Stop, think hard for the name of a band, and you'll have probably just picked one of Pearl Jam's influences. The band claims many punk , classic rock and blues oriented bands as influences as well as many of there contemporaries such as Soundgarden and Mudhoney. Dave sights John Henry Bonham of Led Zeppelin as his biggest influence.

The keeper of the songbook is Joe Danziger (danziger@eden.rutgers.edu). He's up to version 1.7, I believe. It is regularly posted on several archives on the NET.

This question has a long answer. Briefly, it begins with early Seattle bands such as Stone Gossard's March of Crimes and The Ducky Boys, Ament's Deranged Diction, and Mark Arm's Mr. Epp. These early bands boiled down into Green River with Stone Gossard and Steve Turner on guitar, Ament on Bass and Arm on vocals (again see the family tree for complete representation).

This is the type of question that won't get you too far with the band or with their true fans. You might get some opinions and idle banter about the topic, but it really has nothing to do with their music, so who really cares, right? Next question please....

Pearl Jam has always been fond of releasing extra songs as b-sides on their CD-singles (How can a CD have sides anyway?) and also, foreign copies of Ten have extra songs. So, these are the B-sides as follows: Wash Alive singles and EP's Dirty Frank Evenflow singles and EP's Oceans (remix) Evenflow singles and EP's Footsteps Austrian Jeremy single Yellow Ledbetter Jeremy singles Alive (live in Seattle) U.K.

Officially, only those released as b-sides. Unofficially,there are tons of live and unreleased Pearl Jam available on both CD and on tape from stores and traders throughout the world. Dave Abbruzzese is a fellow collector of live Pearl Jam. Don't pay money for tapes though...if you want a special CD that is one thing, but for tapes, just ask around and you'll find a network of traders will to share the wealth for mutual benefit.

Yes, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, and "Drummer" Eddie Vedder make up Matt Dillon's backing band Citizen Dick.

A tab book has been compiled by Scott Minder (sminder@engin.umich.edu). The Tab book can be accesed through the Pearl Jam WWW site: http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~galvin/pearljam.html. The tab book can also be directly accessed at: http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~sminder/PJTabs/tab.html

Footsteps The fanzine Footsteps comes highly recommended and is read by the band frequently. They ask for $ 4.00 for a single issue and $15 for a 4-issue subscription. To subscribe, send a check made out to: Release Another Pearl Jam Fanzine is Release. For a 4 issue subscription, send $21 to the address below. Individual issues are $6 each. Subscribers will also receive newsletters with the latest PJ info.

Actually that's not such an easy question either. Pearl Jam is active both directly and indirectly in a lot of different charitable causes and organizations. From building houses for Native Americans, to donating large sums of money to Seattle school libraries, to their fight with Ticketmaster, to playing a variety of benefit concerts and contributing to benefit albums, their activism is truly broad.

Fifteen. In six different states. Eight times indoors, seven times outdoors. And if they came to my town once a week ... I'd go every week. Each show is different. Check out their cover of "I Believe in Miracles" (performed June 21, 2003 in East Troy, WI) or the acoustic "Drifting" (performed July 11, 2003 in Mansfield, MA).

Eddie has done guest spots with the remaining members of The Doors for their induction in the rock and roll hall of fame,and has appeared on the Bad Religion album, Recipe For Hate. Vedder and McCready played at the Bob Dylan 30th anniversary and Vedder played at the Daltrey sings Townsend Who special. Stone Gossard has released an album called Shame with his side band Brad. Dave Abbruzzese plays drums on God's Jig by Course of Empire. Jeff and Mike also appear as M.A.C.C.

Why yes they do! You can find out all you need to know about the fabulous "Ten Club" at their website ( http://www.tenclub.net ).

Pearl Jam has recently released their seventh studio album, entitled Riot Act. Tours are being planned for Australia, Japan, and the US in 2003.

Live on Two Legs, released in 1998, was Pearl Jam's first official "live album." It is a single disc compilation taken from the 1998 North American tour. Beginning with the 2000 European Tour, Pearl Jam has begun releasing all of their concerts as official full length 2 CD bootlegs. The 2000 European tour was released in September of 2000 and the 2000 North American tour was released in early 2001.

Gloria is a pro-choice, women’s rights activist who is a good friend of Ed/the band. Their relationship goes way back, and started presumably through Pearl Jam’s participation in the "Voters for Choice" organization. She emceed the "Voter’s for Choice" benefit concerts that Pearl Jam has played and she also made a speech on their Monkey Wrench Radio show in 98.

Dennis is a friend of Ed’s and he has appeared at a couple shows, carrying Ed around on his shoulders and generally causing trouble. He appeared at Augusta, ME 9/26/96, Dallas, TX 7/5/98, and Lisbon, Portugal 5/23/00. There are also several pictures of Dennis’ facial features that can be found on the cover of No Code, and on the cover of the "Hail, Hail" single.

He got in a fuss after Ed ambiguously alluded to a bunch of "Corporate Cocksuckers" trying to cover "Baba O’Riley" at the MSG show 9/11/98. This was in reference to Third Eye Blind’s cover of The Who’s "Baba O’Riley" on a TV program the night before. Stephan Jenkins (lead singer of 3rd eye blind) caught word of this and began whining about it in several interviews.

Doherty reportedly had a crush on Ed and wanted to get a date with him. She had her assistants get his hotel room number and tried to get backstage passes to a show. She was quite snotty about it too, apparently.

Cobain was the lead singer of Nirvana, as I’m sure you know, but the media made this big rivalry between PJ and Nirvana. At first Kurt went along with the rivalry openly insulting the band, but he later reconciled and admitted to liking Ed as a friend. The media made the rivalry out to be much more than it was, and there was actually a lot of mutual respect. After Cobain committed suicide Ed was very shaken up, as you could see from the live performances after Cobain’s death.

Neil is a good friend of Ed and the band and someone they look up to greatly. Their relationship goes back to 92 when Pearl Jam was first invited to play the Bridge School Benefits, and in 93 toured with Neil on a short stint through Europe. Pearl Jam served as Neil’s backing band on his "Mirrorball" album, and Ed even contributes to some backing vocals (All PJ fans are recommended to check this great album out).