When Pearl Jam's TEN came out, I thought it was the best album of all time. As a matter of fact, even today, I still believe that it is one of the top albums ever. Anyhow, I followed the whole Seattle scene at that time, and was very interested in 1993 to hear Stone Gossard's side project "Brad".

I remember thinking it was crap the first time I heard the album "Shame", but the more I listened to it, the more I liked it, until it actually became another of my favorite albums. It's hard to say exactly what it was that made me like it so much, but I'm going to guess that it was the pure originality of the whole thing. They weren't like anything else I'd heard before.

That originality is very much still alive and well on their latest release "Welcome to Discovery Park". And although right now, I don't like it as much as Shame, I think I probably haven't listened to it enough yet. I'm sure that once I've given a goo 4 or 5 listenings, that I'll love it just as much, because this music is like a fine wine, it's a refined and aquired taste.