NIRVANA

Pattaya Mail welcomes aboard our newest addition, acclaimed music reviewer Alice, who will enlighten our readers with his in depth look at some of today’s mainstream sounds.

From the Banks of the Muddy Wishkah
Geffen Records
Steady on, alt-rock fans, this is no album of unreleased material by THE alternative band, but a live slab, recorded at various concerts from 1989 to 1994.

Nirvana: From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah

The perfect counterpart to 1994’s unplugged performance for MTV, which showed a softer, deeper and more stripped-down side to them, Wishkah captures Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic at their rawest, tightest and most powerful. From the intro, a sample from a soundcheck with Kurt Cobain screaming maniacally, to the hyper-speed rendition of ‘Teen Spirit,’ to the arena-rock version of their usually acoustic ‘Polly’, there is something here for all Nirvana fans, those who loved ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ but never really bothered with their other stuff, to the hard-core Nirvana-phile (that’s me.) I’ve often written live albums off as kind of a swindle, a somewhat feeble attempt to cash in on the band breaking up, the lead singer dying, or just an excuse to repackage old hits because the actual group is starting to suck. There are a few notable exceptions, like the Doors “Live at the Hollywood Bowl” and Peter Frampton’s “Frampton Comes Alive”, but there have also been some really terrible ones, like the MCS “Live in 1979”. This one, though, seems to me to capture the real spirit of Nirvana, that cathartic energy not seen in mainstream music since 1977, and the Sex Pistols, whose DIY ethos grunge mirrored. While real alternative may be dead, this album, like all of Nirvana’s, shows you why it ever lived in the first place. If you can’t get enough of Nirvana, or if you just want to see what all the fuss was about, then this is most worthy of your attention.

PEARL JAM

No code
Epic records
Fronted by the enigmatic Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam has always been somewhat mysterious, refusing to do interviews and music videos since 1993’s hit single, ‘Jeremy’. However, the fact that No Code, their newest record, shot straight into the number one position in the Billboard charts proves that to be commercially successful, all you need is some wickedly good songs. And No Code has it’s fair share of them. It’s an eclectic collection, from the straight ahead hard rock of ‘Habit’ and ‘Hail, Hail’, to the blues-y ‘Smile’ and ‘Red Mosquito’. The only single released so far from the album is ‘Who You Are,’ a middle-eastern sounding number inspired by Vedder’s collaboration last year with Pakistani devotionalist singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, on the soundtrack to Dead Man Walking. ‘Around the Bend’ and ‘Off He Goes,’ sound like Harvest-era Neil Young, which is hardly surprising considering that Pearl Jam, minus Eddie Vedder, backed the Godfather of Grunge himself on last year’s hard-rocking Mirrorball. There is also a pleasant surprise in the form of ‘Mankind’ with lead vocals by rhythm-guitar player, Stone Gossard.
While this album is yet another departure from the Seattle sound that the band helped originate along with Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, remember that Hendrix was at first criticised for his softer, blusier Axis;Bold as Love, and that album is now considered a classic. If you enjoyed their last albums, Ten, Vitalogy and Vs., but are willing to hear something different from the Jammers, then this is definitely worth checking out.

NIRVANA