remember Stone's "loose groove" record labels... with their music from Binaural onward, you don't hear deep, rich grooves on the studio efforts with Matt, and live, never, he's a speed demon... that's why people complain I think, but it's hard to articulate what constitutes a "groove"... but you hear it in old Even Flow performances, Tremor Christ and even Faithful and DTE, and live now, you DON'T hear it on Why Go or Even Flow or even Who You Are, etc... that's what changed with the band... Jack Irons knew how to groove, as did Dave A.

woooooh, jack irons

02/05/95 - Moore Theater: Seattle, WA (Fan Club show)
set: Jack Irons chant/Last Exit, Spin the Black Circle, Tremor Christ, Corduroy/Not for You, Animal, W.M.A., Lukin, Glorified G, Daughter, Rearviewmirror, Immortality, Blood
enc 1: Satan's Bed, Black, Porch, Garden, Go
enc 2: Better Man, Let My Love Open the Door
Source: Soundboard - Bootleg CD "Piss Bottle Men"

i never liked MC until last year. It seemed like they finally took his leash off and he was great. i'd still rather have Jack back.

No, they didn't. They're 100x times tighter than when they had Jack and 50x better than when they had Dave. And you must not understand how "grooves" work in music if you can't hear how tight Matt and Jeff are together. Listen to anything since '00 and it's obvious. So many people here know so much about PJ but so little about music. What an amazing contradiction.

He needs to at least slow the fuck down.

Definitely hear what you're saying there on songs like Even Flow (would LOVE to hear them do a slowed-down version of that song just to break up the monotony), but I've often thought that had more to do with the original band members just being bored as phuck playing some of the older songs live that they made Matt pick up the pace on them to get them over with faster.....

The two songs that suffer the most from Matt's speed are Corduroy and Given To Fly.

Specialization would bring back the band we all love. At some point in time that died with this band.

Matt Cameron should be a drummer and that is it. He should NEVER write songs.

Stone and Jeff should write most of the music.

Mike should play lead.

Ed should sing, occassionally write music, and write ALL lyrics.

The problem is when Matt Cameron writes lyrics and music,... it's terrible. It's true a few songs (lyrics and music) by Stone or Jeff were good tunes, but I can't think of any that are very good with lyrics. I trade songs like Thin Air or Ghost any day of the week.


My comment to the band... give the pen back to Ed. Do your job, and stop sucking off Matt C. He is not an f'ing song writer. Or, let me rephrase, he's not a "good" song writer... all his tunes have the same odd guitar (evacuation, unemployable, the fixer.) Just do your job, like you did with Ten. If you want to experiment, fine.... Matt learn bongos, Jeff get a new bass... Mike learn how to play an acoustic, ect.... Everyone would be happy, including the us,... the fans

Matt has loosened up. My main example is how he played DTE in 98 compared to now.
I agree with that the "Groove" has been lost. Hard to say if its Matt's fault or just the overall song writing. Pearl Jam lost the funk somewhere along the road.

That being said i think The Fixer has really good bass/drum components. The guitar doesn't seem to be driving much.

granted I wish Jack was still behind the kit, but is Matt the real problem?
I think the blame is being placed on him when the real problems came around the same time jill mccormick entered the pearl jam universe
yoko jill-o is when it all went terribly terribly wrong

I do know music and tightness ≠ groove... at least not the phenomenon I'm writing about... groove tends to derive from a slightly slower bpm... w Cameron there's no chuga-chuga-chuga feeling like this steamrolling Pearl Jam is about to obliterate your door and shitty apartment down... you hear it in Even Flow and you hear it through Yield, like when the band comes out of its chorus interlude on Faithful and Mike and Jack and Jeff go da-da-da-dum, "an echo...", when the band gets that groove, it's amazing because you have all this instrumentation and yet you can still hear the silence created by their groove... the closest they may get is the ambience by Jeff on Sleight of Hand OR the atmosphere in Insignificance, but that's probably more production oriented versus the chuga-chuga-chuga kinda silence...

I can follow this. Since I'm a layman myself this makes sense to me.

no, it didn't.

it didn't even "go wrong" with Matt, just that his membership came at the expense of the PJ groove... PJ used to write entire albums out of those grooves/jams... know they bring full songs into the studio... and hand them to a drummer whose principle attributes include speed and drum rolls...

interestingly re Yield and the groove... Faithful is one of the songs Mike mentioned Ed tinkering with the structure etc... that groove is present on Red Mosquito and Present Tense

oh, the band does have a HELLUVA a groove on S/T with the Life Wasted breakdown to the bridge...

but most people can't get past the first verse of that song, though I like it, as it sounds like Sleater-Kinney tunes off their "You're No Rock and Roll Fun" album

i'm gonna guess the "silence" created on Yield is more thanks to the production than anything else. anyway, i love a lot of the stuff matt's written. Unemployable, Evacuation, You Are. Get Right's not bad either (has a sick bassline), and I'm not sure what else he's written off the top of my head.

I love all those tracks and him... I'm just starting to realize how much of the PJ Groove was sacrificed to have Cameron drumming

what about 1/2 Full?

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to with the groove which is why I put that out there... It definitely sounds loose, jammy, in a way that a lot of their stuff doesn't.

Give me a break. If you can't hear the hard, fat, punchy groove in Jeff's bass line for "The Fixer" and how tightly it's wrapped around Matt's drumming then this thread, your assertions and all your high-minded "think outside the box" PJ talk is meaningless.

PJ had NO groove with Jack. While Jack was great in the studio, he sucked live and PJ often sounded sloppy and slow. And Jeff was 1/10th of the bass player he is now compared to when Dave was in the band. But whatever. Some people are just going to hear what they want -- or need -- to hear, not what's actually being played. Do yourself a favor: Go listen to anything up-tempo from the early 60's Motown/Stax era, then the Clash and the Police, and maybe throw in some early R.E.M. for good measure. Then listen to Jeff's bass line and Matt's drumming in "The Fixer." The groove is like-minded and it is a tight, powerful groove. One that can only not be heard if you're NOT listening. Find me a tighter groove in a modern rock song and I'll say you might actually be on to something. But guess what? You can't. Jeff and Matt are another level, so is the band. The live shows from '00-08 and even one-offs like "The Real Me" from '08 are all the proof one should need.\

And, yeah, "Half Full." And "Green Disease." And "Save You." And "God's Dice" and "Army mf'n Reserve." Dude: If you can't hear that, clean out your ears. Do you even play bass or drums? (I do. Well.) Do you actually know what you're talking about. Highly unlikely.