i-shit-and-i-stink:

in the liner notes inside the “Alive/Wash/I Got A Feeling” promotional single, Jeff writes:

“Once again, the Stone & Jeff Faction opt out 2 do a new thang.
MOOKIE BLAYLOCK … REEENK ROINK …
PEARL JAM.
3 new guys. The Kick Ass Faction.”

Because of the “Alive” single’s liner notes, fans have long guessed that “Reeenk Roink” was a potential band name, but now we can say for sure that that’s not true.

When asked, Ament explained that back when PJ were recording Ten, when someone messed up, everyone else in the band would look at the person and make a funny face and say “reeenk roink!” - an onomatopoeia: like the sound on a game show when someone gets something wrong, or the two-tone error noise your computer might make.

When they got the test discs from the record company, which lacked the name of their album and didn’t even have the band’s name printed on them, Jeff and Ed decided to write that phrase on there for when they gave them to people.

So then what did the thing in the liner notes to the “Alive” single mean? Well, now that it’s clear that “reeenk roink” is an onomatopoeia roughly meaning “mistake” or “error,” then “MOOKIE BLAYLOCK… REEENK ROINK… Pearl Jam” is a shorthand way to describe how the band was called Mookie Blaylock, and that was an error (they got a nice call from basketball player Mookie Blaylock’s lawyer), so they changed the name to Pearl Jam. Aha!

(Source: twofeetthick.com)