Seattle Nostalgia Wave Breaking

Alice In Chains announced a tour schedule recently. No Layne, a duh, but the rest of the guys are doing a club tour of the states with venues like the Bowry Ballroom, the Metro and the Roxy scheduled. We don't care about New York, Chicago and L.A., you say, we want to know where they'll be playing in Seattle. Not on the list. After their appearance in NYC at the end of May they'll be going overseas to play more clubs and festivals through the end of August. No Seattle.

In related news, Pearl Jam has been touring nonstop, lead singer intact, since sometime in the early 90s. And they continue to do so and put out albums on and on and nearing infinitum. The most recent release has gotten some actual press, though, and there's a video and possibly they were on TV doing a SNL episode or something and they've generally been doing the things that bands do when they have an album out rather than what Pearl Jam does when it has an album out, which used to be nothing. No, they're not hurting for cash, asshole. See the tours we mentioned above. Those make a lot of money. The new issue of Newsweek attempts to explain now Pearl Jam can once again walk in the sunlight without melting:

"There's a lot of anger and frustration in the atmosphere these days," says Vedder (who smokes way too much to have the voice he still has). "We didn't want to add to the negative noise pollution, but we did want to do something. It's just not the time to be cryptic. I mean, our tax dollars for this war are being funneled through huge corporations—one of which Dick Cheney used to be head of—and there's an even greater disparity between rich or poor in this country. It offends me on a really deep level." He smiles. "Then again, it makes me feel eternally young."