General Pearl Jam Bitching

[ridleybradout]

It speaks volumes that one of only two sticky threads here is devoted to bitching about the band the board is devoted to...

[harmless]

It speaks volumes that one of only two sticky threads here is devoted to bitching about the band the board is devoted to...

It really depends what you mean by 'volumes'. Personally I think it speaks 'volumes' that every time I see someone on the board I don't recognise, they're bitching about the board.

[Heathen]

Maybe we need a General RM Bitching thread

[harmless]

Couldn't hurt.

[stip]

It speaks volumes that one of only two sticky threads here is devoted to bitching about the band the board is devoted to...

It really depends what you mean by 'volumes'. Personally I think it speaks 'volumes' that every time I see someone on the board I don't recognise, they're bitching about the board.

yeah, but what that says about us isn't very flattering.


In fairness I had the random reference thread stickied too, but someone removed it.

[harmless]

It speaks volumes that one of only two sticky threads here is devoted to bitching about the band the board is devoted to...

It really depends what you mean by 'volumes'. Personally I think it speaks 'volumes' that every time I see someone on the board I don't recognise, they're bitching about the board.

yeah, but what that says about us isn't very flattering.


In fairness I had the random reference thread stickied too, but someone removed it.

It says more about the people registering just to slag off the board. It's not like we have nothing nice to say about Pearl Jam, it's just that most of our compliments are about pre-S/T PJ. Nothing wrong with that. We put about as much energy into being nice about PJ as they do into making music these days.

[ridleybradout]

We put about as much energy into being nice about PJ as they do into making music these days.

Nailed it in one

I meant the original comment to say more about the band nowadays that the board itself. After being on RM a lot less frequently this year I was looking at it through the eyes of someone new, and just wondered how some of the current thread titles reflect on the band, and the overall attitude towards where they're at now...

[WtOB?]

It speaks volumes that one of only two sticky threads here is devoted to bitching about the band the board is devoted to...

It really depends what you mean by 'volumes'. Personally I think it speaks 'volumes' that every time I see someone on the board I don't recognise, they're bitching about the board.

yeah, but what that says about us isn't very flattering.

You mods are the ones who stickied it, which just encourages people to post in 'ere. So don't you go complaining about it.

[stip]

I would rather have one stickied thread than 50 separate threads.

[E.H. Ruddock]

Where's B been?

[McParadigm]

It speaks volumes that one of only two sticky threads here is devoted to bitching about the band the board is devoted to...

It really depends what you mean by 'volumes'. Personally I think it speaks 'volumes' that every time I see someone on the board I don't recognise, they're bitching about the board.

yeah, but what that says about us isn't very flattering.

I don't even kind of understand your logic here.

[harmless]

It speaks volumes that one of only two sticky threads here is devoted to bitching about the band the board is devoted to...

It really depends what you mean by 'volumes'. Personally I think it speaks 'volumes' that every time I see someone on the board I don't recognise, they're bitching about the board.

yeah, but what that says about us isn't very flattering.

I don't even kind of understand your logic here.

I think he means that people wouldn't bother registering to say we're a bunch of shit if we weren't, in fact, a bunch of shit.

Which may be true, unless of course said person had wandered over from pearljam.com.

[stip]

It speaks volumes that one of only two sticky threads here is devoted to bitching about the band the board is devoted to...

It really depends what you mean by 'volumes'. Personally I think it speaks 'volumes' that every time I see someone on the board I don't recognise, they're bitching about the board.

yeah, but what that says about us isn't very flattering.

I don't even kind of understand your logic here.

I think he means that people wouldn't bother registering to say we're a bunch of shit if we weren't, in fact, a bunch of shit.

Which may be true, unless of course said person had wandered over from pearljam.com.

Much of the active component of this board is a bickering old married couple vis a vis pearl jam. And while that gets tiresome sometimes, if you know the relationship you can work around it, and it is even be endearing in its way. But I do think the board is occasionally (and increasingly) hostile to both new posters and people who want to post about why they like the band--as if you need to apologize for caring about pearl jam on a pearl jam message board. The bitching can feel relentless (although it isn't always), reflexive (often is) and petty (often is) for the uninitiated. And I do think that's a problem for a public space, especially since PJ chat is usually the gateway to the rest of RM.

[fishbob]

They don't wear enough cargo shorts, flannelette and boots anymore

[harmless]

It speaks volumes that one of only two sticky threads here is devoted to bitching about the band the board is devoted to...

It really depends what you mean by 'volumes'. Personally I think it speaks 'volumes' that every time I see someone on the board I don't recognise, they're bitching about the board.

yeah, but what that says about us isn't very flattering.

I don't even kind of understand your logic here.

I think he means that people wouldn't bother registering to say we're a bunch of shit if we weren't, in fact, a bunch of shit.

Which may be true, unless of course said person had wandered over from pearljam.com.

Much of the active component of this board is a bickering old married couple vis a vis pearl jam. And while that gets tiresome sometimes, if you know the relationship you can work around it, and it is even be endearing in its way. But I do think the board is occasionally (and increasingly) hostile to both new posters and people who want to post about why they like the band--as if you need to apologize for caring about pearl jam on a pearl jam message board. The bitching can feel relentless (although it isn't always), reflexive (often is) and petty (often is) for the uninitiated. And I do think that's a problem for a public space, especially since PJ chat is usually the gateway to the rest of RM.

I can buy all that.

[McParadigm]

It speaks volumes that one of only two sticky threads here is devoted to bitching about the band the board is devoted to...

It really depends what you mean by 'volumes'. Personally I think it speaks 'volumes' that every time I see someone on the board I don't recognise, they're bitching about the board.

yeah, but what that says about us isn't very flattering.

I don't even kind of understand your logic here.

I think he means that people wouldn't bother registering to say we're a bunch of shit if we weren't, in fact, a bunch of shit.

Which may be true, unless of course said person had wandered over from pearljam.com.

Much of the active component of this board is a bickering old married couple vis a vis pearl jam. And while that gets tiresome sometimes, if you know the relationship you can work around it, and it is even be endearing in its way. But I do think the board is occasionally (and increasingly) hostile to both new posters and people who want to post about why they like the band--as if you need to apologize for caring about pearl jam on a pearl jam message board. The bitching can feel relentless (although it isn't always), reflexive (often is) and petty (often is) for the uninitiated. And I do think that's a problem for a public space, especially since PJ chat is usually the gateway to the rest of RM.

I don't mean that I can't see how it might look...rough...from the outside. But I don't agree that the "bitching" itself is either reflexive or petty. I think that being a fan of an artist is, at its heart, being a fan of the product of that artistry. We tend to use verbiage that focuses on the talent or the individual, but at the end of the day it's the painting and not the painter that we actually connected to. When we start to think of ourselves as connecting to the artist as a person, we risk eventually becoming an apologist or merely a lazy consumer (the scientific term for this is Guns 'n Roses fan).

So when someone who has created an artistic product that genuinely moved or mattered to us, perhaps on more than one occasion, either stops creating or begins to...let's just say 'lose the plot' rather than delve into the millions of reasons and ways this can happen...it disappoints. It's probably more upsetting than we are prepared to admit. On the internet, at least, sarcasm and dismissive humor are more socially acceptable than brooding. So when George Lucas responds to the success of Star Wars by shelving his plans for like 15 years and then crapping out the Phantom Menace, you can either sit around sulking or you can turn that disappointment into cold-hearted hilarity. When a band who used to make music you found cathartic or enlightening reaches the waning years of its abilities and power, and decides to use that last great stretch of opportunity to alternate between making really safe music and (more often) ABSOLUTELY NO MUSIC AT ALL, you can go on and on and on (see: this post) about it, or you can make jokes about eggs, hairplugs, and "Instant Classics."

The difference between the two is that going on and on about it just bums you out, while the jokes serve to remind you that it's not actually all that important to begin with. It reminds you that, in fact, at the end of the day middle aged rock stars who have spent decades being adored tend to be exactly this artistically significant and self-aware:



My God, those are some great spin shots.

[Strat]

I did not think it could get any worse ater i heard the first few lines....

The he lights the match.

After the fire, the fire still burns. Sure, unless you put a bit of fixin on it Roger!

[EJ]

The he lights the match.

that was the best part of the video.

[bada]

What really hurts about that video is he could still really sing then and he wasted his last few years of being able to sound really good making shirty solo albums or doing nothing at all. Then when his voice is shot he goes back to the Who. It's a waste when someone(Eddie) does that.

[McParadigm]

What really hurts about that video is he could still really sing then and he wasted his last few years of being able to sound really good making shirty solo albums or doing nothing at all. Then when his voice is shot he goes back to the Who. It's a waste when someone(Eddie) does that.

Yup.

It's also kind of amazing to realize that, when The Who finally closed up shop in 1983, Daltry was almost 10 years younger than Ed is now.