Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Five Against One The Pearl Jam Story by Kim Neely Pearl Jam. Five Against One: The Pearl Jam Story by Kim Neely Book Description: More than any other band, Pearl Jam embodies the alternative style that dominates rock today. From their early days as fame-ducking grunge pioneers, through their headline-making battle with Ticketmaster, to their current status as self-assured survivors, Five Against One brings to life Pearl Jam's tumultuous ascent to superstardom in rich detail. A compelling portrait of the band's elusive leader Eddie Vedder and family photos never seen before by the public make this a must-have for every Pearl Jam fan. (Paperback) Pearl Jam Ten: With Notes & Tablature (Paperback - November 1992) Pearl Jam: Ten by Steve Gorenberg (Translator) (Paperback - September 1993) None Too Fragile: Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder by Martin Clarke (Paperback) Pearl Jam: The Illustrated Biography by Brad Morrell Out of Print - Try Used Books Pearl Jam by Mark Blake Out of Print - Try Used Books. It’s five against one with 60 minutes that define Pearl Jam. When it comes to Pearl Jam, musical comparisons aren’t difficult, but finding many other bands that experienced the same career trajectory might be. The Seattle group is one of the few bands in history to go from playing its first show to becoming arguably the biggest band in the world in barely over a year. Its first album, Ten , is one of the highest-selling rock albums of all time, going platinum 13 times. When your first release goes to No. 1 in almost every country in the world, you’ve created a tough act to follow. But after 25 years and 10 albums, the group has evolved into the classic rock band it always intended to be. Pearl Jam formed from the ashes of Mother Love Bone, a promising glam-rock group that died along with its lead singer Andy Wood, after his heroin overdose. Guitarist Stone Gossard began writing songs with a more stripped-down, elemental feel, and after he and Mother Love Bone bassist Jeff Ament recruited lead guitarist Mike McCready and drummer Dave Krusen, they demoed a few songs and sent out a tape in search of a new singer. Which is how they found Eddie Vedder, still probably one of the most recognizable rock frontmen on the planet. Whatever alchemy led to the creation of debut album Ten , the band—along with fellow Seattleites Nirvana—became the global face of grunge, an image it labored to overcome. By the second album Vs. , Pearl Jam was already writing songs with a more traditional rock vibe, combining various elements of ’70s rock that fused arena-ready bombast with the rootsy intimacy of a Neil Young or Van Morrison. (Vedder also brought punk into the mix, both as an aesthetic and personal ethos, and musically on certain tracks.) It’s difficult to overstate just how ubiquitous Pearl Jam was during this time. And not all the members were happy about it. In Five Against One , the closest thing to a solid biography of the band, Kim Neely recounts how unhappy Vedder was in the spotlight. But his status as the face and voice of the group also led to a quiet transfer of power behind the scenes, as Vedder slowly took over Gossard’s role as de facto bandleader. Subsequent years saw the band recede from the pop culture landscape, as the group intentionally tried to make its life as a rock band more manageable. Some of this was unavoidable, as the group’s very public fight with Ticketmaster made touring during the latter part of the decade difficult. And while Pearl Jam was still incredibly commercially successful, this began a period of artistic experimentation. For the next 10 years, Pearl Jam played around with its sound, testing the limits of its rock ’n’ roll identity. The results included both more straight-ahead rock albums ( Yield ) and sprawling, adventurous offerings that trafficked in a plethora of sounds ( Riot Act ). By the time its contract with Epic was up, the band had managed to develop a fairly consistent personality, in no small part due to the addition of Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, who brought a stability to the group and a distinct backbeat to Pearl Jam’s music. A Pearl Jam record can be largely anticipated as a blending of disparate ’70s-rock influences, from punk stompers to acoustic ballads to a bevy of midtempo rockers crafted with an eye toward ever-so-gently pushing the typical verse-chorus envelope, without straying too far. That combination of mild experimentation while still remaining within the confines of classic rock songwriting have served the group well, along with a dedication to its fan base that has earned Pearl Jam some of the most devout followers this side of a Rush concert. However, the group’s consistency in songcraft is often matched by an inconsistency of output. Pearl Jam has tons of great songs, but few great start-to-finish albums. Interestingly, it’s the clockwork traditional tunes that misfire as often as the more experimental tracks, though the band’s album-first ethos means that it sees records as a singular entity, containing plenty of room for sound collages and odd trifles as part of a larger whole. And while some of its singles find their way onto this sampling of the most representative music to define Pearl Jam, devotees know that it’s a deep-cuts band. (To wit: “Alive” is easily the group’s most culturally relevant track—so much so, there is zero need for it, or “Jeremy,” in this compilation.) The group makes records, not hits, and a song that “sounds like Pearl Jam” is rarely an early single. Consider this an introduction to Pearl Jam, the actual warts-and-all classic rock act spanning 25 years, and not “Pearl Jam,” the early ’90s symbol of grunge where slapping a distortion pedal on traditional riffs made for a “new sound.” 1. “The Fixer” (2009) There’s no reason not to start with the greatest song in the back half of the Pearl Jam catalog. A fiery anthem fueled by one of the catchiest sing- along refrains Vedder has ever come up with, “The Fixer” chimes and reverberates with the strength of the band’s best rock ’n’ roll tendencies. “When something’s gone, I wanna fight to get it back again,” goes the transition into the chorus, echoing the rebel yell spirit that characterizes so much of the group’s ideology. It’s a powerhouse track, and a natural first song on this mix. How Pearl Jam Helped Define the Grunge Music Movement. Pearl Jam, the band that would come to define a region and an era found its earliest pieces when Montana-born bassist Jeff Ament and Seattle guitarist Stone Gossard joined fellow guitarist Steve Turner, drummer Alex Vincent and frontman Mark Arm in 1984 to launch Green River, a band named after a local serial killer. As documented in Kim Neely's Five Against One: The Pearl Jam Story , among the pioneering Seattle groups that were fusing hardcore and metal in the wake of punk's rise and fall, in autumn 1985, Green River put out what many consider to be the first grunge record, the six-track EP Come On Down . Clashing interests led to their demise before the release of a full-length album in June 1988. Meanwhile, Ament and Gossard had found another like-minded musician in Malfunkshun vocalist Andy Wood, a magnetic frontman equally capable of outlandish stage theatrics and heart-tugging piano ballads. The trio merged with guitarist Bruce Fairweather and drummer Greg Gilmore to form Mother Love Bone, their must-see performances and increasingly polished sound leading to a deal with PolyGram Records in November 1988. However, as Mother Love Bone recorded their debut album, Apple , in fall 1989, Wood's heroin use had become a major source of concern for the band. Although he seemingly righted the ship in rehab, the talented frontman fell into a coma after a relapse in March 1990 and was pulled from life support just days before the scheduled release of Apple . After the death of Wood, Ament and Gossard had to start a new band from scratch. As Mother Love Bone was meeting its sudden and shocking end, another Seattle musician, guitarist Mike McCready, was rediscovering his groove. Formerly a member of the hard-rock outfit Shadow, McCready had abandoned his musical dreams after his group struck out in Los Angeles. But the passion was reignited with his discovery of Stevie Ray Vaughan's blues guitar, and he was playing with a group called Love Chile when Gossard, an old friend, approached him to collaborate in spring 1990. Ament soon joined their rehearsals, and with the threesome quickly jelling, they recruited Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron to record a five- track instrumental collection that became known as Stone Gossard Demos '91 . With Cameron only assisting on a temporary basis, the others reached out to former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons, who declined their offer to join the group but knew of a singer-songwriter who could help their cause. Eddie Vedder impressed his future bandmates by singing over their instrumentals. Hailing from the Chicago area, Eddie Vedder spent his high school years in San Diego and returned there after fleeing a turbulent home life. Laser- focused on a career in music, he fronted a band called Bad Radio through the late 1980s and worked night jobs that came with the freedom to write songs, squeezing in gigs as a volunteer roadie for major bands that passed through the area.