What’s ours is your and yours is yours…Smashing Pumpkins :: ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope’
According to Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins or as some might consider Smashing Pumpkins all by himself (see the origins of Gish and Siamese Dream) as he now is the only original member of the Pumpkins. Some might have mixed feelings about that, current company included, because while we all know he was and has been known to be the driving force behind their sound and sound-offs (i.e. bitching/whining/pms’ing) the band seemed at least in the early and mid 90s to be having fun. In case you forgot what that looks like here is a walk down memory lane, with probably their most commercially successful and certainly one of the most psychedelic and best music videos of all time.
Today was the quintessential video of its day, art and a new kind of rock that was the Seattle brand of grunge being fed at the time as bands like Soundgarden, Nirvana and Pearl Jam were taking over Seattle, Sub-Pop Records and the world. Instead it was an equally thick sound with more ethereal, less angst-driven lyrics. While Corgan indeed by all accounts was the Dictator of the band, the unique personalities of James Iha on guitar who also supplied vocals and a few songs of his own, the beautiful D’Arcy on bass whose vocals also added quite a bit and showed girls that they didn’t just have to watch rock bands, but that they too could be in them and then the hard hitting troubled drummer Jimmy Chamberlin.
On paper and to the eyes of the young masses the early Smashing Pumpkins had a Beatlesque quality, with the quirky drummer, the hard liner lead singer, the easy going guitarist and the likable good looking bassist. Alas, like many things they only stay good for a while and then end and the reason they end is not because everything is good or it wouldn’t end right? There was the sexual tension between D’arcy and Corgan as she later got married, hooked on drugs and Corgan sort of abandoned her something he never did to drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. It was, but another sign that Billy Corgan could and can be a ruthless, moody, tempestuous rockstar.
I for one really felt like the Smashing Pumpkins peaked at Siamese Dream or if you want to be technical with “Pisces Iscariot” that was more a collection of b-sides. Their sound, their songs, the graceful and smooth vocals that was found when blending Corgan, Iha and D’arcy together was never the same once Billy took control of the singing, turning into a far more whiny vocally sounding production with a lot more angst. The exact thing that made the Smashing Pumpkins different is what now from 1995 onward made them the same in my opinion and they never really recaptured the sound of songs like
Glynis :: No Alternative (compilation),
Drown :: Singles (film soundtrack)
Rhinoceros :: Gish and so many others off of those albums and others.
(Also along the same line as the tracks heard above and on the player from the page you can check out this link for Starla in 480p, 720p and 1080p for a look at what we can hope these new songs derive their inspiration from.)
There was actually a tape that a guy gave me in college and it had on it a lot of the Pisces Iscariot tracks, some that came out many years later and some that I have never heard again, a song that I had in 1993 and I was convinced would never be heard from again has turned up as Purr Snickety (video seen below), Bullet Train to Osaka, Terrapin, Siamese Dream, Not Worth Asking, Honeyspider II, Infinite Sadness that were only available on 7″ Vinyl, at a time when the internet was still a puppy and really other than a few record stores you literally would have had to travel around the globe to obtain these. There also is a cover of Depeche Mode’s Never Let Me Down Again, which was a song the band played quite a bit during their tour in 1994.
At the time when I had possession of this tape there was mystery surrounding the tape as he knew someone who knew the band and got a lot of their rehearsal and b-side stuff and UK and Japanese 7″ Vinyl, a seemingly lost art where bands could put tracks on b-sides of other bands’ 7″ albums, before the CD or at least when tape and vinyl were still a doable format and the artwork on those 7″ albums was often as amazing as the album themselves. See a copy below of a The Jesus Lizard/Nirvana 7″ containing the songs Puss :: The Jesus Lizard and Oh The Guilt :: Nirvana.
Another 7″ that had less flashy art covering than The Jesus Lizard/Nirvana one was the Rape Me 7″ containing the song Moist Vagina that actually got me kicked off as a DJ at WUOG 90.5, Athens, GA – University of Georgia, not because of the pretty intense song lyrics, but rather because it was Nirvana and 90.5 prided itself on not playing anything “popular” or “heard on larger FM stations”. I am guessing here, but no FM station in the US was about to play a song about marijuana and the circumference of a nice moist vagina and anus, well the licking of said…anyhow you get the point. Sometimes things in life are too bizarre to even make up, this fits that mold.
As you can see and hear, this turned out to be true as many of these songs were in fact rare basement type tapes that like I said made their way onto Pisces Iscariot and eventually the rest on B-Sides and Rarities (found for sale either entire album or as I prefer specific songs at $.99 per track on Amazon.com).
Purr Snickety :: Smashing Pumpkins (Rarities and B-Sides)
It is a shame because according to most experts Vinyl captures a truer sound than does a CD, but less so now than some high bitrate formats of MP3 (notably FLAC and Apple Lossless ). That alone could be it’s own post and some bands still stick to putting out Vinyl album 7″ records, like Yo La Tengo and their alter ego the Condo Fucks (that we wrote about in great detail, even giving away some tracks at that link).
As reported first on the Smashing Pumpkins official website, by Billy Corgan himself, he is announcing a new album that is 44 songs and will be distributed free by a select 25 few fans whose job it will be to make sure the rest of the galaxy gets a chance to get this unprecedented delivery. The days of file sharing and music downloads and digital copies basically taking over what used to be a record driven business has caused the Smashing Pumpkins to make this move. Many bands already stream a large part of their albums online either in part or in full before or as part of new releases. Just look at bands like Wilco, Coldplay, Pearl Jam and other rock band industry leaders and you see that the direction of bands wanting to control at least in part what gets out on a somewhat equal footing as the pirates and file sharing groups. Will this strategy work out? Is giving out free copies of new albums the wave of the future? Time will tell, but at this point the Smashing Pumpkins are once again at the forefront so something unique and new as it relates to music following in the footsteps of Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead who also released free albums this year.
Corgan is promising a reverting back to the roots of the band, the days we speak about so highly in this article, when the Smashing Pumpkins,
“harken(s) back to the original psychedelic roots of the Smashing Pumpkins; atmospheric, melodic, heavy and pretty.”
That has a nice ring to it. Refreshing to say the least after years of tinkering with various forms of music and incarnations of the band that has seen all the original members leave except for Billy Corgan. His new drummer is apparently Mike Byrne, a 19 year old young man who is over half Corgan’s age.
Corgan seems uncertain of who or what will have a final say in the new direction back to the old direction days of Gish and that original sound. As he said in a 2400 word explanation,
“Lord forbid I would want 44 different drummers on 44 different tracks, but I suppose anything is possible.”
He even went so far as to discuss his behavior on the last tour where he was a total asshole erratic and not his usual loving self and total asshole to apologize saying,
“When a fan comes to an SP show we owe it to you to put on the best show possible, rain or shine. I believe the days of standing on a stage somewhere in the world feeling torn about why I am up there are over,”
That at least is an olive branch of sorts, from a guy who I personally has heard lambaste a full crowd in Atlanta during a 1995 tour, blaming the fans for not being there in the years before Siamese Dream. Who knew that almost 15 years later he would apologize for ranting at the same fans whose loyalty has been a stamp of the Smashing Pumpkins success. Who knows what to make of these things and the talk about a kinder, gentler Billy Corgan or if he will or won’t have 44 drummers or if the band will have that softer, melodic sound? One thing we can count on this is Billy’s band and after 20 plus years somethings NEVER change.
As Nick Carraway says at the end of The Great Gatsby,
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further… And one fine morning -
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Let us hope that is exactly what the newer, reborn Smashing Pumpkins does, looking back in a reflective manner as Billy Corgan seems to intimate.
Let us hope that the past is not some albatross worn around his neck (it wouldn’t look good with the conehead Lex Luthor look he has going on), but that Billy Corgan has turned a new leaf and an old leaf and finds his own light. I think that the world is ready, I think there are plenty of youngsters out there unaware of the happy times that Smashing Pumpkins once endured, the anti-heroes to the angst of Seattle grunge. Find that green light Billy and keep on going, the ‘Kaleidyscope’ has a fountain of colors waiting to be shown once again.
:: R.P.M. ::
I’m happy to finally announce the plans for the new Smashing Pumpkins album.
Recording began yesterday, September 15th, 2009 on the new record which will be entitled ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope’. The album will feature 44 songs, 4 of which are now being recorded. My desire is to release a song at a time beginning around Halloween of this year, with each new release coming shortly after until all 44 are out. Each song will be made available absolutely for free, to anyone anywhere. There will be no strings attached. Free will mean free, which means you won’t have to sign up for anything, give an email address, or jump through a hoop. You will be able to go and take the song or songs as you wish, as many times as you wish.
We will however sell highly limited edition EP’s (of 4 songs each times 11), and details of how those EP’s will be made available are still being worked out. Because the songs themselves will be free, the EP’s will be more like collectors items for the discerning fan who will want the art itself, along with the highest possible audio quality available. The EP’s will be more like mini-box sets rather than your normal cd single. We may also offer other variations for sale, say for example a digital single with a demo version of a song. The commitment that is most important is the one I’m making to you: that the music of ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope’ will be available for free to everyone. All 44 songs: free for ALL.
When the entire album is finished, it will be compiled into a deluxe box set which will also be made available for sale. Those who have bought the EP’s need not worry, as the box set will not be a recompilation of the limited edition pieces.
The story of the album is based on ‘The Fool’s Journey’, as signified in the progress of the Tarot. It is my intention to approach this by breaking down the journey of our life here into four phases as made by these different characters; the Child, the Fool, the Skeptic, and the Mystic.
The music of ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope’ harkens back to the original psychedelic roots of The Smashing Pumpkins: atmospheric, melodic, heavy, and pretty.
I already have 53 songs written for the record, so I am quite confident that I already have much of the material that I would need to undertake such an extensive project. I am very committed to seeing this album through to its completion and very, very excited about the prospect of delivering new Smashing Pumpkins music to you in a unique and exciting way.
Billy Corgan :: Announcement About the New Album :: Smashing Pumpkins Website
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