Pearl Jam songs make me nauseous

[Ben Clarke]

It's really more a post about joining a new band and then being asked to play songs that make you sick. I would have declined the initial meetup if these 2 songs were on their list.

The list for the 1st meeting were more trad classic rock stuff -
Born to be Wild
Born on a Bayou
Hard to handle
Hush
Suffragette City
Sympathy for the Devil
Jumping Jack Flash
Superstition
Gimme Shelter
Roadhouse Blues
Breakdown
White Wedding
Running Down a Dream
Baba O'Reilly

That kind of stuff ..

I'd rather jump off something very, very high in the dark rather than play that list, but that's just me, and I sure wouldn't want to yuck on your yum.

If you want to play covers, I think unless it's your band, you're gonna play some stuff that you don't like. Hell, even in my original band there are some tunes that I have to find something to focus on to keep me engaged and interested.

I think it's perfectly fine to talk to the band about the associations these songs have for you. If you communicate reasonably, there should be no problem especially if you are willing to play them but would just rather not.

As far as them being pretty much the same bass line, I think your aversion to the music is clouding your perception there, which is understandable.

 

[Rdore2000]

Can't stand any of that myself lol.

 

[scrubhelmet]

I will say - Grunge was one of my favs but honestly it has lost its flare for me because at the end of the day it isn't "obscure" anymore. My generation will discover Nirvana at 17 and act like they are some kind of musical genius and it hurts my head. Grunge was a marketing strategy at the end of the day.

Yeah, I think the bands involved in 'grunge' - Nirvana, PJ, AiC, some even include STP - didn't even like being boxed in a term. They were against the dominant music in the late 80s, hair metal and glam rock, and just wanted to play music in their own supposedly unassuming way. They didn't even bother to clothe themselves differently, but then the marketing team labeled this as 'grunge fashion'.

One thing I like with what Kurt and his bandmates did with their fame is to express their dissent against misogyny, machismo, and racism.

 

[Ostie]

I’m not a fan of PJ but I don’t dislike them either. I just can’t understand what Eddie is saying when he sings.

 

[FretRiff]

I just stared playing with a new band. First meeting went well, basic classic rock up to 90s rock.

After the meet we got a group text wanting to add Alive and Even Flow for the next meeting. I tried but both of these songs make me nauseous when I listen to them.

Today 90s music is somewhere between classic rock and oldies to most people. (The U.S. median age is 39, and ~ a quarter of the population is under 18.)

And the music before that? The rock music probably most beloved on TB (from what I've seen on 'What are you listening to?' threads) is literally what people listen to in retirement homes. I visited a friend in one who will never recover enough from a stroke to be independent, and I heard CSNY, Dylan and the Stones coming out of peoples' rooms. (When I was a kid and visited relatives the facility would pipe in a BM/EZ radio station.)

As for Pearl Jam if you dislike them you're in company with Kurt Cobain who famously hated the band for years (although some of that was down to a rivalry as both were local bands who exploded around the same time).



I first heard Pearl Jam around the time I heard similar bands from the scene/sound: Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Alice in Chains, L7, Babes in Toyland, The Melvins. But Pearl Jam and The Melvins (one of Cobain's fave bands) never did anything for me.

 

[Gorf]

Yes, I like them. But regardless of that, If you’re going to do 90s rock it will be pretty hard to skip PJ.

Exactly, anyone who skips PJ Harvey is numb, obviously. Lol

Cant stand them. Saw them before they “broke”

Considering I’d been spit on in the face by Anthony Kedis a few years before, and lived through the first punk movement, Pearl Jam was merely Frat Rock in my opinion. And it really was.

Not my cuppa…

 

[BuddhaFingas]

I tried but both of these songs make me nauseous when I listen to them.

That means it's working.

 

[Spectrum]

I just stared playing with a new band. First meeting went well, basic classic rock up to 90s rock.

After the meet we got a group text wanting to add Alive and Even Flow for the next meeting. I tried but both of these songs make me nauseous when I listen to them.

Reminds me when I was a kid and my father had an old Pontiac that leaked carbon monoxide into the back seat.


They both seem like the same song in a different key.
Do you guys like these songs?

I'm kind of indifferent on the subject of Pearl Jam but your post made me laugh, and that's about as much as I can expect from a TB thread anyway, so thumbs up dude. And go easy on old Pontiacs, sometimes you just gotta open the windows.

 

[roccobass]

I appreciate PJs musicianship, however I wouldn't want to play their stuff personally.
It's Eddie Vedder that puzzles me. Does anyone else have a problem understanding what the heck he's saying on a lot of the PJ tunes? I really hate his voice. When the description mumblespeak comes up, I picture him.

Truly, if you don't like the tunes they picked, say something.

 

[oldrocker]

I'm kind of indifferent on the subject of Pearl Jam but your post made me laugh, and that's about as much as I can expect from a TB thread anyway, so thumbs up dude. And go easy on old Pontiacs, sometimes you just gotta open the windows.

I remember my father saying "stick your head out the window if you're going to throw up" - LOL. This was a long time ago when the back windows rolled all the way down.

 

[jkm2a]

Depends on your perspective and position, I guess. I recently joined a classic rock group after a 20+ year layoff, not playing with any other musicians during that time period and doing extremely little playing on my own. I ran across some old friends a little over a year ago and had an opportunity to get involved with them, and I'm really enjoying it. The group itself has existed for several years in various (and rather flexible) lineups, and it is almost entirely what could be considered classic rock with a few touches of R&B and country thrown in for additional flavor. A lot of what we do is not stuff I would be interested in listening to if I sat down to listen to music that I have enjoyed over much of my life, but I joined the group, the group did not join me. Since they have been established for some time and had an extensive repertoire already, as far as I'm concerned they call the shots and select most of what we play. The thing is, playing with this group has taught me somewhat of a new respect for what I used to regard as a lot of "old, boring radio music". A lot of it is stuff I have dismissed or overlooked over the years due to it not fitting into what I listened to or played as a younger man, but playing it in a new situation and with a more open mind than I previously had, I am finding that a lot of this "dismissed" music has value and presents playing challenges that I never recognized before, and has provided me with a whole new range of music that I would never have gotten to experience as my older self with my narrower outlook. So, for me, letting someone else call the shots has turned out to be mostly a win.

 

[corndog]

We play both. Alive empties the dance floor pretty quick.

Even Flow seems to go over well enough, but isn’t much fun to play. It’s easy enough to give me time to see what’s going on around the venue.

 

[faulknersj]

I just stared playing with a new band. First meeting went well, basic classic rock up to 90s rock.

After the meet we got a group text wanting to add Alive and Even Flow for the next meeting. I tried but both of these songs make me nauseous when I listen to them.

Reminds me when I was a kid and my father had an old Pontiac that leaked carbon monoxide into the back seat.


They both seem like the same song in a different key.
Do you guys like these songs?

Yes.

 

[lunarpollen]

I could never stand them or any band that sounded even remotely like them. Any vocal style that approaches yarling makes me nauseous.

Back around the time of that album's release, there really wasn't much contemporaneous American music that I enjoyed. There was a Violent Femmes album at that time that I really loved. The Breeders' first album was something I enjoyed despite the production, which I did not. I loved just about everything that I heard from the Fastbacks. Just about everything else US-based circa 1991 that I enjoyed generally consisted of one-off singles or EPs by random bands. I much preferred stuff that was coming out of the UK. And that is something that largely stayed true throughout the 1990s. But that's just me; my personal tastes and preferences don't align with most people's...

Anyway, I would not want to play covers of songs that I despised, unless they were being completely sonically reworked to remove the offending qualities and replace them with more appealing elements.

 

[LiptonJigglers]

I just stared playing with a new band. First meeting went well, basic classic rock up to 90s rock.

After the meet we got a group text wanting to add Alive and Even Flow for the next meeting. I tried but both of these songs make me nauseous when I listen to them.

Reminds me when I was a kid and my father had an old Pontiac that leaked carbon monoxide into the back seat.


They both seem like the same song in a different key.
Do you guys like these songs?

Pearl Jam and Cold Play. Each time I hear them I always find myself asking "what did I do to deserve this?"
Alas, sometimes we have to play songs that the majority want to, even if there's 10 billion better songs to choose from.

 

[Marley's Ghost]

It could be worse. They could be covering Jeremy.

 

[dune]

I'd rather jump off something very, very high in the dark rather than play that list, but that's just me,

It's not just you.

 

[pklima]

Now you've reminded me of a comic about a Pearl Jam tribute band called Hurl Spam.

You're welcome.

 

[Dincrest]

@pbass2 Heh, I would have been the opposite- hands over my ears during PJ Harvey's set and agonizingly counting down the minutes until Live came on. I respect PJ Harvey's artistry, but the sound of her voice grates like nails on a chalkboard to me. On the other hand, Live is one of my favorite bands. Their lyrics and songcraft are next-level. And Patrick Dahlheimer is a killer bassist. Since your wife likes Live, allow me to compliment her excellent taste in music.

And @oldrocker gripe about "it's just the same bass line in a different key" about a couple of songs makes me shrug my shoulders because not only are there are a lot of soundalike hit songs out there (that I'm sure many of us have enjoyed), but many lauded bands kinda do that too. Look at Iron Maiden. Many of us love the band and list Steve Harris is a favorite bassist, but once you figure out the "box" he uses on the fretboard, you can decipher a lot of his basslines. I could argue that Steve Harris has more "samey" basslines than Jeff Ament's more diverse playing.

Or you can argue that if you know the major and minor pentatonic scales, you can decipher a lot of John Entwhistle's bass lines, since he heavily favored those scales.

Look at all these songs that do some kind of variation on what's colloquially called the "Elec Man chord progression" (named from the Elecman stage music in the 8-bit Nintendo game Mega Man)

And, in general, if you play in a cover band (or even a famous originals band), you will have to play songs you either dislike or are sick and tired of playing for the 50th night in a row. Because that's what the audience wants to hear. They want to jam along to their favorite songs. As an entertainer, you gotta keep the audience there. They're paying you to entertain them after all. If the audience leaves, demands their money back, and blasts you on social media... there goes your music career.

And if you're in a cover band that does 90s rock... you gotta bite the bullet and play Pearl Jam. They are iconic. Nirvana might have opened the floodgates for 90s rock, but Pearl Jam had the more enduring influence. A lot of 2000s bands who broke out were far more influenced by Pearl Jam.

 

[dougjwray]

I can't remember any time that I refused to play a song in a cover band because I didn't like it. I guess I've always embraced the effort of learning new material as part of working on my craft.
However, if the *message* of the song bothers me, I have a harder time. One bandleader went on a Charlie Daniels kick and decided that we should play "The South Will Rise Again" precisely during the aftermath of the George Floyd murder in May 2020. Now, I do believe that it was a coincidence. And I have no evidence whatsoever that Daniels himself was a racist. And the song is not explicitly racist. But it's a Confederate flag waver, and the timing was insensitive and awful. I mentioned this to the bandleader ("Ummm... this might not be the best time for this song...") but he didn't get it.