For a night, anyway!

Last night Pearl Jam performed at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles. At some point during the show, ex-Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog singer Chris Cornell joined Pearl Jam on stage to perform “Hunger Strike”,  the Temple of the Dog hit from way back when. Having Cornell on stage with Pearl Jam meant that all of the main members of Temple of the Dog (Cornell, Stone Gossard, Matt Cameron, Jeff Ament, Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder) were once again performing together. They also played “Reach Down”.

And that’s not all! Ex-Soundgarden members Ben Shepherd and Kim Thayil were also reportedly in attendance at the concert along with Chris Cornell. It would appear that after all these years they are becoming buddy-buddy once again. Could a Soundgarden reunion be in the works? Perhaps, according to Kim Thayil in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.

Here is some footage of the brief Temple of the Dog reunion from last night:

Awesome rap about Vietnam.

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I suppose I would start singing as well if I enjoyed as much success as Tarantino recently has thanks to his smash hit film “Inglorious Basterds”. This new ass-kicking nazi-slaying movie that goes as far as re-writing history for entertainment value has grossed over $95 million in just three weeks.

In a recent interview with Peter Travers from Rolling Stone on ABC News NOW, Tarantino was asked by Tavers to sing in celebration of the film’s overwhelming success. He chose a somewhat obscure song by the name of “The Man in the Big Sombrero” from an old film from the 1940s called Hi Diddle Diddle.

To read more and to see the clip of Quentin singing his heart out, check out the full article at Rolling Stone.

After years of license negotiations, it has been confirmed that late alternative rock megastar Kurt Cobain will be coming to Guitar Hero 5.  Whether or not the deceased Nirvana front man is rolling in his grave over this decision is debatable, since he was always so outspoken against the commercialization of music. However, one thing is for certain, a new generation of music fans will be headbanging and jamming out to “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Along with that track, a live version of the popular Nirvana single “Lithium” will be included in Guitar Hero 5.

Also joining Cobain in the cast of Guitar Hero 5 will be the late great Johnny Cash as well as living rockers Carlos Santana, Shirley Manson (Garbage), and Matt Bellamy (Muse).

Activision’s VP of Music Affairs Tim Riley is beside himself with joy as a result of the recent Cobain deal.

“‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is a song that we’ve had at the top of our wish list ever since I came to Guitar Hero,” Riley told Rolling Stone. “So it’s been a while.”

Naturally, in order to secure the proper permissions to include Nirvana’s music and Cobain’s likeness, certain rights holders had  to be on board. Among them were former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl, as well as Cobain’s notorious ex-wife, Courtney Love. Apparently Love had some very particular concerns about how Cobain would look in the game, and offered her input right down to Kurt’s wardrobe and hairstyle.

So when does the game come out? Why, funny you should ask…

Today!

Nowadays, it’s hard to claim to be a celebrity if you don’t have a Twitter account. It’s pretty much mandatory. Luckily, Janet Jackson realized this in time, and is now a full fledged member of the tweeting community.

Off to an incredible start, at the time of this writing the legendary pop star and sister of the late great King of Pop already has over 47,000 followers. Her first official tweet was tweeted on August 3rd, saying simply “Hey you guys, Welcome, explore, Thank you for all the love”, followed by a link to her official site.

That brought her grand total tweets up to a whopping 2! So, she’s averaging about 23,500 followers per tweet. Not bad.

According to that second tweet, Jackson recently wrapped up filming a movie called “Why Did I Get Married, Too?”. She also briefly mentioned a new album coming in the near future.

To stay up to date with the goings on of Ms. Janet Jackson, be sure to follow her on Twitter.

That’s right! The ever popular Guitar Hero competitor known as Rock Band is now working with MTV to make it possible for independent artists to get their music made available as downloadable songs that can be played in the game.

In association with Harmonix, MTV plans to launch the Rock Band Network later this year. Although currently in closed beta, artists may be able to participateas early as August of this year when closed beta mode is expected to be opened.

Unfortunately for die-hard PS3 and Nintendo Wii lovers, the initial release of the Rock Band Network will be exclusively on Xbox. However, it is expected to be brough to the other platforms eventually.

For more info on how exactly you’ll be able to get your music (or your brother’s garage band that you manage) onto the Rock Band Network, check out this article.

Lately I have found myself addicted to a site called Blip.fm. If you haven’t already heard about it, allow me to give you a quick run down.

Blip.fm is basically a site where you can broadcast to your friends what music you’re listening to at that moment. In itself, that probably doesn’t sound all that special. But the beauty of it is that the people that add your Blip to their favorites and are online while you “Blip” will hear your selections played for them. Once you’ve built a base of listeners (by Blipping awesome songs), you turn into an internet DJ responsible for selecting tunes you think your audience will enjoy.

If you’re more of a listener and less of a “you have to hear this song!” type of person, Blip can also be just a cool place to hang out and discover new music. Lots of folks like to hang out in the general area listening to random songs that users have selected and distributing “props” accordingly.

If you’re a musician wondering how you can use Blip to gain more exposure for your band, you’re in luck. Once you’ve created a regular account, head over to “settings” (it’s by the logout button) and then choose the “music” tab. From there you can enter the URL of a song you want added and it will become accessible by Blip.fm users. Just make sure you have your mp3 hosted somewhere reliable AND it must have proper ID3 tags so Blip can figure out all the track info. If the file isn’t properly tagged, it won’t work. The same applies if you’re just a fan and you can’t find a song you’d like to Blip. Just find it somewhere on the internet (or upload it yourself, but don’t tell the FBI) and then enter the URL the same way.

Have fun!

I’ve written about Twitter before as a vehicle for music promotion, and I’ll write about it again!

O.A.R. frontman Marc Roberge, like so many of us, was initially put off by the idea of Twitter. However, he and his band have since embraced the new social networking medium and are using it to hold a special contest that will result in an exclusive new song that will be released via iTunes sometime in October.

From now until July 7th, fans are encouraged to submit their own original lyrics by tweeting @ofarevolution. Submissions are of course limited by Twitter to a maximum of 140 characters. At the end of the contest, the band will go through all of the submissions and pick the lyrics they feel are best and construct an entire song out of them. Pretty neato.

This sort of innovation is exactly what other bands and artists should be thinking about. Twitter is an incredibly powerful tool to reach out and directly connect with fans unlike any other tool in history. This novel idea really only scratches the surface.

The band will also be documenting the whole process of putting the song together via video that their fans will be able to watch. Where can you find links to these exclusive videos? Funny you should ask….Twitter, actually.

 There was a time when the only way an underground band could get their music into a film or television show was to be signed to a major label. Thanks to our good friend the Internet, this is no longer the case.

Pump Audio has been in business since 2001, founded by musicians who had been around the music scene for quite some time. The concept was to create a one-stop source for music supervisors (the people who select music for film/tv/commercials, etc) where they could find new, quality music created by people all over the world at different levels of their career.

Today, thanks to services like Pump Audio, young musicians have found success writing and recording music in their bedrooms that has gone on to become the soundtrack of some of the most popular movies and television programs. Many artists would argue that the exposure value alone makes it worthwhile, but it gets even better: you get paid.

With the current agreement, Pump Audio does a 50/50 split with all of its artists. That means if a production like Grey’s Anatomy decides they want your acoustic emo ballad and they’re willing to pay a $20,000 license fee (an extreme example, perhaps, but not an implausible one), that the fee would be split right down the middle and you, the artist, would receive $10,000.

And that’s just the license fee. Pump Audio does not take over the publishing rights to the song, so as long as you’re properly registered with a royalty collection organization like ASCAP or BMI, you will also be entitled to performance royalties (quite a bit of them, in this example).

So, what’s the catch? Well, there really isn’t one. It’s 100% free to submit your music for inclusion in the Pump Audio catalog. Of course, there are no guarantees your music will make the cut.

Another plus is the agreement is non-exclusive, so in the event that your music is accepted you still have the right to seek placements for it elsewhere. However, if you land an exclusive deal somewhere else, you have to notify Pump Audio so that they can remove the track in question from their catalog.

For all the details, check out PumpAudio.com. Good luck!

No, I’m not talking about the Stone Temple Pilots. Not that there is anything wrong with that STP, but I’m here to talk about the song by the name of STP by a bad ass band from long beach called Sublime. Of course you’ve heard What I Got, Santeria, Wrong Way, etc, but STP is a song that many folks never heard, and that is a tragedy.

This particular STP actually stands for “Secret Tweaker Pad”. The song basically creates a colorful audio illustration of the Sublime lifestyle in the late 80s/early 90s hanging out in their secret hideout where they would pass the time with fun activities such as crossword puzzles, tattoos, and of course copious amounts of methamphetamine.

Of course, I am not endorsing drug use, especially the kind that makes you prone to breaking into your neighbors house and stealing his DVD player, but I am most certainly glorifying this awesome song. Here is the video (sorry about the delay in the beginning, it was the only version I could find that allows embedding):

You’re welcome!