Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

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.

i forgot to mention that's Billy's old living room in the house where he wrote Mellon Collie. another classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKo4eT38XS4

*enthusiasm, rather.

Okay, so let's say the Pumpkins get back together in the original line-up to play one massive fuck off three hour stadium gig... what would you all wanna see on the setlist?

Obviously, this'll rule out anything past the MACHINA's...

Okay, so let's say the Pumpkins get back together in the original line-up to play one massive fuck off three hour stadium gig... what would you all wanna see on the setlist?

Obviously, this'll rule out anything past the MACHINA's...

― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Wednesday, July 26, 2017 5:16 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The latter goes without saying. I still just can't see it happening. Well I can see a reunion happening, but there's no way Billy will not fuck it up in some form or shape. How he went from archetype and beloved emo rockstar to complete, egotistical dumbass - and more importantly, how he seems to have completely unlearned or forgotten how to write good songs - is completely beyond me still.

Setlist? I'll happily live without hearing Disarm/Today/etc ever again. A good setlist for that imaginary one off would have to include some old cuts (Drown, Glynis, On my Own etc), but I'd be forgiving towards a 30 mins Silverfuck jam out session, too. Honestly though I don't think they have it in them any more. The rest maybe, but Billy? Nah.

Well I can see a reunion happening, but there's no way Billy will not fuck it up in some form or shape. How he went from archetype and beloved emo rockstar to complete, egotistical dumbass - and more importantly, how he seems to have completely unlearned or forgotten how to write good songs - is completely beyond me still.

Yup, yup and (Oceania aside) yup.

Also, I'd argue that he doesn't seem to have developed a level of self-awareness strong enough to realise that sometimes it's not others who are to blame for his career stalling.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Rocket
Tonight, Tonight
Cherub Rock
Hummer
Rhinoceros
Set the Ray to Jerry
Blew Away
Soma
Disarm
Today
Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
By Starlight
Muzzle
---
To Sheila
Thirty-three
Rotten Apples
Stand Inside Your Love
Galapagos
Perfect
Luna
This Time
Beautiful
Wound
If There is a God
Let Me Give the World to You
---
The Aeroplane Flies High
The Everlasting Gaze
Zero
Fuck You
I of the Mourning
Snail
I Am One (with rant)
Shame
To Forgive
Mayonaise
Pug
Starla
For Martha
Blank Page
---
1979
Siva
---
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
X.Y.U.
---
Silverfuck

^ that's an attempt at a realistic setlist, not some fantasy... a few years ago I would've doubted they could still do Fuck You and Geek live, but Billy and Jimmy encored with Geek during that Manson tour a couple years ago. obviously missing a lot - I don't even like Starla, should've put Drown in its place...

Would love to see Here is No Why and Jellybelly but the band could barely pull those off in 1996.

That looks far longer than three hours to me!

There isn't a song I dislike there, though, which I guess says something!

hehe well the last Metro show was 4 and change... and I just realized I left off Glass and the Ghost Children!

How he went from archetype and beloved emo rockstar to complete, egotistical dumbass

he was always the latter tho, there's no real transformation here

"What's your sign?"

Basically, the evolution of Corgan's image directly correlates to how well the music press got to know him.

he was always the latter tho, there's no real transformation here

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Wednesday, July 26, 2017 6:13 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You're probably right. My teenage self (was 15 when Gish came out and was a fan) was blind to that side. I would say he's gotten more 'grotesque'. But even that doesn't matter. What matters is the huge decline in quality of his songs after Machina.

(Flappy: I'd love to hear Set The Ray To Jerry live!)

I love this performance from 1997, uploaded fairly recently (in the last few years at least...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg14N6X0GOE

Basically, the evolution of Corgan's image directly correlates to how well the music press got to know him.

― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Wednesday, July 26, 2017 2:21 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The turning point was the release of Adore. Before 1998, Billy could do no wrong. After the massive success of MCIS, he had a great late '96 - 1997 with "Eye," those Batman songs, TAFH... when Adore didn't do well, he just completely lost it, blaming the fans, panicking, getting the original four back together in the fall of 1998 to do one final RAWK album... keep in mind that Adore was originally meant to be a Billy Corgan solo album... he just flew way too close to the sun, was completely overexposed by 1998, and by the time Machina came out in early 2000, it was totally eclipsed by nu-metal in the mainstream and then later on by Kid A: Radiohead were now the modern rock band pushing the genre forward. Billy was suddenly a dinosaur. That's when he blew up the ship. Obviously everything since then has been a disaster to differing degrees... that first Zwan show is incredible, I mean "Chrysanthemum" is one of my favorite songs Billy's ever written, a remarkably clear-headed and optimistic look back at the history of SP but still determined to move forward. "A flower's still a flower crushed to dust inside my hand / We were going somewhere." and we all know how that turned out...

ha, my dad just pointed out that the first 10 seconds of this Cream song sound remarkably similar to one of SP's bigger hits...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyx7NZqy0XE

(just a couple chords, but still. i know he actually ripped off "Pleasure" by the Frogs...)

xp

Some huge broad strokes in that summation.

Machina wasn't "eclipsed" by Kid A. It was nowhere near as good or interesting. You can't argue Radiohead stole his sunshine or whatever, or that it was an album that was behind the times. It just wasn't up to the standard.

I think your summary lacks the stuff with Melvoin/Chamberlin (and to kick off the misery, Bernadette O'brien's death). After that Corgan transformed from a ~very serious artist~ into I-just-want-to-jam-and-rawk Billy. The live jams got longer, he veered into Status Quo/Motley Crue terrain live. He wanted to have "fun". He *wanted* to be that rock dinosaur. Which is fair enough but it was detrimental to his song writing. Zwan's s/t has two or three classic songs, and those were p much the last good songs he wrote.

I'm not arguing Radiohead stole his sunshine, but Billy gambled in 1998 on moving SP forward with Adore in the same way that Radiohead gambled and won with Kid A. You're right, Adore is the Kid A analogue. I just meant that by 2000, SP was a dinosaur act that had failed in its attempt to progress. I don't think he wanted to be a dinosaur - he wanted to be on the cutting edge, like he said in every promotional interview for MCIS in 1995 and again in early 1998. He settled for being a rock parody when he realized that's all that was left. The misery of the summer of 1996 played into his initial decision to make a solo album. Can't argue with the decline in his songwriting, and his second-guessing himself and leaving the best songs from a particular era off the record (this applies to Machina I, Mary Star, Zeitgeist).

MACHINA/The Machines of God is very much the work of someone who wants to be a "very serious artist" ...

... particularly in the way that it was originally envisioned, this massive double CD album with a Ziggy Stardust-inspired concept...