This week’s installment of “As the Pumpkins Sue” finds litigious band leader Billy Corgan suing suburban filmmaker Lester Cohn for $100,000 in damages because of unsatisfactory work and Cohn’s refusal to hand over footage shot between 2003 and 2005.
Cohn had done previous work for Corgan on the Zwan DVD that was part of the limited-edition version of Mary Star of the Sea.
Today’s news follows on the heels of former members James Iha and D’arcy Wretzky’s lawsuit against Virgin Records regarding royalties and breach of contract.
You’re up, Jimmy!
In related news, HU may be in the market for a legal expert if this keeps up…
After a bit of a hiatus the podcast returns with a full slate of panelists three-quarters of a panel. Barring any unforeseen business travel, we should be able to stick to our weekly schedule at least until the end of the summer. This week we talked about the residency DVD, which seems on track to defy the odds and actually get released, and a topic near and dear to my heart: marketing.
News
-Billy is playing with Cheap Trick on June 28th, anyone want to iReport it for us? (2:04)
-A new single is announced for September, will it be a pop hit or a sweeping epic? Plus, we make our first reference to the Machina Mystery on this podcast. (7:11)
-IMDB reveals more information about the residency DVD, which is scheduled for the end of this year, and provides a unique interpretation of alphabetical order. (7:12)
In-Depth Discussion
-With the news slowing to a trickle, fan sites start going dark as fans enjoy the summer weather and forget about the Pumpkins until the next blitz begins. Now that the band is label-less and in charge of their own marketing, does this promotional pattern make sense? I figuratively hire Jason and Andrew to play Madison Avenue Executive, and we all have our own advice for how to keep fans engaged. (31:25)
This Week in Pumpkins History
-TheFutureEmbrace is released. Jason ponders the accolades it would have received had it been released by Radiohead. Plus, I reveal my darkest secret: that I listen to James Iha’s solo album more than Billy’s. (8:36)
Song of the Week
-Lover December 12, 1998
Next week we may be doing a show review for a Gish-era show to go along with the announcement of the rerelease/box set/Gish tour. If so, I’ll post the date of the show we’ll be discussing in the comments for this post later in the week.
I remember noticing TheFuturistic stands upon which rested the microphones, keyboards, and electronic drums of Billy Corgan’s 2005 tour. Semi-mysterious blogger Cwan (!) yesterday posted an old article of unknown origin that explains:
Along with himself and his solo band, [Corgan] will be incorporating local metal sculptor Dessa Kirk’s work on stage with him during the performance [at the Vic Theatre]. Kirk specially made 16 vine like pieces for the show, which will grow from the floor to harness the keyboards, and wrap around Corgan’s microphone and mic stand… Corgan and Kirk have actually been fans of each other for quite a while. In the late ’90s, Kirk collected Cadillac scraps and welded them into enormous metallic lilies. Corgan saw them at a gallery show. They eventually met years later at Whole Foods and he told her, “Don’t ever quit making your work.” Kirk believes this happenstance to be kind of profound. “It sounds kind of hokey, but when someone you admire likes your work, you feel like you’re doing the right thing.”
By clicking on “The Stage” at Kirk’s website, you can see some more photos of their collaboration.
It’s not fan-fic, but this bit by Emma Kathryn McDonald may well be (hopefully is?) fic. Either way, dude iz smooth:
I grin as the music picks up again and snap away. I wiggle in front of him until the music dies. “Your song,” I whisper in his ear, catching my breath in the brief moment of silence. He thinks for a moment, eyes still moving up and down me as he does. A smile breaks across his face and he leans in to my ear. “Billy Corgan: A100″.
Billy Corgan and the Fellowship of Broken Toys
July 28, 2005
The Marquee, Sydney
To Love Somebody [Bee Gees] / DIA / Now (and Then) / TheCameraEye / I’m a King Bee [Moore] / A100 / Walking Shade / Pretty, Pretty Star / Dig [Strawberry] / Bit 5 / Mina Loy (M.O.H.) / I’m Ready / Prairie Song / White Lights / Friends as Lovers, Lovers as Friends / For Your Love / Riverview / Sittin’ on Top of the World [trad’l] / Johanna [Stooges] / It’s a Long Way to the Top [AC/DC] / Of a Broken Heart / You Were Mine
Maybe more than any other concert recording — though certainly not more than, say, any interview or documentary — this one gives a real sense of who Billy Corgan is as a person. “This is not an uptight rock-and-roll deal,” he says at the outset, and what ensues is indeed loose and interactive. The crowd consists primarily of adoring fans (as their unreserved singing on Zwan song “Of a Broken Heart” attests), and the appreciative dynamic frees Corgan to take chances musically and personally. He tells funny stories and drops some genuinely hilarious one-liners (”If you’ve been insulted by me, you’ve been insulted by…brilliance”), even developing a couple of running gags over the course of the evening.
This back-and-forth banter is so fun that the musical performance is almost secondary, but it does serve to complement and not detract from the…the word intimacy is overused, but here it’s warranted. This is an entirely acoustic show in which, without a great deal of preparation, Corgan takes on not only the main setlist from his current tour (to which his band had been applying high technology) but also a number of songs he had not performed in months or even years; many of the songs are delivered solo, while some have light support from the backing band. The result is a set of unique and casual performances disturbed by an uncharacteristic number of mistakes. I like the acoustic “DIA” quite a bit, and “Bit 5″ appealingly (to me!) swipes the chords from Bob Seger’s “Still the Same”. Covers of “I’m a King Bee” and “Sittin’ on Top of the World” double as serious man-swagger and winking play-blues. The biggest surprise may be that “Of a Broken Heart”, called in to serve as ersatz hit single, comes off as a timeless classic.
There have been a lot of fan complaints about the mastering of the last few records that Billy has recorded. Fans have circulated a few pre-mastering tracks from Zwan’s Mary Star of the Sea, but there has not to my knowledge been an effort to circulate premasters of other recent albums. Given that complete premasters exist — and exist in the public sphere — for Machina, TheFutureEmbrace, and Zeitgeist, it is hard to understand why they are not commonly traded within the fan community. Is it that, public whining notwithstanding, no one really cares that much? Or is it simply that no one has thought to do such elementary waveform comparisons as the following? (more…)
Lester Cohn for $100,000 in damages because of unsatisfactory work and Cohn’s refusal to hand over footage shot between 2003 and 2005.
After a bit of a hiatus the podcast returns with 
Billy Corgan and the Fellowship of Broken Toys