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ed79.
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Show Us Your Picks!
The Great '06 PJ Guitar Pick Update
by Jessica Letkemann
June 8, 2006
One of TwoFeetThick's first articles was an Artifactor delving into all of the many personalized guitar picks the members of Pearl Jam have wielded over the years. Inevitably, with a new full-scale tour in 2006 comes a new set of band picks, so it seemed high time to take a look at what the PJ guys have done to their picks lately, and dig up a few more gems from the past.
STONE GOSSARD: In the past, Stone has primarily gone with various yellow picks. But around 2002, he switched over to the medium guage (.73mm thick) orange picks. On the first leg of the Avocado tour, Stone has debuted two new pick designs. The first (the front is the first example above, the back is blank) is a variation on the Class of '96 name picks that the whole band had made in the No Code era, each member with his name in a lower case, scruffy, typewriter font on a different color pick. Stone's version of that pick style, which the band used from 1996-2000, was yellow. Obviously, this 2006 version is his current color of choice, orange.
The second new design, examples two and three above, features a drawing of a baby on one side and the amusing slogan "sold to Pearl Jam at birth" on the other side. This pick is also Stone orange. It's worth noting that Stone's pick giving style has also changed. In previous years, Stone rarely handed picks out to the crowd. This year, he often throws one or two as far into the crowd as he can during the show. And at the end of the show, it's not rare to see him come out to the edge of the stage with a handful of them handing them out to the fans in the first couple of rows on his side.
EDDIE VEDDER: Ed, who used orange picks beginning in the mid 90s, has gone back to favoring black picks. The first two examples here are two sides of the same pick that Ed had made and used on the 2003 tour. On one side, in very simple white type is the number "23," a number that Eddie references all the time. The back side of this particular pick is Ed's initials, "EV" in the same simple, white type. This year, he's got two new designs, both of which he created/drew, and both of which are familiar to any Ten Club member who looks at the mailings carefully.
The first new one features the "crossed surfboards" Pearl Jam logo on the front (example three above). To see how Ed came up with this logo, which also appears on one of the t-shirts sold on this tour, check out the 10C magazine Deep Issue #1, where he detailed designing it. On the back of this pick (example four above) are Ed's initials, "EV," in small, simple, sans serif type.
Ed's second new pick, also black, continues on the ever-present Ed theme of water. On the front (example five above) is Ed's simple drawing of a breaking wave. Variations on this Ed drawing have cropped up over and over again since more or less debuting as a prominent part of the 1998 fan club Christmas single artwork. After that, it showed up again in 2000 when several fans reported that when asking Ed for an autograph, he often accompanied it by drawing these little breaking waves. Another example of the drawing is also in issue #1 of Deep, the 10C magazine. At any rate, the back of this pick (example six above), is the same "EV" in simple type that is on the back of this year's other new Ed pick and the 2003 pick.
JEFF AMENT: Jeff's newest pick is somewhat of a variation on his yellow 2003 "Ament Basso" pick. The new one is also yellow, and features the word "Ament" in black script on a white background shaped like the aerial view of a skateboard on one side (example one above), and the word "Ride" spelled out in an ornate drawing style using parts of skateboards-related items (wheels, a half pipe, a skate deck) on the other side (example 2 above). It seems safe to guess that Jeff designed this pick himself. Jeff's pick, meanwhile, remains the most difficult of the PJ members' picks to obtain at a show because he rarely hands them out. Those in search of a Jeff pick will do best to keep their eyes peeled on the floor in the front rows before a show starts, or to wait around after the show and see if the techs hand any out.
And while we don't have a scan to show you, it's worth mentioning a pick Jeff used in the mid-90s, which some fans have seen and which was mentioned in the Rumor Pit on the old official PJ site in 1998. It features Jeff's Mr. Point drawing on one side (Mr. Point also turned up on a 1995 tour t-shirt and some of the customized 1995 Pearl Jam tickets). On the other side, it featured the PJ "Angel" logo (which appears on the Vitalogy liner notes) that both Stone and Mike also used on one side of their picks during this era.
MIKE McCREADY: Mike has continued to use the yellow "palm tree" pick he debuted on the 2003 tour, and he has also continued to distribute them liberally to anyone in his general vicinity at shows by alternately flicking them one at a time and throwing big handfulls of them into the crowd. Talk about a man who's familiar with Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Neilsen's antics. If anyone is curious, during leg one of the 2006 tour, Mike had a small silver tin in his case of guitar pedals set right next to his wah wah which was full of picks. We aren't entirely sure when the Mike pick shown here, however, (the two examples above), was made and used. It has the Rat Sound logo on one side, which Stone also used (Stone had his signature on the other side), and which Mike also had another version of (with a Monkey and the word "McCready" on the other side). The triple sixes on the reverse, the sign of the beast, are a staple reference in the kind of hard rock and metal that Mike grew up listening to and playing.
FILE UNDER 'UNCONFIRMED': Curious and curiouser, this "Sexecutioner" pick turned up in 1993. The rarest pick known, we aren't 100% sure it's a Pearl Jam pick, but we do know that when we and other fans have come across it and it's associated with a band, Pearl Jam is usually mentioned. Sure, Gwar does have a song and a "character" that goes by the name of Sexecutioner, but as far as we've been able to tell, they never had a Sexecutioner pick, and as far as we can tell there was never a real band named Sexecutioner. We know of one fan for sure who claims to have been sent one of these Sexecutioner picks as a random extra with his fan club merch order waaaaay back in the day. Furthermore, Sexecutioner was an in-joke of some kind that Eddie used to bring up during the very early days of Pearl Jam. He jokingly mentioned Sexecutioner while being interviewed on MTV's Headbanger's Ball in 1991, and former drummer Dave Abbruzesse also claimed (wink, wink) that Sexecutioner was one of his favorite bands in an obscure 1992 Dutch interview in 1992 (printed in Noize magazine in 1993). Sexecutioner is also curiously mentioned in the "thank yous" section of the liner notes of Ten. The reverse of this pick says "World Orgy Tour 1993," which would make this a particularly hilarious nudge and wink to the Vs. tour, a very heavy time for the band, if it is indeed a Pearl Jam pick.
If you have any further information on the Sexecutioner pick, any of the other picks here, any of the picks in the first Pick artifactor, or any pick NOT mentioned on TFT, please write us. We'd love to hear about it.
The Previous Pick 'Factor
Click here to see TwoFeetThick's 2003 Artifactor about PJ's picks.
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kitty kat.
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Hi im kitty kat i like what you have done . -
bobmanno.
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io non posso. L'uomo mixer ne sarebbe troppo invidioso .