Release (Jammer Convergence - Seattle live)

Rooting around, finding some of the stuff of dreams and lives – here, from the earliest-known international concert video of Allison Crowe – from Seattle, the home of Pearl Jam, with love... Play loud!


Release (Jammer Convergence - Seattle live) from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

Allison Crowe trekked to Seattle, Washington in July 2001 to be part of the World Wide Jammer Convergence (WWJC) - a gathering of Pearl Jam fans (AKA Jammers) from over 30 U.S. states, Canada and other PJ-friendly locales.

(Eddie Vedder and PJ being major inspirations for Allison and her band, then also living in North America’s Pacific Northwest.)

An entire floor was rented in an historic downtown hotel, The Commodore, and, like a scene from Cameron Crowe's movie, "Almost Famous", with doors wide open, and a communal room for watching PJ videos, Jammers experienced music and friendship in the Emerald City.

Allison (vocals, keyboard) with Dave Baird (bass) and Kevin Clevette (drums) performed a welcoming concert ~ in a small, very warm, theater in back of another historic joint - Second Avenue Pizza.

After the band set and encores, Allison remembers a Pearl Jam song she wants to play – solo - "Release".

Pam Abramowicz Wolfers captured the intensity in all Jammin' beauty (in this, the earliest-known international concert video of Allison Crowe). Embracing Allison afterward is Sandi Heinrich, WWJC organizer and event MC.

The stuff that dreams and lives are made of...

http://music.allisoncrowe.com

Joni Mitchell: for the poses

I love Joni Mitchell ~ for her music, her integrity, her candour.

This entire transcribed chat - Joni interviewed by Cameron Crowe for Rolling Stone in 1979 - is a wonderful read. (Just watch for the occasional typo.) It's a candid reflection of the artist and person and a meditation on art and life.

Insightful, funny, sad, wise, there's lots to appreciate. Right now, after listening to the radio and catching some Canadian act doing a Dylan pastiche, well, this passage fits:

"There's only a certain amount of fine work in any idiom. The rest of it is just copyists. Regurgitation. Obvious rip-offs. Mingus has a song, 'If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There's Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats.' Sometimes I find myself sharing this point of view. He figured you don't settle for anything else but uniqueness. The name of the game to him - and to me - is to become a full individual. I remember a time when I was very flattered if somebody told me that I was a good as Peter, Paul and Mary. Or that I sounded like Judy Collins. Then one day I discovered I didn't want to be a second-rate anything. I have to remember to be compassionate. Otherwise it really pisses me off to hear somebody getting a whole lot of public roar and, 'Oh this is the newest and greatest,' when it's really just the greatest and newest copy. There are bands coming now that are really good. They're interesting; they've got some vitality and some fire, but - say they're Englishmen who sound like Bob Dylan. I listen to it and it's pleasant on the radio, but as an artist I say to myself, 'If you're that good, how come you can't be yourself?' "