In celebration of the band’s 20th anniversary (yes, it’s been that long, you’re old), Cameron Crowe‘s documentary, “Pearl Jam Twenty” is right around the corner. Making its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, of course it wouldn’t be a Pearl Jam film without a soundtrack. Comprised of live cuts and demos, the two-disc soundtrack will arrive on September 20th, to coincide with the doc, and will include 29 unreleased tracks. Highlights include “Black” from their still unreleased 1992 MTV Unplugged appearance, a Mother Love Bone cover of “Crown Of Thorns” during their 10th Anniversary tribute to deceased singer Andrew Wood (Mother Love Bone was a precursor band to PJ), and a Temple Of The Dog cover (another early PJ offshoot with members of Soundgarden). The disc will also include a 36-page booklet with liner notes written by Cameron Crowe packaged in a hard-bound book. There’s also a 384-page book that arrives on September 13th if you’re keen on stocking up on your PJ wares.
In case, you’ve forgotten, Crowe is no bandwagoner. And in fact, he was prescient in seeing where the zeitgeist was about to shift. His relationship with the band goes as far back as the early ’90s when he was living in Seattle and had written a movie around the burgeoning music scene, 1992’s “Singles.” The timing of the film’s release may have seemed convenient, but obviously films aren’t made in a day and Crowe had penned the picture long before the Seattle music scene hit the mainstream. If anything his timing was impeccable. During production, none of the bands in film had broken big yet, but by the time “Singles” was released in September 1992, many of the acts were on their way to becoming national stars if they already weren’t (apparently Nirvana‘s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had to be cut from the film because the rights to the song had skyrocketed to astronomically expensive heights by that point). And of course PJ’s Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, and Eddie Vedder, are all part of Matt Dillon‘s fictional band in the film, Citizen Dick. To give you some perspective, the band were still known as Mookie Blaylock at that point as the group was very much still in its infancy (members of Alice In Chains, Tad and Soundgarden appear and the film also has allusions to seminal Seattle rockers Mudhoney).
“Pearl Jam Twenty” the documentary, will debut worldwide on September 20th in select theaters for one night only, with a full week run of the film beginning Friday, September 23rd in key markets. It will roll out on the small screen and make its television premiere on Friday, October 21st at 9 p.m. (ET/PT), as part of the PBS “American Masters” series. So lots of chances to catch this one. The tracklist and first listen to “Crown Of Thorns” are below.
“Pearl Jam Twenty” Soundtrack Tracklisting
Disc One
“Release” Verona, Italy
“Alive” Seattle, WA
“Garden” Zurich, Switzerland
“Why Go” Hamburg, Germany
“Black” MTV Unplugged
“Blood” Auckland, New Zealand
“Last Exit” Taipei, Taiwan
“Not For You” Manilla, Philippines
“Do The Evolution” Monkeywrench Radio
“Thumbing My Way” Seattle, WA
“Crown of Thorns” Las Vegas, NV
“Let Me Sleep” – (Christmas Time) Verona, Italy
“Walk With Me” – Mountain View, CA
“Just Breathe: – Saturday Night Live
Disc Two
“Say Hello 2 Heaven” – Demo
“Times Of Trouble” – Demo
“Acoustic #1” – Demo
“It Ain’t Like That” – Demo
“Need To Know” – Demo
“Be Like Wind” – Demo
“Given To Fly” – Instrumental
“Nothing As It Seems” – Demo
“Nothing As It Seems” – Seattle, WA
“Indifference” – Bologna, Italy
“Of The Girl” – Instrumental
“Faithfull” – Pistoia, Italy
“Bu$hleaguer” – Uniondale, NY
“Betterman” – New York, NY
“Rearviewmirror” – Los Angeles, CA
“Crown Of Thorns”
1-11 Crown Of Thorns by pj20
[Pearl Jam]