Tuesday, July 19th 2011

News:  Pearl Jam

Listen To Pearl Jam’s Unreleased ‘Wishing Well’

By Johnny Firecloud

Since we’re all getting into the spirit of nostalgia with Pearl Jam‘s twentieth anniversary upon us, we figured there’s no better time to share a rare, unreleased track from the band with you: a cover of Wishing Well by the band Free (not Terence Trent D’arby, sadly).

Recorded in 1990, the track features a fetal-stage Pearl Jam just developing their sound and chemistry, and as such is of very little similarity to the fully realized grunge-survivor rockers we know them as today. Note the awkward, laughing choral singing around a minute thirty:

Update: The track has been removed. Sorry guys.

The track was offered up today on a new Twitter account called PearlJam Twenty, which also made various early-demo downloads available. In addition to a slower, rough cut of State of Love And Trust (listen to that excitement at the end!), a nearly seven-minute version of Ten bookend track Master/Slave is included, as are various instrumental demos. A highlight is a silly-fun track called Touch Me I’m Dick, recorded for the fictitious band Citizen Dick, which PJ fans know well as the Matt Dillon-fronted band in the 90′s Seattle film Singles (PJ members comprised the rest of the band and had cameos in the film).

Additionally, a very Bad Radio-sounding take on Alice In Chains’ Aint Like That is featured, in which the vocals are omitted; frontman Eddie Vedder’s only utterances are “Hello, this is Abe Vigoda, and I just want to say that Alice In Chains rocked my world.”

Yeah, you may want to track these sounds down if you’re a PJ maniac. Additionally, fans can find a slew of new details on longtime PJ friend Cameron Crowe’s upcoming Pearl Jam Twenty documentary at PBS.org.

“When I set out to make this film, my mission was to assemble the best-of-the-best from Pearl Jam’s past and present and give audiences a visceral feeling of what it is to love music and to feel it deeply — to be inside the journey of a band that has carved their own path,” says Crowe. “There is only one band of their generation for which a film like this could even be made, and I’m honored to be the one given the opportunity to make it.”

Just another gem on the trail to the festival-weekend culmination of their anniversary celebration at the PJ20 gathering in Wisconsin. See you there!