2013 is the 20th Anniversary of one of the greatest albums ever this thread is for
anything related to any of the songs from the Vs. recording sessions:
· March - May 1993 - The Site - San Rafael, CA
Ed Vedder - vocals, guitar, background vocals
Stone Gossard - guitar, background vocals
Mike McCready - guitar
Jeff Ament - bass, background vocals
Dave Abbruzzese - drum kit, percussion
Brendan O'Brien - organ
Victoria Williams - guitar and background vocals on 'Crazy Mary'
Animal [Vs.]
Better Man
Blood [Vs.]
Crazy Mary [Sweet Relief - A Benefit For Victoria Williams]
Daughter [Vs.]
Dissident [Vs.]
Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town (a.k.a. Small Town) [Vs.]
Glorified G [Vs.]
Go (a.k.a. Don't Go) [Vs.]
Hard To Imagine
Indifference [Vs.]
Leash [Vs.]
Rats [Vs.]
Real Thing {instrumental} [Judgment Night Soundtrack]
Rearviewmirror [Vs.]
Whipping
W.M.A. [Vs.]
? Yellow Ledbetter
unknown {instrumental}
unknown {instrumental}
unknown {instrumental}
Notes: Vs. sessions began in mid-March and lasted until early May 1993. Sessions were completed before May 13, 1993, as Ed stated during a concert on that day Pearl Jam was leaving the San Francisco area the following day. Everything recorded during these sessions was recorded live except for some lead and vocal overdubs. The band set up in a semi-circle with the drum kit in the middle to record. The drum kit was eventually moved into a tiled room because they wanted a different drum sound on some songs. There were many days where they would record the album all the way through and pick the best takes from those days. They would usually record two to five takes of each song and move on to the next song if it wasn't sounding the way they wanted it to. The rough mix of the album contains outtakes, countdowns, extra feedback, and some guitar lines that were later removed from the final versions of the songs. The first week of recording produced 'Blood,' 'Go,' a slow version of 'Leash,' and 'Rats.' After awhile, recording hit a snag because Ed began frequently disappearing to work on lyrics. He would leave for days and come back ready to finish the songs being worked on, but this held up some of the sessions because the band wanted to keep all of the takes live and mix them down immediately after they were recorded. Without Ed present, those takes could not be finished and everyone would have to wait on him to return to complete them. This resulted in a number of instrumentals being recorded. Ed's vocals on 'Blood,' 'Leash,' and 'Indifference' were his reference vocals. One take of 'Better Man' was recorded, but it didn't sound very good so it was scrapped. An acoustic take of 'Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town' was released on the Go single. 'Glorified G' went through a series of changes before it was finalized. Mike stated in the February 1995 edition of Guitar World his guitar solo on 'Go' "was probably the second of three or four takes." Stone, Jeff, and Dave recorded an instrumental and sent it to Cypress Hill, and they later rapped over it and titled the song 'Real Thing.' 'Rearviewmirror' was the last song recorded and was almost left unfinished. Dave had trouble nailing his drum line for it, so after finally playing it to Brendan O'Brien's satisfaction, he threw his sticks against the wall, punched a hole through the snare drum, and later threw the broken snare off of a nearby cliff. Ed finished his vocals for the song on the final day of recording. 'Whipping' was recorded, but it ended up being shelved and later re-recorded for Vitalogy. Many percussion overdubs were added to 'W.M.A.' Dave stated in the December 1993 edition of Modern Drummer, "I laid down this two-measure drum track and we looped it all the way through the song. Eddie and Jeff came in to do vocals and bass on it and then I went back with some octobans and a cymbal and just winged it. I also did some tambourine and sleigh bell thing and then we did some other crazy stuff like using a slapstick and another tambourine and Stone dancing around the hallway with this freaky boinging thing." An alternate recording of 'Yellow Ledbetter' exists that is different from the version recorded during the Ten sessions, so it may have been recorded, but no information is known for sure. Three instrumentals were recorded, but Ed never got around to writing lyrics for them so they were left unfinished. This seemed to be a common problem throughout the Vs. sessions as Jeff commented in the April 1994 edition of Bass Player, "We got to the point where [we] were getting ahead of Eddie; we were getting a lot of musical ideas, and trying to write lyrics for 20 songs in a month and make them mean something is a pretty intense job."
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