the day I tried to live... I learned that I was a liar.

what is it Seattle week with me? I guess so. it's actually always Seattle week with me.

anyhow. I'm in Tempe, AZ, and it's 106 degrees outside. We're on tour with two of the best artists I've ever loved growing up. Chamberlain and Tim Barry. you come to these shows early, or you do yourself an injustice. I've never publicly written about opening bands on our tours, but the reason we pick them are because they are truly worth your time. Remember, you're new favorite band is one listen away.

I'd also like to personally and publicly thank two interviewers I sat with this week.

1. Miss Liz Trinnear from Much Music who was exceptionally well informed about us, as a band, and thoughtful in her line of questioning, without playing it safe. - Thank you Miss Trinnear.

2. Mr. Alan Cross - wonderful to speak to you always. very knowledgeable about music history

and an excellent insight.

Play for the Lovers...

listen to: "The Day I Tried To Live" - Soundgarden - Superunknown

...And The Dead Lay, In Pools Of Maroon Below.

Today's gonna be books, not songs...

People say the strangest things about you when you're in a band... I know because my hobby is reading biographies on my own favorite bands...

I recommend these, by the way...

1. Conversations with Tom Petty

2. Scar Tissue - about Anthony Kiedis.

3. Redemption Song - about Joe Strummer

But the one I just finished, and I read this one in three days, including time off to have dental surgery, still finished in three days... was Kim Neely's book on Pearl Jam called 5 Against 1.

It's amazing.

Now I read biographies because they show the people in a new light in my eyes. You find out more insight into the whole person rather than in a magazine article, which is hard to do with 500 words, so it's not really a fair comparison.

So what I thought was especially great about Neely's style of writing, is that she told it well. She didn't show the band in a perfect light, she showed their flaws, but not in a trivial way that you find a lot with some writers where they pick like someone displeased with a meal they've received. She, instead, showed the weaknesses of the people from a reporting standpoint, as if I said to you... "you're shirt's on backwards." She also showed the triumph of a band defining a generation, all while the members were barely defined to themselves. It's pretty amazing.

I think one day I'm gonna do a reporter blog... where I write about writers... and they things they ask us. Maybe I should do that on this tour, we leave tonight for Canada and we have

a lot of interviews to do... maybe that's gonna be my new blog topic for tour... we could call it "the old switch-a-r00" who doesn't like that?

I'll take my notebook with me to interviews... It'll be good. Then we can compare notes when the articles come out.

Oh, boy... there's gonna be some people who don't like this idea...

today, there's a great song from Pearl Jam called "Smile" check it out.

"I miss you already, I miss you always... this is how I feel."