Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

I'm surprised to hear that a bunch of my son's high school friends are also hyped up about this tour. I had no idea that today's youth had an interest in this old timey muzak. It's kind of like when Pink Floyd and Page/Plant got back together in the 90s.

Frances Bean Cobain & Krist Novocelic Present: The Nirvana Experience (Featuring Dave Grohl)

honestly surprised that he's actually doing pre-Zeitgeist material only, with no mention of whatever new music they were working on. that can only be a good sign

So otm & also a huge selling point for most ppl I know. Because some of them were there in 2008 for the 10 minute covers of “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”

Zwan did a killer cover of Silver Machine when I saw them at the Metro, iirc

To be fair there are 5 or so post-Machina II songs that I’d be happy to hear live in addition to the old stuff. It hasn’t been ALL bad.

yeah i know but dont give the big bad bald man any ideas

“And here’s an old favorite: ‘Being Beige’!”

What was that? A sequel to Mayonaise or something?

Lol

"This is a song about a jerk, I hexed him and now he's losing his hair"

Fresh Fruit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS-ThN4aEDU

I confess that I haven't heard all that much of their stuff but based on what I have heard, the Smashing Pumpkins' popularity might baffle me more than anything else in music. The music may be good but then the 'vocals' come in and to all my perception those are nothing more than utterly unpleasant croaking.

I like New Order's 'Get Ready' a lot but always hated their choice to feature Corgan on Turn My Way. He opens his mouth and the song is spoiled.
Bowie did that 50th birthday show with guest musicians, two songs with Corgan, same story: to my ears, it's a musical massacre. He doesn't add anything to the songs/show but detriment. For me, it was a struggle to listen to the songs with him.
And I've never been able to understand why so many people do like his stuff; why even someone like Bowie would invite him to 'sing' along on that special stage.

only young people and dogs can fully hear his singing

I know what you mean, I feel the same way about Bjork

StanM - that's one of the best responses I ever had.

I can see how Bjork could have a similar effect on people. I actually do like her vocals a lot!

His nasal whine is a big part of what I love so much about the first two albums, I can't really think of any voice that would go better.

i thought this was cool, the bat strat thru the years:

http://data.whicdn.com/images/23707630/bat-strat3_large.jpg

corgan! a study in glumness, coming summer 2018 from taschen

tour is already a disaster, not selling anywhere: https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/02/smashing-pumpkins-reunion-tour-doesnt-appear-to-be-selling-very-well/

i'm feeling pretty disgusted with Billy lately, mostly re: stuff in the D'arcy interviews. 1) this is a completely cynical cash grab because Bill got himself in a financial hole buying all those wrestling companies 2) he gave D'arcy the runaround and never seriously considered having her on the tour, and didn't even have the basic courtesy of working out an offer 3) even though it's not exactly news, the stories that D'arcy has told have - for the first time - made it hard for me to listen to SP music.

not sure if yall read the outtakes from the interview, but Billy straight up refused to play "Daydream" in the Gish/SD years because fans wanted to hear it so much & he just couldn't stand D'arcy or anyone else getting any attention. the other revelation from these interviews is the extent to which Billy sidelined D'arcy through the original run & how much the fans lost out on because of his petty insecurities. with James, we got what he could give, and as evidenced by his solo work, he was not a repressed talent like George Harrison. we got Jimmy's contributions obviously. but D'arcy recorded backup vocals for almost all of the songs on MCIS only to have Billy cut them at the last second. he wouldn't let her sing. and now all this false positivity on his instagram because he is nervous as fuck, this tour looks like a disaster, and he totally posted that "proposed" song list the day tickets went on sale purely to generate headlines. he asked fans to post and hashtag any favorites he might've missed. AND THEN he goes on instagram the next day and says "whoa whoa whoa, i only asked for 1 or 2 suggestions, not whole setlists, also why did you flood my DMs? you were supposed to hashtag. besides i've been writing setlists for 35 years, I think I've got this." FUCK YOU

I know this might all be so obvious to some of you but the extent to which SP's "abusive household" dynamic and Billy's unrelenting toxicity to everyone that ever cared about him AND his inexplicable disdain for his fans is all becoming clearer and it makes me sick.

I never noticed how much Amanda Knox looks like Billy Corgan before

I've been listening to Gish again thanks to all these threads and I still love the whole thing, though now "I'm Going Crazy" bugs me because it seems like he tacked that filler on at the end because no way was D'arcy gonna have the last word on his album.

Reading Billy's instagram has reminded me that he's the type of guy who uses the word "whilst."

xpost Is that supposed to be the same guitar in every picture? I get the feeling Corgan is the sort to have Fender make him pre-distressed vanity guitars.

I think even if D'Arcy were involved this tour would not sell, not least because of the last 10 years of SP but also because of the preceding 6 years and also some of the years before that and also because no one likes Billy Corgan and also because BC doesn't like anyone else (including his fans) and also because the band's heyday was two decades ago and it was a moment.

Counterpoint: when the band fought hard against the city to play Chicago for free and ended up donating 100% of net proceeds of the tour to charity. That was cool.

xpost Is that supposed to be the same guitar in every picture? I get the feeling Corgan is the sort to have Fender make him pre-distressed vanity guitars.

This may be my favorite opening line to an article that I've ever seen in my entire life. pic.twitter.com/HOWqFymYNk

— Matthew D'Ambrosio™ (@drmattdambrosio) February 26, 2018

haha old mpls/st paul 00s indie punk crv member wrote that :)

ahahahahaha that is the most incredible thing, fuck you Billy

that deserves a pulitzer prize

tempted to buy a ticket tbh

luckily they're playing in town so i have one. dont know where. but im not stoked, which sucks. felt really good in late 2017, the solo album was great, the solo show i saw was great, all the press & intimations about a reunion & an emphasis on reestablishing relationships with all members. i remember thinking at the time enjoy this while it lasts

tempted to buy a ticket tbh

if ticket prices get slashed AND I hear glowing reports of early shows, maaaaaybe. but only then.

I still have vague memories of them sounding like shit on the Machina tour when I was 14.

fully expecting Billy to turn Love Will Tear Us Apart into an unrecognisable 20 minute metal jam every night

no he learned his lesson with Set the Controls in 2008. every cover he’s done since then has been faithful & imo mostly good, especially Fame. Kinda sick of Space Oddity he’s been doing that for 6 years now.

BUT we all know the incredible 20+ min covers of Transmission on the Adore tour. So, who knows.

BUT we all know the incredible 20+ min covers of Transmission on the Adore tour

oh, of course we do

I still have vague memories of them sounding like shit on the Machina tour when I was 14.

― Simon H., Tuesday, February 27, 2018 3:10 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That was the last time I saw them. They were, indeed, shit.

I only saw them once, at Reading '95. I think they were pretty good, although I can't remember a whole lot of it. They'd just followed Green Day and a pretty awful Hole performance so that probably helped.

I saw them in Brixton on the Siamese Dream tour, the show where Billy dressed as a clown, and they were very bad, and I was broken-hearted as I wanted them to be great. Low-point - Billy teases opening notes of Drown, my favourite song, then doesn't play it because we "don't deserve it".

Then I saw them at the London show for the Machina tour, which was pretty good, though I don't remember much.

Then I saw a couple of shows at Metro in Chicago and a promo thing at the Natural History Museum for Zwan in 2003, which were excellent. That was a great band, if murderously unstable.

I only saw them once, at Reading '95. I think they were pretty good, although I can't remember a whole lot of it.

Wow, I bought a bootleg of that show in '96 for $25, a hefty sum for a 14-year-old. I still listen to it -- that version of "Mayonaise" is my all-time favorite.

I bought this bootleg of the '94 Astoria concert for probably the same amount. The dude in the record store got his special case w/ bootlegs out from underneath the counter. It felt so bad-ass.

I was not a bootleg buyer (mainly because I couldn't afford $25 CDs!) but I had a friend who was, and the record store we went to had a "secret back room"

I just looked up the setlist of the Reading '95 show and I do remember at the time thinking it was picking up a bit around Geek USA, probably because they'd played a few Mellon Collie songs before that and it hadn't come out yet, or I hadn't heard it yet anyway. Mayonaise is one my favourite SP songs so I wish I could say I remembered them playing it, but I don't unfortunately. It's probably on Youtube by now though.

xp Wasn't it a thrill?! 'My' guy actually got busted for selling bootleg cd's. It cost him dearly, and he was out of business a year later.

I saw them twice in 94 & they were bad both times, because Billy kept trying to play too fast and Jimmy would get lost a bit before catching up, and it was a mess. I would not go see them again (and have never been a fan as much as an interested observer)

I know I saw Zwan once, at the Aragon, and I seem to recall it was pretty okay.

I was reading the comments of that AV club twist the knife takedown, and somebody compared Melancholy to Frampton Comes Alive.

xxp Around '97 the thrill of buying bootlegs at my local shop (the Record Exchange in Lakewood, OH) dimmed with the advent of the internet, as I spent the next few years dealing and trading SP concert cassettes via some SP message board. But boy did I spend too much hard-earned cash on them.

Listessa was the first band mailing list I was on I think, and a spin-off from that, June. That's when the trading started indeed!

oh my God, second shows added in Chicago and Los Angeles!! Act fast!