Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

Classic, full up, full stop. I'm glad I've never had even the slightest opportunity to interact with Billy Corgan in real life, he'd drive me crazy, I figure. But oh man, all that good music. I love it all down to every last strangled squeal in his voice. Refer to these entries in the FT 136 list for more slavering if you really care:

Adore

Siamese Dream

Mellon Collie

I think I liked the Smashing Pumpkins okay with Gish and Siamese Dream because, although they were really just classic rock slightly warmed over, it was updated slightly and had some good associations in my life. I remember listening to Gish fairly often with someone who...well, never mind the details. When Mellon Collie came out, though, it became very clear to me that they were really a band who worshipped at the altar of classic rawk, esp. the bad overwrought and overblown kind, and that's really where I lost interest. When they scaled back on subsequent albums, there really wasn't much good material there, and I couldn't really be bothered to find the good stuff anymore.

But not by much.

Would be classic for Siamese Dream, but dud for Adore, Machina and the fact that they could have edited Mellon Collie down to a single disc brilliancy - and didn't. Also, dud for bad song titles.

I read a great thing in Gina Arnold's book "Kiss This" about how the Bullet With Butterfly Wings video was based around this painting of children trying to get out of being trapped in a coal mine or something, and how incredibly obnoxious it was that Billy Corgan would equate his angst with such horrendous suffering. I liked parts of "Siamese Dream", but I think one album of semi- romantic angst and mediocre prog-Sabbath guitar work is enough. So Dud, for sticking around too long, and for inexplicably blaming their failure on Britney.

'1979' is ok, but not as good as its title. Everything else is excrement.

.. then they started putting out shitty albums. I lost interest after Melon Collie. bloated wank. and his voice became ever-more- hideous. such sludge.. they'll be most useful in that regard for documenting very clearly a band just completely losing their artistic vision and soul. I've only heard 'Machina' once, but it was so lifeless...

that said, I'll list a few of their best rare tracks so that brave souls can attempt to get another perspective on the band. they did have a few obscure b-sides and such that won't likely turn up on any best hits collection. search for these on your favorite music- trading platform ..

* daughter - a rare demo from 1989 or so, just two minutes of ethereal guitar & singing

* siamese dream - the song, not the album. very lo-fi, scratchy acid folk piece

* pulseczar - feedback-drenched psychedelia. slightly twee, too.

* their cover of Depeche Mode's 'Never Let Me Down Again' - better than the original. very light touch, just guitar, bass, drums and for once not the 'soundwall' approach ... brings you up to an imagined peak, then lets you down ..

* their cover of 'Dancing in the Moonlight' - soft, acoustic. if you don't mind his voice, this is a great song.

* obscured - a slow, drifting rock song. spacey, but subdued. nice.

* smiley - slow, simple pop. his voice on the deep end for once.

* Eye - darkwave/synthpop song from the Lost Highway soundtrack, great if you like that sort of thing

* the Moby remix of '1979' - doesn't contain anything of the original song except for that skipping vocal 'tweee-ee' effect super- slowed down. the actual music itself isn't much like Moby's usual fare, especially not like 'Play' -- imagine if the Boards of Canada had a VERY bad trip. I love this song.

* Drown -- not the most rare Pumpkins song, it was on the Reality Bites soundtrack. 3 or so minutes of rock, then 4 of the best kind of guitar feedback drone, yumm..

* Starla - only if you're into guitar wankery. Corgan goes off for about 5 minutes, and most of it is actually pretty entertaining, if not exactly Fennesz..

gish, '89 demos, set the ray to jerry, cherry, obscured: classic i believe i speak for god album(s): dud everything else: i listened to it too much when i was 15

So, continuuing with my theory, if one were to just sort of cut and re-record, you'd probably have about two good albums out of all the b-sides, machina 1 & 2, and adore stuff out there, post-melon collie. Which is what, eight albums (including a double album) total? In less than 8 years? Sounds classic to me.

Or I could just say I like 1979 and a few of their other songs to sound hip.

Gish and Pisces Iscariot are also grate, and MCIS and Adore have a few nice songs (might as well join in on the "1979" praise here). Haven't heard anything off of Machina but I have a feeling I don't want to ;)

I'm afraid I must object--Moby's remix is horribly dull. It's essentially just Billy's vocals over a repetitive electro beat (and he doesn't even go to any lengths to actually change the order of the verses). I'm a big fan of Moby's early work, but I can't stand to listen to this.

Half-Classic/Half-Dud. And why wasn't "The End Is The Beginning Is The End" or whatever that Last-Pumpkins-Video-In-Pants Batman song was called on Greatest Hits?

And this is a bad thing? Excuse me, I have to listen to some Muslimgauze now.

And why wasn't "The End Is The Beginning Is The End" or whatever that Last-Pumpkins-Video-In-Pants Batman song was called on Greatest Hits?

I think everyone involved with that film removed it from their resume.

But the real reason I post here is merely to drop this bomb you can find posted at http://www.billycorgan.com/

You know that beatles song 'I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink....'? I'm having one of those weeks...I just got 2 new kittens, brothers and sisters, named miss sami and mister thom cat...they are the best of friends, which is wonderful, but being young, they are into everything, including some things I didn't know you could get into...mister thom also seems to want to wake me up at 5am to say hello...well, the music for the rock and roll record is going really swell, just starting to get into a groove writing some songs...predominately focusing on melodies right now, leaving the words for a bit further down the road, which is unusual, but necessary...in the months to come, I am going to share some things with you that you have never heard me say...that doesn't mean I'm rewriting history, that means that I'm going to tell you the truth about who I am and what I believe in my heart...a lot of things that I have said thru the years seemed confusing, like I was hiding somethin!g, and often times I was...'why', you might ask? Many times I hid things to protect my band mates...for example, its been almost 4 years since I went on my friend tami's radio show and announced that the pumpkins were breaking up...that day, when she asked why we were breaking up, I said something silly like 'I'm tired of fighting britney blah blah'...and it went on to be widely quoted, as if I was breaking up my love, my band, because of some pop star...13 years of my life, and you know, let's pack it in cause their teeth are whiter...by saying that, I was seen as someone who was crying foul, taking his ball, and going home...which was sad cause it wans't true at all...The truth of the matter is is that james iha broke up the smashing pumpkins...not me, not jimmy, but james...did it help that d'arcy was fired for being a mean spirited drug addict, who refused to get help? No, that didn't help keep the band together, not at all...it made it very hard to go on, but we soldier! ed thru it even though our hearts were broken...But d'arcy didn't break up the band, we didn't let her...and jimmy didn't want to break up the band, not at that time...and I would have gone on forever...the smashing pumpkins were essentially my entire life...a dream I still believe in...many friends at that time suggested letting james leave, so jimmy and I could continue on under the name...but I was too loyal to the man I had started the whole thing with, and I protected him until the very end...right up until the last show on dec 2, 2000, when he thanked d'arcy on stage, but not the 2 men standing next to him...and I was loyal until he left the metro without even saying goodbye, or an 'its been great boys!', or a simple 'I love you' to us...no, james iha left the metro that night without saying goodbye to the 2 people he had won and lost and traveled the world with...so I won't be protecting him anymore...and I won't be protecting a whole lot of other people anymore...not because I don't love them (I do!!) but because ! I love myself too...I want to say one more thing, and that is I appreciate you reading this...+I want to remind you that I love you...God has given me the strength to say that to you, and I hope that you don't hide who you are...does it make me sad that I have hid myself all these years? No, it was what I had to do to survive, or at least what I 'thought' I needed to do...but surviving is not enough...we all deserve to flourish, and to know happiness and joy...that is my new dream...the smashing pumpkins gave me that, and I am eternally grateful...especially to those that shared in the dream with me...even if you bought just one cd, or came to a show, you gave us that chance...we thank you for that...even if we don't always know how to show it...be well!! William

Wow.

So, best of a bad lot, then. Neither classic nor dud. Good.

Say! Anybody heard that one album they did where they leaked it onto the Internet for free simply to piss off their record company?

i did not feel that a cd release on a major label that i was out there trying to hawk with a bunch of immoral band mates (that does not include jimmy, by the way...he is one of best men i know) was a place to talk about the deepest of issues...no, the internet is!!!

In other news, he's now gone public with an email address. Guess who's gonna have 1000+ emails by Sunday?

01. Melon Collie And The Infinite Sadness
02. Tonight, Tonight
03. Jellybelly
04. Here Is No Why
05. Bullet With Butterfly Wings
06. Where Boys Fear To Tread
07. Thirty-Three
08. 1979
09. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby
10. We Only Come Out At Night
11. Beautiful
12. Lily
13. By Starlight
14. Farewell And Goodnight

Truth be told, I could live without "Tonight" and "Thirty-Three" -
I guess I included them out of some obligation to remain in the
realm of the remotely possible. Billy is rather proud of these
songs, I highly doubt he would have dispensed them.

(after years of more or less rejecting Mellon Collie as the watershed "Billy is a snotty bastard" moment)

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.

Matt Cameron is a little astounded. "Kim should rent himself out as a tour shrink," he says.

I did like part of Siamese Dream back in the 90's.. in high school we used to torture certain punX0rs with deliberately off key and absurd renditions of "Disarm." And I still regard "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" as a watershed moment in the evolution of my musical tastes - the moment when I fully realized how rock lyrics could really, really, really suck. ("Holy shit, did he just say despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage???") It opened a new portal in my awareness of language, I think.

pffffAHAHAAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
wooo!
man, that's good stuff right there...
there was some other spin article (same time frame i think) where corgan's downing screw drivers and bitching about the fans that's equally as classic.
geez, billy + co. were better when megadoses of LSD were involved. which they were up until the end o' 94. the anger, the lovely unfocused anger and confusion, the manic panic hair.

one thing i'll give billy c., his style of 'rawking out' has far surpassed many, i love the way he used to "throw" his guitar down for a big chunky sludge deal! it was over-dramatized but highly entertaining to watch. especially when he jumped and did it.

everything after MCIS (and even parts of that) were utterly suspect and 'meh'. machina 2 being the exception, where free+rawkin collided to make 'good'.

so, classic 91-95(6?) then a little at the end. dud the rest of the way thru. SD=the album that made me listen again and again, on headphones, because i couldn't tell what the fuck that noise was @ _____ time in the song ______. few albums seem so dense, still! i know it's because of vig and his "HUGE" production, but it really works there!

hahahah....wow! What a jackass I was. I still kinda believe it, but what a needlessly obnoxious statement.

There are some fine moments on Gish (notably "Bury Me"), but I found Corgan entirely insufferable after that.

I've been misquoting this all these years! I forgot the 'deeply'!

OTM.

I'm always disturbed to find that something I've been saying for ten years came from some rock star interview circa 1995. It has happened. WTF.

Also, Chamberlin = vastly underrated drummer.

Heheh. I've been using the line since I read it because I was, "Oh, so perfect as ridiculous OTT 'WAAAAAAH!'" 'Deeply' almost ruins the flow of it in my mind!

Anyway, why isn't there more love for Siamese Dream? "Cherub Rock" and "Today" still hold up, I think. But maybe I can like them because I paid approximately zero attention to the image side of the band and never read any of Billy Corgan's interviews. I'm interested to know what he brought to Hole's Celebrity Skin record as well - maybe that collaboration worked because, say what you will about Courtney Love, she's not precious.

I'm relieved to hear you say so, Ned.

I doubt whatever Billy Corgan does with the Smashing Pumpkins name now could be much worse than the last couple albums he made under the original incarnation (or the things he's done since). 'Machina: The Hand of God' or whatever has to be one of the top two or three worst records I've ever heard, by anyone, ever.

But, I grudgingly admit to enjoying a Trent Reznor/TV On the Radio cover of "Warm Leatherette" the other day (though I suspect maybe Peter Murphy was on vocals). And the idea of enjoying something involving Trent Reznor would've seemed about as unlikely as Billy Corgan ever producing anything of any worth after 1994 (barring "Set the Ray to Jerry"). So who knows. . .

Unlike you I loved the end years of SP without reservation, but personally I was both interested and content to see what he'd do after all that, if anything -- personally I was fine with whatever solo or group things he's done since. But this just feels like the big Jane's Addiction reunion(s) mistake redux, and in combination with a (natural) moving away from hyperobsession on my part towards other things, it's all a bit desperate.

It's funny that the article is so defensive about it not being "for the money"--which of course surely means it's about little else (or else why not just call it Zwan II, or Billy & The Corigans?).

As for TVOTR--I'll admit I've never heard any of their music, but assumed they were harmless alterna-rock (though I did read that Bowie was riding their bandwagon, which it seems he was doing with Trent Reznor a decade ago or so).

I tend to do that with a LOT of artists! But these days it's more like the fact that you can pretty much have access to anything at little/no cost and therefore instead of playing something into the ground it's just part of an overall flow, which is good, I think. Everything is process -- I have a few key touchstones still, but even so.

I think meeting Billy Corgan circa 1996 finally put me off of what was, 93-95ish, my last bout of fanaticism with any act.

Upthread I talk about how I probably wouldn't be able to stand him if I ever actually met him! Not having or wanting actual heroes among those cultural figures whose work I enjoy was a good realization.

See, that's interesting. Because it seemed to me at the time (post-95, the twighlight years of Smashing Pumpkins) that a lot of the continued fandom of the band had to do with heroic, mythological rock-god-ness, the Billy Corgan "Zero/Rat In A Cage/Uncle Fester" persona. That you liked the band through that period based solely on the merit of the music--well it seems like that might make you pretty rare. I'll have to go read your review of 'Machina' at AMG if you wrote one, to see what you were able to salvage musically from the record. . .

But it's possible my aversion to "rock gods," or extra-musical projection of "persona" in any form, made me less than open-eared toward 'Adore' and 'Melancholy & The Infinite Sadness'. But I just remember a sinking feeling in my stomach with those records that. . . they just weren't as good as I wanted them to be. It took a couple years of indie rock dissappointment after that to decide that never again would I try to will myself into liking something.

Maybe it is? I have no idea, really.

Every quote from Corgan or Chamberlain on this seems to emphasize that the new songs will 'harken back to the glory days' (i.e., when their records sold), so at the very least I'm hoping I'll get to geek out to Corgan's guitar heroics/Chamberlain's insane drumming/Corgan's incredible use of the studio.

Then again, if they're referring to those glory days as ca. 'Stand Inside Your Love' or something, I'm bummed.

But that Machina II thing that floated around had some pretty interesting tracks on it (granted, smothered in garbage).

Speaking of Garbage, who is producing this new stuff?

what is this? where is this from?

Then he stormed off the stage as the crowd chanted Bullshit over and over again. It was a total fiasco.

too bad the recording's SOOO bad.

Trust the recording, it was terrible.

The fact that Zwan was also supposed to "harken back to the glory days" suggests otherwise. :/

I think this is already happening. There's some sort of basic indie life cycle, where whatever alt-rock was doing when you were 13-18 is pretty aces, and then after that, when you discovered indie music in college and you swore off the radio, at that point the landscape changes. In the bands my age (25) or younger you're getting an increasing number of kids who will speak with sincere admiration for the kick-assness of radio fare like the Foo Fighters' first three albums, which if they came out today would be dismissed immediately. Anyway, all this pontificating aside, I hear the Pumpkins thing in an increasing number of things, and the mix of bombast and sensitivity will always sell pretty well. (I'll bet you dollars to donuts that tons of those emo-hit bands are namechecking the Pumpkins in interviews - wall of guitar, keening whine, no one understand me, what's not to love?) Bear in mind that I love Mellon Collie - see this thread, and love equally things that I hear today that feel like they're made out of the same ingredients - "The Zookeeper's Boy" by Mew pops into my mind....

but the writing on adore is really sharp. it helped them to shed the loud guitars for a spell.

oh, and i probably obsessed over siamese dream briefly in the mid-nineties. same as any kid.

Not to mention the fact that the My Chemical Romance guy really does LOOK a lot like Corgan!

Finally got around to hearing the "Quiet and Other Songs" Siamese Dream demo tape that just got leaked...

It's pretty fuzzy and wobbly... there's a great big rockin version of "set the ray to jerry" on it that makes me wish they had fully fleshed out a version like it later on (much as i love the released version)

it seems billy had only written 1/4 of the lyrics to these songs at this point... he mumbles all over the place..

I was really desperate to hear this back in high school, but hell if i know why... maybe i thought it would contain a little more of the supposed mbv influence billy was talking about back then...

how did this leak anyway? i thought the only copy was at the library of congress (where they'll whip the piss out of you if you try to copy anything)

Hmm, thank you for the tip...

Looks like it's been here since August or so:
http://www.thepumpkins.net/content/view/647/47/

Classic, even if only for Corgan appearing on ECW wrestling and taking someone out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3o2LY9uU6M

I like the guitar sound on Siamese Dream a lot. Hate his voice though, doesn't everyone.

"Smashing Pumpkins to release professional pre-Gish material; re-release Gish, Siamese Dream, and Mellon Collie; Gish and Siamese Dream tour to follow in United States."

(This is from a friend who has a friend in the band. Not sure it's been announced yet, so you heard it here first.)

Billy suddenly realizing why people liked him in the first place, I see. Anyway, nice to hear that stuff like "Jennifer Ever" and "There It Goes" and all that will be getting released formally.

Ned, did you ever get around to hearing Zeitgeist, and if so...?

I think I heard enough to sigh and shrug at.

Wonder what, if any, bonus material they'd put on MCIS. Anything left that wouldn't be greeted with a shrug by the masses that already own the singles box from that album?

There's a number of completed songs that never made it (think everything that makes up "Pistachio Medley"). "Methuselah" would be a good choice.

True, didn't think of all those. Totally forgot about "Methuselah". The only boots I really have from that period are those instrumental demos of Billy's.

still waiting for the dozen essential live versions of silverfuck to come out

Good call. I think they need a Silverfucked in the vein of that Grateful Dead album that combines all the versions of "Dark Star".

I just noticed that the Pumpkins' song "Thirty-Three" sounds almost exactly the same as the song "Journey to the Past" from the 20th Century Fox movie, Anastasia.

Seriously, listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m2BBC5dwoE

Turns out the Pumpkins song came out in 1995, while Anastasia hit theaters in 1997. So we at least know the Pumpkins didn't rip off a kids' movie for the best single from Mellon Collie.

If Corgan had properly utilized Jimmy Chamberlain's talents instead of indulging his Depeche Mode fetish on the drum tracks, I believe Adore would easily rank as their best album. Unfortunately it remains a relic of that awkward stretch in the late-90s when everyone from Liz Phair to Eric Clapton attempted to stay hip by going trip-hop or hiring The Dust Brothers. File it along with From the Choirgirl Hotel and Kingsize in the "great album, but stop with the fucking breakbeats already" category.

Mostly, though, I think the Pumpkins were at their best before Corgan's ego was vindicated by global success & they were content to churn out first-class slabs of fuzzy dreampop like "Drown" & "Rhinoceros."

If Corgan had properly utilized Jimmy Chamberlain's talents instead of indulging his Depeche Mode fetish on the drum tracks, I believe Adore would easily rank as their best album.

Alternately, some of us love that album precisely BECAUSE he indulged that fetish.

Fair enough, Ned. I prefer to take my Depeche and my Pumpkins in separate doses. Corgan's Cure fetish, on the other hand, I have absolutely no problem with.

They (ie Billy Corgan and whoever else) are going to be playing at Harrah's Casino=fell the fuck off

If Corgan had properly utilized Jimmy Chamberlain's talents instead of indulging his Depeche Mode fetish on the drum tracks, I believe Adore would easily rank as their best album.

If Corgan had properly utilized Jimmy Chamberlain's talents instead of indulging his Depeche Mode fetish on the drum tracks If Chamberlain had properly utilized his own talents instead of indulging his heroin fetish on the Mellon Collie tour

btw Ned OTM

File it along with From the Choirgirl Hotel and Kingsize in the "great album, but stop with the fucking breakbeats already" category.

:-)

..instead of indulging his heroin fetish on the Mellon Collie tour

Yes. OK. hmmm.. I forgot about that. Did they have an official drummer at that time, or did Corgan opt for the post-Bill Berry REM strategy of rotating session guys?

?

http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/go_fug_yourself/2009/04/a_shot_at_fug_with_smashing_pu.html

Don't quite get why this is so crazy - what kind of women does Billy Corgan usually date?

http://images-jp.amazon.com/images/P/B00000638L.09.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

My mind isn't blown or anything but Tila Tequila does seem a bit different from Courtney Love or Chris Fabian.

not to mention Yelena Yemchuk...

i don't think dude is particularly ugly, but could do without the white suit

this thread has been bumped so i will post today's news as the try out are happening in Los Angeles on April 14.

So let's get down to business and talk about what the plans are ahead. First up is/are the drum tryouts on the 14th/April. We've received a staggering amount of submissions so far (over 1,000!), so let me say to everyone who has submitted thank you and God Bless you for having the courage to throw your name out there. The auditions on the 14th are just the first round of trying people out. There is no 'hurry' at the moment, as I'm not quite ready to record yet, and it's possible I may need more than one drummer for what my plans are. So for someone who may think they would never get a chance there is still time in the months ahead to keep trying. I view it as a process to find the right person(s) and it's important that the right consideration is given. Jeff and I will be holding the first round of auditions, with me on bass (lookout!).

I know it's a bit contradictory but Billy Corgan made me hate Smashing Pumpkins.

not contradictory at all. dude sings like cartman.

I mean, I used to like Smashing Pumpkins, but Billy Corgan's been such a douchebag that I really can't enjoy even Gish anymore.

^^^^^ this

Reasons to still enjoy the Smashing Pumpkins:
1. "Glynis"
2. "Home" from Machina 2
3. The enduringly lovely and heartfelt "Whir." I fell in love with this song at age 12, and am almost 28 now. Some of the verses only hit home now, and I guess that's natural. It perfectly captures the spirit that I suppose we associate with Generation X now...but it's really just a song about being scared about responsibility and growing up.

woozy reverb-y guitar in the background of "whir" is so classic

http://totalyellow.com/F/Thr/BillyCorganBozo.jpg

"This Time" on Machina is pretty nice....Big chunks of that album are pretty rewarding these days too...

I was about as Pumpkins obsessive as it gets back in high school, but around the time I went to college (zwan-era) I had a really embarrassing eureka moment concerning how much of a weener Corgan is and I sort of completely gave up on them. Now over 8 years later I'm finally going back and listening to them again and really pleasantly surprised by just how much I still love most of these songs. And I stand firmly in the "Adore is their best but everything's pretty fantastic" camp.

Aside the 'Adore' bit, I had a very similar journey.

never had time for the smashing pumpkins. they seemed like the wrong sort of thing at the time: bloated, melodramatic, intolerably "commercial" (this was the early 90s, remember). i was into low fi indie, old free jazz, glenn branca. and when i wanted something like what SP were offering, i'd just spin daydream nation or loveless again.

but i've been listening to siamese dream recently and liking it ok. the lyrics are wretched, but only occasionally so bad as to overpower the music, and the music is wonderful. or at least quite pleasant. probably helps that i know absolutely nothing about billy corgan the actual real life person.

mostly like them due to nostalgia of youth, but i'll go to the mat for the guitar solo in "soma" any day of the week.

Regrettably went out to the Austin show tonight, it was pretty dire. Got there a bit late, heard "Eye," "Bullet," "United States," "Stand Inside Yr Love," "Tarantula," "Zero," "Tonight," and about 4-5 new or unreleased tracks. Greatest hits on autopilot, not a thing from Gish or Siamese Dream.

The good news: Corgan's got a mean sense of humor in his old age...

"All of my songs fall into one of three categories: 1) Instant classics, 2) misunderstood gems, 3) ........................ suicidal themes."

^^ this is all coming from someone who saw the Pumpkins *twice* on the tour for Zeitgeist, and loved every second of it, btw.

The YouTube clips of this show are horrendous (as was most of the show) but this one's kinda great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPhFraxG9B8

"Eye" is one of their best songs imo...my best friend at the time was mad they ever used keyboards and wanted to re-record all their songs like "Eye" and off of "Adore" with guitars. I, OTOH, kind of wished Billy would turn into an agoraphobe who locked himself up with his synths only and sent out the occasional CD-R of tracks and a little Post-It telling the world "I'm still alive...for now." (He seems like the kind of guy to employ melodramatic ellipses.)

It would be better than ZEITGEIST anyway!

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs343.ash2/62348_433022036221_502636221_5641007_3989670_n.jpg

Q: Do you see any reason for hope?

A: I just saw (former Pink Floyd leader) Roger Waters’ “The Wall” tour last night and it’s really beautiful. It had images of the war I Iraq and was updated to a modern context that made it timely. This guy is still out there and doing it. What the (expletive) are we doing? That’s what my heroes are supposed to do -- stick their boots up my (behind), and say: “What the (expletive) are you doing?

I have to figure out how to do it my own way. I don’t want to do it the way somebody else has. What’s an appropriate artistic response (to today’s problems)? Talk about an underwhelming generation. If you want to be really clear, once Kurt Cobain killed himself (in 1994), our generation has been lost trying to find anybody willing to be a point person. Who has stepped up from my generation and meant anything, to anybody other than themselves? I can’t think of anybody. I’ve tried many times but failed.

I’m not impressed with my generation. What started off like a good idea turned into a joke. At least I have enough pride to go out and make something.

But what the (expletive) happened? Sitting and watching “The Wall,” in hindsight, this appears to be a master work , especially when you see it staged. It has been 30 years since “The Wall” (debuted) and what has anybody done since then that’s been close to this as a cultural critique?

How about Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness a/k/a The Wall for Generation X? Dude has such a fricking Wall thing. What an awful album. I'm so glad his band doesn't sound anything like Pink Floyd.

I like The Wall!

The Wall is over admired, sure, but it still stands up as a pretty great album.

Sorry dudes. For me, the Wall is one of those double-albums that I could reduce to a maxi-single

A task made even more difficult because much of the best material is overplayed, e.g. Run Like Hell is an awesome song, but I have absolutely no need to hear it again, such has it been seared into my brain.

It has been 30 years since “The Wall” (debuted) and what has anybody done since then that’s been close to this as a cultural critique?

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Finally Pumpkins news I was curious about, reissue campaign starts later this year with unreleased stuff and continues through 2013. Most exciting parts - unreleased stuff from the vaults, hints at the last Metro show, remastered and (possibly) remixed Machina all as one big set, among other things.

Video here.

WARNING: Must sit through 4 minutes of Corgan talking at you.

Which is why I'm not clicking on that link.

Reasons to still enjoy the Smashing Pumpkins:
1. "Glynis"
2. "Home" from Machina 2
3. The enduringly lovely and heartfelt "Whir." I fell in love with this song at age 12, and am almost 28 now. Some of the verses only hit home now, and I guess that's natural. It perfectly captures the spirit that I suppose we associate with Generation X now...but it's really just a song about being scared about responsibility and growing up.

― Sam Weller

Yes on "Glynis" and "Whir" they're one of the best things they ever did. Haven't heard "home" yet... I kind of lost interest by then. I'd add "set the ray to jerry" and several parts of the gish album on this list.

v v v glad to see Whir get so much love; I always feel like it gets overlooked or unfairly bashed, but I def think it's one of their best...I'd probably add Shame, Obscured, and Mayonnaise to the list

also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pebJN-4qnLw

You know, this is almost par for the course now.

Whoa, Kareem Abdul Jabar is 64 already?!

if i could get kareem abdul jabaar to promote something i did, i would! WE ALL WOULD. billy is just living our dreams.

This is mad long and disjointed and repetitive, but I'm happy to count this as one more reason to illegally download Corgan's music if I feel that I need it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhVpCARW1iI&feature=player_embedded

Hmmm. I've happily not given Corgan any money since Zeitgeist despite being a huge, huge Pumpkins fan from about 1992-2000. It would be very easy to continue, but these upcoming reissues are super tempting. I'm really tired of his asshattery though and wish he would just retire for good.

I stopped with the solo album (which I liked v. much, of course!). But then he revived the name and I thought, "Yeah, that was dumb."

That said the clip kkvgz linked to is another reason to let him wander off into the wilderness.

Some further context here, via A/V Club. What an asshole.

See, I still don't have the complete back catalog from the good years and they're actually a band that I like well enough to listen to their records from time to time.

huh

I've said yes to photographing the Smashing Pumpkins gig in Glasgow tonight - I'm hoping that they can do some kind of justice to my teenage love of them.

That Corgan is an almost insufferable ass is a given, but, if they can still deliver musically, then I may walk away happy. What is the line-up nowadays even? Anyone seen them live recently?

I'd shake your hopes of them doing justice to your teenage love tbh, I think you'll be bitterly disappointed. It's not the Smashing Pumpkins anymore, it's the Billy Corgan show.

Not seen them recently. Was a huge fan up until Adore, still cherish all those albums, but everything after that is a bag of self-indulgent shite. Expect nothing and you might get something out of it :)

Wise words.

I saw them in 2008 or so, whenever Chamberlin was back on board for a while, and actually really enjoyed it, at least the older songs.

it bears reposting:

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

Haha!

when i saw them last year, it was a decent show, with Billy on his best behavior and a handful of peak era songs ("Hummer" sounded great that night), but that new kid on drums is just not up to filling Jimmy's shoes. i was just talking to a friend who saw them more recently and it sounded like a bit more of a drag, only like three big singles from the old days.

Recent setlists look pretty good: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-smashing-pumpkins/2011/o2-apollo-manchester-manchester-england-53d18721.html

I'm well up for hearing old but non-singles tracks like Frail & Bedazzled, Silverfuck, Thru The Eyes Of Ruby and such.

yeah holy shit that setlist looks great

I actually have to agree when I start thinking about those older songs. I was so pleased with the older album tracks & oddities that they played in 2008. I remember Drown being rather great.

yeah i heard "Drown" on the radio yesterday and i never get tired of that song

actually looking at the setlist from the show my friend saw they are playing a lot of great oldies, he just doesn't know their albums well enough to recognize all of them.

still, listening to their new drummer try to play stuff like "Cherub Rock" is just kinda sad.

Apparently the sets are >2hrs, so hoping for some good jamming on Silverfuck et al.

Manchester videos sound decent - tagging the 'I Am One' riff onto the end of 'Thru The Eyes Of Ruby' is cool...

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

OK banter at the start of the encore even, though apparently it was literally the only time anyone spoke at all... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bjvbLJ2w1U

locutus of corg was very chatty at the show i saw, like he was really trying to prove he had a sense of humor

Those first three Pumpkins albums are absolutely superb, IMO. I can't take 'Adore' and 'MACHINA' in one sitting, but there's more than a handful of songs that I love on each. I haven't heard anything that Corgan has done since resurrecting the Pumpkins name, though - the Zwan album was the last thing he was responsible for that I purchased, which I thought had its moments but very rarely gets dug out for a spin.

It was actually really great! I had a brilliant time!

http://krakow.zenfolio.com/img/s11/v36/p883719806-3.jpg

Great! :)

http://images.skem1.com/client_id_5138/Web.jpg

EMI Label Services/Caroline Distribution has announced that it has entered into an exclusive agreement with Martha’s Music to release the highly anticipated album from THE SMASHING PUMPKINS entitled OCEANIA on June 19th, 2012. The agreement covers the world excluding Canada, Brazil and Australia.

Produced by THE SMASHING PUMPKINS’ frontman Billy Corgan, OCEANIA is an intense and dynamic offering that will appeal to new and existing fans of THE SMASHING PUMPKINS alike. OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.

Peter Katsis, manager of SMASHING PUMPKINS for Prospect Park, added: “The Smashing Pumpkins created Oceania as an album experience, and it is intended for the process of the release to follow a path of inclusion, so that best efforts are made for all the fans hear it at the same time as press or radio. We were excited to find partners in EMI Label Services that were equally passionate about the plan for the album release as well as being huge fans of the Pumpkins.”

in other words, this is likely a steaming pile of shit and we don't want to let reviews come out ahead of release date

lmao I didn't realize his new band was just a bunch of younger doppelgangers of the old Pumpkins

p much

except the chamberlain looking dude is the guitarist

oh my gawd

While I enjoyed seeing them live last year, I cannot recall any of the new songs in the slightest and I can't help but be very pessimistic about this new album.

TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE

their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE

I'd listen to the nu-Pumpkins if they sounded like Tear Garden.

OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
o_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
o_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
o_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
o_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
o_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
o_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
o_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
o_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.
_OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.

I've heard many reports that this thing is actually really good and their best since Adore. Which, y'know, very low bar, but its enough to have me interested again.

It *sounds* great, better than they have in a while, but the songs aren't very striking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jelyGb0luj8

Possibly my favourite Simpsons line ever.

Did this story get posted somewhere already?
http://www.factmag.com/2012/06/12/slashing-pumpkins-billy-corgan-threatens-to-piss-on-radiohead/

” I can’t think of any people outside of Weird Al Yankovic who have both embraced and pissed on Rock more than I have. Obviously there’s a level of reverence, but there’s also a level of intelligence to even know what to piss on. ‘Cause I’m not pissing on Rainbow. I’m not pissing on Deep Purple. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity. This value system that says Jonny Greenwood is more valuable than Ritchie Blackmore. Not in the world I grew up in, buddy. Not in the world I grew up in"

Billy Corgan otm, at least wrt to Greenwood and Blackmore.

Billy Corgan, enemy of pomposity.

yeah I am having problems wrapping my head around that

Yeah, that part is pretty o_O but when have we ever expected this fuckin' guy to have a decent impression of his own worth.

But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity8====D---___OCEANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE.

http://www.factmag.com/2012/06/12/slashing-pumpkins-billy-corgan-argues-with-entity-that-is-not-arguing-back-calls-nonlistening-entity-buddy/

"Not in the world I grew up in, buddy. Not in the world I grew up in"

gonna guess that the recording of this has Corgan's voice getting progressively more distant and is immediately followed by the sound of a pub's lavatory door closing

I don't even know why he is comparing the two bands. Did he buy In Rainbows expecting a cover version of I Surrender?

LoL this thread is hilarious. This band is hilarious.

Last time i saw Smashing Pumpkins they were playing on the TV at some bar, and in-between some songs a bunch of wrestlers came out on stage to 'stop the show' and the Pumpkins had to fight back or something. This lame skit lasted maybe 5 mins or so and then the wrestlers left the stage and they went back into playing more music.

Also is that the album cover? It looks like it was randomly generated by myspace or something.

Does Billy Corgan not realise that if Jonny Greenwood ducks and he accidentally pees on Phil Selway instead, he'll have to endure years of Splashing Drumskins taunts?

xxp: I feel like this is Corgan's game though, right? playing the heel?

Look, if Corgan does actually piss on Radiohead (and let's hope that this will happen), I will pay good cash money on "Oceania". Not that I'd play it or anything.

OCEAN OF PISSANIA, the band’s 7th studio record, is “an album within an album,” part of their 44-song work-in-progress PISSGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE

NOBGARDEN BY URETHRASCOPE

And then we have

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/159706-in-defense-of-billy-corgans-foray-into-professional-wrestling/

http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/m/mcguire-corganwrestling-splsh.jpg

(The picture is worth more than the article, which appears to have been written by a mummy.)

1) Weird Al >>>>> Billy Corgan
2) Maybe he was confusing In Rainbows and Rainbow? Corgan was all, huh, I thought Blackmore was in Rainbow, but this doesn't sound like him at all. And then he felt really foolish so lashed out.

Mayonnaise is probably the best Smashing Pumpkins song.

Mayonnaise is probably the best Smashing Pumpkins song.

in what world are Deep Purple and Rainbow NOT pompous

I mean, I agree with him that Blackmore is way more interesting/better than Johnny Greenwood but uh

Those wrestling medals/belts look weirdly like customised party cakes

I don't even know why he is comparing the two bands. Did he buy In Rainbows expecting a cover version of I Surrender?

― Zaireeka Badu (NickB), Tuesday, 12 June 2012 11:32

awesome.

i get what he's saying, but there are a lot more effective ways to voice your displeasure with guitar rock falling out of fashion. it's not a question of whether greenwood is better than blackmore, because no one listens to radiohead for the riffs.

the new album is actually pretty ok

Billy Corgan, enemy of pomposity.

That's what's making me laugh about this. And say what you like about Radiohead but I don't think they take themselves even half as seriously as Corgan.

Radiohead were a good riff band, around the same time Smashing Pumpkins was a good riff band. actually, they both started focusing on synths and drum machines around the same time shortly afterward too.

i wish i knew computer shit better so i could make a mash-up album "In Rainbow"

Reissues reissues reissues. Next up next week, Pisces Iscariot:

---

‘PISCES ISCARIOT’:

Deluxe Physical Album Contents:
– Original Album Remastered & Reissued For The First Time
– 17 Previously Unreleased or Alternate Versions of Pisces Era Songs
– 24 Previously Unreleased Live Performances (Pulse Basement Jam, 1988) (DVD logo)
– First Ever SP Demo Reproduced on Cassette
– Postcards, Watercolor Illustrations, Lyrics, Photos
– Liner Notes by David Wild and Track-by-Track Annotations by Billy Corgan

Deluxe Digital Contents:
– Original Album Remastered
– 17 Previously Unreleased or Alternate Versions of Pisces Era Songs

Standard Physical, Digital and 180G Vinyl
– Original Album Remastered & Reissued For The First Time
– Includes: Starla, Landslide & La Dolly Vita

TRACKLISTS:
[CD 1] (Deluxe Physical/Digital, Standard Physical/Digital, Vinyl)

1. Soothe
2. Frail And Bedazzled
3. Plume
4. Whir
5. Blew Away
6. Pissant
7. Hello Kitty Kat
8. Obscured
9. Landslide
10. Starla
11. Blue
12. Girl Named Sandoz
13. La Dolly Vita
14. Spaced

[CD 2] (Deluxe Physical/Digital only)

1. By June (Ignoffo Sessions/2012 mix)
2. My Dahlia (Ignoffo Sessions/2012 Mix)
3. Jesus Loves His Babies (Gish Sessions rough mix)
4. Cinnamon Girl (Ignoffo Sessions/2012 Mix)
5. Glynis (2012 Mix)
6. Crawl (Gish Sessions outtake)
7. Cinder Open (Eddy St. demo/2012 mix)
8. Blissed (Sadlands demo/2012 Mix)
9. Slunk (Live)
10. Jackie Blue
11. Venus In Furs (Live)
12. Translucent (Sadlands demo/2012 mix)
13. French Movie Theme (Siamese Sessions outtake)
14. Purr Snickety (Gish b-sides session outtake)
15. There It Goes (demo/2012 mix)
16. Vanilla (Ignoffo Sessions)
17. Why Am I So Tired (Live in studio demo)

[DVD ] (Deluxe Physical Only)

Pulse Basement Jam ( 11/19/1988 - Pulse Cable Access - Lou Hinkhouse)

Introduction by Lou Hinkhouse

1. There It Goes
2. She (Inc.)
3. She
4. Under Your Spell
5. My Eternity (Inc.)
6. My Eternity (Inc.)
7. My Eternity (Inc.)
8. My Eternity
9. Bleed
10. Nothing and Everything
11. Jennifer Ever (Inc.)
12. Jennifer Ever (Inc.)
13. Jennifer Ever (Inc.)
14. Jennifer Ever (Inc.)
15. Jennifer Ever
16. Death of a Mind
17. Spiteface

Bonus Performaces
1. Blue (10/22/1991 - Atomic Records - Milwaukee, WI)
2. Offer Up (6/9/1992 - The Unicorn - Milwaukee, WI)
3. The Joker (6/10/1992 - The Unicorn - Milwaukee, WI)
4. Slunk (6/10/1992 - The Unicorn - Milwaukee, WI)
5. Dancing in the Moonlight (7/4/1993 - Raymond Revue Bar - London, UK)
6. Snap (8/11/1989 - Avalon - Chicago, IL)
7. Hello Kitty Kat (8/21/1994 - Starplex Amphitheater - Dallas, TX - 2nd stage
Lollapalooza performance)

DEMO CASSETTE (Deluxe Physical Only)

SIDE A
1. Jennifer Ever
2. East
3. Nothing And Everything

SIDE B
1. Sun (remix)
2. She (live)
3. Spiteface

rad!

Very excited for that one!

Also, the new album is not terrible and arguably their best since Adore.

Kind of annoyed that "Jennifer Ever" is only going to get relegated to a cassette though. Even for low-level SP B-sides that one never gets much love and I've always liked it.

Oceania is aight. they finally released a single off it and made the really odd choice of "The Celestials."

Pisces Iscariot is so dope, one of the most album-y and cohesive rarities comps ever

otm

it weirds me out that now i can't find any evidence of "Frail And Bedazzled" ever charting or even having a single release but i def heard it on the radio a lot before "Landslide" became the big hit off that record

New album is the best thing Corgan has been involved with in probably the last 12 years or so.

imo "G.L.O.W" and "That's The Way My Love Is" and a couple Zwan songs slay anything on this

for all the cr*p etc that surrounds billy, i really like the zwan album.

They were pretty fun live, saw their second-ever show. Was kinda unusual to see him actually laughing and having a good time for a whole set.

Zwan live was much, much better than they ended up being on record, though I liked a handful of songs off of it. I'm really happy with Oceania though, because it restores a tiny shread of faith in Corgan (though even that is slowly being eroded every time he does an interview).

I remember "Frail and Bedazzled" being played on the radio too but, being from Chicago, we'd get a lot of non-single SP stuff played on the radio and it was hard for me to tell if it was any sort of official release.

He has seemed quite chirpy and personable the last couple of times I've seen the Pumpkins here in Glasgow (circa 1 year and 4 years ago).

Not big on Oceania yet, but keen on the Pisces Iscariot reissue; I think of that as absolute prime era.

The reissue looks to be as close as we'll get to seeing Mashed Potatoes get a formal release, though even then it's just a grouping of selections from it, and in some cases alternate takes. ("Cinnamon Girl" is only known from a live-on-radio performance, which is where I'm assuming "Venus in Furs" comes from here.)

The demo cassette is exactly that, a bright red cassette in a faux photocopied cardboard cassingle slip, kinda redundant, and the old-timey postcards are totally pointless. But I'm looking forward getting into the extra tracks and DVD.

And here we go...

--

MELLON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS

DELUXE BOX SET:

– 5CD +DVD

– Physical Tracks: 106, Digital Tracks: 92

– Original album remastered for the first time

– 64 bonus tracks of previously unreleased material or alternate versions of Mellon Collie era songs

– DVD featuring live show filmed at the Brixton Academy, London (1996) and bonus performances from Rockpalast (1996)

– Housed in a 12 x 12 lift-top box with magnetic closure, reimagined cover art and velvet-lined disc holder

– 2 books containing personal notes, lyrics, new collage artwork plus a Decoupage kit for creating your own scenes from the Mellon Collie universe.

VINYL

– 4LP (180gram), Original album remastered for first time, 28 tracks

– Remastered vinyl features the original record spread out over 8 sides (4 LPS) for the first time to ensure the optimum sound

– MCIS never before released on vinyl in the US (original vinyl previously released in the UK)

– Housed in 12x12 rigid slipcase with 2 books containing personal notes, new collage artwork, lyrics and more.

2CD

- Original double album remastered for the first time

- Physical and Digital Tracks: 28

TRACKLISTS

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Dawn To Dusk (CD1)

1. Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness

2. Tonight, Tonight

3. Jellybelly

4. Zero

5. Here Is No Why

6. Bullet With Butterfly Wings

7. To Forgive

8. An Ode To No One

9. Love

10. Cupid De Locke

11. Galapogos

12. Muzzle

13. Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans

14. Take Me Down

Twilight To Starlight (CD2)

1. Where Boys Fear To Tread

2. Bodies

3. Thirty-Three

4. In The Arms Of Sleep

5. 1979

6. Tales Of A Scorched Earth

7. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby

8. Stumbleine

9. X.Y.U.

10. We Only Come Out At Night

11. Beautiful

12. Lily (My One And Only)

13. By Starlight

14. Farewell And Goodnight

Morning Tea (CD3)

1. Tonight, Tonight (Strings Alone mix)

2. Methusela (Sadlands demo)

3. X.Y.U. (Take 11)

4. Zero (Synth mix)

5. Feelium (Sadlands demo)

6. Autumn Nocturne (Sadlands demo)

7. Beautiful (Loop version)

8. Ugly (Sadlands demo)

9. Ascending Guitars (Sadlands demo)

10. By Starlight (Flood rough)

11. Medellia Of The Gray Skies (Take 1)

12. Lover (Arrangement 1 demo)

13. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby (Take 7)

14. In The Arms Of Sleep (Early Live demo)

15. Lily (My One And Only) (Sadlands demo)

16. 1979 (Sadlands demo)

17. Glamey Glamey (Sadlands demo)

18. Meladori Magpie

19. Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (Home Piano version)

20. Galapagos (Instrumental/Sadlands demo)

21. To Forgive (Sadlands demo)

High Tea (CD4)

1. Bullet With Butterfly Wings (Sadlands demo)

2. Set The Ray To Jerry (Vocal Rough)

3. Thirty-Three (Sadlands demo)

4. Cupid De Locke (BT 2012 mix)

5. Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans (Live Studio rough)

6. Jellybelly (Instrumental/Pit mix 3)

7. The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)

8. Jupiter’s Lament (Barbershop version)

9. Bagpipes Drone (Sadlands demo)

10. Tonight, Tonight (Band Version Only, No Strings)

11. Knuckles (Studio outtake)

12. Pennies

13. Here Is No Why (Pumpkinland demo)

14. Blast (Fuzz version)

15. Towers Of Rabble (Live)

16. Rotten Apples

17. Fun Time (Sadlands demo)

18. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby (Acoustic version)

19. Chinoise (Sadlands demo)

20. Speed

Special Tea (CD 5)

1. Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (Nighttime version 1)

2. Galapagos (Sadlands demo)

3. Cherry (BT 2012 mix)

4. Love (Flood rough)

5. New Waver (Sadlands demo)

6. Fuck You (an ode to no one) (Production Master rough)

7. Isolation (BT 2012 mix)

8. Transformer (Early mix)

9. Dizzle (Sadlands demo)

10. Goodnight (Basic Vocal rough)

11. Eye (Soundworks demo)

12. Blank (Sadlands demo)

13. Beautiful (Instrumental-Middle 8)

14. My Blue Heaven (BT 2012 mix)

15. One And Two

16. Zoom (7 ips)

17. Pastichio Medley (Reversed extras)

18. Marquis In Spades (BT 2012 mix)

19. Tales Of A Scorched Earth (Guitar Overdub mix)

20. Tonite Reprise (Version 1)

21. Wishing You Were Real (Home demo)

22. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby (Pit mix 3)

23. Phang (Sadlands demo)

DVD

Live at Brixton academy, London, 5/15/96

1. Tonight, Tonight

2. 1979

3. Zero

4. Here Is No Why

5. Thru the Eyes of Ruby

6. Porcelina of the Vast Oceans

7. Jellybelly

8. Silverfuck

9. Disarm

10. Bullet with Butterfly Wings

Live at Rockpalast, 4/7/96

11. Fuck You (An Ode To No One)

12. Muzzle

13. Cherub Rock

14. X.Y.U.

ahhh those cd names in light of corgan's new business

Hahah hadn't even thought of that...

Billy Corgan recently opened a 1930s Chinese-style tea house, Madame Zuzu's Tea House, raising eyebrows among the hoi polloi of navel-gazing hipsters who are probably wondering if the famed Smashing Pumpkins frontman has committed a serious rock 'n' roll faux pas. He hasn't.

Tea is awesome. I don't know about this "Zuzu" business.

excited as all fuck!

2 books containing personal notes, lyrics, new collage artwork plus a Decoupage kit for creating your own scenes from the Mellon Collie universe.

But of course.

When does this come out?

Early December.

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.

this performance of zero from 2000 kind of rules, so much more metal than the other ones on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7yIdgsXfIQ

so will anyone rep for PUmpkins stuff post-Machina? I finally got around to listening to Oceania and it was ok! Much better than I expected. I didn't deal with Zeigeist or whatever it was called....how about the other freebie stuff (teagarden etc).

I still think this one (a one-off single for some freebie comp.) is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U08DD_VgIk

My opinion on the post-MACHINA Pumpkins stuff basically amounts to Zeitgeist = nay, Oceania = yay.

In fact, I'd go as far as saying that the only thing I miss on Oceania is Jimmy Chamberlin's drumming. It'd be silly to suggest that Oceania is in any way comparable to the first three (proper) Pumpkins albums, but it's extremely far from being a total disaster like Zeitgeist was.

Man, saw this thread revived and was hoping Corgan was up a tree again.

Well this'll do it

As part of their Smashing Pumpkins reissue drive, EMI are to give The Aeroplane Flies High a second crack of the whip – and they’ve gone well beyond the call of duty.

As is to be expected, EMI’s reissue will feature remastered versions of all 33 of the album’s original tracks. In addition, the reissue will feature a frankly intimidating 90 lost demos, live recordings and alternate versions spread over five CDs. A sixth disc will features an assortment of live recordings from 1996′s Mellon Collie tour, and a supplementary DVD documenting a concert recording in France also makes the cut. The package will also include track-by-track annotations from Billy Corgan (which, given the number of tracks, is basically a novella’s worth of material) and liner notes from David Wild, all enclosed in a 46-page book.

Tracklist:
CD1: Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
…Said Sadly
You’re All I’ve Got Tonight
Clones (We’re All)
A Night Like This
Destination Unknown
Dreaming
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks:
Movers and Shakirs
Germans in Leather Pants
Millieu
Jackboot
A/Ab/E/B/F#
Rings
Ugly
Blaster Caster
Little Ditty
Verily I Say
New Waver
The Groover
Ravi Revi Roo
On The Loose
Slurry
tracks 8 – 22 Recorded at Gravity Studios, Chicago, IL, March 15, 1994 – March 16, 1994

CD2: 1979
1979
Ugly
Believe
Cherry
The Boy
Set the Ray to Jerry
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks:
Tonight, Tonight (acoustic version/instrumental rough)
Jupiter’s Lament (billy solo)
Zero (8trk demo)
Marquis in Spades (8trk demo)
Have Love Will Travel (8trk demo)
Infinite Sadness (siamese outtake)
1979 (acoustic)
Aeroplane Flies High (acoustic snippet)
Take me Down (instrumental)
Star Song (dat mix/vocal rough)

CD3: Zero
Zero
God
Mouths of Babes
Tribute to Johnny
Marquis in Spades
Pennies
Pastichio Medley
LP ONLY: 7. Pastichio Medley (with fades)
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks:
By Starlight
Set The Ray to Jerry
Mouths of Babes
Cupid de Locke
Galapagos
To Forgive
Lily (my one & only)
Here is no Why
Tracks 8 – 15 Recorded Live at the Double Door, Chicago, IL, February, 27 1995

CD4: Tonight, Tonight
Tonight, Tonight
Meladori Magpie
Rotten Apples
Medellia of the Gray Skies
Jupiter’s Lament
Blank
Tonite Reprise
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks:
Stumbleine
Ugly
Meladori Magpie
God
Love
Pissant
Hello Kitty Kat
Special Winner’s Song
I Just Wanna Make Love To You
Tracks 8 – 16 Recorded Live at the Double Door, Chicago, IL, February, 21, 27, 28, 1995

CD5: Thirty-Three
Thrity-Three
The Last Song
The Aeroplane Flies High
Transformer
The Bells
My Blue Heaven
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks:
Silverfuck (live 7/10/96)

CD6: Live Inside the Dark Globe
Where Boys Fear To Tread Cleveland, Ohio 7.3.96
Zero
San Francisco, California 2.7.96
Fuck You / An Ode To No One
Stockholm, Sweden 4.10.96
X.Y.U.
Los Angeles, California 2.3.96
To Forgive
Washington, D.C. 1.6.96
Thirty-Three
New York City, New York 1.11.96
Tonight, Tonight
New York City, New York 1.11.96
Lily (My One And Only)
Washington, D.C. 1.5.96
Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans
Cleveland, Ohio 7.3.96
Jellybelly
Gent, Belgium 4.6.96
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Los Angeles, California 2.3.96
By Starlight
Buffalo, New York 7.2.96
Bodies
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 7.5.96
Silverfuck
Copenhagen, Denmark 4.9.96

Deluxe Edition Concert DVD:
Malsaucy Lake, Belfort, France, July 4, 1997
Glimpses
Where Boys Fear To Tread
Eye
Tonight, Tonight
Transformer
Thru The Eyes Of Ruby
The End Is The Beginning Is The End
By Starlight
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Muzzle
1979
X.Y.U.
Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans
The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)

Holy shit!

Oh my! Yes!

You know, with all their vast, intricate, wandering, lofty, melancholy fantasias, I always found them to be weirdly analogous to c. 1900 children's book illustrations (most obviously those big, deluxe editions of Poe's Tales Of Mystery & Imagination).

Which is to say, regressive and stationary, stuck in a space bounded in by bourgeois domesticity and bourgeoise adolescence, and spoiled (I think) by the singer's voice.

Yeah, Poe's country ballads were AWFUL.

As is most of my input when I really ought to be asleep, I'll admit

stoked for "the groover", "rings" etc. would kill for a full length "knuckles".

bah forgot those are both on the gravity sessions stuff already in circlations.

s

I was drinking-the-kool-aid when i preached the oncoming release of Siamese Dream as a follow-up to the hopeful promise of Gish, and re-coursed my allegiance to Billy every album there-after; he sucked as soon he shaved his head (yet, still wimpish in comparison to Sampson).

Isolated guitar track for "Zero." Pretty awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn0NiiAfAjc

was jus thinkin i love the outro to bullet a lot

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/4146/p52n.jpg

I got the Mellon Collie Vinyl remaster set recently and it is very, very nice. It sounds great, but unfortunately, Billy Corgan's voice is pitched at a frequency that really highlights the fact that my speakers are somewhat broken and in bad need of repair.

So he's announced two new albums and debuted a new site and whatever okay

http://www.smashingpumpkinsnexus.com/

Oh...did I mention the photo and font?

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/e56f8f_17e8789345fe49abad7c766c6ceb116d.jpg_srz_p_955_305_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_jpg_srz

Lol & smh

all i have to say re everything

baaaha, that's awesome. Someone should make a history of alarming things Billy Corgan has put forth over the World Wide Web. Remember when he was going to make a tech-noir sci fi animated cyber-series?

grumble….yes….. ugh

why billy

WHY

LOL amazing. Takes me back to Livejournal in the year 2k.

Billy Corgan in "dresses like a gothic kite" shocker.

Is that font Papyrus?

Thank God this guy is finally releasing some new music.

oh billypaws, from that same new site:

Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan pulls back the curtains on the pro-wrestling world as he takes over creative direction for the independent wrestling company Resistance Pro. Produced by Left/Right, LLC; Executive Producers: Banks Tarver, Ken Druckerman, Billy Corgan and Ghen Maynard.

He needs to just stop messing about and do a collab album w ICP already.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttD9DAmCCeI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3nO33J_3lY

banner week for billy

http://gawker.com/behold-billy-corgan-on-the-cover-of-paws-chicago-1580238738

http://www.smashingpumpkinsnexus.com/#!LYRIC-BIRDS-ON-THE-HORIZON-SP-ALBUM-UPDATE/c7ba/EC613E98-6DB4-45A7-A55F-2C2201BC7E16

So does anyone apart from me think that Oceania is actually a very good record? I was all prepared to hate it after being incredibly disappointed with Zeitgeist, so it's been quite a surprise to me that not only am I still listening to it, but I'm enjoying it a lot.

Love that Paws cover. He looks so happy!

I liked Oceania quite a bit and it is, by far, the best Pumpkins 2.0 release. Still won't even compare it to anything in the original ruh though.

praise the lord!
mike byrne is OUT
or,
as billy put it,
"like Elvis,"
HE HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

Asked by MusicRadar if Byrne would be drumming alongside newly-recruited percussionist Tommy Lee on the band's forthcoming Monuments to an Elegy (slated to arrive sometime next year), Corgan responded, "Mike, like Elvis, has left the building." The reason for Byrne's departure remains uncertain; when pressed for more details on the circumstances of the split, Corgan repeated, "Let’s just say that Mike, like Elvis, has left the building.”

lol

Sorry folks, I liked his drumming.

He's left the building... ELVIS

i like picturing Billy taking great satisfaction in preparing that quip and then being completely flummoxed when there was a follow-up question.

Why do they want to know so much about Mike? Well, I've got this bit I can run by them again...

is it possible that monuments to an elegy is their best release since mellon collie?

i've liked all of the new songs to varying degrees of like.

still, no

it's really good and easily the best of Pumpkins 2.0 but, no, let's not get crazy

I had such low low expectations for this, but it turns out that Corgan limiting himself to 3-4 minute pop song format + more synths + Tommy Lee on drums = surprisingly, a good result

“Now, he and I didn’t necessarily get along. But I like to sing his praises, because he really was that talented. I like to think the world with him would have been a better place, and I like to think a lot of the crap music that followed wouldn’t have existed if he had been around to criticise it. Because he had the moral standing to slay generations with a strike of the pen.” Although they didn’t get on, did Corgan, then, look up to Cobain?

“No. In the purest sense of the word, we were competitors. He and I were the top two scribes, and everybody else was a distant third.”

Everyone else.

Everybody.

Kinda pathetic how wedded this guy is to the 90s angst rock dream, for all the big ideas he seems so narrow in focus in other ways

It's easy enough to get in physical trouble with tools as it is.

The problem is the guy is all about big, and not enough about ideas.

having heard the new record

1) man is it better than oceania (which was SO BORING)
2) man is it his best record since thefutureembrace (hi ned)
3) this is coming from a dude who felt he could make a pretty decent ep out of the zeitgeist stuff so ymmv

yeah, p low bars there (tho I do remember liking some of thefutureembrace)

part of why i feel so charitable toward the record is 9 songs in 32 minutes is maybe the most concise billy's ever been

also it's sort of astounding how much "one and all" sounds like a top-tier mellon collie b-side

I'm suspicious of the short runtime/lack of epics, feel like it's a headfake in advance of a ludicrous three-hour guitarphonic splooge

sure but he'll never finish it

also it's sort of astounding how much "one and all" sounds like a top-tier mellon collie b-side

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Saturday, December 6, 2014 9:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's because it basically is, billy bastardized the riff from "The Viper" and made it worse lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edEM4MmSrnQ

ah well that wouldn't be the first time he's done that in pumpkins mk ii

I thought Quasar was pretty cool - that was like a pastiche of Cherub Rock, Frail & Bedazzled, Jellybelly, and Siva. my favorite song on Oceania is "The Celestials," would've been perfect on the new one.

but Monuments = Best Since Mellon Collie? ....ADORE???

I haven't heard this yet, but the fact that people are saying it's better than Oceania is definitely getting me excited. I still listen to Oceania on a regular basis and rate it highly. I loathe Zeitgeist.

MTAE only sold 17k in its first week....yikes

I have no idea if that's good or bad anymore.

I've just finished catching up on that RedditAMA that Corgan did, and found myself chuckling at the reactions to Corgan's... uh... Corgan-like way of answering questions.

2) man is it his best record since thefutureembrace (hi ned)

Noted. But I'm in a non-rush to hear this.

Future Embrace doesn't get enough respect at all, from anyone.

Do you think you’ve suffered from false narratives throughout your career?

I think that’s obvious. I’m laughing because I thought for sure I would get really strong reviews for our new album [Monuments to an Elegy], based on all the feedback I was getting. But I’m getting the same reviews I got back in the day, these kind of middling, muddling reviews that just won’t fucking say: “This is a fucking brilliant album from a brilliant artist.”

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

nice.

MTAE only sold 17k in its first week....yikes

― ET sippin the wig (spazzmatazz), Thursday, December 11, 2014 3:46 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have no idea if that's good or bad anymore.

― DavidLeeRoth, Thursday, December 11, 2014 8:20 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's about 1/3rd of what Oceania did the first week, and that wasn't exactly a blockbuster either, so yeah

This Guardian interview is amazing.

Dear Billy Corgan, if you make it seem like what you do is easy, then people will think it's easy. If you churn out material like it means nothing to you, then people will think you churn out music like it means nothing to you. If you keep hiring and firing musicians, then people will think they mean nothing, too. If you keep saying stupid things, then people will think you are stupid. If you think that no one understands your brilliance like you do, then you are not brilliant.

I’ve been in this business for 25 years and there is nobody in it who believes this is a three-star record. Nobody!

Agreed. I'm not going to listen to it, ever, so I guess by default that makes it a no-star album.

I’ve talked to, like, 500 people in the last fucking four months about the record!

But aren’t they likely to say that to your face?

Oh fuck off! Seriously now … that’s a stupid thing to say. Seriously. You’re basically saying that I’m willing to be coddled. Do I seem like someone who wants to be coddled?

...

An open letter to a wrestling manager, asking him to stop singing his own praises in interviews

I'd be down if he talked about himself exclusively in the third person. "Billy Corgan is tired of this shit! Billy Corgan demands you get in the ring! Billy Corgan will take you down, mister! You don't mess with Billy Corgan unless you want Billy Corgan to make a mess of you!"

http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2012-03-15/etc_opener12__01__630x420.jpg

His nom de ring could be "Billy Corgan." His KO move would be smashing a pumpkin on someone's head.

I was watching a Die Antwoord live performance the other day and at one point Ninja’s on the mic and he goes, “Fuck the system, we’re going to build our own fucking system!” And that’s how I feel, and that’s why he’s a fucking prophet.

"Or was that Alec Empire, I don't know"

there's a little third person in the interview. "If young Billy had gotten the credit he deserved, when he deserved it, then things might have been different. Bands might have lasted longer, more tickets might have been sold."

there's a little third person in the interview. "If young Billy had gotten the credit he deserved, when he deserved it, then things might have been different. Bands might have lasted longer, more tickets might have been sold."

― christmas with the canks (some dude), Thursday, December 18, 2014 3:48 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jesus christ, that part of the interview! You can always trust Corgan to come up with some imagined alternate universe in which Corgan is the fuckin' Jesus of music and manages to singlehandedly save rock for future generations to enjoy. I'd be more outraged of the audacity of this nonsense if I didn't realise it was merely business as usual for Corgan... and I say that as a fan.

*of=at

Also:

Why not make an EDM record?

You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.

You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart.

It's like...he's been...HURT...iNNNNNN...I...I can't say it.

the core, the electronic dance music

Xxp Tbf Turrican, it did say [laughs] after that.

This is a perfect Corgan-being-Corgan interview and I wouldn't want it any other way.

pure gold, this one

I still haven't heard the new Pumpkins record yet, but I do wish he'd held onto the Oceania line-up.

The new record is even better than Oceania. I give it three stars!

love the interview.
much more fun to read than the usual.
so, in honour of billy caring and sharing, i have dug out 'the future embrace' for the first time in years.
i give it three stars !

Tommy Lee >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mike Byrne

Oceania had better high points and I liked some of the guitar epics on there, but this is most definitely a consistently better record. But I wish he'd hold on to a lineup long enough to let them gel a little.

At this point, I'm just hoping that he delves into more bizarre collabs - Buck Dharma on guitars and Mike Portnoy on drums for the next record.

yeah i feel like Corgan is a spent force as an auteur but he could still do good stuff in a more collaborative environment. Zwan probably spooked him off from ever doing another supergroup or anything like that again, though.

Tommy Lee >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mike Byrne

otm, drumming on the new record is so tasteful

Zwan probably spooked him off from ever doing another supergroup or anything like that again, though.

agree.
and its a shame, cos take all the personal crap/history etc out, and its not that bad an album.

The Zwan album is a great power pop record.

Zwan's single best moment imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMQEZx9PqSo

the unrecorded/unreleased zwan material is pretty much 100 percent better than what made the record but of course it is

there was one song on the Zwan album i really loved but skimming it now i can't even figure out what it was or if i still like it

Wasn't most of Zwans live material written by various members of the band? The album is basically (completely?) Corgan penned tunes.

jesus, i/mary star of the sea is iirc written by the whole band

I’m not on trial here, OK? I’m not on trial.

the people's corgan

brilliant.
glad to see zwan is getting some love given the shyte that the album attracted.
it's a gorgeous summer glam/power pop groove.
and yes, i suspect i am in a crowd of one, i watched the dvd film that came with it (watchable after a few glasses - could be interesting watching it when sober !), and still have the sticker set that was hidden in the cd sleeve.

and yes, i suspect i am in a crowd of one, i watched the dvd film that came with it (watchable after a few glasses - could be interesting watching it when sober !), and still have the sticker set that was hidden in the cd sleeve.

crowd of two. always found jimmy the funniest

but yeah there are a bunch of snippets of great songs on that dvd that are just never gonna see the light of day

crowd of three. I really loved the whole Zwan period.

blimey - this is an unexpected outcome.
i seem to recall an outpouring of hate on ilm re that whole album/period.
just dropped the zwan album on the playlist, and i would say it still sounds good.
i suspect they all fell out and now hate each other, but i care not, as it sounds lovely, and there are some cracking songs.
whereas 'the future embrace' i got bored with quite quickly. such a cold disconnected album.
then again, its probably the way he wanted it to come across.
after all, the cover art implies a total alien disconnection groove a la his best mates release : 'mechanical animal'.

'Lyric' and 'Ride a Black Swan' are my two big favourites from the Zwan record.

Yeah, was always good with Zwan -- saw their second ever show, before Paz joined, and generally loved most of what I heard. Not that I think it'll ever happen or could but if a reissue series somehow resulted in a comprehensive Zwan box I'd get it.

"glorious' and "chrysanthemum" are great songs and seem to like be linear progression from machina etc.

I recall a friend who saw em live at the time telling me that their set was mainly songs that (a) weren't on Mary Star.. and (b) were better than the songs on Mary Star...

Yeah, I heard similar reports from friends who saw the pre-release Zwan shows. I also remember that the Djali Zwan, the acoustic incarnation that also had Ana Lenchantin on cello, put on some tremendous shows. I have a few bootlegs lying around somewhere. The blues numbers that Pajo and Sweeney really got into were p cool, iirc. The True Poets of Zwan, the guitar epic version, was more where the album ended up.

Lyric, Settle Down and Honestly are probably the best songs Corgan wrote after 'Adore'. The Zwan album was a four stars album imho.

All downhill after that though, and fast. New record is yet another "I reinvented myself! Oh no wait I am a parody of myself'-record. Three stars is too much.

no it's pretty good imo! not a reinvention just the most explicitly he's been synth rock since the solo record. i'm a big fan of "anti-hero"

Anyone who says this is a three star record lacks the brilliance to recognize its brilliance. Four stars or bust. Unless it is a five-star scale, in which case, five stars. Because four would scan too much as as three. Or just to be safe, let's call it an A+. Though of course, that implies anyone other than Corgan is qualified to even review this, let alone canonize it, so best to just defer to his taste and judgement and give the Smashing Pumpkins en tot A+/five-stars. Except Zwan, which gets A++/six stars, because it was underrated even more than more of his perfect stuff, with the exception of "TheFutureEmbrace," which failed to payoff on the promise of the single from "Lost HIghway" ('Eye?"). Unless that made it to the album, in which case, A++/five-stars!

Xp

Really? I'm willing to give it another spin based on that BradNelson, but what I heard first time round didn't bode well. Still, I will probably never drop this freak. He's meant too much to me in the lol teenage years.

same!

I think I prefer Oceania to the Zwan album. There, I said it.

i never really got over how the opener of oceania is a false "cherub rock"

Oh, 'Quasar' (the opener) is one of my least favourite tracks on Oceania without a doubt. But the album more than makes up for it with 'Panopticon', which fucking rules.

I mean, 'Panopticon' basically pushes all the same buttons for me as any classic Pumpkins track does... also, when the guitars come crashing in on 'Pinwheels', and the instrumental at the end of the title track.

zwan is his best stuff since siamese imo. interviewed him for that album and he was a total needless douche, rest of band were really very cool and nice. new album is... quite dull? I mean, its fine, it sort of sounds like classic pumpkins, but i can't remember any of the tunes now, and i listened to it a bunch to review it.

i gave it 3 stars. obviously. probably deserved 2 and a half though.

My friends' 3yo daughter this morning while listening to Smashing Pumpkins: "We need to take good care of these songs because they are old-fashioned."

?!?!? Amazing.

Hang on, this interview is done by the same guy who did that NME piece on Morrissey, isn't it?

Well, they're playing live on the BBC red button now. The rhythm section is Brad Wilk from Rage Against The Machine on drums and Mark Stoermer from The Killers on bass. Yeah.

Having heard the latest album, I don't think it's good as Oceania.

Another day, another interview, another "dude, no" moment:

Q. Sure, but at least some portion of the audience is going to be there to hear the records they liked 15 or 20 years ago. How do you feel about that?

A. I don't care. That's a nostalgia-sentimentality-based business that I am not a part of. It's like saying because one movie company makes cartoons and another company makes movies, I'm in the cartoon business. I feel like people lump me into the cartoon business, and I don't want to be in the cartoon business. It's very simple: You've got two great artists, two great histories, still making great music. We are going to go out and kick ass as good or better than somebody in their twenties or thirties or whatever. Either believe it or don't – but if you don't, then you will miss something that you rarely see, which in this case will be three hours of really powerful music. I mean, there is a point where you can't apologize for that, or you can't really explain it to someone who's got their head up their ass with a selfie stick.

Q. That's quite an image.

A. Thank you. I am a published poet. (Laughs)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/billy-corgan-on-touring-with-marilyn-manson-and-battling-nostalgia-20150605

The man hasn't aged well and his obsession with wrestling just weirds me out. SP was my favourite band from the age of 12 to 19 (when they broke up), but since then it has become really hard. Odd becomes some of his new music I really like. "The Chimera" from Oceania, for example, is a really good song. Somehow it would be easier to put up with him if the band got back together, but I really doubt that'll ever happen. What a shame.

(Funny how he says he's not part of a "nostalgia-sentimentality-based business" when he just re-issued all of his 20-year-old albums.)

He's really the definition of middlebrow. He'd be more interesting if he was, you know, more interesting. Stop writing songs, start making soundscapes. Stop trying to make hits, start trying to make music that challenges. Stop singing, start ... I dunno, just stop singing, Stop singing, stop talking, stop being a poet, stop everything and start over again, for real. Stop the Smashing Pumpkins and do something else.

I would buy an album from this guy if it was 40 minutes of the most atmospheric/ambient parts from 90s SP with no recycled riffs or singing

I would buy an album from this guy if I lived in a totalitarian state where the leader was really into Smashing Pumpkins and there was a general expectation that you would buy at least one album from this guy or face some real-life consequences

I've already bought several albums from this guy!

Somehow it would be easier to put up with him if the band got back together, but I really doubt that'll ever happen. What a shame.

D'Arcy is seriously mentally ill/burnt out on drugs. Not sure why he can't work with Iha & Chamberlin anymore though.

Because neither of them seem to want to is the answer to that one!

I would buy an album from this guy if it was 40 minutes of the most atmospheric/ambient parts from 90s SP with no recycled riffs or singing

that would actually be p awesome. smashing pumpkins never bettered Drown.

there was some moment in the 90s when one of the station IDs on the alt-rock station played like a tiny blurt of some song, still unknown to me, which i suspect had to be sonic youth or MBV, but which i, with my limited knowledge, could only guess was smashing pumpkins. in hindsight, the better fanbase-shedding, career-shedding move, cred-wise would have been to totally swing in this direction, worry less about hooks, choruses, singing, and just really go in for the wash of guitars: soaring, crashing, murmuring, trembling. the endlessly overdubbed guitars on siamese dream are so expressive and suggestive, much moreso than billy's lyrics (especially post-adore) which tended so much towards the obvious and melodramatic that it got hard to feel anything listening to the records.

By the way, the band will no doubt get voted into the Rock and Roll HOF next year. I assume we can expect Billy will want to play with the current line-up (whatever it is at the time) and freeze out the original members. Let's not forget he has recently dubbed James a "piece of s---" and Jimmy a "f---ing liar." Charming.

However, it would be awesome to see the four of them get along and play a couple old tunes.

ooh, good point. Chamberlain in particular is such a crucial component of their success, it'd be a bummer if Billy freezes him out like that.

Wow, I had no idea how messed up D'Arcy had gotten over the years. Sad.

Billy and Jimmy have long since made peace. Lots of rumors that he's drumming on the new SP record. I think Matt Walker is more likely, but if SP is inducted next year, Billy will go with Jimmy or alone. James hurt Billy deeply in his heart by not saying goodbye after the last Metro show in 2000. Billy will do everything he can to keep James out of it, as if James has any interest. Billy would take the stage with D'arcy if she was capable. Mellon Colle and the Infinite Sadness indeed!

James hurt Billy deeply in his heart

still funny

I saw some scary photos recently, but where have y'all gotten your D'arcy news?

i'm friends with her on facebook

Say what you will, but she spun a nasty Twister wheel back in the day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPMdvnC6ldc

(I love how Kurt volunteers at around 1:10.)

Chamberlain rejoining the band (even if he's not yet committed beyond their current dates) has seriously reinvigorated my interest in the band over the last couple of weeks.

Sounding great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpDHl1BlpBs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zch5JVN1uFg

show in camden was great. JC is joining the house band on Seth Meyers' show tonight, dunno for how long. he tweeted that there might be a "pumpkin gem" in the set. i think he means Ruby

https://scontent.fman1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/12108956_10153620687506397_5401487902949253546_n.jpg?oh=b6069b84c461a6a2b01c29cd12aa5810&oe=56C491DD

There was the same headline in a free recipe book with my veggie box delivery last week.

http://www.avclub.com/article/mellon-collie-foretold-both-glory-and-doom-smashin-226274

"Porcelina" is a high point of the record, if you ask me, but oh well. And the cover of the album....I guess it's an iconic image at this point twenty years on, but man it is gorgeous.

i didnt notice the angel was masturbating until a couple years ago

LOL at anyone who considers fucking Bullet the "high point" of MCIS, and thinks Porcelina is an energy sapper....NEXT!

"the unabashedly rockist 'Muzzle'".... yeah, it's a fucking rock song! christ

idek what rockist means in that context

to single out "porcelina" and "ruby" as slogs is to fundamentally misunderstand this record i think?

absolutely! they're the high-watermarks of SP1!

I don’t want this album viewed as an artistic failure publicly. And the way that it will be viewed as an artistic failure publicly is if it doesn’t sell.

billy otm, statement borne out by the "failure" of adore. actually kind of surprised at the lack of petulance in that quote, given most every other corgan interview i've skimmed

'Porcelina of the Vast Oceans' and 'Thru the Eyes of Ruby' are two of my personal highlights of this record and I don't find them slogs at all. I think Brad is totally OTM. I've also never understood the huge fuss over 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings' and '1979' either - I like both plenty, but I consider neither to be highlights. I'd go as far as saying '1979' is one of the most overrated Pumpkins tracks ever, actually.

i believe it to be their very best, but i guess it's overrated if you say so

idk i have a hard time seeing mellon collie as anything other than the peak of 90s alt rock. and i'm not even a big smashing pumpkins fan.

"Porcelina" sounds as big as its full title implies, and I love it for that reason.

the thing about it being the peak of '90s rock is i consider the last five tracks to be a deliberate troll of '90s rock

yeah I don't really think there's any precedent for a RAWK album that ends with five basically guitar-free ballads, nor anyone who's been foolish enough to try that since

Anyone else excited for the second leg of the IN PLAINSONG tour? With a 7-8 suite of Siamese Dream songs in the middle! Check out this setlist from one of the shows last year, with the Adore suite in the middle:

Tonight, Tonight
99 Floors
Today
My Poor Troubled Heart (traditional)
Dorian
For Your Love
Drum + Fife
A Stitch in Time
Mayonaise
Prairie Song
Jersey Shore
Sparrow
Perfect
To Sheila
Behold! the Night Mare
For Martha
Blissed and Gone
Ava Adore
Now (And Then)
The Crying Tree of Mercury
1979
Run2Me
Pinwheels
Stand Inside Your Love
Landslide (Nicks)
A New Poetry
---
Spaceboy
El-A-Noy
---
Cardinal Rule

Sparrow
Perfect
To Sheila
Behold! the Night Mare
For Martha
Blissed and Gone
Ava Adore

fuck

right?? and there are far fewer SD-era songs that work acoustically, so that pretty much guarantees we'll get Luna and Spaceboy along with Disarm and Today. We could get the first performances of Sweet Sweet since 1994! I made a list of all the possible SD-era songs they could do in this format:

Soothe
Luna
Sweet Sweet
Disarm
Today
Rocket
Spaceboy
Obscured
Whir
Glynis
Blissed
Smiley
Apathy's Last Kiss
Soma? (they did it in 96)
Hummer? (did it in 93)
Moleasskiss? (kind of a stretch but i could see him working it out, such a killer song, a lost classic, could've been a single)

Mayonaise could work acoustically, but I never need to hear that song again. Hoping Bill digs deep like he did last year with the Adore material (Sparrow???!!)

please please please let "obscured" happen

obscured is the best song

Always loved "Whir." In 1994 I was 12 and I thought that songs like that were what college kids listened to. It's got that college-y, angsty, Gen-X-y feel that we've all come to know and love. "Obscured" is so great, though.

gonna keep this streak alive and give a nice big shout out to my jam "obscured"

I never cared for "Apathy's Last Kiss," but this rough mix without all the flanger/chorus/phaser is really good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8sue6FKHBM

Cardinal Rule
Stumbleine
Tonight, Tonight
World's Fair
Space Oddity [David Bowie cover]
Thirty-three
Jesus, I / Mary Star of the Sea
Mayonaise
Soma
Rocket
Spaceboy
Today
Whir [live premiere]
Disarm
Sorrows (In Blue)
Eye
Saturnine [live premiere]
Identify
1979
Stand Inside Your Love
Pinwheels
Lily (My One and Only)
Malibu [Hole cover]
Spaniards [live premiere]
---
Angie [The Rolling Stones cover]
Amarinthine [live premiere]

IDENTIFY??!??!????!!???!?

wacky

God, imagine Corgan doing the vowel-mangling bit on Angie. *shudder*

I'm stoked on MARY STAR OF THE SEA - easily the best song on the Zwan album. Best Zwan song though will forever be CHRYSANTHEMUM

a Flood-produced version of Identify with Bill on vocals leaked recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDwW4yFj-dE

Corgan's voice is really similar to Jagger's!

He's like batshit wild man jagger

Tape Op article on the history of Smashing Pumpkins in the studio is pretty amazing

http://tapeop.com/interviews/115/smashing-pumpkins-a-studio-history/

I appreciate how they're all pretty much acknowledging that in the studio the band was a duo.

yeah that struck me and not just coming from Billy acting like a dick but all the producers p much just talk as if it was billy and jimmy only

i really dug the part about chamberlain having to move drums around his kit to physically perform a beat corgan had cooked up on the drum machine

also 30 days to do Gish! that was kind of a crazy investment on an underground band in those days

Well they were already signed to Virgin and the record came out on Caroline for that underground cred, man, etc. etc. But the point still holds, that's a pretty big indulgence for a band that just had the couple of singles out at that time. Were times just more flush in general as we keep hearing or did someone in the Virgin corporate structure figure this was a solid bet from the start?

Anyway, definitely an interesting read. I skimmed once it hit Zeitgeist of course.

Well they were already signed to Virgin and the record came out on Caroline for that underground cred, man, etc. etc.

ah i didn't know that so i guess it worked...but yeah then i guess it's probably not as big a deal...1990-91 I'd imagine everyone is pretty much swimming in cassette/ascendent CD market money, but yeah I thought with Caroline that's staking a pretty big bet

good article, and i don't even really like this band. interesting about them pretty much being a duo in the studio, and yet everyone says they were amazing live (at least at some point). maybe that was primarily corgan and chamberlin too ...
also that album cover for Zeitgeist remains a thing to behold.

i feel like zeitgest's album cover is trying to makes some kind of POLITICAL STATEMENT but it's hard to discern what it might be....

http://diffuser.fm/files/2015/07/Zeitgeist.jpg

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/following/2015/12/04/thinky.w710.h473.2x.jpg

i mean, i like heavy handed adolescent rock imagery as much as the next guy [ #pinkfloydrules ] but lol come on billy

Jimmy Chamberlin: On Machina, I think we got – in my opinion – to where we always wanted to be sonically. That record, for me – drum-wise with the distortion and the (Eventide) Omnipressor on the snare drum, the crispy-and-crunchiness of those drums, and how they interface with the guitar dynamics – from a production standpoint, really is our crowning achievement.

lol wow jimmy

everyone says they were amazing live (at least at some point)

as noted on this thread, I would rank them as one of the worst bands I've ever seen, def one of the worst professional shows I ever saw

interesting to see Corgan accurately assess his qualities as a singer tho

huh I guess that's NOT noted on this thread, must've been some other Corgan-related thread. anyway, it's here now!

xxp ha yeah, i've heard that too - i guess it's just Flood who says they were the best live band.

Reading that, and this thread, made me come to the idea that Billy was cursed with a talent for making amazing guitar sounds and symphonic rock music, and by teaming with Jimmy they inevitably made high-fructose, insanely palatable hard rock that was the perfect distillation of what the mainstream market wanted to hear at the time, myself included. BUT, and it's a big BUT, he had nothing to say beyond "sucks to be me". So this band is making beautiful, bombastic, addictive music, the platonic ideal of 90s rock, and in order to get that you have to listen to a guy mining his one-note personality in ever-increasing depth. As soon as the palatability of the music falls away, you're left resenting how much attention you paid to the guy's trivial whining. And the public persona from Machina on, which coincided with the rise of online access to artists and the ability of the artist to speak directly to the public rather than through a PR machine, placed the focus ever more squarely on the whiny-dick aspect which just soured the relationship with the public further.

Reminds of The Great Lost Project he had at the end of the original band there, the animation/story "Glass and the Machines of God" thing:

https://spfreaks.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/the-story-of-glass-and-the-machines-of-god/

If Corgan can put all that stuff on the radio channel on the reissue I would be appreciative. But in the meantime!

https://spfreaks.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pic02.jpg

(I don't think it's any surprise that Gerard Way figured out how to do this angle much more effectively.)

BTW if you want to feel your face melt, try reading this. (You won't succeed.)

https://spfreaks.wordpress.com/2000/01/01/glass-and-the-machines-of-god-a-modern-fable/

As for the original band live, I have enough bootlegs -- and my own memories -- to know that they could bring it as they chose. That said I think the best they were overall was at the start of the 90s -- we're talking 1991, Billy seemed to be more given to being in a trance on stage more than anything else -- and during the 2000 shows, so essentially the beginning and end of the phase. The late 1996 arena show I saw which was them making up for the earlier cancellation after Melvion died was too big and crazed for its own good. But I will say that the two 1994 shows at Lollapalooza I saw (here and here) definitely had great moments, and that first one starting with "Geek USA" into "Rocket" was one of those jawdropping moments. Everything just WORKED.

As discussed elsewhere, their homecoming Lollapalooza gig on that tour was terrible.

I was at the '94 Lollapalooza show at the Concord Pavillion and it was godawful. Corgan hectoring/whining at the audience throughout, songs cut short/played ineptly, extended wankery, terrible singing, loads of false starts etc. We left early.

Note I said moments. Not the whole thing, believe me.