Back in February the Pumpkins were supported for a gig in Glasgow by locals Twin Atlantic. Seven months later, singer Sam McTrusty gives Metro the truth, right here:

You recently supported Smashing Pumpkins. How did you find the notoriously difficult Billy Corgan?

There’s the truth, right there. We had to load in behind a black curtain while they did a closed soundcheck. Our guitarist, Barry, walked round the front and some guy screamed: ‘Get out of here.’ We weren’t treated very hospitably.

Above: Not how the Smashing Pumpkins are traversing Scandinavia.

Finnish fan and Netphoria poster “mrk” has the day’s cold rumor after being with the Pumpkins on the same Finnair flight from Stockholm to Helsinki; rather than read the inflight magazine, he wisely chose to chat up Billy Corgan. He reports:

BC told that they’re about to release some unreleased stuff, starting from pre-gish / gish era stuff and do a small tour of about 20 dates (us/europe combined) later in the year playing Gish-era type shows. And mentioned that they actually soundhecked those songs [Bury Me, Geek U.S.A., I Am One] yesterday. Asked them to play those in Helsinki tomorrow, but no chance he said, have to wait ;)

UPDATE:  mrk provides more detail here.

Als wir dann die Halle betreten hatten, war die Band schon mitten in ihrem Soundcheck. Ich zögerte nicht lange und holte direkt meine Videokamera aus dem Rucksack.

Lies mehr hier.

Here’s some audio from the aforementioned soundcheck recorded Friday afternoon in Frankfurt. This clip picks up mid-take as the band is working on a new song, then you can hear Billy asking Jimmy for a “slightly different beat”. They play around with that a little bit, then the band embarks on the last more-or-less full take in the session.

This video clip of the band practicing on Friday in Frankfurt is the first 10 minutes of a 49-minute recording that’s floating around online. Anyone think Billy okayed putting this out? I’m guessing not. So how did it get to us? Well, not only was it this guy who uploaded the clip, but a text file that accompanies the full recording says:

Thanks for re-seeding …
and please make sure to visit my bands website www.saviour.de and www.myspace.com/saviourband

That would seem to narrow it down quite nicely…but was it Jan, Manuel, Ufo, or Frank?! Wenn Sie Deutsch sprechen, vielleicht koennen Sie ihnen fragen. Hier klicken.

Below: But I don’t know whether you should thank them or complain (YouTube)