Yeah, dying to hear/see the transcript.. any highlights?
I'm working on it JP! I put some time into it last night and am glad I did because this one is content rich. Lots of typing. I anticipate it being up by 11:30 am (or there about) East coast U.S. time today.
Audio for this week is hosted and available for listening and download at http://www.gremmie.net. Also, don't forget about the on-air replays on Sirius 17/XM 39. Check the front page for dates/times.
Host: Tim Bierman (TB)
Host: The Rob (TR)
Guest: Kelly Curtis (KC)
TR: Kelly has been managing PJ since Day One, something almost unheard of in this day and age in the music business. And we'll learn a little bit about his background and what led him to meeting and working with Mother Love Bone, and then PJ. As well as how he and the band have successfully balanced the fine line of art and commerce, as well as keeping the ship afloat through several storms throughout the band illustrious 20 year career.
Welcome, Kelly Curtis.
KC: Hello. I'm not a woman.
*laughter*
TR: You're not Tony Curtis' daughter either.
KC: No, no.
TR: Cool. Well welcome to the show. We're really glad you decided to join us today. To get started it would be great if you could maybe just tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be working in the music industry and your travels and experience that brought you to working with Mother Love Bone, and then PJ in Seattle.
KC: Well, it started a long time ago. I was like 16 and working as a roadie for Heart, a big band in the 70's. I think they're kind of happening again right now. And I worked for them for almost ten years. Did everything: Publicity, drove trucks, carried equipment... Valet. That was a good one. Luggage, Tour management, and, you know, did that til the early 80's and stopped doing that. I was ready to move on to something else.
(I) Lived in Seattle. Started a little production company where we helped promoters put on shows and one day Jeff Ament came in to meet me. I'd never met him before and he had this demo tape for Mother Love Bone and asked if, you know... I guess he didn't know anyone at the time that knew anyone in showbiz or Los Angeles or anything like that, and asked if I could help him hook up with some lawyers or agent or anyone. And I said 'Sure.' And we set up some stuff and I went to L.A. and I never went back. I went back from L.A. but never stopped working with Jeff and Stone. And we just kept going.
TR: Before you had met Jeff, before he came in had you seen Green River?
KC: Nope. I was kind of in a completely different music scene: 70's big rock. And so I wasn't really part of the local thing that was going on here.
TR: The loyalty factor within the PJ organization is something to be admired, certainly. When things took off really quickly for you and the band I imagine you probably had to fight off some serious vultures and other factors trying to grab a piece of the band's success, let alone probably trying to lure them away from you and your guidance.
KC: There was a little bit of that when it blew up you know? I didn't have a credit card for the first year, I don't think and, you know, these guys were showing up with expense accounts and stuff. But also that first year we got to meet a lot of really great managers that were really cool to me: U2's manager, Neil Young's manager, who really kind of took me under their wing and said I was doing a good job...
TB: How did you meet those guys? How did you meet Elliott (Neil Young's manager)?
KC: I think, ahhh... Elliott I met at this Bob Dylan Tribute thing in New York that was really early on and Eddie and Mike did it and he was like... God to me kind of because Neil Young was my favorite guy growing up. But at the show, you know we're these young guys from Seattle and we're looking around and there's George Harrison, and Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan, and Johnny Cash, and Neil Young, Tom Petty, all these people, and Elliott knew them all. And I just thought 'God! How cool is that!', you know? We got invited to the Bridge School soon after that and it was just great.
U2 I think we opened for... that first year too in Rome, or... Italy somewhere...
TB: '93
KC: And (Paul) McGuinness (U2's manager) was, and again things were... You could tell things were about to happen and he was a pretty renowned manager himself and so... he was great to me.
TB: And what about John Landau (American music critic, manager for Bruce Springsteen, record producer, and currently the head of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Landau) and those guys?
KC: I didn't meet Landau 'til much later. 'Til the Vote... You know I knew him, but it was really the Vote For Change Tour that we got to know each other really well.
TR: And those are all relationships that you still maintain rather strongly today, without a doubt.
KC: Oh, yeah. Yeah... I'm suddenly 'The Old Guy.' And I was 'The Young Guy' for a long time and now I'm 'The Old Guy.'
TB: He's even older than me, Rob.
KC: Yeah. (mutters under his breath) Fuck.
*laughter*
TB: But barely.
TR: Alright cool! Before we get to some calls at 855-PearlJam, I have one more subject I want to tread on and it's kind of one that's been going around on the boards and amongst fans too: The balancing of art and commerce, something PJ has always been one of the more righteous bands out there, and successfully doing, through: The well documented Ticketmaster struggle in the 90's, through all their philanthropic efforts... As the industry has drastically changed over the band's career it's obvious other forms of revenue need to be explored, as with the Target deal. But I wanted to ask you about the most recent use of the song Do The Evolution on this hunting show that's on the Vs. network. (it's) Probably, maybe rubbing some people the wrong way, but I'm sure you can never please everybody. But aside from that, on a deal like that is it run by the entire band, and are there pros and cons weighed every time on something like this?
KC: No. It's really up to the song writer, who wrote the song. Or the song writers. You kind of... When there's a deal like that that comes up... This hunting show we were... I just kind of heard about it the last couple of days and we had licensed that to this kid like eight years ago, nine years ago or something like that. And I vaguely remembered, we were talking to Eddie about it yesterday and he kind of remembers too. That we looked at it and thought it was a really funny show. But I really don't remember what... I don't think it was actually about going out and killing animals. I think it was something more absurd. And so...
TB: I seems like it's kind of changed now...
KC: Yeah. Maybe it's changed. We're looking into it. So if it's the guy going out and killing a bunch of things I supposed we'd change our mind. (We) wouldn't think that's much fun.
TR: Yeah. Check out that promo for it, cause I saw it and I was like... Wow...
KC: Where did you find the promo cause I was looking around yesterday?
TR: Ahhh... I saw it somewhere on the web. I think there is a link right on the forum on the subject of it.
TB: Oh God! *laughs*
KC: Is it still the same name? Is it 'Shootin' Blanks with Kenny' or something like that?
TR: It's 'Buddy Somebody' and it's his hunting show and I'd never heard of it before til I saw those subjects on the forum and I was... Clicked on it and when I saw the... You know, the cock(ing action) of the gun *laughs*... And the song starts, I was like 'Oh man!' *laughs* (the promo for the TV show can be seen here: http://www.versuscountry.com/hunting/videos/promo-gun-it-with-benny-spies/-ed)
KC: Well... I'll look into that directly.
*laughter*
And I'll let Tim know what I find out.
*laughter*
TR: Cool. Alright one more thing that (is) a collective question, and I see that they're (callers) lining up to ask you too, everybody wants to know: How are tours planned and how does it really come about and what goes on behind it and the thinking of the logic and so maybe, perhaps let everybody in on that and maybe put some myths and rumors to rest once and for all.
KC: What are the myths and rumors?
TR: Oh, you know... The whole... The South and all that, you know. Why they don't play there. Blah blah blah...
KC: Wellll... Or Asia? I guess that was one too, right?
TR: Ah, yeah. There was a big Indonesia factors out there now.
KC: Well... It's complicated. You know, these guys were never the band that was going to release a record and tour for a year and a half, you know. Really, their stamina, kind of what makes them who they are, you know, without going through the motions and having it be different every night, ummm... That only can remain fresh for so long... before it gets old or anything. And also because it's physically demanding. Especially for Eddie, Matt, and... these long shows and it's emotionally demanding cause they don't dial it in. And I'm not sayin' cause there's a lot of bands out there that are huge that will be out there off and on for a couple of years with the same kind of production and everything. But it's the same thing, you know? They might mix up a couple songs and so it's not as demanding, as far as using your brain and stuff.
So, that said, you only get so much out of this band every year. And they will only tour for... These days it's like three weeks... It's kind of like as much as we could get so... Ummm... So then you figure it out and Asia is one that we just never kind of went back to because it was like: You give up the U.S. or you give up Europe and yet, we may get back there in the next couple of years, you know? Like South America, that took 15 years or something for us to get there. So there's that part of it.
And then the routing is a difficult thing. You kind of get the band to kind of talk about what time of year they want to go and so you're having to deal with these venues, and what's available and what's not available, and how you get the trucks from Point A to Point B, and how it makes sense...
Then, like Asia, or South America, or something like that you find yourself every couple of years thinking 'God we haven't played Seattle! It's our home town! We've gotta go back to Seattle!' And you find yourself routing yourself South again or down the West Coast and then your three weeks are up . And then every couple of years we might want to do Letterman, or Saturday Night Live, or something and it's like 'Wow! We'd better route ourselves that way!' And if I had another four or five or six weeks...
The guys talk about it all the time like 'There's so many places we haven't gone back to.' But it's hard to do both with the limited amount of time we have and so, we do eventually get everywhere. You know? We do go to Texas and we do go to Florida, but not as often as we might like to.
TB: I think one of the frustrating things for fans is that they would like to be able to plan out their whole entire year and I think that the problem is, you kind of alluded to it before, it's an apples and oranges kind of thing. They're used to seeing people like, and no offence to U2, but like, U2 is going to sign up for a world tour and they're going to go out for more than a year and a half. And they're gonna cover the world and someone's gonna write a big check at the beginning of it and they have to play those shows and so they can say 'Okay. We're gonna be in your town on this date and we're gonna come back again the next year!' So people are used to seeing that and PJ just doesn't work that way.
KC: Yeah. They're not built that way.
TB: It's in our best interest to let our fans know with as much advance as we can but... it's just not as easy as saying 'Okay, we're gonna play this country this summer.' Because we don't know. We can't say until we actually know.
KC: And, you know, the other thing that frustrates people is even when we do announce a tour and we add things later... The whole timing thing, trying to get the word out to the fan club so they can order tickets and stuff, but a lot of times you're routing a tour and, you know, you're trying to go Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, L.A., San Diego, whatever... Maybe when you're routing that Portland is just not available. Or the building is just not available...
TB: The Blazers are in the playoffs and that's the day you want to be there.
KC: Yeah, this happened to us last year quite a bit. We were trying to book this tour and all these arenas, even the Knicks, they said 'We're gonna be in the playoffs'... Everyone knew they weren't gonna be in the playoffs but they have to hold the dates, you know? They just have to. So you can't announce that you're gonna play there even though you kinda know you're gonna play there but not until they're eliminated. And that could be well after the shows have gone on sale.
Does that make any sense at all?
TR: It definitely does and the way that the band has done things has made them the special way that they are and enabled them to keep going and providing and putting on the shows that they do. And I think we're all very thankful for it.
Do you think the band would ever consider doing their own type of festival like Wilco recently did?
KC: You know, we're messing around with something for next summer some sort of 20th anniversary weekend... party. Somewhere in the middle of the country. We're trying to figure that out right now.
TR: WOW!
KC: Like a destination weekend... party. You know?
TB: Do you think people would like that Rob?
TR: You heard it here first folks!
*laughter*
TR: I feel the internet buzzing right now! *laughs*
KC: It'd be kind of fun right?
TR: That's some great news. Uhhh, yeah!
KC: With camping and all that kind of stuff?
TB: Camping yeah!
TR: Bring it on! Bring it on! Alright lets bring on some callers too *gives out the number*
1. I've had the 'Stick guy' tattoo for a long time and I don't know the background. Can you guys elucidate the background of the 'Stick guy'?
KC: It's Jeff isn't it?
TB: Yeah it's Jeff. Jeff drew that for the Alive single, I think. And so it's funny that that thing became such an icon... It's one of those things that every year, pretty much, we get approached by a merchandiser, or merchandising company, or anybody that's kind of trying to give us a visual pitch and they always include that guy on there...
KC: PJ pj's.
*laughter*
TB: I think that the guys just got tired of seeing that thing everywhere. It just kind of represents that first wave of being asked for artwork and they were in such a creative mode at that point that they just wanted to keep creating new things and changing their image and not be tied down to one particular... look and feel. Musically or visually. And I think that's why we haven't seen a lot of the 'Stickman' lately. But that's not really the question you asked...
KC: Jeff!
TB: Jeff! Jeff! Jeff! Yeah Jeff's quite an accomplished visual artist and that has always been one of his things that he's just constantly drawing. Eddie is too and Stone. All the guys can create visual art but Jeff definitely is very prolific and pretty talented for sure.
2. Back in 2009 at the Chicago shows Ed mentioned that they tried to get those shows at Alpine Valley. And I was wondering what exactly were the hang-ups there?
KC: I think with that particular thing it was a parking negotiation about how much they were going to charge and we were trying to get them not to rip people off so much and it became kind of a stalemate. That's what I recall. Sort of a stubborn...
Caller: There wasn't any falling out then? It wasn't like that place was just off the table then? Or is it a possibility for the future?
KC: It's always a possibility! Things change, you know? It's really a promoter issue, or a LiveNation issue as opposed to that particular joint. I'm surprised we had the problems we did then but you know LiveNation is kind of... It's not just one person, you know? They all have their territory and stuff, and this particular time last year was last year. We just weren't getting on with the dude that... we were negotiating with.
**Kelly Curtis on Mike McCready**
"Mike's got a lot going on right now. He's scoring a whole bunch of stuff. A Lance Armstrong documentary, which is pretty cool."
Caller: You (Kelly Curtis) manage the band. Do you also manage their side projects?
KC: Some of them. I think Brad, cause Brad's a different animal that's kind of always there, and I think Stone has a new found dedication to Brad and so it requires a little more day-to-day... It's a little bit of a different animal than, say, Jeff's solo project, or Eddie's solo project. It's like a band and, although we're always here to help and we do, I think he's kind of looking to have someone just dedicated to that particular thing. But Eddie and Jeff... Matt Cameron stuff... We kind of just help him here. It's not like he goes out and tours on the stuff or anything. And Jeff's got a killer record coming out soon with Doug from King's X. That is really good. So I don't know if that answered your question. Most of the time, yeah. I manage it.
Caller: Assuming that PJ would be first and foremost amongst all the band members, is there a time frame (with respect to side/solo projects), maybe generally, I'm not talking about a date, but is it like 'Hey, you guys have got about six months to kind of do your thing and then, for instance, June we're gonna get back to PJ stuff' or are you just kind of letting that stuff run their courses organically?
KC: Well they actually talk to each other and, you know... We just kind of came off, for us, kind of a busy year and a half or so and... Was it a year and a half?
TB: Almost two years.
KC: And so there was a natural break in there for PJ and so people... Matt started doing his Soundgarden thing and Jeff had been working on this record for a bit and Stone was on Jimmy Kimmel last night and there's a natural break that happens and that's when these things kind of go on. We know generally things are gonna happen about a year out, but it's pretty general.
3. How do you struggle with being PJ when you write stuff and doing what you want to do versus worrying about what might be accepted in the popular arena?
Has a song ever surprised you when it became more popular than you thought and vice-versa?
KC: Well, I don't have to survive anything. The guys in the band do so I can't really answer for them. I've got a pretty good normal life going on.
TB: I think the question was 'Does the band struggle with purposely trying to write a song for commercial success?' I think it's pretty obvious that they don't do that ever, and they never have.
And then the follow up part was 'Has there ever been a surprise?' A song that came up that was a total surprise.
KC: Well Last Kiss would be the best example I guess, cause that just kind of happened all on it's own. Yellow Ledbetter a little bit too, I think. Because that was never a single or anything was it?
TB: No. That was a B-Side it wasn't even on the record. And then more recently Brother from when we reissued Ten. That just kind of came out of nowhere. That people started playing it on the radio.
Caller: Is it a group decision or is it more of someone just says 'Hey lets just throw it in and see what happens.'
KC: A group decision on what songs to take to radio?
Caller: Or to include anywhere. Something like Last Kiss or Yellow Ledbetter. Is that just like someone's like 'Lets take a chance' or does everyone agree that 'that is a good one.'
KC: I think Last Kiss was a Christmas thing right? So it's like Tim, every year, is trying to get these guys to, in some timely manner *laughter* get the Christmas thing out and kind of get them all to agree so he's constantly putting stuff in front of them and at some point they all go 'Okay' and...
TB: It just happens.
KC: It just happens, yeah.
TB: But as far as including tracks on records and stuff that's just all... Everybody weighs in. Band members, management, record companies...
KC: I think it's the band, for sure.
TB: Ultimately it's them, yeah.
KC: It's not anybody else. We all get to chime in on what songs we like the most and all that.
4. What are the top five priorities on the rider list?
TB: Well that's interesting I guess. Huh?
TR: Love that. *laughs*
KC: God, I'd have to look at the rider, cause security and safety is really key.
Caller: I guess some of the fun stuff.
KC: Oh we're boring man.
*Background laughter*
It's boring and kind of healthy and there's not a lot of exciting stuff going on back stage, really.
Caller: Alright. Had to ask.
*laughter*
KC: I'm sorry! There's just none of that going on!
TB: Whenever people ask me if they can get a backstage pass after I always say 'Yeah so you can come back and get a good look at our deli tray.'
KC: We don't even have a deli tray.
TB: Oh man! We've got to start asking for deli trays.
KC: We get peanut butter and stuff. Bread...
TB: A juicer!
KC: Yeah. Some bananas...
Caller: No meatballs or...
KC: You know all that early rock nonsense is just nonsense. It's just a waste of time and money and all that. It's just silly.
TB: Van Halen crossed the line when they made 'em pick out all the blue m&m's.
KC: If we have a bunch of people, guests and stuff we'll get some beer and water... wine or something like that. It's not super exciting back stage.
TR: The Jack Daniels infused granola is just a myth then.
KC: I don't think they have any hard liquor back stage. It think they might have tequila sometimes but that's about it.
TB: Well people will bring presents and...
5. Why when they (the band) come to New York don't they do a smaller venue? Come to the beach and come to the water!
TR: They did three nights at the beach in 2000, and the Colosseum in '03 to which I went back across the country for cause I grew up in that dump so I felt like I had to go there and the Bushleaguer deal reminded me of why i moved 3,000 miles away.
*laughter*
I would be surprised if they ever went back to that building. Jones Beach? That's another story.
6. When you schedule a tour, in terms of bands that PJ plays with, whether they're opening for them, or the bands are opening for them, is there a big difference in terms of how you're planning things out or perhaps pressure that the band might feel when they're doing things like they did in Honolulu a couple of years ago with U2 versus, maybe, bands that haven't got off the ground yet or are starting to get off the ground?
KC: Nope. There's no pressure. The guys come up with who they're interested in opening, or who they're listening to or who's kind of available. Sometimes it's like a Ben Harper that they've been friends with a long time and it just kind of makes sense or sometimes it's Mudhoney or something from Seattle. Or Band of Horses was last year which everyone enjoyed. Opening for U2, it's always fun for these guys to do and it's more of an honor for them with the Rolling Stones, or Neil Young, or Bruce Springsteen, or whoever it is. They would never stress about the fact that they're opening and not headlining and stuff. It'd be more of a bow to these people that they respect, you know?
TB: What about the issue of 'co-headlining shows' where, I think, our guys would much rather play before a band of, like, equal stature than to try to...
KC: Yeah, I don't think they care. Really, you know? So there is no pressure and they don't stress about it. Because they don't tour too much, and because they don't burn themselves out it's all kind of joyous out there. And that's what makes it killer, right?
Caller: In terms of how those calls go (calls to potential opening bands), how do they go and how does that process work?
KC: I don't call the bands directly myself. The band gives me their wish list and our agent kind of talks to their agent. Sometimes there's a relationship where Ed might call Mark Arm or someone in Mudhoney and just go 'What are you guys doing?' Or if there's someone where we know the manager we'll call and say 'Are they up for it?' It just depends on what their plans are. If they're busy or they're not busy. If they wanna be home or not be home.
Caller: Is there any place that you or the band think is "the Best" venue or city that you've been though, or places where you haven't had such good success or a time?
KC: Nassau was not that much fun.
*laughter*
KC: No, it was fine. IIIIIIt was fine. It was all fine. Everything has it's own personalities. That guy (earlier caller) was talking about Jones Beach and stuff but really the answer to all that is: They love playing the arenas. They love the intimacy and all that... They love those places. We try to talk them in to doing some sheds or amphitheaters every now and then, or maybe a festival every now and then but they don't like it. They like the arena.
7. I've been in the fan club since the mid '90's, then two years ago we were shout out of getting any tickets. Why is that?
TB: First of all, New York is where everybody wants to go and so there's not enough tickets to go around. That's just the ultimate answer to that question. I answered it last week. I think I may have answered it the week before. When you only have a certain number of tickets, and many more people, like 10 times more people trying to buy those tickets, two things are going to happen. Number one: Not everybody's going to get their tickets. Number two: The server's gonna crash. And that's just the case for a couple of markets. Usually Philadelphia, New York, and Boston are the three places that are notorious where that will happen. I don't know where you're trying to buy tickets to, but if it was one of those places than that's a problem area. We've been... Like to get more tickets for the fan club and we're working on that and hopefully it will get better in the coming years...
Here's my suggestion for you. Instead of trying to go and see the band in like, the Garden, or even if you did get a ticket you probably wouldn't be that close to the stage... Pick a nice little town in the Midwest like Indianapolis or St. Louis or Kansas City. Great towns to go visit and you'll be right up in the front and have a great time and there won't be a hassle and...
8. How does a set list get created? I know Eddie's in charge of making the list each night and you never know what to expect from him. What goes through their mind when they make a set list? Who has all the input with that?
KC: I think Eddie puts in most of the work. He really does put in a lot of work. He wants to know what's going on in that town and kind of get a feel for the building, and the crowd, and if there's any kind of controversy or political things going on or causes or... It's real work. He spends hours educating himself about the show he's gonna do that night. And he gets some sort of feeling about how he wants it to go. Usually the input the other guys have has to do with guitar changes and tempos and stuff like that. Eddie, it's not like he just sits down and whips out some songs. He kind of, struggles with it for a long time. Hours, you know?
TB: I remember we actually talked about this on one of the other shows. (On the 11/XX/2010 show Tim goes over this in great detail -ed) He'll actually know the last couple of times he's played a city what got played and...
KC: He'll know every time.
TB: Yeah every time. And how it was received and another thing that he'll do... He'll go out and watch the opening act or just go out and take a look at the venue to kind of get a vibe and a feel as to what's going on out there... And if it seems like a really rowdy crowd or whatever he might choose to start off with a slower, mid-tempo song just to kind of get people back on their heels a little bit so you can deliver a blow later on. And then if there are people sitting back on their hands he might feel like he want to come out and double-barrel hit right off the top ...
KC: Or none of that. Or all of that.
TB: It's just a feeling that he gets and like Kelly said he puts an extremely large amount of work into that.
Caller: Hard to Imagine is my favorite PJ song. How come that never made it (on)to a record?
KC: I have no idea. Tim can you answer that?
TB:*laughs* I have no idea either. Rob? Do you know?
*laughter*
TR: I do, but I'm not at liberty to tell. I'm sorry.
TB: All right there you have it. Good job!
KC: You've got to wait until those guys are on the show themselves and ask them a question like that.
9. What's the status of the Rock Band (video game) project? It was last year when they released a bunch of different songs and at the same time asked us to vote on what was the best live version... I haven't heard anything really concrete since.
KC: I think that's more of a Rock Band question. They're kind of struggling, I think, with their own selves and what technology and path they want to take. I think that maybe some of these releases didn't work out for them so well. Maybe Green Day, maybe not even The Beatles were what they expected and that the technology is changing and they're trying to figure out what it is, if anything.
Caller: When Backspacer was released two years ago it was also released simultaneously (for Rock Band). How did that go? Was that a success? Is that something that you feel will happen with future albums or releases?
KC: Just having them simultaneously available digitally for games? Is that what you're asking?
Caller: Yeah like how Backspacer came out the same day. The album itself.
TB: We had that special edition that had the DLC with it that we sold at Target, you know? Which um... I wouldn't necessarily call that a huge success *laughs* or anything It was just...
KC: I don't know. I think it'd be better to do... I think it would be interesting to hear from gamers what they thought, you know?
Caller: As a PJ fan... I thought it was a great way to get to know the album and the lines and the tempo of the album. I wasn't just playing it in the car when I was driving along or at the computer or whatnot.
TB: Yeah, we've been, really, we've been working with Rock Band to try to figure out interesting and innovative ways to bring PJ music to the game. We're kind of in the middle of still trying to figure that out. And at the same time having to deal with their issues that they have internally. We're hopeful for it.
10. In 2003 it seemed like you were able to get as many tickets as there were requests except for the MSG 2 show. Since then it's kind of been rumored that Ticketmaster only gives you 10% of the venue for fan club tickets. Is that true?
KC: Ticketmaster controls how much we get for sure. It's more than 10%.
TB: But it didn't change then.
KC: It hasn't changed. Nothing got less or more.
TB: For us.
KC: But yes. Yes. They do control. They are Ticketmaster.
Caller: Okay. I was just curious if that was a rumor or if that's actually true.
TB: Yeah, that's a rumor. That's a tour rumor.
11. It's been talked about that PJ's music would be perfect for half time at the Superbowl, so has it been talked about? Is it possible? What do you say?
KC: Uhhh... You know. I don't think it's gonna happen in the next ten years. But never say never.
Caller: Hoping more for new Meadowlands Stadium, or what we call Giant's Stadium here in New Jersey. What do you say? It's uhhh... 2014, I think?
KC: Ummm... I think we should think a little... I think we need to be around for a lot longer. I don't think it'd be the most comfortable experience for those guys to do something like that. It would just, uhhh... We would probably all regret it at this point. I'd lose my job and be fired. And then Tim would be fired. And then...
*laughter*
...everyone would be fired and it would just be horrible.
TB: And the band would break up.
KC: Yep. The band would break up.
*laughter*
TR: But the Seahawks might win the super bowl!
KC: About the time PJ plays half time, right?
*laughter*
12. My first concert happened to be at Golden Gate Park when Eddie Vedder went down with the stomach flu...
KC: I'm sorry.
TR: June 24th
Caller: I've been to many concerts since then, but I have to say that show was probably some of the best rock music I heard you guys play. Then the show that he made up for it at Spartan Stadium in San Jose, I think, was almost a year later was just phenomenal.
KC: You didn't get a refund so you got to go for free? That show was for free, right?
Caller: Yeah it was free but he played, I think they played for almost three hours.
KC: That was a really... You really like that show (the Golden Gate Park show), huh? Cause I think he only did like three songs. It was weird cause it was...
TB: I think he did like seven...
TR: No, it was seven songs and then... For me it was truly a weird experience because to see Neil (Young) come out and save the day with the guys and then watch, like 20,000 angry people leave because Eddie Vedder was ill was just... bizarre.
KC: Bizarre. Yeah. It was funny cause he was really... It wasn't funny it was frickin'... But when he started singing I thought 'Oh, Jesus! He's gonna do it. It's gonna be alright! He sounds great!' But he was soooo sick and then... I think there would've been a riot or something if Neil hadn't been there. I think people would've been so pissed off... Didn't they do Rockin' In The Free World like a couple times?
TR: Twice.
KC: Just wearing people down, and wearing people down...
TB: Like a 20 minute Cortez The Killer...
KC: You should've seen the look on the promoter's face man! He was fuckin' pissed!
*laughter*
Caller: My brother and I were there and we thought those seven songs that they played were rockin'. Then we also saw you with the Stones at Oakland Colosseum when it was just pouring down rain which was awesome also.
KC: Yeah that was good.
TR: Those were fun times!
KC: Did you go to one show or four shows?
Caller: Yeah, I think you guys played three or four that weekend. But we went to the one where it was just pissin' down rain so...
KC: Yeah, they came out in rain suits, right?
Caller: Yeah. *says thanks and goodbye*
KC: I can't believe Mike McCready hasn't called and stalked me...
*laughter*
TB: Where's Mike McCready?
TR: Yeah! Where are you this week, Mike? Come on dude?
13. Do you all have the ability to, say, for example Eddie and the band wanted to have an impromptu show at their house or sing at the *indecipherable* ...Do they have the ability to do something like that at their house now with their own channel?
TB: I think they have the ability to do whatever they want. I think they're a pretty big company, Sirius. Yeah, I think those things could be achieved. I don't know if anybody's gonna have a concert at their house...
Well Eddie could come in here with his guitar and sit down and play a song and we could figure out a way to get him on...
Caller: I was just curious If they would just come on there one day and just talk to all their fans or whatnot.
TB: That's actually... Seriously though, that is a good question and we would love that and I'm sure you guys would too. We just want to put it out there that it's always open to them if they want to do that.
KC: Today you're stuck with me.
Caller: I thought that'd be kind of cool because... my first show was '95 in New Orleans when they were supposed to play the Fourth of July, but of course Ticketmaster...
TB: Oh, yeah
Caller: ...threw a curve ball into that.
TB: (jokingly) They keep going back to that summer of '95...
*laughter*
Caller: ...I was wondering if that was even possible. I assumed it was...
TB: Yep. Oh yeah.
TR: Well, all we can say is: 'Stay tuned!'
14. I been to the three shows in Jones Beach in 2000 and, no offence, but the sound, I think, in Jones Beach is terrible so please don't go to Jones Beach just go to the Garden.
You guys put out Backspacer yourselves without having a record company backing you. I wanted to know: How was it different and what was it like?
KC: It was a challenge. It was pretty good. We learned a lot and every time we put out a record we'll know a little bit more and the landscape changes a little bit more. It was work, for sure, but...
Caller: Was it more fulfilling and more fun?
KC: Ahhh it was... You know that's a hard question. It's always great to get a record out and have people be able to get it and get past that. In this particular case, to be able to put it out ourselves was pretty amazing. That we didn't really screw it up too much and, like I said, we learned a lot. And it will be even better the next time, you know?
TB: I was just going to say I think it was really fulfilling from my angle anyway just to note that we could pull it off, you know? We've always gone into these big shiny glass steel buildings to make those things happen and it's a lot more refreshing to just come down to your...
KC: Plaster and wood...
TB: Your little plaster and wood office by the highway and make it happen from here. In that regard, yeah. It was awesome.
15. I was wondering, because of Matt Cameron being their drummer, and now Soundgarden being back together have you heard anything about maybe a Temple of the Dog-type-situation?
KC: I have heard of a Temple of the dog-type-situation, but I don't know what's going to happen. Ummm, you never know. It's a big year coming up!
Caller: I would love to see them in concert.
KC: We have a little problem in that our drummer plays in all three bands so I don't know how you pull something off without killing him.
*Thanks to Kelly Curtis*
KC: I've got to go get in this 'gun' show or whatever...
**Tim Bierman and Kelly Curtis on the accuracy of the recently revealed Pearl Jam event tentatively scheduled for Summer 2011**
TB: I just want to clear that up. It's two days we're talking about.
KC: Maybe.
TB: Well it might be more. You never know. So it's open ended.
NEXT WEEK: A special two hour AET with all the factors of the Two Feet Thick website (http://www.twofeetthick.com): Kathy Davis, Jessica Letkemann, and John Reynolds. It's going to be the ideal fan-intensive experience!
Post edited by HeavyHands on
"A lot more people are capable of being big out there that just don't give themselves a chance." -Stone Gossard
I'll pass along any credit to The Rob, Tim Bierman, and all of their weekly guests for getting this all going. I hope that they, and the folks at Sirius/XM know how much we appreciate the show and hope that it can continue for a long, long time!
"A lot more people are capable of being big out there that just don't give themselves a chance." -Stone Gossard
HeavyHands-
I think the show might be at a bad time for caller-
people are still at work around the USA, and can't call with questions....what do u think?
HeavyHands-
I think the show might be at a bad time for caller-
people are still at work around the USA, and can't call with questions....what do u think?
From our perspective, sure. A broadcast during a weekday that is later in the evening would probably draw more callers or listeners. I'm ultimately not sure though. I'll leave those declarations to the marketing research people at Sirius/XM.
I consider the following when thinking about what you're getting at:
Each show's premiere broadcast time falls across the continental U.S. time zones (not sure about Hawaii or Alaska) like this.
5PM East
4PM Central
3PM Mountain
2PM Pacific
Here's where listeners are most likely to be* during those times (in my opinion):
5PM East: Leaving work or driving home.
4PM Central: Winding down the work/school day.
3PM Mountain: At work/school.
2PM Pacific: At work/school.
*all assume a 1st shift work schedule.
Could the show premiere at an air time more conducive to having more fans call in? Probably "yes." As a guess, probably a weekend time slot would have the most listeners due to the M-F career path a majority of people follow. My observation though is that they're not really having much of a problem getting callers right now. There seems to be enough people to fill up an hour-plus quite easily. As far as listeners go, they replay the show four times at different times (where maybe people who work different shifts at work might be more likely to catch it), and we seem to be falling in to a pattern of fans recording the shows and making them available to download at our convenience. So really, very few people are losing out on the listening experience. Especially our friends overseas who cannot get Sirius/XM.
Also, we need to think about the nature of the show being of East Coast origin. That's where the hosts live and where the band lives and it makes them all more available to be on the show. People with families tend to leave work at work and enjoy their time in the evenings or on weekends to themselves. If they delayed the show until everyone was at home and had eaten dinner and were settled in for the evening it would be nearly (if not) midnight on the East Coast. I wouldn't ask them to work on the weekends just so I could listen to it live.
What do you think?
"A lot more people are capable of being big out there that just don't give themselves a chance." -Stone Gossard
It's a difficult question, as much as what time to play the full concerts. I have been trying to get them to do a morning commute show (6 am EST start) but of course I am EST... and that is not exactly commute time for the rest of the country.
BTW, good news on the Sirius front... Howard Stern just signed a new 5 year contract, so that should keep them in business longer. Considering 60% of the subscribers listen to his channels, it could have been an ongoing issue.
Yeah good stuff thanks for posting and i knew i was correct with my gut feeling that after that night in 03 at Nassau Colliseum hence my location >>>>>>
Yeah good stuff thanks for posting and i knew i was correct with my gut feeling that after that night in 03 at Nassau Colliseum hence my location >>>>>>
Ahhhh! Ive been wondering about that location of yours for quite a while. Another mystery solved! I don't really know anything about that night in '03 so I'll have to do some looking into it!
HH, i like your condensed version of my question. i ran off at the mouth a little. :oops:
Hi. No worries about being nervous on the phone. It happens. In fact, that's one of the reasons I started this thread. Not to dictate the conversation, but rather to attempt to give people a concise way of asking questions that cover a broad range of topics. It's always great to hear fans relate to the band though. Next week should be killer!
I live in another country and your translation is a good thing for fans who can't follow this show.
Thanks again.
Happy that it works out well for you. I have a few friends for whom English is a second language. Sometimes they have trouble hearing through accents and the speed with which we speak, but they can always read it well because they've studied so hard! What could be better than studying English by reading about your favorite band?
On the off chance English isn't your second language be sure to visit http://www.gremmie.net. They have the audio files to listen to or download on their website!
"A lot more people are capable of being big out there that just don't give themselves a chance." -Stone Gossard
TR: Cool. Alright one more thing that (is) a collective question, and I see that they're (callers) lining up to ask you too, everybody wants to know: How are tours planned and how does it really come about and what goes on behind it and the thinking of the logic and so maybe, perhaps let everybody in on that and maybe put some myths and rumors to rest once and for all.
KC: What are the myths and rumors?
TR: Oh, you know... The whole... The South and all that, you know. Why they don't play there. Blah blah blah...
KC: Wellll... Or Asia? I guess that was one too, right?
TR: Ah, yeah. There was a big Indonesia factors out there now.
Thanks a lot guys (Norm and HeavyHands, now we know that our country is (at least) heard by Kelly
Guests will be the three caretakers of TwoFeetThick.com and it will be a two hour show. Can't wait to hear what they have to talk about!
SOunds great, I will hopefully be listening and hopefully recording too. All being well will post the link not too long after the show. norm is more reliable than me though! Better check go the times, and GMT conversion!
Cancel my subscription to the Ressurection
Send my credentials to the house of detention
Rock Werchter 4 july - 2010, Arras 3 july - 2010, Berlin Wuhlheide - June 30, 2010, Odyssey arena Belfast - 23 june 2010, O2 arena Dublin - june 22 2010, O2 arena London - Aug 18, 2009, Manchester Evening News Arena - Aug 17, 2009, Berlin Wuhlheide - Aug 15, 2009, Copenhagen 2007-06-26 Forum, London 2007-06-18 Wembley Arena, Prague 2006-09-22 Sazka Arena, Denmark 2000-06-30 Roskilde Festival, Stockholm on August 12th Mirrorball tour with Neil Young, Oslo 1993-06-27 Isle of Calf Festival(Kalvoya), Oslo Secret Club Concert 1993-06-26 Sentrum Scene
I'm eagerly awaiting to see the answer to this too. I'm thinking I will probably have to break it in to two parts to make it manageable with the time I have available. Good thing you can edit posts!
"A lot more people are capable of being big out there that just don't give themselves a chance." -Stone Gossard
Audio for this week is hosted and available for listening and download at http://www.gremmie.net. Also, don't forget about the on-air replays on Sirius 17/XM 39. Check the front page for dates/times.
Host: Tim Bierman (TB)
Host: The Rob (TR)
Guest: Kathy Davis (KD)
Guest: Jessica Letkemann (JL)
Guest: John Reynolds (JR)
Guest: Matt Moore (MM)
*Show introductions*
TR: Tim I believe we've got something special in store for our listeners.
TB: Yeah we do. It's... We're not announcing any kind of event or anything but we do have a mastered copy of Live on Ten Legs and we wanted to share a couple of tracks with the listeners here first. Rob I think you've selected a couple of tracks for us to play.
TR: Yeah! I believe I've gone with Arms Aloft and you wanted to hear the Porch which is a great version that you like too.
TB: I wanna call it "The Porch."
TR: "The Porch."
TB: Yeah. I wanted to tell listeners, I'm pretty much preaching to the choir here because I think everybody's kind of aware of what's going on, but Live on Ten Legs is coming out on January 17th (2011) worldwide, and January 18th (2011) here in the U.S. And you can preorder that cd or vinyl at pearljam.com, but if you want to get a UK only or international only, I guess, deluxe package of the vinyl you can check out LiveOnTenLegs.com and that's a Universal Music site that is pre-selling the deluxe package. Pretty cool little package we put together for them.
TR: Do you have any details about that deluxe package? Is it 180 gram vinyl or something like that?
TB: Well the vinyl here is going to be 180 gram, stouten (sp?) jackets. The international vinyl is gonna be 180 gram. I'm not exactly sure where the jackets are manufactured but it's gonna be a really cool piece along with some extra ephemera kind of things so I think people will be really excited about it. You can go to LiveOnTenLegs (the website) and get all the details: track listing and what is in the package. Everything.
TR: Cool. Alright Well let's let folks know that our guests today are from the website TwoFeetThick. We've got Kathy Davis, Jessica Letkemann, and John Reynolds. And Matt Moore from Gremmie.net is gonna join us too and we'll all get together in a little bit. So lets spring some Live on Ten Legs on folks right now! Let's check out Arms Aloft on PJ Radio.
*debuts Arms Aloft from the upcomming PJ album Live on Ten Legs*
TR: That was Arms Aloft from Live on Ten Legs. A tip of the hat to Joe Strummer. And I wanna tip my hat to Brett Eliason for doing a great mastering job on that.
TB: Uhhh, mixing. Mixing.
TR: Mixing!
TB: Yeah mixing. He mixed those tracks. They were actually mastered here in Seattle at RFI. Rick Fisher, yep.
TR: Thanks for that clarification.
TB: Well yeah.
TR: Can't wait to get that in my JBL's.
*laughter*
TB: Yeah! Wake your neighbors up, right?
TR: You betcha! alright! LEt's get the ball rolling here with our Fan Encompassing Trip this afternoon. Lets say 'Hello' to everybody. First of all in my studio here we've got Kathy Davis.
KD: Hello!
TB: Hello Kathy Davis.
TR: In New York we've got 'JR' John Reynolds.
JR: Hey what's up? I'm here. We're kind of used to this long distance thing. It's how we all talk to each other and how we've talked to other people so, you know...
TR: And your other partner in crime at TwoFeetThick is Jessica Letkemann.
JL: I'm here. You can pretend I'm in New York. I'm not in New York. Not at the moment but you can pretend I'm there.
TR: You are here with us now! So what I really want to talk about with you guys, and also Matt Moore from Gremmie.net is joined in on the action too.
MM: Hello.
TR: But what I want to get to first with the three of you is maybe how you guys met as fans of PJ and how long you knew each other before you decided to turn your passion for the band into something that everyone else can feed off so well.
JL: Yeah, it's kinf of funny because back in the day before everybody was online and twittering and everything like that, the big fan connection was fanzines. Printed fanzines. And Kathy Davis was one half of like the best one out there: Footsteps. And so I always looked up to that because I had a zine in High School and stuff like that and when I became a huge PJ fan I was like 'I'm gonna do one!'.
I used to do a print zine back in the day, back in the '90's and real soon, Kathy sent me this letter in the mail. Just kind of like 'Hey, I've seen your zine it's really good!' She sent me a bunch of money and a bunch of shows and stuff like that. Her back issues and I was like, soooo in awe. I thought it was so cool because obviously I looked up to all the huge works she had done. She seemed like the Queen of PJ to me. So we bonded pretty fast, especially after we met. We met at TFC (the Tibetan Freedom Concert) '99 finally in person and I think like two days after that we ended up on the phone like all night long. Just one of those instant connections just after you meet somebody.
And then JR has a similar thing. I'll let him talk about it, but he did this incredible website in the late '90's that was sort-of sourcing all of the fan audio that was out there. That was a huge obsession of a lot of people because it was tough to get your hands on good quality PJ live of every show before PJ themselves were releasing it. But he was the guy who knew it.
I also was recently going through my mail from my zine days and I have this letter from JR and he's like 'You've probably never heard of me but I'm a really big fan of your zine...' I just thought that was funny too because I thought he was such a huge pillar of the community. So we met finally, I think, in 2000 at the Jones Beach show which is funny. You always meet somebody at a show. And we also instantly bonded. He used to work a couple of blocks away from me. He actually worked in the building where MSG is and I worked a few blocks away so we would meet half way at Starbucks and sort of daydream about websites. And this is like 2001-2002, just every day. I always think about how much money we would've lost if our employers knew how much time we spent on IM talking about what kind of website we would make if we ever had one.
So finally I was just like 'JR do you know Kathy? Kathy do you know JR?' And they didn't. And it was totally flabbergasting me, but once the three of us connected that was it. It was time for a website. I'll let you guys take it from here. But as soon as all three of us knew each other it was clear that we had the perfect sort-of team.
KD: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. I think that's about right. Because we were each doing our own thing. Actually Jess you were still doing Tickle My Nausea. And I was jst really the spokesman for the tapers. These guys did all the taping. I think I taped maybe one or two shows in my life, and I say 'Hey, maybe the way we can get more shows is to get our... to get some stuff up there. So I created DigiJam and then Carl Sylvester (sp?), he had the whole list.
He had the whole Hard To Imagine list with all the taper info and I was able to put that site up as well so... I think the three of us, when we finally met, we were just looking to take the best of what we had... You know I was the technology side, I obviously knew the PJ stuff up and down... Kath and Jess, we were trying to take that zine style and put it onto a web site. Really when websites were becoming their own things anyway. But we kind of wanted it to be a throwback at the same time and kind of get back to... Websites were really good lookin' back then, but we wanted to get back to what was really the heart of it and that was: something good to read.
JL: Yeah. Like information. We were all really obsessed with deep scholarship... I know it's really weird to use the work 'scholarship,' but like deep scholarship on this stuff. Like: Where did it come from? What is the story behind it? Just like, 'What is the details?'
JR: Oh come on it was footnotes! We had footnotes!
JL: I know. We had footnotes. We're crazy.
JR: But we put our our first issue in April of 2003, and I remember we worked so hard to get all the issues done and then when we launched it we started thinking about the next one. We were like 'Alright. What are we gonna do now?' And I think it was probably a good three or four months before we had more stuff.
JL: No, no. It was faster than that. but one funny note about the date that our site launched: It was very specifically on purpose on Mike McCready's birthday of 2003. April 5th, so it was on purpose.
TR: So Kathy, you launched your own fanzine back in like...
KD: '92. Yeah I was just gonna say that it was actually MTV Unplugged that got me in to PJ, to give you that history. I saw it and went 'Holy God!' and I had to connect with their fans and the internet was very, very organic back then and barely starting. In '92 there was really no mailing list. There was AOL and I think there was an AOL message board a lot of people went to... I remember people there and then just trying to find people to connect with.
I was also in to REM, like most PJ fans are. I knew Randy Ocenenko (sp?) who was my fanzine partner for Footsteps. Just because she was an REM fan and because I knew she was involved in doing some of their zines and all that... So somebody said 'She's in to PJ now. You should call her.'
Well I think we talked... She called me when I was actually at the Bridge School, 11/1/1992, my first PJ show, and left a message, or maybe I was going to see U2 the week after and I had some sort of weird Monty Python message on my phone and she was like 'I have to talk to you about PJ.' And I think about a month later we had Footsteps number 1 out in December of '92. And from '92 to '97 there was really not that much print... Well '92 to '95 there wasn't anything until Five Horizons (http://www.fivehorizons.com) started. And then they started their thing so I was running my paper thing til '97.
Then Five Horizons is going full blast and then we all got to know each other organically through that experience and, of course, Tickle My Nausea came on and I thought it blew everything else out of the water. And I was like 'I'm not worthy!'
JL: You were super nice to me! I came along in '95 and the first ones were kind of cut-and-paste... You know it's kind of funny that you mention REM too because I had a friend who ran a different REM zine and she ended up meeting Ed (Vedder) and her whole line was like "Oh hey! I have this zine about this other band you like!' And I just heard the story that he was so impressed by it. I was just like 'Kathy and my friend, these people are so cool! I need to do this myself!' So you guys are a total inspiration.
KD: Yeah. Well now we inspire each other. It seemed inevitable. I stopped doing Footsteps in '97. Randy kind of just got other things going in her life and didn't want to do it any more and I didn't want to do it myself. I didn't think I was doing either of our partnership justice so I kind of just sat back and enjoyed the ride for a few years. Of course I was still in the community going to zillions of shows and meeting people and... Like Jess said, we met in '99 at Tibetan Freedom. I think there was a party at somebody's house and... Maybe it was Lindsay Lake, who also did the Dissident fanzine, another fanzine person. I only know people who do fanzines. Everyone else? Forget it!
*laughter*
JR: That's all you talk to.
TR: Jessica how long were you doing your fanzine?
JL: I started it maybe like September of '95. That was like the... non-ticketmaster tour. So fans wanted to know so much stuff. My day job at that time was at Spin (Magazine) so I felt like I had more information than most folks and I sort of knew how to get the word out. So I was like 'This is the time to start it.'
So I was doing that from '95 and I was just sending it out to maybe a couple hundred people at that time and I did it until the top of 2002 at which point it was like several hundred. I know that's crazy small compared to web things, but consider that I was standing at a copy machine and mailing them out individually.
I did Tickle My Nausea for like seven years. There was like 21 issues. There was even like one issue toward the end where I transcribed the entire 2000 tour. All of the lyric changes and everything. I know that's crazy (I feel your pain -ed). but that was the most popular issue. I ended up sending out 2,000 of those.
KD: That's not crazy Jess, that's what we do.
*laughter*
We specialize in 'crazy'. Especially where PJ are concerned, I think.
JL: Well that was a deep tour. So many things happened. It was an important tour... So I was doing that for a long time. The process of doing a zine, I don't know if Kathy would attest to this... being in the community, it's amazing to talk to other fans. For some recent projects that I've been doing for TwofeetThick I had to dig through the old mail. People would send these letters. Just these incredible letters about what PJ meant to them and stuff like that and I jsut felt a real connection to so many people. I met soooo many amazing people beyond... Obviously I met JR and Kathy through this thing... I've met hundreds and hundreds of cool people. People who put you up in other continents without having met you. It's... amazing to me, that we can be this wonderful and not know each other. You know what I mean?
TR: Well let's open it up to some more people out there...
*gives out number*
**The Rob on PJ having never played New Hampshire** TR: "There's my new bumper sticker. The South has nothing on New Hampshire!"
**The Rob and Tim on getting invitations to eat seafood in New Hampshire** TR: "The Rob is definitely down with lobster!"
TB: "So is Tim!"
**John Reynolds and Matt Moore on fans writing letters to their organizations**
JR: You know it's funny. We do get a lot of those stories (stories of how PJ inspired or gave someone hope) ourselves. You (Matt Moore) probably get the same thing with some of the audio you post. People just... If they hear the right song at the right time whether they're driving for eight hours or just listening at a point in their life... They'll just e-mail somebody and a lot of times it's us and... it's just great to hear that.
MM: Yeah I think in a way the web sites like TwoFeetThick or Gremmie.net become lightning rods for... hopefully for the fans. I've gotten the same kinds of things that John is describing. You get stories from people that, they just want to express themselves and say 'You know I had this great experience' and in this guy's case, from New Hampshire he took his daughter to a couple of shows and his daughter is now into PJ and for him it's a very personal experience that he had. We do get those quite a bit. It makes our job worth while, quite frankly.
*gives out number and introductions*
TB: Hey I've got a question for you guys. For the TwoFeetThick-ers, I think people out there would want to know how you've actually made connections with members of the band. If you could just tell us all about how some of those things have come along.
JL: In our whole 'fan-lives' or in our TwoFeetThick 'fan-lives'?
TB: Both! Both for sure! It's the same thing, right?
KD: Back when I was doing Footsteps there wasn't anything else out there and I, obviously, sent it in to the Ten Club and just said 'Hey, you might like this. We're doing it.' They actually did like it and I think at that time there was a woman named Deb running it and she like it and then I think Stone's (Gossard) sister Shelly was running it for a while and she got me in to my first show.
My first official PJ show where they were playing electric was them opening for Neil Young in '93. They played Portland and Vancouver and maybe the Gorge? Yeah. Something like that... I went to some crazy after-party thing that they had in Portalnd after that show. My first proper electric PJ experience was side stage, you know. Standing between all the hard cases with all the cords wrapped in my legs. It was like 'Okay, well where do you go from there? Now I've gotta go sit in the audience?' *laughs* It was very bizarre and surrealistic and that's totally unrelated to why we started doing this... I was doing it to connect with the fans. And then all this other stuff was gravy. So I gave the fanzine to the band.
The one's I gave it to loved it. Jeff told me he loved it. Stone was like "Oh hey, this is amazing!' And at the time Dave... I was so amazed that this thing that I do because I love their music and was moved by it, they were, in turn, really grateful and really dug it. Stone, I think at one point, stayed up all night reading it and said 'Amazing magazine!' Personally he was telling me. Things like that are just mind blowing that they can even happen. I have definitely had a lot of experiences throughout doing Footsteps just knowing that everybody who worked for PJ, that we were able to watch side-stage a lot. And have passes and do all that stuff.
JL: For the last 18 years of so I've worked at various places where there was other reasons, other than my fandom, where... I've had these opportunities to talk to different folks and different folks around the band as well. Not only through work, but also because of work, people started to know me. Like 'Oh I do a fanzine' and all these other things like that.
But I wanted to speak up and talk about the most recent thing... Total, total props to Stone Gossard. He seriously, recently... he totally hooked up TwoFeetThick starting in August. I talked to him about Brad for my work-work, for my day job. And at the end of it I kind of said "Oh, you know whatever. The other couple of folks that I do my fansite with, TwoFeetThick, just say 'Hello.' ' I only just kind-of threw that out there. That they say 'Hello.' And he just perked right up! And he was just like asking me a million questions about it... and totally unprompted he was just like 'You know if you guys ever want to, you know, like have a chat or whatever. Have a conversation or do some interviews I'm totally up for it!'
He totally meant it because really soon after that, I believe it was on Labor Day (a U.S. Holiday), wasn't it Kathy?
KD & JR: Yeah it was.
JL: We got this e-mail the day before Labor Day: 'Are you free tomorrow?' I'm like 'Yes! Definitely!' And we ended up spending I think about an hour on the phone with Stone for TwoFeetThick specifically. He was so generous. And talked about Brad and talked about PJ and The Vault and he was just really super open to any question. Even my crazy questions about 1990 and stuff like that.
JR: He's got a good memory.
JL: Yeah! Oh my God he's got a crazy good memory! Even after a whole hour, and this is my second conversation with him, he was like 'I don't feel like we covered everything.' You know? Like he wants to talk another time and I was like "Who's gonna say no to that?!? Of course!' And he ended up talking to JR and I. Talking to him a third time. We were just asking these crazy specific things and he was telling us these crazy stories about how Jeff has this crazy archive of PJ stuff and it was just amazing. So I didn't want to tell a recent story of where Stone, I get the sense that all the guys are like this, but that Stone recently super, super awesome to TwoFeetThick. Stone, if you're listening, super-props to you man! Thank you so much!
JR: Yeah, exactly.
JL: You made our site amazing. We are grateful.
TR: Cool! We've got some more fans on the lines here talking about their experiences and a couple of questions for you folks.
*gives out number*
1. Caller: My first show for PJ was in 1996 in October at North Charleston Colosseum. ...And haven't ever heard a recording of the show in all the years that I went there. How do you get so much detail (in the TwoFeetThick Concert Chronology, http://www.twofeetthick.com/concert-chronology/) and all the information about what Ed said and the way the crowd was? How did you get so much information from all the shows that PJ has done over all these years?
JR: I was actually gonna give maybe some far-back history on this. One of the first things I remember from the internet was through the message boards you could have attachments and this PJ songbook, or was it concert book, just kept getting passed around and people would modify it and it wasn't like all these file sharing things. One guy said, I believe his name was Caleb, he was like 'I'll maintain it.' And so he maintained it and through the message boards and through the message boards (he would ask) 'Hey did anyone go to this show in Montreal in '93?' (someone would respond) 'Oh yeah I did.' (Caleb would say) 'Well tell me about it.' And they just collected this thing. And then I guess that morphed into the Concert Chronology on fivehorizons.com. And I can't tell you how much bandwidth I spent on that site, just reading the shows. But all of that is fan contributed. It was maintained by Karen Rose (sp?) and Jean Bruns (sp?) for a whole bunch of years. I guess when they decided to bow out they said 'Listen, we'd like you guys to maintain it.' And so we've maintained it since, I think, 2005 or 2006.
JL: No it was earlier than that. Maybe '04.
JR: Okay. It all comes from fans. Fans back in those days used to just write in a lot more. Here you've got message boards you've got you tube, all that sort of stuff. But the notes come from fans. Although I know we go to almost every show...
JL: That's not true...
JR: ...Right but still there are entire tours where we can't... Kathy can't write her crazy notes after every show. So we need those sort of memories.
TR: I was gonna say if you've ever seen a show with Kathy Davis she is working while enjoying the show.
*laughter*
KD: I learned to write in the dark while never looking at my actual paper and pen.
TR: She's like the show stenographer.
MM: Kathy do you have one of those flashlight pens that you click on and the flashlight goes on and you can write at the same time?
JR: No she has one of those hats like a spelunker...
KD: I just think the things and the words come out through my fingers. No. I write in the dark in these little mini composition books and just flip the pages and underline songs so I know where... what I'm talking about. It's kind of a dorky old school (way of doing things)... but it gets the job done and I know what all my shorthand means. If I write a certain thing I know what it means and I can expound on it. That's where my crazy notes come from.
The only time I don't take them is when I'm in the front row because my seatmates always forbid it. But other than that I'm just kind of sneaking 'em in there in between songs.
Caller: I just thought it was so cool that you had so much detail even down to verbatim, things that he said to the crowd at a show that was so long ago... That just brought really cool memories for me because that was my first show...
JL: Actually I wanted to say that back in the day when Jean and Karen were doing it for Five Horizons... I can't explain how much work they put in to that. I remember they had,... starting with the '96 tour and I think that's why you saw so much detail starting in '96 or so with the shows, they would beforehand find a fan. They would figure out what fan was going to be at that show and that was their job. To e-mail right after the show 'This is what happened.' Just like Kathy takes notes now. They would find somebody who was going to go to every show and send in notes right after. So that's why there's, like 'Oh, this is what Ed said' and stuff like that cause somebody was taking notes and sending them right after.
I think by '98 people were on cell phone duty. I remember calling in a couple of details right after, standing in the parking lot with a crumpled piece of paper I had scribbled on.
It's their diligence that started it and we are the people who carry it on, I think.
KD: Yeah. Thank you Tom (caller) is it, for pointing that out. That it means something to you cause that's the whole point to me: Is having it there for an archive for us all to use...
JR: The best thing you could do is the next show that you go to... You'd be surprised at how much you can write when you write right after the show or the next morning. Just blab it all down and send it to us and we'll use it. Trust me.
KD: Brain dump.
*gives out number*
End Part I.Part II
TB: Hey I just wanna say something about the... I hate to even say the word "f-e-s-t-i-v-a-l"...
TR: The party weekend?
TB: It's funny because the word 'festival' never really came up except for completely out of context with Rob's question asking about festivals. And... I guess just because Kelly (Curtis. PJ's manager) said 'Well speaking of that... We have this thing in mind...'
So anyway I'll sort of clear the air that it's not a festival and... it's gonna be, hopefully, if we can pull it off, it's gonna be just a weekend kind-of 20th anniversary celebration. And it's not gonna be in May so... Brad (previous caller) can rest assured that he can go ahead and get married and hopefully he'll be able to make the get together. The weekend get together.
JR: Yeah, now Tim tomorrow there's gonna be a thousand stories with the only thing saying 'It's not in May! It's not in May!'
*laughter*
KD: Or 'There not having a festival now!' 'Festival plans canceled!'
MM: 'Pearl Jam cancels festival on account of wedding...'
*laughter*
MM: Exactly so... you heard it here first folks...
TR: For two weeks in a row they've heard it here first.
TB: I just didn't want Brad to go out and get another tattoo saying "Don't play the festival in May...'
*laughter*
JR: That's on his chest...
*gives out number*
TR: I want to get in to how you guys wound up naming your site from one of these wacky Christmas singles so we'll get to that in a few seconds here...
JL: ...With Lollapalooza there are so many stories of how much fun the guys (PJ) were having during that tour. There was some story about Ed and Chris (Cornell) running around in golf carts and I think JR... Both JR and I our first shows of PJ's were both that Lollapalooza '92 tour. But JR didn't you end up meeting... Don't you have a story form Lollapalooza?
JR: Yeah and that's actually a good one... As far as meeting the band cause aside from Stone I'd never met the guys before... I was, long story short, got a back stage pass for the Lake Fairfax, VA show and I was back there just hanging out and Ed walked by, I think it was a few sets, maybe during one of the other bands, and this completely floored me.
I can still almost picture it. I came up to him and started talking to him and shook his hand and... I was like 'Hey can I tell you something?' He's like 'Yeah lets... Walk with me and lets talk.' And I told him that I'd... We'd just heard Footsteps cause it was just on Rockline (a radio program), I think a month earlier, and I said 'Hey a friend of mine, we've been playing that at open mikes and we really love the song. Is it ever gonna get released?' And he completely floored me by asking me, he's just like 'Hey can you send me that tape? I'd really like to hear it!' And I kept on thinking 'Gosh! What sort of artist is gonna ask me a question and find out what I want... Or what I've done with his music?' It just completely floored me. I think he even walked away. I don't even know if I said 'Goodbye' but I was just kind of standing there like 'Oh my gosh! This artist just... asked me this!' and all I wanted to do was just tell him a simple story. All the stories you hear are true. (Ed is) Down to earth,... kind to fans.
TB: I think it's cause he is a fan... And has never ever forgotten that...
JR: Yeah.
TB: ...to this day.
JL: You know that's true Kath... Think over the years how many stories have you heard?... We have opportunity to hear so many stories, you would think that we would hear some bad ones but I can honestly say that I have never heard a bad one. I have never heard the "grumpy day" or the "Eddie dissed me" or anything like that. And that continues to surprise me... in a good way! I've never heard anything other than, like 'Wow! They were so cool!'
KD: Yeah I've never heard anybody talk smack about anybody in my band.
*laughter*
KD: (jokingly) And if they do they're dead to me anyway!
*laughter*
KD: No I totally agree Jess. Like I've said we're both in a very unique position to hear a lot of really incredible stories and you would think that someone with all the pressure that Ed's had to deal with that he would of completely lost his mind to the point where somebody would get the brunt of it... That it would make a great story, and it just to this day have not surfaced so I think that's testament to what a great strong personality he has. And like Tim said he's such a music fan. You just get that impression over and over. Like the stories he told about taking a DAT tape to shows and sitting there and the lights come up and he thinks the show is still gonna go on... It's just such a great experience to be a fan of somebody who knows where you're coming from.
JL: Although I'm a little jealous of they guy on the phone who got to sort-of randomly look over and see Ed and Chris Cornell just standing there enjoying the show just like they were. That's an amazing story! I love that!
KD: I love that story... Yeah that whole Lollapalooza tour I could go on for hours about that too. Wasn't there a bile beer drinking competition between Ed and Al Jourgensen (of Ministry) or something?
JR: Mr. Lifto. (a unique performer from the Jim Rose Circus Side Show)
KD: Oh, Lifto! Oh yeah there's footage of them drinking that bile beer. Oooo...
*audibly shudders*
TB: They actually passed that job around but it was Matt "The Tube" Crowley (sp?)... was the guy who started that whole thing.
KD: Oh yeah I say Jim Rose many-a-time, believe me... Wooof! I wouldn't drink that!
JL: It's on You Tube and watch it yourselves everybody. It's gross!
*laughter*
KD: It's disgusting!
JR: He was really good at it.
JL: There's this sort-of weird look on his face like 'Look at this! I'm gonna do the most disgusting thing ever!' And then they just suck it down. It's just so gross!
KD: I think he won too. I think Ed did win, if I remember correctly. Anyway, that's another story. It's all your crap you don't need to know here at TwoFeetThick.com...
*TR takes a caller*
Caller: The band, they don't like to play one song. And Eddie has a problem with it. It's No Way off Yield. They've only played it twice live...
TR: ...For your information they brought (No Way) back, I believe on the West coast tour last year and they've done it a bunch... So it's back in rotation and it's on the bootleg so you need to obtain some of those bootlegs son!
MM: Gremmie.net, baby!
TR: You can buy them right at the store (the Goods section of pearljam.com) can't you!
TR: Well speaking of that two foot thick rhinosaurus, Kathy why don't one of you espouse on us about this Ramblings and then we'll take a listen to this Ramblings Christmas thing in a minute... Tell us about it and how it influenced you to...
KD: I'll ge the ball rolling on that... Once we decided to start doing TwoFeetThick.com we developed all this on chat. So we sat down and chat... I don't even know how long we were chatting we were just spewing out ideas and, you know... What we want to put on there. What we want. And it was a what kind of a name is gonna... You know, not to overuse the work 'encompassing' but... is gonna encompass everything that we're about and what we want to say and... Well it's gonna be for the kind of the obscure details and the very fine details of being a fan of the band and the things that we're passionate about. And I think Jess, did you come up with 'For the impassioned fan'?
JL: Yeah... We were thinking about kind of a subtitle cause 'Two Feet Thick' doesn't... you don't automatically get the PJ connection there so we wanted to make sure that when you came to the site you could tell it was about PJ and what it was all about immediately.
KD: Cause even the hardest-core, some of the hard-core fans... It just might not come to their mind where 'Two Feet Thick' the name comes from but the last callers totally said it. It's from Ramblings and, in fact that is in the 'About Us', I think, on our website about where it comes from but... We were just chatting on e-mail going 'Okay what's it gonna be? What's it gonna be?' And I think I typed in 'I am a rhinosaurus and my skin is two feet thick.' Because I thought 'That's from the first fan club single' on Ramblings, you know the B-Side of Let Me Sleep (It's Christmas Time) where they're all sitting around talking and there's plunking guitar going on and I think Ed just randomly said it. It might have been talking about some crappy experience he had, I don't know... He just kind of blurted it out and it seemed like such a non sequiter and it was so bizarre and I'm like 'Yeah' and I loved rhinos on top of that which is even funnier... So that's kind-of where our name came from... To us it reminds us that we're obscure weirdo's, but we love PJ and it just kind-of ties it all together. That's my take on the name...
JL: I think also that it clicked for all three of us because it was both something where somebody who was a hard-core PJ fan would go 'Oh! I know where that's from'... 'For the detailed collector...' as Ed would say in concert. For the person who has all the bootlegs and stuff like that. But also just the words 'two feet thick' sort of imply just a depth of knowledge, like caring about every detail. We thought it was alliterative and I think that's why we all kind of thought it clicked: Because it was an obscure PJ reference and it was something that meant that we go pretty deep into the PJ stuff.
KD: Yeah and there's only the occasional mis-link to a porn site there that comes up too so that's awesome...
*laughter*
MM: I noticed that today. I clicked on a link and I said 'Wow! What are these big *indecipherable*?'
KD: That's not what they mean by 'Two feet thick' is it? Ewww...
JR: Yeah. One time people got to us by googling 'two feet chicks' and I wonder how they got that...
*laughter*
TR: That's on a different Sirius/XM channel...
JR: Yeah but even from that single the green the black and the white even... From our site that's where it came basically from that color scheme of that rhino single. Even (just to) plug one of our favorite articles on the site if you jsut search on the site for 'Christmas single' we've covered the first three, we're working on the fourth. We just like to dive deep into these things. Real obscure facts about how many were pressed and... I don't know. It gets us going.
JL: Yeah. What did the run-out groove say? And what is the fine print on the back?
JR: Right. And what did Mike mean when he was talking about Tiny Tim and stuff like that. Obscure stuff...
TR: Lets get pretty obscure right now and we'll check out this Ramblings...
*TR gives station ID & plays Ramblings*
KD: You know I'm a Beatles fan from when I was little and they used to do Christmas singles and I just thought it was the coolest thing when PJ did theirs and of course REM has always put out their annual Christmas single so I just thought 'Okay, this band is cool! They've got a Christmas single.' And I don't care if I get it in Easter it's just a Holiday single now. That's fine.
TR: It's Flag Day! Flag Day! The Flag Day single!
KD: The Flag Day single! Whatever holiday it is... Arbor Day.
JL: Fan Club Single Day...
KD: I just think it's a great thing either way.
JR: Single De Mayo
*laughter*
JR: Sorry...
TR: It comes out... It's the day Tim bierman wants to put it out. That's the holiday
TB: Well believe me I want to put it out at Christmas but it's not up to me, unfortunately...
TR: Ahhh there we go! Disspelling myths again!
What I really want to get into now, and especially talk to Jessica about this, is something you can read and download and find unbelievably informative and beyond cool is something Jessica had put together on the TwoFeetThick website. It's the 1990 Music For Rhinos: The Making OF Pearl Jam. Her mini-book about the origins of the band and I just wanted to let you talk a little bit about your research and detail and...
KD: Or as Kathy calls it: The Opus.
JL: For the band's 20th birthday, like the actual day they formed 20 years ago was October 22nd. So this date had been sort-of looming in our minds all year and I think Kathy and John sort of both knew that I had this blue binder that's kind of been in my backpack for the last several years. Just sort of privately. And I'm not sure what to do with it exactly because I kind of have a way... For a bunch of years I was heavy into the research departments of Spin and stuff like that. And I just had access to details and facts and it was what I spent my days doing and stuff... I because so interested in 'Well how did these five guys meet?' or 'these four guys meet?' and 'How did my favorite band come to exist?' Because the more I ever heard about PJ the more crazy it is that these guys know each other. I just thought it was sort of a miracle...
You hear the short version of it: Stone and Jeff knew each other in Seattle and they were in Green River and stuff like that. And Mike was playing on the side... Everybody knows the basics but to me it still didn't quite click. 'But why... How did this band exactly come to be?' So finally... And I have had this super opportunity to interview various people throughout the years, including Ed... Talked to him a bunch of years ago. And I talked to Matt Cameron a couple of times. I talked to Jeff a couple of times... I've talked to Chris Cornell. I've talked to, either through work or for my zine, when I was doing Tickle My Nausea back in the day...
And for whatever reason in my mind I because really focused on 'Well tell me about what happened in 1990.' 'Tell me about... How exactly did Ed get the tape?' or 'Why did Jack Irons and Eddie meet each other?' 'Tell me the details of it.' And the more I heard, especially after I talked to Ed, and that was a bunch of years ago, I kind of heard a line in a Clash song and I kind of felt nervous about asking him 'You know there's a line in a Clash song about 'Mammasan' in that Clash song Straight to Hell...' and he's like 'Oh my God! I can't believe!...' I pulled out the tape and he's like 'I can't believe... Yeah!
That's where it came from!' And I was just kind-of flabbergasted. The more that I talked to everybody, and I would stumble upon something in an article here and an article there, and the pieces just started falling together for me throughout the years. And all the stuff leading up to PJ, all the 1990 stuff is part of a larger thing that I don't know what to do with the rest of so we'll see, we'll see for the future, but there's ton's more. There's like 1991 and all the years before 1990. But anyway... For the band's 20th
anniversary I couldn't think of a better way to give back to the community. Cause I have gotten so much personally in my life from PJ and the least I could do is (make this mini-book and think that)... Maybe this will be entertaining to other fans. I guess it ended up being 13,000 words and it starts with January 1st, 1990 and takes you through December 31st, 1991.
At the beginning it's about Mother Love Bone about to put out their amazing record and by the end of the year you've got this brand new band called PJ. And along the way it's like 'How did Eddie meet Jack Irons?' And 'Exactly what date did Alive get written?' And just the craziest details... And I think that it just sort-of underscores what we've been talking about: The crazy fan connection.
The band too. The idea that Eddie ended up meeting these guys. There's so much happenstance involved. I could tell a million stories about it. PJ wouldn't exist except for such a huge, crazy list of coincidences. Eddie decided to play hooky from work and he ended up meeting Jack Irons one night. And then a year later Jack Irons was like 'Hey you should call up that guy Eddie.'
So that's the basic story. And basically, where possible I tried to let the guys tell the story. I think people get enough of writers telling people stuff so... Talking to Stone recently too that was part of what we talked about quite a bit in the TwoFeetThick interviews we did in September. He was a super, super good sport. He was answering questions like 'what was the name of this
demo? Of the Stone Gossard demos?' 'Why did you name it Richards E?' And I remember JR, he was telling us 'Oh, something about that reminded me of Keith Richards.' And we were sitting there going 'Oh my God! That's so cool!' And hea was like, confirming...
JR: High five!
JL: ...the name of Eddie's bands and stuff like that.
So essentially there's just all this stuff from the guys themselves. From (Matt)Cameron remembering Stone and Jeff going to his shows when he was in a band called Skin Yard in like '85 and stuff like that. And there's Jeff talking about 'Oh my God! Finally I was in the band I wanted to be in!' And Stone saying crazy stuff... Awesome stuff like 'You know when the spirit of Rock and Roll brings you the right guy you've just gotta go with it.' About meeting Eddie and deciding to hire him on the spot.
And also I just thought it was kind of amazing when Eddie went up to Seattle for like 30 seconds... He went' up there for a few days, essentially, and as soon as that few days had taken place he said 'Alright, this is it.' He had a whole life in San Diego. He had a job and a relationship and all kinds of stuff. That was where his life was. But as soon as he met the PJ guys, he met Stone and Jeff, and Mike he just said 'I'm doing it!' He just pulled up stakes and started moving immediately. He started the process immediately. the courage that that took, it still floors me and we're 20 years later.
KD: Yeah and hear we all are as a result.
JL: Yep, he just took the leap off... He just took the leap. So... Thank you Eddie!... Anyway, that's what it's about and you can go read it free on our site. I've also been sending out print copies for folks who sort of like the fanzine experience. It's the same content but printed up nice and I've been getting some huge response from around the world on that. And that's an amazing thing. I won't lie I love mailing things. I've got a few copies left so the next, maybe 20, folks who want to hit TwoFeetThick send us an e-mail and I'll make sure you get a copy of the print version if you want cause I love sending out things in the mail. *laughs*
TR: Well congratulations on putting it together. It really is an incredible read. It's a really great piece of work for any PJ fan out there who wants to know any kind of history. Your attention to detail is astounding!
JL: Thanks! I just kind of felt that the story kind-of got told so many times that it was just not told with any detail. There's so much to it, like how it wasn't just one week where the band formed. It took two weeks actually for the band to form. All that... I felt like I knew a bunch of stuff that, sort-of, nobody had talked about so I wanted to put it out there in the guys' own words.
KD: And the thing that I love about the PJ fan experience, particularly that relates to that, is Jess I think you've shown me that binder when you're at my house one year for a show. Maybe it was '03 or something, and you had some little calendars and I was just like literally losing my mind over the thing. And just said 'Jess nobody has this perspective.' Just all the people you were able to talk to through various means, and just that perspective alone is a story that needs to be told, whatever story you're gonna tell. How grateful am I to have the TwoFeetThick.com production stamp on that. It's true that it goes along with our passion and the level to which we take things as fans. We're all doing the right thing. If Eddie hadn't took that leap we wouldn't be here... And to have that inspiration and to use our powers for good, if you will...
JL: Well thanks Kath. And it's funny that it just grew out of... When I was talking to Ed and he said 'On the third day I got locked out and wrote Oceans and I had figured out what day he had got there so suddenly I knew exactly the date that Oceans was written.
I don't know why facts like that are interesting to me, but I wanted to put them all down in sequence because it was just this jumble. And it felt like it needed to be sort-of straightened out. I just like to have it as a record, you know? So that's where it came from.
JR: I think it's super helpful too for the next generation of fans that are coming up, cause I was... whatever, I was I think 20 in 1990. So I mean I was cognizant of things that were going on. I didn't hear them until '91 but 20 years later everybody kind-of wants to go back and relive it, you know? It's why we like documentaries. It's why we like history shows. So you know we're not gonna find out this information from... You're gonna find it out from the band or somebody else that knows a lot about them. And Jess as you said,... Hearing the story sometimes from other writers or less credible sources... To hear it from a fan of 20 years who's done the things you've done. You know we're grateful that you shared it with us.
JL: Well thanks JR. I think we've all read a lot of stories... In various magazines and stuff, or just wherever... I think you might concur that most things are just sort of incomplete or just kind of... They gloss over the major points of things... Or (they are) downright kind-of wrong. And I guess part of it is I got a little frustrated with that. Cause if you are looking at every article you can start to see the pattern of what's true. I just wanna be able to put out 'Here's exactly what happened...' It was kind-of this thing I had to do... I didn't know if I was going to release it... I was always writing it for years and years and I finally felt like I had the one year of the puzzle complete enough to show people.
KD: Yeah it's just about her getting tired of me harassing her to do something about it.
thank you for the amazing work!!!!!!!you rock!!!!!!!!!1
"...Dimitri...He talks to me...'.."The Ghost of Greece..".
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
I know a form of this question (why are the tour dates announced in blocks) was asked and Tim or Kelly kind of side stepped it saying that is difficult to schedule a tour, venues are tough to book etc.
But can someone point blank ask:
Have you made a conscious decision to announce shows in blocks and sell tickets to these shows before making the entire tour schedule pulbic, in an effort to increase 10c ticket sales?
There are only so many questions Tim can even answer, but as 10c President this is one he certaintly can handle.
Comments
Awesome, thanks! Really looking forward to it! :P
Audio for this week is hosted and available for listening and download at http://www.gremmie.net. Also, don't forget about the on-air replays on Sirius 17/XM 39. Check the front page for dates/times.
Host: Tim Bierman (TB)
Host: The Rob (TR)
Guest: Kelly Curtis (KC)
TR: Kelly has been managing PJ since Day One, something almost unheard of in this day and age in the music business. And we'll learn a little bit about his background and what led him to meeting and working with Mother Love Bone, and then PJ. As well as how he and the band have successfully balanced the fine line of art and commerce, as well as keeping the ship afloat through several storms throughout the band illustrious 20 year career.
Welcome, Kelly Curtis.
KC: Hello. I'm not a woman.
*laughter*
TR: You're not Tony Curtis' daughter either.
KC: No, no.
TR: Cool. Well welcome to the show. We're really glad you decided to join us today. To get started it would be great if you could maybe just tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be working in the music industry and your travels and experience that brought you to working with Mother Love Bone, and then PJ in Seattle.
KC: Well, it started a long time ago. I was like 16 and working as a roadie for Heart, a big band in the 70's. I think they're kind of happening again right now. And I worked for them for almost ten years. Did everything: Publicity, drove trucks, carried equipment... Valet. That was a good one. Luggage, Tour management, and, you know, did that til the early 80's and stopped doing that. I was ready to move on to something else.
(I) Lived in Seattle. Started a little production company where we helped promoters put on shows and one day Jeff Ament came in to meet me. I'd never met him before and he had this demo tape for Mother Love Bone and asked if, you know... I guess he didn't know anyone at the time that knew anyone in showbiz or Los Angeles or anything like that, and asked if I could help him hook up with some lawyers or agent or anyone. And I said 'Sure.' And we set up some stuff and I went to L.A. and I never went back. I went back from L.A. but never stopped working with Jeff and Stone. And we just kept going.
TR: Before you had met Jeff, before he came in had you seen Green River?
KC: Nope. I was kind of in a completely different music scene: 70's big rock. And so I wasn't really part of the local thing that was going on here.
TR: The loyalty factor within the PJ organization is something to be admired, certainly. When things took off really quickly for you and the band I imagine you probably had to fight off some serious vultures and other factors trying to grab a piece of the band's success, let alone probably trying to lure them away from you and your guidance.
KC: There was a little bit of that when it blew up you know? I didn't have a credit card for the first year, I don't think and, you know, these guys were showing up with expense accounts and stuff. But also that first year we got to meet a lot of really great managers that were really cool to me: U2's manager, Neil Young's manager, who really kind of took me under their wing and said I was doing a good job...
TB: How did you meet those guys? How did you meet Elliott (Neil Young's manager)?
KC: I think, ahhh... Elliott I met at this Bob Dylan Tribute thing in New York that was really early on and Eddie and Mike did it and he was like... God to me kind of because Neil Young was my favorite guy growing up. But at the show, you know we're these young guys from Seattle and we're looking around and there's George Harrison, and Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan, and Johnny Cash, and Neil Young, Tom Petty, all these people, and Elliott knew them all. And I just thought 'God! How cool is that!', you know? We got invited to the Bridge School soon after that and it was just great.
U2 I think we opened for... that first year too in Rome, or... Italy somewhere...
TB: '93
KC: And (Paul) McGuinness (U2's manager) was, and again things were... You could tell things were about to happen and he was a pretty renowned manager himself and so... he was great to me.
TB: And what about John Landau (American music critic, manager for Bruce Springsteen, record producer, and currently the head of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Landau) and those guys?
KC: I didn't meet Landau 'til much later. 'Til the Vote... You know I knew him, but it was really the Vote For Change Tour that we got to know each other really well.
TR: And those are all relationships that you still maintain rather strongly today, without a doubt.
KC: Oh, yeah. Yeah... I'm suddenly 'The Old Guy.' And I was 'The Young Guy' for a long time and now I'm 'The Old Guy.'
TB: He's even older than me, Rob.
KC: Yeah. (mutters under his breath) Fuck.
*laughter*
TB: But barely.
TR: Alright cool! Before we get to some calls at 855-PearlJam, I have one more subject I want to tread on and it's kind of one that's been going around on the boards and amongst fans too: The balancing of art and commerce, something PJ has always been one of the more righteous bands out there, and successfully doing, through: The well documented Ticketmaster struggle in the 90's, through all their philanthropic efforts... As the industry has drastically changed over the band's career it's obvious other forms of revenue need to be explored, as with the Target deal. But I wanted to ask you about the most recent use of the song Do The Evolution on this hunting show that's on the Vs. network. (it's) Probably, maybe rubbing some people the wrong way, but I'm sure you can never please everybody. But aside from that, on a deal like that is it run by the entire band, and are there pros and cons weighed every time on something like this?
KC: No. It's really up to the song writer, who wrote the song. Or the song writers. You kind of... When there's a deal like that that comes up... This hunting show we were... I just kind of heard about it the last couple of days and we had licensed that to this kid like eight years ago, nine years ago or something like that. And I vaguely remembered, we were talking to Eddie about it yesterday and he kind of remembers too. That we looked at it and thought it was a really funny show. But I really don't remember what... I don't think it was actually about going out and killing animals. I think it was something more absurd. And so...
TB: I seems like it's kind of changed now...
KC: Yeah. Maybe it's changed. We're looking into it. So if it's the guy going out and killing a bunch of things I supposed we'd change our mind. (We) wouldn't think that's much fun.
TR: Yeah. Check out that promo for it, cause I saw it and I was like... Wow...
KC: Where did you find the promo cause I was looking around yesterday?
TR: Ahhh... I saw it somewhere on the web. I think there is a link right on the forum on the subject of it.
TB: Oh God! *laughs*
KC: Is it still the same name? Is it 'Shootin' Blanks with Kenny' or something like that?
TR: It's 'Buddy Somebody' and it's his hunting show and I'd never heard of it before til I saw those subjects on the forum and I was... Clicked on it and when I saw the... You know, the cock(ing action) of the gun *laughs*... And the song starts, I was like 'Oh man!' *laughs* (the promo for the TV show can be seen here: http://www.versuscountry.com/hunting/videos/promo-gun-it-with-benny-spies/-ed)
KC: Well... I'll look into that directly.
*laughter*
And I'll let Tim know what I find out.
*laughter*
TR: Cool. Alright one more thing that (is) a collective question, and I see that they're (callers) lining up to ask you too, everybody wants to know: How are tours planned and how does it really come about and what goes on behind it and the thinking of the logic and so maybe, perhaps let everybody in on that and maybe put some myths and rumors to rest once and for all.
KC: What are the myths and rumors?
TR: Oh, you know... The whole... The South and all that, you know. Why they don't play there. Blah blah blah...
KC: Wellll... Or Asia? I guess that was one too, right?
TR: Ah, yeah. There was a big Indonesia factors out there now.
KC: Well... It's complicated. You know, these guys were never the band that was going to release a record and tour for a year and a half, you know. Really, their stamina, kind of what makes them who they are, you know, without going through the motions and having it be different every night, ummm... That only can remain fresh for so long... before it gets old or anything. And also because it's physically demanding. Especially for Eddie, Matt, and... these long shows and it's emotionally demanding cause they don't dial it in. And I'm not sayin' cause there's a lot of bands out there that are huge that will be out there off and on for a couple of years with the same kind of production and everything. But it's the same thing, you know? They might mix up a couple songs and so it's not as demanding, as far as using your brain and stuff.
So, that said, you only get so much out of this band every year. And they will only tour for... These days it's like three weeks... It's kind of like as much as we could get so... Ummm... So then you figure it out and Asia is one that we just never kind of went back to because it was like: You give up the U.S. or you give up Europe and yet, we may get back there in the next couple of years, you know? Like South America, that took 15 years or something for us to get there. So there's that part of it.
And then the routing is a difficult thing. You kind of get the band to kind of talk about what time of year they want to go and so you're having to deal with these venues, and what's available and what's not available, and how you get the trucks from Point A to Point B, and how it makes sense...
Then, like Asia, or South America, or something like that you find yourself every couple of years thinking 'God we haven't played Seattle! It's our home town! We've gotta go back to Seattle!' And you find yourself routing yourself South again or down the West Coast and then your three weeks are up . And then every couple of years we might want to do Letterman, or Saturday Night Live, or something and it's like 'Wow! We'd better route ourselves that way!' And if I had another four or five or six weeks...
The guys talk about it all the time like 'There's so many places we haven't gone back to.' But it's hard to do both with the limited amount of time we have and so, we do eventually get everywhere. You know? We do go to Texas and we do go to Florida, but not as often as we might like to.
TB: I think one of the frustrating things for fans is that they would like to be able to plan out their whole entire year and I think that the problem is, you kind of alluded to it before, it's an apples and oranges kind of thing. They're used to seeing people like, and no offence to U2, but like, U2 is going to sign up for a world tour and they're going to go out for more than a year and a half. And they're gonna cover the world and someone's gonna write a big check at the beginning of it and they have to play those shows and so they can say 'Okay. We're gonna be in your town on this date and we're gonna come back again the next year!' So people are used to seeing that and PJ just doesn't work that way.
KC: Yeah. They're not built that way.
TB: It's in our best interest to let our fans know with as much advance as we can but... it's just not as easy as saying 'Okay, we're gonna play this country this summer.' Because we don't know. We can't say until we actually know.
KC: And, you know, the other thing that frustrates people is even when we do announce a tour and we add things later... The whole timing thing, trying to get the word out to the fan club so they can order tickets and stuff, but a lot of times you're routing a tour and, you know, you're trying to go Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, L.A., San Diego, whatever... Maybe when you're routing that Portland is just not available. Or the building is just not available...
TB: The Blazers are in the playoffs and that's the day you want to be there.
KC: Yeah, this happened to us last year quite a bit. We were trying to book this tour and all these arenas, even the Knicks, they said 'We're gonna be in the playoffs'... Everyone knew they weren't gonna be in the playoffs but they have to hold the dates, you know? They just have to. So you can't announce that you're gonna play there even though you kinda know you're gonna play there but not until they're eliminated. And that could be well after the shows have gone on sale.
Does that make any sense at all?
TR: It definitely does and the way that the band has done things has made them the special way that they are and enabled them to keep going and providing and putting on the shows that they do. And I think we're all very thankful for it.
Do you think the band would ever consider doing their own type of festival like Wilco recently did?
KC: That's funny you mention that.
*Tim Bierman knowingly, amusingly, subtly laughs...*
TR: Hmmmm!
KC: You know, we're messing around with something for next summer some sort of 20th anniversary weekend... party. Somewhere in the middle of the country. We're trying to figure that out right now.
TR: WOW!
KC: Like a destination weekend... party. You know?
TB: Do you think people would like that Rob?
TR: You heard it here first folks!
*laughter*
TR: I feel the internet buzzing right now! *laughs*
KC: It'd be kind of fun right?
TR: That's some great news. Uhhh, yeah!
KC: With camping and all that kind of stuff?
TB: Camping yeah!
TR: Bring it on! Bring it on! Alright lets bring on some callers too *gives out the number*
1. I've had the 'Stick guy' tattoo for a long time and I don't know the background. Can you guys elucidate the background of the 'Stick guy'?
KC: It's Jeff isn't it?
TB: Yeah it's Jeff. Jeff drew that for the Alive single, I think. And so it's funny that that thing became such an icon... It's one of those things that every year, pretty much, we get approached by a merchandiser, or merchandising company, or anybody that's kind of trying to give us a visual pitch and they always include that guy on there...
KC: PJ pj's.
*laughter*
TB: I think that the guys just got tired of seeing that thing everywhere. It just kind of represents that first wave of being asked for artwork and they were in such a creative mode at that point that they just wanted to keep creating new things and changing their image and not be tied down to one particular... look and feel. Musically or visually. And I think that's why we haven't seen a lot of the 'Stickman' lately. But that's not really the question you asked...
KC: Jeff!
TB: Jeff! Jeff! Jeff! Yeah Jeff's quite an accomplished visual artist and that has always been one of his things that he's just constantly drawing. Eddie is too and Stone. All the guys can create visual art but Jeff definitely is very prolific and pretty talented for sure.
2. Back in 2009 at the Chicago shows Ed mentioned that they tried to get those shows at Alpine Valley. And I was wondering what exactly were the hang-ups there?
KC: I think with that particular thing it was a parking negotiation about how much they were going to charge and we were trying to get them not to rip people off so much and it became kind of a stalemate. That's what I recall. Sort of a stubborn...
Caller: There wasn't any falling out then? It wasn't like that place was just off the table then? Or is it a possibility for the future?
KC: It's always a possibility! Things change, you know? It's really a promoter issue, or a LiveNation issue as opposed to that particular joint. I'm surprised we had the problems we did then but you know LiveNation is kind of... It's not just one person, you know? They all have their territory and stuff, and this particular time last year was last year. We just weren't getting on with the dude that... we were negotiating with.
**Kelly Curtis on Mike McCready**
"Mike's got a lot going on right now. He's scoring a whole bunch of stuff. A Lance Armstrong documentary, which is pretty cool."
Caller: You (Kelly Curtis) manage the band. Do you also manage their side projects?
KC: Some of them. I think Brad, cause Brad's a different animal that's kind of always there, and I think Stone has a new found dedication to Brad and so it requires a little more day-to-day... It's a little bit of a different animal than, say, Jeff's solo project, or Eddie's solo project. It's like a band and, although we're always here to help and we do, I think he's kind of looking to have someone just dedicated to that particular thing. But Eddie and Jeff... Matt Cameron stuff... We kind of just help him here. It's not like he goes out and tours on the stuff or anything. And Jeff's got a killer record coming out soon with Doug from King's X. That is really good. So I don't know if that answered your question. Most of the time, yeah. I manage it.
Caller: Assuming that PJ would be first and foremost amongst all the band members, is there a time frame (with respect to side/solo projects), maybe generally, I'm not talking about a date, but is it like 'Hey, you guys have got about six months to kind of do your thing and then, for instance, June we're gonna get back to PJ stuff' or are you just kind of letting that stuff run their courses organically?
KC: Well they actually talk to each other and, you know... We just kind of came off, for us, kind of a busy year and a half or so and... Was it a year and a half?
TB: Almost two years.
KC: And so there was a natural break in there for PJ and so people... Matt started doing his Soundgarden thing and Jeff had been working on this record for a bit and Stone was on Jimmy Kimmel last night and there's a natural break that happens and that's when these things kind of go on. We know generally things are gonna happen about a year out, but it's pretty general.
3. How do you struggle with being PJ when you write stuff and doing what you want to do versus worrying about what might be accepted in the popular arena?
Has a song ever surprised you when it became more popular than you thought and vice-versa?
KC: Well, I don't have to survive anything. The guys in the band do so I can't really answer for them. I've got a pretty good normal life going on.
TB: I think the question was 'Does the band struggle with purposely trying to write a song for commercial success?' I think it's pretty obvious that they don't do that ever, and they never have.
And then the follow up part was 'Has there ever been a surprise?' A song that came up that was a total surprise.
KC: Well Last Kiss would be the best example I guess, cause that just kind of happened all on it's own. Yellow Ledbetter a little bit too, I think. Because that was never a single or anything was it?
TB: No. That was a B-Side it wasn't even on the record. And then more recently Brother from when we reissued Ten. That just kind of came out of nowhere. That people started playing it on the radio.
Caller: Is it a group decision or is it more of someone just says 'Hey lets just throw it in and see what happens.'
KC: A group decision on what songs to take to radio?
Caller: Or to include anywhere. Something like Last Kiss or Yellow Ledbetter. Is that just like someone's like 'Lets take a chance' or does everyone agree that 'that is a good one.'
KC: I think Last Kiss was a Christmas thing right? So it's like Tim, every year, is trying to get these guys to, in some timely manner *laughter* get the Christmas thing out and kind of get them all to agree so he's constantly putting stuff in front of them and at some point they all go 'Okay' and...
TB: It just happens.
KC: It just happens, yeah.
TB: But as far as including tracks on records and stuff that's just all... Everybody weighs in. Band members, management, record companies...
KC: I think it's the band, for sure.
TB: Ultimately it's them, yeah.
KC: It's not anybody else. We all get to chime in on what songs we like the most and all that.
4. What are the top five priorities on the rider list?
TB: Well that's interesting I guess. Huh?
TR: Love that. *laughs*
KC: God, I'd have to look at the rider, cause security and safety is really key.
Caller: I guess some of the fun stuff.
KC: Oh we're boring man.
*Background laughter*
It's boring and kind of healthy and there's not a lot of exciting stuff going on back stage, really.
Caller: Alright. Had to ask.
*laughter*
KC: I'm sorry! There's just none of that going on!
TB: Whenever people ask me if they can get a backstage pass after I always say 'Yeah so you can come back and get a good look at our deli tray.'
KC: We don't even have a deli tray.
TB: Oh man! We've got to start asking for deli trays.
KC: We get peanut butter and stuff. Bread...
TB: A juicer!
KC: Yeah. Some bananas...
Caller: No meatballs or...
KC: You know all that early rock nonsense is just nonsense. It's just a waste of time and money and all that. It's just silly.
TB: Van Halen crossed the line when they made 'em pick out all the blue m&m's.
KC: If we have a bunch of people, guests and stuff we'll get some beer and water... wine or something like that. It's not super exciting back stage.
TR: The Jack Daniels infused granola is just a myth then.
KC: I don't think they have any hard liquor back stage. It think they might have tequila sometimes but that's about it.
TB: Well people will bring presents and...
5. Why when they (the band) come to New York don't they do a smaller venue? Come to the beach and come to the water!
TR: They did three nights at the beach in 2000, and the Colosseum in '03 to which I went back across the country for cause I grew up in that dump so I felt like I had to go there and the Bushleaguer deal reminded me of why i moved 3,000 miles away.
*laughter*
I would be surprised if they ever went back to that building. Jones Beach? That's another story.
6. When you schedule a tour, in terms of bands that PJ plays with, whether they're opening for them, or the bands are opening for them, is there a big difference in terms of how you're planning things out or perhaps pressure that the band might feel when they're doing things like they did in Honolulu a couple of years ago with U2 versus, maybe, bands that haven't got off the ground yet or are starting to get off the ground?
KC: Nope. There's no pressure. The guys come up with who they're interested in opening, or who they're listening to or who's kind of available. Sometimes it's like a Ben Harper that they've been friends with a long time and it just kind of makes sense or sometimes it's Mudhoney or something from Seattle. Or Band of Horses was last year which everyone enjoyed. Opening for U2, it's always fun for these guys to do and it's more of an honor for them with the Rolling Stones, or Neil Young, or Bruce Springsteen, or whoever it is. They would never stress about the fact that they're opening and not headlining and stuff. It'd be more of a bow to these people that they respect, you know?
TB: What about the issue of 'co-headlining shows' where, I think, our guys would much rather play before a band of, like, equal stature than to try to...
KC: Yeah, I don't think they care. Really, you know? So there is no pressure and they don't stress about it. Because they don't tour too much, and because they don't burn themselves out it's all kind of joyous out there. And that's what makes it killer, right?
Caller: In terms of how those calls go (calls to potential opening bands), how do they go and how does that process work?
KC: I don't call the bands directly myself. The band gives me their wish list and our agent kind of talks to their agent. Sometimes there's a relationship where Ed might call Mark Arm or someone in Mudhoney and just go 'What are you guys doing?' Or if there's someone where we know the manager we'll call and say 'Are they up for it?' It just depends on what their plans are. If they're busy or they're not busy. If they wanna be home or not be home.
Caller: Is there any place that you or the band think is "the Best" venue or city that you've been though, or places where you haven't had such good success or a time?
KC: Nassau was not that much fun.
*laughter*
KC: No, it was fine. IIIIIIt was fine. It was all fine. Everything has it's own personalities. That guy (earlier caller) was talking about Jones Beach and stuff but really the answer to all that is: They love playing the arenas. They love the intimacy and all that... They love those places. We try to talk them in to doing some sheds or amphitheaters every now and then, or maybe a festival every now and then but they don't like it. They like the arena.
7. I've been in the fan club since the mid '90's, then two years ago we were shout out of getting any tickets. Why is that?
TB: First of all, New York is where everybody wants to go and so there's not enough tickets to go around. That's just the ultimate answer to that question. I answered it last week. I think I may have answered it the week before. When you only have a certain number of tickets, and many more people, like 10 times more people trying to buy those tickets, two things are going to happen. Number one: Not everybody's going to get their tickets. Number two: The server's gonna crash. And that's just the case for a couple of markets. Usually Philadelphia, New York, and Boston are the three places that are notorious where that will happen. I don't know where you're trying to buy tickets to, but if it was one of those places than that's a problem area. We've been... Like to get more tickets for the fan club and we're working on that and hopefully it will get better in the coming years...
Here's my suggestion for you. Instead of trying to go and see the band in like, the Garden, or even if you did get a ticket you probably wouldn't be that close to the stage... Pick a nice little town in the Midwest like Indianapolis or St. Louis or Kansas City. Great towns to go visit and you'll be right up in the front and have a great time and there won't be a hassle and...
8. How does a set list get created? I know Eddie's in charge of making the list each night and you never know what to expect from him. What goes through their mind when they make a set list? Who has all the input with that?
KC: I think Eddie puts in most of the work. He really does put in a lot of work. He wants to know what's going on in that town and kind of get a feel for the building, and the crowd, and if there's any kind of controversy or political things going on or causes or... It's real work. He spends hours educating himself about the show he's gonna do that night. And he gets some sort of feeling about how he wants it to go. Usually the input the other guys have has to do with guitar changes and tempos and stuff like that. Eddie, it's not like he just sits down and whips out some songs. He kind of, struggles with it for a long time. Hours, you know?
TB: I remember we actually talked about this on one of the other shows. (On the 11/XX/2010 show Tim goes over this in great detail -ed) He'll actually know the last couple of times he's played a city what got played and...
KC: He'll know every time.
TB: Yeah every time. And how it was received and another thing that he'll do... He'll go out and watch the opening act or just go out and take a look at the venue to kind of get a vibe and a feel as to what's going on out there... And if it seems like a really rowdy crowd or whatever he might choose to start off with a slower, mid-tempo song just to kind of get people back on their heels a little bit so you can deliver a blow later on. And then if there are people sitting back on their hands he might feel like he want to come out and double-barrel hit right off the top ...
KC: Or none of that. Or all of that.
TB: It's just a feeling that he gets and like Kelly said he puts an extremely large amount of work into that.
Caller: Hard to Imagine is my favorite PJ song. How come that never made it (on)to a record?
KC: I have no idea. Tim can you answer that?
TB: *laughs* I have no idea either. Rob? Do you know?
*laughter*
TR: I do, but I'm not at liberty to tell. I'm sorry.
TB: All right there you have it. Good job!
KC: You've got to wait until those guys are on the show themselves and ask them a question like that.
9. What's the status of the Rock Band (video game) project? It was last year when they released a bunch of different songs and at the same time asked us to vote on what was the best live version... I haven't heard anything really concrete since.
KC: I think that's more of a Rock Band question. They're kind of struggling, I think, with their own selves and what technology and path they want to take. I think that maybe some of these releases didn't work out for them so well. Maybe Green Day, maybe not even The Beatles were what they expected and that the technology is changing and they're trying to figure out what it is, if anything.
Caller: When Backspacer was released two years ago it was also released simultaneously (for Rock Band). How did that go? Was that a success? Is that something that you feel will happen with future albums or releases?
KC: Just having them simultaneously available digitally for games? Is that what you're asking?
Caller: Yeah like how Backspacer came out the same day. The album itself.
TB: We had that special edition that had the DLC with it that we sold at Target, you know? Which um... I wouldn't necessarily call that a huge success *laughs* or anything It was just...
KC: I don't know. I think it'd be better to do... I think it would be interesting to hear from gamers what they thought, you know?
Caller: As a PJ fan... I thought it was a great way to get to know the album and the lines and the tempo of the album. I wasn't just playing it in the car when I was driving along or at the computer or whatnot.
TB: Yeah, we've been, really, we've been working with Rock Band to try to figure out interesting and innovative ways to bring PJ music to the game. We're kind of in the middle of still trying to figure that out. And at the same time having to deal with their issues that they have internally. We're hopeful for it.
10. In 2003 it seemed like you were able to get as many tickets as there were requests except for the MSG 2 show. Since then it's kind of been rumored that Ticketmaster only gives you 10% of the venue for fan club tickets. Is that true?
KC: Ticketmaster controls how much we get for sure. It's more than 10%.
TB: But it didn't change then.
KC: It hasn't changed. Nothing got less or more.
TB: For us.
KC: But yes. Yes. They do control. They are Ticketmaster.
Caller: Okay. I was just curious if that was a rumor or if that's actually true.
TB: Yeah, that's a rumor. That's a tour rumor.
11. It's been talked about that PJ's music would be perfect for half time at the Superbowl, so has it been talked about? Is it possible? What do you say?
KC: Uhhh... You know. I don't think it's gonna happen in the next ten years. But never say never.
Caller: Hoping more for new Meadowlands Stadium, or what we call Giant's Stadium here in New Jersey. What do you say? It's uhhh... 2014, I think?
KC: Ummm... I think we should think a little... I think we need to be around for a lot longer. I don't think it'd be the most comfortable experience for those guys to do something like that. It would just, uhhh... We would probably all regret it at this point. I'd lose my job and be fired. And then Tim would be fired. And then...
*laughter*
...everyone would be fired and it would just be horrible.
TB: And the band would break up.
KC: Yep. The band would break up.
*laughter*
TR: But the Seahawks might win the super bowl!
KC: About the time PJ plays half time, right?
*laughter*
12. My first concert happened to be at Golden Gate Park when Eddie Vedder went down with the stomach flu...
KC: I'm sorry.
TR: June 24th
Caller: I've been to many concerts since then, but I have to say that show was probably some of the best rock music I heard you guys play. Then the show that he made up for it at Spartan Stadium in San Jose, I think, was almost a year later was just phenomenal.
KC: You didn't get a refund so you got to go for free? That show was for free, right?
Caller: Yeah it was free but he played, I think they played for almost three hours.
KC: That was a really... You really like that show (the Golden Gate Park show), huh? Cause I think he only did like three songs. It was weird cause it was...
TB: I think he did like seven...
TR: No, it was seven songs and then... For me it was truly a weird experience because to see Neil (Young) come out and save the day with the guys and then watch, like 20,000 angry people leave because Eddie Vedder was ill was just... bizarre.
KC: Bizarre. Yeah. It was funny cause he was really... It wasn't funny it was frickin'... But when he started singing I thought 'Oh, Jesus! He's gonna do it. It's gonna be alright! He sounds great!' But he was soooo sick and then... I think there would've been a riot or something if Neil hadn't been there. I think people would've been so pissed off... Didn't they do Rockin' In The Free World like a couple times?
TR: Twice.
KC: Just wearing people down, and wearing people down...
TB: Like a 20 minute Cortez The Killer...
KC: You should've seen the look on the promoter's face man! He was fuckin' pissed!
*laughter*
Caller: My brother and I were there and we thought those seven songs that they played were rockin'. Then we also saw you with the Stones at Oakland Colosseum when it was just pouring down rain which was awesome also.
KC: Yeah that was good.
TR: Those were fun times!
KC: Did you go to one show or four shows?
Caller: Yeah, I think you guys played three or four that weekend. But we went to the one where it was just pissin' down rain so...
KC: Yeah, they came out in rain suits, right?
Caller: Yeah. *says thanks and goodbye*
KC: I can't believe Mike McCready hasn't called and stalked me...
*laughter*
TB: Where's Mike McCready?
TR: Yeah! Where are you this week, Mike? Come on dude?
13. Do you all have the ability to, say, for example Eddie and the band wanted to have an impromptu show at their house or sing at the *indecipherable* ...Do they have the ability to do something like that at their house now with their own channel?
TB: I think they have the ability to do whatever they want. I think they're a pretty big company, Sirius. Yeah, I think those things could be achieved. I don't know if anybody's gonna have a concert at their house...
Well Eddie could come in here with his guitar and sit down and play a song and we could figure out a way to get him on...
Caller: I was just curious If they would just come on there one day and just talk to all their fans or whatnot.
TB: That's actually... Seriously though, that is a good question and we would love that and I'm sure you guys would too. We just want to put it out there that it's always open to them if they want to do that.
KC: Today you're stuck with me.
Caller: I thought that'd be kind of cool because... my first show was '95 in New Orleans when they were supposed to play the Fourth of July, but of course Ticketmaster...
TB: Oh, yeah
Caller: ...threw a curve ball into that.
TB: (jokingly) They keep going back to that summer of '95...
*laughter*
Caller: ...I was wondering if that was even possible. I assumed it was...
TB: Yep. Oh yeah.
TR: Well, all we can say is: 'Stay tuned!'
14. I been to the three shows in Jones Beach in 2000 and, no offence, but the sound, I think, in Jones Beach is terrible so please don't go to Jones Beach just go to the Garden.
You guys put out Backspacer yourselves without having a record company backing you. I wanted to know: How was it different and what was it like?
KC: It was a challenge. It was pretty good. We learned a lot and every time we put out a record we'll know a little bit more and the landscape changes a little bit more. It was work, for sure, but...
Caller: Was it more fulfilling and more fun?
KC: Ahhh it was... You know that's a hard question. It's always great to get a record out and have people be able to get it and get past that. In this particular case, to be able to put it out ourselves was pretty amazing. That we didn't really screw it up too much and, like I said, we learned a lot. And it will be even better the next time, you know?
TB: I was just going to say I think it was really fulfilling from my angle anyway just to note that we could pull it off, you know? We've always gone into these big shiny glass steel buildings to make those things happen and it's a lot more refreshing to just come down to your...
KC: Plaster and wood...
TB: Your little plaster and wood office by the highway and make it happen from here. In that regard, yeah. It was awesome.
15. I was wondering, because of Matt Cameron being their drummer, and now Soundgarden being back together have you heard anything about maybe a Temple of the Dog-type-situation?
KC: I have heard of a Temple of the dog-type-situation, but I don't know what's going to happen. Ummm, you never know. It's a big year coming up!
Caller: I would love to see them in concert.
KC: We have a little problem in that our drummer plays in all three bands so I don't know how you pull something off without killing him.
*Thanks to Kelly Curtis*
KC: I've got to go get in this 'gun' show or whatever...
**Tim Bierman and Kelly Curtis on the accuracy of the recently revealed Pearl Jam event tentatively scheduled for Summer 2011**
TB: I just want to clear that up. It's two days we're talking about.
KC: Maybe.
TB: Well it might be more. You never know. So it's open ended.
NEXT WEEK: A special two hour AET with all the factors of the Two Feet Thick website (http://www.twofeetthick.com): Kathy Davis, Jessica Letkemann, and John Reynolds. It's going to be the ideal fan-intensive experience!
YOU RULE!!!!
Kind of you.
I'll pass along any credit to The Rob, Tim Bierman, and all of their weekly guests for getting this all going. I hope that they, and the folks at Sirius/XM know how much we appreciate the show and hope that it can continue for a long, long time!
I think the show might be at a bad time for caller-
people are still at work around the USA, and can't call with questions....what do u think?
From our perspective, sure. A broadcast during a weekday that is later in the evening would probably draw more callers or listeners. I'm ultimately not sure though. I'll leave those declarations to the marketing research people at Sirius/XM.
I consider the following when thinking about what you're getting at:
Each show's premiere broadcast time falls across the continental U.S. time zones (not sure about Hawaii or Alaska) like this.
5PM East
4PM Central
3PM Mountain
2PM Pacific
Here's where listeners are most likely to be* during those times (in my opinion):
5PM East: Leaving work or driving home.
4PM Central: Winding down the work/school day.
3PM Mountain: At work/school.
2PM Pacific: At work/school.
*all assume a 1st shift work schedule.
Could the show premiere at an air time more conducive to having more fans call in? Probably "yes." As a guess, probably a weekend time slot would have the most listeners due to the M-F career path a majority of people follow. My observation though is that they're not really having much of a problem getting callers right now. There seems to be enough people to fill up an hour-plus quite easily. As far as listeners go, they replay the show four times at different times (where maybe people who work different shifts at work might be more likely to catch it), and we seem to be falling in to a pattern of fans recording the shows and making them available to download at our convenience. So really, very few people are losing out on the listening experience. Especially our friends overseas who cannot get Sirius/XM.
Also, we need to think about the nature of the show being of East Coast origin. That's where the hosts live and where the band lives and it makes them all more available to be on the show. People with families tend to leave work at work and enjoy their time in the evenings or on weekends to themselves. If they delayed the show until everyone was at home and had eaten dinner and were settled in for the evening it would be nearly (if not) midnight on the East Coast. I wouldn't ask them to work on the weekends just so I could listen to it live.
What do you think?
BTW, good news on the Sirius front... Howard Stern just signed a new 5 year contract, so that should keep them in business longer. Considering 60% of the subscribers listen to his channels, it could have been an ongoing issue.
Good read, I love thursdays too now!
Awesome about the PJ event -- possible two day excursion!
and there are TOTD ideas floating about, nice!!
I live in another country and your translation is a good thing for fans who can't follow this show.
Thanks again.
It's growing up just like me.
Ahhhh! Ive been wondering about that location of yours for quite a while. Another mystery solved! I don't really know anything about that night in '03 so I'll have to do some looking into it!
Hi. No worries about being nervous on the phone. It happens. In fact, that's one of the reasons I started this thread. Not to dictate the conversation, but rather to attempt to give people a concise way of asking questions that cover a broad range of topics. It's always great to hear fans relate to the band though. Next week should be killer!
Happy that it works out well for you. I have a few friends for whom English is a second language. Sometimes they have trouble hearing through accents and the speed with which we speak, but they can always read it well because they've studied so hard! What could be better than studying English by reading about your favorite band?
On the off chance English isn't your second language be sure to visit http://www.gremmie.net. They have the audio files to listen to or download on their website!
Thanks a lot guys (Norm and HeavyHands, now we know that our country is (at least) heard by Kelly
You guys are so awesome to do this.
Sure is!
Guests will be the three caretakers of TwoFeetThick.com and it will be a two hour show. Can't wait to hear what they have to talk about!
SOunds great, I will hopefully be listening and hopefully recording too. All being well will post the link not too long after the show. norm is more reliable than me though! Better check go the times, and GMT conversion!
Send my credentials to the house of detention
Can HH handle two hours of dictation :shock:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg40
I'm eagerly awaiting to see the answer to this too. I'm thinking I will probably have to break it in to two parts to make it manageable with the time I have available. Good thing you can edit posts!
H^2
Thanks to Norm for recording this week!
Audio for this week is hosted and available for listening and download at http://www.gremmie.net. Also, don't forget about the on-air replays on Sirius 17/XM 39. Check the front page for dates/times.
Host: Tim Bierman (TB)
Host: The Rob (TR)
Guest: Kathy Davis (KD)
Guest: Jessica Letkemann (JL)
Guest: John Reynolds (JR)
Guest: Matt Moore (MM)
*Show introductions*
TR: Tim I believe we've got something special in store for our listeners.
TB: Yeah we do. It's... We're not announcing any kind of event or anything but we do have a mastered copy of Live on Ten Legs and we wanted to share a couple of tracks with the listeners here first. Rob I think you've selected a couple of tracks for us to play.
TR: Yeah! I believe I've gone with Arms Aloft and you wanted to hear the Porch which is a great version that you like too.
TB: I wanna call it "The Porch."
TR: "The Porch."
TB: Yeah. I wanted to tell listeners, I'm pretty much preaching to the choir here because I think everybody's kind of aware of what's going on, but Live on Ten Legs is coming out on January 17th (2011) worldwide, and January 18th (2011) here in the U.S. And you can preorder that cd or vinyl at pearljam.com, but if you want to get a UK only or international only, I guess, deluxe package of the vinyl you can check out LiveOnTenLegs.com and that's a Universal Music site that is pre-selling the deluxe package. Pretty cool little package we put together for them.
TR: Do you have any details about that deluxe package? Is it 180 gram vinyl or something like that?
TB: Well the vinyl here is going to be 180 gram, stouten (sp?) jackets. The international vinyl is gonna be 180 gram. I'm not exactly sure where the jackets are manufactured but it's gonna be a really cool piece along with some extra ephemera kind of things so I think people will be really excited about it. You can go to LiveOnTenLegs (the website) and get all the details: track listing and what is in the package. Everything.
TR: Cool. Alright Well let's let folks know that our guests today are from the website TwoFeetThick. We've got Kathy Davis, Jessica Letkemann, and John Reynolds. And Matt Moore from Gremmie.net is gonna join us too and we'll all get together in a little bit. So lets spring some Live on Ten Legs on folks right now! Let's check out Arms Aloft on PJ Radio.
*debuts Arms Aloft from the upcomming PJ album Live on Ten Legs*
TR: That was Arms Aloft from Live on Ten Legs. A tip of the hat to Joe Strummer. And I wanna tip my hat to Brett Eliason for doing a great mastering job on that.
TB: Uhhh, mixing. Mixing.
TR: Mixing!
TB: Yeah mixing. He mixed those tracks. They were actually mastered here in Seattle at RFI. Rick Fisher, yep.
TR: Thanks for that clarification.
TB: Well yeah.
TR: Can't wait to get that in my JBL's.
*laughter*
TB: Yeah! Wake your neighbors up, right?
TR: You betcha! alright! LEt's get the ball rolling here with our Fan Encompassing Trip this afternoon. Lets say 'Hello' to everybody. First of all in my studio here we've got Kathy Davis.
KD: Hello!
TB: Hello Kathy Davis.
TR: In New York we've got 'JR' John Reynolds.
JR: Hey what's up? I'm here. We're kind of used to this long distance thing. It's how we all talk to each other and how we've talked to other people so, you know...
TR: And your other partner in crime at TwoFeetThick is Jessica Letkemann.
JL: I'm here. You can pretend I'm in New York. I'm not in New York. Not at the moment but you can pretend I'm there.
TR: You are here with us now! So what I really want to talk about with you guys, and also Matt Moore from Gremmie.net is joined in on the action too.
MM: Hello.
TR: But what I want to get to first with the three of you is maybe how you guys met as fans of PJ and how long you knew each other before you decided to turn your passion for the band into something that everyone else can feed off so well.
JL: Yeah, it's kinf of funny because back in the day before everybody was online and twittering and everything like that, the big fan connection was fanzines. Printed fanzines. And Kathy Davis was one half of like the best one out there: Footsteps. And so I always looked up to that because I had a zine in High School and stuff like that and when I became a huge PJ fan I was like 'I'm gonna do one!'.
I used to do a print zine back in the day, back in the '90's and real soon, Kathy sent me this letter in the mail. Just kind of like 'Hey, I've seen your zine it's really good!' She sent me a bunch of money and a bunch of shows and stuff like that. Her back issues and I was like, soooo in awe. I thought it was so cool because obviously I looked up to all the huge works she had done. She seemed like the Queen of PJ to me. So we bonded pretty fast, especially after we met. We met at TFC (the Tibetan Freedom Concert) '99 finally in person and I think like two days after that we ended up on the phone like all night long. Just one of those instant connections just after you meet somebody.
And then JR has a similar thing. I'll let him talk about it, but he did this incredible website in the late '90's that was sort-of sourcing all of the fan audio that was out there. That was a huge obsession of a lot of people because it was tough to get your hands on good quality PJ live of every show before PJ themselves were releasing it. But he was the guy who knew it.
I also was recently going through my mail from my zine days and I have this letter from JR and he's like 'You've probably never heard of me but I'm a really big fan of your zine...' I just thought that was funny too because I thought he was such a huge pillar of the community. So we met finally, I think, in 2000 at the Jones Beach show which is funny. You always meet somebody at a show. And we also instantly bonded. He used to work a couple of blocks away from me. He actually worked in the building where MSG is and I worked a few blocks away so we would meet half way at Starbucks and sort of daydream about websites. And this is like 2001-2002, just every day. I always think about how much money we would've lost if our employers knew how much time we spent on IM talking about what kind of website we would make if we ever had one.
So finally I was just like 'JR do you know Kathy? Kathy do you know JR?' And they didn't. And it was totally flabbergasting me, but once the three of us connected that was it. It was time for a website. I'll let you guys take it from here. But as soon as all three of us knew each other it was clear that we had the perfect sort-of team.
KD: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. I think that's about right. Because we were each doing our own thing. Actually Jess you were still doing Tickle My Nausea. And I was jst really the spokesman for the tapers. These guys did all the taping. I think I taped maybe one or two shows in my life, and I say 'Hey, maybe the way we can get more shows is to get our... to get some stuff up there. So I created DigiJam and then Carl Sylvester (sp?), he had the whole list.
He had the whole Hard To Imagine list with all the taper info and I was able to put that site up as well so... I think the three of us, when we finally met, we were just looking to take the best of what we had... You know I was the technology side, I obviously knew the PJ stuff up and down... Kath and Jess, we were trying to take that zine style and put it onto a web site. Really when websites were becoming their own things anyway. But we kind of wanted it to be a throwback at the same time and kind of get back to... Websites were really good lookin' back then, but we wanted to get back to what was really the heart of it and that was: something good to read.
JL: Yeah. Like information. We were all really obsessed with deep scholarship... I know it's really weird to use the work 'scholarship,' but like deep scholarship on this stuff. Like: Where did it come from? What is the story behind it? Just like, 'What is the details?'
JR: Oh come on it was footnotes! We had footnotes!
JL: I know. We had footnotes. We're crazy.
JR: But we put our our first issue in April of 2003, and I remember we worked so hard to get all the issues done and then when we launched it we started thinking about the next one. We were like 'Alright. What are we gonna do now?' And I think it was probably a good three or four months before we had more stuff.
JL: No, no. It was faster than that. but one funny note about the date that our site launched: It was very specifically on purpose on Mike McCready's birthday of 2003. April 5th, so it was on purpose.
TR: So Kathy, you launched your own fanzine back in like...
KD: '92. Yeah I was just gonna say that it was actually MTV Unplugged that got me in to PJ, to give you that history. I saw it and went 'Holy God!' and I had to connect with their fans and the internet was very, very organic back then and barely starting. In '92 there was really no mailing list. There was AOL and I think there was an AOL message board a lot of people went to... I remember people there and then just trying to find people to connect with.
I was also in to REM, like most PJ fans are. I knew Randy Ocenenko (sp?) who was my fanzine partner for Footsteps. Just because she was an REM fan and because I knew she was involved in doing some of their zines and all that... So somebody said 'She's in to PJ now. You should call her.'
Well I think we talked... She called me when I was actually at the Bridge School, 11/1/1992, my first PJ show, and left a message, or maybe I was going to see U2 the week after and I had some sort of weird Monty Python message on my phone and she was like 'I have to talk to you about PJ.' And I think about a month later we had Footsteps number 1 out in December of '92. And from '92 to '97 there was really not that much print... Well '92 to '95 there wasn't anything until Five Horizons (http://www.fivehorizons.com) started. And then they started their thing so I was running my paper thing til '97.
Then Five Horizons is going full blast and then we all got to know each other organically through that experience and, of course, Tickle My Nausea came on and I thought it blew everything else out of the water. And I was like 'I'm not worthy!'
JL: You were super nice to me! I came along in '95 and the first ones were kind of cut-and-paste... You know it's kind of funny that you mention REM too because I had a friend who ran a different REM zine and she ended up meeting Ed (Vedder) and her whole line was like "Oh hey! I have this zine about this other band you like!' And I just heard the story that he was so impressed by it. I was just like 'Kathy and my friend, these people are so cool! I need to do this myself!' So you guys are a total inspiration.
KD: Yeah. Well now we inspire each other. It seemed inevitable. I stopped doing Footsteps in '97. Randy kind of just got other things going in her life and didn't want to do it any more and I didn't want to do it myself. I didn't think I was doing either of our partnership justice so I kind of just sat back and enjoyed the ride for a few years. Of course I was still in the community going to zillions of shows and meeting people and... Like Jess said, we met in '99 at Tibetan Freedom. I think there was a party at somebody's house and... Maybe it was Lindsay Lake, who also did the Dissident fanzine, another fanzine person. I only know people who do fanzines. Everyone else? Forget it!
*laughter*
JR: That's all you talk to.
TR: Jessica how long were you doing your fanzine?
JL: I started it maybe like September of '95. That was like the... non-ticketmaster tour. So fans wanted to know so much stuff. My day job at that time was at Spin (Magazine) so I felt like I had more information than most folks and I sort of knew how to get the word out. So I was like 'This is the time to start it.'
So I was doing that from '95 and I was just sending it out to maybe a couple hundred people at that time and I did it until the top of 2002 at which point it was like several hundred. I know that's crazy small compared to web things, but consider that I was standing at a copy machine and mailing them out individually.
I did Tickle My Nausea for like seven years. There was like 21 issues. There was even like one issue toward the end where I transcribed the entire 2000 tour. All of the lyric changes and everything. I know that's crazy (I feel your pain
KD: That's not crazy Jess, that's what we do.
*laughter*
We specialize in 'crazy'. Especially where PJ are concerned, I think.
JL: Well that was a deep tour. So many things happened. It was an important tour... So I was doing that for a long time. The process of doing a zine, I don't know if Kathy would attest to this... being in the community, it's amazing to talk to other fans. For some recent projects that I've been doing for TwofeetThick I had to dig through the old mail. People would send these letters. Just these incredible letters about what PJ meant to them and stuff like that and I jsut felt a real connection to so many people. I met soooo many amazing people beyond... Obviously I met JR and Kathy through this thing... I've met hundreds and hundreds of cool people. People who put you up in other continents without having met you. It's... amazing to me, that we can be this wonderful and not know each other. You know what I mean?
TR: Well let's open it up to some more people out there...
*gives out number*
**The Rob on PJ having never played New Hampshire**
TR: "There's my new bumper sticker. The South has nothing on New Hampshire!"
**The Rob and Tim on getting invitations to eat seafood in New Hampshire**
TR: "The Rob is definitely down with lobster!"
TB: "So is Tim!"
**John Reynolds and Matt Moore on fans writing letters to their organizations**
JR: You know it's funny. We do get a lot of those stories (stories of how PJ inspired or gave someone hope) ourselves. You (Matt Moore) probably get the same thing with some of the audio you post. People just... If they hear the right song at the right time whether they're driving for eight hours or just listening at a point in their life... They'll just e-mail somebody and a lot of times it's us and... it's just great to hear that.
MM: Yeah I think in a way the web sites like TwoFeetThick or Gremmie.net become lightning rods for... hopefully for the fans. I've gotten the same kinds of things that John is describing. You get stories from people that, they just want to express themselves and say 'You know I had this great experience' and in this guy's case, from New Hampshire he took his daughter to a couple of shows and his daughter is now into PJ and for him it's a very personal experience that he had. We do get those quite a bit. It makes our job worth while, quite frankly.
*gives out number and introductions*
TB: Hey I've got a question for you guys. For the TwoFeetThick-ers, I think people out there would want to know how you've actually made connections with members of the band. If you could just tell us all about how some of those things have come along.
JL: In our whole 'fan-lives' or in our TwoFeetThick 'fan-lives'?
TB: Both! Both for sure! It's the same thing, right?
KD: Back when I was doing Footsteps there wasn't anything else out there and I, obviously, sent it in to the Ten Club and just said 'Hey, you might like this. We're doing it.' They actually did like it and I think at that time there was a woman named Deb running it and she like it and then I think Stone's (Gossard) sister Shelly was running it for a while and she got me in to my first show.
My first official PJ show where they were playing electric was them opening for Neil Young in '93. They played Portland and Vancouver and maybe the Gorge? Yeah. Something like that... I went to some crazy after-party thing that they had in Portalnd after that show. My first proper electric PJ experience was side stage, you know. Standing between all the hard cases with all the cords wrapped in my legs. It was like 'Okay, well where do you go from there? Now I've gotta go sit in the audience?' *laughs* It was very bizarre and surrealistic and that's totally unrelated to why we started doing this... I was doing it to connect with the fans. And then all this other stuff was gravy. So I gave the fanzine to the band.
The one's I gave it to loved it. Jeff told me he loved it. Stone was like "Oh hey, this is amazing!' And at the time Dave... I was so amazed that this thing that I do because I love their music and was moved by it, they were, in turn, really grateful and really dug it. Stone, I think at one point, stayed up all night reading it and said 'Amazing magazine!' Personally he was telling me. Things like that are just mind blowing that they can even happen. I have definitely had a lot of experiences throughout doing Footsteps just knowing that everybody who worked for PJ, that we were able to watch side-stage a lot. And have passes and do all that stuff.
JL: For the last 18 years of so I've worked at various places where there was other reasons, other than my fandom, where... I've had these opportunities to talk to different folks and different folks around the band as well. Not only through work, but also because of work, people started to know me. Like 'Oh I do a fanzine' and all these other things like that.
But I wanted to speak up and talk about the most recent thing... Total, total props to Stone Gossard. He seriously, recently... he totally hooked up TwoFeetThick starting in August. I talked to him about Brad for my work-work, for my day job. And at the end of it I kind of said "Oh, you know whatever. The other couple of folks that I do my fansite with, TwoFeetThick, just say 'Hello.' ' I only just kind-of threw that out there. That they say 'Hello.' And he just perked right up! And he was just like asking me a million questions about it... and totally unprompted he was just like 'You know if you guys ever want to, you know, like have a chat or whatever. Have a conversation or do some interviews I'm totally up for it!'
He totally meant it because really soon after that, I believe it was on Labor Day (a U.S. Holiday), wasn't it Kathy?
KD & JR: Yeah it was.
JL: We got this e-mail the day before Labor Day: 'Are you free tomorrow?' I'm like 'Yes! Definitely!' And we ended up spending I think about an hour on the phone with Stone for TwoFeetThick specifically. He was so generous. And talked about Brad and talked about PJ and The Vault and he was just really super open to any question. Even my crazy questions about 1990 and stuff like that.
JR: He's got a good memory.
JL: Yeah! Oh my God he's got a crazy good memory! Even after a whole hour, and this is my second conversation with him, he was like 'I don't feel like we covered everything.' You know? Like he wants to talk another time and I was like "Who's gonna say no to that?!? Of course!' And he ended up talking to JR and I. Talking to him a third time. We were just asking these crazy specific things and he was telling us these crazy stories about how Jeff has this crazy archive of PJ stuff and it was just amazing. So I didn't want to tell a recent story of where Stone, I get the sense that all the guys are like this, but that Stone recently super, super awesome to TwoFeetThick. Stone, if you're listening, super-props to you man! Thank you so much!
JR: Yeah, exactly.
JL: You made our site amazing. We are grateful.
TR: Cool! We've got some more fans on the lines here talking about their experiences and a couple of questions for you folks.
*gives out number*
1. Caller: My first show for PJ was in 1996 in October at North Charleston Colosseum. ...And haven't ever heard a recording of the show in all the years that I went there. How do you get so much detail (in the TwoFeetThick Concert Chronology, http://www.twofeetthick.com/concert-chronology/) and all the information about what Ed said and the way the crowd was? How did you get so much information from all the shows that PJ has done over all these years?
JR: I was actually gonna give maybe some far-back history on this. One of the first things I remember from the internet was through the message boards you could have attachments and this PJ songbook, or was it concert book, just kept getting passed around and people would modify it and it wasn't like all these file sharing things. One guy said, I believe his name was Caleb, he was like 'I'll maintain it.' And so he maintained it and through the message boards and through the message boards (he would ask) 'Hey did anyone go to this show in Montreal in '93?' (someone would respond) 'Oh yeah I did.' (Caleb would say) 'Well tell me about it.' And they just collected this thing. And then I guess that morphed into the Concert Chronology on fivehorizons.com. And I can't tell you how much bandwidth I spent on that site, just reading the shows. But all of that is fan contributed. It was maintained by Karen Rose (sp?) and Jean Bruns (sp?) for a whole bunch of years. I guess when they decided to bow out they said 'Listen, we'd like you guys to maintain it.' And so we've maintained it since, I think, 2005 or 2006.
JL: No it was earlier than that. Maybe '04.
JR: Okay. It all comes from fans. Fans back in those days used to just write in a lot more. Here you've got message boards you've got you tube, all that sort of stuff. But the notes come from fans. Although I know we go to almost every show...
JL: That's not true...
JR: ...Right but still there are entire tours where we can't... Kathy can't write her crazy notes after every show. So we need those sort of memories.
TR: I was gonna say if you've ever seen a show with Kathy Davis she is working while enjoying the show.
*laughter*
KD: I learned to write in the dark while never looking at my actual paper and pen.
TR: She's like the show stenographer.
MM: Kathy do you have one of those flashlight pens that you click on and the flashlight goes on and you can write at the same time?
JR: No she has one of those hats like a spelunker...
KD: I just think the things and the words come out through my fingers. No. I write in the dark in these little mini composition books and just flip the pages and underline songs so I know where... what I'm talking about. It's kind of a dorky old school (way of doing things)... but it gets the job done and I know what all my shorthand means. If I write a certain thing I know what it means and I can expound on it. That's where my crazy notes come from.
The only time I don't take them is when I'm in the front row because my seatmates always forbid it. But other than that I'm just kind of sneaking 'em in there in between songs.
Caller: I just thought it was so cool that you had so much detail even down to verbatim, things that he said to the crowd at a show that was so long ago... That just brought really cool memories for me because that was my first show...
JL: Actually I wanted to say that back in the day when Jean and Karen were doing it for Five Horizons... I can't explain how much work they put in to that. I remember they had,... starting with the '96 tour and I think that's why you saw so much detail starting in '96 or so with the shows, they would beforehand find a fan. They would figure out what fan was going to be at that show and that was their job. To e-mail right after the show 'This is what happened.' Just like Kathy takes notes now. They would find somebody who was going to go to every show and send in notes right after. So that's why there's, like 'Oh, this is what Ed said' and stuff like that cause somebody was taking notes and sending them right after.
I think by '98 people were on cell phone duty. I remember calling in a couple of details right after, standing in the parking lot with a crumpled piece of paper I had scribbled on.
It's their diligence that started it and we are the people who carry it on, I think.
KD: Yeah. Thank you Tom (caller) is it, for pointing that out. That it means something to you cause that's the whole point to me: Is having it there for an archive for us all to use...
JR: The best thing you could do is the next show that you go to... You'd be surprised at how much you can write when you write right after the show or the next morning. Just blab it all down and send it to us and we'll use it. Trust me.
KD: Brain dump.
*gives out number*
End Part I.
Part II
TB: Hey I just wanna say something about the... I hate to even say the word "f-e-s-t-i-v-a-l"...
TR: The party weekend?
TB: It's funny because the word 'festival' never really came up except for completely out of context with Rob's question asking about festivals. And... I guess just because Kelly (Curtis. PJ's manager) said 'Well speaking of that... We have this thing in mind...'
So anyway I'll sort of clear the air that it's not a festival and... it's gonna be, hopefully, if we can pull it off, it's gonna be just a weekend kind-of 20th anniversary celebration. And it's not gonna be in May so... Brad (previous caller) can rest assured that he can go ahead and get married and hopefully he'll be able to make the get together. The weekend get together.
JR: Yeah, now Tim tomorrow there's gonna be a thousand stories with the only thing saying 'It's not in May! It's not in May!'
*laughter*
KD: Or 'There not having a festival now!' 'Festival plans canceled!'
MM: 'Pearl Jam cancels festival on account of wedding...'
*laughter*
MM: Exactly so... you heard it here first folks...
TR: For two weeks in a row they've heard it here first.
TB: I just didn't want Brad to go out and get another tattoo saying "Don't play the festival in May...'
*laughter*
JR: That's on his chest...
*gives out number*
TR: I want to get in to how you guys wound up naming your site from one of these wacky Christmas singles so we'll get to that in a few seconds here...
JL: ...With Lollapalooza there are so many stories of how much fun the guys (PJ) were having during that tour. There was some story about Ed and Chris (Cornell) running around in golf carts and I think JR... Both JR and I our first shows of PJ's were both that Lollapalooza '92 tour. But JR didn't you end up meeting... Don't you have a story form Lollapalooza?
JR: Yeah and that's actually a good one... As far as meeting the band cause aside from Stone I'd never met the guys before... I was, long story short, got a back stage pass for the Lake Fairfax, VA show and I was back there just hanging out and Ed walked by, I think it was a few sets, maybe during one of the other bands, and this completely floored me.
I can still almost picture it. I came up to him and started talking to him and shook his hand and... I was like 'Hey can I tell you something?' He's like 'Yeah lets... Walk with me and lets talk.' And I told him that I'd... We'd just heard Footsteps cause it was just on Rockline (a radio program), I think a month earlier, and I said 'Hey a friend of mine, we've been playing that at open mikes and we really love the song. Is it ever gonna get released?' And he completely floored me by asking me, he's just like 'Hey can you send me that tape? I'd really like to hear it!' And I kept on thinking 'Gosh! What sort of artist is gonna ask me a question and find out what I want... Or what I've done with his music?' It just completely floored me. I think he even walked away. I don't even know if I said 'Goodbye' but I was just kind of standing there like 'Oh my gosh! This artist just... asked me this!' and all I wanted to do was just tell him a simple story. All the stories you hear are true. (Ed is) Down to earth,... kind to fans.
TB: I think it's cause he is a fan... And has never ever forgotten that...
JR: Yeah.
TB: ...to this day.
JL: You know that's true Kath... Think over the years how many stories have you heard?... We have opportunity to hear so many stories, you would think that we would hear some bad ones but I can honestly say that I have never heard a bad one. I have never heard the "grumpy day" or the "Eddie dissed me" or anything like that. And that continues to surprise me... in a good way! I've never heard anything other than, like 'Wow! They were so cool!'
KD: Yeah I've never heard anybody talk smack about anybody in my band.
*laughter*
KD: (jokingly) And if they do they're dead to me anyway!
*laughter*
KD: No I totally agree Jess. Like I've said we're both in a very unique position to hear a lot of really incredible stories and you would think that someone with all the pressure that Ed's had to deal with that he would of completely lost his mind to the point where somebody would get the brunt of it... That it would make a great story, and it just to this day have not surfaced so I think that's testament to what a great strong personality he has. And like Tim said he's such a music fan. You just get that impression over and over. Like the stories he told about taking a DAT tape to shows and sitting there and the lights come up and he thinks the show is still gonna go on... It's just such a great experience to be a fan of somebody who knows where you're coming from.
JL: Although I'm a little jealous of they guy on the phone who got to sort-of randomly look over and see Ed and Chris Cornell just standing there enjoying the show just like they were. That's an amazing story! I love that!
KD: I love that story... Yeah that whole Lollapalooza tour I could go on for hours about that too. Wasn't there a bile beer drinking competition between Ed and Al Jourgensen (of Ministry) or something?
JR: Mr. Lifto. (a unique performer from the Jim Rose Circus Side Show)
KD: Oh, Lifto! Oh yeah there's footage of them drinking that bile beer. Oooo...
*audibly shudders*
TB: They actually passed that job around but it was Matt "The Tube" Crowley (sp?)... was the guy who started that whole thing.
KD: Oh yeah I say Jim Rose many-a-time, believe me... Wooof! I wouldn't drink that!
JL: It's on You Tube and watch it yourselves everybody. It's gross!
*laughter*
KD: It's disgusting!
JR: He was really good at it.
JL: There's this sort-of weird look on his face like 'Look at this! I'm gonna do the most disgusting thing ever!' And then they just suck it down. It's just so gross!
KD: I think he won too. I think Ed did win, if I remember correctly. Anyway, that's another story. It's all your crap you don't need to know here at TwoFeetThick.com...
*TR takes a caller*
Caller: The band, they don't like to play one song. And Eddie has a problem with it. It's No Way off Yield. They've only played it twice live...
TR: ...For your information they brought (No Way) back, I believe on the West coast tour last year and they've done it a bunch... So it's back in rotation and it's on the bootleg so you need to obtain some of those bootlegs son!
MM: Gremmie.net, baby!
TR: You can buy them right at the store (the Goods section of pearljam.com) can't you!
TR: Well speaking of that two foot thick rhinosaurus, Kathy why don't one of you espouse on us about this Ramblings and then we'll take a listen to this Ramblings Christmas thing in a minute... Tell us about it and how it influenced you to...
KD: I'll ge the ball rolling on that... Once we decided to start doing TwoFeetThick.com we developed all this on chat. So we sat down and chat... I don't even know how long we were chatting we were just spewing out ideas and, you know... What we want to put on there. What we want. And it was a what kind of a name is gonna... You know, not to overuse the work 'encompassing' but... is gonna encompass everything that we're about and what we want to say and... Well it's gonna be for the kind of the obscure details and the very fine details of being a fan of the band and the things that we're passionate about. And I think Jess, did you come up with 'For the impassioned fan'?
JL: Yeah... We were thinking about kind of a subtitle cause 'Two Feet Thick' doesn't... you don't automatically get the PJ connection there so we wanted to make sure that when you came to the site you could tell it was about PJ and what it was all about immediately.
KD: Cause even the hardest-core, some of the hard-core fans... It just might not come to their mind where 'Two Feet Thick' the name comes from but the last callers totally said it. It's from Ramblings and, in fact that is in the 'About Us', I think, on our website about where it comes from but... We were just chatting on e-mail going 'Okay what's it gonna be? What's it gonna be?' And I think I typed in 'I am a rhinosaurus and my skin is two feet thick.' Because I thought 'That's from the first fan club single' on Ramblings, you know the B-Side of Let Me Sleep (It's Christmas Time) where they're all sitting around talking and there's plunking guitar going on and I think Ed just randomly said it. It might have been talking about some crappy experience he had, I don't know... He just kind of blurted it out and it seemed like such a non sequiter and it was so bizarre and I'm like 'Yeah' and I loved rhinos on top of that which is even funnier... So that's kind-of where our name came from... To us it reminds us that we're obscure weirdo's, but we love PJ and it just kind-of ties it all together. That's my take on the name...
JL: I think also that it clicked for all three of us because it was both something where somebody who was a hard-core PJ fan would go 'Oh! I know where that's from'... 'For the detailed collector...' as Ed would say in concert. For the person who has all the bootlegs and stuff like that. But also just the words 'two feet thick' sort of imply just a depth of knowledge, like caring about every detail. We thought it was alliterative and I think that's why we all kind of thought it clicked: Because it was an obscure PJ reference and it was something that meant that we go pretty deep into the PJ stuff.
KD: Yeah and there's only the occasional mis-link to a porn site there that comes up too so that's awesome...
*laughter*
MM: I noticed that today. I clicked on a link and I said 'Wow! What are these big *indecipherable*?'
KD: That's not what they mean by 'Two feet thick' is it? Ewww...
JR: Yeah. One time people got to us by googling 'two feet chicks' and I wonder how they got that...
*laughter*
TR: That's on a different Sirius/XM channel...
JR: Yeah but even from that single the green the black and the white even... From our site that's where it came basically from that color scheme of that rhino single. Even (just to) plug one of our favorite articles on the site if you jsut search on the site for 'Christmas single' we've covered the first three, we're working on the fourth. We just like to dive deep into these things. Real obscure facts about how many were pressed and... I don't know. It gets us going.
JL: Yeah. What did the run-out groove say? And what is the fine print on the back?
JR: Right. And what did Mike mean when he was talking about Tiny Tim and stuff like that. Obscure stuff...
TR: Lets get pretty obscure right now and we'll check out this Ramblings...
*TR gives station ID & plays Ramblings*
KD: You know I'm a Beatles fan from when I was little and they used to do Christmas singles and I just thought it was the coolest thing when PJ did theirs and of course REM has always put out their annual Christmas single so I just thought 'Okay, this band is cool! They've got a Christmas single.' And I don't care if I get it in Easter it's just a Holiday single now. That's fine.
TR: It's Flag Day! Flag Day! The Flag Day single!
KD: The Flag Day single! Whatever holiday it is... Arbor Day.
JL: Fan Club Single Day...
KD: I just think it's a great thing either way.
JR: Single De Mayo
*laughter*
JR: Sorry...
TR: It comes out... It's the day Tim bierman wants to put it out. That's the holiday
TB: Well believe me I want to put it out at Christmas but it's not up to me, unfortunately...
TR: Ahhh there we go! Disspelling myths again!
What I really want to get into now, and especially talk to Jessica about this, is something you can read and download and find unbelievably informative and beyond cool is something Jessica had put together on the TwoFeetThick website. It's the 1990 Music For Rhinos: The Making OF Pearl Jam. Her mini-book about the origins of the band and I just wanted to let you talk a little bit about your research and detail and...
KD: Or as Kathy calls it: The Opus.
JL: For the band's 20th birthday, like the actual day they formed 20 years ago was October 22nd. So this date had been sort-of looming in our minds all year and I think Kathy and John sort of both knew that I had this blue binder that's kind of been in my backpack for the last several years. Just sort of privately. And I'm not sure what to do with it exactly because I kind of have a way... For a bunch of years I was heavy into the research departments of Spin and stuff like that. And I just had access to details and facts and it was what I spent my days doing and stuff... I because so interested in 'Well how did these five guys meet?' or 'these four guys meet?' and 'How did my favorite band come to exist?' Because the more I ever heard about PJ the more crazy it is that these guys know each other. I just thought it was sort of a miracle...
You hear the short version of it: Stone and Jeff knew each other in Seattle and they were in Green River and stuff like that. And Mike was playing on the side... Everybody knows the basics but to me it still didn't quite click. 'But why... How did this band exactly come to be?' So finally... And I have had this super opportunity to interview various people throughout the years, including Ed... Talked to him a bunch of years ago. And I talked to Matt Cameron a couple of times. I talked to Jeff a couple of times... I've talked to Chris Cornell. I've talked to, either through work or for my zine, when I was doing Tickle My Nausea back in the day...
And for whatever reason in my mind I because really focused on 'Well tell me about what happened in 1990.' 'Tell me about... How exactly did Ed get the tape?' or 'Why did Jack Irons and Eddie meet each other?' 'Tell me the details of it.' And the more I heard, especially after I talked to Ed, and that was a bunch of years ago, I kind of heard a line in a Clash song and I kind of felt nervous about asking him 'You know there's a line in a Clash song about 'Mammasan' in that Clash song Straight to Hell...' and he's like 'Oh my God! I can't believe!...' I pulled out the tape and he's like 'I can't believe... Yeah!
That's where it came from!' And I was just kind-of flabbergasted. The more that I talked to everybody, and I would stumble upon something in an article here and an article there, and the pieces just started falling together for me throughout the years. And all the stuff leading up to PJ, all the 1990 stuff is part of a larger thing that I don't know what to do with the rest of so we'll see, we'll see for the future, but there's ton's more. There's like 1991 and all the years before 1990. But anyway... For the band's 20th
anniversary I couldn't think of a better way to give back to the community. Cause I have gotten so much personally in my life from PJ and the least I could do is (make this mini-book and think that)... Maybe this will be entertaining to other fans. I guess it ended up being 13,000 words and it starts with January 1st, 1990 and takes you through December 31st, 1991.
At the beginning it's about Mother Love Bone about to put out their amazing record and by the end of the year you've got this brand new band called PJ. And along the way it's like 'How did Eddie meet Jack Irons?' And 'Exactly what date did Alive get written?' And just the craziest details... And I think that it just sort-of underscores what we've been talking about: The crazy fan connection.
The band too. The idea that Eddie ended up meeting these guys. There's so much happenstance involved. I could tell a million stories about it. PJ wouldn't exist except for such a huge, crazy list of coincidences. Eddie decided to play hooky from work and he ended up meeting Jack Irons one night. And then a year later Jack Irons was like 'Hey you should call up that guy Eddie.'
So that's the basic story. And basically, where possible I tried to let the guys tell the story. I think people get enough of writers telling people stuff so... Talking to Stone recently too that was part of what we talked about quite a bit in the TwoFeetThick interviews we did in September. He was a super, super good sport. He was answering questions like 'what was the name of this
demo? Of the Stone Gossard demos?' 'Why did you name it Richards E?' And I remember JR, he was telling us 'Oh, something about that reminded me of Keith Richards.' And we were sitting there going 'Oh my God! That's so cool!' And hea was like, confirming...
JR: High five!
JL: ...the name of Eddie's bands and stuff like that.
So essentially there's just all this stuff from the guys themselves. From (Matt)Cameron remembering Stone and Jeff going to his shows when he was in a band called Skin Yard in like '85 and stuff like that. And there's Jeff talking about 'Oh my God! Finally I was in the band I wanted to be in!' And Stone saying crazy stuff... Awesome stuff like 'You know when the spirit of Rock and Roll brings you the right guy you've just gotta go with it.' About meeting Eddie and deciding to hire him on the spot.
And also I just thought it was kind of amazing when Eddie went up to Seattle for like 30 seconds... He went' up there for a few days, essentially, and as soon as that few days had taken place he said 'Alright, this is it.' He had a whole life in San Diego. He had a job and a relationship and all kinds of stuff. That was where his life was. But as soon as he met the PJ guys, he met Stone and Jeff, and Mike he just said 'I'm doing it!' He just pulled up stakes and started moving immediately. He started the process immediately. the courage that that took, it still floors me and we're 20 years later.
KD: Yeah and hear we all are as a result.
JL: Yep, he just took the leap off... He just took the leap. So... Thank you Eddie!... Anyway, that's what it's about and you can go read it free on our site. I've also been sending out print copies for folks who sort of like the fanzine experience. It's the same content but printed up nice and I've been getting some huge response from around the world on that. And that's an amazing thing. I won't lie I love mailing things. I've got a few copies left so the next, maybe 20, folks who want to hit TwoFeetThick send us an e-mail and I'll make sure you get a copy of the print version if you want cause I love sending out things in the mail. *laughs*
TR: Well congratulations on putting it together. It really is an incredible read. It's a really great piece of work for any PJ fan out there who wants to know any kind of history. Your attention to detail is astounding!
JL: Thanks! I just kind of felt that the story kind-of got told so many times that it was just not told with any detail. There's so much to it, like how it wasn't just one week where the band formed. It took two weeks actually for the band to form. All that... I felt like I knew a bunch of stuff that, sort-of, nobody had talked about so I wanted to put it out there in the guys' own words.
KD: And the thing that I love about the PJ fan experience, particularly that relates to that, is Jess I think you've shown me that binder when you're at my house one year for a show. Maybe it was '03 or something, and you had some little calendars and I was just like literally losing my mind over the thing. And just said 'Jess nobody has this perspective.' Just all the people you were able to talk to through various means, and just that perspective alone is a story that needs to be told, whatever story you're gonna tell. How grateful am I to have the TwoFeetThick.com production stamp on that. It's true that it goes along with our passion and the level to which we take things as fans. We're all doing the right thing. If Eddie hadn't took that leap we wouldn't be here... And to have that inspiration and to use our powers for good, if you will...
JL: Well thanks Kath. And it's funny that it just grew out of... When I was talking to Ed and he said 'On the third day I got locked out and wrote Oceans and I had figured out what day he had got there so suddenly I knew exactly the date that Oceans was written.
I don't know why facts like that are interesting to me, but I wanted to put them all down in sequence because it was just this jumble. And it felt like it needed to be sort-of straightened out. I just like to have it as a record, you know? So that's where it came from.
JR: I think it's super helpful too for the next generation of fans that are coming up, cause I was... whatever, I was I think 20 in 1990. So I mean I was cognizant of things that were going on. I didn't hear them until '91 but 20 years later everybody kind-of wants to go back and relive it, you know? It's why we like documentaries. It's why we like history shows. So you know we're not gonna find out this information from... You're gonna find it out from the band or somebody else that knows a lot about them. And Jess as you said,... Hearing the story sometimes from other writers or less credible sources... To hear it from a fan of 20 years who's done the things you've done. You know we're grateful that you shared it with us.
JL: Well thanks JR. I think we've all read a lot of stories... In various magazines and stuff, or just wherever... I think you might concur that most things are just sort of incomplete or just kind of... They gloss over the major points of things... Or (they are) downright kind-of wrong. And I guess part of it is I got a little frustrated with that. Cause if you are looking at every article you can start to see the pattern of what's true. I just wanna be able to put out 'Here's exactly what happened...' It was kind-of this thing I had to do... I didn't know if I was going to release it... I was always writing it for years and years and I finally felt like I had the one year of the puzzle complete enough to show people.
KD: Yeah it's just about her getting tired of me harassing her to do something about it.
*laughter*
KD: *emphatically* COME OOOONNN! Jessica!
END PART II.
For part III of the transcript follow this link: http://community.pearljam.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=144001&p=3355679#p3355679
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
A LOT of work. So much appreciated HH
Send my credentials to the house of detention
Is there a chance of the 2007 European tour getting bootleg realeses?
But can someone point blank ask:
Have you made a conscious decision to announce shows in blocks and sell tickets to these shows before making the entire tour schedule pulbic, in an effort to increase 10c ticket sales?
There are only so many questions Tim can even answer, but as 10c President this is one he certaintly can handle.
Thanks!