So, after entering the Cone of Silence for 3 weeks in order to keep myself as surprised and open-minded as possible about the first 2 dates of the Pumpkins return to the “city by the lake,” the Chicago Theatre shows have rolled by, and here I sit, ready to review.

Only, I’m left entirely flummoxed by the whole ordeal.  I could quibble about the song selection, or the performance itself, or Billy’s supposed “rant” Tuesday night, but really, is that remotely any different than any other show in the scheme of things? There’s nothing that was unique about Chicago, and really, that’s probably the main story itself. Chicago shows always used to have an extra jolt of electricity in the air, even if the performance itself was nothing special.  Once upon a time the delivery of the “city by the lake” line would be drowned out by the roar of the crowd, but Tuesday was more of a reserved detachment, more of a “what have you done for me lately?” Tuesday’s crowd was especially lackluster, which may have had a lot to do with Billy’s comments by the end of the night. Felt more like a morgue than a rock show a lot of the time. Wednesday’s energy was better, but there was still something lacking, with the only thing making it uniquely Second City the Cubs/Sox discussion midshow.

There’s always been a little bit of a sense of joint experience, common mindset in shows past, but any goodwill Corgan and co. had engendered coming up through the Windy City has passed. It’s not the fault of the band, or the crowd, but too much time has elapsed, and the sense of ownership and the shared pathos has faded into nostalgia. We may both be from the same city, but we’re no longer from the same place.

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The surefire hit today pulls down the most outlandish of comparisons from Arlington Heights (Ill.) Daily Herald music critic Jeff Pizek:

“A Song for a Son” started on a “Stairway to Heaven” track before swelling upon to a well-developed crescendo - a signature Pumpkins move also displayed Wednesday during “Soma” and “I of the Mourning.”

How much longer can this go on before the song is tossed into the same memory hole where past pop gems such as “Let Me Give the World to You” (total performances: 22), “Chrysanthemum” (4), and “Glorious” (5) rest in silence? Or have things changed, and in the future our bleeping culture will get the chance to embrace a studio version?

Below: This is an illegal video, and I am one of many who don’t care (YouTube)

Blabbermouth.net, citing United Stations Radio Networks’ “The Pulse of Radio” entertainment news service, has uncritically repeated this claim:

[A] SMASHING PUMPKINS concert in New York City on Thursday night (November 6), the band’s first in the metropolitan area in nine years, was met with a less than enthusiastic reception by the crowd after Billy Corgan led the band through a show that left many hits off the set list and contained a droning, 40-minute jam session in the middle.

To what could this refer? A scan of the track times on the freely available concert recording reveals only three plausible candidates, none of which approach the reported duration:

• “Superchrist” and “United States”, lasting a combined 22 1/2 minutes
• “Heavy Metal Machine” and “Glass’ Theme”, a combined 14 minutes
• “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, 21 minutes

ALSO:  David Lowe-Bianco of Ultimate-Guitar.com (celebrating 10 years online!) is claiming this morning that the Friday night New York gig “eventually ended in a half-hour long jam session”.  According to that pesky actual recording of the concert, final cut “I Am One pt. 2″ did not last even 15 minutes.

Within a three-hour span this afternoon, music-news websites Stereogum, Idolator, and Pitchfork all posted the same recording of “G.L.O.W.” sourced from the song’s radio debut on Chicago’s Q101. “NEW SMASHING PUMPKINS” blared a Stereogum headline, with the accompanying article stating that “it finally hit the airwaves”. Shortly thereafter, Idolator promoted the recording as “Leak Of The Day”, declaring that today marks the song’s “WEB DEBUT”. Pitchfork followed, saying “Chicago’s Q-101 played it, someone upped a rip to YouTube, and now you can listen to it in rather abysmal sound quality.”

The YouTube clip of “G.L.O.W.” embedded and hailed as newsworthy by all three sites? It’s been on YouTube for a week. The Q101 debut featured in the clip? That happened two weeks ago. And the song has been in the top 40 at alternative radio for eight days now. Links to various recordings of the song (even to perfect-quality versions) have been appearing in comments on HU posts over that entire span, and of course similar links are all over Pumpkins messageboards.

It’s one thing for these sites not to cover the Smashing Pumpkins well and therefore not to have the story on day one; really, that’s fine and no one should much care. But for them to claim that they are right on it, to act as though the music world has shrunk to the size of a three-site circle jerk, is in every sense of the word…wait for it… pretentious.

My Bloody Valentine returned to U.S. shores for the first time in 16 years last week, and I took in Saturday night’s show at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. While some debate the legacy of a band that was nary a household name in their heyday, I tend to prefer the take that the reunion is a welcome chance to see a group that was criminally underappreciated by the public but a huge influence and inspiration to a large amount of musicians (for reference, see the Pixies reunion tour circa 2004).

The Aragon was surprisingly good sounding for a venue that is notorious for horribly muddy acoustics (in fact, the best I’ve heard since the Smashing Pumpkins’ Machina tour). Between grainy video projections and a phalanx of constantly flashing strobes, the overall atmosphere was one of constant bombardment, especially when factoring in My Bloody Valentine’s legendarily loud shows.

However, I’m not debating MBV’s importance or even providing a detailed review of the show itself, but commenting on something that struck me as the show progressed. But the band sounded great and overall, I was really enjoying the show.

Until the set-closing performance of “You Made Me Realise.” I’m sorry, but the “Holocaust” is complete and total bullshit. For those who are unaware, in the midst of the song, the band locks into a chord, and proceeds to play it, at a deafening volume. It’s definitely a unique experience. Descriptions of the sound are often compared to being inside a jet engine, and in truth, that’s not very far off. You can feel your whole body vibrate as the noise pours over you; combined with the incessant light show, it has the effect of completely disorienting your sense of equilibrium.

Below is a YouTube clip from the Toronto performance two nights prior:

The sensation was unique and exciting at first. And then it went on. And on. And on. For 23 straight minutes. If any modern band or new band tried to get away with pushing the boundaries of their audience like this, they’d be ripped apart by fans and the press. In the midst of the maelstrom, it made me think of all the times Billy Corgan has pushed the limits and tested the patience of concertgoers and the amount of backlash he receives. And I’ve often been one of them, having been on record of my dislike of the extended versions of songs like “Heavy Metal Machine,” “United States,” and their “Set the Controls” cover. But at least those have some redeeming musical qualities. My Bloody Valentine deign to turn the crowd into a psychological experiment, and do so to the detriment of their overall show, especially when the show barely clocks in at an hour and a half total.

While Corgan would be eviscerated for such a self-indulgent, pretentious, egocentric act, I fully expected the reviews of the notoriously mysterious Kevin Shields and co. to be glowing and reverential since MBV have reached “legendary” status due to their prolonged absence. Surprisingly, while most reviewers took the predicted tack, there were some naysayers and temperates, including Time Out Chicago, the always amusing Jim Derogatis, and the even-handed group at Consequence of Sound, whose overall take most closely resembles my own.

However, I wonder just how different all the reviews above would read were the band unleashing this sonic experiment the Pumpkins rather than My Bloody Valentine.

On one hand, those who work for media outlets don’t think that their job is merely to pass along press releases; they believe it is important to subject PR to critical examination. On the other hand, journalists just want to get by, to do their work and go home early like anyone else. So an editor faces a classic quandary when a newsworthy release is faxed in: rewrite it, or just reformat it?

With regard to the Smashing Pumpkins’ announcement yesterday of the forthcoming DVD If All Goes Wrong, most music news sites I’ve checked (like this one) have saved labor by either pasting in or barely touching up the band’s release. For at least two sites, however, that was not good enough: Crave Online (”your source for everything that males crave on the net”) and Aversion Media (”rock * punk * indie”) went…well, I can’t say they went the extra mile, but they did both add to the press release some stuff they just made up.

Crave Online’s “Johnny Firecloud” wrote:

The second disc of the project is “The Fillmore Residency,” a collection of individual performances that will collaboratively comprise what a typical Pumpkins setlist looks like these days, post-Iha.

Out of the 48 or so full concerts the band has performed in these post-Iha days of 2008, I can’t find one that included more than three of the songs appearing on If All Goes Wrong. I guess males don’t crave research…

But Aversion’s unsigned writeup surpasses even what my dark, cynical heart dreamed was possible (the link is theirs, the emphasis is mine):

What’s more, you don’t have to worry about watching The Smashing Pumpkins play any of those pesky “classic” songs that made you like them in the first place. There’s no “1979,” no “Today,” no “Disarm,” “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” or even “Cherub Rock.” It’ [sic] all Zeitgeist (review) (2007, Reprise) songs you probably don’t even remember.

Apparently the inclusion of Zeitgeist bonus tracks “Death from Above” and “Zeitgeist” among the 19 tracks on The Fillmore Residency doesn’t make the DVD “heavy on material from 2007’s Zeitgeist” so much as it utterly transforms the DVD into Zeitgeist Live by retroactively placing studio versions of the remaining 17 non-Zeitgeist tracks onto Zeitgeist. (That is, unless the joke is on us — did Aversion gank a copy of the exclusive-to-HU 30-track brown edition?!)

1. As shown above, the Smashing Pumpkins have moved to apply retroactively their new self-assigned genre. (Also, apparently the fall tour is now set to mark the band’s 21st anniversary…)

2. An interesting remark in the blog that I did not highlight previously: “For me, that was the most exciting tour I’ve been on since before Jimmy left in 1996.” That would classify, in terms of excitement for Billy, the August tour as having exceeded notable tours such as the Adore charity tour with multiple percussionists, the “Arising!” tour of April 1999, last year’s comeback tour in Europe, and…is he including Zwan?!

3. “Alternative Music has been hijacked by poseurs. No mystery there as to why.” Perhaps no mystery as to why, Billy, but we could use a good by whom…it’s no fun when you toss off that line without dropping a name (Hinder? Bloc Party?) around which we may coordinate our derision-slash-amusement.

While Billy has recently declared that his band’s music should be considered part of the “American Gothic” genre, I’ve run across an “alternative” on my way to work this morning.

Normally I’d have my own headphones on, ignoring the surroundings and zoning out before beginning the work day, but this particular morning I was music free, which allowed me to hear the surrounding din.

And what do I hear filtering out of someone’s headphones?

“No bodies felt like you, nobodys! Love is suicide!”

Could the Pumpkins now be considered “Elevator music” too?

See here for important disclaimer, and click here to see our (much more interesting) setlist data from previous tours.

Pumpkins’ tour of the Midwest and Southeast, August 8 to 22, 2008, by the numbers: (more…)

Last June, there was a thread on the Netphoria.org messageboard entitled “Your top 10 SP songs”, asking users to list their ten favorites. On Netphoria that sort of proposal often elicits yawns, but this particular thread drew over 100 seemingly honest responses. (I’m sure there have been other similar threads, but for whatever reason I never took note of them.)

Recently, the social networking site Facebook introduced an application called “Pages”, which enables users to declare themselves as “fans” of this or that. The “page” for the Smashing Pumpkins (which is actually operated by the band) has attracted over 90,000 fans. On the page, fans are able to start discussions; one of the recent discussions, “FAVOURITE SONGS”, has received upwards of 100 posts.

Perhaps you see where this is going… (more…)

Under the header “Time to Put it Right”, the Icelandic genius writes on her site:

i have noticed last 7 years that mr. sigurðsson has often been credited for either writing or producing that album . i´d like to say that he didn´t write it or produce . he was a computer programmer for a third of it and a recording engineer for a third . The other two thirds were done by other engineers and programmers .

Björk speculates that critics have possibly misunderstood the creation process behind electronic music, have been a bit sexist, or have assumed that she does not create her instrumentals because she typically does not play an instrument during her live performances. She closes with the admonition:

journalists : please read the creditlist before you write your articles

Her posting reminded me of Billy Corgan’s assertions in recent years that he and Jimmy Chamberlin have been responsible for an overwhelming share of the sounds on Smashing Pumpkins albums. There are differences, of course, key among them being:

• Pumpkins albums always listed James Iha and D’arcy as performers, and
• The Smashing Pumpkins were branded as a band, not as a Billy solo vehicle.

I’m not sure how serious these differences are, however. First, a performer may not be too different from a programmer. If you aren’t writing the part you’re playing, how important are you to the track you’re on? You’re a session musician, basically; what’s the big deal whether you fingered the part that someone else wrote? Besides, James and D’arcy did play their instruments on takes during the studio sessions; if most of those takes end up not making the record, is it worse to credit them or not to credit them? I’m not sure.

Then, the point about the Pumpkins being branded as a band…did James and D’arcy not playing their instruments on many album tracks invalidate the group’s band-ness? James and D’arcy did play their instruments at all the shows and participate, albeit not to a very large extent, in the creative process. How would it have been more honest to call the band “Billy Corgan” instead of “The Smashing Pumpkins”? It seems defensible either way to me. Nine Inch Nails is always brought up as a supposedly more honest comparison point, because on the records (despite having help) Trent Reznor never listed anyone but himself as being a “Nail”. However, if Reznor had toured with the exact same backing band and jammed with them in the studio for ten years but refused to list them as part of the band on the grounds that he’d overdubbed their parts for the final takes…that would strike me as less than gracious.

Has Billy been less than gracious toward James and D’arcy since he and Jimmy reformed as “the Smashing Pumpkins”? I think so, but that lack of grace served a purpose: to get the reformed band to be taken seriously as “the Smashing Pumpkins”. Björk’s posting today would also seem to have a purpose in mind — to combat journalistic laziness and possible sexism — and perhaps one may find that goal to be more laudable (or more pie-in-the-sky) than the goal of returning a great band to cultural relevance. But her main factual point seems to be identical to Corgan’s: that the contributions of her assistants were real but should not be overstated, that she really did the bulk of the important work. Maybe she’s right that sexism was one reason that others received so much credit for Vespertine…but hey, at least no one is going to view her post claiming that credit as the ugly posturing of an insatiable egomaniac.

Tom Daly of the cvilleMUSE blog has them, along with his sometimes-inaccurate commentary on the show:

SP’s new tunes, the majority from their latest album Zeitgeist, seemed fairly similar to the classic Pumpkins style.

There were only two songs from Zeitgeist, with another four being post-Zeitgeist songs…and really, if you don’t already know whether the band’s “new tunes” are similar to the old, why would you think you knew which ones were on the album?

Contrast that approach to journalism with that of the very self-aware Hank Altogether, who attended the Louisville show and knows what he doesn’t know:

Not only did I have a difficult time knowing what songs they were playing, it was hard to tell when songs began or ended. I was struck with the impression that I did not know this band, my ur-band, I had no idea who these people were. What songs these were. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy them. I did. I think. The crowd was way more into it than I was, perhaps they had purchased the other 3 albums — Machina, Machina II, and most recently Zeitgeist. I felt bad. Cory and Nick asked me to review this band. What the hell was I doing here? What did I know about the Smashing Pumpkins? I mean, I have the t-shirt, but beyond that…?

After a lot of driving, lodging-arranging, and no Internet access, I am a bit frazzled — but I do have a full-size keyboard now. Here is some of the material that I lacked the patience to tap out on my cell phone:

• The shows were fun — loose, loud and raucous like Billy said they would be. As usual, I considered myself a satisfied fan afterwards.
• I think Billy went back to the drawing board to create a new set of moves that would work with his 41-year-old body. He was more physically lively last night than at any of the shows I saw last year, doing all sorts of stage-prowling and guitar-swinging things that I hadn’t seen before. It’s as if the last tour taught him (1) that he can’t jump like he used to and (2) without the jumping, his stage movement was pretty much nonexistent. Hopefully someone will up a video of “Transformer” from Davenport, that’s one time I remember him being particularly animated. UPDATE: Asked for and received:

• The sound was noticeably louder in Davenport than in Hammond; I wondered if the casino is trying out a decibel limit to reduce bleedthrough into the gaming area.
• Of all songs for Billy’s guitar to be lost in the mix, “Tarantula” was that song on both nights. This was disappointing.
• In descending order of crowd response in Hammond: Mayonaise > Siva > the three or four singles > everything else.
• In Davenport, the first several rows seemed to be filled with fans who wanted to hear the newer material. It seemed that those fans didn’t really engage with the show too much until “Superchrist” got underway.
• Meanwhile, with the festival seating in Hammond, “Siva” sparked a surge by some fans from the back toward the front — and “Superchrist”, coming after “Tonight, Tonight”, was the beginning of the end (sorry) of the excess excitement for those folks.
• “The Rose March” is a real tearjerker and made “Again, Again, Again” seem like the b-side it is…which is not to say the latter song is bad, necessarily…
• Said by me to Chris, after “The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning” in Hammond: “Put that one in the ’surprisingly good’ category.” After the show my sister could not stop going on about how much she enjoyed Billy’s performance on this song.
• Paraphrase of my sister’s friend (first time seeing the band), on Ginger: “The bassist was like a character from ‘Guitar Hero’: a bit cartoonish, vaguely foreign, and just kind of there.”
• Billy was extremely complimentary of his bandmates during introductions, which came at the beginning of the acoustic mini-set each night.
• On less than a 24-hour turnaround between shows, the band tinkered significantly with the transition between “Heavy Metal Machine” and “Glass’ Theme”…and I expect more to come. “Set the Controls” also seemed to have undergone some work.
• Say what you will about “Superchrist”, “United States”, and “Heavy Metal Machine” being long, abrasive, and new or not true to the record or both — these songs all bring out a real vitality and fighting spirit in Billy that engages the crowd. Each of those songs has multiple moments that often evoke much spontaneous cheering, and so it was at these shows.
• As I told Jill on the phone, the rhythm pattern in the “United States” breakdown has been changed and no longer naturally incites the “hey!”, which I find sort of sad but sort of typical Billy (not wanting anything to be too easy or predictable). A lot of fans who remember the old version of the song did try to yell; I was one of them in Davenport, but in Hammond I moved past that to become an elitist of the post-”hey!”-in-”United States” variety. (Yes, Davin, one can still yell…the question is whether one should.) ;)
• During “Set the Controls” in Davenport, I heard a guy in back yelling “Play a song! Play a goddamn song!” But I can’t really say that “Set the Controls” lost the crowd there because it was already being lost by everything after “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”. In Hammond, “Set the Controls” didn’t seem to get any less of a crowd response than anything else after “Tonight, Tonight” did.
• Logically, then, the encore seemed to go over better in Hammond — lots of cheering, clapping and singing along. I think Davenport, where the crowd had been very patient and generous through most of the singles-sparse main set, deserved “Cherub Rock” instead of kazoos.
• Given these shows and the Adore tour, I am now under the impression that the title “An Evening with the Smashing Pumpkins” is meant to signal: “Plan just to be ‘with’ us, i.e., to be in our presence. Don’t count on us playing many of our 17 top-ten modern rock hits.”

In Part 3 of SP.com’s ongoing analysisof the Pumpkins fanbase, we hear directly from Billy and Jimmy, answering questions posed by the Media Militia writers.

Part 4 will be posted today with more answers from the dynamic duo, but in the meantime, one quote in particular jumped out as particularly thought-provoking.
Responding from a question from Andy regarding fans who have not embraced the current direction of the band, Billy had this to say:

All of us fall in love with a time, a smell, a particular romance. We are all guilty of attaching bigger symbolism to a moment in our lives past that continues to speak to us today. The fans who can’t move on, or dismiss our current work, have every reason to not like where we are headed. And they can continue to hold onto the songs or moments that mean something to them. But that has little to do with me as a writer, or us as the group moving forward with integrity.

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As we reported yesterday, there is an ongoing article series at SP.com regarding the Smashing Pumpkins fan community.  They published Part Two today with an article written by Simon mostly prefacing a lengthy “collection of opinions” solicited from fans identified only by their first names.

He sets the tone of the interviews early on:

That being said, attempting to examine the dynamics that exist between a band and their fans is no small task, especially at a time when the band’s “integrity over comfort” practices are interjected with the additional challenges of the ever-changing music business. From eternally grateful to infinitely irate, everyone has an opinion on how the band should have or ought to move forward.

He’s right - even those of us here at HipstersUnited.com are not unified in opinion.  The responses to Simon’s questions mirror similar issues we grapple with at HU on a daily basis: “Billy Corgan the Businessman,” the evolving nature of the Pumpkins’ music, the origin of the pervasive negativity that exists on forums.  “Cathy” cheekily summed up I’ve been thinking a lot about lately when she was asked about internet negativity in general:

I’m aware that the Pumpkins have managed to operate in very hostile and unforgiving barren wasteland that calls itself the current popular music scene.

I think there’s something to this idea.  The concept of hit-of-the-minute iTunes tunes is really at odds with loving a band through and through.  Even celebrities hawk their personal playlists rather than their favorite albums.  Yesterday, Pins asked in the post comments whether or not the “band is somewhat responsible for the attitude of its fanbase” — but could it also be stemming from an even greater source: the music industry itself?

Alex Crisafulli of the music blog There’s Nothing Quite Like the Blinding Light… offers a wise and lengthy essay on the cultural significance of Siamese Dream. I find this segment to be particularly resonant:

Today, someone who lives in Missoula, Montana, has nearly as much access to the independent music scene as someone living in New York City. It wasn’t like that in 1993. Growing up in Central Illinois, bands like Guided by Voices and Pavement meant nothing to me. They weren’t on the radio, weren’t being written about in Rolling Stone, and they didn’t have videos on MTV (Pavement did actually have videos. I remember those hoodlums Beavis and Butthead taking in “Cut Your Hair.” But they were very [sparse]. Same goes for Guided by Voices, if they actually had any videos.) Those bands mean something to me now, but I’ll never have a connection with them like I might have if I could actually remember what I was doing when Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was released. And that’s what some people who never lived outside the bubble of a huge city with a thriving underground music scene will ever understand. There was once a segment of the population who needed good music to be accessible if they ever wanted to hear it. And this is where the Pumpkins came in.

UPDATE (7/31): Crisafulli’s essay (go, read it!) has received over 100 “Diggs”.