Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

http://www.smashingpumpkinsnexus.com/single-post/2014/05/23/MACHINA-REISSUE-UPDATE

maybe not quite all those things but I am concerned

lol yeah anything that bill said 2 years ago is basically useless, dude abandons 90% of the stuff he announces. since 2014, the Machina reissue has been held up by label/legal issues. the Adore reissue came out in September 2014, and shortly after the Pumpkins' parent company (EMI?) was sold/reorganized so the reissue project (which originally included Zwan, ChicagoKid, FutureEmbrace, & Zeitgeist) is on indefinite hold. Sucks

Wait, ChicagoKid? What's that? (Honestly I wasn't expecting a Zwan reissue of any sort given how that fell apart but I wouldn't mind; I know there were a slew of songs that never got anywhere like a formal release.)

the acoustic record Billy recorded in early 2004. he played a couple shows with that material in april 2004 in chicago, and the story goes he went online the next day, saw people complaining that he wasn't playing distorted guitar anymore, and canned the whole thing. it's finished and just sitting in the vault - he frequently brags that "my friends say it's the best thing I've ever done." ugh, just release it dude! lemme see if i can find a recording of one of those shows...

here we go: https://archive.org/details/bc2004-04-19.flac16

he played "The World's Fair" at the In Plainsong show I saw this past April...

that tapeop piece was tough to get through, like Billy can't say a single thing without asserting his know-it-all attitude and dripping condescension

Siamese Dream was a tricky record as it pertains to Jimmy, because Jimmy was asked to be more than he was at that moment. And, at the same time, he was asked to be less than he was at that moment.

you don't say

xpost yeah, and as a result i start to read everybody else's tone as having in the back of their mind the potential that billy may interpret something as a slight and blow up at them or something.

I'm not really sure how I arrived there, but it probably had something to do with the fact that Butch finished Gish and literally packed up the next day to record Nevermind with Nirvana. We were at Butch's for a 4th of July picnic, and we were probably some of the first people on the planet to hear that record. We were listening to Butch's mixes. The first song we hear was "Teen Spirit," and the first thing through my mind was, "Wow, Kurt's ripped off ‘More Than a Feeling' by Boston." The second thing through my mind was, "Oh, by the way, Butch has ripped off my fucking guitar sound." So I think, in my mind, it was like, "Okay, I'm going to create a guitar sound that no one can follow!"

so much gobbledygook in that interview, weird how little actual tech talk there is for Tape Op

buncha rich dudes sitting around talking about their "concepts" and "approaches" blech

but they created a guitar sound no one could follow unless they use a distortion and chorus pedal

haha being a tape op interview I would expect them to go into what exact model of distortion and chorus pedals, what compressors and amps and pre-amps and mics were used etc. but maybe they just didn't want to reveal that shit or something.

I don't think the guitar sound on Smells Like Teen Spirit sounds much like Gish at all either tho so what do I know

here's a much more in depth geek shit q&a w/ butch vig and his assistant engineer about the SD sessions, worth a read if you're looking for tech shit https://www.gearslutz.com/board/q-butch-vig/398145-1993-smashing-pumpkins-siamese-dream-2.html

lol I like how that totally contradicts Jimmy/Billy within a few posts

(ie using a click to track Mayonnaise for example)

that's the only contradiction i can find, and no drummer wants to admit they had to use a click...

using a click isn't necessarily an indication that a drummer can't keep steady time (pretty clearly JC can - dude is a monster). sometimes drummers are asked to use clicks just because it keeps everything on an exactly steady beat, so that overdubs/electronics/sequencers can be added later with a minimum of fuss

^^^ was trying to think of how to say that

clicks have no bearing on a drummer's capabilities and pros know this

vig was telling me that he got Grohl to play to a click on, I think, Lithium and that Grohl cried that night and that it broke his heart

obviously. still not surprised jimmy/billy would fib and say they never used a click on SD. grohl has a good bit about this in some Nevermind doc about how he was forced to use a click on Lithium after dozens of aborted takes and how mortifying it was despite reassurance from everyone around him

ah xp

hahahaha. i should add vig couldn't have been more voluminous in his praise for grohl, both as a drummer and as a dude.

They could be very solid live. (I saw them in '96 and traded way too many bootleg tapes online from '95 to '99.) James did what he had to do on stage, and did it well. D'Arcy was....there. She wasn't the greatest, but I never really cared. Plus, they were droll and funny and took Billy down a peg. He desperately, desperately needs some of that treatment these days.

By all accounts Larry Mullen Jr. has incredible time, but even U2 records with a click (usually just some looped percussion, which often makes it onto the final track, if you listen for it). It's mostly there for everyone else, everyone *but* the drummer. Overdub happy bands like the Pumpkins all must use clicks, at least to some extent, just to find where they are on the desk and make sure, when they punch in, that they're doing it as precisely as possible.

Plus, they were droll and funny and took Billy down a peg. He desperately, desperately needs some of that treatment these days.

Yeah there was a lot more open humor onstage even towards the end there.

This is a good Larry Mullen story from a while back, originally from The New Yorker:

Brian Eno told a story about U2 drummer, Larry Mullen. When he was producing All That You Can't Leave Behind, Eno gave Mullen a click track (computer generated beat) to play drums over, as a way of keeping everything in synch. Mullen swore the click track wasn't right, and refused to play over it. Eventually Eno adjusted it - but just to humour the drummer, as he knew it couldn't be at fault. Except he later found Mullen was right. The click was off - by six milliseconds!

"The thing is," said Eno, "when we were adjusting it I once had it two milliseconds to the wrong side of the beat, and he said, 'No, you've got to come back a bit.' Which I think is absolutely staggering."

Yeah, I think that's where I got it from. Again, if you have a good drummer (as does U2, as does SP, as does just about any good band) the click is for everyone else.

mullen pretty much has to use a click given how much timed delay stuff the edge uses all the time

i remember in It Might Get Loud, he turned his huge refridgerator sized efx unit on an off and you realize this whole tricky sounding part was just him plinking like 2 notes and the unit did the rest

loving that larry mullen story.

i remember in It Might Get Loud, he turned his huge refridgerator sized efx unit on an off and you realize this whole tricky sounding part was just him plinking like 2 notes and the unit did the rest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8dZwXnMrRU

If I had a U2 cover band, I wouldn't want anyone else in it but the Edge. But any other band ...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMPb5fhAhll/?taken-by=smashingpumpkins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th-AqMvvBzE

Something is happening... previously abandoned www.smashingpumpkins.com now has a big SP heart. Instagram has been wiped clean except for a poster for the rescheduled Madison Square Garden shows in September 1996. The @SmashingPumpkin account tweeted the same poster. The thought of the four of them getting back together for the first time at MSG is making me pretty emotional... just the thought of them reconciling, the family getting back together.

IIRC D'arcy is the only one who hasn't properly resurfaced/made nice with Billy again. So we'll see.

Right now I just want that now long-overdue Machina reissue to happen.

Nope, she's in. Jimmy had a quote about the four of them getting together next year - "it's like 3 Grumpy Old Men, and 1 woman." I have to find that...

Right now I just want that now long-overdue Machina reissue to happen.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, July 24, 2017 1:34 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ Yeah, this!

I predict that if the original four of them start playing together that within months they'll be at each others throats again... and if they manage to make a record before dissolving in acrimony, in the afternath Billy will be all like "I did all the work, as usual. Me, me, memememememeeeeee!"

The guy couldn't even keep the Oceania line-up together - a reformed original Pumpkins will almost certainly combust.

I predict that if the original four of them start playing together that within months they'll be at each others throats again... and if they manage to make a record before dissolving in acrimony, in the afternath Billy will be all like "I did all the work, as usual. Me, me, memememememeeeeee!"

this is the most likely scenario.

but the image of the lights going down at MSG as the Mellon Collie theme comes over the PA and they come out and do "Tonight, Tonight"... 😢❤️

as far as the Machina reissue is concerned... the hold-up is entirely legal. since the reissue campaign began in 2011, EMI got bought out and apparently they weren't interested in continuing the project after the Adore reissue came out in September 2014. so while yes, i agree it sucks, that the record of theirs that deserve another look see more than any other, but it's not being held up by Billy's foibles...

The thought of the four of them getting back together for the first time at MSG is making me pretty emotional... just the thought of them reconciling, the family getting back together.

Same here. I keep thinking of the line from "This Time": "Someday we'll wave hello / And wish we'd never waved goodbye"...and I can't believe it's been 17 years since then.

Let's be honest: D'Arcy was never integral to the lineup in a live setting, James was to a larger extent (he's a competent player), but his importance was mostly to be a foil to Billy's pomposity (meaning James is pretty much a necessity these days...). But I'm a softie -- I just like to see people get along -- and to see the four of them on stage again will feel pretty special, even if it lasts for a tour. That band has meant a lot to me.

flappy: http://loudwire.com/jimmy-chamberlain-potential-2018-smashing-pumpkins-reunion-its-grumpy-old-men-3-four-grumpy-old-men-ones-woman/

xp Sam-

D'arcy gets shit for being a "bad" bassist - maybe not good enough to meet Billy and Burch's standards in the studio - but she was a competent enough bassist to tour for nearly 10 years with the band. I rarely hear her make a mistake (then again, the bass is always low in the mix on Pumpkins stuff).

But yeah - seeing the family together again. The same four people that played on the Pulse Public Access Show in 1988. The same people that toiled in clubs while Nirvana exploded. The same people that made Mellon Collie together.

the four of them rehearsing "Crush" for the Metro shows in the Summer of 1993:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObygE5w4wLQ

It'd be good to see 'em get together for a couple of shows, while the novelty of 'em getting back together is still fresh and before they start arguing and any emthusiasm and vibe goes straight out the window.

that's honestly all i want and all i'm expecting. anything extra is golden

that "crush" rehearsal video is amazing

Yeah, it really is.