This was 1998. We were in Delhi. The internet had not yet exploded and we were still learning basic and C (Imagine that!) I could count on my fingers the number of people I knew who owned computers. So our music tastes were greatly dictated by MTv and Channel V. But the Indian Mtv mostly played pop songs and some mainstream rock (Which were great, btw. I was into it) and fewer alternate stuff.
But I realised a little later that 90s Alt rock is my real comfort food. started exploring different genres of music in 2001 and by 2005, my music palette had expanded greatly.
My father was a big fan of Pink Floyd, the Police, 70s and 80s disco, Kraftwerk and Paul Anka Among others. My mother was fond of Abba, Boney M and the likes. I had my own preferences in music and our cassette collection had a unique blend of all types of music including hindi film music, Hindi non filmy and Indi-pop. Not to forget a giant collection of mixtapes (Mostly mine)
Somewhere among them were albums my father bought going by the current trends. Apache Indian was one of those and even though I was nine years old that time, I still love songs from his 1993 album - No Reservations.
Coming back to Mid 1998. We were in Delhi. My father wanted to buy a Pink Floyd album for some reason. I'm assuming he lost or broke his old tape of the same. So one Saturday evening the two of us went to a family owned shop around the corner where their youngest son had set up a small music section. My father asked him for one particular Pink Floyd album. He started a conversation with him about music while I was browsing at the latest pop album collections. That fellow was telling him about this new band my father would like since he was into Pink Floyd. He convinced my him into giving it a listen and he must have listened to it once and placed the cassette back in our ever increasing collection somewhere next to Apache Indian.
Four years later, I started college and started playing the guitar which exposed me to more genres of music. That same year I realised that the kind of music Nirvana played was called Grunge and that there existed another great grunge band called Pearl Jam.
Pearl Jam.
This unlocked a memory in my mind. I knew I had heard of them. I had even heard their music before. It was the same band whose album my father had bought along with a Pink Floyd album back in 1998! I went home and looked through our cassette collection, and there it was: Pearl Jam's Yield.
Suddenly, I appreciated their music. More importantly, I understood their music. I listened to all their other albums- Ten, Vs., Vitology, No code and Binaural including the recently released Riot act. I've listened to all their music released subsequently. To Eddie Vedder's solo music, their live albums and side projects. I was hooked.
Pearl Jam is to me what Pink Floyd is to my father and Abba to my mother. Even thought I listen to Foo fighters more often, Pearl Jam are still one of my favourite band!
And to this day, Yield - that 1998 album that my father bought eighteen years ago is still my favourite Pearl Jam album of all times.
On a related note: two years ago, I was listening to Apache Indian in the office one afternoon when our then intern Rajalakshmi suddenly asked me who the singer was. I asked her if she had never heard of Apache Indian before and she said she hadn't!
