TS: Pavement / Smashing Pumpkins

lol for some reason I read Wallace Stevens as Wallace Shawn

"i hear they live in crematoria and smoke yr remains" is a line that sounds like it could be from some Modernist poet

otoh the lyrics to Gold Soundz and Cut Yr Hair (and Range Life for that matter) seems like some self-reflexive bullshit to me

((also I am thinking much more abt the last 3 or 4 albums than S&E))

excellent malkmus lyrics:

Glance
Don't stare
Soon you're being told to recognize your heirs [Ed.—could also be "airs" I suppose]

No
Not me
I'm an island of such great complexity

Stress
surrounds
in the muddy peaceful center of this town

Tell
me off
in the hotel lobby, right in front of
all the bellboys and the overfriendly concierge.

The gauzy thoughts
of the sturdy Scots
wrestle with the elements up on the trail high;
I need to know,
where does it go,
how do I get there, and what will I find?

obviously these all work better as song lyrics but well y'know

also I really love certain aspects of their songwriting, the weird left-turns which are sometimes just plain brilliant, like the hang before the chorus in "Shady Lane" that gives Malkmus time to squeeze in a few more syllables before the tension finally breaks

the edge of creation is blurred and blushed

Malkmus has so many great lines. Corgan has pretty much none, it's all high-school level notebook poetry. Corgan's strengths were primarily as a studio tech - shaping the Pumpkins sound with all those weird, layered guitars. It's clear he focused most on the craft of recording - arranging guitar parts, fiddling to find the right combo of hyper-compressed and overdriven rhythm guitars, etc. But Malkie is the superior writer in every way.

Alex Ross wrote a New Yorker article in '97 in which he made self-satisfied Ashbery comparisons.

um Pavement's '97 album title is taken from Ashbery iirc

so Malkmus kinda explicitly invited those comparisons

yeah was gonna say, not the craziest comparison in the world.

wld like to read that new yorker article if it's online

I have "self-portrait in a convex mirror" sitting open on my desk beside me — I like the idea of long-ass poems but rarely want to put in the effort to actually read them. this is pretty good so far tho.

wasn't "church on white" about a poet?

I thought that was about some dead buddy of his... also, perhaps coincidentally, the last decent song I heard from him.

man now i really wanna know who the Wallace Shawn of 90s rock is.

think church on white is supposed to be about robert bingham, who founded open city magazine, and was an author.

i think billy corgan is the wallace shawn of 90s rock? both so bald anyway.

^^^lol

um Pavement's '97 album title is taken from Ashbery iirc

It's not. Malkmus said at the time that he loved "Hotel Lautreaumont," but I'll check my Ashbery selected poems when I get home.

Billy Corgan is the Ernest Borgnine of 90s rock.

well whatevs, malkmus cited ashberry as an influence ... which means ... i don't know? what were we talking about?

It's not. Malkmus said at the time that he loved "Hotel Lautreaumont," but I'll check my Ashbery selected poems when I get home.

hmm okay - well at the very least I don't think it's fair to fault Alex Ross when Malkmus was going around trumpeting Ashbery's influence on him and the album in interviews at the time

xp

i think billy corgan is the wallace shawn of 90s rock? both so bald anyway.

― tylerw, Thursday, February 10, 2011 12:34 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

inconcievable!

who would be Corgan's My Dinner With Andre foil? Courtney?

Well, I only added 'self-congratulatory" because it was (a) a New Yorker article written in 1997 and (b) by Alex Ross.

who would be Corgan's My Dinner With Andre foil? Courtney?

lol yeah I was trying to think of this too - would have to be someone male I think. maybe one of Courtney's other paramours (Ed Norton? lol)

who would be Corgan's My Dinner With Andre foil? Courtney?
i'd probably watch this. probably not a stretch to imagine some future reality show, with corgan triying to produce courtney's new record.

or how about Malkmus HA

Malkmus can be a good lyricist, though he annoys the shit out of me sometimes...

Corgan has semi-decent moments, but he's not as good a lyricist as Malkmus, but I think he's really good at composing. If the only Pumpkins songs you hear are Cherub Rock and 1979 you're not going to know how, say, the best songs in Siamese Dreams & MCIS take strange left turns themselves and resist conforming to verse-chorus structures; think of the "I want to turn you on" part of "Today" where not only do those huge bright sunshinely guitars turn sinister on a dime, but the implicit dark undercurrents of the song ("Can't wait til tomorrow/May not have that long") break free and threaten to wreak havoc on the foreground...

You guys act like Corgan's on some BTO horseshit...I wish Ned or DJP would come in here & back me up...

I don't disagree - on those first two albums there's some really inventive song structures, it's all very well planned out. I remember reading something Corgan said at the time about how if you're going to have a 10-minute song you need to make sure that it has a bunch of different parts that evolve into one another and fit together (which kind of isn't true in a general aesthetic sense, but you can hear this approach in the songs themselves)

just went and listened to "Today" — oh shit I remember this song! I used to like it as a kid, never knew it was by the Pumpkins. dude's voice is even worse than I remember tho :/

To be honest, I'd rather listen to Siamese Dream and Gish when I want a rare fix of that Alan Moulder wall of sound.

Thru The Eyes Of Ruby >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the entire output of a band Blur ended up trumping and who aren't fit to lace MES' shoes

yo

I mean, who cares what SP's lyrics are like, they write awesome cinematic spiralling unpredictable massy and often sublime music

my 2c

i keep meaning to do a one CD edit of melon collie, that and use yr illusions I&II

Corgan's voice really is insufferably whiny and thin. it's kinda passable when he's doing the quiet/breathy/dreamy thing but ugh when he starts trying to emote and sing louder it's just... ugh.

his range seems insanely limited too. like I doubt the guy can even range two octaves.

true, but he's actually got a pretty great scream, when he stops trying to sing actual notes.

LJ: bringing the otm to a sad and bereft thread!

neither one of these bands can fuck with bob seger

few can

also, I like the pink disc on MCIS, but imo the blue disc, taken by itself, would probably be second only to Pisces Iscariot as far as best Pumpkins album.

But I have weird (you could say challenging) opinions when it comes to the Pumpkins...

Saw a new Smashing Pumpkins show on TV the other week at a bar while waiting for my friend's band to start. At one point a bunch of professional wrestlers interrupted the show and were like "Stop the show! We're not letting you play anymore!" and there was punching and some wrestling right in the middle of this SP concert and I think Billy was even involved in some of the wrestling. Then at the end of the skit one of the wrestlers (wearing a skeleton costume) was victorious and he was a friend of the SP so he and Billy held up their arms in victory and all the wrestlers left the stage. Then they went into "Zero" or something. It was one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen.

Bob Seger: bringing the overrated to a world that was doing just fine on its own

(also where's that pic?)

pavement

EMPTINESS IS LONELINESS
LONELINESS IS CLEANLINESS
CLEANLINESS IS GODLINESS
AND GOD IS EMPTY
JUST
LIKE
MEEEEEEEEEEEE

^on the pink disc

EMPTINESS IS LONELINESS
LONELINESS IS CLEANLINESS
CLEANLINESS IS GODLINESS
AND GOD IS EMPTY
AIN'T IT FUNNY
HOW THE NIGHT MOVES?

Bob Seger: bringing the overrated to a world that was doing just fine on its own

― kkvbgz (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, February 10, 2011 12:04 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

myonga's seger bootleg is KILLING it in my headphones right now omg

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/class-in-session/Content?oid=892764
found this article while googling for pavement/ashbery info — too funny not to post

Many of the lyrics on this album sound like they were transcribed at the back of a town meeting somewhere in Connecticut, with talk about stiff upper lips, visas, voice coaches, limousines, perfectly prepared roasts, wedding invitations, and so on. You almost expect to get a note from Malkmus--within three days of course--thanking you for buying the record.