was maybe meeting him briefly. I would catch looks onmy mom's face once in a while. I don't know what it was really, but I thinkshe was seeing my real dad in me. He had been long passed [away].Sometimes we're a little bit like carbon copies, you know.""When they finally did tell me," Eddie continued, "I had already been playingmusic for quite awhile. And they said, 'That's where you get your musicaltalent. He was like a lounge singer or something. And I thought, 'Well, fuckyou. He never showed me a chord, I've done this on my own.' That's howyou feel, and rightly so, as an adolescent: that you get so little credit for somany things, that when you do something, you want the credit. But what Itried to do [with "Alive"] off that was make it a little more interesting and

turn it into more of a serial killer type scenario. So lyrically, I ended up witha totally fictional piece creating a situation where the mom was going back and it's pretty warped here but the mom goes back, sees the child asthe carbon copy of the dad, the person she loved, the guy who's gone, and

she can't help herself. Shegoes for the son."O

"What I'd like to clarify," Eddie went on, speaking of the incest in the song,

"is that this never happened [in real life], you see." Did people really thinkthat? "I think so! I found that out from my mom, who, God forbid sheneeds anymore trouble in her life. She's been through a lot. But that wasmy right as a writer to be able to do whatever I want with it."Next, the driving "Agyptian Crave" became "Once," Act Two, in which theprotagonist from "Alive" has become "a serial killer [who'd] been abused byhis folks" thus provoking the "nasty things [he did] to other people," Vedder

told the crowd at a Pearl Jam show four years la terP. "The second song

was 'Once,' which was again dealing with life and death and craziness,"Eddie said to me in 1999. "That was him going to trial for his crimes or

whatever.... I had the silly call and answer [verses]. There's like a trial ajury.""Troubled Times" morphed into "Footsteps" for the coda, Act Three.Somber and desolate even as an instrumental, Eddie's words and voicsharpen the song's forlorn feeling. He builds in intensity singing about protagonist who in the end finds himself locked up for his crimes."Footsteps," Eddie explained, "is when he's in the jail cell."Eddie brought the mix-down of his four-track tape in to work that nig

Thursday rolled into Friday, September 14. He filled the long hours bycrafting artwork for the new music on the office copier, shades of thedistressed, Xeroxed flyer and cassette j-card creations he'd done for BRadio and his own solo demos, again copying his goggled face, addingprison bar-like lines and drawing swirls that resembled four sperm fertan egg in Wite-Out before dating it 9/13. He scrawled "For Stone + Jeon the tape he'd recorded over, a Merle Haggard compilation called "of The 80s" (due out Oct. 5, 1990), and whited-out all of the Haggardon the tape itself except for a track called "A Friend In California," andletters spelling out, "E D D I E."In the process Vedder named the three-song package "Momma-son," poignant variation on the term mamasan, inspired in part, he confirme

me in 1999Q

, by a line in the Clash's "Straight to Hell."Mamasan, litera loose rendering of the Japanese for "mother-teacher," or more genea maternal figure. In the Clash song, Mamasan is the mother of anAmerasian kid whose G.I. dad abandoned them in Vietnam when he w

14At the start of Gossard instrumental "Troubled Times," someone sneezes. Addin

vocals to create "Footsteps" on "Momma-Son," Eddie answers the sneeze with "ble

EddieVedder'shandmade'Momma-Son'cassettecover,September1

9,1

990.

Thisexactreplicaappearsinthe2009Ten

deluxereissueboxedset.


10/23


sent home from the war. "Momma-Son," then, is an all-too-fitting name fora trilogy about the crimes of a fatherless son.15Eddie dropped the tape in the mail addressed to Jeff in Seattle that Fridaymorning after work. Two days later, ironically, he would come across theissue ofRolling Stone that included Jeff and Stone's search for a new singer.Despite the oft-told bit about how Eddie jetted off for Seattle without evermeeting his would-be bandmates, Jack actually made introductions at thatmetal convention trip in Eddie's neck of the woods in mid-September. Jeff

has spoken at least twice of meeting Eddie face-to-face before Eddie sangover the tape. In a 2000 KNND interview, Jeff also mentioned that Eddiepassed along his own demo tape, "just him and a guitar" to them beforetackling their songs. In January of 1991, Stone flat out told a Seattle radio's

KXRX, "we met [Eddie] in LA and then flew him up two weeks later."R

"We met him at the Hyatt hotel and said hello and just got to look at eachother. Immediately, he was a humble guy and really excited. He played itpretty cool and it seemed right," Stone told me recently, confirming the

fact that they met in L.A. before Ed ever went north.S

Stone and Jeff, meanwhile, pressed on with filling out the band. Those lastweeks of September, they invited Dave Krusen down to the GalleriaPotatohead basement to audition. A fellow Seattle scenester named Tal

Goettling, who knew Stone and Jeff from playing in a series of his ownbands on bills with Green River and possibly even Jeff's first bandDeranged Diction, passed the Stone Gossard Demos tape along to Krusen, agood friend who'd drummed in a couple of his old bands. There were atleast two Krusen audition sessions bookending another Jeff and StoneMother Love Bone-related business trip, this time to New York in late

15It was also a fitting title considering that it was at a gig by the Clash's Joe Strummer

gin San Diego where Eddie first met Jack Irons, the man who connected the two partiesthat became Pearl Jam.

September or early October. Without any fanfare, he was invited to jthe band."Momma-Son" reached Seattle around Tuesday, September 18, and Jewas blown away when he listened to what Ed had done with the musHe played it a second time to make sure it had the same effect onrepeated listens before picking up the phone to beckon Stone, who hcar and could get to Jeff's faster than Jeff could reach Stone on his bikeStone's opinion matched Jeff's. "As soon as we heard the work that he

done," Jeff told me in 1999T, "I was pretty much beside myself. [We

we gotta get this guy up here somehow."They wanted him bad, but first they were gonna have to find him. "I wreally hard to get a hold of," Eddie said on 91X San Diego in 1994. "I hphones. Between the midnight shifts and my schedule, my self-imposedisciplines, I was never around for phones. I found out a week [aftermailing the tape] that Jeff and Stone had been trying to get a hold of mJack told me they wanted to fly me up to Seattle or something. Fly meto Seattle? Fly me up? They can afford [that]? Shouldn't I hitchhike orsomething?"Jeff finally managed to get Ed on the phone, and over a series of rhap

chats, plane tickets were bought with money pitched in by Michael

Goldstone, and Eddie secured a week's vacation on short notice fromjob. And sometime among all of the plan making, Eddie turned StoneBallad" into "Black."On October 7, the day before the trip north, Eddie drove up to Irvineand spent his Sunday afternoon at the proto-Lollapalooza multi-act roshow A Gathering of the Tribes, which had been organized by the CuIan Astbury.16 On the bill that day, most notably, was Soundgarden,

16Astbury was an acquaintance and major fan of Mother Love Bone who had be

deeply affected by Andy Wood's death the he was involved in producing an anti-drvideo financed by donations at Wood's Paramount memorial, according to a March

Eddie Vedder's hand-written 'Momma-Son' tape, September 13, 1990.An exact replica is in the 2009 Ten deluxe edition.


11/23


10

Eddie, in future years onstage with Pearl Jam17, repeatedly and fondly

recalled how one day he was in the pit, twenty yards from Matt Cameronand Chris Cornell, and the very next day he was in Seattle being welcomedinto Stone and Jeff's nascent band and contributing to Cornell andCameron's ad-hoc Temple of the Dog.

10.8.1990 THE first 'FIRST WEEK'Eddie landed at Sea-Tac airport at 2pm on the afternoon of Monday,October 8, 1990, Columbus Day. And true to the promise Jeff had madehim, he was at Potatohead standing in front of a microphone within thehour. Stone, Jeff, Mike, and Dave picked up their instruments and beganplaying "Dollar Short" and Eddie opened his mouth and "Alive" came out. Itwas a foregone conclusion from that moment that Eddie Vedder was in.

"It was just pretty evident," Gossard confirmsU

. "We didn't hem and haw

too much about it. We listened to a few tapes from people but we wereworking off the same principles that we started out with in the otherbands. Just get some guys and go. You can't stop too long and think aboutit too much because you've got to believe [in] the circumstances; that thespirit of rock 'n' roll is going to bring you the right guy. Trust it. I think inparticular, Jeff Ament knew right away. Probably others did [too]. I thought

Ed was fantastic but I don't think I really understood how fantastic he wasuntil about eight years ago, particularly in terms of his lyrical content andstuff like that. I just didn't spend that much time really listening to lyricsbefore. I just had a certain aesthetic that I was used to and his was prettydifferent. We were coming from different places. I've always beenappreciative of him as a singer and as a songwriter but it just keeps growing

1990 Seattle Post-Intelligencerarticle by Gene Stout. Astbury also wrote a 1994 song,"Sacred Life", which mentions Andy.17

He mentioned it at PJ's SoCal 10.7.1991 & 6.2.2003 shows., among other times.

now to the point where I'm kind of laughing that I could have just sortbeen ready to move forward but not jumping [on] the top of a moun"It was sort of like an audition process but it wasn't an audition really,"

Chris Cornell told me in 2001V. Cornell, who was rehearsing Temple

Stone, Jeff, Mike and Mike in the Gossard/Ament space that week,

remembered that, "[Eddie] had already written lyrics to several of Stosongs and they were finished, you know. [They were] really close to wended up being on Ten. So they were pretty far down the road, but tdidn't know each other. There was a lot of, 'let's just see if we can hanout with each other kind of thing. We know we can write songs togelet's see if we can stand each other.'"Before they found Vedder, of course, other singers had considered thor had been brought in for auditions, Gossard explains, saying that Lufrontman Shawn Smith, later of his side band Brad, was possibly amonthose who mulled it over for a hot second. Ty Willman, however, waserious contender. "At one point," Stone says, "I was really like, let's trygo for it with Ty. But Ty was in Green Apple Quick Step and loved hiband; his band was fantastic. And [he] was like, 'I gotta go with my guyWillman did eventually re-enter Gossard's musical life, singing lead 11

later on some of Gossard's 2001 solo album Bayleaf. Many years after

auditions, Potatohead's co-owner Spike Mafford told a Seattle paper tsuccession of candidates came through the basement space to try out

Stone and Jeff, meanwhile, had shared "Momma-Son" with MichaelGoldstone (by then with Epic Records) and Love Bone/"Stone & Co."manager Kelly Curtis. They were impressed, no, flabbergasted and feltlightning had struck twice. Goldstone was prepared to sign them, so tpair immediately set about getting the new band set up at Epic.The first session with Eddie lasted a good ten hours, right up to arounmidnight going into October 9. That night, the second Temple of the rehearsal had been scheduled. Chris Cornell encountered Eddie for th

"You can't stop too long &think about it too muchbecause you've got to believethat the spirit of rock 'n'roll is going to bring youthe right guy."-stone gossardon hiring eddie vedderthe first week they jammed


12/23


first time in the hallway outside the room. "He was very quiet and very shyand didn't have a lot to say," Cornell told me in 2001. "He was under a lotof pressure, a lonely guy away from home in a room full of a bunch ofpeople who had a lot of experience in bands. He was by himself, justsinging his words and doing his thing." But, within hours Ed was also duetingon Cornell's "Hunger Strike.""I had both chorus melodies, the low one and the high one," Cornell

remembered.X

"And Eddie was sitting there waiting for a rehearsal [with

Stone, Jeff, Mike, and Dave]. He was smart enough to be able to tell that Iwas clearly writing these two separate parts and was intending on singingthem both myself and figured, 'well, while I'm here I'll make it easier.' So hewalked up, stepped up to the mic. He didn't have any intention of it goingany further than that. That was my prompting. I didn't know who he was,and nobody else knew who he was. I just thought he had a great voice andit sounded great on that song."Different accounts of Eddie's first week in Seattle have him staying atdifferent places: Jeff's one-bedroom apartment near the Space Needle,Kelly Curtis' guest room, Chris Cornell's place, and even just spending thenight at Potatohead. The truth is he probably logged time at each of these

places in those early days. He did almost no sleeping, however. Gossard

project sessions began daily at around noon and continued at a pace ofeight to ten hours a day, fueled by the excitement of how well everythingwas coming together."We rehearsed in the basement," Eddie told Spin in 2001, "and the alleythat we were on was like crack-alley central. I remember having to use therestroom upstairs and going through these rooms that smelled of oil paintand sawdust and stuff. The guys would come in and we'd practice andmaybe go play some pool and then come back and keep workingsurrounded by Gatorade bottles with piss in them from those times when[we] didn't feel like walking up the stairs."

"If you look at what happened previous to us meeting," Eddie told me1999, "[Stone and Jeff] had just lost their singer in a tragic way and I ththat as I was reaching adulthood I was trying to deal with the loss of mfather who I never really got to know. Even though they were dissimisituations, it was all based on life and death. If I think back on those soand song titles, they're all life and death. Obviously, 'Alive' is."That crucial song's title said everything about what initially connectedVedder with Gossard and Ament. They were "still alive," and survival abeing survivors has been a thread that has run through Pearl Jam's stoever since, right through future songs like "Rearviewmirror," "Given to and "Light Years," beyond the Roskilde tragedy ten summers later, andright now, as the band reaches its 20th year together."The place that I go to a lot when we play 'Alive' is that I think of And

Jeff told me in 1999.Y

"I remember Andy and I telling Stone we thoug

sounded like 'Love Theme From Kiss' on the first Kiss record. Weconstantly told him it reminded us of a slightly faster version of that soAnd the very first time I heard [Eddie's] lyrics, I thought of Andy too. Ithought of Stone and I coming through the other end."By their fifth day together, propelled by adrenaline and caffeine, they'd

written fully half of the songs that would later appear on Ten. Aside fr

"Black," "Alive," "Once," and "Footsteps," which Eddie had before he evgot there, the embryonic band also came up with "Even Flow," very lobased on Stone's riff "The King," as well as "Release," and "Oceans." Thall not to mention the several other songs they wrote then that didn'tup on Ten. "Alone" ("Richards E") later became a Pearl Jam b-side. "Gi("Evil E") and "Goat" were not officially released until the deluxe 2009reissue, though "Girl" had been played live in early 1991 and was availon bootlegs since the mid-90s. "Breath," from the Gossard project riff"Doobee E," later turned up on the Singles soundtrack. "Doobee E" habeen on the tape of demos Stone gave Chris Cornell and Gossardremembers that Cornell actually began writing lyrics to it. "It was I thin

"if I think back on thosesongs & song titles, they'reall life & death."-Eddie Vedderon writing the 1st pJ songs

"all of the sudden I wasin a band with the singer

I wanted to be. I feltthe same way about

mike & Stone."-Jeff ament

on pJ's 1st rehearsals


13/23


12

during the Temple of the Dog sessions and I sent him a demo with a

bunch of songs," Gossard remembers.Z"Matt had played [the instrumental]

'Breath' as part of those demos. [Chris] told me, 'I've got something forthis song. And I remember I told him, 'Aw, you know I really want to savethat for Pearl Jam.' Because I was so excited about [the band] and the

song. I felt like, 'I can't give it to you,' which is like, oh my God, crazy.""I had a conversation with Chris Cornell recently and we talked about that

song," Stone continuesAA

. "He was like, 'yeah, I worked on that a little bit

but I never actually finished it.' So there's not actually a song out there andhe doesn't know where it is or anything. That's one that's probably goingto have to be unearthed in another 30 or 40 years," Gossard laughs."Release," a searching son's elegiac call out to an absent father, was bornthat first week when, with their portable recorder rolling, Stone wasnoodling around with an arpeggio that inspired Eddie to further reflect onhis smalltime singer/musician dad's passing a decade before. "Stone wasplaying something and the words just came out of me. I remember goinginto the hallway and having to take a minute to myself just to... because all

of this stuff was just pouring out," Eddie said to me in 1999, pausing and

sighing.BB

"It's hard to think back on that. It's all life or death."

"OH DEAR DAD, CAN YOU SEE ME NOW? I AM MYSELF, LIKE YOU SOMEHOW. / I WAIT UPIN THE DARK FOR YOU TO SPEAK TO ME . I'LL HOLD THE PAIN, RELEASE ME.""That cassette was the song really," Eddie continued. "We [later] recorded

it [forTen] with that exact arrangement and a better microphone orsomething.""Oceans," which gelled on that Thursday October 11, was also born of anoff-hand jam that inspired Vedder. "Beth [and I] were never apart, youknow," Ed went on. "After four days it felt like four months. I went to putmoney in the parking meter and I got locked out of the basement. Jeff andStone were playing and I knew that they couldn't hear me pounding on theback door. I could hear the bass coming through the wall out in the alley.

Here I am in this rainy alley in godforsaken Seattle missing Beth. So I jsat in the alley [and wrote the lyrics]. I didn't waste any time. If you nothe words are written exactly to the bassline.""The first few times that we played together in the basement, I was lik'Man, I'm in a really great band right now," Jeff told me in 1999. "If I cohave been a singer, any singer, all of the sudden I was in the room witsinger I wanted to be. I felt the same way about Mike and Stone. All osudden, I was in a band with a real lead guitarist for the first time, and rhythm guitar player and songwriter who was writing incredible groovWhether anybody else was going to like it or not, I didn't know. But fthe first time ever, I really liked the band I was in."On the Saturday, October 13th, they committed the fruits of their welive to digital audio tape (DAT). "Even Flow," "Once," "Breath," "Relea"Girl," "Alive," "Alone," "Oceans," and "Black," filled the tape along with

"Goat," "improv," and "quick jams, etc." according to Ed's handwrittenscribble on one copy of the cassette dub's cover.18 Eddie added tho

three song-pieces later, when he was back home in San Diego dubbintapes for friends. "Improv" turned out to contain the seeds of "YellowLedbetter," based on a Mike McCready riff. "Quick Jams, etc." was theinstrumental "Weird A." Sent off to a buddy for an opinion on the muEd also wrote "this was only after 6 days... it will get better." To havewritten that well in that quantity in that short a time negates a lot of tunpolished nature of the tape and many of the sharp edges yet to berounded, but as good as it already was, it most certainly did get better"I just remember that week being, if I had to choose any week as the important or the biggest crossroads, it was that one," Eddie said to me1999. "I had been working on my own in music and trying to write son

18Eddie immediately got busy making copies of these first week tapes, each with

personalized cover. At least three of them have surfaced in the 20 years since Ed dthem. He even labeled one 10/13 tape, "Eddie V. in Seattle with Love Bone."

EddieVedder'shandwritte

ncoverforthefirsttapethe

futurePearlJamevermad

etogether,October13,

1990.Notethathesaysitwas"aftersixdays"

confirminghisarrivalin

SeattlewasonOctober8.


14/23


even just to entertain myself and have bands. I was fortunate that I had apretty good work ethic up to that point, because I sure needed all thetools that I had for that week."The story of Pearl Jam's first week has long since become an "...and on theseventh day they rested" creation tale, told slightly differently each time,that's one of the band's central legends.Ah the legend.Jeff, Stone, Eddie and Mike have said it a mi llion times to differentpublications:

"WE HAD FIVE DAYS OF REHEARSALS, WE WROTE TEN SONGS,

AND THEN WE PLAYED A SHOW. ON THE SEVENTH DAY WE

WENT INTO THE STUDIO AND THEN TO SEE THE BULLS PLAY THE

SONICS IN THE KINGDOME." VEDDERCC"FOR FIVE DAYS STRAIGHT WE REHEARSED EIGHT TO TEN HOURS

A DAY. WE WENT INTO THE STUDIO AND LAID DOWN TEN

SONGS RIGHT AFTER THAT. THEN ON THE SIXTH DAY

WEPLAYED A SHOW."-AMENT*DD"BY THE END OF THE WEEK WE HAD WRITTEN THREE NEW

SONGS AND HE HAD WRITTEN LYRICS TO THREE MORE OF OUR

SONGS. WE WENT INTO A STUDIO TO RECORD AND ON THE

LAST DAY WE PLAYED A SHOW." -AMENTEE"FIVE DAYS OF REHEARSING AND WRITING. WE CAME UP WITH

TEN SONGS. ON THE SIXTH DAY WE PLAYED A SHOW IN

SEATTLE. AND THE SEVENTH DAY RECORDED IT ALL." -VEDDERFF"THEN WE WENT TO THE MOUNTAINTOP AND REJOICED"

GOSSARD , GOOFING.GGBut things weren't quite that simple.The biggest difference between myth and reality is that the "first week" wasreally two different weeks lumped together. In real life, it's true that Eddieflew up to Seattle and the band rehearsed and wrote for six days (asdescribed in the section about the week of October 8 above). But then

the truth diverges from legend. Hand-labeled tapes, a photo definitiveplacing Vedder in San Diego on October 14, early interview footage, postcard Ed sent his roommates, and the date of the basketball gamereveal that instead of playing a show on the sixth day and recording agoing to a Bulls game on the seventh; Ed took part in recording the Dtape on the sixth day, went home to San Diego on the seventh day acame back up about a week later, playing the band's first show, recordagain, and going to that basketball game then.19

10.20.1990 The 2nd 'First Week'More precisely, McCready drove Eddie back to Sea-Tac at 5am on Sumorning, October 14, the "seventh day." Ed flew home to San Diego aworked the James Taylor concert at San Diego State University's Ope

19Several things make it clear that the whirlwind of Pearl Jam's genesis took longe

one week. In November of 1991 in footage that never aired, Stone told MTV that "

had all of the material [for Ten] written within two separate times of Eddie comingSeattle] for about a week at a time. He came up for a week and we actually enderecording about ten songs. And then he came up about a week later and we didprobably another ten or so." The handwritten j-cards of the two early October tapes

band made are two further pieces of the puzzle. Eddie labeled the first one "Eddie

Vedder in Seattle 10/13," mentioned the tape had been made "after only six days.Eddie labeled the second tape 10/23. Meanwhile, Ed was definitely back in San Dfor the James Taylor gig because a roommate later posted a Polaroid on eBay show

Eddie holding up an Avalon laminate. Ed wrote "J.T. 10/14. Last night at O.A.T. (coon it in black Sharpie and the roommate explained that the was taken photo right a James Taylor concert. A quick look at newspapers from the time reveals that JamTaylor did indeed play San Diego's Open Air Theater on October 14, 1990. Anothe

crucial bit of information about this period came from that same unscrupulous roomwho went on to take to eBay to post scans of a postcard Eddie had sent him fromSeattle. Eddie dated it 10/22, and the postmark was 10/25/90. In it he mentions h

coming home from Seattle on the 29th. The dates of the Off-Ramp show and the Bgame further support the fact that the "first week" was two separate weeklong par

"If I had to chooseany week as the most

important or thebiggest crossroads,

it was that one."-eddie vedder

on the week thatchanged his life


15/23


14

Theater (the last show of the season) as a runner for the promoter,Avalon Attractions. At midnight he clocked in for his usual shift. He eithertalked his superiors into immediately taking off another week or else hewas so blown away by what had happened in Seattle that he didn't caremuch what they thought about him taking more time off to return there.Either way, he flew up again and was in Seattle nearly a week later onSaturday, October 20 when, according to Ed's note in the 2009 Ten boxset, "Goat" was recorded on his Walkman in the Potatohead basement.Jeff, like Eddie, was intent on not wasting a second, and in Eddie's absencehe had booked the band at a small place called the Off Ramp as a sort oflive audition. Located, as its name suggested, right off of Interstate 5, theOff Ramp was a 200 capacity club that in the closing months of 1990 wasstill a lesbian bar on the weekends and a rock venue during the week.Aside from music, the core of the band also discovered a mutual love of

basketball and when it came time for a name to play under at the OffRamp, they went with Mookie Blaylock, the name of the New Jersey Netsrookie point guard with the funny moniker whose trading card one ofthem had stuck in the j-card of their first week tape.

10.22.1990 The first show

Mookie Blaylock's thirty-five minute long, eight-song

20

debut that Mondaynight, October 22, displayed a band in the process of coalescing, testing thewaters. They stood on the tiny stage, tuning and then wading into amuddy, slowed down "Even Flow." Eddie's stage presence and voice wereintensely different from his last Bad Radio gig only eight months before.Instead of jumping around, grinning, singing in a Kiedis-influenced speed-tenor, Eddie started the Off Ramp gig with his arms clenched diffidently

20Because the only known source recording of the show, a video, starts and stops and

starts again between songs, it's possible that their set was longer and that they playedmore songs.

across his chest, his long curls (still growing out from that tri-layered, sshorn skater cut) tucked haphazardly into a big, fluffy Ament-esque hahis eyes clamped shut. But his soon-to-be signature baritone soared oover the sparse crowd as Jeff popped down into the empty pit duringend jam. "And that was just the soundcheck," Stone mumbled on stagbemused.By the time the set began in earnest not long later, many more onloowere there to size-up Jeff and Stone's new creation. Since Pearl Jam's rose a year later, just about every person in the Seattle music commuhas at one time claimed to have been in that audience to watch thephoenix rise."Release" opened with its twinkling arpeggio, but accompanied by aplodding, two note bass-line that has not appeared in any subsequentrecording or performance of the song. Still unfinished, Ed began

improvising an intro centered around "on a whispering wind." Thesoundman was caught unaware of just how low Ed's voice would rumonce he made it to the first verse and the club was filled with a loud,electric hum as his moans boomed into the mic. The multi-level structof "Alone" clicked in just right, but Eddie hadn't yet worked out the lyrso he sang what he'd written, filling in the blanks with creative mumblvaried repetitions, and sections made up on the spot.A lone heckler hollered "Don't stop, baby" in the breaks between Mikrandom bursts of between-song soloing, but as Stone slid into the maof "Alive," everyone in the crowd seemed to shut up. While every othsong they played that night was obviously still rough around the edges"Alive" emerged whole. Eddie didn't stumble over even half a syllable,words projectiles hurtling from his gut. Eddie had also torn off the flufand began to come out of his shell a little bit, banging his head here athere, convulsing, leaning into the mic and filling the stage.That night, "Once" took a giant step closer to its final version, sheddinMomma-son spoken verses ("Yeah, I did it. Tell them I did it It's not th

The Polaroid ofEddie at theJames Taylor

concert in SanDiego onOctober 14,1990 (hand-labeled byEddie). It helpsprove the Ed's"first week" inSeattle wasreally a three-week periodbisected by aweek backhome in SanDiego.


16/23


not sorry, it's just that I don't feel sad") and falsetto refrains ("What'd youdo? Why'd you do it?") and moving towards the verse structure it wouldhave on Ten. Live that night, Ed seemed to be singing half-finished versesand completely improvising.At one point, a random guy in the audience standing near one of the threedifferent people videotaping the show for posterity was caught on thecamcorder's mic just after an impressive McCready solo saying "My God!Where did they find this guy?"Before trying out "Even Flow" for real this time, Ed said "Hey Stone, did youmiss these guys?" Ironically, he could have been referring to headlinersInspector Luv & the Ride Me Babies (soon to be known as Green AppleQuick Step), whose frontman Ty Willman had almost aced him out off thejob as Mookie Blaylock/Pearl Jam's singer (Stone, remember, had nearlyhired Ty before Eddie came into the picture). But more likely, Eddie was

talking about the Seattle audience, who were certainly curious about Stoneand Jeff's new project."Black," which Stone, Jeff, and Mike had been jamming on for months andwhich Eddie had had a couple of weeks to digest since he'd written lyrics,bore striking resemblance to its later recorded form, the only notabledifference being a slight lyric difference in the "beautiful life" passage."Breath" was much rougher, it's verses nearly whole but sung in a clippedstaccato with Ed tagging "Life is what it's worth, don't miss what it's worth"over a chaotic end jam of Mike and Stone's guitars slugging it out not quitein harmony. It's odd that Ed encouraged the crowd, who'd never heard ofhim or these songs before, to "sing with me" during the impromptu "whenhe's happy, when he's sad" refrain that trailed off into a beautiful high note.Ending the set with "Girl," standard version, neither stunning nor dismal,they left the stage as unassumingly as they had entered.Cornell, who was in the crowd, remembers that the just-born group madea big impression. "The first show didn't have that kind of uncomfortablefeeling that bands often have the first time they play," Cornell said in my

2001 interview with him. "I'd heard the songs but hadn't heard Eddie'voice when he sings live. Most bands are better on record I could tfrom the first two songs that this band was going to be an amazing livband. All of the people standing around me, by about the third or fousong, had this mysterial glow in their eyes like they understood that thwas a special moment. Not understanding that this is going to be a bathat's going to go on and sell millions of records and have a place in rhistory, but simply, we just saw an amazing show that we'll take with uand remember no matter what happens in the future."Gossard's feeling from the stage, on the other hand, was much moretentative. "I remember feeling nervous, not feeling ready to go out and Stone said to me about the first show. "I know we'd committed to it. Jereally excited about doing a show. Ed was enthusiastic about it. And I wprobably like, 'Hey, let's give it a couple weeks. Come back and let's pra

a couple more times and then we'll get out there. Don't worry. We're do it.' But they wanted to do it so we just did. I think it came off ok. It wjust that you had to take your first step and we were already committed

We said yes, this is our new singer. We're gonna go for it."HH

On a Mother Love Bone postcard he dated 10/22, Eddie wrote home

"You're not going to believe it. I love Seattle. More unbelievable, it lov

me. This city and its people totally embraced me. And within thatwarmth/vibe, I've written/played some of the most important music olife. It's been a very intense Volume 1121 experience. It's changed mesomehow I've affected the people here too."

10.23.1990 recording & HoopsThe next day they took another stab at a recording. According to "thelegend," they went into "the studio" at this point, but Eddie's 10/23 ta

21A This Is Spinal Tap reference?

ThepostcardEddiewrotehometohisroommatesontheveryday

thefuturePearlJamplayedit'sfirstshow,October22,1

990.


17/23


16

case says it was a home-grown four track made at the rehearsal studio.Meanwhile, the sound quality of the songs suggests a more sophisticatedrecording in an actual studio.And while Eddie hand wrote 10/23 on the cases, there are still questionsabout what date the music on the cassette was recorded. "Goat," the one-take novelty recorded 10/20, had been added to the 10/13 tape as fil lerwhen Ed sent it out in later weeks. The music on the 10/13 tape in itsentirety has never circulated among Pearl Jam fans. It is certain, howeverthat a tape was made on both 10/13 and 10/23, per Eddie's handwrittentape cases, but he almost definitely augmented the latter with tunes fromthe earlier session and vice versa. Just as with Stone sending out hisinstrumentals to anyone with a lead on a drummer or singer, Eddie wasclearly proud of the music he was making in Seattle and he immediatelydubbed off copies of the new group's tapes for friends, hand-labeling and

personalizing the cover each time. To illustrate just how new it all was, onat least one 10/23 tape cover, Eddie misspelled Mike's last name as"McCreedy."The full-on studio session would come later, at the end of Novemberwhen Mookie Blaylock pooled $800 of their own cash to make a demo atLondon Bridge with Temple and future Ten producer Rick Parashar.Unfortunately, no songs from that session have surfaced.The music on Eddie's "10/23" tape, meanwhile, captured him stillsomewhat green, not yet entirely confident about his range and power, buteasily demonstrating his impressive voice. Most notably on "Even Flow"(with it's not-quite-sussed bassline) and a high-hat heavy "Once," he sings ina higher register and clips the end of his verses. He also holds back, notalways letting himself fully rip into screams and high notes. But during thecourse of the demo, there are several wide-open glimpses of the places hecan take his voice, especially during an ethereal "Oceans," the basso"Release," and a very delicate "Black."

McCready, for his part, handed in several impressive solos, as in "Breawhich matches the later released version, and "Alive," "Alone," and "GOn "Even Flow," an anemic pedal deflates his effect. He'd also been slointo the right channel, which greets ears honed on later Pearl Jamrecordings oddly (Stone would come to traditionally own the right chper his position on stage)."Release" begins with bass harmonics, and the opening moan is delayeis in particularly good voice there, singing unbridled but melodiously. "sounds very close to its Ten version, save for Ed's tentative choruses.Stone's got some great labyrinthine, nearly operatic riffing on "Alone,"that's nearly lost in the hasty mix. Shades of the '92 b-side "remix" ver(and unlike the version on Ten), "Oceans" here has a backbeat, and itshuffles along like a slow dance over a strummed bassline from Jeff.Of all the songs, "Black"'s lyrics differ the most from their final form. In

of "all five horizons revolved around her sun" it's the less oblique "all ohorizon revolved around her sun." "As the earth to the sun" is nearlyspoken. Rather than "all I taught her was everything," the next line is tmore vulnerable, regretful "all I wanted was everything." Later, he sing"why do I tear" instead of "why do I sear." Clearly, this earliest availablenon-live version of "Black" finds the song's protagonist more heartbroand yet less volatile (sadder rather than angrier) than in later readings.Possibly to show range, or maybe just to fill out the running time, foucuriosities were tacked on. "Goat" starts with Eddie chanting "Goat, ggoat," interrupted by a severe little guitar part, and then some oddballabout a girl "from Scandinavia." The choruses, during which he's joinedsomeone (Mike? Stone?) singing in a bizarro falsetto, are "She was an little goat." Everyone starts baaaahing. Like goats. Laughter ensues. Themusic ends abruptly, cut off before the take ends. "Quick Jams," again,early attempt at "Yellow Ledbetter" that starts after the take is underwOverall, it's whole lot less Hendrix-y than it would come to be, even wMcCready hits the wah wah in the middle of the first solo. And the vo

One of Eddie's hand-labeled

tapes of Mookie Blaylock's (soonto be Pearl Jam's) recording onOctober 23, 1990.


18/23


melody, structure, and lyrics are not yet fully formed, though the Veddermumbles here did carry over into the released version. Nevertheless, someof the decipherable bits of the jabberwocky include "where do you gowhen you're not around? Have I seen you? Can you breathe, can youtouch away?" along with the unintentionally fitting "I don't know what Iwanna say." But one part of the final "Ledbetter" that is here is the line "Isee them out on the porch, but they don't wave."Also on the 10/23 tape is a minute long excerpt of the Gossard Demosinstrumental "Weird A," which wasn't rerecorded or embellished at all, anda cover of Gladys Knight and the Pips' 1972 hit "Daddy Could Swear (IDeclare)" labeled simply "Daddy." "Daddy" is clearly not Mookie Blaylock.The rhythm section, with its slap bass and bongos, is far funkier thanAment and Krusen. Eddie's voice is overwrought and hopped up in a stylemuch more reminiscent of Bad Radio. But this track, Gossard confirms, was

actually an Indian Style demo from the past summer. And even just bylistening, you can tell the dance-oriented sound and lack of a second guitarfits Indian Style's line-up and funk-rock M.O. much more closely than eitherBad Radio's 80s rock sound or the earnest shades of Mookie. "Daddy" alsosports a muddier mix and the general sense that it'd been copied tape totape many times, supporting Stone's confirmation that it was Indian Style.Rather than resting after recording on October 23, or as Stone latergoofed, going to the mountaintop and rejoicing, the members of MookieBlaylock took a cue from their namesake and celebrated with basketball:they went to the Kingdome and watched Eddie's Chicago Bulls trash Stoneand Jeff's Seattle Supersonics in an exhibition game. Rehearsals, Templesessions, sightseeing, it's still unknown what Eddie did with the rest of hissecond trip to Seattle, but his postcard home suggests he didn't get backuntil Monday, October 29. Jeff, meanwhile, had definitely left town for atrip to New York by Friday, October 26, according to a postcard he sent

his brother (reprinted in the 2007 poster bookPearl Jam vs. Ames Brofull band rehearsals were certainly on hold by then.22

11.1990 temple of the dogWhile Eddie was home wrapping hi s head around his adventures in S

Temple of the Dog moved out of its rehearsal phase and into its alburecording phase. It had been born as Chris Cornell's self-therapy afterdeath of former roommate Andy Wood. Soundgarden was playing a March 1990 make-up date with Faith No More at Maxwell's, a 150-capacity club/eatery in Hoboken, New Jersey when Cornell heard thatAndy had just overdosed and was in a coma. Having barely ruled outcanceling, Cornell dedicated the performance to Andy and punctuatedset with dark comments about drug addiction. So far from Seattle, thecrowd didn't get it. When Andy died a couple of days later, Cornell wmoved to write "Say Hello to Heaven," and "Reach Down."

"He came from an island23 and he died from the s treet.

He hurt so bad like a soul breaking, but he never saidnothing to me." -"Say Hello to Heaven"

The night that Andy Wood died, the Mother Love Bone guys and all oAndy's friends had gathered at manager Kelly's house. Among them w

filmmaker Cameron Crowe, who was in town putting together his ne

22Jeff's postcard, dated October 29, 1990, says "The New York trip is almost ove

Red Kross last night. Tonight Kings X and Alice In Chains. We recorded 10 songs wEddie and played a show. Amazing. Maybe the best thing Stone and I have ever doWe're totally excited about this." Incidentally, Alice In Chains played at the LimelighNew York on October 27. Kings X would open for Pearl Jam in 1994 and Jeff wouldon music with frontman Doug Pinnick in the 2000s. Jeff saw Red Kross in New Yorpresumably on October 26, and surely noticed that Jack Irons was behind the drum23

Andy was from Bainbridge Island, WA, near Seattle.

A ticket stub, presumably used by a member o f Pearl Jam, for the Sonics-Bulls game on October 23, 1990 which the whole band attended tocelebrate their formation. This stub appears in the Ten deluxe edition.


19/23


18

film loosely based on love and music in Seattle.24 He later recalled Cornell

putting a hand on Jeff's shoulder in a gesture of shared grief and saying, "I'mgonna call you tomorrow. We're gonna ride bikes and fucking smokecigarettes." It's unclear if the call came the next day, but soon Cornell hadpicked up the phone to make music inspired by Wood."Obviously ["Heaven" and "Reach Down"] weren't Soundgarden songs,"

Cornell told me in 2001II, so he decided to try to actually team up with

Andy's bandmates. "[I] sat on the songs for a few weeks. You know howwriters are. I just wasn't sure if they were good or if anybody would beinterested, and I had made some tapes and gave them to Susan25 to giveto Stone and Jeff but didn't hear anything back, just kind of forgot about it."But by the time of the Gossard project jams in the early summer, "they hadlistened to the songs," says Cornell. "Jeff said he was surprised at howdifferent they were from other things that he'd heard me do, and yeahthey would be interested in doing something. His position was, 'let's makea whole record.' I thought ,'OK, that sounds great.' Andy had just gangs oflittle solo recordings he'd done at my house, four-tracks and things likethat. The biggest tragedy when you lose someone that's young and notalready famous is that people aren't gonna get to hear these amazingsongs. So we discussed doing [my] two songs and then covering a bunch of

Andy's solo stuff that no one [would otherwise] ever hear. Unfortunatelythe wound was really fresh with Andy's family and friends. They weregetting concerned that somehow we were gonna be exploiting hismemory. That made all three of us really angry. We responded to that bysaying, 'well screw these guys, we'll just make our own record.' Stone

24The film, of course, was Singles, filmed in 1991 and released in 1992. It featured the

members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.25

Susan Silver, Cornell's wife and Soundgarden's manager. She shared an office with

Kelly Curtis and co-managed Alice in Chains with him in those days so she would havehad regular contact with Kelly's band Mother Love Bone coming in for him.

suggested rather than Bruce from Love Bone why not use this new gu[Mike McCready], have it be some older relationships but also some nones, and Stone also gave me a tape of three [of his own] songs 26, a

wrote lyrics and melodies to those. Then I just started digging in my tand pulling out songs that might fit musically with what we were doingwell as I wrote several other songs in a very short period of time.""We immediately had ten songs, no problem," Cornell continues. "Wedecided to go make a record with just ten songs, record ten, release t

Don't screw around. We started rehearsing the songs and that was thfirst time I met Ed. [At] the second rehearsal, I had pulled out HungerStrike and I had this feeling it was just going to be filler. It had one verand then a chorus that repeated itself a bunch of times. It just felt likesomething that would be a vignette in the record and sort of round it and then we'd have ten songs. That moment of him just walking up tomicrophone and helping me out is really how a big part of how that sohappened. [I thought], 'Why don't I sing a verse and then the band coin. He sings the second verse, and even though it's the same words,because it's two different singers, that'll make it two separate verses. Tall of a sudden we'll have a song.' So we tried that and it was fantasticTemple rehearsals gave way to the recording of the self-titled album iNovember. "It was only going to be a one-off deal, but I wanted it to like a band," says Cornell. To that end, they booked a one-night-only sthe Off Ramp opening for Bathtub Gin and Inspector Luv and the RidBabies on November 13, while Eddie was still back in San Diego. "No

26The songs Stone gave Chris were the Gossard project instrumentals "Troubled

"7 Up," and "Evil E." Gossard says Cornell told him he worked on a song with "Evil EGossard opted to save the riff for Vedder, who had turned it into "Breath." Stone's mfor "Troubled Times" found life not only as the Temple song "Times of Trouble" but

simultaneously as Pearl Jam's "Footsteps .", Gossard's "7 Up" music became "PushiForward Back," with lyrics by Chris Cornell.

Jeff's postcard to his brother days after Mookie Blaylock/Pearl Jam's 1st show &10/23 recording session. This appears in the poster bookPearl Jam Vs. Ames Bros.


20/23


was used to going to see a band play that many mellow songs in a row,"Cornell remembers of the nine-song performance. "There was a lot ofpeople who were really into it but nobody had even heard the songsbefore. So it was really strange, it was almost like a debut show and a swansong at the same time. Some violence ensued where one of our goodfriends who's worked for Pearl Jam and Soundgarden over the years gothit in the face with a bottle and had to go to the emergency room.27 Thatovershadowed everything else. It was like the Seattle Altamont. The

suburban metal fans were starting to come out of their caves and don their'73 Aerosmith T-shirts to see bands [like Temple] because we hadelements of '70s hard rock and there was some growing pains from that. Itwasn't a seamless transition from this post-punk urban scene into startingto draw the leftover late-'70s metal fans. Seattle was always kind of a hard-rock guitar town. It's kind of funny, kids who go to college seem to bedumber and handle themselves worse than kids who wash dishes at arestaurant downtown and read a lot of books."When Eddie had returned home from Seattle around October 29, heagain had to work the midnight shift that night. But instead of asking formore time off for a future trip to Seattle, he gave 30 days notice and putthe wheels in motion to pull up stakes and move there. In late November,he packed up his pick up and made the 19-hour drive north, leaving thesmall San Diego music scene, his home and his steady job behind, andtrusting that his seven-year relationship with girlf riend Beth, who remainedat her L.A. job in the Virgin Records publicity department, could withstandan indefinite long-distance period. In essence, he put all of his faith in theidea that Mookie Blaylock was worth risking everything he had.

27It was Eric Johnson, who would become PJ's longtime tour manager, that got

clobbered. Soon after the incident, a Seattle Times article about a Mookie Blaylock/Alicein Chains show mentions "injured roadie Eric Johnson."

The Blaylock demo session at London Bridge with Rick Parashar waswaiting for Vedder when he returned to Seattle that Thanksgiving. Thlong weekend also held sessions with Temple, who not coincident were recording the album at London Bridge with Parashar. ChrisCornell, speaking to me in 2001, tells the story best:

"It took us 14 days to record and mix Temple. It was very cathartihave all of us in a room. We were making a record on one hand, on the other hand we were also telling stories about Andy. I cimagine a more healthy way to deal with the tragic death of a friwho is young and brilliant than to just be spending time together doing this whole creative thing. Green River and Soundgarden werfriends, but I was never close friends with Stone or Jeff until Anddied. [That] drew all of his friends together. Now we have this recthat stands in history as being our tribute toward this guy."[In addition to lead vocals on "Hunger Strike"], Eddie ended up sinbackgrounds on three other songs.28 [Mike] had already been plafor a long time but that was his first [record]. It was exciting to beco-producer trying to get the best performance out of this guy whnever made a record before. I just fell in love with the guy. He that really young sort of hungry sensibility towards playing the guitawanted] "Reach Down" to be a long piece with a long free form jama sense trying to bust out of the post-punk rebellion, two-and-aminute song type of thing. One of the things that everybody haabout the excess of the '70s was these endless bass and guitar sand it was just the right time to bring back the endless bass and gusolo. In rehearsal, we'd get to the solo section and I would say,leave the room, don't stop playing this solo section until I come baI would shut the door and sit right behind it and listen until it walittle bit too long. Then I'd come back in. [During the album sessionwas kind of dissatisfied with the fact that Mike was afraid that he going to step on somebody else's toes if he went off. I said, 'this is y

28Eddie sings back up on "Four Walled World," "Pushin' Forward Back," and "You

Savior." Listen for his baritone behind the choruses on the right channel.

"all of the peoplearound me had this

mysterial glow in theireyes... not understandingthat this is going to be a

band with a place in rockhistory but simply: we just

saw an amazing show."-chris cornell

on witnessingpearl jam's 1st show


21/23


20

time. You've got five and a half minutes, and nobody here is going tobe able to fill it up except for you.'"JJ

The "Reach Down" that made the album was over 11 minuteslong; Mike's two-part solo fills a full five minutes, 49 seconds ofthe song.The 14 days ofTemple sessions had been weekend days that

stretched into December, concurrent with yet more MookieBlaylock rehearsals and a small handful of gigs. Mookie's secondshow was a slot at the Vogue opening for Bathtub Gin and joke-

rockers El Steiner on December 19KK. El Steiner was formed by

an outlandish guy named Larry Steiner who rounded up ashifting cast of characters, this night including Mike's oldbandmates Rick and Chris Friel from Shadow. In a 2000

interview with meLL, Rick Friel remembered El Steiner as "sort of

like a party on wheels, this crazy band with three or four songsthat we just kept playing over and over again in different ways,

making up covers on stage, making up silly songs. [That night] wegot Eddie to sing along on 'God of Thunder.'29" Mookie's setthat night has yet to surface in recorded form, and the detailsseem to be lost to memory.

The band's true coming out party, however, was opening forAlice in Chains on December 22, the day before Eddie's 26thbirthday. The show was a big deal because it was the celebrationof the release of AIC's debut album, Facelift. AIC had been onlyone of a handful of Seattle bands of the era to make it to themajors30. The 1419-seat Moore Theatre also held a whole lot

29At a different show, "Mike came up on stage once at a Halloween show in a dress,"

Rick Friel says. "He scored that night with a dress on. Never let it be said the New YorkDolls weren't on to something."30

Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, and War Babies were among the lucky few.

more than any of the little clubs Mookie Blaylock had played sofar, and a lot of the music community was in attendance. On topof all that, AIC's set was being filmed for release as a homevideo.Mookie's performance opened, as would become Pearl Jamcustom, with the soft "Release." By the end of the set, ChrisCornell had been moved to join them onstage for an impromptuTemple mini-set. As the feedback squalled, Chris scooped Eddieup into his arms and pointed at him, prompting the crowd toapplaud its acceptance of the newcomer, before sitting Eddieatop his 6'2" shoulders as the last song ended.

1990, a year in flux for everyone involved, came to a closeat the Washington State ranch of two other distinguishedmembers of that Moore Theater audience, director/rock writerCameron Crowe and his wife, Nancy Wilson of Heart. Stone,Jeff, Mike, Dave and Eddie celebrated New Year's Eve withCrowe, Wilson and fellow musicians including members of Alicein Chains. The band that would soon change their name to Pearl

Jam drank tons of champagne and jammed far into the weehours, their lives about to change completely.

AnadintheRocketforAliceInChians"withsurprise

guests?!"MookieBlaylockon

December22,1

990at

Seattle'sMooreTheatre.

Textcopyright2010JessicaLetkemann.allrightsreserved.

jessica

twofeetthickcom


22/23


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jessica Letkemann is based in New York and is currentlymanaging editor ofBillboard's website, Billboard.com.Previously, she has been on staff at Spin, Premiere, and Circusmagazines. Following seven years publishing her print PearlJam zine Tickle My Nausea (1995-2002), Jessica co-founded PJfansite TwoFeetThick.com with fellow fans Kathy Davis andJohn Reynolds in 2003. Jessica's first Pearl Jam show was atLollapalooza near Chicago on August 2, 1992. Her 100th

Pearl Jam show was August 24, 2009 in Chicago.

SOURCE NOTES

ARip magazine, March 1996. By Mark Arm

BSeattle Times, March 29, 1990. By Leone Pope.

C

Shawn Smith interviewed by author (Jessica Letkemann), July 1997.D

Jeff Ament interviewed by author (Jessica Letkemann), June 1999.

EStone Gossard interviewed by author (Jessica Letkemann) & Kathy Davis,

September 6, 2010.F

ibid. Jeff Ament intv by author (Letkemann), 6.1999.

Gibid. Gossard intv. by author (Letkemann) & Davis 9.6.2010.

HMatt Cameron interviewed by author (Jessica Letkemann), February 1999.

Iibid. Gossard intv. by author (Letkemann) & Davis 9.6.2010.

JEmail exchange with Jack Endino by author (Jessica Letkemann), 2004

KBAM magazine, November 13, 1992

Libid. Ament intv by author (Letkemann) 6.1999.

M

Eddie Vedder onstage at the Fox Theater, Atlanta; April 2, 1994.N

Eddie Vedder interviewed by author (Jessica Letkemann), June 1999.

Oibid. Vedder intv. by author (Letkemann), 6.1999.

Pibid Vedder onstage, 4.2.1994.

Qibid. Vedder intv. by author (Letkemann), 6.1999.

RStone Gossard speaking to KXRX radio Seattle, January 1991.

SStone Gossard interviewed by author (Jessica Letkemann) & John Reynolds,

September 22, 2010.

Tibid. Ament intv. by author (Letkemann), June 1999.

Uibid. Gossard intv. by author (Letkemann) & Reynolds, 9.22.2010.

VChris Cornell interviewed by author (Jessica Letkemann), May 2001.

WSeattle Times.. January 18, 1996, "A Rocking and Rolling Museum"

Xibid. Cornell intv. by author (Letkemann), 5.2001.

Yibid. Ament intv by author (Letkemann) 6.1999.

Zibid. Gossard intv. by author (Letkemann) & Davis 9.6.2010.

AAibid. Gossard intv. by author (Letkemann) & Reynolds, 9.22.2010.

BBibid. Vedder intv. by author (Letkemann), 6.1999.

CCSpin, November 1991, Lauren Spencer

DDPollstar, September 23, 1991

EEBass Player, April 1994

FFBackstage Pass, 91X San Diego, 1992*

GGSpin, November 1991, Lauren Spencer

HH ibid. Gossard intv. by author (Letkemann) & Davis 9.6.2010.

IIibid. Cornell intv. by author (Letkemann), 5.2001.

JJibid. Cornell intv. by author (Letkemann), 5.2001.

KKSeattle Post-Intelligencer, December 21, 1990 by Gene StoutLL

Rick Friel interview by author (Jessica Letkemann), February 2000.

thank you for reading this! And thankspearl jam for being part of so manyimportant moments in my life over thepast two d

1990 TheMakingofPearlJam by Jessica Letkemann

Documents

Transcript of 1990 TheMakingofPearlJam by Jessica Letkemann