TOMORROW ON OUTQ: LOLLAPALOOZA TURNS 20

Longtime No Expiration readers know that once a week (usually on Wednesday morning at 9 am ET) I go on The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick on SiriusXM's OutQ channel. This week, we  moved my day to Friday. You can listen even if you aren't a subscriber: get a free online trial subscription here.

Last week, Perry Farrell announced this year's Lollapalooza festival, and it turns out that this year the franchise turns 20 (although it was dormant for a few of those years).  Some of my favorite bands ever have played the festival (check out a fun timeline here) and so I figured I'd talk about what a few of them are doing tomorrow.

Of course, I have to talk about Perry's group, Lollapalooza's first headliners, Jane's Addiction. When I last wrote about them, they'd released a live DVD from one of their last shows from their reunion tour, their only one to feature original bassist Eric Avery. By the time the DVD came out, Duff McKagan replaced him, and had already left the band. Dave Sitek from TV On The Radio played bass on the album, he also co-wrote songs and co-produced. But he's not in the band, and now it looks like they're back with Chris Chaney, who played with them in the early '00s.  Their next album, The Great Escape Artist, comes out in August, and the first song, "End To The Lies," is out now.  I don't know if I dig it yet.

I have yet to write about the great Pearl Jam box set, which includes remastered versions of Vs. and Vitalogy (both with bonus tracks), a live album recorded April 12, 1994 at the Orpheum in Boston and (on cassette!) a copy of the radio show they did when Vitalogy came out, which featured performances by them, as well as Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Mad Season and The Fastbacks.  I'll write more about that later.

Tres Mts, who I wrote about last night - that's the supergroup featuring Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament and Mike McCready, King's X frontman Doug Pinnick and Fastback Richard Stuverud.

Eddie Vedder, meanwhile, releases his second solo album, Ukelele Songs, later this month, and I have the first song, "Longing To Belong."

The Beastie Boys released Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 this week, I haven't gotten mine in the mail yet.  What up, Amazon? I will certainly write about it after I get it.  I know people want to know about it: a post I did in late 2009 is one of my most popular posts lately.

Green Day just released a live album, Awesome As Fuck. Check out my cousin Kyle's guest review.

The new live Soundgarden compilation, Live On I-5, which I just wrote about.

And Tom Morello's latest song as The Nightwatchman, "Union Town," which makes me proud to be a fan. Dig the video, and get the Union Town EP when it comes out digitally next week. The Nightwatchman's next full length, World Wide Rebel Songs, comes out later this summer.

AMENT + PINNICK + STUVERUD (+McCREADY) = TRES MTS

I have been waiting for a long time for this album! For years, I'd heard that Jeff Ament from Pearl Jam and Doug Pinnick from King's X were doing some sort of project together. Well, that project is Tres Mts and it's out now.  The band also features Fastbacks drummer Richard Stuverud (who also played with Jeff in the band Three Fish and on Jeff's solo album 2008's Tone).

I think the album was recorded at Jeff's place in Montana, and a lot of it sounds like it was created out of some pretty rockin' jams. At some point, they realized that the songs needed lyrics to become songs.  A lot of it has that "jammy" sound - not in a "jam band" way, but it sounds like they were just rocking out in the studio and hammered the jams into actual songs. Mike McCready plays a lot of lead guitar on the album - Doug Pinnick plays most of the guitar on the album, but he's mainly a (great) bass player.  When it was time for some face-melting solos, Jeff knew who to call!

What does it sound like? I guess a bit like if Doug sang for Pearl Jam. It's heavy rock, it's soul, it's psychedelic.  Not much of a punk rock influence, and no indie rock pretensions.

One song that stands out is "God Told Me." The context: King's X were a Christian band when they started out. Not like Christian metal, and they weren't playing revivals or anything, but they had a Christian message in their lyrics, and they didn't have a problem with discussing it. Years later, Doug came out as a gay man, and also as an agnostic, although on this song, he seems to have come to terms with God, if not with organized religion. It's pretty heavy.

Another great one: "She's My New Song," which reminds me a bit of Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly." I had the great privilege, the great pleasure, of filming the band when they were at the SiriusXM studios recently. It meant to world to me to film a band with members of two of my favorite groups, Pearl Jam and King's X.

I dig the album, it's pretty rockin'.  I'm not putting it on a level with King's X or Pearl Jam, but it is my favorite thing Jeff has done outside of Pearl Jam since Temple Of The Dog, and it's my favorite thing Doug has done outside of King's X.  I'd love to see a full-on show live (when they played NYC, I had tickets... and then realized my cousin Bat Mitzvah - in Ohio! - was that day, oops!), and I hope they do another album. I've been using the album to run to, and it works great.  But I've also listened to it while just hanging out in the house.  Watching them perform, you wouldn't have known that they hadn't played together too much, they were really tight and knocked out three songs in like ten minutes. They seemed to work so well together, and seemed to enjoy it, so hopefully we'll hear more from them in the future.