Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

Trying to think of good Def Leppard or Boston bass lines ...

I can't tell the full extent of the bass part on "Glynis":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsvtXg7fMY4

like there's definitely a bass playing the root, but i can't tell if the bass part is also following along with the riff on another string

making D'arcy play roots and fifths all the time seems a more glaring example of Billy's egotism tbrr

lmao

i mean of all the infinite examples of Billy being an asshole... this is wild

p4k reporting on that new interview with "BlastEcho" with "D'arcy"... the first and only time i've ever encountered this site is when they're talking to "D'arcy"

every great band is allowed to have one member who mostly coasts. in most bands it's the singer.

Seriously. I've seen lots of bands where the singer has just left or stood there and done nothing for a stretch. GNR, Tool, Oasis, Morrissey, the Who ...

again though, look at or listen to any Pumpkins show and the myth of D'arcy being a bad bassist will evaporate... this is just one example, & I'm posting it bc it wasn't circulating until v recently (only acoustic performance of Ruby ever)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75aYiJnEU2I

No one said bad. I don't think? the shows I saw her with were no good but it was not her fault.

which shows did you go to? any of the Rosemont Horizon gigs in October 1996?

I honestly can't remember! One was Lollapalooza '94, another ... was a club date?

Expanding on a previous statement D’arcy made to BlastEcho, D’arcy said that Corgan initially made a contract offer to her, Iha and Chamberlin, which was agreed upon by all parties. However, a month later D’arcy says Billy told her “well, that wasn’t a real offer.” It’s unclear whether or not the initial offer remains for Iha and Chamberlin, although D’arcy is under the impression it is.

An explanation as to why the offer was rescinded, too, remains unclear. Cryptically, she said she has an inkling but “that is a whole other can of worms and a big, ugly one! Another time.”

https://www.stereogum.com/1982667/darcy-wretzky-says-billy-corgan-rescinded-her-invitation-to-play-in-smashing-pumpkins-reunion/news/

i dunno maybe after playing music for decades she forgot how to play dead simple bass lines

I'm trying to picture Van Halen with a McCartney or Entwistle on bass and while YMMV, in my head it sounds like a total mess. Basically I don't think "has a lot of memorable bass parts" is a really good measure of whether a bassist was an important or hard-to-replace aspect of a band's sound. Especially since it's also so dependent on arrangements and composition - Kim Deal's bass part on Monkey Gone To Heaven is memorable despite not being very unique, because the soft/loud dynamics and the lopey pace of the verse vocal put it way way up front in the mix as the main thing tracking your way through that song. The Pumpkins' guitar-orchestra sound, like Boston's, isn't going to do that most of the time, so yeah, the Bullet With Butterfly Wings type songs are the count-on-one-hand exceptions. But that doesn't really tell us that D'Arcy didn't bring anything to the band on other songs.

But I know you know all this, JiC, and I don't mean to come onto a board full of heavy musical hitters and do a rehash of every "is Ringo a great drummer?" conversation ever. I think I'm mostly just talking myself into paying attention to the bass parts next time I put some Pumpkins on!

removing bookmark bc i hate this thread title that much

xpost Ha, no, I totally get you. But I'm not saying VH needed a better bassist. The *last* reason Michael Anthony made it as long as he did was for his bass playing. Reading their manager's book reaffirmed that he was kept on for his harmonies and for being an all-around good guy. As a bass player, he was absolutely replaceable. In a way that EVH (obviously.), AVH (debatable) and DLR (for sure) were not. In the Pumpkins, you need Billy (duh) and Chamberlin (for that classic sound), but D'Arcy and Iha were just there to take up space (in every sense). That said, given Corgan is a shredder and Chamberlin a virtuoso, and that the band essentially operated at its prime like a prog band (vs. VH's bar band boogie rock), they probably would not have been hurt by the presence of some bass wiz. Then again, they might have just ended up sounding like the Mars Volta or something.

Bouncing off your aside, btw, the Pixies example is apt. Kim's no virtuoso, but she was essential to the band's sound, as a player (simple or no, she found a way to stick out), as a singer and as a presence. Her ouster was probably the total flip side to D'Arcy's - Deal was competition, D'Arcy was distraction.

Iha was crucial to the classic band’s sound, and totally not replaceable as the last 11 years have shown. Also yeah, complicated bass playing would’ve made the Pumpkins’ already insane music cross over into, you called it, Mars Volta total prog territory.

Re: Iha, a confession: I was just wondering to myself, hmm, who was the second guitarist all those years when Melissa was in the band? And then I remembered it was still Iha! But I don't know, I think it was less that he was so essential and more that Billy kept picking bad replacements. As opposed to Melissa, who was perfect.

There's a great scene in the Metallica doc where they are trying out bassists, and this one girl totally rocked it, and then they went with lame but obv. more than capable (as are countless bassists) but imo still not right Suicidal Tendencies guy. There's a replacement, and then there's the *right* replacement, and to say Corgan has overthought pretty much everything/one the last decade+ would be an overstatement.

There are some great stories of Daryl Jones in the Stones. Clearly the guy can play anything, and the Stones don't need that. But I think they liked that he wasn't that familiar with them and half-assed his audition (which, of course, probably still sounded better than most). Jones said he had to learn to play with fewer fingers, iirc, to keep things simple but also make things more challenging.

There was that other great story with Dire Straits in the studio with Omar Hakim, after they sacked their regular drummer. They were amazed that Hakim basically flew in and cranked out the whole record in just a day, which should surprise no one who has ever heard him fusion-ing out.

A statement from the band:

In reuniting The Smashing Pumpkins, the band's dedication remains to its fans and its music. To that, James Iha, Jimmy Chamberlin, and William Corgan haven't played a show with D'arcy Wretzky for over 18 years. But it's not for a lack of trying. For despite reports, Ms. Wretzky has repeatedly been invited out to play with the group, participate in demo sessions, or at the very least, meet face-to-face, and in each and every instance she always deferred. We wish her all the best, and look forward to reconnecting with you all very soon.

Pretty much exactly what I expected: she's either not interested or not well enough to participate. She's not being left out of anything. This really sucks, but at least it's not like 2007 or the decade that followed.

Set the ray to jerry is driven by a bass riff and awesome drums.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Monday, February 12, 2018 3:57 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So sick

Pretty much exactly what I expected: she's either not interested or not well enough to participate. She's not being left out of anything

if you 100% discount her words in favor of Billy's account then yeah. i guess "believe women" is for only certain circumstances.

https://www.alternativenation.net/smashing-pumpkins-darcy-shares-billy-corgan-guns-n-roses-reunion-offer/

here's more details from D'Arcy. the whole thing seems like a bit of a mess

I saw that it was a set of texts and I couldn't get very far. peering into peoples' communications makes me queasy. I'm sure plenty will summarize.

Weird ... leaked text exchange? Something seems to be missing. Corgan seems (operative word) amenable and maximum flexible, she seems fine. And then it gets strange.

xpost Corgan tells her she can participate as much or as little as she wants, and seems very flexible and understanding. She can get her own bus at the ready, she can just show up to sing a song or two, or play several songs, if she wants, and in the meantime is welcome to record with them as much or as little as she wants. And she seems excited about it. But then there's stuff about an injured shoulder that may or may not need work, and her mom, and Peter Hook's son playing bass for most of the set and ... t-shirt sales? It's weird. Corgan says he hasn't seen her in 19 years.

Super uncomfortable that all of this was (apparently) attempted without a face-to-face. What a weird bunch of folks.

Well, who knows what is up, but it's pretty clear that D'Arcy is the recluse, or the one who has otherwise vanished. Corgan and Jimmy have been in the studio, James has at least made an appearance, or otherwise been in contact over the years.

Maybe D'Arcy can form a band with Meg White and her husband (Patti Smith's son) and just quietly tour Michigan.

Meg and her husband divorced four years ago, though that's never stopped her starting a band with someone obvs.

It's weird, isn't it? There's obviously a world of hurt feelings here, and it's hard to understand from the outside. Also, artists are often damaged and super-sensitive people and struggle to function. And yeah, I can understand Billy being anxious that Darcy is up to the job, and seems to be handing this as sensitively as possible (and I say this as someone who found him hella unpleasant the time I interviewed him, though that was circa Zwan so who knows?). There are definitely texts missing there, too.

I mean....this is gonna suck either way so

d'arcy is in the comments of that alternative nation post

can we just not do this whole reunion thing

I mean....this is gonna suck either way so

hahahahaha i mean obviously

https://www.facebook.com/darcy.wretzkybrown she's posting about it more on her fb too

it sounds like Corgan was open to having her involved a little on tour as well as recording with them (which she couldn't make and James couldn't for most of the time either weirdly) but she wanted to at least try to prove she was up for the whole thing and he wasn't interested? a very weird way to go about having a reunion, especially deciding on all this without even a face-to-face meeting but that's Billy I guess

Something strange about all this. But it sounds - not unreasonably - that Corgan is unwilling to commit to bringing her back for a big, full tour before he knows if she is even capable after 19 (rough?) years away. The Adler-in-nu-GNR comparison seems somewhat apt.

so do, like, a small tour. or play some clubs under fake names. or just rehearse together, see how it feels. it doesn't have to be the mega world lifechanging tour, except billy already took out the times square advertising and started dropping hints and now his frame in discussions is going to be that. i can imagine d'arcy suggesting these other things but he is so classically grandiose that i can totally see how his vision of the big comeback tour drowns out any other possible way of doing it, or whatever anyone else might say.

It's not like he would be "reuniting" for the sake of art. He wants money, he needs this to be huge.

James couldn't for most of the time either weirdly)

James is in A Perfect Circle now, and they have a new album on the way, so I'm guessing that's his focus at the moment

A Perfect Circle is one of those bands I don't think of as that big but the I see they are playing our local hockey arena which is like 20K
they might out-draw Pumpkins at this point

Definitely. It's the Tool connection.

James’ playing & the few

/Pretty much exactly what I expected: she's either not interested or not well enough to participate. She's not being left out of anything/

if you 100% discount her words in favor of Billy's account then yeah. i guess "believe women" is for only certain circumstances.

and reading those text messages confirms what I thought: Billy being uncharacteristically and refreshingly amenable, very considerate of D'arcy and her concerns and very much wanting her to be a part of recording & touring. D'arcy defers. And keep in mind this is the tip of the iceberg of a whole bunch of issues we know nothing about. but for anyone to side with D'arcy, an unreliable and mentally unstable addict recluse simply because she's a woman, is absurd & insulting. I love D'arcy. I want the original four - the family - back together more than anything. and I am not an uncritical Corgan apologist. but his statements & attitude & comments in the last year and a half show that he's grown & moved on & truly wants them all together. and then D'arcy goes and leaks text messages- communications that actually reinforce the idea that Corgan is doing his best to get her on board- and now the reunion is happening in the most SP way possible. leaking text messages is so NAGL.

re: the suggestion that they start out small, do a club tour, less pressure- well, yeah. that would be nice. but Billy's position hasn't changed since 1995: "the smashing pumpkins either go up or they go away. we're not going back to playing bars in chicago." according to those messages, Billy was being very accommodating only a month ago, and something happened in the interim to lead him to rescind the offer- probably more "deferments." I will eat crow in the coming days if some nasty shit comes out, but right now, it's just a sad situation.

and again, if it were just Billy, or even just Billy & Jimmy saying this, I wouldn't be defending them or necessarily believe them. but the fact that James is on board, however minor his involvement is (yes, he's busy with APC for the next several months), makes D'arcy come off looking really poorly. James has never sided with Billy since the breakup and has remained friends with D'arcy since 1999, so if his name is on a statement, I take it.

this band is such a drag

I was gonna say!

Life's a bummer
When you're an SP fan

Like, I love 1991-2000 as much as anyone that's into that music but at this stage I struggle to give the slightest fuck about anyone in the band. Apart from Jimmy, who has seemed like a down to earth guy after he cleaned up his act - although I may be wrong about that.

ugh those texts are rough. BC a manipulative jerk

https://i.imgur.com/FevXLSA.jpg

how is he being manipulative in that out of context text message

Yeah, that came after the missing chunk, when the tone of the texts seemed to change.