Mookie Blaylock And Pearl Jam

una cosa un po' così trovata veramente per caso su deadspin.
http://deadspin.com/5841829/the-enduring-m...k-and-pearl-jam

The Enduring Myth Of Mookie Blaylock And Pearl Jam
Vacuous, unchecked rock lore holds that Pearl Jam—before they settled on the sploogiest name in pop music history—were first called Mookie Blaylock. Grunge's stadium heroes would have been named after a very good, but never great, NBA point guard, if only Blaylock hadn't taken notice and forced a name change.
There's lot that's appealing about this version of events. Even then, Blaylock was very Pearl Jam. Nirvana was a cultural event; Soundgarden, frightening intense; Alice in Chains might steal your wallet (right off the wallet chain). Pearl Jam were the everyman rockers who hung around the right crowd, enthusiastic, up to their necks in gear, and possibly a little thick, though not in some post-neolithic hardcore kind of way. Was calling themselves "Mookie Blaylock" their one great, pre-Ticketmaster, act of subversion, a sign of real individuality when Pearl Jam was sorely in need of that kind of cred (even before longevity, success, fame, and stability took their toll?) Was Blaylock himself random, esoteric, or mediocre? Blaylock was very Pearl Jam, but that answers nothing definitively. At least two times out of three, the story works in their favor.

Blaylock himself was a perfectly respectable playmaker and a strong defender, who worked well with others and yet always had room for demonstrations of flash. When Pearl Jam took his name, Blaylock was in his second season with the Nets, averaging 14.1 points, 6.1 assists, and 2.3 steals a game. It was a marked uptick from his rookie numbers (10.1, 4.2, 1.6), showing both the value of increased minutes and the coaching staff's realization that someone had to run that team. More or less, it reflected his stat profile, and team role, for the rest of his career—even when he was traded to the equally ineffectual Hawks in the summer of 1992. Blaylock lead the league in steals twice, never broke 10 assists per game, and topped out at 17.4 points per game, in 1996-97.

He was an All-Star in 1993-94; had a shaved dome and chiseled physique when fades and "smooth muscle" were still the norm; and could always be counted on for minor upheavals, via crossovers, hesitations, or bolts to the basket that left no question as to his strong on-court identity (if not necessarily his value). In this way, he may have been the perfect analogy for Pearl Jam before they even knew it.

Above all else, though, he was a name. Mookie Wilson started the party, but "Wilson" was a perpetual reminder of the ordinary. The last name of Spike Lee's character in Do The Right Thing is HBCU pub quiz material. Mookie Blaylock took those two syllables—affable, but still tough—and added on "Blaylock," which made the whole thing continue on forever.

The Mookie Blaylock episode brought the slightest hint of unpredictability, even danger to their image. It was a joke with consequences. In this very small way, Pearl Jam had suffered for their art. Ten took its name from Blaylock's jersey number, as if to say, "hey journeyman athlete, you cannot shut down rock 'n' roll!"

And yet "it was just a name" never really held water; nor did obliquely naming Ten, with its ode to teamwork cover art, as a fuck-you gesture toward a second or third tier athlete seemingly moored to insignificant franchises. And of all the names, why "Mookie Blaylock" in the first place? It indicated a familiarity with—gasp—sports. And not any kind of hometown Seattle team that could be seen as supporting the scene, like the way LA gangs got really into Kings gear. Unlikely isn't always the same as illogical. Blaylock, though, had nothing to do with the Sonics. He wasn't even in the same conference. With Kurt Cobain blaming, or crediting, abusive jocks for his teenage alienation, Pearl Jam was, for the moment, on the wrong side of history.

The real story, according to a 2008 interview Montana native Jeff Ament gave to the The Missoulan, was even more incriminating. You can really see why alternate versions had to be invented and circulated.

"When we were recording our first record, we had a per diem of about $10. So when we got lunch at the store across the street, we'd always buy a pack of basketball cards. When we turned in our tape, we didn't have a name for the band yet so we put a Mookie Blaylock card in the case. We were about to go on a tour and still didn't have a name and needed one quickly. We were told it didn't need to be the name that we were going to use forever, just something for the tour. Someone saw the Mookie Blaylock card and said, ‘How about Mookie Blaylock?' We decided to go with it and did a 10-show tour with Alice in Chains as Mookie Blaylock. Mookie was cool about it, too—he didn't sue us. I actually got to meet him later on and shoot around a little bit. We also made a Pearl Jam T-shirt with a picture of him on it. I guess we owe Mookie a lot."

No legal battle. No conflict with some millionaire athlete and the awful powers of copyright law. And worst of all, a pack of basketball cards purchased when that money could have gone toward heroin or flannel. "Mookie Blaylock" was never Pearl Jam's great indie stand, nor some kind of reappropriation. The musical name wasn't Dada-ish nonsense; it was inseparable from the appeal of the player, who—even if he was picked from out of stack of cards—was still an object of affection for Ament. Blaylock starred at Oklahoma and would have been plenty familiar to Ament, a decent high school athlete who attended the University of Montana, and may have harbored walk-on dreams around the time Blaylock was a regional monster.

Untangled and unpacked, the Mookie Blaylock episode has actually ended up serving Pearl Jam well. In 1991, we were decades away from the birth of the modern hoopster. Today, the jock-indie hybrid is celebrated, even encouraged. It's best for Pearl Jam that we think of this as a tribute to an underappreciated player, not a tossed-off, tongue-in-cheek gesture. They dropped the name after deciding that being named after some other dude was weird, and misleading. However, they did succeed in bringing a little more attention to Mookie. When you look at it this way, maybe the title of Ten isn't defiant, or an in-joke, but one last—and lasting—nod to the man himself. Pearl Jam weren't wishy-washy or half-poseur, they were ahead of their time. And they weren't pulling random players out of a hat to mock sports. They had refined basketball tastes, and were just waiting for the rest of us to catch up.

Mookie Blaylock would have better off without his nearly famous name; it distracts from the perfectly respectable career he had. "The man who nearly was Pearl Jam" isn't exactly what professional athletes aspire to as their epitaph. Then again, if Blaylock had been truly terrible, and really nothing more than a name, would Pearl Jam have chosen him?

EDIT: tutta la settimana musicale su deadspin è dedicata ai pj. ( )


Deadspin Music Week 2011: The PJ20 Edition
Fine. I admit, this is selfish. No one else on the staff was ever as excited about the prospect of a Music Week featuring Pearl Jam as the unifying theme, even though this band's sports-music connection is more obvious than most. They'll deal.
So, yes, most of the music content will be devoted to Pearl Jam to help commemorate the band's 20th anniversary, but I promise to not let my fanboy tendencies completely dominate the site. Once, maybe. Twice, tops. We'll have some special guests contributing this week that I think you'll enjoy regardless if you hate the band or not. We'll also have other music content that won't have anything to do with Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, or Mookie Blaylock.

We'll also be giving away a prize pack which will include both the incredible PJ20 book and the movie soundtrack to one lucky, highly-evolved reader with impeccable music taste and who...Oh, did I tell you how awesome the PJ20 concert in Alpine Valley was? Because IT was. Like, fucking sick. I mean, I almost puked on myself I was so excited. And then won the setlist pool — more on that later — we had going on Sunday night so that was just the cherry-topped tits. "Pilate" and "Sonic Reducer" put me over the top in points. Look:



Sorry, that got away from me. It happens sometimes.

Also, if you readers have any unique and entertaining PJ stories or images you'd like to share, please send them along to me: [email protected]

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Hail, hail.

Edited by formartha - 20/9/2011, 20:43

io si, e tu?

coincidenze

http://www.ilpost.it/maurobevacqua/2011/09...lock-pearl-jam/

Mauro Bevacqua

C’era una volta Mookie Blaylock
20 settembre 2011
Premessa necessaria: io questa sera ci sarò – fila E, posto 12 – in una delle 34 sale sparse in giro per l’Italia che proietteranno, in anteprima mondiale, Pearl Jam Twenty, l’atteso film firmato da Cameron Crowe sui vent’anni della band di Seattle. Sarà un evento globale, in data unica per gli Stati Uniti come per l’Australia, il Sudamerica o il Sud Est Asiatico, il Sudafrica o la Europa (si vedrà anche in un solo cinema di Riga per tutta la Lettonia, in un unico schermo di Lubiana per la Slovenia e in uno di Reykjavik per tutta l’Islanda). Un film, un appuntamento, per raccontare 20 anni di una band ma 20 anni anche nostri.

Che a Milano, vent’anni fa, quando dal nord ovest americano uscivano i primi suoni ribattezzati “grunge”, ci si dava appuntamento al n°8 di Via Larga, a due passi dal Duomo, una sera sola a settimana. Si entrava e si scendevano le scale, facendo finta che quel che si trovava là sotto fosse la cosa più vicina a un “basement” di Seattle (oggi a quello stesso indirizzo vi accoglie un patinato “G-Lounge”, che nel frattempo la Milano fighettina ha preso il sopravvento…).

E se l’orologio, per una sera, va indietro di 20 anni, allora ho pensato che si potessero spingere le lancette ancora un po’ più in là, qualche mese soltanto, quando i Pearl Jam non erano ancora Pearl Jam e – loro sì, per davvero – si esibirono in un caffè di Seattle, davanti a 299 persone. Era il 22 ottobre 1990, il posto si chiamava Off Ramp, loro si chiamavano Mookie Blaylock. Erano Stone Gossard e Mike McCready alle chitarre, Jeff Ament al basso, Dave Krusen alla batteria, Eddie Vedder alla voce. Ovvero, i Pearl Jam come li conosciamo oggi, a eccezione del batterista e del nome di battaglia. E che razza di nome era Mookie Blaylock, per una band?

Semplice: il nome di un giocatore di basket. Un texano, andato al college in Oklahoma e scelto dai New Jersey Nets per il suo debutto NBA. Mookie Blaylock io me lo ricordo bene – e con un discreto astio. Perché colpevole, ai miei occhi, di tarpare le ali alla carriera di uno dei miei giocatori preferiti del tempo, tale Kenny Anderson. Era la stagione 1991-92, Kenny Anderson era la matricola super attesa dei Nets, il futuro della franchigia, ma Mookie Blaylock rimaneva – complice anche coach Bill Fitch – il playmaker titolare di quella squadra, e il giocatore che relegava in panchina il mio pupillo.

[Per la cronaca: l’anno dopo Kenny Anderson venne promosso titolare – e nel 1994 partì in quintetto all’All-Star Game – mentre Mookie Blaylock venne spedito ad Atlanta dove restò 7 stagioni, prima di concludere la sua carriera NBA a Golden State].

Ora: finisce qui l’influenza di Mookie Blaylock su Eddie Vedder e soci? Niente affatto. Basta controllare il numero di maglia del ragazzo texano lungo tutta la sua carriera NBA e il titolo dell’album d’esordio dei Pearl Jam. Si scrive 10, si legge “Ten”. Non è un caso.

Lo è, invece, che con lo stesso numero di maglia, già da qualche anno, si esibisse nella NBA anche un certo Dennis Rodman. Quel Rodman che apre la sua prima biografia (Bad As I Wanna Be) con una citazione da Alive, primo singolo dei Pearl Jam (uscito il 2 agosto 1991, quello sì vent’anni fa). Is something wrong, she said / Of course, there is / You’re still alive, she said / Oh, and do I deserve to be / Is that the question / and if so… if so… Who answers? Who answers?. Nel libro, poi, il rimbalzista di Detroit e poi Chicago spiega le sue affinità elettiva con i cinque di Seattle:

…totalmente veri nel loro mestiere, come sono vero io nel mio […] Non c’è una band come i Pearl Jam e non c’è un cantante come Eddie Vedder. Nel basket non c’è nessuno come me. Potrei giocare la stessa partita ogni sera, ma sarebbe sempre una performance diversa. Te ne vai sapendo che hai visto qualcosa di nuovo. È pallacanestro, ma c’è qualcosa in più. È lo stesso con Eddie Vedder. Potrebbe cantare le stesse canzoni ogni show ma ogni volta che lo fa provi qualcosa di diverso. Potresti sentirli in concerto dieci volte e non andare mai via con le stesse sensazioni

Gli incroci tra NBA e Pearl Jam, però, non finiscono qui. Perché nel 1992 lo stesso Cameron Crowe che oggi dirige l’omaggio al ventennale, firma Singles, simpaticissima istantanea sulla vita di un gruppo di ventenni ambientata (guarda caso) a Seattle. Tra le apparizioni quelle di Vedder, Gossard e Ament (tutti membri della band Citizen Dick capitanata da Matt Dillon), ma anche quella di X Man, Xavier McDaniel, altro super rimbalzista NBA e idolo di casa, in maglia Supersonics (Steve, aspetta a venire!, l’immortale battuta con funzione anti-eiaculatoria diretta verso il protagonista, Campbell Scott).

Effetto contrario, invece, fa la musica dei Pearl Jam a Dennis Rodman, almeno se si vuole credere alle parole contenute nel suo secondo libro, Walk on the Wild Side:

Ascoltando a tutto volume i Pearl Jam riesco a fare sesso con una marcia in più […] La loro musica per me è come l’eroina per un tossico

Gli incroci tra il rimbalzista tutto tatuaggi & piercing e l’ex voce dei Mookie Blaylock continuano prima sul terreno di casa dell’uno (Rodman irrompe con frequenza sul palco durante i concerti dei Pearl Jam, caricandosi Vedder in spalla, al concerto di Augusta nel 1996 o in quello di Dallas nel 1998) poi su quello dell’altro (in gara-3 di Finale NBA 1998, tra i Bulls di Jordan & Rodman e gli Utah Jazz, la voce dei Pearl Jam intona l’inno nazionale americano prima della palla a due), a testimoniare un filo rosso tra la band di Seattle e il basket a stelle e strisce.

Con un unico neo: proprio a Seattle, dal 2008, non c’è più una squadra NBA (trasferitasi nell’Oklahoma inseguendo mercati più floridi). Peccato, certe storie non durano sempre. Certe altre, invece, dopo 20 anni devono ancora vedere i titoli di coda.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/f...oncert-20120924

Flashback: Watch Pearl Jam Perform 'Black' at Their First Concert
The group was then billed as Mookie Blaylock

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