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Pearl Jam Celebrates 20th Anniversary With Star-Studded Jam Fest

Posted 9/6/11 1:30 pm EST by in pearl-jam


Pearl Jam

By Zachary Swickey

Pearl Jam celebrated their 20th anniversary in style over the weekend with their two-day fest, "PJ20." Held at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wisconsin, on Saturday and Sunday, Eddie Vedder and his musical brethren triumphantly ended the holiday weekend with a massive three-hour set, according to Billboard.

The show reportedly featured all of the classics – “Alive,” “Jeremy,” “Even Flow,” “Daughter” – but the bevy of special guests is what truly showed Pearl Jam’s influence and musical legacy. Scratching each other’s backs, the fest became a hodge-podge of onstage collabs. Vedder showed his appreciation for the opening acts: adding vocals and percussion to the set by Liam Finn, duetting with John Doe for his tune “Golden State,” mellowing out on Glen Hansard’s “Falling Slowly” (a song from Hansard’s Irish indie flick "Once") and rocking out with the Strokes on “Juicebox.”

Everyone obliged in returning the favor as Pearl Jam brought out guest after guest throughout their lengthy set. Glen Hansard, David Garza and Joseph Arthur all joined PJ for their No Code B-side, “All Night.” Julian Casablancas, sans the Strokes, swaggered onstage for a rendition of “Red Mosquito,” while Beatles offspring Dhani Harrison contributed to the oldie-but-goodie “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.” Read More...

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Seattle Music History Tour Part 2: Pearl Jam HQ

Posted 4/13/11 1:56 pm EST by in Behind The Scenes, Music


SEATTLE — With just a few hours left before I had to catch a plane out of town, there was one more stop I had to make on my whirlwind Seattle music history tour.

Driving to a nondescript industrial zone amid anonymous warehouses, I set out to explore the Pearl Jam headquarters.

Not many bands have the kind of well-oiled machine that PJ has built over the past two decades, but their digs should be an inspiration to any kid in his basement hoping to one day rock the masses. This is what hard work, great tunes and a rabid fanbase can get you, a playground all your own where you can offer your diehards an unending supply of high-end swag, including, at the moment, lush collector's box sets of your albums, plenty of which were in evidence on pallets scattered throughout the building.

One of the conference rooms in the smartly appointed offices featured images of the band with various dignitaries, from President Obama to Bruce Springsteen. The most intriguing was a shot of Beyonce and Jay-Z walking through the bowels of Madison Square Garden and gawking at a photo of PJ singer Eddie Vedder. Right next to that was a set-up sequel of Vedder looking equally astonished at a photo of the hip-hop supercouple.

A downstairs warehouse area the size of a basketball court was packed with road cases fresh from Vedder’s recent tour of Australia and shelves of hardware that looked like a small music store. There were dozens of guitar straps, every shape and thickness of guitar strings and boxes upon boxes of harmonicas and picks labeled with the names of the band members, various masks they wear on stage and rack-upon-rack of sound gear.
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MTV's Musical March Madness: 30 Seconds To Mars Vs. Pearl Jam

Posted 3/23/11 9:30 am EST by in Music


It's MTV's second annual Musical March Madness! MTV News took the 64 biggest names in rock, split them up into four regions, assigned them seeds and puts them up against one another in a single-elimination series of match-ups in a winner-take-all contest. We're leaving it to you to decide an actual champ in this field of 64, so over the next few weeks, fan voting will determine who will emerge as this year's champion. It's all about the fans, and the artist with the most passionate fan base will score the awesome Musical March Madness trophy!

There are already some upsets brewing in the second round of MTV's Musical March Madness tournament, and we have only opened up the voting on one region of the bracket. Today we take a look at the wild, wild West, which features four absolutely massive showdowns between some of the top-selling bands in the rock world.

Voting for all second round match-ups will close on Sunday, March 27 at midnight. As always, you can follow all the voting here.

(1) 30 Seconds to Mars vs. (8) Pearl Jam
In the first round, Yellowcard put up a good fight but were ultimately no match for the power of 30 Seconds to Mars (and the considerable participation of both the band members and the Echelon). They'll be taking on a very game Pearl Jam team in round two. Pearl Jam went blow for blow with Train for a while in round one, but ultimately they built a solid lead and held on to it for the duration of the voting. Can they mount a similar offense, or will Jared Leto's band power their way into the Sweet 16? Only your votes can determine the winner!

Watch the breakdown of the first round and a preview of round two!

Check out the Musical March Madness bracket and be take a look at the hoops-centric photos of some of the tournament's biggest bands.

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MTV's Musical March Madness: 30 Seconds To Mars Vs. Yellowcard, Pearl Jam Vs. Train

Posted 3/15/11 9:30 am EST by in Music


It's MTV's second annual Musical March Madness! MTV News took the 64 biggest names in rock, split them up into four regions, assigned them seeds and puts them up against one another in a single-elimination series of match-ups in a winner-take-all contest. We're leaving it to you to decide an actual champ in this field of 64, so over the next few weeks, fan voting will determine who will emerge as this year's champion. It's all about the fans, and the artist with the most passionate fan base will score the awesome Musical March Madness trophy!

On Monday (March 14), MTV's Musical March Madness launched with the Midwest bracket. Today (Tuesday, March 15), we move into the West, where some of the biggest names in music reside. Each of the 16 artists contained within the West bracket could win this tournament, but only the votes of the fans will decide who moves on and who stays home.

A reminder: First round voting continues through Sunday night (March 20), and you can catch up with any match-ups you might have missed here.

(1) 30 Seconds to Mars vs. (16) Yellowcard
The men of 30 Seconds to Mars earned themselves a number one seed in this year's tournament through consistent performances and dominance over the competition. Plus, they have one of the strongest fan bases in all of music (that would be the Echelon, which guitarist Tomo Milicevic shouted out in his Musical March Madness promo video). In the opposite corner, Yellowcard are back from their hiatus, have a new album called When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes and seem primed to get back to the top of the rock world. Will 30 Seconds to Mars be their first conquest on the comeback? You vote to decide!

(8) Pearl Jam vs. (9) Train
The West bracket is full of veterans like these — squads who have been to the dance before and could become dangerous at any time. Train are coming off one of their biggest years ever on the back of the success of "Hey Soul Sister," while Pearl Jam continue to deliver year after year (and as their new concert album Live on Ten Legs proves, they remain one of the stoutest guitar bands in the planet on stage). Which of these groups will scratch and claw their way to the next round? You tell us!

Watch Dick Bagwell and Vincent Twice break down this year's bracket!

Check out the Musical March Madness bracket and be take a look at the hoops-centric photos of some of the tournament's biggest bands.

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Mumford & Sons Continue Tradition Of Travel-Based Tour Gimmicks

Posted 3/9/11 1:30 pm EST by in Music


It has been a pretty big few months for Mumford & Sons, the English folk rock revivalists. Their debut album Sigh No More just cross over the one million mark, and they were a part of one of the most talked-about performances during the Grammy Awards (they shared the stage with Avett Brothers and Bob Dylan, culminating in an all-hands-on-deck jam on Dylan's "Maggie's Farm"). This spring, they plan on grabbing a lot more headlines with a very special tour. They'll be headed out on the road for six dates with brothers in arms Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros and Old Crow Medicine Show for a tour that will find them traveling entirely by a vintage rail car. "Woody [Guthrie] rode with his fellow drifters around North America; we get to do it with a bunch of other musicians, although not strangers, from different corners of the world," band member Winston Marshall said in a statement. "A dream come true to be on tour with them."

While Guthrie was probably the last musician to seriously tour on a train, Mumford & Sons aren't the only band to go on tour using a travel-related gimmick. Here is a brief history of the practice.

Pearl Jam
When the veteran Seattle band hit the road in support of their self-titled 2006 album, Pearl Jam put their money where their mouths (and bleeding hearts) were by hopping on a bus that ran entirely on biodiesel. In order to offset the other pollution on that tour, the band also spent thousands of dollars on carbon offsets, which went toward the preservation of a rain forest in Madagascar.

Ginger Ninjas
In 2007, unknown band Ginger Ninjas hopped on their bicycles and covered about 5,000 miles during a tour that saw them play over 80 shows. Not only that, but the band also carried all of their equipment with them and used their bikes to power their sound system, making the entire run almost completely self-sustained.

What other tour gimmicks would you like to see? Let us know in the comments!

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Happy Birthday, Eddie Vedder!

Posted 12/23/10 10:00 am EST by in Music


Christmas gives plenty of people a number of reasons to celebrate, but Eddie Vedder has one extra thing to raise a glass to today, as it is his birthday. The Pearl Jam frontman is now 46 years old, and though he has been an integral component of the rock world for most of two decades, in many respects it seems like he's just getting warmed up.

(Click here for a look at Eddie Vedder's career in photos!)

Of course, Vedder is best known as the singer for Pearl Jam, the band he joined following the end of about-to-break Seattle band Mother Love Bone. Vedder was something of an outsider in the beginning, as he was living in San Diego and not really considering a music career (he was content to surf). But a friend sent him a tape of some demos put together by guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament, and Vedder paired the with his deeply personal lyrics and signature baritone croon. The rest is rock history.

And while Vedder could have easily cashed checks on Pearl Jam for the rest of his life, his anxious artistic spirit has kept him in an experimental mood for most of his career. He has become as well-known as a collaborator and a solo artist as he has for his Pearl Jam duties. Not long after he joined Pearl Jam, he dropped in on a short-lived supergroup called Temple of the Dog that also featured members of Soundgarden and acted as a tribute to late Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood. Along the way, he has also shared stage or studio space with the Who, R.E.M., Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, the Strokes, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews and countless others.

Vedder has also proved himself a valuable asset in the film world, providing soundtrack work for classic films like "Dead Man Walking" and "I'm Not There." For the 2007 film "Into the Wild," Vedder performed an entire album's worth of songs for the movie (including original compositions and a cover of Indio's "Hard Sun," which became something of a hit), which lent it another level of gritty majesty.

Of course, Vedder has always prided himself on his social activism as well, and that passion collided with the film world for the 2007 documentary "Body of War," which featured a Vedder solo song called "No More," which is one of the finest protest tunes against the war in Iraq.

(Click here for a look at Eddie Vedder's career in photos!)

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Charles Darwin Publishes 'The Origin Of Species': Wake-Up Video

Posted 11/24/10 9:30 am EST by in Wake-Up Video


On this day in 1859, Charles Darwin published a book that would change the way people think about the history of human beings on the Earth and remains a controversial tome to this day. Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" first appeared in England on November 24, 1859, and it argued that organisms evolve through a process he termed "natural selection."

The concept breaks down as such: Over great periods of time (thousands and millions of years), species with certain attributes will survive to pass along their genetic material, which then creates evolved variations among that species. Darwin came to this conclusion following a five year sea-faring expedition to exotic locales like the Galapagos Islands and New Zealand. Darwin himself didn't come up with the theory of evolution (it was actually contemplated by both French naturalist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and English scientist Erasmus Darwin — Charles' own grandfather), but he was the first to apply proper scientific and practical evidence to properly support the theory.

Of course, the text of "On the Origin of Species" (as well as his later tome "The Descent of Man") was considered heresy by Christians, as the ideas (including the concept that man evolved from apes) flew in the face of Biblical creationism (wherein God was supposed to have created all the species on the planet). The theory itself has continued to evolve since Darwin's death in 1882, but he remains a key figure in modern science. In his honor (and to give yourself a little energy boost to push through your half day of work or your travel day), crank up Pearl Jam's "Do the Evolution." It's evolution, baby!


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Kanye West And Taylor Swift Join The Ranks Of Musical VMA Premieres

Posted 9/20/10 2:30 pm EST by in Music


A week ago, both Taylor Swift and Kanye West stole the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards with their respective performances. Not only did they both deliver polished, personal renditions of their tunes, but they also joined the ranks of a rare list of artists who have unveiled brand-new music at the VMAs. Both Swift and West performed songs that had never been heard anywhere, and each came from upcoming albums that are sure to be among the biggest of 2010. What better place than the VMA stage to show off their new toys?

Actually, the VMA performances are usually dictated by the songs that were nominated for awards (or, at the very least, those artists' current singles). Eminem's show-opening salvo was the best example of this, as he busted into both "Not Afraid" (the song that netted him eight VMA nominations) and "Love the Way You Lie" (his current chart-topping single).

But clearly some artists deviate from the script. In fact, the last time an artist drew the curtain on new music at the VMAs was in 2008, when West performed new single "Love Lockdown" for the first time. Britney Spears' "Gimme More" had found its way onto the Internet before the 2007 VMAs, but her show-opening performance of the tune was the first taste for many.

Flashing back a bit, R.E.M. premiered a new song called "The Wake-Up Bomb" at the 1995 show (it later showed up on the band's 1996 on-the-road album New Adventures in Hi-Fi). Pearl Jam also unveiled a new song called "Animal" (which came out on their second album Vs. a few weeks later).

With legends like R.E.M., Pearl Jam and Spears in their corner, both West and Swift are now part of an elite fraternity. Who will be the next artist to debut new music at the VMAs? That sounds like the first question surrounding the 2011 show. Let the speculation begin!

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MTV VMA Video Of The Year Winners, From Worst To First

Posted 9/11/10 1:00 pm EST by in VMAs


By the time the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards wrap up late Sunday night, a total of 16 awards will be handed out to the various winners at the show. The most coveted Moonman is, of course, the prize for Video of the Year, the clip that personifies the height of music video greatness for the past 12 months. This year's crop includes six well-deserving nominees, including B.o.B's "Airplanes," 30 Seconds to Mars' "Kings and Queens," Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over," Eminem's "Not Afraid" and a pair of clips from Lady Gaga ("Bad Romance" and "Telephone"). No matter who wins, the victor will join an exclusive club that contains some of the biggest artists of the past three decades (including Madonna, Britney Spears, Eminem, Aerosmith, Green Day, Van Halen and Sinéad O'Connor).

But no awards show is perfect. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has handed out Oscars for Best Picture to the likes of forgettable afterthoughts like "Shakespeare in Love," "Crash," "Kramer vs. Kramer" and "Chicago." The dudes from Steely Dan have a Grammy for Album of the Year for Two Against Nature. "Everybody Loves Raymond" won a pair of Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series. There are always some missteps, and the MTV Video Music Awards are not immune to them. So check out the list below of all of the clips that have won Video of the Year, ranked from the most regrettable to the absolutely indisputable.

Jamiroquai, "Virtual Insanity" (1997)
Had the concept of viral video been around in 1997, Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity" would have become a much-passed-around hit and then would have vanished within three days (sadly, home use of the Internet was still pretty nascent). It's visually interesting in a how'd-they-pull-it-off? sort of way, sure, but both the band and the song have fallen completely by the wayside as far as relevance is concerned. The winner in 1997 probably should have been Beck's "The New Pollution" or No Doubt's "Don't Speak."

Neil Young, "This Note's For You" (1989)
Neil Young is great — a living legend if there ever was one. But does anybody remember anything about any of this?

The Cars, "You Might Think" (1984)
No disrespect to the Cars, but this somehow beat Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Argument over.
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The 2010 VMA Countdown: RuPaul And Milton Berle Make Everybody Squirm

Posted 9/7/10 3:30 pm EST by in VMAs


The 2010 MTV Video Music Awards are only a few weeks away. The biggest party of the year features nominated clips by Lady Gaga, Eminem, Jay-Z, Ke$ha and Katy Perry and will feature performances by Kanye West, Eminem, Drake, Justin Bieber, Paramore, Usher, B.o.B, Florence and the Machine and Linkin Park. In order to properly prepare yourself for what's to come, every day the MTV Newsroom Blog will deliver a classic moment in the history of the MTV Video Music Awards. Today's installment: Milton Berle and RuPaul make an uncomfortable tag team.

There were a handful of big winners at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. They included Pearl Jam (who won a bunch of awards for "Jeremy" and who also performed twice — once premiering the Vs. track "Animal" and once with Neil Young on "Rockin' in the Free World"), Snoop Dogg (who made a public appearance even though he was wanted by the police at the time; he slipped out of the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles undetected but later turned himself in) and En Vogue (who took home a trio of Moonmen for their clip for "Free Your Mind").

But there were some definite losers that night as well, and they began with strange bedfellows Milton Berle and RuPaul. Berle, a television legend, did not get along with the cross-dressing Ru prior to their appearance on stage, and that animosity bubbled over once they walked out. Berle groped Ru's breasts, to which Ru responded bitingly "So you used to wear gowns, but now you're wearing diapers" (referencing Berle's occasional cross-dressing during his heyday). The veteran comedian snapped back, "Oh, we're going to ad lib? I'll check my brain and we'll start even." It was one of the most uncomfortable moments in VMA history, right up there with Fiona Apple's acceptance speech and Michael Jackson's smooch for then-wife Lisa Marie Presley. But it's still talked about today, further proof that sometimes a little dramatic tension goes an awfully long way.

The 27th annual MTV Video Music Awards will be broadcast live from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on September 12 at 9 p.m. ET.

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