We knew something was fishy! Last week we tried to buy tickets to Eddie Vedder at the United Palace Theater in NYC. Tickets went up on Ticketmaster.com at 1PM and at 1PM on the nose (we watched the time change from 12:59 as we were clicking through) tickets for each of the 2 nights were no longer available…
However, we were directed to what was sold as a ticketmaster sister site, Tickets Now. We quickly realized that Tickets Now was no more than an online scalper with prices guaged from the original price of $79.00 a piece to topping $500.00. The time? 1:01 PM.
Apparently we’re not the only ones having this problem. Click here about the fight to stop Ticketmaster.
While the band has not officially endorsed a candidate for Presidency, drummer Matt Cameron has lent his talents to original Obama song “Fired Up and Ready to Go”. Written by Seattle-area musicians the Bergevin Brothers, and featuring Reverend Pat Wright and her renowned Total Experience Gospel Choir.Joe Bergevin watched Senator Barack Obama tell a story about one person, Edith Childs, who energized others with a “fired up, ready to go,” chant at one of his campaign stops. Inspired by Obama’s “One voice can change the world” speech, Joe wrote some lyrics and rough chords then called his brother Jon to help him compose and arrange the song. They named it after Edith’s chant. After many phone calls, emails, and sleepless nights, they had assembled the team. Ten days later an epic recording was born with the intention of spreading Obama’s hopeful message. Contributors include lead singer Reverend Pat Wright and her renowned Total Experience Gospel Choir, drummer Matt Cameron from Pearl Jam, lead singer Jake Bergevin, other top studio musicians, sound engineers, video teams, photographers, caterers, local news teams and a renovated theater with recording studio.
Over the next several weeks, Verizon Wireless customers can download — for free — three Eddie Vedder songs from the “Into the Wild” soundtrack: “Guaranteed,” “Rise” and “Hard Sun.” Fans can also purchase these exclusive tracks as ringtones and ringback tones. The full “Into the Wild” soundtrack is currently available on Monkeywrench/J Records.Verizon Wireless customers can use their V CAST Music-enabled phones or PCs to download the following songs for free (excluding applicable airtime charges):* “Guaranteed” — available now through Jan. 25* “Rise” — available Jan. 25 through Feb. 15* “Hard Sun” — available Feb. 15 through March 7Verizon Wireless customers with V CAST-enabled phones can purchase the music video on V CAST Performances, in the What’s New or Featured category on V CAST Music and online in the V CAST Music store. The ringtone and ringback tone for each song will be available for purchase at the same time the full-track song is available for free. Customers who opt-in can receive free interactive MMS video messages with details about the video and exclusive music content for each Vedder song.”We are thrilled to be the first digital music service to deliver Verizon Wireless customers the first ever music video created for mobile and distribute this legendary music to Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam fans across the nation,” said Ed Ruth, director of digital music for Verizon Wireless.”It’s always interesting for us to explore new ways to get music to music fans. Much like the Internet, the advent of mobile technology has created another medium through which artists can get music directly to fans in an innovative and authentic way,” said Kelly Curtis, Pearl Jam’s manager.”Eddie’s music has always pierced to the heart of human experience,” explains Rocco, “and ‘Into the Wild’ follows a young man’s passionate search for his own voice in a noisy modern world. As a filmmaker, I was eager to use this cutting-edge medium to put Eddie’s inspirational words, image and music right into the audience’s hand to evoke a meaningful, personal experience for each viewer.”"J Records is excited to team with Verizon in this unique mobile campaign which will bring Eddie Vedder’s music to new fans,” said Sean Rosenberg, director mobile marketing, RCA Music Group.”What is truly unique about this endeavor,” said Guy Endore-Kaiser, executive vice president marketing and creative advertising, Paramount Vantage, “is the convergence of the mobile platform with music, video and movie, allowing us to create new audiences for ‘Into The Wild’ and Eddie’s soundtrack.”"Guaranteed” is an acoustic song inspired by the true story of Christopher McCandless, who, in 1990 at the age of 22, left behind a life of comfort to test himself against the wilds of nature. The song was written and performed by Vedder for the soundtrack of the Paramount Vantage release “Into The Wild,” which features nine original tracks and two cover songs by Vedder. To date, the soundtrack has been nominated for numerous awards including: a Critic’s Choice nomination for “Guaranteed” for Best Song; two Golden Globe nominations, one for “Guaranteed” for Best Original Song, and one for Vedder/King/Brook for Best Original Score; and a GRAMMY nomination for “Guaranteed” for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.For more information on mobile music from Verizon Wireless, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or visit www.verizonwireless.com/music .
From Pearl Jam’s MySpace page, this is one of the best films and records of 2007
Into The Wild on Vinyl
Monkeywrench and Vinyl Films Records is proud to announce the release of the limited vinyl version of the soundtrack to the film Into The Wild. The release will be celebrated with an exclusive Ten Club pre-sale beginning January 14th at 10am Pacific.
Initially released digitally and in compact disc format, Into The Wild has been recorded on to high-grade audiophile vinyl. The vinyl release includes an extended version of the album track ..”The Wolf..”, plus a bonus 7-inch single with both studio and live versions of the track ..”No More..”, a 28-page full color booklet with lyrics and exclusive liner notes by Director Sean Penn.
This very special and very limited vinyl release will be available only at pearljam.com beginning January 14th, for $20 USD plus shipping, while supplies last.
Into The Wild vinyl will be released in stores on January 29th.
NEW YORK – Monkeywrench/J Records’ Into the Wild soundtrack featuring original music written and performed by Eddie Vedder makes it’s chart debut at #2 on the Billboard Soundtracks chart and #11 on the Billboard Top 200 this week with 39,331albums sold. The Into the Wild soundtrack features nine original songs, including “Guaranteed”, as well as cover songs “Hard Sun” and ”Society.“
Critics have already embraced the soundtrack, Rolling Stone Magazine gave it 3 ½ stars and said “…Eddie Vedder tells the young man’s story on the soundtrack to Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, tossing his weighty baritone onto earthy, folky tracks that temper the romance of absolute freedom with an eerie foreboding.” The Los Angeles Times raves, “What began with Penn’s request for a handful of songs to fit into his nearly complete film grew almost by accident into a brief but cohesive album that recapitulates the movie’s journey in miniature.” USA Today says “…the singer’s pretty, folk-based tunes have an open, slightly ragged, organic simplicity that suits the tale’s panoramic grandeur and forlorn undercurrent.” And Sean Penn says in an interview with the New York Times “I deliberately underwrote parts of the script because I felt that the music and the lyrics would tell part of the story,” he said. “I liked a lot the way that works in ‘The Graduate’ and in Hal Ashby movies like ‘Harold and Maude.’ His original notion was to use several different singer-songwriters, but while watching Mr. Hirsch’s performance, he said, he started hearing Eddie Vedder’s voice. He showed a rough cut to Mr. Vedder, who responded with a score that is big and soulful.”
Inspired by the true-life story of Christopher McCandless, singer and guitarist Eddie Vedder wrote and performed music for the forthcoming feature film adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s best-selling literary work Into the Wild. Written and directed by Sean Penn, Into the Wildstars Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Hal Holbrook, Catherine Keener, Jena Malone, Kristen Stewart, Vince Vaughn and Brian Dierker. The film was released in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, September 21st and will be released nationwide on October 5th.
“That supposedly isolated incident of anti-Bush political speech being cut out of AT&T’s broadcast of Pearl Jam’s Lollapalooza set? Turns out the incident wasn’t so isolated after all. Shortly after news broke that AT&T’s Blue Room webcast of the PJ set excised several comments made by singer Eddie Vedder that were critical of the president, a spokeswoman for AT&T released a statement saying similar “mistakes” had happened before.
“It’s not our intent to edit political comments in webcasts on the AttBlueRoom.com,” AT&T spokeswoman Tiffany Nels said in the statement released Friday. “Unfortunately, it has happened in the past in a handful of cases. We have taken steps to ensure that it won’t happen again.”
Another AT&T spokesperson told MTV News on Thursday that the cutting of Vedder’s declaration, “George Bush, leave this world alone!,” was an unintentional “mistake” by the third-party company hired to stream the concert (see “Pearl Jam Wonder: Were Anti-Bush Comments Edited From Webcast Really An ‘Error’?”). But fans quickly pointed out that similar cuts had allegedly been made to sets by the Flaming Lips and the John Butler Trio at the Bonnaroo festival earlier this summer.
Nels did not say specifically what the “handful” of cases were, and MTV News could not independently confirm the Butler or Lips edits at press time. However, Lips manager Scott Booker told MTV on Friday that the band is working on getting a copy of the Bonnaroo performance. “I’m sure Wayne said something,” Booker said of the group’s leader, Wayne Coyne, who has never been shy in concert about offering his profanity-laced comments about the administration. Booker said that while he could not recall the exact nature of Coyne’s comments that night, they invariably included unkind statements about the White House.”
A bit of heavy-handed censorship of a Pearl Jam concert by AT&T this weekend led the band to fire off an open letter to fans—a letter in which Pearl Jam railed against media and ISP consolidation and called for readers to support network neutrality.
The incident happened during a Lollapalooza webcast over at AT&T’s “Blue Room” media showcase. Pearl Jam’s performance of their big 90’s hit “Daughter” morphed into the melody from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” and Eddie Vedder served up a pair of anti-Bush lyrics to the tune. “George Bush, leave this world alone,” he sang. “George Bush, find yourself another home.”
Fans at the event got to hear the words in all their glory, but in the webcast, the lines were censored—AT&T made the decision to silence them, apparently believing that they would prove offensive to listeners. When Pearl Jam found out about the censorship, the band posted a strongly-worded message on its web site.
“This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media,” wrote the band. “What happened to us this weekend was a wake-up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band.”
In Pearl Jam’s view, it’s a wake-up call for network neutrality advocates. The same sort of censorship could take place on any Internet content, and what could be done about it an a world where the only real option is… the cable company?
