Eddie Vedder Vs. The World: A Butcher Ranks the Many Beefs of Pearl Jam's Frontman

Photo by Justin Jacobs

Eddie Vedder beefs with the best of 'em. 

From his quarrels with Ticketmaster to drunken barfights, Vedder’s been involved in one beef or another for much of his long career, and he’s more apt to tackle it swinging on the rafters than sitting down. But which of Vedder’s beefs have been truly palatable morsels and which are just throwaway scraps? To sort through all the beef, we turned to an expert. Lynne Sawicki of Sawicki’s Meat, Seafood and More (an establishment which, it should be mentioned, makes a damn fine sandwich) in Decatur, Ga. weighs in on each of a handful of Vedder’s beefs below:

1. Eddie Vedder Vs. Billy Corgan: Leave it to the Smashing Pumpkins frontman to spread some infinite sadness in an otherwise happy situation. In 2008, Vedder wrote the song “All The Way” in support of his favorite baseball squad, the Chicago Cubs. The song didn’t actually help the Cubs, though. The team choked in the playoffs, after which Corgan (being the moral thermometer of everyone in the universe, naturally) chastised Vedder for destroying the team. During a concert in Chicago, Corgan ranted, “If the Cubs did have a chance this last year, that just passed. Fuckin’ Eddie Vedder killed that shit dead.”
Sawicki Says: “That beef is a veal chop. Veal gets a bad name. Because it’s a baby cow, people think it’s been treated wrong. But that’s not true. You can’t prove it.”

2. Eddie Vedder Vs. George W. Bush: Vedder and Pearl Jam have long been advocates of their political leanings (in 2000, Vedder was outspoken about his support for Nader), but President Bush pushed the beefmaster to a new level of frustration. In 2004, Vedder joined the Vote for Change tour in support of John Kerry, and in 2003 he was want to perform the song “Bushleager” wearing a Bush mask. Not vitriolic enough? During the song, he’d take the mask off and impale it on his mic stand.
Sawicki Says: “Well, Bush is from Texas. This beef would have to be a porterhouse. A big, thick cut. And a porterhouse is actually two different cuts of meat, which is like the wishy-washiness of politics.”

3. Eddie Vedder Vs. AT&T: As if Vedder didn’t get enough guff from all of his Bush-loving fans (They do exist, right?), during the AT&T-sponsored live webcast of Pearl Jam’s 2007 Lollapalooza performance, the stream mysteriously cut out just as Vedder sang “George Bush, leave this world alone.” AT&T denied that the edits were politically-motivated censorship, but Pearl Jam fans remained skeptical.
Sawicki Says: “That’d be hot dogs. They’re full of crap.”

4. Eddie Vedder and Jack McDowell Vs. Some Drunk Dudes: Believe it or not, there was a time when rock ’n’ roll guys were actually tough. Vedder, unsurprisingly, was one of them. In Nov. 1993, Vedder and White Sox pitcher Jack McDowell got in a drunken bar brawl in New Orleans that put Vedder in cuffs for public drunkenness and put McDowell in the hospital when his head hit the wheel of a Jeep.
Sawicki Says: “That’d be a big bone-in ribeye, a tomahawk cut, which includes the entire rib. It’s this massive bone with a piece of meat at the end of it. You can just swing it and beat somebody with it, so it’s also baseball related.”

5. Eddie Vedder Vs. Ticketmaster: And here we have the mother of all Vedder’s beefs. In 1994, Vedder led a charge against what he saw as Ticketmaster’s monopolization of the concert ticket industry. Pearl Jam wanted to keep its tickets below $20, but claimed that the price was impossible because of Ticketmaster’s service fees and extraneous charges. Vedder even testified before congress. But the band’s refusal to work with Ticketmaster was ultimately proven futile; Pearl Jam’s 1994 tour was cancelled.
Sawicki Says: “You’d want to drown your sorrows in the best, most expensive cut, which is a filet. Maybe even wrapped in bacon.”

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