I would call myself a mild Pet Shop Boys fan. I certainly wouldn’t collect every disc of theirs, but I am sure I’ve heard them all at one point or another. I have a pretty good disc of their greatest hits, and while I can go years without hearing them I do have to say that I think ‘West End Girls’ is one of the best songs of the 80s. Yes, it sounds a little dated, but I think it has actually stood up better then a lot of the music from the ‘early synth years’. I can’t listen to anything off ‘Like A Virgin’ without wincing at the crap synths on that thing. But the Pet Shop Boys had some good songwriting, and some nice attention to sonic detail. And I certainly don’t slap my head and think ‘ugh – bad 80s music’ when I hear most of there stuff.

At the same time, hearing Pearl Jam right after the Pet Shop Boys helps remind me of how refreshing it was to hear some grittier sound in the 90s after the pristine sound of the 80s. If you don’t believe me, dig up ‘Appetite For Destruction’ and throw on ‘Paradise City’. Then listen to ‘Spin the Black Circle’ from ‘Vitalogy.’ by Pearl Jam. Which one, based on quality of sound alone, rocks harder? And I say this knowing quite well that Guns ‘n Roses was THE mega-rockin-band of the 80s. But all I can say with the above comparison is ‘thank goodness for grunge’ (and yes – I have listened to ‘Nevermind’ recently and yes – I do realize how slick it sounds).

I started to work at the Tower in Roseville the year ‘Ten’ came out. Before it really hit though I remember putting it on in the store and we would maybe sell one or two copies. We had like 5 copies on the shelf, and those lasted us for a few good months (we’d sell one or two a week then replace them). When the album hit however, I remember ordering 30 for our small little store (30 was a lot for the Tower in Roseville!). We sold those in a few hours after they came in. I then tried to order 150 copies… and it was already back ordered. Didn’t matter though, when those 150 came they lasted us maybe three days.

I still remember the store artist Jude putting up the display sign for the ‘Singles’ soundtrack (and Jude looked like he came off the cover of the ‘Singles’ soundtrack). The disc came out a good 4 or 5 months BEFORE the movie, and we played (and sold) the hell out of it. While ‘Ten’ was a good album, I remember liking the changes Pearl Jam had made by the time the soundtrack for ‘Singles’ came out (‘Rearview Mirror’ is still one of my top 5 Pearl Jam songs, if not my favorite). But the music on the rest of that soundtrack was amazing as well (especially the Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Drown’, complete with four minutes of feedback and delay to end the song). Over the year or so after ‘Singles’ came out, I probably played that disc in my car 3-4 times a week. I also remember that during my senior year of high school, I was determined to move to Seattle. This was during the few months that Tamiko and I were broken up, and I figured getting into a school up in Seattle and getting a band going would be a great way to make a fresh start. Problem was, I spent more time being concerned with dying my hair then I did thinking about college applications. And a good thing too… since by the end of that school year my future wife and I were figuring things out and I was determined to move to the Bay Area with her. Seattle and my flannel grunge dreams would just have to wait.

One of my fondest record store memories though happened that year. I had moved to the Tower on Sunrise after the store in Roseville closed, and I remember staying open late for ‘Vs.’ the day it came out. At midnight we had a line of a couple hundred people there to buy the new disc, and we played it LOUD while people filed in. What a way to hear the new album – loudly in a large record store while you are selling it to hundreds of eager fans who all made it to Tower Records at midnight.

My friend Charles refers to ‘Ten’ as Pearl Jam’s stadium rock anthem album, and I can see that. But after ‘Vitalogy.’ came out Tamiko and I were lucky enough (through the non-Ticketmaster lottery system Pearl Jam was trying out) to get tickets to the show at Cal Expo in Sacramento. It was the first concert in some time that I wanted to go to and I wasn’t sure if I could get there (since I didn’t have the Ticketmaster machine at my disposal to grab some tix before the selling to everyone else). But we got a couple and the concert was amazing. The stage was filled with candles, and the warm early-summer Sacramento evening was a perfect back drop for the show. They played their asses off as well. The next day Eddie Vedder came down with food poisoning, and the day after that he only sang a few songs in Golden Gate Park before he couldn’t take it any more. Neil Young came out to finish the show (which I would have LOVED to have seen as well). But I remember that after that show, and the cancellation of most of the tour afterwards, I though that Tamiko and I had seen the last Pearl Jam show that would ever happen. The band talked about how the whole fight with Ticketmaster had drained them, and I thought for sure that they were done. I was quite glad to be proven wrong, and am amazed at the band’s longevity and creativity as their career reaches into its third decade (!). And as I work MY way through my third decade, I’m married to Tamiko with two great kids, living in Tacoma and working in Seattle. I may not be very grunge, but neither is Seattle really. And – I get to make music. It all worked out just fine.