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

I spend all my time doing things that may be a bit tangential.

THE CORE

THE HEART MUSIC

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN

but I think I'm going to go back to the core, the heart music. Echo and the Bunnymen.

I almost want to protest. The last two are inextricably tied together in my brain, they can't be separated.

the whole text of that part is one of the funniest things ever written:

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."

Your hurt me deeply vs. You hurt me deeply in my heart

it's kind of nice to see that he was just as much of a ridiculous tool back when he was in the middle or writing Mellon Collie classics

Billy Corgan can't make his face into a heart.

Loser

the whole text of that part is one of the funniest things ever written:

/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."/

Yes but can Billy Corgan make his face into a heart?

I voted for Aha! A Virgo. You're argumentative. for personal reasons, but the answer really is You hurt me deeply in my heart.

I spend all my time doing things that may be a bit tangential.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, February 24, 2013 6:23 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ so choice. the others are all outwardly amusing & ridiculous, but this one paints such a vivid picture of the interior life of billy corgan, installing a microphone in his kitchen to record the sound of clingfilm being stretched, driving way out of town to see if he can get a cheap deal on a new printer, looking up the zoning details of his building in the city ordinance to see if he could push his landlord for reduced rent.

like '83-'84 new wave, not like Berlin.

i thought Corgan is straight..

Straight trippin

Clearly "You hurt me deeply"/"You hurt me deeply in my heart" are the real winners here, but I'm voting for "I hate how in magazine pictures, they always stick me somewhere in the back" because it's just so stunningly needy and is a perfect encapsulation of how Corgan's personality has always seemed to me. Thayil's measured, rational and 100% OTM response is great too.

Mostly, though, I just wanted to post this:

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/4846659584/h82F1F34C/

Especially since it's not really borne out by press photos of the time:

http://www.thevinyldistrict.com/chicago/files/2011/04/The_Smashing_Pumpkins-425x310.jpg

Voted for "You hurt me deeply in my heart" though.

You know Iha in that photo was all, whatever, I don't give a shit, put me in back.

Whatever you want, Billy, I'm flipping you off behind your back.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d98/Siamese_Dreamer/Smashing%20Pumpkins/billy-corgan-01.jpg

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/321369/Billy+Corgan.jpg

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/06/25/billy-corgan-6-22-12-3_custom-7b6f3b85c7864bd1337b32e7a25383ebad962910-s6-c10.jpg

http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs4/i/2004/227/d/d/Billy_Corgan_is_adorable.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ona4Cy9TfOA

the corgan/thayil standoff has been etched in my brain for nearly 20 years as well

so many great moments but i have to go with "you hurt me deeply in my heart"

voted for echo and the bunnymen just going from the options sitting there by themselves, but actually reading the piece, they are all pretty compelling.

"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."

this fucking guy

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

Cornell and Thayil are settling back with a couple of beers when Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins wanders through, and decides to join them for a strawberry margarita.

Aha! A Virgo. You're argumentative.

'Cuz I'm a Virgo and I'm argumentative.

Curt otm.

Although my favorite all time Billy moment is him dressing up in a clown costume onstage because he was butthurt over a bad review in Melody Maker.

What's so amazing is that this is what Corgan was like early in his career, a good many years before any other number of insufferable transgressions.

He was insufferable right off the bat.

totally insufferable nightmare

otoh, "Rhinoceros" and "Bury Me"

I'm not saying all the music is bad, but he has always been a complete twit in interviews, etc.

serious lmao at this exchange as presented here. somehow i didn't realize corgan was just as fascinating of a personality pre-mellon collie.

he is basically crazy

I always liked Thayil but that interview pretty much cemented it in my brain when it ran. Would buy him a beer anytime.

I love that nearly 20 years after these exchanges took place it's still endlessly rewarding to pick them apart and lol at what a giant tool Billy Corgan was and is. His dickheadery transcends time.

you hurt me deeply in my heart FTW

that interview is so great, alltime favorite

in context, "I'm a Pisces, We pick up on those things," is probably the most amazing line here

I had to go for "But I hate it, it means they don't think I'm the cute one." because it's so hilariously childish and petulant.

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.

fwiw imagining pumpkins covering "outshined" sounds like it could be awesome.

I'm a Pisces, We pick up on those things. is really speaking to me right now

this makes me wish Kim Thayil did all of Soundgarden's interviews, possibly also co-hosted That Metal Show or something

"you hurt me deeply in my heart" is not complete without the image of corgan pointing to the superman logo on his chest/shirt

okay

Imagine Dawn Richard is singing all of Armor On and Goldenheart to Billy Corgan in a Superman t-shirt

;_;

i kept the poll options strictly to the quotes but feel free to vote based on their full meaning and context

This interview should have won a pulitzer. Best ever.

The winner has to be "..deeply in my heart", but they're all solid gold.

"I'm a Pisces, We pick up on those things" is 100x funnier in context:

"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."

haha oh wait somebody already posted that excerpt

That's okay. I think it's the most remarkable part of the piece too.

such great margarita talk.

i'm a virgo... WHO WANTS TO GET DOWN ARGIN' UP IN HERER\?

i'm not v. argumentative tbh

yes you are

why do you all have to hurt Corgan so deeply?
it hurts him deeply in his heart.

google suggestions for "billy corgan is":

a douche
crazy
a satanist
fat

ok you're right xps

this is the point where someone tells nostormo to start a poll, right

"Songwriting for me is in the proximity of the possibilities," Cornell says later.

kinda wish this was an option tbh

I remember that year when Soundgarden and the Pumpkins were here, saw both twice iirc. Corgan was always a hippy twat, I'm suprised some people think that came later.

They were pretty damn good on that tour, that said. Cannot fucking believe that was 20 years ago, jesus fuck.

great poll, great interview. love that web.stargate.net still resolves. i think i musta read everything on there by now. and pulled a lot of tabs.

anyhoo honorable mention to "back to the core, the heart music. Echo and the Bunnymen." but i use "you hurt me deeply in my heart" way too often in real life to vote for anything else.

the corgan/thayil standoff has been etched in my brain for nearly 20 years as well

i bought this issue off the newsstand when it came out & instantly remembered the 'you hurt me deeply in my heart' comment when i saw this thread! kim thayil is the best. i'm sad that i probably recycled this issue just last year. the remnants of my mid-90s collection are still on my bookshelf & all i found were three different mid-90s SPIN, and one each of Alt Press and Raygun

Thanking you, OP some dude.

:)

i slept on this and i think i will go with "But I hate it, it means they don't think I'm the cute one."

so glad i didn't know corgan was such an annoying ninny when siamese dreams came out: for me that must be one of the very few "blessings" of not having access to the internet back then.

So this is where "You hurt me deeply in my heart" came from. What a total doink.

Thanking you, OP some dude.

Yes, this thread is a treat.

"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."

This is so perfect. In my head, when I visualize this, it's like a joke from Futurama, where Corgan is Fry, and Thayil is Prof. Farnsworth.

hmmm I'm thinking more Zap Brannigan & Leela.

^^^ OTM

haha yes

Damn it, you're right! I'll be in the Angry Dome!

woah just realized who wrote this, crazy how many names you can find lurking in the bylines of old spin magazines

After Soundgarden's set, the guys pile into the van, and a local radio station crackles into life. "Was Chris Cornell's voice as magnificent as it is on rec-awwd?" asks a DJ to a woman presumably calling from one of the dog track's pay phones.

"Oh yes," says the woman. She sighs. "It was incrediboo."

There should be a sub-poll forthis exchange.

I'm completely ignorant of Kim Thayil's side of this exchange, please enlighten me.

No, no, no. Just "rec-awwd" vs "incrediboo".

Leaning towards voting for one of the astrological ones.

By which I am really voting for what Kim Thayil said to him.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

powerful white energy itt

lol

I'm a Pisces etc.

The only issue with this interview that I have had since I first read it was that I am not sure whether Kim looks even cooler than he is or whether Billy looks even douchier than he is. I usually go with Kim because Billy was already pretty douchy to start and didn't have very far to go.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

lol 89 people

Just heard Chris Cornell track off Simgles Soundtrack and thought fondly of this thread.

THE CORE

THE HEART MUSIC

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN

― luaka boppa flame (some dude), Sunday, February 24, 2013 5:25 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Maybe they're better bros or whatever, but I've never listened to a Soundgarden song without being like "hey, what's that over there?"

THE CORE

THE HEART MUSIC

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN

Sounds likea Cocteau Twins lyric.

Billy Corgan is basically Greenberg

lol otm

Haha I was thinking of that pollwinning quote just last week when my little niece asked me "Do you dream, in your head?" when I go to sleep sometimes

the core, the heart music.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5f/THEFUTUREEMBRACE.jpg

Punchable album covers.

I realize that the focus on the interview is Corgan and it should be, but let's not lose sight of the fact that Thayil comes off amazing, and not just as contrast.

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--E55vJtJZ--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/pud91spb8xtzshktrjji.jpg

Photographers still sticking him in the back. :(

hahahahahahahaha

Loooool

hes finally happy:)

twins, a real rockstar

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."

Killing me that I'll never know what Kim Deal said right after this exchange

i imagine these quotes in andy warhol's voice

Cracking up so hard at this

after billy says "i'm a pisces", i picture him patronizingly leaning in closer and smiling before he drops "we know these things"

it's killing me that those aren't Siamese cats

back when billy's solo album was announced someone on a smashing pumpkins board i used to frequent mocked up a "billy and the cats" album cover in ms paint, let me tell you it bears uncanny resemblance to that paws cover

netphoria?

btw the best billy quote has to be "it's a gaultier" from the 2000 q magazine 'rudest man in rock' piece

netphoria?

blamo!

Billy Corgan has confirmed that drummer Mike Byrne is no longer with the Smashing Pumpkins. Asked by MusicRadar if Byrne would be drumming alongside newly-recruited percussionist Tommy Lee ... Corgan responded, "Mike, like Elvis, has left the building." …

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.”

http://pitchfork.com/news/55586-smashing-pumpkins-drummer-mike-byrne-leaves-band/

That's unfortunate. Byrne was no Chamberlin, but couldn't complain about his drumming on Oceania. Wonder if he left or was pushed? I suspect the latter.

Thought this revival was going to be about Billy's take on the viral "Dear Kitten" video.

Wait Tommy Lee? THE Tommy Lee?

Looks like it. Is it April first? *checks calendar* Nope.

Even with Tommy Lee in the band, Billy Corgan still biggest dick in the Smashing Pumpkins.

well played

Tommy Lee can play, i could see this maybe actually turning out well. Byrne was not that great, which seemed odd just because why recruit an unknown teenager unless they were fucking amazing?

Good astrological mix?

Some guy was talking about SPs tonight and I brought up original topic of this thread, which will never grow old.

THE CORE

THE HEART MUSIC

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN

https://31.media.tumblr.com/ba015e34c1f19aaabcb3ee342a46ca09/tumblr_mtlwfiyIi31qgm5nao3_250.gifhttps://38.media.tumblr.com/999181d013343d1807461cca54c4cd43/tumblr_mtlwfiyIi31qgm5nao1_250.gif

This interview should have won a pulitzer.

http://www.stereogum.com/1699633/soundgardens-kim-thayil-wont-name-names-but-hes-still-pissed-at-billy-corgan/franchises/wheres-the-beef/

SUCH a virgo

omg Billy Corgan is doing a Reddit AMA someone ask him if he ever got back to the core, the heart music.

Shit, I didn't see this until just now, else I would have done!

He was on Howard Stern today (or may have been a replay of yesterday). He may be easy to make fun of but he is a great interviewee. Very entertaining.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/12/echo-and-the-bunnymen-announce-new-album-the-core-the-heart-music/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKbLDh5wgQ0#t=146

William, don't be a weiner:
http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/03/billy-corgan-does-not-want-to-be-called-billy-anymore/

lol

Corgy it is

In an alternate universe, he's introducing himself to his daughter's new boyfriend with a firm handshake and a "Hi. Bill."

william, it was really nothing

billy-corgan-does-not-want-to-be-called-billy-anymore/

what if we just didn't call him at all

https://twitter.com/billy

William Patrick Pumpkin, Esq.

In an alternate universe, he's introducing himself to his daughter's new boyfriend with a firm handshake and a "Hi. Bill."

― A Whizzer, A Poo Star (Old Lunch), Friday, March 20, 2015 2:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LMAO

But I think 'Willy' is more his style.

Silly Borgan

"friends call me Corgs, but my peers call me Bald Willy C"

Corg Billie Style

good ol' bald willy, the corg of rock n rollin'

despite all my rage
I'ma still just a rat in a cage
Baby....

www.will.i.am.corgan is the home of everything will.i.am corgan, the multi-faceted entertainer and creative innovator and a Pisces

You hurt me Billy, in my heart.

Aha! A Willy. You're argumentative.

http://s3.postimg.org/icr79oy0j/CA_Nua_Ug_AAWEmf.jpg

"You hurt me deeply," Corgan says, touching the Cricket Australia logo on his chest and pouting, "you hurt me deeply in my heart."

has anyone ever seen billy corgan and irvine welsh in the same room together?

jokes about how shaved head dudes look alike

as a sometime-shaved-head dude i strongly rebut any suggestion that i resemble irvine corgan

(mainly becuase i wear glasses)

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

http://i.imgur.com/WaqwgLp.gif

Huh.

Billy Corgan is large?

Huh, he's about the same height as me. I'd always assumed he was a titch.

yes, corgan is large. also that tweet is more than 140 characters. i can tell by the pixels.

he is v tall but strangely has a napoleon complex

No recordings or setlists from the Australia leg of the Siamese Dream tour have ever surfaced before now. This is the infamous show where, on his way to the stage, Billy walked past Kim Thayil and told him he hurt him deeply in his heart. Check out the Superman longsleeve. Pumpkins start at 32:50. Breeders right before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-S6ojE5reA&feature=youtu.be

This is am important find. Thank you, flappy bird.

Flappy bird is for posterity!

This is the infamous show
Are you basing this just on Billy's shirt? Youtube description says this is Auckland - Billy probably wore that shirt on each stop of the festival.

Rats! I misread the article before posting, thought it said it was a week later, not a day later. That would make the infamous show 1/23/94 in Melbourne. A setlist is extant, and opening with Geek U.S.A. fits the "scrim of anger" description by the author.

http://www.spfc.org/data/media/19/292/1513.jpg

This has been Corrections and Confessions with Flappy bird. have a good one :^)

The way I read the article, the show was at the Gold Coast. Kim, Billy etc. flew up and had their initial interaction the day before the show. Of course, Jonathan Gold could've moved events around for comedic effect...

The whole exchange happened at the first show on the Gold Coast, but the "hurt me deeply in my heart" happened the next day in Melbourne.

btw happy birthday billy!

https://twitter.com/RealAlexJones/status/722429491386191873

On today's show: Smashing Pumpkin's Billy Corgan will demolish social justice warrior brainwashing in studio.

great news

oh no

the last time he was on he said "I think it's very astute of you to call it an Infowar."

things Billy Corgan told a loony-bin broadcaster were 'astute' in Internet

christ he really does have the mind of child

oh

http://pitchfork.com/news/64926-billy-corgan-compares-social-justice-warriors-to-the-kkk/

oh, billy.
oh no.

That's what exposes them every time and you guys are doing a great job of exposing that but most people–most people–who are not down there at the rally and spinning their Twizzler and making up stories about ghosts that don't exist–and it's a lot of fantasy stuff going on there. I mean, it literally could be a wizard world convention.

glad billy pumpkin is here to warn us of the dangers posed by fantasy stuff, nerds assembling in groups, and making up stories about ghosts that don't exist

Billy is essentially a massive fantasist, isn't he? All that stuff he was guffing a few years back, about how he and Kurt were the two scribes of their generation, and no one else could touch them... Crazy. I mean, I like the first two Smashing Pumpkins albums, but I find it hard to get past that contemporaneous review that they sound like Roxette produced by Alan Moulder.

ghosts that don't exist

And again–you haven't said this here so it's not again–the lack of tolerance of ideas and other points of view is the great Achilles heel of the social justice warrior movement.

so champion of free speech billy corgan isn't down with tolerating people talking about injustice huh

hypothetical Star Wars holodeck type of way

GODDAMMIT BILLY THE HOLODECK IS STAR TREK

the last time he was on he said "I think it's very astute of you to call it an Infowar."

― flappy bird, Tuesday, April 19, 2016 4:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha

from the new interview: "Like I've said before, I think it was very prescient of you to call it an Infowar."

I came in the door I said it before
I think it was very prescient of you to call it an Infowar

the fluoride in me is the fluoride in you

lot of facepalming and easy jokes here, not a whole lot of arguing with what he, you know, actually said

i thought it was a great interview. i thought he had a lot of interesting and insightful things to say. i take issue with his use of "social justice warrior," incredibly stupid phrase, but other than that, it was surprisingly good, much better than his previous two appearances on Infowars. I watched the interview live, and I didn't expect it to make any headlines. But of course, Pitchfork and Stereogum completely misrepresented what he said in their headlines and write ups. Sort of makes you lean toward Corgan and Jones' media complicity theory.

does it now

just a little

As someone who has actually tried arguing with people on the internet who believe there is a worldwide conspiracy of "SJWs", can I be the first to offer my disinterest in continuing it here?

idk, if you let go your preconceived notions and really think for yourself, it is very suspicious how no one itt has engaged with the substance of someone decrying a "SJW" conspiracy by comparing campus activists to mao, hitler, and jim crow justice, on an internet talk show hosted by chris farley as bennett brauer.

he's very stupid indeed, is the takeaway here

But of course, Pitchfork and Stereogum completely misrepresented what he said in their headlines and write ups

they did not. he was making false equivalencies. it's v typical faux liberal bullshit to be like "if you do anything that resembles what a fascist once did you too must be a fascist, free speech blah blah blah" without any actual recognition or consciousness of the imbalance of power in these relationships. it's horseshit and offensively stupid

it's horseshit and offensively stupid

Just like his music!

I really fell down a hole listening to Alex Jones, weird trip today. It's like they have perfectly intelligent, rational discussions as long as your willing to proceed with a mutually accepted batshit worldview. He also is really hawking this line of nutritional supplements hardcore

jones is good fun

it's horseshit and offensively stupid

Maybe the problem is the older generation thinks the youth of today get offended too easily.

like getting hurt in their hearts

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

Are you offended by it?

Billy does talk some garbage, doesn't he. I miss the days when you'd only hear from him in an MTV interview or a magazine.

saw this on twitter, billy has always been really good at relating to women
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1qIhtKkrnuM

oh my god, all the interviews from that day are amazing. they all make me wince. like when he makes the "I'm Ono-Corgan" joke and then does the "went over your head" gesture - christ, fuck you billy.

even better: Billy mistakenly refers to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds as a British band, and Cave just obliterates him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ6SuW7RDKI

never really got into his music, but i don't think my friends who did were under any illusion that he is not a huge turd

thing is if he and not cobain had died just after their followup to the breakthrough album i think his rep would be a very very different thing. sweeping genius, ambition, the sensitive shy perfectionist aiming for the stars etc. etc. gish, SD and MCIS is a hell of a run (as the current albums poll thread suggests), not even getting into the b-sides and such. he had something really really special. then, very suddenly, it seemed to dissipate.

what's particularly sad about the spaceboy becoming lindbergh, or howard hughes, or whatever, is that so much of what was brilliant in his music was how it spoke to being a picked-on weirdo without just wallowing in self-pity or anger, though those were unmistakably part of the mix. despite all the rage, he actually spoke up for fey romance and dreams and being, well, different. to use an appropriately high-school reference, he was piggy, but also simon, and when he was angry it was only due to the wounds inflicted by the jacks of the world. siding with the bullies against those who speak up for difference is a real woodstock-attendees-voting-for-reagan kind of sad if predictable disappointment.

thing is if he and not cobain had died just after their followup to the breakthrough album i think his rep would be a very very different thing - hahhahaah NO. this dude was marked as a clown from day fucking one. that he's gone alt-right is something but hardly surprising considering how much the anti-liberal resentment that fuels it resembles his anti-cool resentment since whenever some skater punk laughed at him for loving boston in middle school. dude's always been a superior fuck w/ an inferiority complex. for a minute there he figured out how to update boston for the 90s. then the 90s ended.

xp otm.

he's often said that Lollapalooza 1994 was a turning point for him. when he saw the same jocks and football players that used to beat him up for having a funny haircut out in the crowd, he realized then that the dream of the "alternative nation" was basically bust. the urgency in MCIS and in making this gigantic, grand, final statement as Smashing Pumpkins Mach I was because he saw himself and all the other original Gen X bands on a sinking ship. he burned brighter faster.

he was marked as a clown by indie elitists for being openly careerist and embracing all the wrong things in his music - guitar solos, studio perfectionism, candor, Boston and ELO worship. "Cherub Rock" is his rebuke toward Albini and Cosloy and a world that never accepted him.

guitar solos, studio perfectionism, candor, Boston and ELO worship

lol yeah none of this in Nirvana, nope

xxxpost i think you're right on about the inverted resentment projected back as right-wing persecution complex stuff. not so surprising in that sense.

xxpost and yeah that's right - he was marked as uncool not only by the jocks or whatever, but by the cool kids. he's a goth basically and for my money those pumpkins are the best (and basically the only) goth rocks i need.

he came off as a clown in a lot of lights but maybe more often as a control freak crazy person that everyone hated. which i think if he'd died would have at least some body of people praising him as a misunderstood perfectionist genius who squeezed everybody dry trying to create a crystalline magical music the likes of which we didn't deserve and could never be achieved or something. i mean rock's pantheon is full of raging assholes and pretentious little shits. but maybe this is another post derived from recently viewing the doors, i mean at least in that movie jim morrison was just transparently awful at everything he did and in particular a pathetic and self-important 'poet' but it sure didn't stop him from being worshiped for a very long time.

i mean look at the kim thayil story around which this thread has based. i've always lolled but the lols have also always made me just a little uncomfortable. corgan sounds exhausting but is it worse than the reporter who clearly is trying to piggyback on some OTM remarks of thayil's (which i imagine delivered in a kind of chilled-out 'look man, you just need to chill out' kinda way) in the only way that second bananas know how, by joining the beating-up on the guy marked as the loser of this little social encounter and clearly the less 'cool' musician. ha ha, that guy's feelings were hurt, what a wuss, and did i mention that i am drinking with the rock stars and he ordered a girl drink?

xxp yeah, none of it is. Cobain played anti-solos. Corgan was a shredder, a recovering metalhead. Sure, Cobain was very serious about his craft, but he didn't spend twelve hours doing four bars of vocals or three seconds of guitar. He also didn't layer his guitars 40 times over. Cobain and the rest of Gen X had a measured sort of candor, Corgan said whatever he was thinking at the moment, often at his own expense. And no, Cobain never openly worshipped Boston or ELO, even if they vamped on "More Than a Feeling" once or twice at a show.

morrison could sing, was cool, was new, and was sexy so he's up four on corgan. add in the doors wrote better songs, were better musicians and the mystery is even closer to being solved. morrison gave us patti smith and iggy pop, corgan gave us the dude from our lady peace.

none of that's unique to Corgan, sorry. even if you can drill down into specific differences in approach between Corgan + Cobain there were loads of recovering shredder metalheads about at the time (lol Thayil's a great example), tons of studio rats over-emoting, grunge was rife with it.

xps

Corgan's string-laden ballads just put him closer to Axl Rose than Cobain is all

yeah i can remember peter buck circa monster talking in an interview about this disconnect he felt w/ the altrockers that were coming up at the time cuz they were all recovering (or nonrecovering) metal nerds which the closest any of the rem guys got to that was a love for aerosmith (hardly surprising since buck and stipe formed a friendship over mutual ny dolls love).

90s alt rock bands pretending to be "too cool" to sit through interviews on MTV that they were still doing anyway was the most annoying fucking thing ever

tbh i think the road toward redemption in the eyes of the ghost of altrock authenticity past and a change in reputation for corgan would've been more thru a long term journey then him dying after that stupid batman song or whatever. pearl jam were regarded much more suspiciously than smashing pumpkins (who for whatever 'this guy's an obv clown' aspects had had some success pre-nevermind and filled a recognizable college rock slot, had played the club circuit), ppl might have rolled their eyes at smashing pumpkins but pearl jam were regarded (esp among ppl for whom altrock authenticity was an actual thing) as this obv corporate attempt at buying the altrock revolution, cobain compared them to night ranger and though he apparently maybe later kinda took it back (or so i've heard, idk) the tag stuck. over time though pearl jam made more interesting records, fought several good fights, used their success to help other (cooler) acts be it sleater-kinney opening slot or an appearance on a mike watt record that paid watt's bills for god knows how long. they kept working and kept making solid records and generally, as much as could be expected from a rock band w/ a high degree of earnestness, didn't act like huge douchebags or pompous clowns. at a point if you still really had a problem w/ pearl jam it probably meant you were an asshole. corgan took a different route, retreating from taking chances the minute one slight risk (let's be honest - adore isn't exactly fucking dazzle ships) didn't pay off to his satisfaction, broke up the band that he treated like a solo project, blamed the world for his failures, lamely reunited the band only this time made it even more of a solo project and turned it into the most boring version of smashing pumpkins imaginable (who would've guessed that an alice in chains reunion w/ new singer would yield much greater dividends), watched relatively fail as well, blamed the unworthy world for that, and throughout this treated the musicians he worked w/ horribly. then he found out about chemtrails.

i've read comparisons to poster children, but i'm not really hearing a particular sonic similarity. if smashing pumpkins were nirvana, would they be the pixies?

good points on pearl jam, i remember there were a couple Nirvana stans i knew in high school who despised eddie vedder and when cobain died one of them wrote "it should have been ed!" on a wall in the school hallway. i always liked them maybe a bit more than nirvana, and definitely more than SP, because i liked the sort of watery sound of 'ten' and the occasional folkiness of 'vs' and the weird shit on 'vitalogy' not to mention the guitar jams on that album. SP always sounded a little strained to me and their rock sound felt a little thin, and i never really liked corgan's vocals. but '1979' is really a great tune and video.

tbf it should have been ed

vedder always seems like a pretty genuinely nice dude

ayeeayayeeeeeaaaaahh he does

the cast of friends were into pearl jam

i mean the characters

Pearl Jam is plain oatmeal, Smashing Pumpkins are Capn Crunch

cereal sucks

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you offended by it?

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

i'm bored by it.

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

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

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

Albums that poisoned the artist

that's it. thank you!

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

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

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

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

God, what a fuckwit.

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

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

lol that really is seriously Office-y

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ah right yes it was the Shoreline

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

this shit was excruciating

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

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

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

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

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

new board description

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

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

The Wall for Generation Shit

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

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

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

this is otm and also not a bad thing lol

I must be listening to the wrong Bad Company songs.

they are a good band check em out

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

i love the 90s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good times.

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

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

\o/ catholic school

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(warning, there is singing)

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

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

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

didn't know this hell was goin on

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

Well at least Liz Phair's getting work.

It's a Cure track, duh

Plainsong is def the core, the heart music

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

otm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

chamberlin's a fuckin incredible drummer stop frontin'

"oh he's not the world's greatest drummer" whatever there's so much tiny incredible work going on in his fills and in his general swing

chamberlin is a GREAT drummer and corgan can shred while also being a terrible person with the voice of a mouse dying in its trap

they were so frustrating live because corgan keep getting ahead of chamberlin, knowingly or not trying to speed up the tempo, chamberlin wouldn't have it, and so the performances were a mess. I saw them twice on the siamese dream tour, both times the same problem. I guess it helps knowing that corgan was on speed during that tour.

I like a few Smashing Pumpkins albums, but he is all left hand and that's boring. 1979 is a notable exception.

Chamberlin has one gimmick, but it's a fantastic gimmick. So, whatever.

Mellon Collie was released in 1995.

Notable albums from a guitarist perspective released in 1995:

The Bends
Pure Phase
Wowee Zowee
To Bring You My Love
(What's the Story) Morning Glory?
A Northern Soul
Washing Machine

i.e. It was a cool album. But it was difficult for Corgan to stand out as a guitarist outside of the bullshit ROCK MUSIC gas station mags. Smashing Pumpkins were played alongside a number of guitar all-timers!

h8 those gimmick drummers with the gimmick of complementing a wide range of material with versatile creative drumming, what a one trick pony

Indeed

He also didn't layer his guitars 40 times over.

I've been reading this about "Soma" for 20 years. I like the song but does anyone seriously hear 40 guitar parts on it? It's not exactly Branca. Or does "40 guitar overdubs" just mean that the guitar parts were comped from 40 takes? I could believe that.

In Hummer and Soma, there are forty guitar parts - a lot of those are atmospheric parts and little drop-ins. The heavy parts are overdubbed four to eight times. They're not all happening at the same time, maybe at the most there's fifteen guitar parts or layers at one point. Butch Vig talked about it online several years ago: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/q-butch-vig/398145-1993-smashing-pumpkins-siamese-dream.html

I think Soma and Hummer had closer to 40 guitar tracks. Not all playing at the same time, but there could be 8-10 overdubs in one section, then another 8-10 in a second section, etc. A lot of times we would bounce them down...like in the bow part, I think that was around 12 tracks mixed down to stereo.

Thru the Eyes of Ruby on MCIS has 56 guitar parts...Alan Moulder confirmed this in a podcast interview a year or two ago, can't find the link...

OK, I could see how that could work if they're counting each track in each section separately. Too bad the EQ Mag link isn't working for me. I'd like to read that.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-56d4da5f/turbine/la-me-george-kennedy-obit-pictures-20160229/650/650x366
Nobody can layer 40 guitars

h8 those gimmick drummers with the gimmick of complementing a wide range of material with versatile creative drumming, what a one trick pony

He was replaced by a drum machine.

And that record was dogshit

most of the drum tracks on adore are live

yeah Matt Walker, Joey Waronker, and Matt Cameron all play on Adore.

Don't forget:
http://www.drumsoloartist.com/Site/Drummers/images/KennyAronoff.gif

he only played on the tour

I like how BC made a riff out of distorted harmonics on "Zero".

which was why it was so difficult for me to play reading it from the tabs in Guitar magazine

Yeah, it's quite a neat trick. Eye seem 2 remember Corgan being interviewed 4 that Rush documentary, and Alex Lifeson plays a lot of riffs based on harmonics on stuff like 'Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres' and 'Red Barchetta' ... It's possible Corgan may have picked up designing a riff around harmonics from listening 2 Rush.

i can dig this Prince-posting style

The Kor the <3 Music

I could see that. There's a striking distinction for me in that "Red Barchetta" is based on the 2nd to 4th harmonics (12th, 7th, and 5th frets), which give you octaves and fifths that are not too far from their equal-tempered counterparts. "Zero" uses the 5th, 6th, and 7th harmonics, including a just M3 and just m7 that are more distant from equal temperament. Obv, at the same time, it's more simple-minded: he just slid his finger along that stretch of the string with a tonne of distortion.

2xp OTM re posting style!

what the hell is the solo to "Zero" btw. like it's this out of key weird alien sounding thing. have always liked it but didn't know if it was just achieved with a fuck ton of pedal effects or if he was just mashing frets in the 22 - 24s and bending them weirdly

Feel like this thread has lost sight of it's original focus guys. Can we bring it back to stupid things Billy Corgans says/has said? Thanks.

"what the hell is the solo to "Zero" btw. like it's this out of key weird alien sounding thing. have always liked it but didn't know if it was just achieved with a fuck ton of pedal effects or if I was just mashing frets in the 22 - 24s and bending them weirdly"

- Blind Willy Corgs

It's a shame 2 c both 'U Hurt Me Deeply' and 'What Sign R U?' get no votes in hindsight.

Well first is better when you add "in my heart" so I get that one (esp. when you imagine him tapping the Superman S on his chest).

'What Sign R U?' would make a great Prince song title, come 2 think of it.

what the hell is the solo to "Zero" btw. like it's this out of key weird alien sounding thing. have always liked it but didn't know if it was just achieved with a fuck ton of pedal effects or if he was just mashing frets in the 22 - 24s and bending them weirdly

― Neanderthal, Sunday, April 24, 2016 10:04 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's one of James' rare shining moments in a SP studio recording. painstakingly pieced together, and yeah it's run through like half a dozen harmonizers and pitch shifters

"Zero" is a remarkably powerful and compact song, their shortest epic. one of his most distinctive riffs, for sure. lots of layering going on with the rhythm tracks:

"Zero"
We like to call this style of our music "Cybermetal." "Zero" has six rhythm guitars, with two line-in 12-string acoustics, plus those wacky Iha leads. Tracked live with overdubs added later, this is a true mover as well as the first song that was recorded for Mellon Collie, James has always said this reminds him of Judas Priest.

http://www.starla.org/articles/gw5.htm

I actually bought that issue of GW!

http://pitchfork.com/news/65426-billy-corgan-disses-bernie-sanders-on-conspiracy-theorist-radio-show/?mbid=social_facebook

ok now he's gone too far

why Prince and not this jackass

if we had to lose one chemtrails believer...

Why does he look like a hobo

sometimes hobos have valid ideas. See: Regis Philbin, Kenneth Arrow, Charlotte Bronte

Regis Philbin was invented by a hobo?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMc2x8DZLZc

http://boingboing.net/2016/05/13/billy-corgan-upset-that.html

Billy Corgan upset that "the wrong racial epithet" could destroy his career

billy-corgan-upset

Why does he look like a hobo

When was the last time you saw a hobo with a monogrammed hat?

welcome to Boston

Billy Corgan upset that "the wrong racial epithet" could destroy his career

to be fair, we do have some weird problem in our society where we say that people are the worst things they've ever done or said. It's not a great way to view the world, in my opinion.

heresy

we have this other problem with white bros who are preemptively worried that if they start spewing some racist garbage they might get their feet held to the fire a little instead of just given the "aww, Billy, he's just being Billy! let the man have his epithets, after all he's made so much terrible music!" treatment

Billy's just such a pathetic fucking dweeb.

Going after that Gamergate dollar like a chump.

so i ended up falling in this alex jones hole because of corgan and anyway i found this crazy ass sequence where he went on a reverie to The Doors and I ended up making a negativland type LA Woman/Alex Jones thing....the last 2 minutes when it's just him is stunning radio

http://soundcloud.com/matthew-lee-helgeson/mojowars-feat-al3x-j0n3s-the-d00rs

Love this - great job! Rich lung cleanse baritone, just like Morrison.

the power of DNA force

billy corgan has a career?

SP sorta flies under the radar these days but they sell out every place they play. granted, those are 2,000-5,000 seat theaters, but he's doing pretty good for himself. fwiw, this latest run of In Plainsong shows was the best he's sounded in years.

so basically, he is at the same stage of his career now as the guy from styx was in 1992

Sounds approx right.

Chris Cornell is doing the same... Pearl Jam are the only contemporaries of his that are still playing arenas & stadiums.

m@tt this is awesome! have you tweeted this yet? can i tweet it?

Yeah go ahead and tweet it anyone and thanks!

Chris Cornell just played the Royal Albert Hall in London, which is pretty prestigious tbh, and Soundgarden headlined Hyde Park a few years back (though it did not sell out, and they were support to Sabbath there two summers ago)

SP just did three nights at the Beacon Theater in NYC, I saw them at the Lincoln Theater in DC, all were sold out... i think they're operating at the same level rn

i tweeted it

chris cornell has a valid and estimable solo career

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Billy-Corgan-surprises-Laredoans-with-impromptu-10887693.php

I just watched Author: The JT Leroy story on Amazon and did not know how involved Corgan was with the whole saga!

Better yet I can now confirm actual audio of a phone message in which Billy refers to himself in third person as "the Corganator"

oh my god that is excellent news

I heard the dude gets all superfan on BC and asks all these questions about the effects pedals on Gish. Need to see it still.

haha yeah that part is so funny (though that's not the dude the dude, it's like the husband of the woman wrote "JT Leroy" and the brother of the woman who played "JT Leroy")

the whole thing is so weird

Just going back to this... why are his sleeves so long?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojAXUqL--mY

he wears a lot of layers

he wears a lot of layers

there's a classic Billy quote in the 1994 SPIN Artist of the Year piece by Azerrad:

Corgan is still wearing that lumber jacket. "I hate being cold," he explains. "It reminds me of when I got punished when I was a kid and got sent down to the basement."

Never forget.

Chris Cornell is dead but Billy Corgan lives.

Outshined

how jealous do we think billy is of the coverage chris cornell is getting today

he wrote a pretty heartfelt thing about Scott Weiland when he passed. I'm sure he'll do the same for Cornell. becoming a father seems to have mellowed Billy... to an extent

if he does i really hope he mentions when he was on tour with soundgarden in australia in 1994

"Chris was a Cancer - I picked up on it immediately."

https://reverb.com/news/billy-corgan-artist-shop-preview

God is tempting me. I must resist.

My favorite detail is

1962 Gibson ES-175 TDC used on Howard Stern's favorite song Violet Rays from the Oceania album

omg how did i miss that

not interested in any post-2000 gear, but i'm flabbergasted that he's selling this Strat:

https://68.media.tumblr.com/421ba738d2d8ea863a9c23c08bb41b24/tumblr_okiy5pqyCF1sxm49so1_400.gif

Right?

Yeah that's nuts. Seen him live with that one several times. The Orange box as well.

Why would he sell this stuff? He can't be THAT hard-up, can he? Maybe he needs cash to buy more Infowars-branded supplements.

Well, if the gold thing is true, he's probably not the most financially savvy guy around.

There was a point in time where I would have loved to own a guitar that Corgan played on the early Pumpkins stuff, but that was two decades ago...

xpost He's doing fine. He was sorta like Jagger, always had good business sense (at least when SP was massive), also he never had a drug problem, that's almost always what drains the bank accounts of rock stars... he's sold gear before on eBay and it all went to charity, maybe this'll be the same. I've noticed that he's been laying low this year - he has a solo album that he did with Rick Rubin that's been finished for months, it was supposed to come out in April/May (called The Land of Maybe). I think he's trying to get festival bookings for a full SP reunion in 2018, and someone finally told him that if you lay low, people will care about you more when you come back.

a career in rock is a rollercoaster, that is true

http://esq.h-cdn.co/assets/15/30/980x490/landscape-1437777701-billy-corgan-disneyland-sad.jpg

Haha!

!!!!!

https://68.media.tumblr.com/7a8cf40a80dc76aa2b3479fd975f57de/tumblr_mzmdozRRGV1shf8zxo1_400.jpg

That Rickenbacker 360 purchased from Courtney Love is full of alt-rock history.

It just hit me that the rackmount ADA MP-1 preamps used to record Gish... are for sale... I must... I have to resist...

perhaps a new/different thread would be in order for flappy bird being the melissa w of smashing pumpkins

i'll end this session with a classic

https://68.media.tumblr.com/958c7138dda0aa5617f763c276a24013/tumblr_osqyukiqFq1vrhb3jo1_500.jpg

Corgan is one of those rock icons that make me think dying from an overdose would have been less sad.

Hehehe!

That Rickenbacker 360 purchased from Courtney Love is full of alt-rock history.

― Ex Slacker, Saturday, July 15, 2017 2:02 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's not just her guitar that's been full of alt-rock history, tbf.

Ugh

I think he's trying to get festival bookings for a full SP reunion in 2018,

not with D'Arcy on bass, surely?

was that really necessary Turrican

jesus...

_I think he's trying to get festival bookings for a full SP reunion in 2018,_

not with D'Arcy on bass, surely?

yes, they're in contact and have been since last year

What? I was talking, of course, about the Alt. Rock Hall of Fame...

Some of these guitars look pretty cool tbh, really love the James Trussart Rustomatic but they're expensive enough when they're not previously owned by someone famous.

Wow, is there really no ILX Jonathan Gold appreciaation thread? RIP JG, one of the best.

holy shit, Jonathan Gold wrote this piece??

...the same Jonathan Gold?

Yeah he wrote a lot about WC Gangsta Rap & pre-/post-Nirvana-grunge for the LA Weekly, LA Times & SPIN. He was at all the club shows... Al's Bar, Jabberwocky, Raji's.

Wow

I meant Jabberjaw, not Jabberwocky! That's what I get for posting in the middle of the night.

lol, just stumbled upon this video of Billy interviewing an openly-contemptuous Nick Cave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X1LThFfA8U

lol, amazing

lol great find

Easter came early.

I love that MTV wasn't like 'eh, we can't air that' but rather like 'oh, we MUST air that'.

loooooool

*makes dick-sucking motion with microphone* and it all goes downhill from there.

Love it when he calls Cave English

hahaha none of you have seen that before? I think about it semi-often

"I mean you know, for the typical American teenager, it's all the same."
"Yeah well it's not."
"I know I'm sorry."
"You said you're a teenager? How old are you?"
"27."
"Right."

🤣🤣🤣

its awesome to watch Billy eat shit bc it so rarely happens. there was a great one maybe 5 years ago when he was on an Australian morning show to promote a festival appearance by SP (I think the Download Festival or something). at the end of the interview, the host said "Hope you have a good time at Download!" and Billy just said "What's that?" DEAD AIR 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

yeah it’s amazing to see billy actually feel uncomfortable and painfully uncool

there’s not a second of it that’s not golden but my favourite part might be the footage of cave and the seeds giving it their all in front of a bemused audience in full blazing sunshine

Love it when he calls Cave English

it's even better when he quadruples down and claims that Germany, England and an entire continent on the other side of the planet from them "all look like" one country, from as far away as America

he was mocking Americans when he said that, but didn't give it the right polish

yep, he half-assed the self-deprecation and it backfired

I love that MTV wasn't like 'eh, we can't air that' but rather like 'oh, we MUST air that'.

― Unparalleled Elegance (Old Lunch), Friday, April 10, 2020 2:47 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM

yep, he half-assed the self-deprecation and it backfired

he tried for self-deprecation but accidentally showed his whole ass

my favourite part might be the footage of cave and the seeds giving it their all in front of a bemused audience in full blazing sunshine

yeah thats amazing. Looks like its 11am.

https://www.nme.com/news/music/billy-corgan-says-he-was-not-considered-good-looking-in-smashing-pumpkins-early-days-2948368?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=billy-corgan-says-he-was-not-considered-good-looking-in-smashing-pumpkins-early-days

Aw, you were an adorable little scamp back in the day, Billy, don't sell yourself short.

https://www.boyactors.org.uk/actors/1488.jpg

“So, my looks were not part of anybody’s formula as far as the success of the band. It was never talked about. Photographers would try to stick me in the back of photo shoots with the band and put other people [in front of me]. I swear to God… Well, you know, things change.”

dogg you're like half a foot taller than your bandmates!!

“I have two distinctive and handsome people in the band whom I do not permit to play on our records. I’ll be FUCKED if I let them appear in the photographs instead!”

lol that's not billy corgan

http://washedupcelebrities.blogspot.com/2007/05/jerry-supiran.html?m=1

xxp

Lmfao yes!!!

Excellent bump

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ef/b7/ab/efb7ab5fdfc6136bc37327c01d3dcc04.jpg

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/smashing-pumpkins-on-51091-in-chicago-il-picture-id75371914?k=6&m=75371914&s=612x612&w=0&h=2wQ5yd9GyruOdtx1Z6OJQnQadAwRsu8ENRgJfBhEpwg=

NOTHING is uglier than Jimmy's shirt

lol thats not Billy Corgan

https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/famous-murders/amanda-knox/

james iha was and is the only member of the rolling stones

Poll: Who has the more fragile ego - Billy Corgan or Donald Trump?

at least Billy can read

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/smashing-pumpkins-on-51091-in-chicago-il-picture-id75371914?k=6&m=75371914&s=612x612&w=0&h=2wQ5yd9GyruOdtx1Z6OJQnQadAwRsu8ENRgJfBhEpwg=

Looks as if the Pumpkins were part of that power pop Paisley psych look that Redd Kross/Posies/Jellyfish were giving off circa 1990

oh yeah, the gish era was 100 percent that