Hi Brad and Brad, Happy New Year to you both and I hope for a great 2019 for you guys!  In my last email I wrote about the song "Hard to Imagine" and discussed how I have been trying to find my own meaning for the song.  The chorus of the song constantly plays in the back of my mind.  I realize most of the lyrics to this song don't really apply to my life experiences, however the generality of the following words sum up what has happened within the last 12 months for me.  I apologize in advance, but I'll probably get pretty heavy in this message. Things were different then. All is different now. I tried to explain. Somehow. My life and everything around me was very different this time last year.  Morgan and I discussed it a little bit over brunch today.  Both of our lives have been turned upside down by what happened to her.  Now I see the same thing happening for my parents.  Both my dad and I are hoping our wives can pick up where they

Hi Brad and Brad, I can't thank you guys enough for putting me in touch with Bill Castrovince.  Bill and I got to talk on the phone a couple of times and it was really uplifting to hear his story in more detail.  Knowing there is hope that someone can persevere through something as scary as brain cancer, gives me optimism in a time where I've been searching for it.   I've come to realize through listening to your podcast and interacting with Bill, that there is so much about the band that I didn't know.  At some time in the future, I'll share a list of what I've come to appreciate and learn after finding you guys, but it's so exciting to know there's so much to learn about Pearl Jam.  I asked Bill about his motivation for requesting "Hard to Imagine" prior to the 2016 Tampa show.  He then enlightened me to the history of the song.  I can't remember if you guys ever discussed this on the podcast, but it originated

Hi Brad and Brad, I love this week's topic and look forward to the next installment of "The Riff Zone." It is difficult to hum the "riff" to the beginning of "You Are," but BradB attempting to sound out the beginning of the song will be burned into my memory.  I have to award an "A" for effort on that one. I made out an exhaustive list of riffs that I've always enjoyed, mainly off of the top of my head and then started going back and listening to the beginning of several songs.  Rather than throw out a few random favorites, I decided to focus in on my favorite Jeff riffs.  It's definitely something much more rare to notice and even define as a riff.       I did have fun in listening more attentively to the bass lines deciding on whether or not you would call something a riff.  I think the most obvious and recently discussed a couple of weeks ago is his riff on "Jeremy." That is a staple of the

Hi Brad and Brad and Kate! Great job by Kate Cotton subbing in for Lyons again!  She took on the task of trying to keep Blazek from drifting off-topic for most of the show (e.g. It's A Wonderful Life).  For that you should consider upping her salary! I'm pretty stoked you guys went over Live At The Garden.  I received this DVD as a Christmas gift from my wife 11 years ago and wore it out after receiving it.  Just like Kate, we don't own any blue-rays, however we ironically own a blue-ray player which we only play our DVD collection in.  However, since I'm too lazy to muster up the energy to find the DVD I want to watch, take it out of its case and place it into our blue-ray player I usually just end up watching things via the "streamings."  Before I forget, Kate mentioned the YouTube video she watched didn't have a great picture.  I did find this link if she's interested.  It actually comes in just about as clear as the DVD ( htt

Hi Brad and Brad, and Kate! I am stoked that we'll get to experience two straight weeks of Kate Cotton!  The second week at the expense of Lyons, but if that's what it takes to get an extra week of "Single Kate Theory" then it's a sacrifice worth making.  After listening to Episode 69, I watched the music video for Jeremy for the first time in a while.  It is frustrating to think something like this is still very much a threat in today's society, whether it's self inflicted, acted upon others or both.  I can only hope someday we'll live in a society where we won't have to live in fear of this. One thing that was brought up during Episode 69 (I am trying to get in the number 69 as many times, to make Blazek laugh on the inside), was that Lyons had made playlists specific to lyrics or music wrote by each of the band members.    This prompted me to do the same, because I hadn't really broken down contributions by each o

Hi Brad and Brad, I find myself with the rare of occasion of having time to myself, while in my parents basement in Missouri.  It's hard for me to be left alone without anything to do.  That's when my thoughts really get the best of me.  Most of my time I try to keep myself occupied so I don't go down a path of sadness.  It's like falling into quicksand and the harder you try to get out of it, the farther you sink.  So I'm using this time to write you guys again.  It's been a good way of keeping myself out of feeling like I'm sinking. I've been thinking quite a bit about the "Untitled' track on the Live on Two Legs compilation you touched upon while going over MFC during the Yield review.  I looked up the lyric on "Songmeanings" and found the following ( https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107859019075/ ).  I wish I could see this during a show live.  It seems like an ad lib, but I now more associate it in

Hi Brad and Brad, Thank you for reading my take on In Hiding this week.  BradB, I hope bringing up "Barfly" didn't bring back any bad memories of your father that you'd rather not think about.  BradL, thank you for the Bukowski suggestions, I'm also considering looking into "Notes of a Dirty Old Man." My email this week is a follow up to a message I sent you guys a couple of weeks back.    This project I'm working on is trying to collect all of the bootlegs that have Pearl Jam playing their studio albums from front-to-back.  I spent some time combing through the set lists on pearljam.com, and was able to find 5 of them.  Two of which I now own (Moline = No Code and Milwaukee = Yield), and one more on the way (Philadelphia = Ten).  A friend of mine found a string on The Porch, where someone had tried to do this already.  They were able to get some information on Avocado, which apparently was played in 200

Hi Brad and Brad, I thoroughly enjoyed Episode 67 on Yield, with Matthew Mayfield.  For me, there is no track on Yield that I find myself wanting to skip.  I even love "The Color Red" with Jack's percussion, with the speeding up and slowing down of tempo throughout the track.  I've seen "Push Me, Pull Me" live, and I agree with Lyons, seeing it live really helped me enjoy the recorded version more.  I've said previously that Vs. it their most "flawless" album for me, however I love Yield more because of the imperfection and eclectic nature of so many of the tracks on the album.  I love music when it's a little weird, but still not too weird to where it becomes almost psychedelic and you can only enjoy it in the "right mood." What I want to focus on is "In Hiding." While I was on my 2-week binge of Yield up until Episode 67, I had "In Hiding" stuck in my head throughout most of those days

Hi Brad and Brad, I am so stoked that next week's episode is the Yield review!  Thank you for reading my email this week and for the kind words about my emails.  I've really enjoyed listening to SPT and interacting with you both.  There will probably be plenty for me to write about next week after listening to Episode 67, so I will be anxious to hear your thoughts on Yield. Just to disclose how big of a nerd I have been regarding this band, I will admit that I keep a running list of email topics should something not come to me organically.  One of those topics that i have had written down for weeks, maybe months, are the first two tracks of an album and how they compliment one another.  I've heard BradB say more than once that Pearl Jam is really good at the opening of their albums in the first two tracks.  On a few of these albums, the first two compliment each other so well that the second track really hits you after listening to the first.  For som

Hi Brad and Brad, Hopefully I am not emailing too frequently here, but I really wanted to share.  Through my Yield binge, I have been listening to my Yieldwaukee bootleg again.  Tom Petty's birthday was that night and Eddie had the crowd sing Happy Birthday with him, by putting up a black sheet behind him to make it look like it was just him leaving a message for Tom and then revealing the crowd as a surprise.  After this, Eddie then covered "I Won't Back Down" and had the crowd sing along for a good portion of it. https://youtu.be/Q-0GOS-oOkY   I listened to Full Moon Fever on the way into work this morning and fixated on "I Won't Back Down." It energized me quite a bit, because I feel almost that I should adopt it as my anthem right now.  At least as a reminder to stay strong and keep pushing forward. No, I'll stand my ground Won't be turned around And I'll keep this world from draggin' me down Gonna stand

Hi Brad and Brad, Last week I decided to put on Yield for the first time in a while.  After doing so, I found myself listening to it at least twice a day for the rest of the week.  Yield has been my favorite album of theirs and this may have been spurred on by your announcement of an upcoming date on the album review episode.  I completely nerded out and not only binged on listening to this album, but also dove into the details of it's production and inspiration (I attached the file I created as a Word doc).  Rather than spoil your guys upcoming review of Yield, I am only going to focus on a couple of things from my information overload.  I've never declared a favorite member of the band, however I may be leaning toward Jeff.  Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the first album he contributed lyrics on.  What's even more interesting are the two tracks he wrote, Pilate and Low Light, are both related to another.  He's also responsible for the

Hi Brad and Brad, I am officially completely caught up on the podcast.  I began listening on July 30th and it has taken me about two and a half months to get all 64 episodes in.  All of the awesome stories during PJ story time, the album reviews (except the much-anticipated Yield that I anxiously await), the Deep Thoughts by Brad Blazek and lastly the slide whistle!  On Friday, the album Vs. turned 25, which is exactly 12 years after I was born.  To commemorate what I consider to be the most "flawless" album in the catalog, I decided to give my own track-by-track review.  For the longest time, I had considered this my 2nd favorite to Yield and feel that if I went through and ranked every studio album track, almost every one on Vs. would make my top 50.  Below I ranked my favorites on the album from 1-12 and then give my all-time studio rankings some of which I shared on a previous email.  I include some retrospect from the album review given in Episode 33

Hi Brad and Brad, With everything going on around me, I have been trying my best to find distractions for myself.  My latest distraction comes from the much-anticipated (for me anyway, as I've been catching up) Avocado/Self-Titled track-by-track episode 49.  I'd be more than happy to buy into Blazek's want to re-label this album as "Nothing."  However you want to call it, my motivation came from a few lines quoted by Lyons after going over Severed Hand.  His comments regarding the ordering: "They put all the heavy hitters upfront." "They get you spoiled with these kick-ass, heavier more energetic songs and then it falls off afterward." "Maybe the order of this record was not the best." Right after I finished listening to Episode 49, that last quote stuck out in my head.  I took to Spotify and tried putting together a different order, to see if I can get Lyons to reconsider his #10 ranking.  I'm not

Hi Brad and Brad, I've navigated through 48 episodes to almost get completely caught up on your podcast.  I only have 4 more to go, since I began listening at Episode 53.  One track you guys talk very highly of is You Are throughout both seasons of SPT.  I really hadn't come to fully appreciate this song, until my wife bought me the Madison Square Garden DVD for Christmas about 10 years ago.  This was another example of my perspective on a track being changed after seeing it live.  Several times since then, I would just get the song playing over-and-over in my head, "Love is a tower and you're the key." After listening to the Riot Act episode, I read the lyric much more closely.  For me it represents a loved one being strong for you in a time of need.  "You are a tower of strength to me.  The darkening hour sees light again." "I am the shoreline, but you're the sea.  You are." I find myself in another time of ne

Hi Brad and Brad (and Kate), I wanted to start off my email to you guys this week to give a shout out to Kate Cotton.  She not only rocked in her recap of the Boston shows on Episode 59, but I thought she did a great job going over Drop in the Park with Blazek.  It had me thinking you should consider giving Kate a weekly soundbite with the tag "Single Kate Theory" just to turn around that douche bag's comment on YouTube.  I would welcome Kate on any future episodes.  Another thing I want to say is I think it's incredible how personable you guys are with the listeners, especially the OGs (e.g. Kate, Patrick "Bagel," Jenon, Danny B, John Ferrar, etc.).  I'm not fully caught up with the podcast, but love the fact you guys continue to connect with everyone who was not only there in the beginning, but all of the new listeners and seem to make it a point to read their email to make them feel welcome.  I certainly felt that way after having he