Pearl Jam and Guns N' Roses supergroup ?

      Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Duff McKagan ex of Guns N' Roses and Barrett Martin (ex-Screaming Trees) are putting together a as of now unnamed group that will have a cast of different lead singers according to Billboard Magazine.

    Back in the middle 1990's McCready and Martin played in a band called Mad Season with the late Layne Staley and also the late John Baker Saunders (Mad Season's original name was The Gacy Bunch), they recorded one album 'Above'.

    "Duff and Barrett and I got together. We wrote some new stuff and we took some of those old Mad Season demos from that [unreleased] second 'Disinformation' record, so we are trying to find something to do with those," McCready says. "We're talking to Jaz from Killing Joke and I've been trying to find some singers to work on some of that stuff." 

     "A bunch of stuff was happening last year," Barrett Martin says. "Mike and I were putting together this Mad Season collection. Duff and I and Jeff Angell were starting the Walking Papers album which we asked Mike to play on. Then Mike started his own record label… I had a whole bunch of song ideas and Mike had a whole bunch of song ideas and Duff had a whole bunch of song ideas that were not making it into Walking Papers. We decided that we would go into the studio and record them. Right now they're being sent out to different singers. Mike and Duff are overseeing that because they know everybody."

    There is no set release date for any of the material, but Martin says it will depend on the as-yet-unrevealed list of singers. "As the different singers finish their songs and turn them in, that will determine when they get put out," he laughs.


Joe Cornelisse-SMM

My Concert Ticket StubsLollapalooza '92 Molson Park Barrie

     When can you remember the last time you could see the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Ministry, Soundgarden, The Jesus and Mary Chain all on one bill for only $29.25 Dollars? You can't? didn't think so. 

    The days of Molson Park shows are long gone now so all we have is our memories, memories like Uncle Al and Ministry taking charge of the main stage and showing everyone how it's done.

Joe Cornelisse-SMM

Soundgarden - Jesus Christ Pose - Lollapalooza 1992

    Some songs need to be played at a nice mellow volume, that's just how they were mastered. 

    Some songs need to be play incredibly Loud…..one of those songs is "Jesus Christ Pose" by Soundgarden. It was Lollapalooza 1992 at Molson Park in Barrie, Ontario. the lineup was incredible, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry,Ice Cube,The Jesus and Mary Chain and this band from Seattle called Pearl Jam (A little PJ trivia, that show was one of if not the last time Eddie ever jumped into the audience) …but I still remember to this day Soundgarden taking the stage and destroying us with "Jesus Christ Pose".

  

    I managed to track down the actual recording of the song from that day, click HERE to listen to it……..LOUD!

Joe Cornelisse-SMM

Eddie Vedder 'Ukulele Songs'

       Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder sings and plays a ukulele, and you would think that would be the end of this review, and on some levels you the reader would be correct but on some other musical plain this record is so much more....read on. 

       When I first heard ramblings of this project I was very quick to write it off as just a lead singer needing his creative space to “experiment” with something completely different from what he’s used to producing with his band, and maybe in the end that’s really all this is, but I’ve got this feeling that this record is something Eddie had to make so he could return to the studio with PJ and energize their inventive juices. 

  

       Eddie croons his way through 16 tracks of love and loneliness with just his voice and a ukulele and if you’re a Pearl Jam fan (and I believe most people buying this record will be already) you will enjoy it, but if you’re an Eddie Vedder fan you will eat this up bowl and all. One track that really stands out for me on this record is “Sleepless nights”, it’s a duet with Glen Hansard, Glen you might know from such bands as The Frames and The Swell Season, well their two voices together create such a beautiful landscape that you cannot just listen to this track once, you have to repeat it a few times to feel everything that’s being offered to you.

    This is no Pearl Jam record, and this is not the Eddie that I watched climb the stage at Lollapalooza back in 1992, this is a record about simplicity, it’s about loneliness and togetherness, and it’s about a guy and his ukulele...turn the lights down and relish in some Ukulele Songs

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS