Billy Corgan

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/sns-bozo-withcorgan-jpg,1,12993.photo?coll=chi-nonmmxent-utl

Thanks John Justen. You are truely one of God's Great Warriors.

""May God bless and keep you always/ May your wishes all come true/ May you always do for others/ And let others do for you," Corgan sang as he glanced around the studio, eyeing the colorful props and sharing smiles with Wizzo the Wizard."

From our friends at MTV. Full article:

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1444464/20010613/smashing_pumpkins.jhtml

", Corgan sang as he glanced around the studio, eyeing the colorful props and sharing smiles with Wizzo the Wizard."

How can you not feel the love for this sentence-fragment? Embrace it, make it your own...

I'm a Speedbuggy man myself.

I really have to start to pay more attention to the new release charts...

Anyway, as a long time Smashing Pumpkins/Corgan fan who tries not to let sucha fact cloud his judgement, I have to say that this album is thoroughly a hit and miss affair. It has IMO one really great song (The Camera Eye), four or five solid songs, with the rest being a mix of below average or absolutely atrocious. Right now I'd give it around a 6 or 7 out of 10, which may move up or down once I've given it more of a listen.

Anyway, it at least gives me hope that his next solo album could be great...actually ffs, REUNITE THE PUMPKINS, SLUT!!!

The lowest rating I did so far.

I like Billy Baby but he's not good anymore. You feel me?

I saw a ridic pink racing car with two (2!) spoilers (one on top of the other), with a glittery SP heart logo on every window. On the back window, in old English lettering, it said "LADY CORGAN."

Sounds about right.

Oh man, really? How so? I thought it was an unusual collision of worlds, but maybe I am not up on his fanbase.

It's the goth thing from what I can tell.

Wait, was it Tila Tequila?

hahaha jaymc

It looked like a chola car, Ned, not a gothics thing.

Not that there isn't overlap, I guess. (I think the two combined use 70% of the nation's eyeliner.)

Based on his various appearances at the Sky Saxon tribute show last night:

1) his Little Rascals/Jughead fashion sense is one of the smarter choices he's made (or is that Huntz Hall he's inspired by?)

2) did a lot of different things with ease -- led the Spirits in the Sky pickup group through three songs (full set on YouTube), appeared for a guitar solo on one Electric Prunes number, joined Djin Aquarian of YaHoWha13 to play bass and sung lead on "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" at the end of the night.

3) provided further evidence for my theory that's actually happiest on stage (and probably in general) when he's not struggling with his own expectations and/or ego. The three happiest and most relaxed times I've seen him perform were 2000 (earlier that day he announced the band's breakup and probably just felt he could take it easy), 2001 (the second Zwan show, just after the first and therefore beyond those expectations) and last night, where he was a featured performer but not the center of attention. So last night was a lot of humor, gawkiness, shy smiles, etc.

And the new song that he debuted with the Spirits in the Sky was pretty good!

not bad for a dead man

Maybe it was a clone.

dudes!
billy corgan: puppeteer

Somehow not surprising.

Can someone photoshop this into Being Billy Corgan?

http://i33.tinypic.com/2rh0h2g.jpg

http://www.tmz.com/2009/12/09/jessica-simpson-the-great-pumpkin-connection/

that pic looks like this cover by german band

http://dreamchimney.com/slvs/Kopfsalat_20071005075249.jpg

The "I Think That I'm In Love with You" v.s. "Disarm" mash-up should be made any day now to celebrate this absurd pair.

ok that close up of corgan's face made me lol. "WHAT HAVE I DONE."

"he's too old for her

looks more like he's stalking her than dating her"

lolol

he looks more like billy drago with each passing year

http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/fringe-the-observer.jpg

lol

The new Pumpkins song is actually not surprisingly not horrible. The drumming sucks, but thats to be expected when you replace Jimmy Chamberlain with a 19 year old. I really dig the guitar solo. So much better than the Zeitgeist stuff.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/23/smashing.pumpkins.ppl/index.html?iref=obinsite

oops

The Grunge Book? Photo of 'ol SP? HORRIBLE. You'd think we were unattractive trolls...coming off digging for truffles in shit.
about 3 hours ago via txt

Billy
Billy Corgan

confirming, in case there was any doubt, that it was NOT a stage move.

wow there is a decent chunk of crazy there

# Soon the governments in western nations will be changing the temperatures in your home over-riding your control, all in the name of green BS 7:47 AM Jul 24th via txt

# Don't believe me? Look up 'smart grid technology'. All new control boxes will have wireless technology by law. Why?Because U use 2 much NRG! 7:49 AM Jul 24th via txt

My parents (74 years old) live in northern CA, and my dad was ranting about this temp-control thing in their house.

sorta wish that shit were true

State Proposes to Take Control of Home Temps

wow, waht a dick

http://origin.avclub.com/chicago/articles/billy-corgan-gets-in-a-nasty-internet-fight-with-a,60967/

ah crap i didnt see that somebody bumped a smashing pumpkins thread about this already

S'ok. But yeah, Corgan is an utter asshole, proven more and more every day.

Tempted to start a taking sides thread, T/S Billy Corgan vs. Morrissey: which is pissing away goodwill with his own fans faster?

yeah the funny thing is i have known a lot of people that have dealt with devi over the years, and she is kind of notoriously honest and nice for the boutique pedal world - so this is particularly offensive imo.

A couple of days and a harrowing plane flight later, the band makes it to a resort town called Surfer’s Paradise, which is more or less the Miami Beach of Australia, a skinny coastal town about an hour south of Brisbane, pounded by waves and plagued with jellyfish, crowded with high-rise hotels popular with Japanese honeymooners. Surfer’s Paradise is the jumping-off point for the Big Day Out tour, a sort of Australian Lollapalooza that Soundgarden will headline this year. In the lobby bar of one of the tallest hotels, 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. Corgan chatters about the pain of his life, the supposed incompetence of his band (everybody rolls their eyes), the lifesaving virtues of Jungian therapy, bands that suck. Cornell gets up to leave. Corgan tells Thayil how important Soundgarden used to be to him, and he baits him by saying that the Pumpkins sometimes do a cover of Soundgarden’s “Outshined” that segues into a Depeche Mode song or something.

“I’m thinking of making my next album really new wave,” Corgan says, “like ’83-’84 new wave, not like Berlin. I spend all my time doing things that may be a bit tangential, but I think I’m going to go back to the core, the heart music. Echo and the Bunnymen.”

This is standard stuff to anybody who has read even a single Billy Corgan profile, the basic curriculum of Pumpkins 101. But Thayil isn’t buying. He’s sore.

“Don’t you see,” Thayil says, “you’re this incredibly talented guy. People like your music. You have a good band. You sell a lot of records. You don’t need all this…stuff.”

“What sign are you?” Corgan asks.

“What do you mean, what sign am I?” Thayil says. “What difference could that possibly make?”

“C’mon,” wheedles Corgan, “when is your birthday?”

“All right, goddamn it: September 4th.”

“Aha!” Corgan says. “A Virgo. You’re argumentative.”

“Damn right, I’m argumentative,” Thayil says, and takes a long, angry pulll at his beer, “which you should know because I’ve been arguing with you for half an hour, not because of any sign.”

“I’m a Pisces,” Corgan replies. “We pick up on those things.”

A minute later, Corgan, still probing, finally finds the key to Thayil’s heart: “I hate how in magazine pictures, they always stick me somewhere in the back.”

Thayil explodes: “What do you mean? You write all the songs, and you do all the interviews. You play the instruments on the album. You control the band to the extent that most people think of Smashing Pumpkins as the Billy Corgan Experience, and all you care about is some photograph?”

“But I hate it,” Corgan says, “it means they don’t think I’m the cute one.”

“Ooh,” Thayil says a little too loudly as Corgan walks away, “I’ll bet he’s going to call his therapist in Chicago, wake her up at four in the morning, and tell her about that big, mean bear who made fun of him.”

The next day at the Big Day Out festival, Thayil is talking to Kim and Kelley Deal in the Breeders’ dressing room when Corgan walks past wearing a long-sleeved Superman T-shirt like the one your four-year-old nephew probably owns.

“You hurt me deeply,” Corgan says, touching the giant S on his chest and pouting. “You hurt me deeply in my heart.” The Pumpkins go on to play the best set anybody has ever heard them play, their usual passiveness and precision overlaid with an unfamiliar scrim of anger that throws their music into brilliant relief.

wait i thought slash fic was supposed to end with corgan and thayil boning

Billy is fucked up and wrong here, obviously, but I could only make it about 3 minutes into Ever's response video. Sorry, that person is insufferable.

the smashing pumpkins
http://c438342.r42.cf2.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/the-smashing-pumpkins-2011.jpg

I'm guessing she plays bass then

That's actually Billy Corgan, post-op. They founds some girl who looks just like old Corgan to play bass.

looooool @ that picture

first iteration Pumpkins >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Zwan record >>>> Zeitgeist >> Corgan solo record >>>>>>>>> everything since

I liked his solo album better than Zwan!

the worst thing about Corgan getting some 19-year-old kid to replace Chamberlain is that he's not even some phenomenal prodigy or anything, the show i saw last year the drumming was kinda lame

i really like "G.L.O.W." and "That's the Way (My Love Is)" and a couple of Zwan songs, could probably put together a mix of awesome songs Corgan has done since the first SP breakup but i'd have to slog through a lot of shit to get there

is "G.L.O.W." a paean to gorgeous ladies of wrestling?

Unfortunately no.

a lot of places reported that it was (which would make sense given Corgan's wrestling fandom) but i haven't seen it confirmed w/ any official quotes or analyzed the lyrics or anything to be sure

it's kind of cool that john cusack is in the band now

young cusack too, fresh out of his hot tub time machine

Vaguely inevitable

http://i53.tinypic.com/30il5z4.jpg

:O

the day Moses received the download on Mt. Sinai!

All I'm interested in at this point are the reissues, once those are out, I'm severing all ties with this assclown.

waitaminit - Fancy Space People played with Smashing Pumpkins?!

yes

two things really bummed me out when clicking around on related links:

1. D'Arcy's mugshot
2. "Watch Shia LeBoeuff's Marilyn Manson music video"

All I'm interested in at this point are the reissues, once those are out, I'm severing all ties with this assclown.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Friday, October 14, 2011 12:38 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

serious question -- what would reissues have to offer? the old records already sound pretty good, don't need remastering, and there's so many dozens of b-sides and non-LP tracks readily available that i don't imagine there'd be much new to bring to light for bonus material.

although fwiw i posted that without realizing that reissues actually have been announced and saw an interview w/ corgan where he talks about how much unreleased stuff there is for the gish reissue in particular so nevermind i guess

Very fair question. I agree that the originals sound good, for the most part, but I feel like Gish could use some sprucing up. As far as new stuff goes, it looks like there are quite a few things that I've never heard before (at least if the bonus disc stuff listed on wiki for the first two albums right now is accurate). And, even though I have stuff like the Real Studio demos and stuff, it'll be nice to hear those cleaned up.

1.

"Starla (2011 mix)"

2.

"Siva (Peel Session)"

3.

"Honeyspider (Real Time Demos/2011 mix)"

4.

"Hippy Trippy (Crush Music Box demo)"

5.

"Snail (live radio performance)"

6.

"Plume (2011 mix)"

7.

"Bury Me (Real Time Demos/2011 mix)"

8.

"Daydream (Old House demo)"

9.

"Tristessa (Sub Pop single/2011 mix)"

10.

"Girl Named Sandoz (Peel Session)"

11.

"Jesus is the Sun (Apartment demo)"

12.

"Blue (Gish sessions demo)"

13.

"Smiley (Gish sessions demo)"

14.

"I Am One (Real Time Demos/2011 mix)"

15.

"Seem (Suffer/Aparment demo)"

16.

"La Dolly Vita (2011 mix)"

17.

"Pulsczar (Gish sessions demo)"

18.

"Drown (alternative guitar solo)"

Those are the Gish extras, sorry for the fucked formatting. Thats what I get for c+p from wiki.

would literally prefer eating a plate of human shit to having to listen to this even once

our intrepid time traveler storms in once again, fresh from a decades-old culture war nobody else cares about

Isn't that pretty much the same kind of posts that aero gets all aggro about when someone makes them in the direction of something he likes?

Its also funny that he barged in on a revive that started out about a stupid wrestling league to let us know that, yes, he still hates Billy Corgan.

our intrepid time traveler storms in once again, fresh from a decades-old culture war nobody else cares about

Ahab close behind, clinging to his pet thesis that has no grounding in anything

I'm in favor of the wrestling league tho

i just think it's funny when you have all this venom for random old bands that stopped being 'divisive' ages ago and are now just remembered by their fans and practically forgotten by anybody else. even malkmus has probably moved on by now, dude!

I have to laugh when aero pops up with a post like this because it goes against all the times when he chides other ilxors for getting all aggro and not being chill about stuff.

no jon /via/ you're right I am wrong it's just useless reflexive "gah h8 them" shit from me - I just saw ned's facebook on this & then this & I was like "man of all the bands that smart people like this one is just so weird to me" - like, I don't care about new order after the first track on Republic but when they lasso'd Corgan for Get Ready I was like...really? kinda like the Stones letting Billie Joe play on their record to me, very much a "who sucks compared to everybody else here" deal

the thing about the "divisive" thing some dude is I learned about Malkmus's animus toward these guys from ilx poster some dude, on this board, within the last year. I don't know anything about any beef anybody had with him - your "decades-old culture war" is actually a single-person "I don't like this band" thing. I'm not fighting "culture wars," that idea is kind of a hobby-horse of yours. I just think this band is kinda uniquely shitful is all

I like some of this band's stuff (a fairly narrow swathe of it tbh) but otherwise totally feel aero's animosity. altho with me it's more of a "spurned fan" anger cuz I did really like Gish a lot in 1991 or whatever.

haha trust me, as one of those smart (I hope!) Pumpkins fans of the olden days, I'm very used to people expressing their outrage, but it seemed out of character for you

(xpost)

bonus tracklisting looks kinda weak

there's just so much 88-91 stuff. had to stop somewhere i guess

Corgan should just write some more.

there's just so much 88-91 stuff. had to stop somewhere i guess

Well thats because thats just for the Gish one. The Siamese Dream one picks up after that.

it is out of character for sure it's just like, some things I vibe kinda alex in nyc about getting my hate on. but some dude's weird "the camp you were in then" schtick is like...I think dude has a very projected idea about what I was listening to in the 90s

xp yeah, i meant to say "there's so much 88-91 stuff to choose from, some weird choices here, etc"

i am definitely hoping for more full-length "pistachio medley" cuts to surface, whether on a MCIS reissue or whatever

the thing about the "divisive" thing some dude is I learned about Malkmus's animus toward these guys from ilx poster some dude, on this board, within the last year. I don't know anything about any beef anybody had with him - your "decades-old culture war" is actually a single-person "I don't like this band" thing. I'm not fighting "culture wars," that idea is kind of a hobby-horse of yours. I just think this band is kinda uniquely shitful is all

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, October 14, 2011 5:52 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

it was just a joke about pavement's "range life" representing the general '90s indie distaste for the smashing pumpkins

but i mean stuff like the thread where you're all hey when did people decide Guns N Roses were great, or worrying that people dismiss DLR-era Van Halen because of Sammy Hagar? they just seem like slightly funny old rock lifer things to say, i hope i don't seem malicious or on some weird armchair psychology theorizing when i have a chuckle about generation gaps.

i mean i have no idea what you were listening to in the '90s other than the stuff you post about now that already existed back then and make no claims to believe otherwise

Yeah, I hope to see some of that stuff, but I also sometimes kind of doubt just how much of this promised booty in the vaults actually exists. Like, with the rabid bootleg following these guys have already, is there really that much "secret" stuff left? The tracklistings aren't bearing that out just yet but, as I said, I'll be happy to have some of this stuff cleaned up.

(xpost)

no it's cool it's just like -- I literally didn't hear "Range Life" until a couple of years ago, I wasn't involved in the culture wars you invoke except in my one-man "ooh this smashing pumpkins band is terrible" army. no malice inferred I just feel like you attribute my opinions to something more programmatic than a simple pleasure/distaste axis

it is true however that I am 1000 years old I can't front

not programmatic per se but i feel like you just have to x years old/entrenched in underground rock to have been offended by SP -- to alt rock kids at the time it was like ok these new guys aren't as good as nirvana but they're better than stone temple pilots so let's give them a chance, annoying vocals and all

fwiw alex in nyc's "i would like to remind you that michael jackson still sucks" is hilarious to me too

not programmatic per se but i feel like you just have to x years old/entrenched in underground rock to have been offended by SP -- to alt rock kids at the time it was like ok these new guys aren't as good as nirvana but they're better than stone temple pilots so let's give them a chance, annoying vocals and all

lol this is otm & fair enough on all points, I'm probably pretty sensitive to charges of coming off old-dude because a lot of my peers listen to exactly nothing that's new and I look at them and think "how can you have become the blinkered person talking about how fuckin great music was when you were a teenager" - kinda take pride in not being that dude as far as my listening habits go. & part of why I hate sp so bad is like I consider some hated bands of today like my chemical romance considerably more listenable than Ol' Wheezy & His Style-Free Sidemen

smashing pumpkins were my favorite band in elementary, middle, and high school. like ned i'll stan for billy's solo record but not much beyond that.

but i actually listened to some of the songs from the tearygarden thing today and i thought one was pretty okay! he used to be a less terrible lyricist though

I'm also fascinated by how it's not just that some people like a band I always had a particular allergy to - it's, some people had life-changing experiences with a band whose music makes me reach for a glass of drano

it's not necessarily a good life

but yeah i loved adore when it came out and all my friends were like "this soft shit is terrible, what happened to mellon collie"

that experience informed a lot of my later attitudes, i'm sure.

I'm also fascinated by how it's not just that some people like a band I always had a particular allergy to - it's, some people had life-changing experiences with a band whose music makes me reach for a glass of drano

I understand that sentiment; I feel that way about some other currently popular whiney-voiced indie bands my friends are really into. But I love early Pumpkins unreservedly.

("currently popular whiney-voiced indie bands" not meant to be a zing - lol)

lol I wondered whether it was just my narcissism that made me go "OOOH SNAP"

hope corgan hires mould

I would only go see the Pumpkins in 2011 if I could go with that guy from Ya Ho Wha 13 whose ecstatic FB comments I posted upthread.

Corgan blames state of music industry for Del Rey's 'SNL' appearance

This is my favorite line: "Don't call it rock 'n' roll. I was part of a generation that changed the world -- and it was taken over by poseurs."

okay Billy, I will not call "Party Rock Anthem" or "Super Bass" rock 'n' roll

to be fair, both members of LMFAO call themselves "rock 'n' roll" in Party Rock Anthem

Basically all Billy Corgan did for his generation was bridge the gap between Nirvana and Third Eye Blind.

Despite all his rage
He's watching Lana Del Rey take the stage

that stings x-post

Corgan lost his hair for rock and roll, dudes!

Despite all his rage
He's watching Lana Del Rey take the stage
Video Gaaaaaaaaames

the empty bodies stand at rest
casualties of their own flesh
video gaaaayyymes

he actually didn't call Lana Del Rey "rock and roll," if you carefully read that mini-story that was made for attention spans of an era in which alleged adult tastemakers listen to kiddie pop.

stop defending billy corgan

it doesn't appear that he accused anyone else of calling her such either

it doesn't appear that anyone in this thread accused him of that referring to LDR with the "rock & roll" line, so maybe it's you who needs the lesson in careful reading

sorry. it's not like I've ever seen or heard LDR, or "Party Rock Anthem" or "Super bass."

well, they all suck more or less, but they're also not aimed at condescending old fossils whose attention spans are so "long" that they only show up on threads about acts that peaked before 1996, so don't worry about that, nobody's surprised

come meet me

and the pavement?

some dude, I think you peaked in utero

well of course, In Utero was the greatest album ever made by the generation that changed the world

i bought In Utero w/ my allowance money (my brother got Siamese Dream, to keep it on topic)

aw crut, sorry u took that bait. YOU KIDS MAKE THIS WORLD LOUSY

does this make morbs and whiney a wary alliance?

whiney and i are friends who are obnoxious to each other on the board, there's not much mutual respect or affection under the surface w/ me and morbz

well tbh you should come up and we'll all have beers

on what basis? I don't even see whiney's comments on this thread, and I have no love for the SmPumps.... they had some good moments. xxp

sd, I have no idea what you're like aside from a guy who enjoys throwin shit at me.

I have no idea what you're like aside from a guy who enjoys throwin shit at everyone on the board

meh, not so. but why argue

I got to see a Mellon Collie-era show for free that was dece entertainment

well, you throw a lot of shit, you have to admit. the only reason i'm giving you any attitude right now is because you stomped into a random thread sneering at everyone in the most self-righteous way possible for allegedly misreading something when you yourself misread the thread. and the only reason nobody else bothered is because people are so used to you being a pompous windbag that your antics in this thread register pretty low on the morbs scale. ta!

pomp this, junior

i. said. ta.

o shit if you say 'ta' does that mean argument's over? no tag-backs?

mookie's color commentary is getting weird. 'ta' is something dr. m always says when he's trying to have the last word, though.

oh, ok. ta. then.

curse you Billy Corgan, you're tearing us apart

Emptiness is loneliness and all.

and Ned is empty, just like me.

Well I have felt a little lackluster.

He used to be a little girl

http://theblemish.com/images/2009/04/tila-tequila-billy-corgan-500x741.jpg

never better or more appropriate on more levels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQyLUfY_fq8

EEGAH!

http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/corganbozo.jpg

Y'know, Corgan really isn't an unhandsome man. Why does he insist on looking like a cross between Uncle Fester and Mister Roarke?

so creepy

He said something at the time about wanting to be cured of his vanity or the like. Which was funny because his short hair dyed black look in mid to late 1995 was probably the best he'd looked yet.

condescending old fossils whose attention spans are so "long" that they only show up on threads about acts that peaked before 1996

I'm sure you will give up hobbies you no longer enjoy someday, and the Moldy Peaches peaked in 2001.

nicknaming your balls is not a hobby

sorry. i love "Party Rock Anthem" and "Super bass."

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Thursday, March 15, 2012 12:34 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry for morby doc'ing

just gotta swing in to say how much I hate this guy's music it's so horrible thanks for listening everybody

He feeds on your hate and shits out pure love.

(Which he then sells.)

Intoxicated with the madness.

just gotta swing in to say how much I hate this guy's music it's so horrible thanks for listening everybody

― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, March 15, 2012 9:37 AM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

some people make music with an audible Sabbath influence, some people just write books about them

the Alternative dream

aero otm.

Attention SXSW showcasing artists: Billy Corgan has some fighting words. "I'm shocked by the lack of evolution in alternative rock music," he told me backstage after his Interactive panel with author Brian Solis on Monday. "Let me put it this way: I should not be here to the level that I still I am. If the music out there was that fucking great, where is someone crushing me on the numbers? They're not. Our generation crushed a lot of bands right out the fucking door. And they had to sit on the sidelines for 20 fucking years until people got nostalgic and brought that stuff back." His Smashing Pumpkins are readying the release of a new album, which Corgan says will be more of a multimedia experience. "I'm standing exactly where every artist should hope to stand," said Corgan, who remained in town to see the Yahowa 13 documentary The Source, which screens one last time Friday, 6:45pm, at the Alamo Lamar B. "The only thing left to do is be great."

hate to say it, but he's right. mainstream 'alternative' music is a wasteland compared to early 90s.

I was going to say, cut through the self-aggrandizement and there's a defensible point there, even if it's undercut by differences in the market.

my no pumpkins bashing policy in full effect. but aero on the money.

bashing by proxy is excused in your policy scott?

Attention SXSW showcasing artists: Billy Corgan has some fighting words. "I'm shocked by the lack of evolution in alternative rock music," he told me backstage after his Interactive panel with author Brian Solis on Monday. "Let me put it this way: I should not be here to the level that I still I am. If the music out there was that fucking great, where is someone crushing me on the numbers? They're not. Our generation crushed a lot of bands right out the fucking door. And they had to sit on the sidelines for 20 fucking years until people got nostalgic and brought that stuff back." His Smashing Pumpkins are readying the release of a new album, which Corgan says will be more of a multimedia experience. "I'm standing exactly where every artist should hope to stand," said Corgan, who remained in town to see the Yahowa 13 documentary The Source, which screens one last time Friday, 6:45pm, at the Alamo Lamar B. "And my interviews are hotter...Holla."

"And my interviews are hotter...Holla."

just please fucking stop

Corgan, who remained in town to see the Yahowa 13 documentary The Source

never forget
http://i53.tinypic.com/30il5z4.jpg

i can't tell if jon is telling corgan to stop or if he's telling me to stop putting fake quotes in corgan's mouth

telling corgan but, tbh, i had no idea you added that fake one, he's said some really cringeworthy shit lately and i would not put that one past him in the least, given his attempts to be "funny"

today is the greatest day, holla

Corgan, Kanye, Albini...is there something about Chicago musicians who can never stop saying horrible bullshit in interviews?

In the spirit of ILE crediting Poltergeist to Steven Spielberg, BC gets no props for writing a couple Hole albums?

I think he really only mostly had a hand in Celebrity Skin, right?

The difference is that Corgan actually got credit on CS, Morbs.

Don't think he was even credited, was he?

Wait, I guess he was. So what was Courtney Love doing at the time claiming he didn't do anything if he's credited all over it?

iirc, she was just claiming that he didn't "write" the songs, but the general understanding was p much that he did, she was just trying to downplay his contributions

I thought the actual issue was that everyone assumed Billy wrote everything by himself and Courtney just sang them and her assertion was that they wrote them together as a collaborative effort; she definitely gave him a ton of credit in her most recent Behind the Music special.

oh boy, this thread is gonna be fun when the c-love stans descend on it

the golden age of alternative...stone temple pilots, smashing pumpkins, hum...billy's right...bring back them golden days when bands were awesome

collective soul you guys

literally impossible to dislike any of these bands without some hidden motive other than "they're horrible"

it's true, though, who is corgan referring to when he talks about this golden age? smashing pumpkins, nirvana ... pearl jam? who does he see as the really great bands of the alternative era?

him, himself and he

Zwan, too, I guess.

all those excellent bands who you don't remember because all the good music of the era was actually rap & metal & dance music

i listened to a Hum record on spotify, that band was fuckin' tight man, honestly

i saw spacehog live but i got a free ticket from this guy at work.

he ended up being a xian weirdo. another guy went to his "fun" church with him and this other dude was with the spacehog christian and his gf, and all of a sudden the spacehog christian and his gf started rolling on the floor and speaking in tongues and shit and the regular dude was like "holllly shiiit this is fucked up" and then told me about it at work on monday. but i did go to see spacehog with him and he didn't do anything weird at the show, but the guy from spacehog mooned the crowd and took a beer bottle and shook it up and then popped the top and pretended to jack off on the audience with beer foam. don't know if it was the one that married liv tyler or not.

sorry i just want to get some 90s stuff that happened to me out there in the world.

"The only thing left to do is be great."

It's actually pretty humble of Billy to admit he hasn't gotten around to this yet.

i did go to see spacehog with him and he didn't do anything weird at the show, but the guy from spacehog mooned the crowd and took a beer bottle and shook it up and then popped the top and pretended to jack off on the audience with beer foam. don't know if it was the one that married liv tyler or not.

I love you forever.

I need a brainwash now

the guy from spacehog mooned the crowd and took a beer bottle and shook it up and then popped the top and pretended to jack off on the audience with beer foam

a fair description of the 90s, also

corgan just sounds cranky to me with his whole 'we sold WAY more albums than they did and you ppl think THEY'RE famous? pssht.'

Well, to be fair, he did sell a fuck load of records, and he did it pretty much without compromising, for better or for worse. I mean, the sprawling double album sold something like 10 million copies. I'm not sure what Corgan's point is, and he is a sour grapes sort of why am I not invited to the party boo hoo dude, but if ever there was affirmation for ego, Corgan got it in droves.

Personally, I never bought an album beyond "Gish," so I blame all of you for enabling him.

I met a guy who said he was a "fan" of Save Ferris the other day!

Its kinda hard for me to believe that Smashing Pumpkins existed in the same universe as Emperor in the 90's. or Eyehategod!

as far as sprawling uncompromising major label alternadork double rock records i'll take the downward spiral every time. that album was cool!

Eyehategod!

this looks like a Pumpkins song tbh

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn222/gumballrimpoche/billy_corgi.jpg

imagine if we'd seen the Corgandog in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Imagine the horror!

Ha, Billy Corgi.

idgi

jeez I forgot they headlined the only Lollapalooza I went to as well

(also Nick Cave & Geo Clinton)

I just saw a Solis-Corgan interview clip that I can't find now, and Corgan was sort of incoherent for part of it but also made some pretty valid and lucid points. He was basically arguing that social media is a losing game for most musicians but one they have to play anyway. He said that today's landscape means non-stop competition just to hold someone's attention, which is not conducive to a musician building himself as an "Artist" (in the most admittedly cynical, commodified sense), and that the need to constantly beg fans to do stuff and look at stuff and share stuff on social media is pretty much antithetical to the traditional image of grandiose, mysterious capital A Artists, which is ultimately the kind of image you need to hold fans interest for longer periods of time.

That's not a bad point, but it's an interesting one to see coming from someone who sprays so much verbal diarrhea in interviews and who has often engaged in projects like a series of EPs every few months that seem to be partially engineered to constantly hold fans' attention.

i was actually just wondering whether any artist whose appearance on the scene came anytime in the recent past could ever really become a "legend" on the level of a Keith Richards or John Lennon (or even a Billy Corgan), just because of the changes in the dynamics of the industry and the music-consuming public.

no. A contemporary legend is that teenager who was singing "Friday" last year.

The number of artists fully formed in the internet era that have lasted more than a couple of years does seem pretty small in my mind, but maybe I'm not thinking of some people. I guess Kanye and Lady Gaga are the first things that spring to mind as purely 21st century "legends." Pretty sure they don't do the kinds of record sales that equivalent stars would have done 20 years ago.

The other thing Corgan said that I thought was maybe obvious but needs to be said more is that consumers' willingness to pay anything at all for recorded music has been kind of irreversibly eroded, and that the result is kind of a net loss of revenue.

It's probably going to have to keep eroding to the point where a lot of artists either hang it up altogether or switch to some sort of diffuse patronage model. I think the message being sent is less that music has literally no monetary value to people than it is that a business model largely favoring the music labels is no longer sustainable.

I mean, a-doy. But still. Needs to be said more and all that.

well, also recorded music literally has no monetary value to people

I think the message being sent is less that music has literally no monetary value to people than it is that a business model largely favoring the music labels is no longer sustainable.

― You Don't Throw Oranges On An Escalator (Deric W. Haircare), Friday, May 4, 2012 3:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

IDK this just sounds like the same pat line we keep hearing and it doesn't seem to have proven true. Big labels are sustainable, artists are not.

xpost

Yeah, at this juncture that's true, but I'm positing a point in the not-too-distant future where music largely stops being recorded and subsequently sold because the market can no longer sustain it. At that point, recorded music may find a niche where it does have monetary value to a (probably much smaller but likely also more fanatical) number of people.

basically, the volume of musical choices available to us as any given time has come to a point where there's far, far more supply than demand, creating a buyer's market whose magnitude has previously never existed. music is a commodity at this point.

xpost

I.e. welcome to the world enjoyed by much of the rest of the arts, Music.

well, also recorded music literally has no monetary value to people

^^^^^

hate how this gets elided all the time

I think a better way to put it is not that it has no value, but rather that something has to prove its value to a consumer first, and it's really hard for anything to do that given the glut of alternatives people have just one click away not only in the realm of music, but any kind of entertainment.

how does a product "prove its value"

by being good, making a positive impression, creating a sense that someone may want to revisit it, etc

I don't think even that happens. I have albums that I've gotten for free that are great and I have not gone back and paid for them after the fact.

Because you actually got the tracks in your possession, instead of just getting a taste of them. It might be different if you heard them on the radio, or in a video game, or in a commercial. For example, I bet that Fun song that was shoved down our throats for the past few months racked up a ton of sales.

In the future, recorded music will be subsidized by wealthy patrons and you will only be able to listen to it while in some sort of museum.

I don't think there's any reason to think that "recorded music" will become less available, just that it will be less monetizable.

not looking forward to the 'fourth wave of ska' wing at the moma

but it's an interesting one to see coming from someone who sprays so much verbal diarrhea in interviews and who has often engaged in projects like a series of EPs every few months that seem to be partially engineered to constantly hold fans' attention.

maybe that's Corgan's partial answer to why he is so bad and hated these days

ha true

he actually even made some reference to his being bad and hated in the interview, a kind of awkward metaphor about how he's the nba player who everyone hates but grabs a lot of rebounds

I don't think there's any reason to think that "recorded music" will become less available, just that it will be less monetizable.

That 'music museums' idea kinda glosses over some of the steps in my logical leap. To clarify my argument, I'm talking about recorded popular music (i.e. not stuff like classical which already has a form of patronage in place). Major labels will, at a point, tire of pouring money down the recorded music drain, and once they realize that suing potential customers only nets them a fraction of the revenue they've historically made, they'll cut way back on something. Whether that 'something' is marketing or artists' pay or the number of artists on their roster, the amount and influence of recorded output from major labels will probably diminish significantly (if not disappear altogether) in our lifetimes. To the extent that the majors cease to be much of a viable option (i.e. the extent to which musicians can basically forget about livin' like a pimp), you'll see a lot of people who don't really give a shit pulling out of the game altogether, while the people who do give a shit and/or who have a solid fanbase that does value their recorded output monetarily to some extent will continue on via other routes (e.g. Kickstarter, Bandcamp, etc.). This will basically be the 'folk/outsider' branch of tomorrow's recorded music, with the majors' increasingly-meager output forming a second branch. The likely third branch (to the extent that musicians secure forward-thinking managers and arts patrons see a dying creative industry that will need financial assistance to become more) will be the 'fine arts' branch. If incessant touring becomes the only other option for musicians to make a buck, I can see a lot of musical acts going in a sort of 'more accessible Laurie Anderson' direction (multimedia, performance-based work that caters to a gallery or pseudo-museum setting), even if only to appeal to an audience with deeper pockets who will keep them fed. I mean, I don't know how accurate my predicting will be, but sustaining a music career in the future is definitely gonna be all about sussing out alternative business models.

On the flipside, sort of, I've often wondered what it takes to knock a band down a few notches after they've hit it big. Like, will Gotye ever play a small venue again? Phoenix? MGMT? Interpol? Whomever? How many crappy albums would it take to do so? Because I can't think of any band in recent memory that has been demoted, though I can think of several whose ascent has been pretty fast.

in the future? it's already like that

xp

yeah i remember making a similar observation a while back, when MGMT made that album people really seemed to dislike but their career didn't suffer at all for it. i can't remember the last serious 'sophomore slump' in rock/alternative circles where the act really seemed to lose half their audience or whatever.

what size venues does mgmt usually play to begin with though?

in the future? it's already like that

Man, Yauch and the major labels all on the same day...

i can't remember the last serious 'sophomore slump' in rock/alternative circles where the act really seemed to lose half their audience or whatever.

that's because bands and albums are not the currency of relevancy anymore; it's songs. And as long as those songs are in circulation (ipods, video games, commercials, etc.) they have currency. there are more venues for songs to be in circulation now than ever before, and the more share they have of these venues, the more currency they have. bands per se are almost irrelevant.

That's an interesting point.

One band that kind of sprung to mind while I was listening to Corgan talk about social media and the net not panning out so well for artists was Ok Go -- a band that I don't particularly like, but that seems to be able to keep making money from a brand built not, I don't think, on albums at all, but on a stream of clever individual videos and clever live shows that dovetail with the videos. And people will keep going to see that band, at least for a while, because it's kind of more like going to see Blue Man Group or Stomp! or something, although I don't doubt that their fans actually like their music too.

And that band is a great example. I don't think anyone who watches those videos, whether it be fans or casual viewers, give a flying fuck who is in that band. Probably the entire band could be replaced and no one would care. They know the band as OK GO and that's about it. They're there for the spectacle and the entertainment, and if anyone's watching it, it's because at that particular moment, the spectacle is better than some other spectacle available at that moment.

cannot think the words "the world is a vampire" unless recited in corgan's snarl. absolutely cannot.

Do you find yourself thinking those words in other contexts?

Everytime I see Billy Corgan, I'm reminded of the video he did for his band Hexen, probably years before the Pumpkins. It's hard to hate him after that, even as pompous as he often comes across.

James Iha is still what made that band tick.

James Iha is still what made that band tick tolerable.

I said that as a guy who is most distinctly not a fan of the band.

that's because bands and albums are not the currency of relevancy anymore; it's songs. And as long as those songs are in circulation (ipods, video games, commercials, etc.) they have currency.

So it's like the 60's all over again, where a band could have one or two hit singles and tour the oldies circuit more or less indefinitely. If that's the case then I really don't have a problem with it, FWIW.

recorded music is still absolutely monetizable but the money is, always has been, always will be in the carrier.

or controlling the carrier, more accurately.

Yeah, he would.

http://www.spin.com/articles/billy-corgan-ambient-siddhartha-herman-hesse-synth-jam-chicago/

i wholly & unironically support this

very excited for a recording

Love the photo with this article:

http://cdn3.pitchfork.com/news/54028/363e3876.jpg

In that Corgan has the dazed look of a man who doesn't realize that everyone else behind is not the original line-up, precisely because he doesn't remember driving them all away.

haha, also i like how a pumpkins fan who checked out 20 years ago could see that photo and think "okay, yea, i don't remember the rest of the band looking like that but i guess they're the same members"

I won't be impressed until he submits a life-size sculpture of himself made out of butter for judging in the Iowa State Fair

Live Stream Billy Corgan's Eight-Hour Ambient Jam Inspired by Siddhartha:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3tV8n-CVnA#t=7694

Anyone else watching this and following Dan Lopatin's live tweets? I guess this is suddenly my Friday night...

Although I have to say that I'm not sure I'm going to last more than 10 minutes of this.

i'm about an hour in. it's not terrible

The Siddhartha audio samples are pretty... literal, as interpretations go.

yeah, the sections where he turns off the text are much much better

I know it's kind of a cheap shot, but Billy's gained some weight, right?

oneohtrix livetweeting https://twitter.com/0PN

Daniel Lopatin ‏@0PN 1m
"quietly dangling hand" its as if Hesse knew Corgan would one day patch that OSC!

Ergh, why did he go for the Australian audio book?

Beats.

https://twitter.com/0PN/status/439506560620834816

lopatin is killin' it

He decided to do something else for about an hour or so, but I'm back now.

Errr... meant "I" was doing something else - although not sure I've missed anything either.

Daniel Lopatin ‏@0PN 39s
corgan needs to do a hard restart

lol, was just about to repost that.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/241681/billy-corgan-bars-chicago-tribune-reporter-from-show-after-critical-column/

Is that it? Already? We were promised 8-9 hours.

just a break

billik organ

the vehicle is returned

that was so bad i hate you billy

was? is. and always shall be

Just awful, I want my bandwidth back.

I can't understand how ANYONE would even be diverted for a minute for anything to do with this bell-end anyway!

lopatin is killin' it

― illegalblues, Friday, February 28, 2014 9:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that was great. he seems pretty ilxy

was lopatin telling the truth when he said the whole thing went under an hour

please say yes

naw

damn it

it was shit. i hate myself for watching all nine hours but i was sick in bed and its awfulness was distracting

I like the guy's tea shop, though.

he sucked as soon as he cut his hair

DrZoidberg1 38 points 9 hours ago
Billy, what's your go to acoustic? Still Taylors? Martin?
permalink
iamBillyCorgan 66 points 8 hours ago
I'm currently working with Yamaha. And I hope that we might be able to build kind of a signature BC acoustic.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2os94f/i_am_billy_corgan_of_the_smashing_pumpkins_and/

"you remind me of my signature BC Yamaha. my BC Yamaha. my BC Yahama."

MegaShit 531 points 9 hours ago
Why is the world a vampire?
permalink
iamBillyCorgan 1294 points 9 hours ago
Just look in the mirror.
permalinkparent

love this guy

Gohagan 110 points 9 hours ago
How excited are you for the new Star Wars movie?
permalink
iamBillyCorgan 228 points 9 hours ago
I'm very excited.
I have a feeling that these new series of movies (particularly because of the technology that is available now) will finally realize the vision that George Lucas must've had when he began.
permalinkparent

trolling or playing to the fedoras?

he didnt seem eager to play along elsewhere in the ama so i think he really likes star wars

That's such a great answer. I'm going to spend all morning trying to imagine a collaboration with Rob Crow.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/dec/18/billy-corgan-smashing-pumpkins-interview

can't bring myself to extract just one quote

Couldn't you just make a poll?

he is truly a pisces

There was a whole bunch of discussion about this on the Smashing Pumpkins thread, iirc.

Oh billypaws

I wish the subheader of this interview was “he’s a nutter and he’s obsessed with his reviews!”

i do feel for the guy. i can't help but think that if he was more attractive, had better teeth, and wasn't so cranky, people would view him more like they view Johnny Greenwood.

The Guardian should reissue this interview with a second disc of bonus quotes.

Wow man this is a new level of idiocy. What a giant baby.

he's venting about a long-simmering frustration that he's being treated differently-- and worse-- than a lot of rock royalty for reasons that aren't related to talent. while I can't say I'm a huge SP/BC fan, i sense that this is actually true.

annotating an interview with anything other than background facts seems like such a dick move

^

long-simmering frustration that he's being treated differently-- and worse-- than a lot of rock royalty for reasons that aren't related to talent

who is rock royalty from his generation - Cobain, Slash/Axl...? One's dead and didn't have a chance to age poorly, Axl is p much a joke, I guess Slash does p well but who cares about what new music he makes these days

I think that Malkmus is (or was considering the poll) a better example

Maybe it's not even rock royalty; it's the people who have been innovative and pushing the envelope in art and music. People talk about BC like he's a laughable, abysmal failure as an artist. While I'm not his biggest fan, you cannot say he is lazy about his art, nor that he isn't ambitious and has vision. You could argue that these qualities aren't sufficient for producing great art, but my impression is other people's pretentious horseshit (e.g. Radiohead) is lauded as visionary genius while BC's pretentious horseshit is written off as simple wankery.

maybe but Malkmus never sold as many records/never had as much mass appeal - I doubt Bilbo considers him "rock royalty"

xp

Radiohead is another good example

I guess the simplest way to put it actually comes through loud and clear in the interview: he's far more talented and important than many of the people in the 'cool club.' So why hasn't be been invited in?

I doubt Bilbo considers him "rock royalty"

Bilbo Corgans, the tallest hobbit motherfucker of them all.

"You have no hair on your feet!"

"Fucking DUH."

he's far more talented and important than many of the people in the 'cool club.' So why hasn't be been invited in?

because he isn't cool!

i think the burning question to him is "WHY???"

lol "i don't really like his music but i hate radiohead and people talk about how radiohead is so great so why don't they talk about Melon Collie & The Infinite Sadness the way they do OK Computer?"

to which i respond IF YOU HAVE TO ASK

we need a fincher biopic to really understand billy

honestly I think Mellon Collie IS better than OK Computer, and oddly, less pretentious.

He's a dick, he craps out too many records, he keeps firing or losing band members/momentum, he has no apparent sense of humor or humility ...

honestly I think Mellon Collie IS better than OK Computer, and oddly, less pretentious.

that is odd.

honestly, i think this has a lot more to do with image than what people are willing to cop to.

fuck are you talking about people happily admit they hate corgan's image

honestly I think Mellon Collie IS better than OK Computer, and oddly, less pretentious.

so otm

well tell billy because he's the last person on earth who gives a shit

i mean, come on, "Fitter Happier"? that is some pretentious shit right there.

right, people admit to hating BC's image, but let's ask people if they choose musical favorites based on image. I bet few people will come out and admit that.

JiC otm in general

i just can't take this "billy corgan isn't getting a fair shake because people are obsessed with superficial beauty and cool points" plaint seriously. i think corgan's done very well for a guy spewing shit calligraphy lyrics with a voice that sounds like jon lovitz with strep

If you guys were the authors of cherub rock you'd have invented cherub rock!

you know why Bilco isn't cool? because he complains about people acting like he isn't cool

he is cool because he makes good tunes and wears capes. these are the cool things now.

I'm not saying that BC is free of artistic crimes, but Thom Yorke's terrible cracking falsetto is not a great counterargument to BC's bad voice.

Here's an analogy that seems relevant. Bear with me, here. People HATE Wal-Mart for their bad labor practices, the way they put mom and pops out of business, their reputation for cheap crap, etc. But Target does the EXACT same shit, but many of the same people who hate Wal-Mart apparently have no problem with Target because, well, it's just... cooler. This ultimately leads me to believe that the reason many people hate Wal-Mart has nothing to do with the aforementioned shit (which is the thrust of many anti-WM arguments), but because Wal-Mart has an uncool reputation, being for low-class, uneducated, and unfashionable people, while Target has a reputation as being for educated, culturally-forward, fashionable people. Ultimately, these two stores are not all that far off from each other. They're both mass merchants who sell cheap crap. Everything else is mostly about image and clientele.

Likewise, the cultural collective says: Smashing Pumpkins is lame, low-class wankery for losers; Radiohead is sophisticated, innovative rock music for thinking people. But at their heart, I don't see them as being all that different.

Machina II is better than OKC.

Likewise, the cultural collective says: Smashing Pumpkins is lame, low-class wankery for losers; Radiohead is sophisticated, innovative rock music for thinking people.

i don't know who the cultural collective is, but they apparently don't write music reviews

he keeps firing or losing band members

I don't really blame him for this tbh

Actually, I blame him on both counts. blame lies with the dictator.

MCIS is so much less pretentious than OKC. Not concerned with being cool or cutting edge, wearing its overblown and exaggerated emotions like stars of valor, Billco is willing to let himself be totally vulnerable and naked for the sake of the audience as much as for himself. Mellon Collie is a totally about-face record, it's not pretentious at all. its length is NOT pretentious, it's fan service...

yeesh

josh you know d'arcy actually went insane right

pre·ten·sion1
prəˈten(t)SH(ə)n/
noun
1.
a claim or the assertion of a claim to something.
"their pretensions to culture"
synonyms: aspiration, claim, assertion, pretense, profession
"the author has no pretension to exhaustive coverage"
an aspiration or claim to a certain status or quality.
"another aging rocker with literary pretensions"

2.
the use of affectation to impress; ostentatiousness.
"he spoke simply, without pretension"
synonyms: pretentiousness, affectation, ostentation, artificiality, airs, posing, posturing, show, flashiness; More

"wearing its overblown and exaggerated emotions like stars of valor" sounds like pretension to me

the world is a vampire

so...there's that

spazz's post maybe had some mixed metaphors but I think you can get from the whole post that it is not pretensious in spazz's opinion

who gives a shit, it's pretentious

it's pretentious to give a shit?

it's ostentatious and affected, doing it "for the kids" does NOT make it less pretentious

if anything claiming your over-the-top display of feeling came from a sense of obligation to others only makes it more so

ftr I was just deliberately misreading your post for jokes there. I do think that album is pretentious.

xposting D'Arcy didn't go insane, she was on drugs, and regardless, that was eons ago and he has gone through how many lineups since then, even if you don't include Zwan? Dunno, but enough to propose sole constant Corgan is the problem.

And lol that anything Corgan has done has been anything less than pretentious.

constantly demanding that everything you do be taken seriously/treated as important is kinda textbook pretentious, no?

or does he differentiate between the real, the pure, the heart music and eh this is just some stuff he did for a goof

monuments is a goof. mellon collie is the core, the heart music

mellon collie is over. it doesn't matter. monuments is a 4 star album!

I need to say that I once saw Corgan give a poetry reading while reclining on a pillow with a light-up army helmet on.

Because really http://files.umwblogs.org/blogs.dir/1886/files/2009/04/a0009263_22271348.jpg

http://assets.noisey.com/content-images/contentimage/26278/Corgan2.jpg

https://twitter.com/ZuZusTeahouse/status/561319453544448001

that patch bay is absurd!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYI4XAG48YM&spfreload=10

http://media.salon.com/2011/02/he_knows_whats_cool-460x280.jpg

a Millie Corgan isn't cool. you know what's cool? a Billy Corgan.

lol

Courtney asked us for advice about her ‘secret affair’ with Billy Corgan. I thought, Ewwww, at even the mention of Billy Corgan, whom nobody liked because he was such a crybaby, and Smashing Pumpkins took themselves way too seriously and were in no way punk rock.

guess who

Josh In Chicago?

"Stereogum: No I think you’re right. The cycles for the way culture operates now are so much shorter. I feel bad — I often will interview a band, say a bunch of British guys who are 20, and it’s their first record, and they’re really excited. And then three years later they’ve put out their second or third album, and no one cares anymore, not necessarily because their album’s terrible but because it isn’t new.

Corgan: That feeds into the narcissistic strain. Why is that narcissistic strain there? Back in the day, I would run into Kim and Thurston backstage at a festival, and Thurston would talk to me about guitars and Kim would walk right past me. Why did Kim Gordon feel the need to walk past me? Why was I such a threat to Kim Gordon? I was a huge Sonic Youth fan. I saw Sonic Youth in ’87 at the Metro. I had every Sonic Youth album. I looked up to Kim Gordon. Why didn’t Kim Gordon walk past me in the hallway and mumble, “Hello?” Because what I represented was some sort of weird threat to their beautiful world that they were able to bubble around in for so many years."

Courtney asked us for advice about her ‘secret affair’ with Billy Corgan.

What a weird, weird thing to ask Sonic Youth for advice about

this is Courtney Love we're talking about

ie a crazy person prone to oversharing/overexposing herself in a self-absorbed quest for validation

I saw Sonic Youth in ’87 at the Metro.

lol HE WAS THERE MAN

"BECK, HOW MUCH DO YOU TIP A LIMO DRIVER?"

"...."

People named Kim are always hurting Billy Corgan deep in their heart

I like how the Stereogum question is actually about an entirely different phenomenon (the planned obsolescence built into the music industry) and Corgan instead takes it to be about people hurting his feelings.

it's also possible that kim gordon did not want to hear thurston and billy talk about guitars

"it's just a piece of wood w some metal on it" - Kim Gordon in Guitar Player magazine circa '96 iirc

"it's just a piece of wood w some metal on it" - Psychopath, on his rifle '96

Οὖτις, otm

"Stereogum: No I think you’re right. The cycles for the way culture operates now are so much shorter. I feel bad — I often will interview a band, say a bunch of British guys who are 20, and it’s their first record, and they’re really excited. And then three years later they’ve put out their second or third album, and no one cares anymore, not necessarily because their album’s terrible but because it isn’t new.

Corgan: That feeds into the narcissistic strain. Why is that narcissistic strain there? Back in the day, I would run into Kim and Thurston backstage at a festival, and Thurston would talk to me about guitars and Kim would walk right past me. Why did Kim Gordon feel the need to walk past me? Why was I such a threat to Kim Gordon? I was a huge Sonic Youth fan. I saw Sonic Youth in ’87 at the Metro. I had every Sonic Youth album. I looked up to Kim Gordon. Why didn’t Kim Gordon walk past me in the hallway and mumble, “Hello?” Because what I represented was some sort of weird threat to their beautiful world that they were able to bubble around in for so many years."

― Nourry, Tuesday, February 3, 2015 4:30 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kinda heartbreaking, in a "Betty White not being able to grasp why Bea Arthur doesn't like her" way

maybe if Betty White wrote Cherub Rock

maybe if Billy Corgan wrote "Miami Is Nice"

When did Billy Corgan turn into Gollum?

Someone let me know.

idgi

He looks like gollum and is prone to self-pity

http://www.moviefancentral.com/images/pictures/review77597/08a52e8b5e8bea57c3cf2185a8dfcb98.jpg?1352614675

kinda surprised tht Corgan was into SY at all tbh

I seem to remember some MCIS-era Guitar World interview where he's discussing SY tunings.

I think he probably felt a bit like Chris Christie when Bruce Springsteen told him he didn't want to have anything to do with him.

just remembered that both Sonic Youth and Smashing Pumpkins were on a Simpsons episode together as well...

http://www.thrashhits.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/billy_jess02__oPt.jpg

billco has said the riff in "1979" is a nod to Sonic Youth, even though he stole the song from the frogs.

oh many i forgot about billy corgan/jessica simpson. truly a celebrity couple for the ages.

Henry Rollins twerked before twerking existed
Out of the mist I kissed your drug filled lips

man, corgan accusing someone else of being narcissistic is real 'take the plank from your own eye' stuff

also http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/imgx/1/3/7/8/6/7/8/1/orig-13786781.jpg

and now let us praise one of Corgan's half-dozen truly eternal & transcendent songs, "Luna":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQBXNLU46Z0

Why do people have this adolescent hang up on how punk or non punk the Pumpkins are or were

Of all the things to legitimately have a go at Corgan, whether or not hes worried about being part of SY's early 90s cool list is another story

Although this is Billy Corgan we're talking about

yeah, it's pretty dumb. i'm glad he took himself and the smashing pumpkins so seriously. they really meant a lot. getting hung up on punk credibility is just a different way of taking yourself too seriously, as opposed to Corgan liking Boston or whatever KG was referring to.

i mean it's really nobody's fault IMO, like billy's just a square and kim's an art person who came up around fluxus and basquiat and philip glass while billy was watching pro wrestling and listening to Rush and eating frozen pizzas and shit, the bizarre world of 90s alt rock just threw them together, it's no mystery why someone like billy would on some level want approval from someone who's just more worldly and cool in a not try-hard way and it's no surprise why kim shouldn't want to be bothered with talking about boring guitar nerd shit w/billy

i don't think it's really an indictment of either one, there's no way it could have been different

& if kim didn't really feel like propping up one more rock dude's ego after being in the band dude world for so long could you blame her?

yeah i'm not blaming or indicting either of them, your analysis of where they came from and how they ended up backstage together is totally OTM

It's not that Billy's a square, it's that he's pretty unsympathetic. It's one thing to be a poseur, which is silly to begin with, but by many accounts he is also an asshole, which makes the former less forgivable. I'm not a fan of the band aside from a few songs, but he puts himself in a pretty untenable position by embracing Rush and Boston (or whatever) but also wanting to be cool, by being a shredder but also wanting to be part of the anti-shred crowd, by tipping his hat to the humility and humanity of Cheap Trick but also aiming for the otherworldly haze My Bloody Valentine. But really, he's just apparently not a very nice guy.

Granted, as a very long time fan of SY, I've always thought Kim and Thurston came off terribly as people in interviews, too. As bad as Corgan but for totally different reasons: snobby, arrogant, pretentious, no fun. But since they're "cool," fewer folks call them on it, especially with an easy target like BC walking around saying "pay attention to me!"

Tbf, Corgan actually teetered on the cusp of personal redemption for a bit. Maybe c. Adore, which was a pretty emotional, accessible album, when the band played that huge free show here for charity. (http://www.mtv.com/news/300010/pumpkins-to-play-huge-hometown-charity-show/). But since the band came back from the dead he's been pretty bitter, sour, as if he's not even trying to be liked anymore.

kinda surprised tht Corgan was into SY at all tbh

― Simon H., Tuesday, February 3, 2015 6:44 PM (Yesterday)

hard to imagine gish & siamese dream arising absent at least second-hand influence from the evol thru daydream run of sy albums

Really? I don't really hear any similarities, beyond the use of guitars.

how exactly is billy an asshole?

Basically - ironically? - by many accounts doing a lot of what he complains about in the Kim tirade: ignoring people, blowing people off, being unfriendly, being rude, abandoning old friends, etc. That might be general default celebrity behavior, but Chicago doesn't usually react well to that kind of stuff.

Maybe he's a sweetheart, but that does not seem to be the take of people I know who have had dealings/run-ins with him, or the times I've personally seen him be a diva.

iirc once heard a story from a guy who got to hear billy have a phone conversation with his girlfriend after a concert in Dayton circa Gish, promising he was going fuck someone that night.

i don't think there's anything unsympathetic about wanting all of those things, and i think he made a convincing case through his music.

the idea that you can't be cool if
-you like a certain band
-you play guitar solos and are obsessed with technical proficiency
-you make music inspired by dozens and dozens of disparate bands and sounds and styles
is bullshit.

but Billy is a huge asshole. smashing pumpkins fans have their reasons why, people that hate Corgan usually have others.

the smashing pumpkins died in 2000. he's been a solo act ever since, no matter the moniker at the time. he's clearly not that happy with how things turned out. his bitterness and delusional/nonsensical comments in interviews is just really sad to me. he knows, or thinks, his best days are behind him. but still i think he'll have a Dylan-esque renaissance as he goes through his fifties and sixties.

actually the anecdote was told in dayton but i dunno if the concert was there xpost

the whole band is a morality play. the smashing pumpkins are an avant garde art rock band and billy corgan is a performance artist. his attitudes and behavior towards women are indefensible. part of the pleasure of being an SP fan is learning from where he got it wrong and where it got it right, in all aspects, from love to indie rock politics.

If Kim comes off as too cool or unfriendly I also think it's worth considering how many weird band dudes, creeps, asshole guys she probably had to deal with living in the rock world.

Think of how many contemptuous stray kittens Billy has had to deal with

Will I!

http://www.more-japan.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/rage.jpg

I'm not a fan of the band aside from a few songs, but he puts himself in a pretty untenable position by embracing Rush and Boston (or whatever)

^I'd rather listen to Rush and Boston than anything by Sonic Youth or any of the "cool" bands you're supposed to like. Ive never understood why liking these bands is "untenable"

as you demonstrate, claiming allegiance to both Rush/Boston AND noiserock Sonic Youth dudes = not something that really comes off as genuine. opposing aesthetics.

that's why it's untenable

lol at the concept of opposing aesthetics generally - aesthetics aren't really ideologies. it's perfectly possible, and in fact very common, to genuinely love both Boston and Sonic Youth, or Rush and the Shaggs, and all manner of music coming from disparate places. the idea of having an aesthetic that makes it "inconsistent" or "untenable" to like one kind of music while also liking another kind of music that proceeds from a different set of assumptions than the first...that's greasy kids' stuff, music is vast and most musicians I know think of it as a giant well of pleasure, not Jets and Sharks

yeah but this was the 90s, there was a war on

(altho I don't think I actually know anybody who likes Rush and the Shaggs tbh - unless that's you)

I mean I agree w you Ray, but lots of people don't listen to music that way and do draw battle lines between aesthetics. It may be stupid, but people do it (Kim Gordon acknowledges as much in her quote). Granted this is less common with musicians.

Maybe BC is the real elitist here thinking listening to Rush/Boston is some kind of maverick thing to do.

Isn't she just using "in no way punk rock" as a synonym for corny here? I mean, maybe Kim Gordon really was viewing the world through a Maximum RocknRoll purity lens at the age of 40, but my guess is that it was more about "This guy is way too thirsty for the validation of rock fame" than "He likes Rush and Boston"

Also UMS totally otm in multiple posts. xp

"ok kim, billy may be a star tantrum-prone asshole, but where do you get off using punk rock as a shorthand for cool?"

all billy ever wanted to do is make great music for everyone and challenge the hipster paradigm...

heard the pumpkins' "landslide" on the radio and i'd like to reaffirm that billy has done REALLY WELL for himself considering he sings like jon lovitz as harvey feinstein doing "love to love you baby"

fierstein, rather

Billy Corgan = Bill Clinton
Sonic Youth = Mitt Romney

Poliopolice = Maureen Dowd

I like both Boston & Sonic Youth, Rush suck hard though

elephant in the room re: Boston & Sonic Youth

(and Kim and Billco too)

I didn't mean to disparage Rush (though fuck Boston). I meant that Corgan used to embrace these supposedly uncool bands, because to hell with what's fashionable, man! But at the same he so clearly, vocally wanted to be fashionable. Like, he could hang with Rick Nielsen at will, but his eye was on Sonic Youth, or Pavement, or all these people at the cool party he wasn't invited to. Very insecure.

Boston is so much better than Rush. Sheesh!

^ Said nobody, ever.

And by "Boston" I assume you mean their first album.

The gauntlet has been thrown!

Boston vs. Rush

he's just a teenager in love

if you are puzzled why kims thayil or gordon might have had problems with billy corgan then you really should meet the man. it's not because he loves uncool records. it's about personality and behaviour.

also, smashing pumpkins' best song, drown, always sounded to me like a Boston song segueing into a Sonic Youth song. i remember him almost playing drown at brixton academy in 1993, but he stopped after strumming the opening riff because the uk music press had been horrible to him that week and he said london didn't deserve it. then he came on dressed as a clown for the encore because everett true had called him a clown in a review.

again, it's about personality and behaviour.

Whereas, he seemd to take a holiday from himself when he was in New Order.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CFnWKP7W0AAFcJ4.jpg

wait, is billy the surprise for three lucky winners? they'll need a big fuckin box to fit him in

hahahaha came here to post that pic

The "surprise" is a tantrum from Billy, btw.

A wrestling match in a steel cage (despite all his rage).

Oh, I thought this was gonna be about Fruity

http://loudwire.com/marilyn-manson-billy-corgan-band-flavor-flav-jenna-jameson/

small-batch foods

Ric Ocasek's Troublizing is an underrated means of getting a mid-'90s Corgan fix

http://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2015/07/24213002/1437755229_billy-corgan-zoom-640x462.jpg

I'd be fine with never knowing the context for that picture, but the ambiguity of Billy's expression does intrigue me. Is he happy? Sad? Scared? Desperate for a piss?

The core. The heart music. Thomas & The Tank Engines.

lol

I like to imagine he was having a great time until he spotted the photographer

He looks like he's just licked some piss off of a nettle.

worst make-a-wish foundation trip ever

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/07/billy-corgan-asked-whether-courtney-love-killed-kurt-cobain-and-things-got-uncomfortable-fast/

"Corgan got defensive — and fast"

Methinks the lady doth protest too much...

seems like a reasonable response to me

weird headline: "Billy Corgan asked whether Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain, and things got uncomfortable fast"

too bad they couldn't fit "was" between "Corgan" and "asked"

seems like a reasonable response to me

(I know, just kidding. Although it IS always funny to see BC get pissy, however justified it may be.)

"We Asked Billy Corgan Whether Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain, You'll Never Guess What Happened Next!"

"Corgan got defensive — and fast"

paste into any BC profile

one weird trick to make billy corgan defensive

weird tip, i am one

Augustus Juppiter Corgan

http://celebritybabies.people.com/2015/12/22/billy-corgan-welcomes-son-augustus-juppiter/

misspelling makes me furious.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Juppiter

no way

"I found it in a mystic text!"

if he insists on pronouncing it YEU-pee-tehr i'll give him a pass

giving ppl a hard time about what they name their kids is shitty

why do you people keep making me defend this insufferable dude

Celebrity baby gives birth to celebrity baby!

Drops of Juppiter.

giving ppl a hard time about what they name their kids is shitty

I mean yeah, if you were to go up to his face and be like 'hey, bill, you named your kid something stupid'

but just to generally lament the awful names people - who are strangers to you and who you will never meet - give their kids because they are clowns is really one of the least deleterious negative instincts one can have

i think it's a cool name. lots of nickname potential anyway. augie, jupe. i'm happy for bill :') i thought this ship had sailed

my main gripe with people with their "unique" or whimsical naming habits is that invariably their own boring names are better. like William Patrick is a much better pair of names than Augustus Juppiter

pronouncing it yuppitr makes it better

AJ Corgan

hoping they call him Jove for short

saddling your kids with a lifelong marker of your own profound selfishness is way way way worse than someone clowning you on ilxor.com

i mean he can just go by AJ if it's such a big deal

Can all you turdwranglers just start your own program like The View? So embarrassing.

Gonna echo Flappy up thread - i'm just happy corgan gets to be a parent. it'll be good for him.

welcome, Gus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHA-DB4Pjz8

Corgan, 48, who is best known as the founder and frontman of the ’90s alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, is also a poet.

i know i am going to regret this, but ... 'poet' ??

"i am a published poette" - billy crogan

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41uHQg6uPWL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

it's pretty good imo

2004 promo interview for BWF, really good: https://vimeo.com/58320287

i did not know that.

his poetry is awful

his poetry is awful

― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Thursday, December 24, 2015 2:39 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Do you like his lyrics? I think a lot of Blinking with Fists is as good or better than his lyrics on the first five records.

"A Twixt the Twine"

A twixt the twine and flowers divine
Devise the design in this copper wine
Aghast the mask of ripping change
A loft amongst the highest paid

blend in the softer hues
Bespeak of melon and her honey fuse
Light my ire's with playful trust
For devour you insatiable I mus
So mixed the mire the many did soar
Sour the supirn on slippery floor
Green the grievous poured wound into salt
Salacious and sated the savory sport

Don't get certain play trickw with mine pull
Gather your colours and ever your sulk
No manners in me matter the most
Than playing valor to your consummate host
Pillow the phenom on purring divan
Mellow the missing on vanilla white toast
Laboured among the living lull last
Repay the repast in revolting rake

Never come give it up, whatever you may squander
The figs in the pockets and the coursings down under
By blood are the passions passing us up
By pill the poison feeling
The heat it kills me everyday
By graveyard vigil and candles I bake
And kitchens are aching for archangel falls
Of soft baby bottoms and polished skulls, amen.

:\

do u like his lyrics though? jw

i mean i still love many of the lyrics on sd, mellon collie, adore, and machina, but who knows how much of that is just growing up with them

guy went for a more direct style around zwan/the poetry book and it's negatively affected his songwriting ever since imo. give me "in the slipstream of thoughtless thoughts" over that shit any day

he was also a formative influence on my own writing, let me tell you i loved the incoherent garbage "excerpt" from "glass and the machines of god" in the machina booklet. i also still sorta like it bc billy obv just liked the lamb lies down on broadway way too much, which same

I should say that "billy corgan was a formative influence on my writing" really just applies to me writing bad poetry at ages 12-14 but i'm probably compromised forever in ways i don't even recognize

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/Vogon_jelzt_reading_poetry.png

I was not expecting this at all

http://pitchfork.com/news/64406-smashing-pumpkins-reunited-with-james-iha-for-first-concert-in-16-years/?mbid=social_facebook

Cripes!

anything is possible in this world