Let’s remember when Mookie Blaylock played its first show, on this day in 1990 (October 22)
Mookie Blaylock was a former NBA player, one-time All Star, and solid point guard who finished his career averaging a respectable 13.5 PPG. Mookie Blaylock was also the original, given name for Seattle’s reigning rock and/or roll band. 29 years ago today, they made their debut with a lead singer unknown to most of the Seattle music scene; subsequently, last Saturday night, I watched that same lead singer sing with the Who.
Per Peter Blecha of HistoryLink:
On Monday, October 22, 1990, a fresh band composed of veteran Seattle rock musicians — and a new singer named Eddie Vedder (b. 1964) recently recruited from California — debuts at the Off Ramp Cafe at 109 Eastlake Avenue E. The musicians perform this and several subsequent gigs under the name “Mookie Blaylock,” but within a few months Seattle fans, and then the world, will know them as Pearl Jam.
Here’s something interesting I learned from Wikipedia (that everyone else almost certainly knows): “Fans of the basketball player, the band members of Pearl Jam originally named their group “Mookie Blaylock”, but they were forced to change the name. They settled on naming their debut album Ten after Blaylock’s jersey number.”
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