More important than this show though, was when I was actually told by my father that I should start listening to the radio. I don't want to make it sound like I lived in a house devoid of music before this point. My father raised me thinking that artists like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Led Zepplin, The Who, Jeff Beck, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan were holy prophets come down from the mountain top to deliver the word, and the word was, “You missed out on the 60's and 70's buddy. Shit was real back then and you fucked up by being born in the beginning of the 80's.”

I remember my dad stating at one point in my early life that the 80's killed rock and roll. (I believe this was a quote from a Rolling Stone album cover, but don't quote that as gospel without doing some fact checking first) I don't want to get into an argument one way or the other. I do agree that the 80's saw an end to popular rock having a certain appearance and styles changed greatly, but I do think that rock lived on in many great alternative acts and of course, the grit and blood of rock was carried through by punk music. A scene that I was oblivious to until my late cousin gave me a Ramones album later into the 90's.

Because of my father's opinion that rock was “dead”, I was used to listening to tapes of various 60's and 70's artists. What changed things was that my dad did not hold to his decree over my music exposure. Not that I blamed him, he drove a delivery truck for a living and I'm sure the radio served as a constant companion to him. The year was 1992, and my dad had heard a band that he felt was going to bring rock back. Pearl Jam.

We rushed over to the music shop and got me a copy of Ten. I, being a normal child in 1992, did not have a CD player yet, and got the album on cassette. I played that album until you could hear both sides playing at the same time and it was so mottled sounding that you could only know it was Ten playing if you saw the cassette jacket before I put it in.

It was the beginning of an addiction. I also got a copy of Nevermind shortly after and then started diving into other great Seattle bands like The Screaming Trees, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, 7 Year Bitch, Mudhoney and the Melvins.

At the core of this all though remained Pearl Jam. I know a lot of you have negative opinions of this band for either being sell outs, or if you got over that complaint you think that they are whiny for holding the boycott of Ticket Master. Personally I agree with their stance and respect them for testifying at the anti-trust case held against Ticket Master, and I think that their positions on not wanting to be remembered for videos was bold and if they felt that way, right on. (they also began refusing to make music videos). All of these actions were their right, and in the case of the Ticket Master deal, they were actually trying to help out their audience by fighting extra charges being made on tickets.

All of this aside, and if you ever want a discussion on the subject feel free to e-mail me, Pearl Jam remained my favorite of the lot simply because they still had the basic soul of the bands I grew up listening to. A good example is when they played at the 30^th Anniversary Concert for Bob Dylan, who is still one of my absolute favorite performers. They performed the song Masters of War, by Mr. Dylan and blew my mind. Of course there were other greats there that I worship such as Johnny Cash and his wife June, but Eddie (in my opinion) stole the event. You can check out his performance of the song in the clip below.

Along with introducing me to modern rock, my father also listened to it with me. He actually was just as excited about the bands as I was, and to this day we still share music back and forth that we are finding. Recently he made a collection of the song, Smells Like Teen Spirit, by Nirvana recorded by several different artists ranging from cool to downright hilarious. I wish I could distribute the mixed CD, but for obvious copyright issues I won't be able to. Just type the song title into iTunes and you will find most of them.

Because of this bonding over new music, he decided that when I turned twelve that it was about time that we go to a show together. This was the other big first for me, and probably can be blamed for what I do now. By teaching me an exuberant love for music, and then showing me the fun and excitement of seeing the music played live, he set me down the path to later start trying to document the shows that I saw and eventually decide to share them with the rest of the world.

From that point on I kept developing my taste in music and as I got older saw more and more concerts. By the time I left the house at 18 I was going to more shows than was probably healthy, and at the age of 19 when I shot my first concert I knew exactly what I wanted to be doing 10 years down the line.

Hope you all are getting ready for a great weekend. I'm off to a show just for the enjoyment of it. Not bringing the camera gear. I'm going to be a fan this time and see what it's like to be on the other side of the divider. If any of you are coming to the Raconteurs show in Seattle then drop me an e-mail and let me know.

Jake Carlsen

Editor for LiveMusicPDX.com

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