Article - New Haven Register - Does anybody think TEN is a Zeppelin rip-off?

New Haven Register, Conn., Patrick Ferrucci column: CLEARING THE DESK
By Patrick Ferrucci, New Haven Register, Conn.
McClatchy-Tribune Regional News

27 June 2008
New Haven Register (MCT)

Distributed by McClatchy - Tribune Information Services.

Jun. 27--IKNOW that I mostly just try to be funny in this space, humorous while still delivering news and notes. But sometimes you'll have to forgive me when I get a little sentimental. This is one of those times.

Every generation has a band that it can call its own, a group that will always be most closely associated with that age group. My parents had The Beatles, even though my Dad has an unhealthy infatuation with Alice Cooper . Another generation has Led Zeppelin. Kids today have Miley Cyrus. The list goes on. And no band is more closely related to the folks called

Generation X than Pearl Jam . According to an old article in Time, people born between 1965 and 1982 are what we'd call Generation X. Now, I came to this world in the later part of that period; you know, sometime in 1979. I would argue that the bands you first start to truly love when you're a kid are the ones you most closely relate to yourself.

For example, I can't get enough Okkervil River these days, but I only started listening to that band in the early part of this century, sometime in my early 20s. I first saw Eddie Vedder on MTV News when I was 12, during some special on Seattle music, and a couple months after "Ten" hit stores.

I have no idea why Eddie and the rest of Pearl Jam made me want to buy that record almost a year before the band got popular. Maybe it was because my friend Paul was sitting next to me and he'd already taken to "Nevermind" earlier than anyone else we knew, and that was a disc that I never could get into. Maybe it was because I listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin then, and "Ten," admittedly, is a Zeppelin rip-off. I'm not sure.

What I do know is that growing up, no two bands influenced what I listen to more than Pearl Jam and R.E.M. Now, Michael Stipe and company started making music when I was a wee tike, and I never got into the band until "Green," when the 9-yearold me made my parents buy "the album with 'Stand'" on it.

But I've followed Pearl Jam from the beginning, and, in a way, we've grown up together. So I'll always have a special place in my heart for the group.

And that's why I'll be at the Dodge Music Center tonight, even though, deep inside, I'm more excited to see opener Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. I still love Pearl Jam, and the group's show at the Dodge in 2006, with My Morning Jacket, is probably the best gig I've seen at the venue.

When "Ten" came out in August of 1991, a month before "Nevermind," I was listening to random bands that MTV played regularly, and "cool" acts that my friend's older brother tried to get us to love. I really didn't have anything that I found on my own and really dug, unless you count Poison or something else embarrassing. When I first bought "Ten" at 12, it really was the first record I bought from a band that I discovered for myself, that I listened to before it got huge. I liked the album a lot, but, really, it's got a decent amount of filler on it and the critic in me knows that its main contemporary, "Nevermind," is a better disc. But when I skipped school to buy "Vs." in October of 1993, I purchased an album that deserves as many five-star reviews as it got, a disc that is easily the best record of the so-called grunge canon. It's perfect. "Vs." is still, easily, Pearl Jam's finest moment.

That sophomore masterpiece still comes up in my frequently played playlist on my iPod, but, unfortunately, nothing else really does.

After "Vs.," the band and I kind of grew apart. When "Vitalogy" became available very late in 1994, I was already onto acts that Pearl Jam opened the doors for, older bands like Dinosaur Jr., Flaming Lips and Uncle Tupelo . But I kept buying Pearl Jam records, and they kept getting worse until the 2006 selftitled comeback, which is truly a very good album, one that got me excited to see the guys at the 2006 show in Hartford.

The band hasn't released anything since then, and, so far, that's meant a lot of older tunes in setlists for this tour, which is something to get excited about. And come tonight, my friend Brandon Kinne , someone else who grew up with Pearl Jam, and I will be at the Dodge, ready to relive our childhoods, but also living in the present, just wanting to see Ted Leo in such a big venue.

6 YEARS OF SOFA

If you sat on a sofa for six straight years, you'd be seriously out of shape and, probably, fat. That'd stink. But six years of Songs from the Sofa, well, that's a good thing. And the Sofa host/founder Frank Critelli will celebrate the anniversary of his popular acoustic series at Books & Co. with acoustic performances by The Manchurians and The Furors at 7 tonight at the Hamden bookstore. I'll be at Pearl Jam, but if you're not going to Hartford, be in Hamden.

SOFTBALL UPDATE

You know how sometimes your friends give you the best presents ever? Well, I'd like to thank my buddy Jon Edwards for striking out Chris DePino.

You see, my friend Chris was doing a whole of trash talking during Jack's Bar and Grill's game against DePino Associates, and then Jon struck out Chris ... in slow-pitch softball. It was a moment I will treasure forever.

When Umpire Bruce Shepard made the out call, my heart filled with happiness, just like when we won the game.

We lost the second game of a doubleheader to Fireside, but we won't talk about that. My heart didn't fill during that one.

And that's it. I'm done. Enjoy the early fireworks displays and all the music this weekend. I'll be back next Friday and until then, um, be happy?