Ronen Givony - Not for You: Pearl Jam and the Present Tense

Not for You

Pearl Jam and the Present Tense

Not for You

Pearl Jam and the Present Tense

Ronen Givony

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC

Bloomsbury Publishing Inc

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First published in the United States of America 2021

Copyright Ronen Givony, 2021

Cover image: Lance Mercer

Cover design: Zan Emerson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Givony, Ronen, author.

Title: Not for you : Pearl Jam and the present tense / Ronen Givony.

Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: The first critical and comprehensive overview of Pearl Jam from 1990 to the present Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020028388 (print) | LCCN 2020028389 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501360688 (hardback) | ISBN 9781501360671 (paperback) | ISBN 9781501360695 (epub) | ISBN 9781501360701 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Pearl Jam (Musical group) | Grunge musicUnited StatesHistory and criticism.

Classification: LCC ML421.P43 G5 2020 (print) | LCC ML421.P43 (ebook) | DDC 782.42166092/2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020028388

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020028389

ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-6068-8

PB: 978-1-5013-6067-1

ePDF: 978-1-5013-6070-1

eBook: 978-1-5013-6069-5

Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.

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The art of music is undeniably the one of all others which gives rise to the strangest passions, the absurdest ambitions. I will even say, to the most peculiar fixation. Of the unfortunates who are locked up in mental hospitals, those who think themselves Neptune or Jupiter are easily recognized as lunatics; but there are many others who enjoy complete freedom, whose parents have never considered resorting to psychiatric treatment, but whose madness is evident. Music has unsettled their brain.

Hector Berlioz, The Musical Madhouse (1859)

It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.

It has to face the men of the time and to meet

The women of the time. It has to think about war

And it has to find what will suffice. It has

To construct a new stage.

Wallace Stevens, Of Modern Poetry (1942)

That song is about getting hit in the face, turning your cheek, and getting hit again. [Applause.] Come to think of it: all the songs are about that.

Moore Theatre, Seattle (1995)

Also by the Author

24 Hour Revenge Therapy

(or, The Strange Death of Selling Out)

Contents

First, a confession, and a caveat: Ive only seen them fifty-seven times.

A confession, because to most well-adjusted people, this number will seemdepending on your taste in musicalternately obsessive, excruciating, or absurd, and rightly so. After all: to see an artist five times in concert suggests loyalty. To see an artist ten times, implies dedicationnot to mention, disposable income. But once youre north ofsaytwenty-five shows, its safe to say youre out of sync with most responsible adultsnot that thats always a bad thing.

And yet, a caveat. As far as Pearl Jam people go, Im fairly middle of the roadmore journeyman than mastercompared to the people way up front, or on the rail. Among this group, its almost common: meeting otherwise sensible people, who have seen 100 Pearl Jam shows; who take entire months off work, to catch every show, anywhere in the world; who can tell you what the band performed, and where, on any given day in the last three decades. In other words: there are people who would scoff at you for presuming to write a book after fifty-seven shows, and I dont disagree; Im embarrassed to be such a dilettante, myself.

***

By most measures, I am your typical Pearl Jam fan. To quote a favorite song: I am speaking as a child of the 90s: born in 1978, and about to turn thirteen, when the video for Alive debuted, in 1991. Two years later, I was one of the 950,000 who bought their second album, Vs., the week it came out. With my friends in the ninth grade, we debated Nirvana, Weezer, and Nine Inch Nailswho was authentic, and who had sold outand understood or suspected that something unusual was happening in music, and youth culture at large. I finished high school in 1997; saw my first showinexcusably lateon the Yield tour; graduated college, in 2001; and started seeing them in earnest, only in 2003. Most of allto quote them once againI am, for better and worse, W.M.A.: white, male, American. (Jewish, secular, and left of Bernie Sanders; but W.M.A. all the same.)

And yet, by other measuresto flatter myself, perhapsI am also your less typical fan. For most of my life, my career has been in music, but not, shall we say, the kind that Pearl Jam plays. I work in classical musicthe orchestra worldor what some would call modern classical: not exactly ground zero for Pearl Jam fanatics. At home, Im likelier to listen to Bach, Beethoven, or Boards of Canada, than I am to rock music. I studied English and American literature, and wrote a thesis on the contemporary novel, at a college that rhymes with jail. Given one recording, to take to an island, it wouldnt be Pearl Jam, or Radioheadthe band Ive seen the second-mostbut the Ukrainian pianist Sviatoslav Richter, in Bach and Schubert. I say this not to praise myself, but to mention a thought that occurs to me, every so often, at a Pearl Jam show: what am I still doing here?

***

The idea for this book arrived at Wrigley Field, Chicago, on August 22, 2016. It was the fourth and final show of a leisurely, late-summer tour, starting at Fenway, in Boston. The sun was setting. The crowd was settling in. I had flown to Chicago two days prior, to see the first Wrigley show, which was lackluster: far too many covers; a vaguely humdrum setlist. (I had seen them on this tour in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, New York, Philly, and the secondalas, inferiornight at Fenway.) Everyone, it seemed, was aware of what transpired at the first Wrigley show, in 2013an epic, thirty-three-song blowout, which was halted by rain, and ended at three in the morningand the question on everyones mind was whether tonight would be one for the ages.

I was sitting by myself, halfway back on the fieldmy friend had scored a bracelet, and was way up frontwhen a pair of towering, Teutonic-looking alpha males, already hammered, sat or squatted nearby. From the way they walked to the center, and the best possible view, without stopping to check any of the seat numbers, it was obvious they were upgrading to seats that werent theirs: a minor fraud, and one Id performed at every opportunity. From the way they established their domain, and started a chantthe cherished, time-honored ED-DY! ED-DY!, alternating with SHOW ME YOUR TITS!it was equally obvious what sort of company I could expect for the next two and a half hours.