I noticed on their myspace page that their record company is now Monkeywrench.

you always need a publishing/company name. obvious choice.

good work band. we expect a Radiohead-esqe release. don't phone it in thinking people will be getting to listen for free.

Publishing company names are for individual songwriters (or songwriting teams like Lennon/McCartney). Each member of PJ has his own. That's not what "Monkeywrench" represents.

Could be their "presses" name, ala Ian MacKaye/Dischord

The first time I remember seeing them use Monkeywrench as their label was on the iTunes single for Love, Reign O'er Me.

It's possible Monkeywrench is a sub-label of J-records purely for the band.

I don't think that it's likely. The next Pearl Jam album may be distributed by J Records in its CD form, but I'm convinced that they will release it in a download format initially. The imprint will be Monkeywrench in this format. It will likely not have anything to do with J Records because Pearl Jam as a music-making entity is entirely self-contained. They don't need Clive Davis to help them make music as so many of his American Idol artists do. I noticed that J Records does not have anything to do with the vinyl release of ITW. That is through Cameron Crowe's company.

s/t is on Monkey Wrench, under exclusive license to J Records, a unit of Sony BMG Music

I noticed that the CD version of the ITW soundtrack says the same thing.

As far as i understand this little independent sometimes work like this. The small label is the main label while the biggest is used for publishing and distribution.

I buy a lot of CDs from small independent labels. I've noticed that they usually have a big record company distributing and promoting them. I'm sure that they couldn't survive otherwise.

They sort their own stuff out, J records does the promotion and distribution?