“An early turning point came onstage at a club called Harpo’s, in Victoria, British Columbia. It was Pearl Jam’s maiden tour, their first appearance away from a nurturing audience of Seattle friends. But this Canadian crowd was far more interested in getting drunk. In midset, Vedder decided to challenge the jaded audience, to wake them up. Unscrewing the 12-pound steel base of the microphone stand, Vedder sent it flying over their heads, like a lethal Frisbee. The steel disk crashed into the wall of the back bar. They woke up.“
By some accounts this story may or may not have happened. The jury is out on to the authenticity of the actual event s of the night. But what is true, Cameron Crowe believed it and published it in Rolling Stone!
My ears hurt after some loud metal, they need sonic medicine. Cue up…
And because everything refers to everything else… where does Explosions in the Sky steal their title for one of their greatest songs? If you guessed East of Eden, award yourself two scenester points.
“I remember that the Gabilan Mountains to the east of the valley were light gay mountains full of sun and loveliness and a kind of invitation, so that you wanted to climb into their warm foothills almost as you want to climb into the lap of a beloved mother. They were beckoning mountains with a brown grass love. The Santa Lucias stood up against the sky to the west and kept the valley from the open sea, and they were dark and brooding-unfriendly and dangerous. I always found in myself a dread of west and a love of east. Where I ever got such an idea I cannot say, unless it could be that the morning came over the peaks of the Gabilans and the night drifted back from the ridges of the Santa Lucias. It may be that the birth and death of the day had some part in my feeling about the two ranges of mountains.”
I got home from visiting Madrona Farm. Farmer Nathalie took me out on the boat to sail the pond with no name and hear the frogs. I brought the recorder machine to capture some of the sounds for the first episode of the Madrona podcast (coming soon). Looks like the first episode will be about frogs.
Thinking about the music that I will use to tie it all together, and I am sure Explosions in the Sky will factor into the soundtrack. I am liking the idea of Carpenter’s “Best Place” as the theme song… but what else?
So far, the first episode has me heading out to the farm to meet Nathalie at some bizarre hour after the heart pounding Canucks’ game. She meets me at the gate and we wander across the fallow fields up towards one of the ponds. It is dark and I bumble along. At the edge of the pond there is a boat with one oar. Nathalie hands me a life jacket designed for a tween and assures me that the pond may be small, but no mortal has ever found the bottom. We heft the boat into the dark water and “paddle” to the center. There we sit, and we wait. Silence, and then…. slowly at first, the croak of a frog. Then two, then four… then a crescendo of amphibian noise.
It was spectacular to be in this boat in the middle of the pond and to hear all this wonderful noise. I have not heard the playback yet, but I pray that it sounds as good recorded as it did tonight.
After the frogs, I hopped in the Jeep and bee lined for Evo to see the Zone Band of the month, Oh Snap! Al Ford from Sonic is in town and it was good to see him again. He was the old PD for the Zone and the man who hired me many moons ago.
After a couple songs from Oh Snap, I was on the road again to the Cambie for a 24 Hour Relay fundraiser. The sound of the day was metal. I arrived just in time to see Archon Legion. You’ll know and love Archon Legion from CRC 51. I think Captain Rhaye told me that we made another $400 for Easter Seals. Not bad… drip drip drip and hopefully we’ll get near our goal of $10,000!
Oh…. I got a good band to help soundtrack the Madrona Farm podcast.
Years later, this concert would be immortalized in Rolling Stone.
The Morning After 