Eddie Vedder, Supersuckers Pay Tribute to X

Seattle's two most distinguished Eddies -- Vedder and Spaghetti -- met on the down low last weekend to lay down refurbished renditions of two underground anthems for a tribute album honoring Los Angeles punk forerunners X. |

A robust X disciple, the Pearl Jam frontman was cajoled into the project by chums in the Supersuckers -- a little known, yet revered indie rock troupe from the dank Pacific Northwest. Holed up in Seattle's Litho Studios until 5 a.m. Monday, Vedder and Supersuckers frontman Eddie Spaghetti shared vocal duties on "Devil Doll" and "Poor Girl" with X guitarist Billy Zoom standing in as producer.

"It's fun executive producing [the tribute] because I can kind of make the songs sound more like I wanted them to in the first place," says Zoom, who drove up from his Orange County home to produce the Vedder/Supersuckers track and Gerald Collier's rendition of X's "Have Nots." "I got another shot at it."

Zoom's spunk rock quartet -- fronted by John Doe and Exene Cervenka -- inspired maverick contemporaries from Black Flag to Concrete Blonde to the Go-Gos. Now the more obscure X admirers (barring Vedder, of course) are honoring its mentors with Make the Music Go Bang, tentatively due out early next year.

So far, the tribute album pays homage almost exclusively to the 1980 groundbreaking X album, Los Angeles, with re-worked versions of "White Girl" (Bleeders), "It's Who You Know" (Tilt), "Sex and Dying in High Society" (Electric Frankenstein), "Universal Corner" (Liquid Spider Station) and "We're Desperate" (4). In addition, "See How We Are" was covered by Jewish lesbian folksinger Phranc and "4th of July" was reworked by Field Day, a fledgling band on Devil Doll Records, the label releasing Make the Music Go Bang.

"I grew up in the punk rock scene in Central California and X was one of the few bands that I could get a hold of in Fresno," says bassist Dirk Lemmenes of Stavesacre, a Christian rock band that will contribute the song "Hungry Wolf." "X made a lot of people nervous."

Evidently, they still do -- financially speaking. In his eternal quest to launch an X tribute, Devil Doll Records founder John Geldbach first tried to snare Dwight Yoakam, Goo Goo Dolls, Rancid, Murder City Devils and Pennywise, all of whom declined the invitation to ante up on the grass-roots effort. Geldbach then turned from sharks to guppies and quickly filled the album with willing, albeit primarily obscure contributors -- with the exception of Vedder, who jumped on board just last month.

Pearl Jam's elusive frontman was scheduled to record just "Devil Doll" with the Supersuckers last weekend, however inspiration, indecision and a bit of drink finally convinced the musicians to lay down "Poor Girl" from X's More Fun in the New World as well, according to Spaghetti.

"I listened to 'Poor Girl' over and over while driving from Tucson to Phoenix to visit friends," Spaghetti says. "I would just drive on the highway singing at the top of my lungs. I don't know how big a deal this tribute record is going to be, but that song came out so good, that people have just got to hear it. I would like to save 'Poor Girl' for something really special."

ANNI LAYNE (October 6, 1998)