things Billy Corgan said to Kim Thayil in Australia in 1994 poll

ppl might have rolled their eyes at smashing pumpkins but pearl jam were regarded (esp among ppl for whom altrock authenticity was an actual thing) as this obv corporate attempt at buying the altrock revolution, cobain compared them to night ranger and though he apparently maybe later kinda took it back (or so i've heard, idk) the tag stuck.

can remember cobain calling them "a nice rock band that everybody likes." but, even to my young yokel ears, it seemed like PJ were the more dad-palatable version of a real thing but it was stone temple pilots that were the hollywood mock-up, a year later (though i really liked them at the time)

i tried going back to siamese dream and wow did it age badly. really plodding and leaden; 'disarm' is still great though.

when i heard "alive" for the first time i thought of bad company

hearing people talk about how offended they are that other people are being offended getting pretty old at this point

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, April 21, 2016 7:00 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Are you offended by it?

― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Thursday, April 21, 2016 7:15 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm bored by it.

it's boring. it's a non-complaint. what, people have too much free speech? give me a break, guy who is a famous rock star on his third interview with a famous radio star.

@ balls - maybe we're talking about two different groups of people? i'm thinking of the millions-strong masses who definitely did NOT think of eddie vedder suspiciously but rather as a rock savior and Serious Voice For A Generation, Man or whatever. like i'm sure within certain ILM-ish bubbles, pearl jam were seen as hacks but that's not how john q. rock fan thought of them. they symbolize being ANTI corporate, "they faced down ticketmaster" "they didn't make videos" etc. etc. and it's john q. rock fan that i imagine canonizing died-too-young genius billy corgan in this alternate reality.

isn't there a recent thread re: albums/projects/whatever where the critical/commercial floppitude drove the artist to "never again!" and they never recovered their confidence/finger on the pulse/whatever?

Albums that poisoned the artist

that's it. thank you!

he's often said that Lollapalooza 1994 was a turning point for him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qIhtKkrnuM&app=desktop

omg i had never seen this before (though had watched Corgan's awkwadr interviews w/Boredoms, etc, from the same show) and it is EXCRUCIATING, Corgan being incredibly insulting and dismissive to D'Arcy, sly reference to her wedding, dismissing the fact that girls saw her as an empowering presence (Corgan: "someone should be inspired musically, and not... what would be the word be?" D'Arcy: "..." Corgan: "Male or female-y"), and her having to tolerate because the guy is her boss and her wage. It's like some scene out of the Office with Corgan as Michael Scott.

i love how he prefaces D'arcy getting lots of letters from girls with "not that it's the biggest deal in the world"

God, what a fuckwit.

Yeah, me too, because their headline set here suuuuuucked.

to this day I consider this the worst show I have ever seen (as I think I've said before)

lol that really is seriously Office-y

wd probably vote for the claymation line as my favourite if polled

"You'll never work in another place like this - fact. And you'll never work for another boss like me, someone who's basically a chilled out entertainer - fact."

http://static.spin.com/files/2015/07/Billy-Corgan.jpg

Yeah, me too, because their headline set here suuuuuucked.

to this day I consider this the worst show I have ever seen (as I think I've said before)

― Οὖτις, Friday, April 22, 2016 1:04 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

which stop(s) on the tour did you guy see? curious to hear these shows, most of Lollapalooza gigs were taped. IMO it's my favorite live era of the band, they were absolutely FEROCIOUS, Billy was out of his mind on amphetamines during that whole tour (2004 quote: "I don't remember much about Lollapalooza. I remember a lot of pink and purple pills.")

A friend of mine saw the first Randall's Island, NY show on August 5, 1994, and he hated it, never listened to the Pumpkins after that. That show was indeed a total disaster, they left the stage after only an hour, abandoned songs, ended with a limp cover of Thin Lizzy's "Dancing in the Moonlight." But the next night, determined to prove themselves, they played the best show of the Siamese Dream-era. It might be my favorite Pumpkins performance ever, because they were at their best when their backs were against the wall. Here's a blurry but still watchable tape of that whole August 6, 1994 show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niNEndXNMfs

Concord Pavilion in California. I'll see if I can find my other posts on that show

I can't find them but my memory of the show is something like this: extended clip of car chase scene from Bullitt plays for like 10 minutes, band comes out, the sound is awful, Corgan flails around like an angry 13 yo and then berates the audience for not appreciating him properly, a bunch of songs are started, interrupted and some are not finished (incl "Today" I think), a bunch of shitty soloing, extended diatribes from Corgan... just so bad.

holy shit, was it one of the shows at the Shoreline Amphitheatre on 8/27 or 8/28? SPFC doesn't list any dates on the Lollapalooza tour in Concord? From your description, that could be the 8/28 show, which is another one of my favorites - everyone was sitting down on the lawn and halfway thru the set Billy just goes "since you're all totally bored we're just gonna play a bunch of songs you don't know," and they play a lot of Gish stuff and songs that would end up on Pisces Iscariot. Amazing show. I realize it's probably not the show you were at but check this setlist out:

http://www.spfc.org/tours/date.html?tour_id=378

ah right yes it was the Shoreline

Fantastic Voyage [Coolio] (tease)
Voodoo Child (Slight Return) [Hendrix] (tease)
San Francisco [McKenzie] (tease)
(jam: "Concerto in C Minor")

this shit was excruciating

if only we could trade places. i've listened to that show hundreds and hundreds of times

I saw Lollapalooza 1994 in West Virginia. They were possibly the worst band I've ever seen. To begin with, there was something off with the sound, everything sounded very processed and digitized in an antiseptic way.

Then Billy Corgan went on a 10 minute rant on how he's "the voice of your generation...a generation of shit!" which he must have repeated ten times. Along with pearls such as "What brings us here together is....commerce!"
Then he stormed off the stage as the crowd chanted Bullshit over and over again. It was a total fiasco.

Although to be fair, he came back for an encore somewhat humbled, and said "I hope you guys meant bullshit in a good way" and played I think Rocket, sounding good.

"I hope you guys meant bullshit in a good way"

new board description

One of my friends is a Pumpkins superfan, seen them about 20 times since 1993. He was at that WV show. He said they opened with Soma, and coming after the Breeders and the Beastie Boys, the crowd was anxious and pissed and was throwing so many water bottles at them. Totally furious and fed up before they even got into their set. Then, when the guitars roar in the middle of Soma, the lights lit up the whole place, and he said he looked around, and those same people throwing water bottles moments before were standing there slack-jawed like they had just seen a UFO land in front of them. Love that story.

http://www.spfc.org/tours/date.html?tour_id=361

The Wall for Generation Shit

I don't remember any lights or anything like that but I remember being hit by around 5,000 water bottles during Beastie Boys.

when i heard "alive" for the first time i thought of bad company

― rockpalast '82 (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, April 21, 2016

this is otm and also not a bad thing lol

I must be listening to the wrong Bad Company songs.

they are a good band check em out

I don't remember any lights or anything like that but I remember being hit by around 5,000 water bottles during Beastie Boys.

i love the 90s

Saw the Pumpkins once at a free outdoor festival in Chicago, summer of 1990. I hadn't heard them, but I'd heard of them probably for the same reasons Steve Albini talked about -- they were always booked at Cabaret Metro as openers for national bands, and the word around town was, "oh, the Pumpkins are opening? Cool, now we know to get there late so we can miss them." About three songs into their outdoor set, the generator broke down, leaving only the drums and a hilariously agitated/adenoidal Corgan audible. After the generator was fixed, they ambled on for a few more songs. There was no audience for them, maybe 10-15 people milling around the stage out of the several hundred at the festival. The only applause was golf-like at the end of their set -- "Oh, they're done? Huh."

Then Green came on, hundreds of people rushed the stage, and gave the "we're not worthy" bow throughout their set.

I wish I could vote for the actual best part of this, which is this:

Cornell and Thayil are settling back with a couple of beers when Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins wanders through, and decides to join them for a strawberry margarita.
― :C (crüt), Monday, February 25, 2013 8:22 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the picture i have of him is he's sipping a strawberry margarita through a straw out of one of those oversized Senor Frog's type glasses as he's going on this whole monologue

I saw Pearl Jam / Smashing Pumpkins / Red Hot Chili Peppers in 91. Pumpkins were weirdly hostile to the crowd, which was was, shock, pretty rowdy. I was upfront and some dude next to me is flicking ice cubes at Mr Corgan, who stops the show, berates us all for not being more attentive, more respectful of artists, etc and then wrapped it up with "hey if you assholes are going to throw stuff, why don't you throw at my face instead of waiting for my back to be turned?"

Pause, as he stares down the crowd. Nothing happens. He gives a little smirk, kind of "that's what I though", and turns his back to fiddle with his amp. Which cues the entire crowd to start pelting the band with cups, ice, shoes, etc, etc.

Good times.

I've probably said this before on this thread but my Smashing Pumpkins fandom died after I saw them play Brixton Academy on the Siamese tour, and they were bad and the sound was bad and he came out in a clown costume for the encore because Everett True had once written he was a clown, and they played the opening notes to Drown, my favourite song, and then stopped the song because we "didn't deserve it".

Later that night some dude broke into my dad's car while I was making out with my high school girlfriend and the first we knew about it was when the police knocked at the door and I swear I thought I was about to get arrested for fooling around.

\o/ catholic school

I've always wanted to see a picture of him in the clown suit at that show. There's a decent recording of the show, and the image in my head of him coming out in the clown suit and playing Spaceboy, a song ostensibly about his mentally disabled brother, is just uh............

https://archive.org/details/tsp1993-09-25.shn

balls yr doin' God's work on this thread. Corgan has an ear for production vibe, that can't be denied, he knows what it is that makes a record sound appealing to a lot of people. but both as a songwriter and a player he's garbage. his nearest analog guitar wise is Greg Ginn, who also practiced 10 hours a day and still sucked. I may not be able to shred myself but I know a lot of proper shredders and not a one of them would cross the street to play Aeolian mode on Corgan's grave, he's just bad.

xpost I saw the stop here in Chicago (well, Tinley Park). Imperial Beastie Boys killed it, then Smashing Pumpkins just died.

lol JCLC otm (aside from mandatory Ginn diss), I was never impressed with anybody in this band's chops (and that includes Chamberlin)

I like Chamberlin as a drummer a lot, actually. I saw both of the band's local final shows, including the Metro show, and he was a joy to behold, like the Hulk holding court behind a huge pile of percussion.

I mean, c'mon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tGB9jXkSEs

(warning, there is singing)

Also, Jimmy Chamberlin: good person, great with his fans.

I don't think he's bad, he's perfectly fine, I was just genuinely surprised years later to see him be like a GREATEST DRUMMER OF ALL TIME candidate in Pro Drummer magazine or whatever. I mean I never heard a beat he played that made me think "holy shit that SWINGS like a motherfucker" or "wow that's so heavy and perfect" or anything. His drum parts were just there, moving the songs along.

http://nextmosh.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Smashing_Pumpkins_Beacon_Theatre_NYC-480x251.jpg

didn't know this hell was goin on

if that dude has even the faintest idea of what plainsong is I'll open this cage and eat a rat

Well at least Liz Phair's getting work.

It's a Cure track, duh

Plainsong is def the core, the heart music

"1979" is so good, it's never not blown me away, the way he so effortlessly builds a little bridge between Daydream Nation and Disintegration in the form of a gorgeous pop song

otm

this is proooooobably not the first time someone has said this but it's amazing that he can be such a profound asshole and complete dumbass but they had some really kickass songs for like a decade straight

it's not amazing at all, if the last few years have taught us anything it's that there's no real relationship between someone's creative contribution to culture and the strength of their personal character, much as we want there to be one.

balls yr doin' God's work on this thread. Corgan has an ear for production vibe, that can't be denied, he knows what it is that makes a record sound appealing to a lot of people. but both as a songwriter and a player he's garbage. his nearest analog guitar wise is Greg Ginn, who also practiced 10 hours a day and still sucked. I may not be able to shred myself but I know a lot of proper shredders and not a one of them would cross the street to play Aeolian mode on Corgan's grave, he's just bad.

― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chichi), Friday, April 22, 2016 5:52 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh man. I want to talk about this. I understand if you don't think he's a good songwriter, but in what universe is Corgan a bad guitar player???

Two performances come to mind. "Siva," like most of the songs on Gish, isn't the strongest song necessarily, it's a vehicle for soloing and jamming. The first part of this video, I mean, he's playing the guitar like it's part of his body. The flash solo from 2:12 to 2:30 is what I show friends who don't know much about the Pumpkins beyond a song or two. How is this not proper shredding?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzBVvD1vUvM

Then there's the solo in "Here is No Why," one of my favorite guitar solos ever. 2:22 to 3:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOmGsEFSBc8

I've read and hear critiques of Corgan's voice, songwriting, and attitude all the time, but I've never heard anyone say he's a bad guitar player. I'm genuinely curious though. I don't know much music theory and I'd love to know how more re why you think he sucks or is a hack.