Pearl Jam Early Recordings History

 
 
 

While working on the Temple of the Dog project, Mike McCready, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament recorded a set of instrumental demos in August 1990 (known as the "Gossman Project"). Soundgarden's Matt Cameron contributed drums to ten of the tracks, and Shadow's Chris Friel contributed to two: "Times of Trouble" and "Black". Stone and Jeff shopped the tape around to various connections. This complete tape circulated with the working titles only. The complete track listing is matched up with the finished title listing below. One source they gave the complete tape to was the Wilder Brothers in Los Angeles. Also, they gave part of the recording (known as the "Stone Gossard Demo '91") to former Red Hot Chili Peppers' drummer Jack Irons. This tape consisted of the following songs: "Alive", "Once", "Footsteps", "Black", and "Alone". Irons gave this tape to his basketball buddy Eddie Vedder in late September. While surfing, Ed came up with the lyrics to the song "Dollar Short", which he later renamed "Alive." He recorded vocals over two more of the songs, "Once" and "Footsteps", packaged them as the "Mamasan" tape, and sent them back up to Seattle. Mike, Stone, and Jeff loved Vedder instantly and enlisted him in the band, Mookie Blaylock (named after a Mookie basketball card in the package). Later, they got Dave Krusen, who drummed on Ten and a few early shows...
 
 
 
 

The "Gossman Project" tape contains instrumental versions of:


 

Pearl Jam were constantly in the studio before the recording of Ten. Multiple pre-Ten tapes exist but are not circulating at all. Moreover most of the Ten sessions tapes (demos) more than likely originated on DAT but were dubbed onto old R&B tapes. Some of the tapes might have non-PJ songs. That said...
 
 
 

Mookie Blaylock demo tape on October 13, 1990 only six days after becoming a band!


 

The recording date of the "Mookie Blaylock demos" (those which surfaced on multiple bootleg cd's) is probably around October or November 1990. This tape consists of the following:


 

The "pre-'Ten' demos" or "Early 'Ten' demos" consists of the following:


 
 

Another known Ten sesssion tape consists of the following:


 

Ten session tape - recorded at London Bridge Studios: Seattle, WA on January 29, 1991


 

Ten "First Takes": London Bridge Studios, Seattle, WA - recorded March 27, 1991


 
 

Ten "Rough Mix" - Recorded between January 29 and April 26, 1991 and mastered April 26, 1991



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