For You Kids Who Love the Rock ‘n’ Roll

As Pearl Jam, led by charismatic singer Eddie Vedder, kicks off a 12-date U.S. tour tonight in Seattle, record industry observers are wondering if the brief trek will help kick-start sales of the band’s new album, “No Code.” The record sold more than 500,000 copies during its first two weeks in stores, according to SoundScan, and holds firm at No. 1 on the charts, but it still fell way short of industry expectations. The group’s last two albums, 1993’s “Vs.” and 1994’s “Vitalogy,” each posted first-week sales of more than 870,000 copies. Some are speculating that the band’s aversion to conventional promotional tools, like videos, interviews and regular touring, has alienated some fans. “What’s happening, perhaps, is a natural erosion of the Pearl Jam fan base,” says Gary Arnold, vice president of marketing for the 261-store Best Buy retail chain. “People seem to be saying, ‘It’s just too difficult to be a fan. You guys have got to be a little more visible.’ ” The Pearl Jam camp has not indicated that the band will change its no-video, low-media profile stance, although it is scheduled to make an appearance Friday on CBS-TV’s “Late Show With David Letterman.”

And Just Think of the Frequent Flier Miles

When the players in the Los Angeles Philharmonic want a croissant and coffee before morning rehearsal at the Music Center, they can walk through a dusky tunnel under Olive Street to a cappuccino stand at the County Courthouse plaza. But for the next month, they’ll have to make do with whatever they can find along the Champs Elysees. Today, the orchestra leaves for Paris for a month’s residency at the Thea^tre du Cha^telet. The programming focuses on Stravinsky, with a new production of “The Rake’s Progress,” directed by Peter Sellars and conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, as centerpiece. Is it really worthwhile transporting 115 musicians, 100 trunks and various staff members overseas for four weeks? “Doing a residency like this around a theme,” says managing director Ernest Fleischmann, “we are likely to get noticed a great deal more than by one tour program played in a number of cities.” Where the orchestra won’t get noticed, however, is at home. Although the concerts contain works heard during the past seasons, L.A. Opera has no plans so far to import the “Rake.”

Lorne Michaels Says: ‘What, Me Worry?’

After a rocky first season, Fox’s late-night “Mad TV” begins its second year Saturday at 11 p.m. In its first season, the weekly sketch comedy offered a modest challenge to “Saturday Night Live” and eventually won renewal after Fox tested a competing late-night concept produced by Roseanne, “Saturday Night Special,” in the same time slot. The show has slightly altered its format to feature guest hosts instead of celebrity cameos, with Christina Applegate (from Fox’s “Married . . . With Children,” naturally) on hand this week and Ice T lined up for Sept. 28, opposite Tom Hanks hosting the opener for “SNL’s” 22nd season. “Mad TV” has also commissioned more clay-animation spoofs on the order of last year’s “Raging Rudolph” segment, among them a bit the folks at Disney are sure to love entitled “Sex Toy Story,” which will air in October. Late night figures prominently in Fox’s plans for the coming season. In addition to “Mad,” Fox will introduce a dramatic serial in January airing at 11 weeknights.

This Hearing Gets an R Rating

One week after President Clinton descended on Hollywood for a fund-raiser, a handful of his Republican colleagues are following suit--but to conduct a congressional hearing. “Report From the Front Line: The Drug War in Hollywood” will explore ways in which violence and drug use can be curtailed in the media. “We’re not looking to regulate the industry,” said Christopher Marston, legislative assistant for the House subcommittee on national security, international affairs and criminal justice. “We’re just tapping some local expertise and helping to organize coalitions from within.” U.S. Reps. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), Steve Horn (R-Long Beach) and, tentatively, Andrea Seastrand (R-Shell Beach), will hear testimony from Charles FitzSimons, executive director of the Producers Guild of America; producer Dean Hamilton (“Savage Land”); media psychologist Carole Lieberman, chair of the National Coalition on TV Violence; actress Dee Wallace Stone (“E.T.”); and Mitchel Matovich, producer of “Lightning in a Bottle”--a film with an anti-alcohol message that aired on “Lifetime” after the major studios passed on it. “They explained to me that there were no ‘exploitative elements’--in other words, sex and violence,” Matovich said. “Movies that used to get X ratings are getting an R today. Yet any time you talk about changing content, people stand on a soapbox yelling that 1st Amendment rights are being violated. The only option is denying young people access. Since kids make up such a huge chunk of the audience, the bottom-line-oriented industry might be persuaded to cooperate.” The event will be held at 9:30 a.m. Saturday in the Brentwood Theater on the Veterans Hospital grounds in Westwood and is open to the public.