Posts Tagged ‘Pearl Jam’

Brad (Features members of Pearl Jam, Satchel and Pigeonhead) New Album: ‘United We Stand’ May 7th 2012 

‘United We Stand‘ is the title of the Seattle group’s fifth studio album.   After almost two decades, the quartet remains a unified front, more committed to playing together than ever before.

“At this point, we’ve been a band for 19 years and realized we aren’t going anywhere,”  BRAD co-founder/guitarist Stone Gossard says of his collective with vocalist/pianist Shawn Smith, drummer Regan Hagar and bassist Keith Lowe. “It’s a really fun band, a creative music group. It’s just a time in our lives where we love getting together and making music.”

Though each BRAD member has obligations to other groups—Gossard to Pearl Jam, Smith to Pidgeonhed, Hagar to Satchel, and Lowe to playing with such artists as David Sylvain —they overcome the time and scheduling challenges their other commitments bring.  Recording United We Stand, the band’s first album since 2010’s Best Friends? was such an enjoyable experience that Hagar says he and his bandmates vowed to “make sure we will try to record once a year, even if nothing comes out of it.”

Going forward, the members of BRAD feel a growing appreciation that even when the rope that connects them has stretched thin, they’ve never let go of what they have together.  And, as they go head into their 20th year, they are making their best, most cohesive work yet. “Whether it’s rehearsing or playing,” Gossard says, “I’m just so thankful that we’ve maintained the relationship through thick and thin.” And so are BRAD’s fans.

For a taster of the album Brad have posted ” A Reason To Be In My Skin” on Youtube which you can view below.

Brad have also recorded a series of in-studio videos at Stone’s Studio Litho to mark the album’s release.

Here’s to a link the European exclusive track Waters Deep from those sessions.

United We Stand track listing

1 Miles Of Rope
2 Bound In Time
3 A Reason To Be In My Skin
4 Diamond Blues
5 The Only Way
6 Last Bastion
7 Make The Pain Go Away
8 Needle And Thread
9 Tea Bag
10 Through The Day
11 Waters Deep (bonus track)

www.bradcorporation.com

Currently on his acoustic ‘Songbook‘ tour of the States, Chris Cornell will be releasing an album of live Songbook tour performances on November 21st (UME).  The album features songs written by Cornell as well as a few covers and you can see the fulll track listing below.  In addition to being one of the most acclaimed voices in rock, Chris Cornell stands in a class of his own as a songwriter whose works have reached limitless audiences, the world over.  Familiar songs emerge in a new context, showing that great songwriting translates to any idiom.

Songbook Full Track Listing:

1. As Hope and Promise Fade

2. Scar On The Sky

3. Call Me A Dog

4. Ground Zero

5. Can’t Change Me

6. I Am The Highway

7. Thank You (Led Zeppelin)

8. Cleaning My Gun

9. Wide Awake

10. Fell On Black Days

11. All Night Thing

12. Doesn’t Remind Me

13. Like A Stone

14. Black Hole Sun

15. Imagine (John Lennon)

16. The Keeper  

Recently, Cornell wrote and performed ‘The Keeper’, the poignant original song for Relativity’s feature film Machine Gun Preacher (directed by Marc Forster) which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this month.  The film stars Gerard Butler and is based on the true story of Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing criminal who finds faith leading him on a path to help the children of East Africa. 

The song is available via iTunes and a portion of the proceeds will go to Childers’s charity, Angels of East Africa.  Cornell has performed the song on The Late Show with David Letterman, PBS’s Tavis Smiley and Jimmy Kimmel Live!

You can watch the video in full below.

Chris Cornell has been heralded as one of the pioneers of the grunge era for writing a string of hits for Soundgarden, including the Grammy award-winning ‘Black Hole Sun’ and ‘Spoonman‘.  In 1991, Chris formed Temple of the Dog, writing the classic song ‘Hunger Strike’ featuring a duet with Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.  In 2000, Cornell joined former Rage Against The Machine members (Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, and Brad Wilk) in Audioslave and wrote a series of the band’s hits including ‘Like A Stone’, ‘Be Yourself’ and ‘Doesn’t Remind Me’.  Cornell’s career as a songwriter for film has included such songs as ‘Can’t Change Me’ and ‘Mission’, from the soundtrack to Mission Impossible II as well as hit theme song ‘You Know My Name’ for James Bond thriller Casino Royale, one of the most successful installments of the spy franchise to date.  His songs have been recorded by diverse artists from Johnny Cash to Alice Cooper.

It’s so clichéd it almost writes itself. My obsession with music began because of a girl. She was an older lady from the land of the ice and snow. Well, Middlesbrough but it may as well have been Scandinavia.

It was 1988. She was Michelle and 15. I was er, me and I was 8. Dad in a rare moment of coolness had borrowed the latest Bon Jovi album , New Jersey. I didn’t have a clue but Michelle wanted a copy. Being smitten and having recently discovered the merits of the wet t-shirt competition courtesy of the mechanic next door’s pervy calendars, I duly obliged. When I say I did the obliging, it was in actual fact “rarely cool Dad” that set up the compact disc to record to a C90. Dad did me proud that day and earned me unheard of kudos by my standards. I was, after all, still wearing a full football kit everyday. Yes, socks pulled up to the knees and shin pads.

Alas, due to our obligations to the law (both being underage) we decided it was best that nothing came of our (imaginary) relationship.

But from there rock n roll took over. My badminton racket became my Strat  – Tennis rackets in reality fail to provide a lifelike guitar neck when compared to an old skool Yonex Voltric 80.  My mirror was my audience and the neighbours the “man” that I was sticking two fingers up two. Albeit, when they weren’t looking.

I saw the Jovi for the first time years later in ’93 at Wembley arena, unknowingly the same concert that Matt talks about in “My first gig”* . Mum and Dad dutifully took me. During Bad Medicine, Mum did a dance that can only be described as a “bop” and my dad kind of “stood with rhythm” as Dads do.

The years have past since then and my tastes have changed. I’ve got snobbier and left the Jovi behind for grunge, thrash, prog rock, prog metal, black metal, blues and any number of sub genres. There is a legacy though. Whenever Livin on a Prayer comes on in a club, invariably you’ll find a 6’5” wookie playing the air talk box (details matter people) and attempting that impossible key change after the solo.

But I’m no less in love with music than when I first fell for her. Music marks the great and the odd in my collection of memories. For instance; leaving Princess Anne’s for the first time following my little girl being born, I had to make sure the right song was cued up for her to hear. It was massively important that she didn’t hear any old tripe like Shayne Ward’s god awful “If that’s ok”. After a falling out with the car seat, I was set. When newborn and mother were safely secured, ignition went on and Led Zep’s Immigrant Song sent us on our way. If I’m listening to Metallica’s Sad But True, I’m 18 again and playing along, smacking the bejesus out of mate Mart’s beat up white Fiesta taking us to the Cuckoo Pint in Stubbington or the long gone Swordfish at Hill Head.
As for the odd, well when I hear Tremor Christ by Pearl Jam I’m immediately taken back to my bedroom as a teenager where I was reading Rambo: 1st Blood when the Spin the Black Circle single came out with Tremor Christ on the B side. Random.

Summing up music’s spell, I finished writing this earlier as I’m out for a family meal. I’m trying to get the girls ready (a task akin to herding cats). Absentmindedly I shout “HEY HO” and get a 3 year old punk reply “LET’S GO”.

Gracie Ramone, I like that. Is it too late to change her name?

Graeme

*[edit- The Jovi gig was same, but different. You were Friday I were Sunday, you missed Ranvilles Ranger FC presentation and a chance to meet probly Darren Anderton or another Pompey great, I missed a (one of only 3) day of school . Matt]