It’s Thanksgiving week (in America), and to get you through the delayed flights and long, snowy drives home this week we recorded an overstuffed podcast this week all about the If All Goes Wrong 2-DVD set.

Listen to the whole show (1:37:11)

(download)(iTunes)

This week’s topics:

Panelists
-Chris, Jason, Jill, and Andrew

Concert Footage
-Starla is a fan favorite, and I’m the only one distracted by Billy’s new vocal flourishes.  Commenters, back me up (or shoot me down) here.  (15:19)

Special Features
-Pete Towshend interview and the Ghost Children featurette. Pete Townshend rants about Baba O’Riley.  Should an artist feel upset when fans misinterpret their work?  Plus, we delve into The Head, Jill earns our iTunes explicit tag this week, and she bares her soul for the panel.  (16:14)

Documentary
-Initial impressions.  We also digress on Billy’s recent comments about the listening public.  (17:52)

-Billy’s portrayal in the film.  The lonely life of the rock star and Billy’s relationship with the fans.  (22:18)

-The documentary’s co-stars: Asheville and San Francisco.  Why did the less-loving city and fans energize Billy as a writer and performer?  (9:35)

-DVD Sales numbers.  In its first week on the charts it hit #4 and sold 5200 units.  Is that the approximate size of the remaining hardcore Smashing Pumpkins fanbase?  (7:00)

This Week in Pumpkins History
-Vieuphoria is re-released on DVD along with Earphoria on CD. (3:17)

Song of the Week
-Chrysanthemum, November 16th, 2001

Make sure you save yourself some leftovers, because we will be taking next week off from podcasting.

Netphoria user myosis takes If All Goes Wrong down a few notches by contrasting it with the Smashing Pumpkins’ previous long-playing video release:

Similarities:
-both have the same typefont

Differences:
-Vieuphoria has a dysfunctional band
-If All Goes Wrong has a somewhat mature band

-Vieuphoria has people my age playing gigs, looking like they are actually independent and full of personality and genuine emotion
-If All Goes Wrong has people my age looking like they are on American Idol or some other reality TV

-Vieuphoria has twisted humour from the band
-If All Goes Wrong has silent movie mocks with no real point, featuring only the lead singer

-Vieuphoria has fans saying stupid things for the sake of being silly
-If All Goes Wrong has fans saying stupid things but they mean them

This* Election Day, there’s only one choice:

*Not really, as the photo is from 2006; however, standing for office in New Orleans was said to be part of the shtick:

And then there’s perennial candidate Manny Chevrolet, a part-time butcher and out-of-work actor who is the only one willing to admit that he’s running simply because he needs a job.

Success? Nada.

Below: Experience again “The Unbearable Likeness of Manny” (YouTube)

Does anyone else think “Why Am I So Tired?” hits its stride at about the 10-minute-30-second mark?

Okay…has anyone else even listened to “Why Am I So Tired?” in the past year?

Below: Maybe this guy did (ExpoTV)

The Smashing Pumpkins
“Lost ‘94 Tapes” (Vieuphoria DVD)

Quiet / Snail / Siva / I Am One / Geek U.S.A. / Soma / Hummer / Silverfuck

Buy it somewhere (google.com)

I used to hold what may be a common belief about the band’s shows from 1994: that they were playing before huge crowds (especially on Lollapalooza) but didn’t yet have the faintest idea how to satisfy huge crowds, “and so the shows sucked.” But after seeing these “lost” recordings (first released in 2002), I laugh at myself for ever having thought that the time between Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie could be a low point in Pumpkin history. Yes, the band’s M.O. here seems to be to forget they’re playing for a big audience, but if you can wriggle into their bubble there is some giddy craziness to enjoy.

I do not know which shows these performances come from, and I don’t even know if they’re from Lollapalooza, but it wouldn’t surprise me; there is an intensity that suggests competition afoot. The few shots that take in some of the crowd aren’t too helpful in show identification (has anyone figured it out?). They only reveal that, per usual, some attendees really liked the band’s performance.

Artistically, I think what we see here is the Pumpkins’ 1991-1994 neo-psychedelic period reaching its furthest possible endpoint. I can almost see Billy thinking, “Where is there to go with ‘Snail’ after this? How could we ever top this electric-cello-augmented ‘Soma’ while remaining in this same mode of performance and style?” I also see some of the Mellon Collie Pumpkins peeking out from their shell on a texture-first “I Am One” and, yes, in the noodly “Hummer” coda that features a helpful “Porcelina” chyron.

Wikipedia is always being edited, and thus there is a good chance that any given error will eventually be discovered and corrected — that is, to be discovered and corrected on the Wikipedia website, wikipedia.org. However, since Wikipedia content can be copied freely, snapshots of Wikipedia entries are often taken and posted by third-party content providers. Therefore, any given Wikipedia error will likely continue to exist, somewhere on the Internet, indefinitely (and, obviously, long after it has been corrected on the Wikipedia website itself).

For example, this sentence once was part of the Wikipedia entry for the Smashing Pumpkins:

To give them indie credibility, Virgin matched the band with Sonic Youth producer Butch Vig and released their 1991 debut album Gish on Virgin subsidiary label Caroline Records.

The first part of this sentence seems to have been entirely made up, which probably explains why it is no longer part of the entry on Wikipedia’s site.* Vig says on Vieuphoria: “The first thing I worked with [Smashing Pumpkins] on was a Sub Pop single. Jonathan [Poneman] from Sub Pop called me up and said, ‘There’s this band from Chicago that is awesome and you’ve gotta work with them.’” Vig then produced the Pumpkins’ single “Tristessa”, which Sub Pop released in December 1990. Shortly thereafter, the Pumpkins signed with Caroline. Vig first produced Sonic Youth in March 1992.

However, you can still find the erroneous sentence today on a variety of third-party sites that copied the Wikipedia entry at that time. A lot of these sites are weird and spammy, but they do find their way into search results. My guess is that they still get read, and believed, fairly often.

*It doesn’t explain, however, how the sentence came to be there in the first place. That is not the subject of this post, but, generally speaking, “where does this stuff come from?” is one of the driving questions behind this blog…

When Billy said “the world is a vampire”, he covered Radiohead’s entire emotional palette with one line. Discuss.

(What? Was I supposed to say something about how I wouldn’t pay five pence for In Rainbows? Come on, as a “cause of the month” it is probably worth a pound or two.)