Clint Brownlee

Hey, it's the digital leaked music age! Latest evidence: One week ahead of Them Crooked Vultures' (Dave Grohl, John Paul Jones, Josh Homme) eponymous debut release, the whole thing is available (and legally so) on YouTube.

 

Of course you can "preorder the future," too; the iTunes version includes two bonus live tracks. Which of these dirty, huge-riff tracks will we hear at the Paramount November 21? All of them, I expect. And perhaps some Foo Fighters, QOTSA, and Zeppelin covers? Hope so.

What the hell, people? Tickets are still available.

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Photo courtesy David Belisle

Easy Street West Seattle's latest live event features photography from the neighborhood's own rock photographer David Belisle and tunes from the singular, moody Tiny Vipers (Jesy Fortino).

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West Seattle resident David Belisle was tour photographer and personal assistant to R.E.M. from 2001-2008. His photo journal of the band, Hello, was our best-selling book of 2008. David has photographed cover art for Tiny Vipers, Yeah Yeahs Yeahs, the Blakes, Mudhoney and the Presidents of the USA, and his work has been featured in Rolling Stone, Spin, Mojo, Q Magazine, The Stranger, Seattle Weekly, Village Voice and numerous other publications. Currently, he has been touring as photographer for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

The show, "Musicians and Landscapes," will feature many of Belisle's photos of prominent musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, R.E.M., Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Band of Horses, Patti Smith, Eddie Vedder, Fleet Foxes and more. And, as the title implies, there will also be a generous number of landscapes from his travels with these bands.

The exhibition starts at seven. Tiny Vipers plays at nine. Gotta assume there will be priced-to-drink libations on hand, as there have been at previous Easy Street events.

Vote Nirvana this Election Day. On Tuesday, the band's seminal first record, Bleach, gets the 20th anniversary reissue treatment from Sub Pop on both CD and white vinyl. And its "I was there!" (and we all know you're lying) 1992 Reading Festival show hits both CD and DVD shelves. Oh, and you can watch the latter on Fuse (Comcast channel 476) at 8pm. How's that for bipartisan?

"This is too painful," says a lean, towering Krist Novoselic into a stage-right microphone. Then he shifts from mock compassion to mock reassurance: "You're gonna make it, man."

He's talking to a frail, blonde fright-wig- and hospital gown-wearing Kurt Cobain—and to the thousands assembled at the 1992 Reading Festival—who's being ushered to his own mic via wheelchair. The Nirvana singer grabs the mic with jittery hands and feebly pulls himself up. The chair's pilot, British rock journalist Everett True, rolls it away.

"Some say love," Cobain croaks, "It is a river ..." And he falls flat on his back.

Somewhere behind him on the huge airplane-hangar stage, Dave Grohl punctuates the faux faint with a heavy, staccato drum flourish.

 

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This is the ironic, winking opening of Nirvana Live at Reading, a long-overdue, never before complete document of the band's ability to wryly enjoy the music and the hype they created. However briefly they could.

Watching Kurt Cobain poke fun at his overblown, distressed media image and then tear into what would become the most storied show of Nirvana's abbreviated existence is somehow, 15 years after his death, still a bitter pill to swallow. From the moment he dons a guitar and effortlessly forces the instrument into a tortured squeal, you want the real guy back. Not his likeness in a stupid video game.

But the Reading show is the closest we'll get to a living, breathing Cobain, and, I think, to actually seeing how he viewed his career and fame. It's also perhaps the best Nirvana performance—in a studio or on a stage—we'll ever hear.

As the band tears through most of Nevermind's already-iconic tracks (only skipping "Something In The Way"), its frontman appears healthy, engaged, and enthused. Until Cobain dedicates "All Apologies" to his divisive wife Courtney Love, encouraging the massive crowd to overlook the "crazy stuff" they may have read about her and chant, "Courtney, we love you!", there's no physical sign—other than that opening jab at the media—of his pain, addiction, or irritations.

Cobain displays, through fleeting gestures and performance techniques, many sides of his chameleon personality in the two-hour set. He enthusiastically jumps around with his guitar through "Aneurysm" and employs a casual axe-slinging swagger in "School." The singer screws with his vocal inflection for the verses of "Sliver." He clears his throat after the first line of "In Bloom," then completes the song with what has to be an intentional, extra-gravelly monotone. As he and Novoselic tease the opening of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the frontman shoots the bassist a knowing smirk. (It's the closest Cobain gets to smiling, which Novoselic and Grohl do, with obvious aplomb, throughout.) He dumps his guitar on the stage during an extended "Love Buzz" jam. The man never takes off that hospital gown.

And after he tags a brilliant, Hendrix-style "Star-Spangled Banner" to the end of closer "Territorial Pissings," Cobain calmly knocks over speaker stands with his guitar's neck, climbs down off the stage, and hands the still-wailing instrument to the crowd. Cobain, it appears, in the midst of personal struggles and media-magnified drama, thoroughly enjoyed this performance.

I can't imagine any rock music fan who won't feel the same way. This is a legendary band at its best, with its fast-burning fuse at its brightest. Add a vivid film-to-video transfer, classic music video-style editing, Technicolor stage lights, and original, freshly mastered, multi-track audio, and Nirvana Live at Reading is the best means we have to celebrate what the band was—and wonder what it could have become.

Not many people picked up the former Soundgarden howler's last studio album. Released in March, Scream debuted at #10 on the Billboard 200, then plummeted with record-breaking speed. The problem? Chris Cornell fans rejected his club-friendly makeover and Timbaland fans (are you out there? anyone?) didn't get the concept. Musical FAIL.*

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But Scream may get a second, beat-free life thanks to Canadian musician-producer Jordon Zadorozny. Brought in by Michael Friedman, an LA industry guy who heard "'Black Hole Sun' greatness deep within" some of Scream's songs, Zadorozny has, with Cornell's permission, "peeled back all the beats and turned up whatever guitar" he could find in at least one track, "Never Far Away."

Listen for yourself. Is it better than what you hear in the video? Overly produced in the opposite direction? (Where's the guitar coming from, anyway?) Would you, old-school Soundgarden fans and smitten grunge-era girls, buy a re-imagined, rocked-up Scream?

*Not exactly. Scream is just the latest phase of Cornell's genre-dabbling career (which I had the pleasure of speaking to him about earlier this year.) The album's actually an addictive, not entirely guilty pleasure that improves with each listen. But Cornell's vocals are, regrettably, buried beneath layers of flowery electronica.

• Tickets for TCV's Paramount show go on sale Saturday, October 31, at 10 a.m. (A presale, for those with the not-so-secret password, is already in progress.) It will sell out, so don't wait.

There are "supergroups" and then there are Supergroups. Them Crooked Vultures, which makes its Seattle debut November 21, falls into the latter category by name recognition alone. You don't have to hear music from Josh Homme (vocals, guitar), John Paul Jones (bass), and Dave Grohl (drums) to know it's going to rock. But proof is in the pudding:

 

Best hint at what these guys (Kyuss, QUOTSA, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, etc., between them) can do is that last 30 seconds. What a jam.

This creepy vid for the Soulsavers' "Unbalanced Pieces," off Broken, their newish (available digitally since August; the physical release date in the U.S. is still on the horizon), second effort featuring former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan, is entertaining in a Debbie-Downer-on-downers kind of way. So if you’re feeling up and want to go even higher, just listen.

 

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Hear that other, higher-pitch voice twining around Lanegan's softened growl through the chorus? Whispering in the background? Turing the s-sounds in "unbalanced pieces" into a honeyed serpent's hiss? That’s avant-awesome, Faith No More/Mr. Bungle/Tomahawk/etc. mastermind Mike Patton.

Lanegan's previously done the duet thing, to wonderful effect, with Isobel Campbell. An album with Mr. Patton could be equally amazing. Perhaps more so. "Unbalanced Pieces" only hints, and beautifully so, at what their affinities for darkness and weirdness could produce.

The beautiful, moody Broken and whatever the enigmatic Lanegan does next will have to do till then.

Sixteen years ago today, Pearl Jam's follow-up to their 1991 hit Ten was released. The sophomore album, untitled in its initial run but unofficially named Vs., was an instant megahit. This "supremely odd" MTV-unearthed promo video probably had nothing to do with it.

Turn your radio dial to 99.9 or 107.7 at lunch today and you’ll hear Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, Jeff Ament, and Matt Cameron discuss Pearl Jam’s evolving creative process.

Never before have Pearl Jam fans had such an up-close, in-depth look at what goes on behind the scenes when Ed, Jeff, Matt, Mike and Stone are in the studio and on the road. Listen October 13th at noon and hear songs from the new Pearl Jam album, "Backspacer," and exclusive live material from Pearl Jam's summer tour last year. Plus, we'll take an inside look at the writing of the new songs on "Backspacer" and the making of the new album itself.

The band’s 60-minute airwaves assault is more than a plug for their new record, of course. The one-off show—and a related limited-edition t-shirt—will benefit the country’s leading hunger-relief charity, Feeding America. The organization expects proceeds to “translate to roughly 210,000 meals nationwide.” (The band donated $1 per ticket to their two KeyArena shows as well, which retail partner Target matched.)

After the show, visit http://pearljamradiotakeover.com/ for bonus interviews, live music, and more.

Too bad the interviews won’t be live. If they were, Eddie could talk about joining the Who’s Roger Daltrey last night on the Showbox SoDo stage. Anybody catch that?

A couple of old friends joined Pearl Jam at LA's Gibson Amphitheater last week, one after the other, for the last two songs of PJ's second encore.

Chris Cornell's appearance made for an impromptu Temple of the Dog reunion. "Hunger Strike," ladies and gentlemen.

Jerry Cantrell's made for an Alice in Chains-y "Alive" solo.

Insert superlatives here. And jealousy-tinged expletives. Maybe next time, Seattle. 'Til then, it's bootlegs for us.

Last Thursday, two days after Pearl Jam killed two nights at KeyArena, a reborn Alice in Chains did the same at the Moore Theatre. (Sadly, I missed it.) The like-old-times local show was just one stop on the band's first tour to support new music since 1993. Alice's heavy-as-ever new record, Black Gives Way to Blue, is released tomorrow.

 

The recent resurgence of Alice in Chains has been a contentious development for some nostalgic locals. The issue: Alice is continuing without its original enigmatic soul, the late Layne Staley. One writer, after catching the band's "secret" EMP acoustic set last month—happily, I made it—ditched the post-show Black Gives Way listening party because a Staley-less AIC challenged her constitution.

Look: Outright dismissal of this band's new and future musical output is stupid.

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Yes, there's a new face (and much bigger hair) behind the mic that was once Staley's, but William DuVall isn't stepping right into the beloved former singer's shoes. Coincidentally or not, his vocal range is much like Staley's, though it has a signature nasal quality that sets it apart. And DuVall's tone complements co-frontman Jerry Cantrell's, creating vocal harmonies—always Alice's trademark—that beg you to sing along...and haunt your mind later. But Cantrell, drummer Sean Kinney, and bassist Mike Inez didn't invite DuVall into the fold to channel Staley. On the contrary, Cantrell honors his late cohort at every opportunity, still seeing Layne's absence as a regrettable, tangible void.

From the band's blog:

"The encore in Seattle began with Jerry coming out alone. A spotlight shined down on a stool, and Jerry sat down on another stool next to the empty one....I was wondering why our lighting guy didn’t take the spotlight off of the other stool and put it on Jerry, but then it dawned on me. Jerry played "Black Gives Way To Blue" by himself as the spotlight lit up the empty stool with a mic stand in front of it."

I too had been dubious about Alice in Chains reforming and revisiting the music given so much beauty and gravitas by Layne Staley. But my concerns vanished when I met Layne's brother, Eric, at that EMP show. When I noted that his presence said much about how he felt about Alice's continued existence, Eric said, "Jerry and the guys have been very respectful. They waited long enough." And what did he think of the news that the new record's title track, a tribute to Layne, featured Elton John vocals and piano? "Even my kids were impressed with that." Not only was it a pleasure to meet Eric—a very nice, gracious, obviously still heartbroken guy—but it allowed me to wholeheartedly appreciate and respect the show and new music that followed.

I hope other uncertain fans will do the same with Black Gives Way to Blue.

Easy Street Records' Queen Anne location is hosting a listening party and midnight sale of the record tonight. The album will also be available (as will liquor) at West Seattle's Feedback Lounge. Add Alice-related prizes to the music, videos, and fan fraternization, and it will be one fine night to both reflect back and look forward.