In this edition of the intermittent HU feature, Springfield (Mass.) Republican music writer Donnie Moorhouse does battle with Chicago Sun-Times mainstay Jim DeRogatis over the Smashing Pumpkins’ controversial cover.

Moorhouse, on Sunday night’s performance in Connecticut:

The stretch of “Zero,” “Bodies,” and “Cherub Rock,” almost saved the evening, but Corgan put an exclamation point on the madness with a 25-minute encore of Pink Floyd’s “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” that included a kettle drum performance that was one bucket of paint away from being a Blue Man Group parody.

DeRogatis, regarding Tuesday night in Chicago:

On the bright side, the mid-evening acoustic interlude was lovely, and for progressive rock done right, you had to love the cover of Pink Floyd’s “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” which closed the set proper.

It’s time for another edition of this underloved HU feature, in which I juxtapose comments from professional (or wannabe-professional) writers-on-music. Today we have two reactions to the Smashing Pumpkins’ Thursday night show in Greensboro, North Carolina. Parke Puterbaugh’s review appeared in the Greensboro News-Record, while “Kevin”’s writeup appeared on “Triangle Music”, a blog he shares with “Valerie”.

Parke Puterbaugh: [T]he group performed impressively at War Memorial Auditorium Thursday night. Their noisy intensity, abetted by a stunning light show, made for an evening with some deliriously captivating peaks. Let me put it like this: The Pumpkins were smashing.

Kevin: After Thursday night’s Smashing Pumpkins show in Greensboro, it’s obvious [that] Billy Corgan should have left the Pumpkins legacy alone.

Puterbaugh: The second half of the concert was the best hour of rock music I’ve witnessed all year, and among the most memorable ever… In truth, it often seemed like one long, electrifying, apocalyptic song. When they dug in and held tight to one of their grungy, high-energy grooves, the cumulative impact was powerful enough to make your bones shudder.

Kevin: Even though the Pumpkins played a few well-played obscure songs in the set, they managed to pull a Titanic at end of the set. The last two songs of the main set were “United States”…and “Heavy Metal Machine” from Machina/The Machines of God. Just when you think the show can’t get any worse, the band drug the song out for at least 15 minutes including a string of covers in the end.

Puterbaugh: The audience itself helped carry the concert into the stratosphere. They were rabid in their enthusiasm from the outset and only seemed to buoy Smashing Pumpkins to greater heights as the show progressed. Corgan acknowledged as much after the show. “You guys did us right tonight,” he said, giving the crowd an appreciative thumbs-up.

Kevin: The band’s set list choices seemed to bore and annoy many fans that night. Numerous people complained that “Zero” wasn’t played and a lot the crowd sat through a large portion of the set. It’s not surprising that the crowd didn’t take to the set… Much of the crowd grumble[d]…while making their way out of the venue and many seemed a bit confused.

What cultural events are coming to the metro area this autumn? If you’re lucky, your local newspaper will inform you via a “fall preview” such as these which ran last week in the Rocky Mountain News and the Somerville (Massachusetts) Journal. Going beyond the call of duty, these papers weighed in on the setlist you can expect from our fave fivesome:

RMN: “Smashing Pumpkins: Sept. 30, Red Rocks. Perhaps better billed as ‘Billy Corgan and Some Other People.’ You’ll get the hits and the new album. $49.50 and $54.50.”

Journal: “Please, do NOT expect the reincarnation of the Smashing Pumpkins (Orpheum Theatre, Oct 13, 15-16, $39.50-$59.50) to play your old favorites.”

Hm. Which entertainment calendar specialist is likelier to prove correct? Let’s ask the specialist from…the aforementioned Somerville Journal?!

(Correction: Apparently they are playing their old favorites according to their set lists).

Nice! Maybe Jeremy was right…

The pouring rain at Virgin Festival (setlist from spfc.org) fell on everyone, seemingly leaking into the domes of a few music journalists on hand. Korina Lopez of USA Today thought she heard “For God and Country”, while Melissa Ruggieri of the Richmond Times-Dispatch bore mental witness to the concert debut of “Siamese Dream” (the song does exist, but, uhm…). Ruggieri also figures in this mid-post installation of “Critic vs. Critic”, facing off with Rashod D. Ollison of the Baltimore Sun:

Ruggieri: “Corgan’s familiar throaty croak and heavy, squealing guitars rendered ‘Zero’ almost unlistenable, but ‘Today’ sounded clear and bright.”

Ollison: “Even songs from the Pumpkins’ golden era, such as 1993’s ‘Today,’ were given the Zeitgeist treatment, in which Corgan and his band-mates buried the melody beneath a web of showy, wailing riffs.”

Me: I suppose we should wait for the tape (here it is: 64 kbps MP3 from archive.org), but Ruggieri is going to win in my mind either way; if the sound was muddy, the blame goes to the venue’s sound system and not to a (non-existent) new arrangement of the song. Even HU fave Jim Harrington wrote that “Today” today sounds like it did back in the day.

On Friday, someone with the NME and Jim Kopeny of Gothamist LLC coincidentally posted the following takes on L.A. rockers Silversun Pickups:

NME person: “Frankly, Silversun Pickups couldn’t sound more like Smashing Pumpkins if Billy ‘Mad Scientist’ Corgan decided to recreate his old band in a laboratory using shavings of his pubic hair and bits of fingernail (seriously, they’ve even got the cute D’Arcy type in the vintage T-shirt on bass).”

Kopeny: “We’re still not sure why everyone keeps comparing them to Smashing Pumpkins, when the only thing the two groups seem to have in common is a love of distorted guitar. Silversun Pickups write songs that always sound slightly fatigued before dive-bombing into glorious sludge. These kids share way more in common with My Bloody Valentine in the way they bury the hooks beneath sheets of glorious noise.”

…and Me: Jeremy is our resident Pickups expert, but while I wait for him to weigh in with an authoritative comment I will hesitantly and narrowly score it for the New Musical Express mystery man. Nobody sounds like the Pumpkins (just like nobody sounds like anybody), but back in the day the Pumpkins drew a lot of comparisons to MBV, so I don’t quite know why Kopeny’s royal “we” can’t see or understand at least a second-degree connection.

This may or may not be a recurring feature in which I juxtapose quotations from different writers and render my personal judgment on a question which may or may not be fairly at issue in the quotes. Today we have Pitchfo*k’s Rob Mitchum and Sputnikmusic’s John Cruz, both reviewing Zeitgeist and remarking upon its opening tracks.

Mitchum: “Corgan’s guitar tone remains utterly unique, folding umpteen overdubs into the razor-sharp solos and grinding chords that are recognizable as his from the first note of ‘Doomsday Clock’.”

Cruz: “7 Shades Of Black is a similar hard rock tune [to Doomsday Clock], and could have easily been on the last Papa Roach album. 7 Shades Of Black, however loud and raucous, sounds clean, its production crisp and tight, its rough edges honed down from what it might have been when Corgan led this band in its heyday.”

Me: Cruz may not seem to be speaking about “guitar tone” per se; however, to me, his mention of the Roach could be on point only if he were speaking with regard to tone. The first time I heard “Doomsday Clock”, I immediately thought, “wow, that guitar sound is 100% nu-metal”. I’ve heard about everything Corgan’s ever touched; I can’t relate to Mitchum’s reaction; I score this one for Cruz.