Koi Cafe & Gallery, 3 May 2011, 7.30 PM

Here I am, sitting here in this posh café on a long comfy sofa. Just closed a web design project deal but my client @imbipulungan has long gone for a yoga session. My MacBookPro is still displaying web browser with website I am working on. A twitter client also present on the side of the screen, displaying my timeline, scrolling down endlessly. Nothing there caught my eye though. Even the work on screen. My mind was wondering somewhere else. Exact same venue, but was on the old location though. When nothing happened.

I was torn whether I am ordering dinner or not. My body doesn’t want to eat, but my mind craves for something. And also I need to go to the restroom. I relented and ordered a fried rice with Australian lamb. Gave a gesture to the waiter to keep an eye on my computer while I finished my business.

Back where I was. Feel like doing something, but not working. What is it? Writing this? Yes, I had procrastinated writing this for quite a long time now. My life story. My pursuit of something. The story behind this and that. Heck, I haven’t writing about anything for a long portion in my life, other that HTML tags and CSS Divs and Classes. Has I restraint myself from expressing myself through writing. Why, I asked myself. And why now? why writing now? I don’t know. It’s what the Universe has planned to happen I guess.

This is what it is that’s happening. I am writing not what I hope to happen, nor what I wish not happening. I write the story as it is happening. I remember a line said by a female character from a movie that I love. but it’s on the tip of my brain, can’t recall. But this is not her story, nor anybody else’s. it’s my story.

The story is about happiness, and how everybody is in pursuit of happiness. Each and every one of us always think, talk, be, do something in order to make us happier. My story is my own little pursuit of my happiness, and how I made someone else happier, and it made me happy.

(stopped writing, checking on my timeline)

Yes, you might say that I am obsessed with happiness. Without hesitation I confess I am. All of my life I’m always seeking to be happy. One’s never realized he’s in pursuit of happiness, until he realized that it’s within him all along. It’s nowhere out there. it’s in us.

To come to that conclusion I went through a hell of a ride. But things happening the last 1 year has brought a lot of enlightenment to me, and I am hoping with this writings, I can share things that has enlightened me to others who read this, to you. Yes, you. Hope that by sharing happiness we can make ourselves better, lift ourselves through hard times and can see silver linings in the darkest cloud.

Just made a random “Get well soon” to a person (@PutriSentanu) I follow on Twitter, although I don’t know her personally.

In fact, the whole thing was started when I made someone happier, a particular public personality (@rahmahumayya) I cheered up through Twitter. One day she tweeted that she is in such a bad mood. Out of the blue I then replied to her aforementioned tweet, trying sincerely to cheer her up spontaneously.

She is a famous TV & radio personality, a model and an MC. I only know her through sites, television and magazines. All this time I only follow her. Well, before that tweet convo every once in a while I RT or reply to her tweet. But this time I just do what my heart said, cheer a person in need, make her happier.

From the response seems like she’s happier. And that also made me feel good and warm inside. No, it’s not that I managed to make a public figure happier. But I managed to make someone happier. Someone, an acquaintance or a stranger is not even in the picture.

In one of those wisdom tweets, the late Lady Diana Spencer once suggests us to do random act of kindness. This must be one of those.

Since then, I am randomly trying to make other people happier through tweets. Sometimes with the expected result, the other times it’s a whole different outcome. People tend to label me as ‘galau’ (jaded in Indonesian,) ‘gila’ (crazy,) and with other names. Others even dissed me for being too offensive and plain antisocial, not conforming to any socially accepted value.

Yes I admit many times I was not in a state of happiness in other to make other happy. I am sorry if I offended anybody, I’m just a human being who tries to communicate.

The first tweet and all these interaction with her sparks me an idea about an app, which also has been an obsession for me all these times. That what’s making me address her as Muse. More of that along with the story.

I continue to interact on Twitter with @rahmahumayya with all the ups and downs, the dramas and the comedies. I thought those helped start up the #NoMention and #Kode (#code) thing. The galau tweets. The song lyric tweets. The YouTube dedications.

Many might have the perception that this is like a star-struck regular guy falls in love with a celebrity , and trying all his best to woo her. Well, at first I admit I didn’t know what I felt. Being a healthy single guy must’ve taken tolls many times. All I wanted to do is make her happy. Make anybody happy, in particular the twemans in my time line. The tweeps I follow or even random tweeps which I don’t follow.

With this story I pay highest respect to @rahmahumayya. I honor her private life. Just wanted to share my side of the story. My perception of it. How I learn in life. In my pursuit of happiness. By making other people happy.

farry @salsabeela I am starting writing, now!
salsabeela @farry good luck!

(To be continued)

Disclaimer:

• I will try my best to contact the person mentioned in the story to ask for permission
• To a person I mentioned here in the story, if you have objection that I mentioned your name, please mention of DM me on Twitter (@farry) or email me (farry@happify.us) and I will try to remove your Twitter-name without sacrificing the essence of the story, or I will use a pseudo-Twitter-name.

I am an ordinary man. I live by myself. I come from a middle class family of 5 children. Actually my blood sibling is only 2. The rest is a step sister, and 1 comes from same father. My mom passed away when I was 8 from a breast cancer. My father remarried 2 years later (I think.)

I will skip you with all the details of my life time, which has brought me to this point. I will try to be as general as I can, but without leaving out anything important enough to be written.

I came from a family that’s; compared to maybe your family; is considered dysfunctional family. I experienced things in the past that maybe been pushed down inside my subconsciousness, and makes me who I am today. Not that long time ago I’ve just realized that I am unhappy. Been aware of it since mid-college. Ever since then I was in endless relentless effort to make myself happy. I had my ups and downs. In the times where the people around me was happy, I wasn’t. I was considered late about appreciating things that makes people happy. I am an unhappy man.

Until one time my experience in Twitter, where at one particular conversation with a person I followed. I don’t know her personally. But when she tweets about being in a down-low, I replied with a consolation in under 140 characters, just out of randomness. Then she was cheered up and by doing that I was also happy (thank you Muse!) Then it strikes to me and give me inspiration what I want to do is to make people happier through what I do as a Web Developer (a Startup company, more on that later.) In the end it will make me happy. and we all happy together.

Along the way I’m trying to make other people happy, and also got mixed up about falling in love. Yes, I have a not-so-ideal family and planned hard to have one of my own, so I can create happiness environment in my own family. In effort to do that I got confused about consoling and make people happy, and wooing and dropping lines to people. That might build me some kind of reputation, which I can’t control, I can’t help it. I just want to make people happy, and myself happy. But in the same time I want to fall in love with my future wife, and create a happy family. Yes, I sometimes (many times!) pushed too hard to make people happy, even disregarding my reputation. Maybe my subconscious pushed me, I just want to be happy, by pushing it too hard. Maybe to some people it’s too close for comfort (annoying!) And for that, to whom it may concerned, I am sorry. I’m just a human being. Fame and celebrityhood is never my goal.

I just want to be happy.
I want to make other people happy (and myself,) grow my own happy family.

Oleh: Soufiarina Sofie

Ketika mendengar berita buruk, jantung kita langsung berdebar, nafas menjadi pendek, wajah kita berkerut.
Ketika mendengar berita gembira, hati kita melonjak, wajah kita tersenyum.
Dari kedua contoh di atas, tercermin bahwa pikiran kita selalu bereaksi/ bergejolak terhadap situasi dan kondisi yang terjadi dalam kehidupan kita sehari-hari sehingga kita kehilangan –“center“ (kondisi bathin yang balance).
Ini menggambarkan kebiasaan reaksi (mind)kita bekerja secara automatis, terkondisi dan tak menentu, sudah terprogram.
Di sinilah kita perlu melatih kondisi mind kita agar selalu berada dalam kondisi Equanimity. (Bagi saya pribadi inilah meditasi yang sebenarnya).Equanimity adalah suatu kondisi keseimbangan bathin (mind) yang mampu untuk tetap tenang dan seimbang di tengah-tengah gejolak hidup.
Orang yang sudah menguasai equanimity, temperamennya tetap seimbang tidak terpengaruh dengan apa yg terjadi di luar.
Mereka telah belajar untuk tidak memperturutkan pada sesuatu yang mereka suka atau tidak suka, tidak juga bereaksi terhadap situasi sesuai keinginan atau keengganan mereka.
Ini tidak mudah untuk dunia yang serba modern sekarang ini. Dengan segala problema, keinginan, kebutuhan dan kekacauan lingkungan yang terjadi.

Equinimity merupakan konsep yang sulit untuk diterapkan.
Ketika emosi (emosi negatif/marah atau positif/gembira) yang kuat datang—terhadap kesakitan atau kesenangan, kesuksesan atau kegagalan, keadaan stress atau lega respon kita–- coba ingatkan pada diri kita dan katakan, “Ini juga akan berlalu“ (karena semua tidak ada yang kekal)

Seseorang menanggapi, “tapi tunggu dulu, saya mengerti kalau kita harus tidak bergejolak dan tetap tenang menghadapi kesulitan, tapi kalau salah untuk bereaksi menikmati kebahagiaan? Ini sama saja seperti kita diminta untuk mati rasa samasekali terhadap apapun. Saya lebih memilih untuk merasakan apapun walaupun kadang menyakitkan“.
Lalu, bagaimana dengan bereaksi untuk memperjuangkan keadilan demi kepentingan umum? Kalau kita tidak bereaksi dan bertindak terhadap semua kericuhan yang terjadi, bagaimana kita akan membuat perubahan terhadap lingkungan dan dunia ini?

Kedua tanggapan di atas adalah point yang bagus. Kita tetap bisa merasakan sesuatu dengan dalam, tanpa kehilangan keseimbangan di bathin (mind) kita. Bathin (mind) kita tetap dalam ketenangan.
Dengan mempraktekkan equanimity, kita belajar menyesuaikan tendensi kita terhadap kekhawatiran.
Ketika kita membaca berita, khawatir terhadap keadaan ekonomi, bangsa, negara dan dunia. Hal seperti ini pantas untuk di perdulikan, tapi kekhawatiran kita dan meributkan keadaan itu tidak akan ada habisnya dan tidak akan membuahkan hasil apa-apa. Kalau kita benar-benar memahami bahwa tidak ada sesuatu yang terjadi secara kebetulan dan tidak ada sesuatupun yang terjadi tanpa makna & pelajaran bagi orang2 yang terkait di dalamnya, maka kita akan menerima semua itu dengan tersenyum memperhatikan drama kehidupan ini dari sisi ’OBSERVER’ yang paham akan pelajaran hidup sambil mengamati peran pemain2 drama ini dengan simpati.
Dengan menjaga bathin (mind) kita dalam ’Equanimity’ secara energy kita belajar untuk tidak terseret vibrasi atau frekuensi orang2 yang bereaksi dengan kondisi external itu.

Mempraktekkan Equnimity memungkinkan kita untuk melihat segala sesuatu apa adanya, pada saat bersamaan tidak menjadi ‘attach’ terhadap hasilnya.
Equanimity– The Pali word Uppekkha, meaning to look over, comes from the ability to observe and not attach to the objects of our observation.
Equanimity is perfect, unshakeable balance of mind and rooted insight.

Equinimity bukan berarti kita menjadi tidak peduli terhadap suatu kejadian. Malah sebaliknya kita cukup berani mengakui bahwa kita tidak selalu mempunyai jawaban atas segala masalah. Kita menyadari bahwa kita tidak dapat mengontrol masa depan. Apa yang kita pikirkan mungkin bisa atau mungkin tidak bisa menjadi jalan keluar untuk jangka panjang atau mungkin juga bukan jalan yang terbaik untuk suatu “Big Picture”.
Dengan tetap berada dalam ‘equanimity’ kita membuka segala peluang kemunginan yang akan datang.

Di dalam Buddhism, Sufism dan kabalah, kondisi equanimity, muncul sabagai tanda sesorang yang sudah mencapai ‘Enlightenment’, sebagai kualitas yang penting dan mengagumkan dari kondisi hati dan pikiran (Mind and Heart). Pikiran-hati yang lapang, memberikan ruang untuk setiap kesulitan dan daya tarik kehidupan, untuk menerima segala sesuatu yang kita inginkan dan yang tidak kita inginkan. Equanimity mengijinkan kita untuk hidup bebas, membiarkan apapun mempunyai tempatnya sendiri tanpa kita berada di dalamnya, atau tanpa menyeret kita.
Dalam kondisi Equanimity, kita hidup dalam kondisi ‘saat ini’ tanpa terbelengu tidak juga berjuang untuk sesuatu yang tidak dapat kita elak-kan dalam hidup ini.
*Mengambil sedikit Kutipan dari Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Berikut ada artikel di TwoFeetThick tentang cast “Singles”, ke mana mereka sekarang? Tentu saja dalam cast tersebut termasuk band fiktif “Citizen Dick” (beranggotakan member Pearl Jam: Eddie Vedder (drummer), Jeff Ament (bassist) & Stone Gossard (guitarist) di samping Matt Dillon sebagai vokalis).

Bagi gw personally, film “Singles” adalah film yg turut mewarnai usia 20-something gw juga, membuka wawasan gw tentang grunge, dan Pearl Jam tentunya.

Baca seterusnya di sini: Thick Picks: Cast of “Singles” -Where Are They Now?

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=136968844465
—
Set List

Black Code
1. Light Year
2. Immortality
3. Sad
4. Smile (Feat: Hasley Perfect Ten)

Perfect Ten
Intro : Indifference
1. State of Love and Trust
2. Better Man
3. Wishlist
4. I Got Id
5. Present Tense
6. Garden
7. Even Flow
8. Leaving Here
9. Porch

Alien Sick
5. River of Deceit
6. In Hiding
7. Given To Fly
8. Yellow Ledbetter
9. W.M.A

Reza CS
1. Footsteps
2. Angel

Sonic Wood
1. Release
2. Severed Hand
3. Corduroy
4. Red Mosquito
5. Soon Forget
6. Guaranteed
7. Alive (Che)
8. Oceans (Che)
9. RVM (Ryo + Jimmo)
10. Animal (Ryo + Jimmo)
11. Comatose (Ryo + Reza)
12. Come Back (Reza)
13. Nothingman (Reza)
14. Got Some

—
For more info :
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4941612301
tenclub_indonesia@yahoogroups.com
http://pearljamindonesia.blogspot.com

Siaran Berita terakhir 1982

Pearl Jam’s Ten was a slow starter, floundering on the U.S. sales charts before it finally exploded one day shy of its first birthday. The steady pace eventually paid off for Pearl Jam, whose debut permanently altered rock ‘n’ roll. On Tuesday, (March 24), Ten is being re-released, 18 years after it’s debut. It’s sold a remarkable 12 million copies, making it not only one of the most successful debuts in history, but also one of the biggest alternative rock albums.

There are many stories surrounding the album, including Victoria at the outset of the band’s career.

Read further to discover 10 stories behind Ten.

1. Mother Love Bone’s career is over before it even gets underway when singer Andrew Wood dies from a heroin overdose, the first of many drug-related deaths to rock Seattle’s music scene. Two of his band mates, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament, continue to make music together but with no specific goal. Mother Love Bone’s debut, Apple, is released in July but the band calls it quits.

2. Down the coast in San Diego, Jack Irons from the Red Hot Chili Peppers passes his friend Eddie Vedder a demo tape of instrumentals thinking he might like some of the riffs. Vedder, with some family demons to exorcise, puts three conflict-ridden tunes to tape and sends them back to Seattle. One of those eventually becomes Alive, a catalyst in the success of Ten nearly two years later.

3. The band’s first gig with Vedder as frontman is Oct. 22, 1990, at the Off Ramp Cafe in Seattle. The band calls itself Mookie Blaylock, a reference to the real-life basketball star of the same name. At this point, the band is barely a week old, but manages to play eight songs, six of which will later appear on Ten — a record named in honour of Blaylock’s NBA jersey number.

4. The lineup that eventually goes on to make Ten — Gossard (guitar), Ament (bass), Vedder (vocals), Mike McCready (guitar) and Dave Krusen (drums) — records its 12-song jam session the very next day. Other songs rehearsed that day would appear on 1991′s Temple of the Dog, a tribute to Mother Love Bone’s Wood featuring members of Mookie Blaylock and Soundgarden.

5. Mookie Blaylock’s maiden venture to Canada includes a Jan. 19, 1991, stop in Victoria at Harpo’s Cabaret opening for Alice in Chains. The band’s fourth performance ever, and first outside of the U.S., is due to Harpo’s talent bookers Marcus Pollard and Gary Van Buskirk, who had previously booked Ament and Gossard at the club during their days in Seattle punk outfit Green River.

6. Not long after the Victoria date, the band changes its name to Pearl Jam. Vedder and Co. get some notices for their involvement with Temple of the Dog, which released its tribute to Wood a month earlier. The supergroup’s first single, Hunger Strike, with Vedder handling some vocals, introduces the shy performer to the world.

7. Pearl Jam releases Ten to little fanfare on April 23, 1991. Dave Abbruzzese takes Krusen’s place behind the drum kit, after his struggles with alcohol addiction lead to in-patient treatment. Krusen’s final show with the band is a Seattle club gig to celebrate the completion of Singles, director Cameron Crowe’s celluloid valentine to Seattle, in which Pearl Jam makes a cameo appearance.

8. Pearl Jam headlines Harpo’s Cabaret on Sept. 25, 1991. Crowe, a longtime friend of the band, writes a piece for Rolling Stone magazine two years later that pinpoints this date as the turning point in Vedder’s career. Faced with what was described as a crowd interested “in getting drunk,” Vedder supposedly throws his microphone stand at the wall to get their attention, which many locals claim is an embellishment. “I didn’t see it,” Pollard says of the toss. “But it’s like Woodstock — anybody who can remember it wasn’t there.”

9. It took a year to make an impact, but Ten eventually reaches the second spot-on the U.S. sales charts in 1992. It is kept from the peak by Billy Ray Cyrus, who disappears soon after. Pearl Jam’s chart dominance lasts for the remainder of the year, thanks to five hit singles, one of which (Jeremy) offers Vedder’s take on Jeremy Delle, a Texas teen who shot himself in front of his classmates the year before.

10. As the band’s popularity reaches critical mass, Vedder becomes increasingly manic during his live performances. Before a sweat-soaked crowd in Vancouver, the group steals Lollapalooza 1992 from Soundgarden and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Pearl Jam’s performance on this day culminates with Vedder leaping into the crowd from a two-storey scaffolding.

mdevlin@tc.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Kemudian melalui Facebook message, teman sekelas lain yang bernama Nunik (entah kenapa, dulu panggilannya Endang, memberi kabar duka bahwa istri pak Pieter malam itu wafat, sedangkan Pak Pieter masih dalam keadaan koma.

Setelah mendapatkan info lebih detail tentang Pak Pieter dari Endang, kita berniat untuk membesuk Pak Pieter ke RS Fatmawati. Akhirnya yang berkesempatan besuk Sabtu sore ini (21 Mar 09) ada saya, Gama & Reza Gempit.

Saya dan Gama yang tiba lebih dulu jam 5am di RS Fatmawati, sedangkan Gempit masih OTW dari kantornya. Berdua kami mencari kamar 627 paviliun Teratai, melalui selasar-selasar RS Fatmawati, akhirnya kami tiba di kamar tsb.

Awalnya kami sempat bingung ketika mencari nama pasien Pieter di kamar berisikan 6 orang tersebut Kelihatannya paviliun Teratai khusus untuk merawat pasien2 dgn terminal illness, atau penyakit yang sudah kritis. Setelah memberi tahu bahwa Pak Pieter ini adalah seorang guru, baru perawat mengenalinya. Beliau terdaftar atas nama Frederick (nama lengkap beliau adalah Pieter Frederick Siauta.) Perawat tersebut menunjuk sesosok tubuh gemuk terbaring di sudut ruangan.

Walau rambut sudah memutih, perawakan beliau masihlah sama. Raut muka juga mudah dikenali. Sosok Pak Pieter dalam ingatan saya makin nyata. Dari perawat kami mengetahui kalau kedua ginjal beliau sudah tidak berfungsi, ditambah komplikasi dengan gula dan stroke. Kedua tangannya sudah membengkak karena ginjalnya sudah tidak bisa menawar racun lagi.

Yang menunggui Pak Pieter selama sebulan 2 minggu ini adalah keponakannya Roy. Dari Roy kami berusaha mencari tahu ahli waris beliau, sehingga nanti kami bisa menyalurkan bantuan kepada yang berhak. Anak tertua beliau bernama Ferry Siauta. Kami juga mencatat no telponnya.

Roy menyarankan kami untuk berbisik di telinganya. Kadang2 beliau bisa mencerna apa yang didengarkannya dan berespons dengan menggerakkan matanya yang terpejam, menggerakkan kaki, bahkan kadang menangis. Tapi tidak bisa membuka mata, apalagi berbicara, tapi masih bisa merasa. Kami mencoba berkomunikasi dengan beliau. Saat kami berkata, kaki beliau bergerak2, mata bergerak walaupun tertutup, dan dada beliau naik turun, seakan sesunggukan. Kami merasa beliau dapat merasakan apa yang kami coba utarakan, bahwa kami mantan muridnya di SMP 13, lulusan 1987. Saya tidak tahu kalau Gama, tapi saya haru.

Setelah mendapatkan informasi akhir dari Roy, dan berpesan minta dihubungi kalau ada apa2, kami minta diri. Di bawah kami bertemu dengan Reza Gempit dan sedikit banyak bercerita panjang lebar di kantin RS Fatmawati. Sambil minum kami baru ngeh kembali kalau Pak Pieter dulu wali kelas 3H, dan sangat dekat sekali dengan murid2nya. Saya mencoba menanyakan dari mana asal kata Gempit, ternyata dulu Reza suka bertelanjang kaki waktu main basket di aula, dan dijuluki “Gembel”, sedangkan “Pit” berasal dari kata “Pieter”, jadilah disingkat dengan “Gempit”.

Dari tutur Gempit, saya bisa merasakan kedekatannya dengan beliau. Kemudian saya menemani Gempit kembali ke ruang 627 paviliun Teratai. Sekitar 10 menit lagi saya berada di kamar itu, menemani Gempit yang mengusap bahu Pak Pieter, dan membisikkan sesuatu kepada Pak Pieter. Saya bisa merasakan bahwa Pak Pieter merasakan kehadiran Gempit.

Saat kami keluar dari ruangan, tangan kanan Pak Pieter terangkat, seolah ingin mengucapkan selamat berpisah…

Saya ingin menutup catatan kecil saya tentang pak Pieter dengan mengutip diary masa SMP saya, salah satu interaksi saya dengan Pak Pieter.

“Pak Pieter, semoga segera pulih kembali…”

Entry diary 16 Feb 1987

By JACQUI SWIF

PEARL JAM – TEN (Reissue)

*****

A FEW miles from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in the district of Georgetown is a huge converted warehouse in an anonymous industrial neighbourhood.

It looks an unlikely location for a world-famous band, but for any Pearl Jam fan walking inside, it’s like entering Aladdin’s cave.

It’s the band’s HQ, rehearsal space and merchandise hub and impressively has all the stage sets, band memorabilia and instruments used throughout their 19-year history.

And the full guided tour offers more treats. The late Johnny Ramone’s baseball card and photo collection — he and singer Eddie Vedder were close friends — is on show near a skateboard ramp and an enormous baseball cage plus pitching machine.

Polaroid photos on display show Kings Of Leon in full baseball gear, ready to take a hit as a ball is spat out at 50mph.

Upstairs in the warehouse apartment — a place to crash if rehearsals extend into the night — Eddie is celebrating.

We meet on the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration and for Eddie, who was so central to the Vote For Change campaign, which urged people to choose John Kerry over George Bush in the 2004 presidential election campaign, it’s an extra special day.

“Let’s not even have his face anywhere on show,” he says with a beaming smile, as he turns over a copy of Rolling Stone magazine which features Bush glaring out from the cover.

“I’ve just watched him fly off to Texas on television. Finally we have got rid of him. I don’t ever want to see him again.”

Exploded

As passionate in his beliefs as he is engaging in his manner, it’s no surprise Eddie remains one of rock’s iconic and most compelling frontmen.

Pearl Jam’s Ten stands alongside Nirvana’s Nevermind as one of grunge’s seminal albums and remains one of the all-time greats.

It sold 12million copies and introduced Pearl Jam — guitarist Stone Gossard, bassist Jeff Ament, guitarist Mike McCready and their then recent recruit from San Diego, Eddie — to the world’s rock arena.

Ten’s fired-up riffs and the guitar interplay between Gossard and McCready together with Eddie’s lyrics meant Pearl Jam exploded out of Seattle in the Nineties.

Lyrically Ten was dark. Songs such as Alive (Eddie’s semi-autobiographical tale of a young boy discovering his father is actually his stepfather), Even Flow (a song about homelessness), Why Go (about mental hospitals) and Jeremy (influenced by the story of 15-year-old Texan schoolboy Jeremy Wade Delle who shot himself in front of his English class) gave a voice to tortured adolescent souls.

Now, in the run-up to the band’s 20th anniversary, Ten is being reissued in four exclusive editions.

They include the remastered version of the album, a remixed version by long-time producer Brendan O’Brien, a DVD of previously unreleased footage of the band’s MTV Unplugged show, Eddie’s original three-song “Mamasan” tape demo of Once, Alive and Footsteps and a copy of his composition notebook.

Eddie says: “We are so humbled by the amount of people who have stuck with us over the years that if we can provide them some new insight or something that’s really cool, then we will.

“I know how I react when something special is released by The Who so we wanted this to be something thrilling. We have pride in our material and going back through old material was really special. I don’t think I’d even heard the three-song demo since I sent it in.”

Over the years the band have expressed they were not 100 per cent happy with the sound of Ten, which was produced by Rick Parashar and mixed by Tim Palmer.

They felt it had too much reverb and too many guitar overdubs, but now the remixes by Brendan O’Brien have given them what they wanted.

Eddie says: “A few of the other guys were passionate about that being done. At the time Jeff and Stone had much more political power in the band (regarding) who we got in to mix the record than me and Mike. We were just the new guys.

“Tim had worked with Bowie on Tin Machine and was a great guy but over the years we’ve become used to how those records sound played live and so with the remixes we wanted to get to the core of what it sounded like live. The remixes strip away some of the atmospheric additives of the record’s sound.”

As one of two defining albums of grunge, Ten has always been and remains Pearl Jam’s benchmark album.

Lighting up a cigarette, Eddie explains: “Ten was our first kid, so it’s the oldest. So it’s the one that kind of brought up the others and gets all the attention. But I don’t know if we were ready for what came with it.

“We were ready to play music, be a good band and be good playing live but it was so intense and some of the intensity makes that period even hard to remember.

“What it did do was keep our world floating. Now I think ‘Wow’, because I didn’t really try that hard. I remember distinctly that demo, being an exercise in song writing.

“I didn’t know that was going to be something that would change my life, change other people’s lives.

“There’s been times when I’ve been standing in a line at a movie and someone’s hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful.

“With the Roskilde families (in 2000, nine Pearl Jam fans were crushed to death at Denmark’s Roskilde Festival), we still have a close connection with them. It’s inspiring to see how they’ve got through it.”

With Ten reaching No2 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1992, Pearl Jam upgraded from Seattle to stadium rock band and with it arrived the backlash.

They were accused of being careerists, of betraying grunge, with their most vocal critic, Kurt Cobain, slating them for “pioneering a corporate, alternative and cock-rock fusion.”

In terms of follow-up albums, in the next year, 1993, it seemed grunge fans disagreed with Kurt and Pearl Jam’s Vs sold five times as many copies (nearly a million) as Nirvana’s third album, In Utero (200,000 copies) in their first week of release.

“I don’t think Kurt understood us at the time, but we became friends and I’m glad we had some of the great conversations we had, that I’m always going to keep up here,” says Eddie, pointing to his head.

“I don’t talk too much about him in respect to Krist (Novoselic) and Dave (Grohl) and I know he said that early stuff about not liking us.

Insanity

“But there’s a couple of complimentary things that he said in public about me as a human being, which I’m proud exist. But if Kurt were around today, I know he’d say to me, ‘Well, you turned out OK.’”

In fact, few bands in recent history can match Pearl Jam’s integrity and authenticity when it comes to music.

“Any conversations we hear about ‘So who are Pearl Jam marketing to?’ are despicable,” says Eddie.

“People offered us money to sell out but do I look like a whore?

“It’s always about being honest and the positive side of the huge success for whatever negatives there were, was that it gave us the power to say no and be able to commit to making decisions on our own and stick by them.”

In 1994 Pearl Jam cancelled their summer tour, and tried to sue Ticketmaster, alleging they were a monopoly which allowed them to push up ticket prices.

However, when fans complained they weren’t getting to see their shows, it became a bigger issue to them.

“The Ticketmaster problem was stopping us focusing on the music. We were putting on our own shows and talking more about portable toilets in venues than set lists.

“We were annoyed that other bands didn’t follow our lead and boycott Ticketmaster too.

“There were people in so-called ‘bands of the people’ who bought in with the other side. But we learned a lot about politics then.”

And so looking back, what does he think of the whole grunge scene?

“It was more unconscious to us. There are a lot of different styles on all our records. I don’t think there’s any colours on the palette that we think we can’t use.

“And when it comes to grunge or even just Seattle, I think there was one band that made the definitive music of the time. It wasn’t us or Nirvana but Mudhoney.

“Nirvana delivered it to the world but Mudhoney were the band of that time and sound.”

Today, 18 years on from the release of Ten and Pearl Jam are halfway through making their ninth studio album. “It’s taken two weeks to get halfway there and that’s writing it from the bottom up, so we’ll see how long it takes to finish it.

“I’m not sure what the recording process is going to be, but we will be playing shows,” says Eddie.

“One of us is having a baby next year so there’ll be no touring then so we have to get it done this year.

“I think the hardest thing about making music now is being a great dad at the same time,” adds Eddie, who has two young daughters with model Jill McCormick.

“There’s an insanity that goes with writing — a mad scientist thing that you have to go through and sacrificing a kid’s upbringing to do that is not an option.

“But at the same time, I don’t want to go the way where music becomes a hobby. I don’t trust art that’s made without some pain and insanity, so it’s just about trying to balance that out.

“We all want to make music together as much as we did when we were making Ten.

“We get along and work really well together and as yet, we still don’t have a band therapist. And that’s something I’m particularly proud of.”

THE reissue of Ten is released on Monday in four Special Edition packages: The Legacy Edition, Deluxe Edition, Vinyl Collection and Super Deluxe Edition.