Smashing Pumpkins: Fresh Fruit or Rotten Veg?

Billy Corgan: the Fat Bob years

Corgan surely must be chuffed that this tour is being as well received as he wanted it to be. I really, really hope he doesn't do what he's prone to do and blow it.

(He probably will)

As opposed to the Fat Billy years?

Looking like a Gary Numan rhythm guitarist

^ lol

Hahahaha OTM.

Come to think of it, isn't Corgan a Numan fan? I think SP covered 'Cars' at some point. I like a lot of what's Numan's done from Sacrifice onwards, as it happens.

*what

Starchildren (Billy, James, Jimmy, + members of Catherine) covered Cars in 1994 and yes, it rules: https://archive.org/details/tsp1994-06-18.shn

also has a killer super fast version of The Boy and the first performance of Here is No Why.

new source for 2/7/96 show in San Francisco: https://we.tl/AhIHvlzsJk

01. Tonight, Tonight
02. In the Arms of Sleep
03. Cupid de Locke
04. Billy talkin' and noodlin'
05. Thirty-three
06. Today
07. Soma ->
08. Take Me Down
09. Beautiful
10. Rocket
11. Disarm
12. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
13. Where Boys Fear to Tread
14. Zero
15. Fuck You (An Ode to No One)
16. Here Is No Why
17. To Forgive
18. Bullet with Butterfly Wings
19. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby
20. Galapagos
21. Geek U.S.A.
22. Cherub Rock
23. Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
24. encore break #1
25. 1979
26. X.Y.U.
27. Muzzle
28. Silverfuck -> Space Jam (tease) -> Drown (tease)
29. Farewell and Goodnight

Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Corgan: I'd just like to say one more thing, as long as we're chatting. Uhm, we also realize that the whole notion of our crazy double record thing wouldn't be possible without people actually buying the record because if no one bought the record then they'd think we're fucking crazy. So thanks for buying our records, too.
Wretzky: We're really not crazy. We're not crazy at all.
Corgan: No we're not crazy, but people would say we're crazy if no one bought the records, then people are buying the record...
Wretzky: Well, we're not.
Iha: Well they were just speaking metaphorically, didactically, allegorically, we think that the root of the...
Corgan: We know you went to college, alright.
Wretzky: James bought everyone a thesaurus.
Iha: Get off my back.
Corgan: One, two, three, four...
Galapogos

UK show went on sale about a month or two ago... Wembley Arena only...i am quietly hyped as i never saw them and setlist + reports have been gone enough for me to put aside the billy being an insane asshole (well more than usual) in the last few years.

weirdly only 2 european shows announced at all so maybe they're waiting to see how those sell before slotting in more?

https://i.imgur.com/FTe7oI0.png

👀

About damn time! (Wonder what the holdup was?)

flappy has more info than me but it was a legal conflict with virgin iirc???

Now for the remaining impossible dream: a complete Zwan box.

no no don't even mention it, i want it to happen too much

Given the legal craziness THAT would involve. But you should write the liners.

well, he did also say yesterday that a studio version of Chrysanthemum exists (!!!)

the Machina reissue was tied up because at some point in 2013/2014 Virgin's parent company (EMI?) was bought by an even larger conglomerate (BMG?) that had no interest in continuing the reissue series. The Adore box was ready to go, and they were already assembling materials for the Machina reissue in 2013. so work has already been done on it (that's where those leaked demos like the straight ahead Raindrops + Sunshowers came from), but I'd say best case scenario it's out by Xmas 2019.

Zwan stuff is also in the pipeline according to his Instagram Q&A - which I encourage anyone to try, he's on there for an hour or two almost every night after a show. I mean, that is how we found out about this reissue stuff.

Also said new solo album "early next year," which is sweet because I loved Ogilala.

uh but don't ask him about the Pastichio Medley...

he's also been talking a lot about a Zeitgeist remix, going so far as to say that "the real version has never been heard." whatever the fuck that means

Holy shit! This is great news - of all of the reissues, it's the MACHINA one that I'm most interested in - for obvious reasons. A Zwan box would be great - as good as the album is, it doesn't tell anywhere near the full story of that band creatively.

Beautiful
BILLY: Remember how we were talking about how I never have to go pee while we're on stage? I have to go pee right now.
D'ARCY: There's a cup right behind you.
BILLY: I guess I could pee on stage...
JAMES: I heard that, Jonathan.
BILLY: I mean I suppose you've seen worse in DC with your mayor smoking crack and all... *crowd boos* ...hey I was there with him, you just didn't see me on the tape!
JAMES: Oh yeah, you told me about that.
Rocket

https://youtu.be/XTRsoERrbi8?t=33m18s

When I saw Zwan live, I was surprised by Billy’s genuinely funny stage patter.

Some of his onstage rants since he resurrected the Pumpkins name have been ridiculous. Remember the time he went on a long rant in Glasgow about "alternative rock"? Or got a heckler up onstage to tell him "I liked that song you wrote. 'Take Your Dick Out of My Ass and Put It In Your Mouth' ... huge hit in Europe!"

*My

There were others, but I can't think of 'em off the top of my head ...

yes. 08-10 was the nadir of the band imo

Glad Billy is being positive now because it’s working - this tour has been surprisingly successful, and brought a lot of old fans back on board.

He's giving people what they want with this tour - whereas ten years ago he'd "reformed" the Pumpkins pretty much in name only and was stubbornly refusing to play a lot of old stuff. Audiences were paying money to see Corgan, Jimmy and some newbies plough their way through a lot of new material - not all of it good.

Y'know - in a way, it's a shame that Corgan has abandoned the whole Teargarden by Kaliedyscope thing, given that he was only 10 songs or so away from finishing it - and I'm guessing all of those are on the unreleased album that were supposed to come out after Monuments ...

A friend saw their show last night... Said it was good, but low-energy.

There's another new song coming out in a couple of weeks (13th Sept), called Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts).

It was last night's show that they streamed live, right?

Yes

Did you watch it? I've only seen odd songs from previous nights and can kind of see why morrisp's friend says that about the energy, but I'll still give this full show a watch most likely.

No. The show I saw last month was enough. It is low energy, at least compared to SP in the 90s. Nothing they can do about it, they’re all over 50, Billy just looks silly singing Bullet and Siva. Even Cherub Rock was dull. Dug the show but there’s so many amazing 90s bootlegs out there, have no interest in watching clips from the Shiny tour.

Having said all that, I’ll reiterate again that the solo show I saw last fall was the best Billy/SP show I’ve been to by a long shot, and I’ve seen him/them 8 or 9 times. Ogilala was great. He can do acoustic and piano stuff well into old age, but the arena rock thing is done for him. Still, a good show worth seeing. My man can still shred, sing OK, and pull off stuff like Porcelina, Hummer, Mayo, Rhino, + all the softer stuff.

Yeah my pal said the ballad-type songs seemed to work better.

Curious to see what happens next. This tour has restored the band's brand more than anything else they've done since 2007. I wonder what Billy is going to do with that (success) again.

did they ever do a "Siamese Dream all the way thru" show/tour, flappy? (or anyone else)

i don't mean *ever* i mean like a 20th, 25th ann'y type of thing

they've never played an album in sequence. closest to themed shows were the In Plainsong tours in 2015 & 2016, which included middle sections full of Adore & SD material, respectively. So not just album tracks, stuff like Jersey Shore, Whir, and Sparrow. I saw the SD section, it was good, especially this solo mellotron version of Disarm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPymWbq2GD4

Can’t stop listening to “bullet with the butterfly wings” recently

Jesus was an oooooOoooonly son

My sincere condolences

Hahahaha!

I wonder what Billy is going to do with that (success) again.

My guess is that he'll find some way of fucking it up as usual.

(and it will be everyone else's fault, as usual)

That’s the safe bet

the new track Silvery Sometime (Ghosts) is much better than Solara and definitely a better song than I thought Billy was capable of these days

oh that's exciting!!!

it feels a lot like one of the poppier Machina tracks except without the muddy production

oh wow that description is otm