So at the moment I'm really trying to get into the Binaural Era music, probably the most fertile period of writing the band has ever had. As such I'm going to make a little 2 cd set with all of the Binaural songs I can find. If you feel the Binaural itch please give me some help on the track listing for this. So far this is how it looks. I haven't given it any thought, merely put all the songs down;

Breakerfall
God's Doce
Evacuation
Insignificance
Grievance
Anything in Between (from the leaked Demo of Lost Dogs, Titled "Anything In Between")
Sad
Hitchhiker
In The Moonlight
Sleight of Hand
Rival
Education
Thunderclap (instrumental from "Touring Band' DVD)
Fatal
Drifting
Foldback (instrumental from "Touring Band' DVD)
Strangets Tribe
Harmony (instrumental from "Touring Band' DVD)
Light Years
Soon Forget
Nothing As It Seems
Of The Girl
Thin Air
Puzzles and Games
Parting Ways

Get the good pair of headphones out and get Binaural.

Taken From http://www.gremmie.net/bsides/guide.html

March - May 1999 - Studio Litho - Seattle, WA
Ed Vedder - vocals, guitar; Stone Gossard - guitar; Mike McCready - guitar; Jeff Ament - bass; Matt Cameron - drum kit, guitar

Evacuation
Foldback {instrumental}
Harmony {instrumental}
Of The Girl
Parting Ways
Thin Air
Thunderclap {instrumental}
unknown
unknown
Notes: These sessions began in early March and ended sometime in May 1999. By March 31, 1999, Pearl Jam had been in the studio for three weeks, they were working on two of Matt's songs, and Matt was playing guitar at the sessions. On May 10, 1999, Jeff stated in Addicted To Noise, "We've been kind of fiddling around a bit. At this point we're mostly playing each other's demos, and we have a handful of songs we've played together in demo form." He went into more detail about the sessions during an interview with CDNOW on June 24, 1999, where he stated, "In the spring we got together and played a little bit and gave each other tapes of our stuff. We actually made a little compilation of about 30 or so ideas." 'Evacuation' was probably one of the songs Matt mentioned in the Boom Theory chat on March 31, 1999, but no information is known for sure. 'Foldback,' 'Harmony,' and 'Thunderclap' were recorded during early Binaural sessions. 'Of The Girl,' 'Parting Ways,' and 'Thin Air' were written by the time of these sessions, so it's possible they were recorded, but no information is known for sure.

September - October 1999, November 1999 - January 2000 - Studio Litho - Seattle, WA
Ed Vedder - vocals, guitar, background vocals, harmonica on 'Drifting,' ukulele on 'Soon Forget,' typewriter on 'Writer's Block'; Stone Gossard - guitar, background vocals; Mike McCready - guitar; Jeff Ament - bass, background vocals; Matt Cameron - drum kit, background vocals; April Cameron - viola on 'Parting Ways'; Justine Foy - cello on 'Parting Ways'; Mitchell Froom - keyboard, harmonium; Pete Thomas - percussion; Wendy Melvoin - percussion; Dakota - canine vocals on 'Rival'

Breakerfall
Drifting
Education
Evacuation
Fatal
Gods' Dice
Grievance
Insignificance
In The Moonlight
Letter To The Dead
Light Years
Nothing As It Seems
Of The Girl
Rival
Parting Ways
Sleight Of Hand
Soon Forget
Strangest Tribe
Sweet Lew
Thin Air
Writer's Block {instrumental}
unknown
Notes: Binaural sessions began in early September 1999. Pearl Jam took a break towards the end of October, but returned to the studio in November 1999 to finish the album, which was halfway completed at that point. Ed began suffering from writer's block towards the end of the sessions and with four days left to record, he still didn't have lyrics written for 'Grievance,' 'Insignificance,' and one other song. He began staying up all night to finish writing lyrics and recording vocals for them, and subsequently, those songs ended up being the last ones finished for the album. He went into more detail about the problem in an August 2000 interview with New York Rock where he stated, "I kept changing the lyrics and then changed them again, just to write another version. I ended up with several versions and then used the best and just put them together and that worked surprisingly well. But before I did that, I thought it would never happen, I'd never be able to finish it." 'Drifting' and 'Strangest Tribe' were recorded in late November and / or early December 1999 while the WTO protests were occurring in Seattle.

An alternate mix of 'Insignificance' was released on the Nothing As It Seems single. An alternate version of 'Light Years' was recorded before it was reworked into the released version. The first version was initially mentioned by Ed in an August 2000 interview with Revolver where he stated, "We were excited about it for a while but when we got down to recording it, it was too nice, too right there - it was a little too close to 'Given To Fly.' We changed the tempos, and then one night Mike and I, after working on it all day and getting frustrated, just flipped it backwards, and in about 35 minutes it became 'Light Years,' with words and everything." The bridge and most of the lyrics were the only parts of the song to stay intact through the transformation.

An alternate mix of the released version of 'Light Years' was released on the Light Years single. 'Nothing As It Seems' and 'Thin Air' were debuted live in October 1999, so it's likely they were recorded during the September - October 1999 session, but no information is known for sure. A slightly longer version of 'Nothing As It Seems' was released on the Nothing As It Seems single. One additional Matt-penned song may have been recorded along with 'Evacuation' and 'In The Moonlight.' Jeff stated during a radio interview on May 26, 2000, "[Matt] came to the band with two or three songs and we recorded all of them and 'Evacuation' was kind of the only one that fit in with the songs that ended up on the record."

Those instrumentals from touring band were sweet.

Are you including demo versions of tunes that ended up re-recorded and on the album?

Looking at my iPod, there's demos of:
Breakerfall, Insignificance, Light Years, Nothing As It Seems.

Plus a second set of demos consisting of:
Education, Fatal, Sad, Light Years.

I've heard these demos a while ago, but I can't remember if they are vastly different to the album versions. Insignificance has a longer begining? But I think where possible the best quality versions of the songs will be included, unless they differ in a Puzzles and Games sort of fasion



yes, yes there are

Those Binaural demos are sweet. Much more enjoyable to listen to than the Vs or Vitalogy rough mixes.

Indeed. The only demos I really ever listen to are the Binaural ones.

I've never heard Anything in Between. Good song?

yup

There's different versions of Hitchhiker and In The Moonlight. The ones that appeared on Lost Dogs and the ones that appeared on that demo cd that had Anything In Between.

Education on the demo is different too. It's slower and sounds more like a "jam band" song to me.

It's not really a completely fleshed out song. The music is very cool but the lyrics are just Eddie mumbling along.

Does anyone else prefer the Matt Cameron demo version of In the Moonlight than the full band version? There's something more sinister-soundgarden-y about it that makes it work.

There's a demo of Breakerfall?

yup, hands down prefer that version

The demos are pretty damn good. I think the guitar work and the flow of the songs is more interesting in the demos over the final versions:
Education
In The Moonlight
Hitchhiker
Sad

And, how Puzzles and Games just collects dust in their closet of music is baffling. That song is just amazing to me.

Is it really collecting dust? Have you heard Light Years? They are very similar

I agree these sessions were fantastic. Although i took a different approach. Rather than a 2 disc set, i put together what i think is a pretty killer 12 song, 45 minute album:

Of the Girl
Breakerfall
Grievance
Sad
Puzzles & Games
Fatal
Insignificance
Sleight of Hand
Soon Forget
Education
Parting Ways
Nothing As It Seems

Other than the bridge, I don't think they sound similar at all. LY is nice, but I think Puzzles and Games is more interesting.

no room for drifting & rival on there?