Pearl Jam 'Vs.' (1993) with Brooklyn Nets Radio Announcer Chris Carrino

Longtime radio voice of the Brooklyn Nets Chris Carrino joins the show to reveal the depths of his obsession with Pearl Jam!
 
Chris was fascinated by Pearl Jam's debut album, Ten, in 1991, but points to the band's second album, Vs. (1993), as what cemented his lifelong fandom.
 
We discuss how on Vs. Pearl Jam tried to distance itself from the riotous success of the debut album, how the band has always put its fans first and Chris points out Pearl Jam's serendipitous connection to the New Jersey Nets.
 
For the last segment, we talk basketball! Chris explains his beef with Carmelo Anthony and his expectations for the 2024-25 Brooklyn Nets i.e. how he will keep his spirits up through what could be one of the worst seasons in Nets franchise history.   
 
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(Episode 19.)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome back to At First Listen. A new episode today
and yet another guest for us.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Diamond very excited about this.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
I didn't introduce myself. I'm Andrew and I'm Diamond. So
we have a guest today. This is a bit of
a a very Andrew sort of an episode because our
guest is Chris Corrino, the radio voice of the Brooklyn Nets,
my favorite basketball team.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Our really, I mean I am, I'm a nuts fan.
Well let's see what happens this season.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Because I don't know there will be a portion of
this conversation where it's just going to be basketball talk.
So I apologize to whoever doesn't want to hear that.
I'm going to try to preface it. I don't know
what's going to happen. We haven't talked to him yet,
but I don't think there are going to be many
surprises in this that season, they're going to be really bad.

(01:16):
But that's a fan. That's also why It's also why
I'm so interested to talk to Chris at a time
like this. This guy's got to sit through eighty two
games of bullshit. Yeah, really bad basketball, Like I'm more
likely than not. So do you know what Sport.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well that too, but like people thought the Mets season
was going to be shitty, and I don't they turned
it around shout out to Usbian in the playoffs. So
you never know, but I'm pretty sure we do know
in this case. Yeah. So, I think it's really interesting
that I have.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
The Brooklyn Nets do not have a Francisco or they don't.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
It's okay. I think it's interesting that this is the
first episode where our guest has picked an album and
you haven't told me anything yet. Oh yeah, So I'm nervous.
I need to know what's going on, Andrew.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
So I know that Chris from listening to his own podcast,
The Voice of the Nets. It's called that he is
a big music fan, and specifically, I think because of
his age group, he's a big fan of music from
the nineties and it's a lot of alternative rock and grunge.
And one of the obstacles to getting guests on the

(02:46):
show is a lot of people who are really into
music have a hard time picking an album. So I've
started to let people know, like, Hey, I know this
is difficult. You feel like you have one one shot.
Let me help you decide if you're between and Chris
wrote back and he was like, Oh, it's it's no problem.

(03:09):
I'm picking versus by Pearl Jam.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Okay, all right, cool?

Speaker 1 (03:18):
I think everyone can imagine the face you just made.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yes, So okay, don't really know what you want me
to give to that, but what I'll say is, at
this point, I'm open to it. So let's do it.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Do you know anything about Pearl Jam at all?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I know that they're a band, nailed it. Yeah, that's
about it. This band specifically is a band that who's
t shirts. I stay away from when I see them
because I really know nothing about them. Like I say,
I know when you see them on the rack in
the store. Yes, I'm like, I don't know a damn
thing about Pearl Jam. I was invited to a show

(04:00):
of theirs once by someone who I think probably meant
it as a joke because they did, like, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
They knew that they So yeah, I loved this choice
because for me, I've never been a big fan of
Pearl Jam. From doing my job, I feel like I
know quite a bit about them. I've never listened to
this album. This is their second album. I know their
first album, which represented the first Pearl Jam album and

(04:34):
never Mind by Nirvana really were big represented big shifts
in the music industry and the landscape of like mainstream
rock music in the nineties, where all the colorful eighties
stuff was really kind of squashed like for good after
the first Pearl Jam album came out. And you talk

(04:55):
to musicians of that era who had thriving careers in
the eighties, and a lot of them will say, and
this might be completely you know, it's just their side
of the story, and maybe they were missing some things before,
but a lot of them will say that Pearl Jam
hit or Nirvana hit, and their career was basically over.

(05:15):
Their record label dropped them and they had to find
a new job basically. So Versus was the second album
by Pearl Jam, also a big album, but it doesn't
have the most iconic hits by Pearl Jam. I would
say the biggest song on this album was probably the

(05:37):
third track Daughter and maybe also you do sometimes hear
the tenth track, which is one of the great long
song titles of all time, Elderly Woman behind the Counter
in a Small Town.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Okay, Andrew Okay, all right.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
So the other thing is though Diamonds Okay, because you
liked led Zeppelin because you sort of liked Metallica. I'm
really curious to see how you experience Pearl Jam because
they were a band that was certainly not as much
on the metal side of things as Metallica. Okay, but

(06:19):
we're more to the hard rock side of things than
that led Zeppelin album, but also were more of the
classic rock mindset in terms of the production of their albums.
So I think sonically it would have a bit more
in common with a led Zeppelin album than it would

(06:39):
a Metallica album. And I'm sure some of the songs
are great. I don't know if I'm gonna like it.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Are we gonna be honest with Chris, we.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Should, Yes, I think that's I think that's the best
version of the show.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Okay, all right, very nervous about this because I don't
know Chris to tell them, oh, this was horrible, you
know what I mean. But I also don't want to.
I don't want to start off with those expectations. So
let's just.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Also recently they played Two Nights of the Garden a
couple of weeks ago recording this. I've always been a
massive band, like I remember as a kid in like
elementary school, being aware of Pearl Jam, having certainly never
heard their music, but being aware of them as like

(07:34):
the like the big kids, like this band.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Oh the big kid.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, I love that. And they have this culture of
fans like following them around from show to show. I
know because they were recently featured on CBS Sunday Morning.
That's how you know you're getting up there as a
as a musician. But I mean, I'm in my thirties
and I still watch. The lead singer, Eddie Vedder, writes

(08:01):
their set list every night, and he has like this
master document of all like three hundred of their songs,
and he will handwrite the set list himself.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Does it change every night? It changes all Wow, that's
kind of cool. That's really cool. Okay, now that's something
to remember.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah. So when we come back on our first Listen,
we'll have the voice of the Brooklyn Nets, Chris Carrino,
and we'll be talking about verses by Pearl Jener. Welcome

(08:43):
back to at First Listen. I'm Andrew and I'm Diamond,
and we are here with one of the great radio
sports broadcasters in the business, sporting his much discussed new beard,
Chris Carreno.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
You are indeed a listener of the podcast. Yeah, the
Voice of the Nets. Yeah, we've discussed my beer. Thank
you appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah, and it's awesome to be here with you guys
and Voice of the Nets and iHeart Radio show. Yes,
so even though we can't we we we can, but
we shouldn't plug your your work on the Nets broadcast,
which is on a competing for a competing company. Your
podcast is high Heart Radio.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
Yes, and uh but everybody, if you're in New York,
you know what station we're on and that I'm also
around the country Compass Media Networks doing NFL, so we
can promote that anything else.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Well, your foundation, of course, yes, you will get into that,
I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah's Carno Foundation for SHD.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
But the the reason that you're here with us is
to talk about some music. Now, Chris, I've been listening
to your voice calling net schemes for just about my
entire life, I guess probably your whole career doing it
is you know, you've been the guy on the radio
and sometimes on TV. So I was thrilled when I

(10:07):
was listening to the Voice of the Nets podcast to
hear you talk about music. Actually quite a bit. And
your love for nineties rock.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
It's a huge part of my life, and it just
it's always has been. I've just been I remember having
the forty five of Cool in the Gang with the
one that opened, you know, opens Sesame and then get Down,
Get Down. I remember that song, and it was so
I had the little I had a little record player
as a kid and that, and I mean things like

(10:39):
the Bay City Rollers when I was a kid, or
listen to Elvis and things like that. Like I just
it's always been a huge part of my life. And
I was so I was. I thought it was so
cool when you contacted me to do this, because yeah,
I I what do they always say, like athletes want
to be rock stars? Yeah, rock stars want to be athletes.

(11:00):
So sports broadcaster I want to be. I want to
talk about music, and you know, maybe musicians who want
to talk about sports. I don't know, but I will
say this, when you asked me, and you and you
and you said, you know, you pick this, you pick
an album that you want people to hear being and
I'm and I'm in the rock genre. I appreciate many

(11:25):
other things, but I thought, oh, wow, you know there's
so many great albums, what can I choose from? And
I said, you know what, you shouldn't get cute. I know,
the kind of the premise of this is to get
to know more about me through the music. I listened to.
My identity as a human being and a music lover

(11:46):
is that I'm a Pearl Jam fanatic. So I'm not
going to get cute giving you some other albums. I'm like.
The question then became which Pearl Jam record am I
going to choose? And you know I could have. I
wanted to even you know, the first album is so
iconic ten everybody knows it, and it's one of the

(12:08):
great rock albums of all time, and it's it came
out when I was in college. You know, I was
a senior in college, so that was you know, I
wore it out. It was. It's still the most amazing
rock album that I think. I mean, there's others that
are great, but and I said, well, I can even
go to the end and the one they just put
out in April. You know, thirty four years after they

(12:29):
came together, they're still putting out amazing records and their
last album is as good as they've done in many
years and then they're like underrated albums like No Code.
My favorite maybe is Vitology. But I chose Versus because
this is the album that is crucial in any bands developed,

(12:55):
developing that relationship with their fans. Follow up, right, the
first album is iconic. What do you do for an encore?
What's the follow up? And the and Versus is the
reason that I am still a Pearl Jam fanatic, that
I have a wall in my office basically devoted to
Pearl Jam, that I've seen them, you know, I saw

(13:17):
them three times last month on this recent tour. Like
the reason for all that was Versus. So that's the
one that I chose.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
I I don't think Diamond agrees with me because I
loved this choice for you, partially because this is such
an interesting watershed almost moment in the history of rock
music and was such a strange time in like a
time of transition in pop culture from the eighties are

(13:53):
over and now we're well into the nineties by ninety three,
and there is there are so many sounds that are
coming out of different places in America, and the record
industry is having to reckon with this. Really like hard
rock music that people just can't get enough of.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
And I think it was it was so much that
it wasn't even so much that it's the heavy guitar.
But we've had heavy guitar before. You know, I was
listening to a lot of you know, Van Halen at
that time. But think about the eighties rock. It was
a lot of the hair bands and hooks and it
was poppy rock, and you know it was talking about

(14:39):
girls and drugs and debauchery like chicks and now here, Yeah,
here was a button. Now here were these guys out
in Seattle, whether it be Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, that
we're singing about real stuff. Like all of a sudden,
everything got real like they were there was angst. It

(15:02):
was like, hey, uh, you guys are ignoring all the
little things. So when I think of, you know, the
when I think of some of the things that Pearl
Jam explored in something like in this album versus, I
mean Eddie Vedder always saying through uh. He he ended
up doing a lot of songs where he sings from
a woman's point of view, right that was not being

(15:23):
done in the early nineties. You know, he sings about
gun control and glorified g which They also touched in
ten with Jeremy you know, he's he's talking about you know,
white privilege in wm A. You know, white male America.
You won the lottery by being born. You know, like
these are things that weren't being discussed a lot in music,

(15:45):
and all of a sudden, now in the nineties, bam,
you know, so even even you know, mental health, he
gets into stuff like daughter and it's just this is
there was an earnestness. You know, everything got got real
in the nineties with these bands, I think, which is
so you had to understand the time. That was the change,

(16:07):
you know, from the eighties glam rock to now it's
getting real.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, the eighties and also to the seventies to some
extent with like prog rock and even like disco and
like funk. It's kind of they're selling a fantasy sort
of And wouldn't it be great if you could just
like do all the drugs you ever wanted to do,
and like have all the romantic partners you ever wanted

(16:34):
and so forth. Whereas in the nineties, and there was
a thread of this throughout a lot of the popular music,
where it was people who were trying to bring back
more of a singer songwriter ethos and sing about problems
that they were having in their actual real lives. And
the record industry was kind of shocked by this. And

(16:57):
there's a lot of rock stars from the eighties who
were very negatively affected by bands like Pearl Jam and
really hated them a lot because of what their their
explosion sort of meant for their careers. But before we
get into some of the finer points of this album,

(17:18):
I want to tell you Chris that on the show
there's like an ongoing thread of will Diamond hate this
or not? And we got off to a good start
because the first true rock record was led Zeppelin to
Diamond really liked it, and since then, when we've done rock,

(17:42):
it's not gone. So well, it's not. And I explained
to you in our email conversation that I'm pretty familiar
with Pearl Jam in like a broad perspective. I know
the hits like I know Daughter and Elderly Woman from
this record, I know the debut album. I know the

(18:05):
self titled from like two thousand and six or whenever
that came out, the one with the avocado on the cover. Yeah, which,
by the way, I didn't even know what an avocado was.
When that came out, I stop. I thought it was
a peach I think for a long time, or a
pair or something. But anyhow, so I am I going.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
To have to defend? Well, well I will do.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Listen, Chris is ready to go to the deck.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Not be the first time that someone has had to
defend one of their favorite bands artists. I have to
defend Beyonce literally every time these mics are on. So
but I don't think you're gonna have to. I don't
think you're going to have.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
To defend so this one.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
Beyonce is like some indie band, you know, nobody knows about.
It's pretty popular she's doing. But what they i'd say
about music and being, you know, such a fan and
I love music. I love all types of music. But
it doesn't matter if you like it like you know
what I mean, Like, it's what moves you as a person,

(19:16):
and that's the most important thing, Like it doesn't take
away from my enjoyment of Pearl Jam if somebody else
doesn't like you know, That's why there's so many different
genres and so many different types of music. I mean,
there's some stuff that I can't stand to listen to
for more than three minutes. But at the same time,

(19:37):
let me put you back though in being a college
kid in the early days, and you know, hearing ten
was again you have to understand, you put yourself at
a time where rock music was just now turned on
its head by bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana, and
that's my genre that I love, And all of a sudden,
it's like, whoa wait a minute, Like I like this

(20:01):
even better and I wore ten out, like I couldn't
get enough of it, and you're waiting for that what
are they gonna do next? Like I was going to
record stores finding you know, independent record stores where you
would find bootlegs and B sides and things like that.
You couldn't get enough of their sound and who they
were and this new band, you know, coming out of nowhere,

(20:24):
and then it was like, what are they gonna do next?
That's gonna determine their staying power, their seriousness as a band.
And this is back in nineteen ninety three. The video
the MTV Video Music Awards were a big deal back then.
Right when you had Pearl Jam was gonna come on
and perform, and there was rumors that there was a

(20:48):
new album, but nobody had heard anything. Nobody heard any
music from it. So I was like, all right, well,
Pearl Jam's coming on here. They're probably gonna play a
new song. That was the rumor, Right, they're gonna playing
your song. And it was appointment viewing. You know, we
didn't have DBRs back then. We you know, you couldn't

(21:08):
watch a clip on social media the next day, like
you had to tune in to watch it. So I
remember vividly thirty one years ago, making it a point
to be home to watch the MTV Music Awards to
see Pearl Jam. And you know, here we go, ladies
and gentlemen, Pearl Jam. And here is Eddie Vedder in

(21:32):
his army green jacket, completely stoic, just standing in front
of the microphone, and the band rips into animal Eddie
never moves from the front of the stage or the microphone.
It's on a stand and he's got his arms crossed.
At one point the hair is down over his face
and he does the you know one, two, three, four,

(21:54):
five against one, and and the band is bouncing around
like Pogosture on pogo sticks. I mean, Jeffay meant, the
bass player is literally hopping back and forth from one
end of the stage to the other, and Stone Gosser's
going in circles, and Mike McCready is just in another world.
And Dave Barberziz the drummer is just playing like Animal

(22:15):
from the Muppets, you know, the hair's flying and everything.
And it was this force of nature and it was
just they were just ferocious and it not I mean,
it just knocked me over, yeah, and I went, this
is it. This is my favorite band. Like it went
from being one album to now these guys, I'm with you.

(22:38):
I'm right or die now with you guys. And it's
like being a fan of a team. You're just you
had a game when you were young and you loved
it and you fell in love with a player or something,
and now they're just win or lose. They're your team
for the rest of your life. And it's been a
thirty some mid year ride. I'm grateful that they have
done whatever they have to do to stay together and

(22:58):
make music. And not too many bands had that kind
of longevity. Not too many bands can put out an
album like Dark Matter thirty some odd years after they
started that's still relevant and you can go see them,
and they're selling out arenas and stadiums. Thirty four years
later and people are still going to these shows. And

(23:31):
to your point, you know, there was a time ten
really they exploded and they were the kind of band though,
that kind of rebelled against the popularity. I mean, Eddie
Vedder never wanted that. He kind of wanted to be
for Gazy or you know, one of these bands that
just had like a little niche following, and suddenly they

(23:51):
were overwhelmed by millions of people and they almost put
on the brakes a little bit. They almost did things
in verses that would that would slow down the popularity
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Well, Ytology the third record, they like go off on
agents that it's like they're trying to get people not
to like them.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Well, it's amazing. I think it worked for someone here,
uh in this Uh it's amazing that they debuted a
song on the VMA's and then did no music videos
for this record. Oh and the Brakes, Yeah, they they
were so serious. That's I think maybe part of the

(24:35):
loyalty that they sewed with these first few records. I mean,
there was the ticketmaster thing where, if you know, a
little bit about their war with Ticketmaster. Chris, you can
certainly speak on that, but.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, I mean this is way. This was thirty years
before Taylor Swift took on.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, but you know, my I wasn't a kid in
the nineties in school, didn't really have any concept of
popular music. I remember being aware of Pearl Jam. Maybe
I had an older cousin who was around college age
who was into them, but I just knew that they
were one of these bands that people would follow around.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
And well, the thing is, they play a different show
every night. Yeah, and earlier in their career they didn't
have as much material. But when you see them now,
I mean you can literally go to you know, four
shows in a row and just hear a different set
list every night. They're not a jam band like Fish
or Grateful Dead, where they play, you know, one song

(25:37):
last twelve minutes. But they they they will walk into
a tour now with over one hundred songs at their
repertoire and they'll play different ones every night. And I
don't know how that's hard as a band. You know,
there's a lot to that, But I think you know
their Ticketmaster thing, and you know that was them saying, hey,

(25:58):
we have fans that don't have a lot of money,
they're young, they want to come see us. Why are
you know if a ticket is twenty five dollars, we're
only getting ten. Where's all that other money going? And
it was all these fees and everything. So they rebelled
and they tried to fight it, and they felt that
there was no competitive ticket. Mess.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
They took it to the Supreme Court.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
They and they and Jeff A. Mean and Stone Gosser
were talking in front of Congress, you know. And but
what ended up happening was for a couple of tours
there or maybe a couple of years, they couldn't play
Ticketmaster venues, so they had to find all which was
one of their things. It was like Ticketmaster had this monopoly.

(26:43):
So I remember the first time I ever saw him,
nineteen ninety six, we had to go to Randall's Island
out there, you know, in Queens and you're just you know,
it was a mess. It was The shows were glorious,
but it was it was a mess because trying to
get on and off from Randall's Island is before they
redid the whole place now and everything. So but yeah,

(27:05):
but that was what they were, but they were trying
to stick up for the fans, you know.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
So look, let's let's get this out of the way. Diamond,
just I heard the first ten seconds, ten twenty seconds
ago and I was like, okay, Diamond will hate this.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
And you text me was that when you text me.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
No, that was after a few days, and I just
felt like you were probably my senses were going off,
like she's probably kind of suffering through this. So just
can you set the table for the rest of our
conversations so we know how you experienced it.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, I love that you thought that I hated it,
because I think that I went into it thinking that
I was going to hate it. And I listened. I
think I got through. I think I got your daughters,
our daughter, and I was like, do I actually hate this? No,
or like do I actually like this? So I started over.

(28:03):
I didn't even like the second listen was like from daughters,
I started, let me, let me go into this with
a fresh and clear mind, and I actually I really like,
go Okay. Yeah, I was shocked. I was shocked. I know,
I'm shocked shocked, but I really liked it.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
She always surprises me.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Chris, you know, I'm like Santa Claus, I'm surprising him
all the time, but he Okay, what do I really
have to say about this? So go? I was thinking
back to, like Chris, we've talked about this on the
podcast before. I was fascinated with the drums growing up,
and so I wanted to play the drums. My parents

(28:46):
got me a drum kit and it just didn't work out.
But like songs like go for you both of us.
They were annoyed that I didn't take it as seriously
as I should have, and I was annoyed that I
couldn't pick up drums.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Drums is a double sided sword because if you did
stick up with it, they'd be like, I really wish
you would stop trumps.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
But they were like, we spent our money on this.
It's April and it's dust on the on the drum kit.
You got it for Christmas. Come on. But like songs
like Go made me like in my head, this is
what I heard as a child, thinking like, oh, this
is really cool, Like I would want to play the drum,
like yeah, I want to be able to do that.

(29:28):
So I think that maybe that's why I don't hate it. Okay, Yeah,
I didn't.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
I don't know, had a very uh yeah, this is
there's a history of drummers with Pearl Jazz.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
You're kidding.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
So when they so, it's been four guys that have
been so so so Stone Gotstend and Jeff a Man.
Just to quickly the history, Stone Gotshen and Jeff a
Man the bass player and rhythm guitar player. They were
another band together and the lead singer Andrew Would. They
had a promising band called Mother Love Bone. And Andrew
Wood overdosed and they were sort of in the lurch

(30:07):
of well, we want to start a new band. Mike
McCready was a friend. They bring him in. He's the
lead guitar player. They send a demo tape through a
guy they knew named Jack Irons, who was the original
Chili Pepper's drummer and they were reaching out to him
and he said, I got this guy in San Diego
I know. And they gave the tape to Eddie Vedder
and he goes into the ocean to surf and he

(30:28):
comes out with three songs and that's the and he
goes up there and they record ten. All right, they're
very very quick thirty second explanation that could be a
lot more elaborate if I need to, But anyway, they
had a guy named Dabe Cruzen who was the original
drummer when they started to record ten, he had some
personal issues how to leave the band. They end up
bringing in Dave Abruzziz, who plays a little bit on

(30:50):
ten and he plays in verses in Bytology and still
probably my favorite Pearl Jam drummer. But him and Eddie
Vedder didn't get along, so they kind of kick him
out and they had a couple other guys, and then
they that they toured with. Jack Irons came in from
the Chili Peppers. He plays in a couple of records,

(31:11):
and then for the last twenty some odd years it's
been Matt Cameron from Sound Guarden, Matt Cameron. When Soundgarden
broke up, they they needed a drummer, they call Matt
Cameron and he's been with them proverb twenty years. So
there you go. There's the history. There's been a lot.
There have been five drummers, so it's kind of a running.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Joke, and the rest of the band is the same
four guys.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
The same four guys, but they've had five different drummers,
but one for the over twenty years at Matt Cameron.
So but yeah, but I agree with you, and I
love Dave roberts Ez's drumming on verses and you love got.
What I love about Go is that little false start.
It's just short of like you hear that, it's like
a little like but again, it's like throwing you off.

(31:50):
It's like they're they're they're kind of like, here's you
think you know what you expect from us, Please not
everybody like this again, go a false started and then
we're gonna go into it, which is really cool because
I'm one of the great things about when you see
them live and again they have a different set list

(32:12):
every time, and most of the time they'll they even
I've been to twenty World Jam concerts and I think
maybe I've seen the same opening song maybe once or twice.
Like it's always different, and a lot of times they
try to give you a little slow thing to kind
of like everybody's all jacked up in the arena. They
kind of come out really slow, the lights are out,

(32:33):
they kind of ease you in. But I saw them
at the Garden one time back and I think it
was twenty sixteen, and they come out and it's dark
and everybody's jacked up, and they're they're up there. You
could see them in the dark, and they just start
to do the false open to go. They just start
doing that thenn't It's just like they just feel like
they're tooling around with their instruments and then they stop
and then ban, and it's just like the place just

(32:56):
goes nuts, you know, like and so and so been
one of the men. But the thing about and I
think it really shows up on this album, is that
their their dexterity as a band. So they can go
really hard like Go and Animal and Blood where they
just you know, it's just steady screaming. But then they

(33:18):
can be quiet and play you poignant songs like Daughter
and Elderly Woman behind the counter in a small town.
And you know, acoustically they can play or Indifferent.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
And it always sounds like the same band.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
It like the same.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
It doesn't sound like, Okay, this is the one that's
for the radio, like this is the one that's for MTV.
It's still because I think there's that those storytelling.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
Not every song sounds the same. That's the thing, Like
you don't just go you don't there's not a monotony
to it. A lot of bands they have a sound
and like every song kind of sounds similar. They can
sound so different, you know, but at the same so
yeah and indifferent and you know, so they're yelling, they're
pouring their heart out about everything in versus and then
the end is indifference where they're basically saying, I don't

(34:01):
know if there's going to make any difference, Like we're
doing all this, just like their fight with Ticketmaster, just
like like we're we're we're there for you, We're trying
to point all this stuff out. I just don't know
if we're going to make a difference. And I just
think that it all wrapped up like that, And I
don't know. I mean, did you're go any further Diamond
or you just got no?

Speaker 2 (34:18):
I did, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
I did listened.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
And I just kept listening to those over and over.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
No.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
What I will say is that at one point it
lost me or they lost me.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
I think it was blood.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
I see blood is like blood is just I'm gonna
scream that you're ripping the blood out. You're like, what
do you want from me? Do you want blood, here's
my blood on the page.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
I just you know, but maybe that wasn't my vibe,
you know.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
Really hard.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yeah, I just came to me this this drummer thing
to stick with that. So Pearl Jam got inducted into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two three years ago.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
Yep, I was there. Oh you were there?

Speaker 1 (35:02):
Oh at the Barclays, Yeah, you know a guy.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
I'm sure it was at Barkley Center.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah. So there was one of their five drummers inducted
with them, and it was not a Dave ABRUZZIZI.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
No, it was Matt Cameron. Uh. And actually well Kruisin played. Yeah,
Cruisin came out and played Alive. They did a version
of Alive with Krusen, who played drums on a live
on ten So it was great to see him back.
And yeah, but uh, I think and I think Jack
Irons was there. And there was another guy, Matt Chamberlain,

(35:39):
who never recorded with them but played a little bit
live with them.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
That work like could you imagine, like, Okay, I'm gonna
put this in diamond terms so that I can like, Okay,
if Destiny's child one day it just gets inducted. You
mean to tell me that the original members don't at
least get a play or something like that, they don't
get to go on that stage. Yeah, just Beyonce, Kelly

(36:04):
and Michelle.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
I think it goes back to what Chris mentioned about
Eddie and Dave ABERZIZI really not getting along because I
think the principal members of the band kind of get
to decide.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
That is something to take to the Supreme Court.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
So there's a great record, there's a there's a a
great article written about Pearl Jam and Rolling Stone when
Verses came out, and it's Cameron Crowe wrote the article.
You know, Cameron Crowe obviously the film director, the writer.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
He's the diamond. He's the writer and director of the
film almost famous, okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
And that's about his life kind of as a young
writer coming out and you know, he did, he did,
He's done so many, you know, Jerry Maguire and the
movie Singles. He actually puts a couple of guys from
Pearl Jam in the movie. They played Matt Dillon's.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
I watched that for the first time a few months ago.
It's very it's not a good movie, but very fun.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
Two great Pearl Jam songs in the in the in
the soundtrack. But anyway, so in this story, they tell
the story when Pearl Jam was recording this record, Dabraberzize
just didn't share the same I say, ethic of the guys.
Like they were these guys who were sort of rebelling
against fame, and you can give them all the money

(37:25):
in the world and they're just still going to live
the same life they've always lived. And Dave Braberzize went
out and bought a Mercedes, you know, and drove it
up when they first started recording, like he was he
was living the rock star thing, and I think that
irked Eddie Vedder and other guys. And then they were
telling he was telling about going up to the woods
to go like camping with a buddy and how he
had two shotguns, two guns in the car, and they're

(37:47):
literally the song Glorified g comes the dial. The lyrics
come from the the actual conversation they had with Dave
Barberziz about guns and you know, uh, I got a gun.
You know, in fact, I got to that's okay man,
because I love God. Glorified version of a pellic gun

(38:08):
and it was all stuff he took them that conversation
and you knew from there Eddie wrote a song basically
mocking gave Bob Berziz while Dave roberzz is playing drums
in the band. And it's amazing they got one more
album with him. And it's so funny because Howard Stern
interviewed Eddie Vetter and he told them his favorite song

(38:30):
was Glorified G. And Eddie ed, he goes, how come you?
And Howard Stern said his favorite Pearl Jam song was
Glorified G. And he goes, why don't you play that song?
Why do you hate the song? And Eddie goes, I
don't hate the song, what do you mean? And he
plays him a live cut of Eddie going, you know,
glorified version of I hate this song as he's singing it,
and and they wanted when when recently they were on

(38:51):
the Howard Stern Show, the whole band came on to
promote the last album Howard. They said, oh you can,
you can request the song and Howard's a Glorified G
and they they didn't play. They go no, no, or I
could play that one and you could just tell it.
I think it's the relationship with Dave Barberaziz Eddie Vedder.
He'd actually gone on some podcasts lately and you know,
just said a lot of bad things about Eddie Vedder.

(39:13):
But I saw him at the Garden last month, and
I was with my son at the show, and they
never they don't play Glorify g very much, and all
of a sudden they start playing it at the Garden.
He goes, he goes, this is for a friend who's
who's a requested this, and they play it and I
said to my son, I go, I guarantee you Howard
Stern must be here. And then the next day I

(39:35):
see in the social media or whatever that Howard Stern
was there, and I think Eddie Vedder played the song
for Howard Stern. Yeah, that was I know way too
much about all this.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
That was.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
That was one of those songs where after a couple listens,
I'm like, there's something, there's something to the meaning of
this song or where it came from, Like there's a
story behind this. It's too strange for the or not
to for this not to be like an inside reference.
And yeah, sure enough. Eddie says he didn't even write

(40:07):
the lyrics. He just wrote down what the other guys were.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
The conversation they had and they were so upset that
this guy had guns.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah, wow, I love the gossip.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
And like, literally the course of the song is the
the other four guys in the band singing glorified version
of a pellic gun. Once you know where it came from,
it is like a very much of a mocking tone,
and I'm sure it did not make things easy for
Dave Aberzizi to continue being in the no and he's.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Like, because that's it. He was like, wow, it's just
to twenty two whatever. It's just a glorified version of
a pellic gun. Like that literally is what he told them, Like,
don't don't be so crazy about it, like you know,
but but you could tell it. I always say, like
I love the drumming on Versus and bytology, I think
it's it's it may be the best. So maybe Dave
aberziz It, you'd say, was the best drummer. And there's

(41:02):
a lot of Pearl Jam people that made me feel
that way, But to me, the best drummer for Pearl
Jam was the one that fit with the band. So
Eddie Vedder likes Matt Cameron that Matt Cameron's the best drummer.
Just like when they got to their third album, Bytology,
Eddie Vedder kind of became the leader of the band.

(41:22):
You know. He went from being the guy they brought
in to be the singer to it now he was
sort of in control of the direction of the band.
And I think that that's why they ended up changing drummers.
I think he felt more comfortable with somebody else. He
ends up getting. Jack Irons is the guy that introduced
him to the other guys in the band. So you know,

(41:45):
there's chemistry, right, Like, yeah, there's a reason why teams
are good for many years. Or you know, I've been
working with my radio partner Tim Kapstraw and the Nets
Radio broadcast for twenty three years because we have great chemistry, right,
So there's more to just talent. Yeah, there's chemistry when

(42:05):
you're in a band and you're creating, Like it's important
to have the same sort of that you fit like
puzzle pieces together, you know, And and that's why you
stay together for thirty four years.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
And when you listen to because while Eddie leads the band,
he's not the only writer in the band. One of
the cool things about Pearl jam Is, Jeff Stone, Mike, Eddie.
They all write songs. They all write music for the band.
The lyrics are tend to be up to Eddie. But
when you listen to Jeff Stone and Mike talk about writing,

(42:42):
like Stone especially will talk about like, oh, I just
love when I come up with an idea, and I
think I can't wait to hear what Eddie does with this,
Like like he's almost the muse of the band because
he has such a strong vision creatively. They just love

(43:03):
getting his interpretation of their ideas into the songs.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
That Stone, early on around this time of Versus, said
something like I don't know what it is that makes
but it was to the effect of like he inspires
us and somehow we inspire him. It sums up their dynamic.
Like you know, Bruce Springsteen would talk about the East
Street Band and they would say, well, it's a a

(43:31):
beneficial dictator a friendly dictatorship or something like that, charge
a benevolent dictatorship, thank you, Yeah, like like he's in charge,
but it's still a collaborative effort. And I think you
know that thing Stone Goss said, like I don't know
what it is, but somehow he makes we make him
want to sing the way he does, and he makes

(43:52):
us want to jump around behind him.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
I love that you brought up Bruce Springsteen, because I
do see a lot of Eddie Vedder has seemingly aged
into a Bruce Springsteen type of like elderly statesman of
rock music, which is why some of these videos of
him performing in the nineties are so alien. And I'm
gonna start a video on my phone and show it

(44:27):
to Diamond so she knows what we're talking about. So
this is Eddie at some gigs somewhere in the nineties,
and as you can see, he is putting his life
on the line for some reason.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
I've seen this.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Yeah, where he's hanging on the rafters of the of
the stage. It's probably look at them one where he gets.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
His mic uh caught up in the in the that
I think is a compilation that I that I brought up.
But yeah, so Diamond, there's there's a video of them
playing in outdoor show somewhere seemingly a festival, I don't
know truly what it was, and he climbs the scaffolding
over the stage, so he's probably I don't know thirty

(45:12):
feet in the air, just like like monkey bars, like
going around, and then he the mic is not wireless,
Oh no, it's on a cable, and he gets it
tangled in the rafters. So he's trying to sing the
song and also untangle it and he's just dangling.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
Well actually he so I think he threw it up
there and it got okay, so he decided, well, let
me go get it. But so there's a great little
section there's.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
But it seems so it seems so far away from
the person and the performer that he has today.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
Well, it's funny because I've been going to shows since
the nineties and then you know, go shows now. So
whenever they play Porch, it's all called Porch from ten.
There's a long, extended instrumental part of it, and a
lot of times it would just be in a lot
and whenever they would play Porch, the instrumental part starts,

(46:10):
and Mike McCready just starts, you know, going on his
guitar for like five or ten minutes, and Eddie, whether
or not, he just yeah, like this wildness came out
or he was bored or whatever. In the middle of Porch.
He would always just do something crazy like he would
just be climbing speaker stacks or you know, uh, he

(46:32):
would he would look for the highest place he could
climb to so that he could jump into the crowd.
There's another there's a famous scene from Pink Pop, the
Pink Pop festival where he he gets on a camera
there's one of those camera cranes with the sort the
crane goes up over the stage wherever he got on
the camera platform with the crane guy and had him

(46:55):
go up as high as he could and swing out
over the crowd and he dives into the crowd. And
there's a So there's a documentary when they when they
had their twentieth anniversary. It's called Pearl Jam twenty and
it's directed by Cameron Crupp.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
I have the book for it.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
There's a section where the band members are all interviewed
about Eddie doing all this stuff and they were all
so scared that he was going to kill himself, like
that he not not that he was going to take
his life, but that in doing this he was going
to have an accident. And they were just like, yeah,
we we were just but there's nothing we could say
to me. He would just he would just he would

(47:32):
just do it, and you know, we had They were
coming from a time where they lost people, you know,
like their original singer overdosed, and all these friends in Seattle,
these these singers that we know about Herkle Bay and everybody.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Like and they and they knew, they knew all those bands.
That's the other interesting thing about this scene of these
these band Soundgarden, Pearl, jam Alison, Chains, Nirvana, Mother Lovebone,
the Melvins. You know, Seattle was kind of this far
away place. They didn't get a lot of Nash tours
back in like the seventies and eighties because it was
it was almost like inaccessible because there's not that many

(48:06):
cities on the way. So they just sort of cultivated
their own scene up there, and a lot of like
they didn't have bands that were like getting signed as
like nineteen twenty year olds. A lot of the bands
were a little bit older when they started getting some notice,
so they'd been playing with each other for years and

(48:27):
in and out of different bands. So like Kurt Cobain
passed away and it wasn't like they were mourning him
because he's another Seattle musician, like they were mourning him
because he was a good friend of theirs and even
actually with with Heart the band Heart From, which was

(48:48):
a pivotal seventies band, female fronted band, kind of became
pop stars in the eighties when they changed their direction
a little bit. Another band from like Seattle and sort
of Vancoup area. They were sort of like the cool
aunts for all these young Seattle to.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Nancy Wilson, the guitar the sister who's the guitar player.
Nancy Wilson is married to Cameron Krupp right.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
For the nineties, they're not married anything.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
They met with the you know, Pearl Jam and stuff.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Yeah, the Heart sisters lent Pearl Jam some money to
like make their first.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
Record and here's another so to bring it to the nets.
So they're they're they're big, big basketball fans, like Jeff
A meant was like, uh, when he started making some money,
he at courtsyite sees to the Sonics and stuff like that.
When there was this team in Seattle. I mean there's
a team called the Sonics, and Harry Peyton and and

(49:45):
Eddie Vedder was a big Bulls fan and everything is
from Chicago originally, but they did have a name for
the band when they recorded.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Oh yeah, I wanted to bring this up.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Yeah, So they were they used to go across the street.
They had like a little per diem they used to
about from the record company to make the record. And
what they would do is they'd go across the street,
get a sandwich or something in at Delhi and they'd
be basketball cards. So they would always be buying packs
of basketball cards. So they have basketball cards all over
the studio. And they were recording in some little basement
place in Seattle, and they put together a cassette and

(50:18):
they had to send it to something, and so they
they just took a basketball card that they liked, and
they liked this guy, Mookie Blaylock, and at the time
he was on the nets. So they this basketball card
of Mookie Blaylock in a net uniform. They just stuck
it in the cassette and they sent it off. And
then when they had to go perform, they were just
around town they were going to be performing. They were like,

(50:40):
what's the name of the band, And they were like,
I don't know, Mookie Blaylock. So they just they perform
as Mookie Blaylock. And when it came time to put
the record out and the record company was like, you
can't be Mookie Blaylock. And they were like, well no,
but that's we like that name. We want to keep it.
So they went to Mookie Blaylock.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
And who is like, like, he was like a backup
point guard at that point.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
Do you think, yeah, he played, got a decent career
in the NBA, he was went to Oklahoma, but he
he just like no. And I think the Nets Lawyers
or something at the time like game a seasoned Desister,
and they had it. They had changing the name, and
then they somehow arrived on Pearl Jam, which has been
very They've been very cryptic about what that means, so
nobody really knows exactly what it means. But but yeah,

(51:26):
so they almost were Mookie Blaylock. And that's why. So
the original album, the first album is entitled ten because
that was Mookie Blaylock's number.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
That is so cool.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Yeah, I knew the Mookie Blaylock thing. I didn't know
that that that was his number.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
And that's and when you go to Pearl Jam shows
to this day, you'll still see a couple of people
walking around with Mookie Blaylock Jersey.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
New Jersey nuts Jersey. That's great. Yeah, speak. So the
other what I thought was a basketball tie in was
actually just a misheard lyric on this album. In the
song Rats, the fourth line is lick the dirt off
a larger one's feet and the well, I'll just say,

(52:15):
every time I've heard it, I thought it was something
something Elijah Wan's something because.

Speaker 3 (52:24):
The way no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
No, But they do have apoint they did.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
They did make a song that jeff A Meen sings
a bass player. It's like a B side called Sweet
Lou and it's about Louiel Cinder Moul Jabbar. So that
was one little basketball song they had. But it's funny
you say about Rats and maybe you tie this in.
I don't know if you remember. There was. So Michael
Jackson had a song called Ben from a movie which

(52:50):
was about a mouse, and the chorus of the song
was Ben, the two of us need look no more
like they had found each other. It was whatever, I
forget the movie. It was like an animated movie or something.
So that was a song called Ben by Michael Jackson.
So the song Rats. At the end, if you noticed
Eddie Vedder's when the song is trailing off, he's going Ben,

(53:16):
the two of Us need Look No More? Then the
two of Us Need Look No More. That was from
the song Ben. That was That was taken from the
song Ben by Michael Jackson. And one time I remember
hearing that they were in a I saw them in
Chicago and they were playing Rats and Eddie Vedder's yelling

(53:37):
Michael Jackson was innocent. Jackson was innocent, you know, and
he starts doing the Ben the two of Us Need
Look No More maybe on for hours. This is making
me think I should do a Pearl Jam podcast. Yeah
you should, well, you know my heart maybe grab that.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Yeah. I shared your Something to Prove podcast with a
friend of mine who was sort of a lapsed NETS
fan didn't didn't didn't want the move to Brooklyn and
and sort of lost touch with the team. And I
was like, oh my, uh, Chris Carino and Tim Capstraw
and Bill Raftri are on this incredible podcast about the

(54:16):
the first Jason Kid years. And I sent it to
him and he got back to me a couple of
days later. He'd listened to all I think there's five episodes,
and he was like, oh, thank you so much for
sending this to me. This it was so so fun
reliving that incredible time in in Nets history. And he

(54:36):
was someone who, like his family, had season tickets at
the time, so they were at all of those games.
Let's let's take a little break. We'll wrap up the
Pearl Jam conversation and then talk a little basketball, and
I'll maybe make a note in the description of when

(54:57):
we're doing that so people can just skip through it
if they but we'll be right back on a first
listen after this. All right, and we're back at a

(55:17):
first listen. I'm Andrew and we're wrapping it up with
Chris Carrino talking about Pearl Jams Versus album. Anything that
any of us want to add about this, Chris, you
want to go first?

Speaker 3 (55:31):
I mean, listen. I love the fact that Diamond took
something away positive from Versus, Like I when we first
came on, I was afraid she's just just gonna be like, no,
that is not me. But she actually enjoyed some of it.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
She really did me too. I always think the podcast
is on the line when when we get one of
these things that I'm like, oh boy, I don't know
about this.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
I thought it was going to be on the line too,
I said oh my god, I.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Can't keep doing this.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
I need a week in between. No, but I actually
enjoyed it. And I say this a lot about like
I'll play the album, whatever album we're reviewing or listening to,
I'll press play and I'll start doing things. This one,
I feel like everything it just seemed kind of seamless

(56:20):
to me. And then when I would go back, I'm like, hey,
I missed this. I like this a little bit. Wow, Okay,
like rats, I actually really liked Yeah, so you know,
I wasn't expecting to like it. I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Do you find that sometimes when you listen to a
record that you know, maybe it's a band you like
or something, and you get a new album and you
listen to it, it's almost a good sign. When I
don't love it immediately, it makes me go back, and
then I listened to it second third and then it's like, Wow,
all of a sudden, I'm like, I can't stop listening
to this record that maybe you didn't. It was maybe

(56:57):
a little too much in the beginning for me to
rap my head around. But once I re listen, and
I feel like I find myself doing that with a
lot of records.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Yeah, that I think is part of the reason for
the show. I think it's good for people to talk
about music with each other because it helps us all
enjoy it a little bit. One of my friends and
bandmates actually just texted our like group chat the other
day about a band that we all kind of like.

(57:27):
We played a show with them a while ago, this
Norwegian band called Lepros, and I had listened to their
new album and I really wasn't into it. I thought, like,
the first four tracks were good and then it fell off.
And then he writes in the group chat, he goes, hey, guys,
this this new album by Lepros is like one of
the greatest works of art that I've ever heard. And

(57:51):
I'm like, what, Okay, I mean, I'll let me give
it another shot. Like, clearly I miss something if he's
feels that strongly about it. You know, I remember being
in college at my college radio station was where like
most all of my socialization happened at school. That's where

(58:13):
most of my friends come from from college, And you know,
we'd be sitting in the the studio listening to music
because we were playing it on the radio and just
talking about it and what we liked about it, or
what we didn't like about it, why we liked the
way these two songs by random artists kind of flowed together,
and it always gave me a better appreciation and got

(58:38):
me into styles of music that I maybe sub genres
really that I wasn't into like by default.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
You know. Another thing that sometimes I think can enhance
your fandom of a band or music is going to
see them live. Yeah, and we've talked about Pearl Jane.
You can go multiple times to one week of shows
because they're all going to be different. They've also been
very accessible to their fans, so they put out the
recording of every single show available to purchase, and when

(59:11):
you bought a ticket, So like this recent tour, I remember,
I didn't I've forgotten about this and I didn't realize it.
You know, I bought tickets to three shows, and I
went to three shows, and then weeks later I get
an email with the recording of the show.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
That's cool.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
So yeah, like you can warts and all. I mean,
they don't edit it, it's just whatever it is. So you
have a recording of the show and a lot of
their to see them live. Sometimes it most of the stuff.
I'm not gonna say. Oh, I do have some that
I like the recordings better than live, Like Animal I
just like the recording, you know, Hell, hell, I like
the recording. But some of their live stuff is just

(59:49):
better than the record. There's an energy about it. It's
just different. It's raw, it's less produced. And I find
that with other artists that I didn't think I was like,
and I go and I see them perform live, and
I go, Wow, there's a connection they had with the
audience that's amazing. Like, my son loves Childish Gambino and

(01:00:11):
you know, I'm a big Glover fan. You know, it
was acting. I love him the shows he does and
things like that. But I'm like, his music's all right.
You know, I have a couple of songs I like.
But my son's like, no, Dad, we got to go.
Let's go. We went to go see him at Barklay
Center and I was blown away. He was amazing and
the crowd was amazing, and I had a deeper appreciation

(01:00:33):
for his music. And now I'm going back and I've
been listening to a lot of his stuff. You know,
I was the creator. I went to go see with
my son at MSG and you know, suddenly I was like, Wow,
I'm listening to this much differently than when I just
heard a song or two. So that's a part of
it as well. And I think it goes that's it's
great about again, great about music. I love, you know,

(01:00:54):
seeing music and turning people on to new stuff. But
it gets back to you don't like it. It does take
away from my joy at all.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Well, thanks so much Rich for sharing this with us.
Like I said, Pearl Jam is the band that I
just they were kind of always in the background for me.
I never really dug in, and every time I listen
to one of these records, I'm like, this is so cool.
So I'm gonna dig a little deeper into their stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Diamond, No goal is probably going to be added to
my workout playlist.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
All right, nice, Okay, sure we're making a dent. Yeah,
you'll get up those stairs one day. All right, So
let's talk as long as I have you. I got
to ask you some questions about the Brooklyn Nets, my
home team hour all right, right, Diamond. Diamond revealed in

(01:01:50):
the intro that she is a Nets fan.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
What do you mean? Revealed in the intro Andrew how
long have you known me? I've been a Mets Jets fan.
I'm Jets Mets.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Oh my god, you don't even know which we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
My dad used to take me to New Jersey to
see the Nets play as a kid, all right, So,
and all the kids growing up thought that my dad
looked like Jason Kidds, so they would call him Jason
Kid all the time. So, like, I didn't really have
a choice.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
Diamond said at the beginning of the playoffs last year
that since the Nets weren't gonna make it, she was
gonna root for the Knicks. Yeah, And I think that
affected my memory of some of the conversations we had, Okay,
which is fine, Like I can't I really can't knock.

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
You for that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
But reason why is because unlike, like I'm die hard
Mets and Jets, the Nets, I'm like, okay, you know
they're in Brooklyn. Now, I'm a Brooklyn girl. I have
to support. I don't really care that much about basketball
teams though, So I think that that's my disconnect and

(01:02:57):
why I feel like, oh well, okay, if the next
time in the play and the Nets aren't, then okay,
I'm gonna cheer for Jalen Bronson. I like him.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
Yeah, you know you kind of you're you're in that
generation that uh and and this is where where people
root for basketball players.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
Yeah like and well yeah Ron, oh not him, but yeah,
I don't know why I can't get with it. Love
his wife, but I don't know. I don't know what
it is. I'm a Carmelo Anthony Stan through and through.
I love that man.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
I love him, I do not.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
One of my worst takes in history was as a
how old would I have been? Probably fourteen year old
Andrew I thought I thought Carmelo Anthony was going to
be for sure the better player in the NBA than
Lebron because they were in the same draft.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
Well, yeah, I thought so too. I remember. So when
they were drafted, Uh, there were these backpacks that came
out and it was their jerseys basically on like the string. Okay,
and one of like a kid in my class, got
the little bron one and I had the Carmel and Anthony,
and I was so disgusted. I was like, are you
kidding me?

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
So that Carmel was it like Denver Nuggets, but.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
Fifteen was on it and it was blue. And then
I dressed up as him for all, all right, and
then he didn't he play in Marylyn or something like.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
That, like he grew up in He grew up in Maryland, Maryland, and.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
My family was in the d m V. So, like
my cousins were down, I'm obsessed with La La come on,
come on, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
So Chris taking it back to Mellow Drama, where you
relieved when the Nets didn't end up trading for Carmelo Anthony.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
You mean, well that was that was back around the
time they were playing in Prudential Center and we actually
thought it was happening and and and then with that,
I thought they were getting Dwight Howard and that it
all fell apart and they got neither. They end up
getting Darren Williams and had a little bit of a
run there with him, and they got Joe Johnson and
when they got to Brooklyn. It's funny though. A lot

(01:05:13):
of the what really soured me on Camarlo Anthony was
a recent podcast he did when he said he talked
about that time and he mocked, He's like, they really
thought I was gonna come play in Newark, like I'm
going to play Prudential Center, and my he's and they're
all like, you know, he's on a podcast, and they're

(01:05:34):
all laughing and giggling, and I'm going, wait a second,
who do you think you are? This is an NBA team,
this is a this historic city, Newark, Like, who are
you to say that's beneath there's no You're in the NBA.
It's a privilege to play in the NBA. You should

(01:05:56):
not look down in any city that wants you to
be in it. And and that just really soured me
because then I start saying, you know, I'm like, listen,
you could be whatever your careers, whatever it is, And
then I start I get my backup when it comes
to you start attacking the nets. And you know, at
the time, they were trying to get to Brooklyn. So
I think he was like, well, I would have I
would have. He goes, I was good if we were
going to Brooklyn. But I wasn't gonna play in Newark.

(01:06:19):
I wasn't playing. I wanted to me to playing Prudential Center.
And I'm saying to myself, what exactly have you want? Yeah, now,
what exactly have you done that would make you look
down on another arena in a city and a team
like that, so that I don't want to I'm not gonna.
I don't want to take you down there, Diamond, I

(01:06:39):
don't I know you love the guy. No, no, but
that really rubbed me the wrong way.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
So, but he was a great player and uh, you know,
played well with the Knicks. Maybe not as didn't take
him where he wanted to or whatever, But there you go.
That's that. We digress, We digress.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
Let's talk about this season, because this is a this
is one of those years.

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
And I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
If because I do listen to the voice of the Nets,
I don't know if to Tim Capstraw is just trying
to sell tickets, which is as right when he says
that he thinks the Nets are going to be better
than people think, or if he is just that in
tune with how bad people think the Nets are going
to be this season. I think we are.

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
And we're referring to as the fact that Las Vegas
has are over under it, like nineteen and a half wins. Yeah,
and I've done a twelve win season with the Nets
years ago, and that team was nowhere nearly as talented
or as engaging as this one. Yeah, I know what
it's like to win twelve games in the NBA and
it's not fun and you got to be really bad.

(01:07:50):
Now that being said, they went out and made traits
to get their picks back from Houston that they that
they gave up in the hardened deal because they wanted
to control their own picks. The draft next year is
going to be historically good.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:04):
I mean there's a guy named Cooper Flag that plays
a duke that's expected to be the next sort of
transcendent player in the NBA, Like he's gonna could be
a real star. There's a couple of guys playing down
at Rutgers this year, Acet Balley and Ron harper Son
that's playing down there. And I really.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Conflict conflicting feelings about Harper and Butler there as a
Seaton Hall alumni anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
But so this draft can be really really great, and
you need a superstar player, and sometimes you need homegrown
star player to make yourself like a dynasty down the road, right,
And you don't get that many opportunities to draft there,
and sometimes if you see an opportunity, maybe you have

(01:08:50):
to grab it. And they traded mckel bridges and I
think you're going to see more deals done. The worst
player should want to be in the NBA is in
the middle. You don't want to be mediocre. You don't
want to be a team that's just barely trying to
make the playoffs. You either got to be really good
or when you get a draft like this coming up,
be really bad. Yea, Now, they don't have to be

(01:09:11):
the worst team in the league to get just have
to be one of the worst three. No, four, Yeah,
what the three have the same chance. And maybe even
if you're you know, you find yourself at the bottom
five or six. I mean, you're still gonna really get
a great player in this draft. So yes, on the
surface that Ben Simmons is healthy. Mm hmm, they could

(01:09:31):
be much better than people think. But then again, how
much better are they gonna be? Championship level? Are they
gonna be where you can really make a difference. No,
so uh, they might not want to be as good
as maybe Tim Capshaw is hoping they they're gonna be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
But maybe for his own sanity.

Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
But you know what, in twenty nineteen is probably the
most fun team I've been around in a long time,
and that was when Kenny Ackson was the coach. And
they got to the playoffs out of nowhere, and you know,
it's D'Angelo Russell and young players like Leaves Allen and
had some good veterans there like Dudley and Ed Davis,
and Net fans connected with that team like any other,

(01:10:12):
like like no other team since the Jason Kidd years.
And I think if they could just be that kind
of team with Jordi Fernandez and play hard and some
of their young players look like they got promised and
they got something to build build around and then still
kind of make the lottery and get a great rookie
and then they got a lot of cap space coming up.
That's where things can go from there. So I think

(01:10:35):
fans just want a team they could root for and
they're proud of. You know how the Knicks. Nick fans
went crazy with this group, absolutely because it's a really
bunch of hard working guys who are greater than some
of their parts. That's a team that's what people like.
So I think that's kind of where the Nets are
as a team, and it'd be very curious to see
where they go this year.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
Yeah, I think getting a homegrown star is kind of
the key to locking the fan base. To getting it
to that passion that we all had for the twenty
nineteen team, but also above that and to a level

(01:11:15):
becoming a New York Sports team. My argument for why
they're going to be really dreadful is because it's because
of that draft and how critical it is that they
have the high pick. I think they'll be I think
they'll be frisky in the early part of the season
because they do have some veterans still on the team,

(01:11:38):
but as soon as the calendar turns to January, they
are going to make sure that they do not blow
this opportunity at a high pick. Yeah. So for you
just as a broadcaster, I mean, I don't think this
season will be as as sad and no I've been around.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
Twelve teams that had that team had no uh, no
juice to yah, no readem. There are no players that
look like they're a part of the future this year.
At least, I'm gonna get excited to see Nick Claxton play.
I'm gonna get excited to see Camp Thomas play. You know.
I I the young players, Noah Clowney and Jalen Wilson,
like these are guys that have promised that could be
part of a good team going forward, Yes, they may

(01:12:24):
have to put The thing is when you're when you're
trying to you know, people say people hank or whatever.
The players that are playing are gonna play hard, like
they're not looking to lose games. They want to play
as hard as they can and they want to play
as well as they can. So how do you if
they're playing well, how do you slow them down? You know,
like it's like Pearl Jam trying to not be famous

(01:12:46):
after they put the keeping these great records and they
don't want to be famous.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
It's like they're like, we got to get Matt Cameron
in the upcoming drummer draft.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
There you go. You know, how do you put the
brakes on that? So we'll see that'll be interesting, but
I think it'll be how do you put it? Well, Well,
if there's some really good guys like a Cam Johnson
or any Dorny Finney Smith or a Ben Simmons who
don't fit your timeline on the rebuild, you move them
for draft picks and uh and other things, and then
that's how you Maybe you're you're not gonna win as

(01:13:14):
many games, but you're setting yourself up for the future.

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
Ye all right, well, thank you so much. Chris again
the voice of the Nets podcast. You can find an
iHeart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts the Chris
Kreno Foundation. I encourage everyone to take a look at
some of the work that you're doing. Listen to Nets
the Nets on the radio. I I've seen you on

(01:13:38):
the concourse before. I'll say hi next time. I Oh cool,
I said, Diamon. We got to get you out in Brooklyn.
We got to catch you out there neck. We actually
went to I think it was the Spurs game. Yeah,
the Spurs. A lot of French people in the crowd,
and we were looking at each other with like, why
are there so many French people? Oh right, because of Yeah,
that makes sense that all of them would would come out,

(01:14:02):
would plan their trip to New York for this week.

Speaker 3 (01:14:04):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
All right, Chris, thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 3 (01:14:09):
That's just fun. Thank you, guys, I really appecate.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
Thanks. Take care guys,