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

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