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The Name Pearl Jam

PJammer4lifePJammer4life Los Angeles Posts: 2,657
edited September 2008 in The Porch
All these years have we overlooked the sly humor Eddie, Jeff, Mike, and Stone have in using the name Pearl Jam?? It is obviously a take on pearl(an off white color) and jam(semen). From guys who used to hang with the Jim Rose Circus and the RHCP,,this makes much more sense than Aunt Pearl's Hallucigenic recipe..and even Ed's recent explanations. I mean it's hard to be the best rock band in American history and go back and say..yeah..we thought it would be funny to name ourselves afer jizz...but anyone think they thought the double meaning would be funny..??
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  • mattmidgettmattmidgett Posts: 130
    Wasn't this term recently used on a TV show? Californication or It's Always Sunny in Philly? I have a friend who isn't in to the band at all call and ask me if this is how the band came to be named Pearl Jam.
  • Stone IronsStone Irons Posts: 430
    Well, according to the band it doesn't refer to that at all.
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  • youngsteryoungster Boston Posts: 6,576
    no one in or affiliated with the band has ever gave an explanation to where the name came from.Ed said it was his Great grandma Pearls jam recipe early on, but later said he was joking.
    He who forgets will be destined to remember.

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  • this is not for youthis is not for you Posts: 240
    Stone Irons wrote:
    Well, according to the band it doesn't refer to that at all.


    just like immortality's not about cobain....;)
  • The StugotsThe Stugots Posts: 306
    mattmidgett wrote:
    Wasn't this term recently used on a TV show? Californication or It's Always Sunny in Philly? I have a friend who isn't in to the band at all call and ask me if this is how the band came to be named Pearl Jam.

    It was Weeds.
  • petrocspetrocs Posts: 4,342
    come on people...everyone knows its an anagram...its clearly

    Per Jamal

    so someone named Jamal named the band :D
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  • jstockjstock Posts: 76
    They did finally explain the name (supposedly), in a 2006 RS interview:

    http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/pearl_jam_the_second_coming/page/3

    Legend has it that Vedder wrote the lyrics to the songs in one burst, while surfing. That particular story, he tells me in his Chicago hotel room, is "100 percent true." But he concedes that another oft-told tale is less accurate: that the name Pearl Jam came from Vedder's great-grandmother Pearl, who, he used to claim, was married to an American Indian and was in the habit of making preserves spiked with various hallucinogenics. His great-grandma really was named Pearl. The rest is, indeed, "total bulllshit."

    Told of Vedder's admission, Ament and McCready seem relieved. They cough up the true -- if less romantic -- tale behind the band's name. Brainstorming in a Seattle restaurant to come up with something, anything, to replace their original name, Mookie Blaylock (inspired by the NBA star), Ament came up with "pearl." The band didn't settle on the second half of its name until a 1991 trip to New York to sign a deal with Epic Records. Gossard, Vedder and Ament drove out to see Neil Young play Nassau Coliseum. "He played, like, nine songs over three hours. Every song was like a fifteen- or twenty-minute jam," says Ament. "So that's how 'jam' got added on to the name. Or at least that's how I remember it."
  • petrocspetrocs Posts: 4,342
    jstock wrote:
    They did finally explain the name (supposedly), in a 2006 RS interview:

    http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/pearl_jam_the_second_coming/page/3

    Legend has it that Vedder wrote the lyrics to the songs in one burst, while surfing. That particular story, he tells me in his Chicago hotel room, is "100 percent true." But he concedes that another oft-told tale is less accurate: that the name Pearl Jam came from Vedder's great-grandmother Pearl, who, he used to claim, was married to an American Indian and was in the habit of making preserves spiked with various hallucinogenics. His great-grandma really was named Pearl. The rest is, indeed, "total bulllshit."

    Told of Vedder's admission, Ament and McCready seem relieved. They cough up the true -- if less romantic -- tale behind the band's name. Brainstorming in a Seattle restaurant to come up with something, anything, to replace their original name, Mookie Blaylock (inspired by the NBA star), Ament came up with "pearl." The band didn't settle on the second half of its name until a 1991 trip to New York to sign a deal with Epic Records. Gossard, Vedder and Ament drove out to see Neil Young play Nassau Coliseum. "He played, like, nine songs over three hours. Every song was like a fifteen- or twenty-minute jam," says Ament. "So that's how 'jam' got added on to the name. Or at least that's how I remember it."

    was Jamal there? :)
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  • pearljamjenpearljamjen Posts: 13,578
    petrocs wrote:
    was Jamal there? :)

    lol is that YOUR name or something? :p;)
  • pc_loadletterpc_loadletter Posts: 164
    mattmidgett wrote:
    Wasn't this term recently used on a TV show? Californication or It's Always Sunny in Philly? I have a friend who isn't in to the band at all call and ask me if this is how the band came to be named Pearl Jam.


    weeds
  • JimBerkellJimBerkell Posts: 579
    I guess I've always thought the name 'Pearl Jam' to be goofy. I've just gotten so used to it over the last 17 years, I don't even question it. But I have to wonder if I hadn't heard their music or of the band(i know that's impossible) I may not think to check them out these days just cause of the goofy name... Luckily that doesn't matter... haha.
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  • ViggoViggo Posts: 274
    I heard of Pearl Jam at the same time the movie Space Jam came out (the one with bugs bunny and Michael Jordan). My first album was Pearl Jam - Live on Two Legs. I thought it was something connected to the movie. Soundtrack or something.

    Haha:D
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  • SENROCKSENROCK Posts: 10,736
    cropduster82 wrote:
    no one in or affiliated with the band has ever gave an explanation to where the name came from.
    i dont ever do this here but in this case i have to say......WRONG!!! And only cuz its funny. Ed DID give the exxxplanation to the name at the irvine show in 2003. He motioned with his hands as if he was placing something on a wall and said "all we were after was good initials.......*motioning* good....initials......." then he looked over at Phil Jackson. :D
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  • Left PorchLeft Porch Posts: 846
    PJammer4life wrote:
    All these years have we overlooked the sly humor Eddie, Jeff, Mike, and Stone have in using the name Pearl Jam?? It is obviously a take on pearl(an off white color) and jam(semen). From guys who used to hang with the Jim Rose Circus and the RHCP,,this makes much more sense than Aunt Pearl's Hallucigenic recipe..and even Ed's recent explanations. I mean it's hard to be the best rock band in American history and go back and say..yeah..we thought it would be funny to name ourselves afer jizz...but anyone think they thought the double meaning would be funny..??

    That's pretty funny stuff, I'll go with it. They were named Mookie Blaylock before Pearl Jam, so it's not like they take the name too seriously.
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  • GivenToJam88GivenToJam88 NJ Posts: 1,187
    pc_loadletter wrote:
    weeds

    which episode?
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  • NoonieNoonie Posts: 93
    Well I heard the name Pearl Jam before I could speak English, so I always kind of took it as is... I wonder if they realized what it sounds like to people after it was too late, lol.
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  • PJammer4lifePJammer4life Los Angeles Posts: 2,657
    Ed: "We should call the band Pearl Necklace..that would be funny..
    Jeff: "Nah..it should have something related to music..like Neil Young and his long ass jams.."
    Stone: "How about Pearl Jam??"
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  • youngsteryoungster Boston Posts: 6,576
    SENROCK! wrote:
    i dont ever do this here but in this case i have to say......WRONG!!! And only cuz its funny. Ed DID give the exxxplanation to the name at the irvine show in 2003. He motioned with his hands as if he was placing something on a wall and said "all we were after was good initials.......*motioning* good....initials......." then he looked over at Phil Jackson. :D

    Never saw the show or heard the boot so I stand corrected. I read a book and countless mag articles about it and it said in all of them that the name has never been explained on how they came to that. So I was going off of that.
    He who forgets will be destined to remember.

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  • Lerxst1992Lerxst1992 Posts: 6,936
    jstock said:
    They did finally explain the name (supposedly), in a 2006 RS interview:

    http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/pearl_jam_the_second_coming/page/3

    Legend has it that Vedder wrote the lyrics to the songs in one burst, while surfing. That particular story, he tells me in his Chicago hotel room, is "100 percent true." But he concedes that another oft-told tale is less accurate: that the name Pearl Jam came from Vedder's great-grandmother Pearl, who, he used to claim, was married to an American Indian and was in the habit of making preserves spiked with various hallucinogenics. His great-grandma really was named Pearl. The rest is, indeed, "total bulllshit."

    Told of Vedder's admission, Ament and McCready seem relieved. They cough up the true -- if less romantic -- tale behind the band's name. Brainstorming in a Seattle restaurant to come up with something, anything, to replace their original name, Mookie Blaylock (inspired by the NBA star), Ament came up with "pearl." The band didn't settle on the second half of its name until a 1991 trip to New York to sign a deal with Epic Records. Gossard, Vedder and Ament drove out to see Neil Young play Nassau Coliseum. "He played, like, nine songs over three hours. Every song was like a fifteen- or twenty-minute jam," says Ament. "So that's how 'jam' got added on to the name. Or at least that's how I remember it."

    Damn, I never heard this story until this morning surfing reddit. I was at that show,at the genesis of PJ! Neil was incredible in the early 90s!
  • EnterThanmanEnterThanman London, ON Posts: 1,057
    youngster said:
    no one in or affiliated with the band has ever gave an explanation to where the name came from.Ed said it was his Great grandma Pearls jam recipe early on, but later said he was joking.
    Not true. Stone has said they wanted to work the word Pearl in because they all liked it, and then after they watched a Neil Young concert they added the word jam. It’s a boring enough story to be true, but I like the OP’s version much more. 
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  • Lerxst1992Lerxst1992 Posts: 6,936
    EnterThanman said:
    youngster said:
    no one in or affiliated with the band has ever gave an explanation to where the name came from.Ed said it was his Great grandma Pearls jam recipe early on, but later said he was joking.
    Not true. Stone has said they wanted to work the word Pearl in because they all liked it, and then after they watched a Neil Young concert they added the word jam. It’s a boring enough story to be true, but I like the OP’s version much more. 

    I revived this old thread with a reply immediately above your comment that gives the story. Neil killed it in the early 90s and sonic youth was also a treat back then.

    For those of us in the building when this happened, it's pretty damned exciting.. I just found out this morning 27 years later ;-)' Damn wish I knew to hang out with the cool west coast guys with the long hair.
  • PB11041PB11041 Earth Posts: 2,815
    There is an additional article out there in some music magazine, where Ament was even more specific.  The Neil and Crazy horse concert placed them in a different venue than Nassau Coliseum, I seem to recall it was either in San Francisco or Seattle and the quote that Ament gave was that they were at the show and during a break he actually said "that was a pearl jam man" and either or Gossard or Vedder or both picked up on it and ran with it.
    His eminence has yet to show. 
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  • mace1229mace1229 Posts: 9,581
    I don't remember where I got this from, but I always assumed the name was a way to give the record company the middle finger for not letting them name it Mookie. It was like "Hey, if we can't use the name we want, we'll just name it semen then" sort of thing.
  • ShakesckyShakescky Posts: 343
    PB11041 said:
    There is an additional article out there in some music magazine, where Ament was even more specific.  The Neil and Crazy horse concert placed them in a different venue than Nassau Coliseum, I seem to recall it was either in San Francisco or Seattle and the quote that Ament gave was that they were at the show and during a break he actually said "that was a pearl jam man" and either or Gossard or Vedder or both picked up on it and ran with it.
    Do you have a source (Magazine name, issue number, etc) for this quote?

    Jeff Ament's retelling of the name would place them at Nassau Coliseum on 22 February, 1991. Neil Young & Crazy Horse's Smell The Horse tour placed them in the Seattle Center Coliseum on 11 April, 1991. Your recalling of San Francisco would be the show at the Cow Palace in Daly City on 6 April, 1991.

    Pearl Jam, then known as Mookie Blaylock if we are going by Ament's recollection, last known documented studio session was 29 January, 1991 at London Bridge Studios in Shoreline, Washington. The next known gathering at the same studio was on 11 March, 1991 to start production on Ten, and the new name would have been Pearl Jam given Ament and Eddie Vedder were on KISW's New Music Hour a day prior announcing the band's name change.
    i have witnessed some performances. i have soaked up a lot of memories.
  • Gern BlanstenGern Blansten Mar-A-Lago Posts: 21,401
    EnterThanman said:
    youngster said:
    no one in or affiliated with the band has ever gave an explanation to where the name came from.Ed said it was his Great grandma Pearls jam recipe early on, but later said he was joking.
    Not true. Stone has said they wanted to work the word Pearl in because they all liked it, and then after they watched a Neil Young concert they added the word jam. It’s a boring enough story to be true, but I like the OP’s version much more. 
    Pearl has an ocean reference to it....makes sense
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  • PB11041PB11041 Earth Posts: 2,815
    mace1229 said:
    I don't remember where I got this from, but I always assumed the name was a way to give the record company the middle finger for not letting them name it Mookie. It was like "Hey, if we can't use the name we want, we'll just name it semen then" sort of thing.
    It wasn't the record company that said no, it was Mookie Blaylock that said no.
    His eminence has yet to show. 
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  • karl_chihirokarl_chihiro Posts: 446
    PB11041 said:
    mace1229 said:
    I don't remember where I got this from, but I always assumed the name was a way to give the record company the middle finger for not letting them name it Mookie. It was like "Hey, if we can't use the name we want, we'll just name it semen then" sort of thing.
    It wasn't the record company that said no, it was Mookie Blaylock that said no.
    Correct
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  • PB11041PB11041 Earth Posts: 2,815
    Shakescky said:
    PB11041 said:
    There is an additional article out there in some music magazine, where Ament was even more specific.  The Neil and Crazy horse concert placed them in a different venue than Nassau Coliseum, I seem to recall it was either in San Francisco or Seattle and the quote that Ament gave was that they were at the show and during a break he actually said "that was a pearl jam man" and either or Gossard or Vedder or both picked up on it and ran with it.
    Do you have a source (Magazine name, issue number, etc) for this quote?

    Jeff Ament's retelling of the name would place them at Nassau Coliseum on 22 February, 1991. Neil Young & Crazy Horse's Smell The Horse tour placed them in the Seattle Center Coliseum on 11 April, 1991. Your recalling of San Francisco would be the show at the Cow Palace in Daly City on 6 April, 1991.

    Pearl Jam, then known as Mookie Blaylock if we are going by Ament's recollection, last known documented studio session was 29 January, 1991 at London Bridge Studios in Shoreline, Washington. The next known gathering at the same studio was on 11 March, 1991 to start production on Ten, and the new name would have been Pearl Jam given Ament and Eddie Vedder were on KISW's New Music Hour a day prior announcing the band's name change.
    I would have been much more specific had my memory worked in that fashion.  I've actually been trying to resurface the article it was discussed in for a while and never have been able to find it.  The timeline that puts them in NY is plausible, but somewhat tricky.  They were doing a small tour in support of Alice in Chains and they had a show in Portland Oregon on February 20, and then in Seattle on the 25th and 26th.  But in terms of it being San Fran or Seattle that clearly makes no sense given the timeline.  I still want to find that article because he definitely indicated it was said as "it/that was a pearl jam"
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  • mace1229mace1229 Posts: 9,581
    PB11041 said:
    mace1229 said:
    I don't remember where I got this from, but I always assumed the name was a way to give the record company the middle finger for not letting them name it Mookie. It was like "Hey, if we can't use the name we want, we'll just name it semen then" sort of thing.
    It wasn't the record company that said no, it was Mookie Blaylock that said no.
    Well yeah, it would be up to him. But I thought they were told via the record company or their lawyers that it wasn't going to be allowed, not Mookie directly. 
    Anyway, I don't remember where I heard that or if it was something I just assumed. I don't believe any of the stories about liking the word "Pearl" or anything like that, it clearly was meant as a joke or dig at something. Saying "Pearl Jam" was innocent and just sounded fun is like trying to say "devil's triangle" is just an innocent game. 
  • PB11041PB11041 Earth Posts: 2,815
    mace1229 said:
    PB11041 said:
    mace1229 said:
    I don't remember where I got this from, but I always assumed the name was a way to give the record company the middle finger for not letting them name it Mookie. It was like "Hey, if we can't use the name we want, we'll just name it semen then" sort of thing.
    It wasn't the record company that said no, it was Mookie Blaylock that said no.
    Well yeah, it would be up to him. But I thought they were told via the record company or their lawyers that it wasn't going to be allowed, not Mookie directly. 
    Anyway, I don't remember where I heard that or if it was something I just assumed. I don't believe any of the stories about liking the word "Pearl" or anything like that, it clearly was meant as a joke or dig at something. Saying "Pearl Jam" was innocent and just sounded fun is like trying to say "devil's triangle" is just an innocent game. 
    It is possible, but to say that it was clearly something that purely speculative when their evidence to the contrary doesn't really float.
    His eminence has yet to show. 
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