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DECEMBER 16, 1995
Smashing Pumpkins European Vacation
Smashing Pumpkins are currently in Europe promoting Melon Collie and The Infinite Sadness as if it needed promoting. They aren't doing any UK shows, only press--and will be back in Chicago in time for the holidays. But Billy Corgan and his band of workaholics will push back from Christmas dinner and immediately begin shooting a new video for "1979."
NOV 27 1995
Smashing Pumpkins: Don't Let Them Be Misunderstood
After three weeks the Smashing Pumpkins very excellent Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is still sitting pretty in the Billboard Top 200, which means people are still running into CD stores and buying it. Which is making the band quite happy. Well, as happy as is possible for a band that, well, just aren't that happy at lot of the time. When ATN caught up with ace guitarist James Iha in Chicago, we asked him if the Pumpkins have been misunderstood by the media. "Yeah, the music's been misunderstood and the band's been misunderstood," said Iha. "But Billy [Corgan] caused a lot of those problems with the first slew of interviews he did. Basically the media just played to it and that [that Corgan was Smashing Pumpkins] was the angle on the whole last album. Yeah, I don't think people understand the band dynamic and I don't think people understand the music. You just get a dominant front person and you don't ever hear about the band or the records. It's like, what did people talk about Nirvana? They talked about Kurt, they talked about Courtney Love, heroin abuse and smashing guitars and punk rock. They never talked about how good the songs were, how good the lyrics were." Not to beat around the bush, we asked Iha if there was a point where the Pumpkins had nearly thrown in the towel. "Yeah," he told us. "During Siamese Dream it was really stressful."
NOV 13 1995
Courtney Hangs With Pumpkin Billy Corgan at SNL
When the Smashing Pumpkins performed on Saturday Night Live the other night (Nov. 11), guess who was there? That's right. Courtney Love flew into the Big Apple to be with her old buddy Billy Corgan and inspect his newly sho rn chrome dome. And members of the For Squirrels were in the audience watching Corgan vent once again that "despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage."While Corgan was venting, the ever stylish James Iha was writhing in his red leather pants, causing the whole first row of fans to squirm with delight, according to our spies. As you probably know, the Pumpkins excellent Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness entered the Billboard Top 200 chart at #1. Not bad for a two CD set. ( If you haven't already read it, check out the interview with Corgan in this issue of ATN.) As for the For Squirrels, incredible as it may seem, they're on the mend after the tragic van accident that claimed the lives of two of their members (singer Jack Viglratura and bassist Epic. Since then, the band has hired a new bassist, Andy Lord, and pressed their guitarist Travis into service as a vocalist. Before the tragic accident, no one knew Travis could sing, but we hear he has an outstanding voice. The ba nd's next stop after New York is Orlando, Florida, but they're not going to Disneyworld. Rather, they're going to the R.E.M. concert, and will rub noses with their hero, Michael Stipe.
OCT 27 1995
Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan Still "Mad As Hell"
ATN editor Michael Goldberg reports: Don't think that success has mellowed Smashing Pumpkins' leader Billy Corgan. While speaking with the group in Chicago recently, I asked Corgan if he's still as angry as he used to be. "I'm mad as hell," said Corgan. "I don't know. How do you qualify anger? All I can really say about that is that when you're young, the anger comes out in dumb ways. The anger comes out in breaking things or doing crime or whatever. And then as you get older, the anger comes out in other ways, like verbal things. The core of my anger is, I think, still intact. It's just taken a different form. It's not as viscerally surfaced but it's still in there. It's something I don't think I've ever dealt with."
OCT 24 1995
From Pumpkins With Love
The Smashing Pumpkins threw a record release bash last night at the Riveria Theater in their hometown of Chicago on the eve of the release of their exquisite fourth album, Mellon Collie And The Ultimate Sadness, which was broadcast world-wide thanks to The Album Network and Virtually Alternative. And as a result, millions of people were privy to a real life drama when the power went out during the band's third song, plunging the entire theater into darkness. Confounded. Billy Corgan and bassist D'Arcy made uncomfortable bassist D'Arcy small talk, punctuated by nervous laughter, while D'Arcy threw her guitar picks into the unruly crowd of over 2,000, while Corgan mutter "it figures," blaming the screw-up on "Pumpkin luck."
For ten awkward minutes technicians toiled backstage to reconfigure the power, which they were finally able to do, but not the lights. So when the Pumpkins returned to the stage to perform an emotional, hushed version of "Disarm" from Siamese Dream, they did it in complete darkness. Over the next hour and a half, those same beleaguered techs were able to cast some light on the stage, but never restore the lighting to what it was before the outage. Corgan and crew were said to be visibly upset, but began to recover their momentum during "Through The Eyes Of Ruby," and "Geek USA." Occasionally apologizing to the audience withasides like "Thanks for letting us be out of tune and sing the wrong words for you," and, finally, "We realize it's kind of a fucked evening, but thanks."
From where we sat it was anything but "fucked." The band performed a memorable mix of old and new--only made more poignant by their dogged determination to overcome the earlier blip. The Smashing Pumpkins seem to thrive in a climate of adversity, and chaos. The only difference is that it's usually of their own making. The ragged but exciting set ended with "Cherub Rock," before the band filed offstage. They returned for two encores ending the show by bringing out their "special guest" show openers, seminal Northern Illinois '70s rockers Cheap Trick for a rendition of "So Long Sayonara." Before departing, Corgan told the audience, " We'll see you again next year."
Unknown Date and Source
MTV WEEK IN ROCK TRANSCRIPT - DOUBLE DOOR
The Smashing Pumpkins are staying out of the cold, burying themselves in a Chicago studio to begin work on its follow-up to last year's "Pisces Iscariot. " However, on Tuesday, with parkas in hand, the Pumpkins put on a benefit concert and tested out some of their new material for hometown fans...Take a look:
BILLY CORGAN: Every album that we've done we've always played the songs out live before we've recorded them. Like everyone thinks of it like that you're playing it to see how the audience reacts, but it really doesn't have anything, you have to be on the stage and feel like how you feel like when you're playing.
MTV: The audience had a good time anyway as the Smashing Pumpkins worked out their new material. The show also benefited local charities, as the band showed that giving doesn't have to be political.
CORGAN: When you come down to like the mentally handicapped, or people that are terminally ill with AIDS, that's non-political, that's simply people who are in need. So, for us it's, we feel it's important, to symbolically, in a community sense show gestures that show that those are the type of things that go beyond any kind of politic.
MTV: But the music was the main attraction.
FAN 1: It's excellent, a lot of heavy, a lot of slow, a lot of good riffs, spent a lot of time on the lyrics. It's very important to, you know, worry about the writing. It's not only the music...it's how important the lyrics, and how important it is to him.
CORGAN: See, everybody's favorites tend to be the better songs. My favorites tend to be more sentimental favorites, or songs that are maybe not the best songs, but they have so much heart to them that I like those songs more. Well, there's this song called "Muzzle" which I don't know if it will always be called "Muzzle," but a song like that, it's a simple song and it's not a song that will blow people away on first listen.
FAN 2: It's good to hear it before it comes out. Because this way, it's always the other way you hear, people are singing along with stuff, but this way you get to see it first.
SOREN: By the way, Smashing Pumpkins tell us that those song titles are only working titles.
OCT 22 1995
Pounding, Panting Pumpkins Newsday
FIRST, the numbers: two discs, $24.98, 28 songs, more than two hours of music. Given the Smashing Pumpkins' ability to jam and yell incoherently for half a concert, an album this size may seem frightening. But "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness," the Chicago quartet's third studio album, contains no meandering experimental jams. It's simply a long collection of songs - some slow and romantic, some fast and abrasive.
The familiar-sounding ones leap out first. "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," like most of the hit 1993 album "Siamese Dream," opens with James Iha's irresistibly noisy electric guitar. By song's end, in his maniacal kid's voice, Billy Corgan is screech-chanting, "Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage."
It helps that Corgan stuffs plenty of torture in his lyrics. "...You (An Ode to No One)" is packed with prickly images, of "Vaseline afterbirths and neon coughs." On "Muzzle," when Corgan seems fully primed to lose his mind, he reasserts himself. "Some children laughed I'd fall for certain / for thinking that I'd last forever," he sings. "But I knew exactly where I was."
All four Pumpkins perform, through several changes of pace, with the same confidence. "1979" has a little funk bounce, thanks to some cooperation by bassist D'Arcy and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. And the band adapts nicely to the sing-songy "We Only Come Out at Night" and the unashamed love song "Beautiful."
The worst problem with "Mellon Collie" is its lack of innovation. Both "Galapogos" and "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans" use the style Nirvana made famous: They start soft, then build to a crescendo of pounding guitars and crashing drums. In "Bodies," the rhythm section apes Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." And "Here Is No Why" leans a little too close to the Stone Temple Pilots for comfort.
SEP 29 1995
Smashing Pumpkins Search For New Manager
With a new album due out in October, the Smashing Pumpkins have been interviewing for a new manager. The group is, for all intents and purposes holding open auditions for managers. Five different management teams flew into Chicago earlier this month and had three hour meetings with all the Pumpkins. The group has whittled the field down to these four: Direct Management (Counting Crows, Enormous), Q-Prime (Courtney Love, Metallica), HK (Chris Isaak), Bob Cavallo (Alanis Morissette, Weezer) , Paul McGinnis (U2). We'll let you know who the winner turns out to be.
SEPT 18 1995
Smashing Pumpkins Deliver Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness
Addicted To Noise editor Michael Goldberg reports: The Smashing Pumpkins follow-up to Siamese Dream is an epic, sprawling work that may well turn out to be a '90s Exile On Mainstreet. For starters it's a two CD set (28 songs, 28!! songs) co-produced by Flood (U2, Depeche Mode). There are strings on some of these songs. One is an instrumental piano piece. "Thirty-Three" is the best Stones ballad since "Sister Morphine," which was probably recorded before Billy Corgan was out of diapers. "In the Arms of Sleep" is a gorgeous ballad ("Sleep will not come to this tired body now/ Peace will not come to this lonely heart/There are some things I'll live without/ But I want you to know that I need you right now/ I need you tonite").
No startling revelations there, just a heartfelt expression of need and desire. "1979" has thus totally cool rock & roll rhythm. It's the kind of track you have to hear again and again and again. This is a sophisticated work that once again finds the group taking enormous chances, defying all the P.C. rules that mid-'90s alterna-rock bands are supposed to follow. I've listened to the entire 28 songs two times as I write this and I can't say I've even begun to absorb this album. Soundwise, it's MAJOR. If you're a Smashing Pumpkins' fan, you're going to love it. There's hard, hard rock tracks. Noisy, grunge kinda stuff with distorted vocals. Some Siamese Dream feel and some Led Zep influence felt. Most two record sets should have been boiled down to one solid album of grade A material. This album sounds, at the moment anyway, like two solid albums of grade A. And that's sayin' something.
AUG 24 1995
Smashing Pumpkins Due Out For Halloween
The Smashing Pumpkins' impishly titled double album Melon Collie And The Infinite Sadness will be released on October 28,timed just right for Christmas. According to the Pumpkin's label, the band has recorded five cover versions, five acoustic tracks and five pop noise songs. The record was produced by the amazing Flood, beloved by everyone from Trent Reznor to Bono, for his "gentle ways." Huh? Al Moulder was on board again, mixing the album. Moulder has been with the band for some time, working on the Siamese Dream and the Gish albums. Those Midwestern musical distortions just didn't know how to pull the plug. In addition to the songs they've recorded for this double album, they have also recorded "in excess" of twenty B-sides which they are planning to release as "mini-album-length" singles later this year. Contrary to reports that you've read elsewhere, Billy Corgan is not dating Amanda De Cadenet, the former Mrs. John Taylor of Duran Duran, and current Courtney Love sycophant. According to Corgan, he is only keeping company with Mrs. Corgan.
JUNE 27 1995
One might think there would be an easier way for a major act like the Smashing Pumpkins--who have been recording its next album in Chicago with Flood producing--to locate a keyboard player than running an ad in the newspaper. But that's apparently not the case. Within the last two week, this ad has appeared in a number of Chicago weeklies: "The Smashing Pumpkins are looking for a keyboard player to accompany them for upcoming live performances. Extensive knowledge of equipment is not a must, but playing ability is. Sight reading and your own gear is not that necessary, but you must be 18 years of age or older. Please send a five minute cassette tape of yourself playing whatever you wish (please no Pumpkins' songs) in whatever style you want. Tapes will not be judged on their audio qualities, so boombox tapes are fine." The mailing address for the tapes is: Soundworks Recording Studios, Attn: Ken Sluiter, 3126 N. Greenview, Chicago, IL, 60657. The cut-off date is 7/14/95.
MARCH 15 1995
Smashing Pumpkins Leave Critic Out In The Cold
The Smashing Pumpkins are hard at work recording their next album, which is being produced by Flood of P. J. Harvey, Depeche Mode, and U2's Achtung Baby fame. The album, which is untitled at this point, is due to be released (appropriately enough) next Halloween. But just to check their own pulse, and to see if they were headed in the right direction, the Smashing Pumpkins unveiled twenty-three of their newly written songs over a four night stint at the Double Door, an intimate (250-seat capacity) Chicago club in the very happening Wicker Park district. The shows were in the aid of three local charities, one of which benefited handicapped children, since Billy Corgan has a partially handicapped half-brother. Ticket prices were held to a low $5.00, and although they were sold in advance, purchasers were required to show their ID and sign for them, to try and circumvent scalpers.
The Pumpkins, who have a short-standing feud with Chicago Sun Times critic Jim DeRogatis ever since he gave their Siamese Dream LP three and a half stars out of a possible four, barred him from the shows. Anticipating just such a gesture, DeRogatis brought along his own lawn chair, and reviewed the show from outside the venue in the cold February night air. The band was well aware of his intent, and heaped insults from the stage, calling him "that fat, fucking asshole from the Sun Times, who has a goatee trying to look new wave." They also instructed their audience that "If you see DeRogatis, don't talk to him. Even if you hated this show, tell him it was rockin'." DeRogatis didn't exactly think it was rocking, instead he claimed it to be a rehash of Siamese Dream. They began the set with four acoustic numbers, the highlight being "Jupiter's Lament," and then segued into the harder stuff, the more memorable being "Muzzle" and "Ode To No One." But forget the music, I want to know why Corgan had the word Foghat scrawled on his hand, and more importantly why he was reciting Rush lyrics from the stage. For the record, ATN thinks Siamese Dream is worth an "orgasmic," which is our highest rating.
July 1 1994
Smashing pumpkins - Louisville Magazine
Music Theatre Louisville's staging of Cinderella may turn into a pumpkin at midnight, but the group performing this month at Iroquois Amphitheater is going to have some rollicking fun earlier in the evening at its costume ball. Look for a lot of magical motion onstage with Blue Apple Player Beth Blouin in the lead role and Louisville Ballet member Jeff Sodowsky as the prince. And expect some slapstick from one of the more whimsical casting touches--two burly men performing as the ugly stepsisters.
"We're playing for the comedy and the fun and the magic, not (stage) the sentimentality," says Kathy Meade, MTL's artistic director.
The dancing pumpkin, the onstage transformation of the pumpkin into a coach, and a host of production numbers will be staged during performances scheduled for July 14-17 and July 21-24 at 8:30 p.m. Seats go for $10 and $14 (prices vary for seniors and children). Cole Porter's Anything Goes will be performed in August.