Article by Arthur van Pelt

It’s time to switch the focus of this overview of rarities to a more personal approach of extreme collecting, and we do that with an insightful interview with an American Smashing Pumpkins collector named Kyle. Because Kyle takes collecting memorabilia to the next level: he creates his own and unique art with Smashing Pumpkins-related items.

Mixed Memorabilia, artfully framed

Kyle his latest work of art, the white-framed piece on the right image above, is premiering here on SPfreaks as we speak. But we will also talk about the framed piece on the left, already posted in several places online in the past.

SPfreaks:
Kyle, thanks for showing up, and welcome. We are happy that you wanted to cooperate in this ‘Collecting to the Extreme’ series.

Kyle:
Thank you for asking me.

SPfreaks:
What we want to know first is when and how did you get into Smashing Pumpkins?  It must already be quite a while ago, right?

Kyle:
Oh yeah.  I was a teenager in the early 90s and have been a fan of the music from the first time I saw the video for Cherub Rock on MTV.  I remember the excitement I felt when I found a Siamese Dream T-shirt in a local store and how awesome it was to wear it to school.  When I discovered the live performances taping community my love of the band really took off.  I was able to enjoy more than just the studio albums.  The on-stage banter and the acoustic versions of songs… there was just a wonderful feel.  The internet also helped… message boards, tape tree sites, archive.org, lyric and guitar-chord pages and eBay bring the experience of being a fan to the next level.  The Pumpkins have released so much ‘unreleased’ material over the years, I consider myself very lucky to love a band that is so active.

SPfreaks:
We asked you to contribute something for this Extreme Collecting series. You asked us to wait a bit for your latest project to be completed.  How did it go?

Kyle:
I’ve had this idea for my latest project for a while and I had been dragging my feet getting it done until I got asked about being included in this article.  Having a deadline lit the fire under me that I needed.  I sent you a basic layout and you thought it looked good enough to wait for its completion. Thank you for that.

SPfreaks:
Right.  Let’s start with the white-framed piece, your latest project.  What do we see there?

Kyle:
The idea was to present these items in a way that represents everyone in the band and gives the piece, as a whole, a more personal feel.  The first pieces I acquired were the drum sticks.  I caught one at a show in San Diego in 2000 and traded someone from a Smashing Pumpkins message board for the other.  I had Jimmy sign one drum stick after a Zwan show and then the other a couple years later when he did a radio appearance at Easter.  (He signed my guitar, the black one from the other frame, that day too.)  The next item I got was the signed drumhead from eBay.  I got it fairly cheap and for a while I wasn’t sure if it was real or not, but as I got exposed to more and more autographed items I became more confident that it was the real deal.  I got the set list (and the Siamese Dream backstage pass) from a gentleman who worked with Jimmy on a few shows in 1994.  This set list was handwritten by Jimmy and is from January 26, 1994 at the Sydney Royal Agricultural Showgrounds in Sydney, Australia.  The old-looking white frame was from an art dealer my wife knows.  It was supposed to be thrown away, but I rescued it and gave it a new life.

SPfreaks:
What about that huge golden frame with purple velvet, the two guitars and other Smashing Pumpkins goodies inside?  The velvet in both frames look awesome, by the way, it gives a real rock ‘n’ roll touch to it.  It’s almost like you stole these frames and their content from a Rock Museum somewhere.

Kyle:
Thanks!  I agree.  The black Gibson Epiphone guitar on the left was the first guitar I ever owned.  I bought it in 1994 and learned how to play on it.  As I got more into Smashing Pumpkins fandom, I decided I would honor them by retiring my first guitar, and try to get them all to sign it.  After nearly ten years I have gotten everyone but D’arcy.  (However, I may be able to remedy that soon.)  A couple of years ago, I got obsessed with the Bat Strat, played by Billy Corgan.  I loved the look and the sound and how iconic it was when the Smashing Pumpkins were still young and discovering success.  I loved Siamese Dream and this guitar was Billy’s favorite at that time.  I set out to try to replicate the guitar in every tiny detail, with the exception of it being left-handed, since that’s how I play my guitars.  It took about a year from start to finish as I found the correct vintage neck, had the body custom made and painstakingly recreated the ‘HONK!’ sticker from scratch.  I lucked out and got the last few pages of Frances Meyer bat stickers from eBay.  I haven’t seen them since.  I created custom-machined backing plates where the neck mounts to the guitar body and I extended the length a little and added eye holes so that the guitar could hang on the inside of the case without being seen. It can be lifted and taken out very easily to play. The frame case has rope LEDs strung along the inside perimeter.  I have started hanging all my back stage passes in the case as well, to give it a stage-used feel.  I wanted to have a good, clean photo of the Bat Strat to include in the display and I came across the perfect one on eBay.  It was from a Japanese magazine and was a picture I had never seen before.  I scanned it, cleaned it up and printed it on photo paper and it fits in nicely.  The whole display looks very slick.  I picked up the large display frame/case at a swap meet for $75.  During a remodel, an employee of the Hard Rock Cafe saved this, and 5 others, from the dumpster and brought them to the swap meet to sell.  I only regret not buying two.

SPfreaks:
Good shit happens, Kyle.  Tell me, why is it so important that you have things autographed by the band?  Is there a reason behind that?

Kyle:
That’s a good question. I’ve always been an autograph hound.  It is not uncommon to see me after shows hanging out by the buses in back or waiting in line for hours for a meet-and-greet.  One night, about ten years ago, a friend told me that James was at a club in Los Angeles.  I drove up and waited outside for six hours for him to come out.  As he was leaving the club he signed my guitar and I got a photo with him.  It’s a good thing too because I wouldn’t see him again for another ten years.  I admire the band and the music and the image, but I also respect them as people.  I never want to be that creepy annoying fan.  As far as autographs go, I think things looked better when they’re signed, whether it’s posters, guitars or CDs.  Getting the signature is fun too.  Most people who are fans of the music would like to meet their favorite artists at least once.

SPfreaks:  
And those backstage passes, did you use them yourself, or were they from eBay as well? How many are there anyway?

Kyle:
Oh man, I wish. Those are about 80% eBay.  Thankfully I seem to be the most serious Pumpkins back stage pass collector out there, so I usually get every single one I go after.  I have a fascination with back stage passes.  I love the creativity that goes into designing them and the freedom found in those who wore them at shows.  I have never been back stage at a Pumpkins concert.  I have always wanted to but don’t have the contacts to pull that off.

SPfreaks:
Any other projects in the making?  Or plans for the near future?

Kyle:
I have had this framing idea for a while, where I do something with each band member’s solo CD (Melissa Auf der Maur included).  I have each one signed and I thought of framing that with the photo I have of myself and the respective member.  That could be kind of cool.  I saw the Pumpkins on a recent tour date and caught one of Mike’s drum sticks.  It would also be cool to get another one and assemble some sort of display for Pumpkins v2.0.  Recently I acquired the guitar James played (and destroyed!) in the Everlasting Gaze video.  I’m thinking of presenting that in a frame style and size similar to the drum head, sticks and set list piece.  I am making arrangements to potentially get James to sign the guitar body during his current tour in Europe.  People from the SPfreaks community are helping me with that.  And I was thinking that stills from the music video would be appropriate in the display to give the piece context.  When displayed together, the two smaller pieces could be mounted on each side of the guitar display to give it a spatial balance.  When I surround all that Pumpkins goodness with various Pumpkins record awards, it promises to be an epic wall of Pumpkins.  It will be glorious.

SPfreaks:  
We are sure it will be glorious. However, Kyle, we have reached our last question. What is your most cherished Smashing Pumpkins item? What piece you own stands out for you?

Kyle:  
Without a moment of hesitation I would say my signed guitar. I love that thing so much, I have even joked about being buried with it when I die.  It took me almost ten years to get every signature.

SPfreaks:
Thanks Kyle, for the time you took to talk with us on SPfreaks, and the effort you made to show some of your art projects.  We hope to see you back with us many times again, that’s for sure.

Kyle:  
Absolutely!  Viva Las Pumpkins!

And that’s where we end this interview with Kyle. Meanwhile we would like to ask you to send your suggestions for rare and unique Smashing Pumpkins items to TheSPfreaksTeam@gmail.com. We will do the (additional) research and bring you the full story here on SPfreaks.

Again, happy hunting, as always. See you again next week!

Article by Arthur van Pelt

This episode in the ‘Collecting to the Extreme’ series, as well as the two upcoming episodes, is all about very rare Smashing Pumpkins CDs pressed in very limited numbers.  Or, in the case of the combined Gish album releases from the 1990s, to be discussed later, they represent parts of rare CD collections from around the world.  We included this set of Gish CDs as an example of Extreme Collecting, since such a complete set of Gish CD releases is very hard to match for any serious Smashing Pumpkins collector.

But prior to that, let’s kick this episode off with a one-of-a-kind test pressing, previously owned by Billy Corgan.

Untitled CD single (Billy Corgan’s test pressing)

A few episodes ago we introduced a test pressing CD set for the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness album that once was in Billy Corgan’s hands.  With the one-of-a-kind Masterdisk Corporation test pressing for the European CD single of “Untitled” (pictured above), we can actually prove that it was in Billy’s hands; his handwriting is clearly visible.

The song “Untitled”, written by band leader Billy Corgan, was the final recording and release made by the band before their break-up in the year 2000.  “Untitled” was recorded in Chicago in late November by Corgan and the remaining original members of the group, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin.  Touring bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur, who replaced original bassist D’Arcy Wretzky, did not play on the song.  Bass duties were handled by Corgan as can be seen in one of the two videos for the song.(1)

Dave Richards, the programme director at Chicago-based radio station Q101, said that a few days prior to the Smashing Pumpkins’ (penultimate) show at Chicago’s United Center on November 29, 2000, Billy Corgan called him to discuss plans to simulcast the concert.  Corgan asked Richards to see him in the Chicago Recording Company studios, and, in Richards’s own words, “I went down to the studio, and [Corgan] said, ‘I have something I want to play for you.’ I had no idea they were working on new songs. He played it for me, and I asked if it was from one of the album sessions, and he said, ‘No, we just finished it yesterday.’ ”  Corgan sent over a master of the song two days later, and Q101 debuted it on air just before the United Center show.

Another master of the song was send to Virgin Records, where a promotional in-house pressing was manufactured, dated one day prior to its radio debut.  It was addressed to ‘Ashley’.  It is our (really wild) guess that ‘Ashley’ may in fact have been Ashley Newton, then-executive, and later Co-President of Virgin Records America , and Senior VP of A&R at Virgin Music Group Worldwide.  In 2003, Ashley Newton was hired as Executive Vice President of A&R at RCA Records, by Clive Davis, the newly installed chairman of RCA Music Group.  Whether ownership of this CD can be added to his CV of impressive feats is still supposition on our part, but, well, it would undoubtedly represent one of the highlights of his career.

“Untitled” was aired by Q101 DJ James VanOsdol, and Corgan told him during the radio show that it was a “sort of special see-ya-later song”.  VanOsdol started his career back in 1993 at Chicago radio station Q101 (aka WKQX-FM), where he spent a total of 11 (non-sequential) years.  A rather obsessive music fan, VanOsdol became known for supporting local and independent music, primarily on the Q101 specialty show “Local 101.”  Throughout his career, his voice was also heard on other Chicago stations such as WXRT, WZZN, WLUP and WTMX.  After the debut of “Untitled”, Corgan and the rest of the Smashing Pumpkins played to the audience at the United Center in Chicago.

Citing an unknown, anonymous source : “The track follows the patented loud-quiet dynamics that were the group’s calling-card on such multi-platinum albums as Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995) and the 1993 breakthrough Siamese Dream.  ‘When you’re young / you can promise / anything that you wanted / to be in love, to feel love all around’ Corgan sings in a hurried, joyful flow.  As it fades out, “Untitled” crashes to earth with what looked at that moment, in all likelihood, to be the final screaming Pumpkins guitar solo from Corgan.”

Corgan stated that “Untitled” intentionally sounds more like the earlier Pumpkins of Gish and Siamese Dream, and that they could always produce music that sounded like their older albums, but chose instead to try to push their music in new directions.  Corgan later commented, “The song was our way of saying ‘fuck you’ to all those people who thought we’d somehow lost our minds and weren’t able to return home.  We were in the studio for what appeared to be the last time, so it was very emotional; we had only three days.”

A few days later, in December 2000, Q101 shipped out three copies of the “Untitled” single that were given to them by Billy Corgan.  The Q101 version of the single featured the artwork of the Greatest Hits album, which was not-yet released at that time.  One of these three copies was able to be won in a competition run by Q101 on the James Van Osdol radio show, where contestants had to correctly answer a question about the Smashing Pumpkins.  This version of the “Untitled” release almost deserved a spot in this series, but since the aforementioned ‘Untitled Ashley Acetate’ and of course this test pressing are even more rare, we decided they were where the focus belonged.

After debuting the track on November 29, 2000, Q101 later streamed “Untitled” exclusively on the station’s site for a month.  The posting of the song on the website was in keeping with the band’s web-centric final days.  After that, according to a spokesperson for the band, more than 50 stations in the United States played the song – which was not commercially available at the time.

An official Europe-only CD single was issued on November 5, 2001 by Virgin Records, pressed in both the UK and in The Netherlands.  The single, with outtakes from the Machina / The Machines of God sessions as B-sides, accompanied the release of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Greatest Hits album.  Several types of sleeved promos for “Untitled” popped up all over Europe prior to the commercial release.  Examples have appeared in France and in Sweden.  At the same time, in Canada, an extremely rare and highly sought after 7-track promo CD was released in a jewel case, entitled Untitled And Other Choice Cuts.  There is only one known official mix of “Untitled”, known as the “Pop Mix”, which was released on a limited promotional acetate in the US.  However, there is not much difference between the standard mix of “Untitled” and this “Pop Mix”.

And as it goes with all official Smashing Pumpkins releases, at least one test pressing was made that was send to the band/Billy Corgan to be check for quality. This test pressing by the Masterdisk Corporation is dated September 27, 2001 (more than a month before the official release) and Billy noted on that the song “Age Of Innocence – Mix 1i” was “too low”, with an arrow pointing upwards.  Thus far, we do not know what Billy meant by this, as there appears to be no difference with the song that was eventually released on the commercial single.

(1) Wikipedia states: Two music videos for the song were released.  The first was an edited collage of footage of the band from 1988 to 2000, and was only released through television and online content providers in the late summer of 2001.  A second video was released as a secret feature (Easter Egg) on the band’s Greatest Hits Video Collection.  The video simply features footage of the band recording the song at the Chicago Recording Company, the band’s preferred studio.  Stills from this footage were used on the cover of the European single.  The video was directed by Bart Lipton and edited by Mark Imgrund.

Tarantula CD single (early Mexican test pressing)

What is noteworthy here, is that Mexico is the country of release, as well as the early date of the pressing.  “Tarantula”, the first single from the Smashing Pumpkins’ Zeitgeist album (the album that marked the band’s return after a hiatus of almost five years), was officially released in early July, 2007.  For the Smashing Pumpkins, it was in fact a follow-up single to “Untitled”, arriving almost 6 years later.

This test pressing of the CD single is dated May 3, 2007, two months before the official release.  However, the CD inside the slimline jewel case is marked May 21, 2007, presumably the date of manufacture.  Since Wikipedia already has a thorough article on “Tarantula”, we would like to direct you there.  Note that May 2007 was indeed the month that the song “Tarantula” became known to the general public.

And what else is there to tell? The handwritten code PRO16381 on the front artwork was the release code used for the UK promo single of “Tarantula”.  Details like these aid in certifying the authenticity of this pressing.  No Por Suerte Studio in Mexico City, Mexico, is known to exist and it has been confirmed that the company partners with Warner Records.  All in all, we have not found any flaws on this pressing to give us reason to doubt its authenticity. So far we have seen only one copy appear on the collector’s market.

Fellow freaks, everyone at SPfreaks would like to wish you an awesome holiday season, and we hope to see you again next week!

Review of James Iha (live 06 December 2012, Bitterzoet, Amsterdam) by Sven Schlijper
Also published in Dutch on KindaMuzik.net, translation to English by Vaughn Bayley
Additional live show photos by Jeroen Savelkouls

As the guitarist for The Smashing Pumpkins, James Iha took his place on the stages of the largest concert halls and festivals in the world.  Following the break-up of the Chicago band in the year 2000, the guitarist returned to the public eye with A Perfect Circle, and lent his string-strumming skills and composition talents to the likes of Vanessa and the O’s and Tinted Windows.  It may now be fourteen years after his solo debut Let It Come Down, but the follow-up, Look to the Sky, has finally landed.  The album brings Iha to Europe for four concerts, among them, a performance at the Amsterdam Bitterzoet.

Iha does not have so much experience gracing the stage alone; this year, he will perform about twenty of them.  In the limited time available at these performances, the singer-songwriter does his best to entertain the audience with droll anecdotes, demonstrating that he has a clear sense of humour: often, he is the butt of his own jokes.  With a giggle from the crowd and a concert halls complete with tables and chairs, Iha knows exactly how to create a cosy atmosphere and where to land his softer numbers.

As if singing to himself, Iha opens the performance at the Bitterzoet with the single ‘Be Strong Now’.  A little more courage and bravado could certainly not have done any harm; as if apprehensive that the microphone would devour his vocal chords, Iha whispers his lyrics.  After a choice selection of recent material that still reflects the soft, romantic focus of his debut, the audience jump to their feet for nothing more than a cover (‘Dancing Barefoot’ by Patty Smith) that Iha sings with relish.

Iha’s songs lean heavily on sweet melodies and rippling rhythms; furious explosions of power chords are nowhere to be seen.  The fragile figure makes it clear that he was responsible for the typically ingenious harmonious intertwining and the often surprisingly recalcitrant elements synonymous with The Smashing Pumpkins and concerts with A Perfect Circle.  If you need to put James Iha in a nutshell, this is what you include.

Expanding in public view is never easy for anyone, but a concert is anything but torture for James Iha.  The longer he surrounds himself with his own songs, the more he feels at home and trusts himself; The Smashing Pumpkins number ‘Mayonaise’, which Iha co-authored, is given a glowing rendition.  Paying homage to David Bowie in the form of his ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll with Me’, Iha and his two band-mates loosen the reigns a little.  By way of a closing statement, Iha makes it clear that as he sees it, rock does not reach its zenith with shock and awe, but by putting harmonious charm in the front line.

Announcement by The SPfreaks Team

December 15^th was the deadline for the contest that we started on October 7^th. We asked you to write an essay called “The World of Mellon Collie”, and add a decoupage set to the essay. The essay was to be between 1,000 and 2,500 words long. Members of the SPfreaks Team were not eligible to enter the contest.

The contest has been highly anticipated since early October, and we noticed multiple positive responses on the Smashing Pumpkins forum, Twitter, and above all, Facebook. However, in the meantime we were unable to have a band member of Smashing Pumpkins participate in the judging of our contest.

As a result, we will now judge the contest submissions within the SPfreaks Team. Accordingly, we will be able to announce a winner much earlier than previously expected. Instead of between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, we will now have a winner announced by Friday the 21^st! The winner will also be contacted at the email used to submit their entry.  So keep your eyes peeled on this blog,  and we will see you again on Friday!

Compiled by Arthur van Pelt
Hosting by Alberto 

“I don’t have to play by these rules or do these things… I can actually have my own kind of version.” (1)

Between 2008 and 2010, SPfreaks put together 4 compilations of Smashing Pumpkins live songs and made these available as mp3s. In these months we present a run-down of them. #3 was originally posted on 2009.11.28. For all these live compilations, jewelcase artwork has been created. The artwork is included in the downloads.

The booklets need to be printed @ 240 mm x 120 mm & folded to fit inside a jewelcase. The back inlays need to be printed @ 150 mm x 117,50 mm, then folded 6.5 mm from the sides, to fit inside a jewelcase.

596.18 MB of Smashing Pumpkins renditions of their own songs are here for your listening pleasure:

Tracklist Part I, the acoustic renditions

01. – 03:02 – I’ll Never Change – (1990, exact date and location unknown)
02. – 03:27 – Obscured – (1991-09-??, Hotel room LondonUK)
03. – 04:53 – Snail – (1991-09-??, Hotel room LondonUK)
04. – 05:24 – Suffer – (1991-09-??, Hotel room LondonUK)
05. – 04:01 – Spaceboy – (1993-06-30, VPRO Radio Studio Villa 65, Hilversum NL)
06. – 06:17 – Starla – (1993-07-04, Raymond Revue Bar, LondonUK)
07. – 04:42 – Cherub Rock – (1993-12-12, Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles US)
08. – 06:39 – Hummer – (1993-12-12, Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles US)
09. – 05:35 – Rocket – (1993-12-12, Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles US)
10. – 04:01 – Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness – (1995, MTV US unaired footage, unknown date)
11. – 06:51 – Soma – (1996-01-31, Soma, San Diego US)
12. – 04:22 – Eye (feat. Marilyn Manson) (1997-10-18, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View US)
13. – 07:58 – X.Y.U. – (1997-10-18, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View US)
14. – 03:50 – Today – (2000-02-17, Tree Studio, Atlanta US)
15. – 05:07 – I Of The Mourning – (2000-04-03, WKQX-FM Studios, Chicago US)
16. – 03:06 – Blissed And Gone (feat. The Frogs) – (2000-12-02, Metro, Chicago US)
17. – 13:00 – Gossamer – (2007-06-05, Spandau Citadel, BerlinDE)
18. – 03:55 – Bleeding The Orchid – (2007-07-10, XM Live Performance Studio, WashingtonUS)
19. – 07:05 – United States – (2007-07-10, XM Live Performance Studio, WashingtonUS)
20. – 03:05 – Disarm (feat. Josh Groban) – (2008-10-26, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View US)

Tracklist Part II, the electric renditions

01. – 07:28 – Sun – (1989-03-16, WZRD-FM Studio, Chicago US)
02. – 04:16 – Rhinoceros – (1991-07-19, Club Babyhead, Providence US)
03. – 03:21 – Today – (1992-08-31, Kleine Markthalle, Hamburg DE)
04. – 09:44 – Starla – (1993-08-14, Metro, Chicago US)
05. – 13:15 – Silverfuck + Bye June – (1993-08-24, Melody, Stockholm SE)
06. – 02:54 – Disarm – (1993-09-00, Westwood Studios, LondonUK)
07. – 07:21 – Pissant + outtro – (1993-10-05, First Avenue, MinneapolisUS)
08. – 04:42 – Window Paine – (1993-12-11, Bogart’s, Cincinnati US)
09. – 08:06 – I Am One – (1994-08-28, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View US)
10. – 06:22 – Mayonaise – (1996, exact date and location unknown)
11. – 06:34 – By Starlight – (1997-01-08, GM Place, VancouverCA)
12. – 40:13 – Silverfuck – (1997-02-01, Charlotte Coliseum, Charlotte US)
13. – 04:58 – The End Is The Beginning Is The End – (1997-06-27, Glastonbury Festival, GlastonburyUK)
14. – 09:20 – The Aeroplane Flies High – (1997-07-04, Eurokennes Festival, Belfort FR)
15. – 14:01 – For Martha – (1998-05-28, BotaniqueGardens, Brussels BE)
16. – 08:58 – Crestfallen – (1998-06-19, Circular Quay, Sydney AU)
17. – 08:50 – Blank Page – (1998-08-04, Fox Theatre, Atlanta US)
18. – 12:05 – X.Y.U. – (1998-10-31, Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles US)
19. – 05:47 – Zero + outtro – (2000-01-24, Vredenburg, Utrecht NL)
20. – 04:17 – Pug – (2000-05-24, Community Theatre, Berkeley US)
21. – 07:46 – Ava Adore – (2000-10-27, Valby Hallen, Copenhagen DK)
22. – 10:34 – Cash Car Star + covers medley – (2008-02-05, Hallenstadion, Zurich CH)

Notes on this release. (also included in the artwork as a leaflet)

It’s starting to become a tradition, creating these Smashing Pumpkins Live Compilations… And with pleasure this third one was made, let me tell you. I consider this renditions release as the best so far (and the other 2 were already hard to top!), with a stunning amount of 42 Smashing Pumpkins live tracks that highlight every aspect of Pumpkins playing live. At first I mixed the (semi-) acoustic tracks with the more rocking electric tracks, but that didn’t really create a good listening atmosphere, to my humble opinion. So for that reason, I split up the release in 2 parts. But how did I decide about every one of the 42 tracks? Let me explain about a few of them.

Part I, track 1 is a joke, obviously. The irony of the title “I’ll Never Change” just asked for being the starter of this release…  This rather unknown Smashing Pumpkins song was taken from Mashed Potatoes. “Obscured”, “Snail” and “Suffer” from that London Hotel room session couldn’t be missed when we talk about acoustic renditions of Gish era songs. And when it is hard to decide which one should be added, you just throw them all in, right?

“Cherub Rock” and the other 2 titles from the 1993-12-12 gig were chosen for the integration of a cello in the sound. It works quite well, and I hope you guys listening to it, think the same. “Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness” was chosen for it’s rarity, I think not many fans know about the existence of unaired 1995 MTV footage that is out there. It was taken from the David Mead Compilation digital-only boot that can be found sometimes on torrent sites.

Also I wanted to pick some Smashing Pumpkins tracks that were done live with other artists (that can be considered a rendition also, right?), that’s why “Eye”, “Blissed And Gone” and “Disarm” are on the list for Part I. All in all, Part I gives a great overview of the acoustic brilliance that the Smashing Pumpkins achieve playing live. Again, just my humble opinion. But I hope you guys have a great listening experience, and appreciate my choices again so far!

Part II is focused on the electric songs, and I didn’t give a shit throwing in some same titles when I thought it would be appropriate for renditions’ sake. That’s why you will find “X.Y.U.”, “Disarm”, “Starla”, “Today” and “Silverfuck” in 2 redone versions. I wonder who will survive the famous 40 minutes version of that last track…  Oh, talking about “Today”, the electric version is maybe not the best recording quality, but do you notice how old that song actually is? And what about the instrumental middle part? Awesome!

Furthermore, “Sun” in an even longer early live version than on the Light Into Dark release, many Adore era songs since I had the idea that this era was not highlighted enough on the previous two Live Compilations, and may I point you already to the angry grunting metal version of “Ava Adore”? Man, I love that version, it’s perfect! “I Am One” from the 1994-08-28 gig was chosen for the very different rant. Even little parts of an early “Zero” can be heard, and Billy Corgan was definitely not that much into God and cornflakes as he turned out to be later in his career.

And now I want to put a little spotlight on “Pissant”. “Pissant” was released on the Siamese Dream album in Japan only, on the “Cherub Rock” single and on the b-sides album Pisces Iscariot too. Meaning, the song “Pissant” is not that well-known, and it wasn’t played live many times either. Only the few visitors to a handful of gigs had the chance and the pleasure to get to know this song in a live rendition. This 1993-10-05 recording of “Pissant” shows the Pumpkins weirdness during the introduction of Jimmy during the song, and the outtro that I just had to add… And with the blues-rock version of “Window Paine” directly following it, damn, this is good!

Final thingy I want to explain, is the song “X.Y.U.”, why I put it twice on this release. The almost acoustic version is already very rare, and good too, but when the Smashing Pumpkins played as “The Beatles” as opening act for Kiss in the Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, on 1998-10-31, they decided to redo “X.Y.U.” almost completely. Be prepared for an almost new song! It is one of my favourite Smashing Pumpkins live tracks of all times. The quality is quite decent, since it comes from the Friends And Enemies Of Modern Music (60m cassette). Info found online about this famous demo/boot cassette:

From a 60m cassette given by BC to an online fan in April 2000, with instructions to “circulate these”. The compilation was originally to be a 90m tape, but it got screwed up, so he dug up the Gravity demos instead, and made this 60m tape the next day. Two tracks were cut, on the end of each side… “Well, tough shit.”

I’m sure this Renditions Live Compilation is no “tough shit” but “extremely enjoyable shit”. Have fun!

Download this excellent selection of Smashing Pumpkins songs performed live here.

(1) the quote is again noted down from Billy Corgan’s mouth.

Article by Arthur van Pelt
Additional research by Geo Folkers

Last week we ended in Mexico.  We will head back there now to look at an Adore-era live promo CD.  Afterwards, we will journey across the Atlantic Ocean to the United Kingdom to take a look at a rare set of remixes of the Adore singles, “Ava Adore” and “Perfect”.

En Concierto en Mexico (limited Mexican-radio promo CD)

This is another Mexican promotional release, which is said to have been released in a very low quantity – only 10 examples (according to one source; read his story below), or 30 (according to another source, some 10 years ago).  It appeared on eBay a few times several years ago, and at auction, it reached prices over $1,500.  Not even the Machina II / The Friends And Enemies Of Modern Music 4CD acetate set from Virgin US (which is pressed in an even lower quantity than En Concierto en Mexico) has ever reached such prices in auction.  This Mexican promotional radio CD contains four songs from the Smashing Pumpkins show at Palacio de los Deportes, Mexico City, on August 11, 1998.  The tracks are “To Sheila”, “Behold! The Night Mare”, “Pug” and “Ava Adore”.  Our conclusion: it is rare as hell, and although it is not unique, it is highly sought.  It is the most expensive Smashing Pumpkins CD release we know of so far.  Some call it “a mythical release”; others call it “the holy grail of Smashing Pumpkins collecting”.

Last month, we were contacted by a Smashing Pumpkins collector who stated the following:

“There seems to be some confusion on your site about the En Concierto en Mexico release.  There are not two versions; the only true version is the Gold Kodak CD-R with the EMI stamp.  The silver CD-R version that you all have listed is not real, it is a fake.  This is why the back insert is noticeably different.  The forger took a close up of another part of the Adore album front cover, and  placed the radio logo on top, adding the Virgin and Hut stamps to make it look more authentic, before putting it up for sale on ebay.  I actually had the name of the forger at one point after he was traced back through his eBay auctions.

Additionally, there are not 30 copies of the genuine En Concierto En Mexico; there are only 10.  It was handed out as a gift to radio station employees for promoting the concert.  Other than a one of kind Siamese Dream multi-colored vinyl pressing, En Concierto En Mexico is the rarest of all official Pumpkins releases.

En Concierto en Mexico was the one item that always eluded me.  There are only a few extremely rare items I have ever failed to own, but it was the only one that simply could not be found.  For a short while I became obsessed with it.  It was so hard to find that at one point, I was even convinced it was just a myth.  I went through a great deal of trouble and effort to authenticate its existence.  I spoke to management at EMI at one point; a friend of mine even visited the radio station and spoke with several employees when he was on vacation in Mexico.  I even attempted to find the item once through some associates that worked at Universal South with connection to Virgin Records management.

Ultimately, the radio station confirmed the ten copies given out as prizes to employees; I do not know how they were given out (raffle, seniority, etc.).  It is possible that a few of the copies were given out as radio prizes to the public.  However, I am certain of the number of copies.  EMI confirmed the authenticity of the item, stating that it was a legitimate release and that the gold Kodak CD-R was in fact genuine.  Virgin had little input other than to agree to the use of the Adore artwork, though this was told to me from memory and was not documented – Virgin basically didn’t know anything about the release.

So, that’s the story.  No official documentation; just an extensive search for what might as well have been the Holy Grail.  I did actually find the CD online once, receiving pictures from an anonymous person.  But, of course, once he realised what he had, this person changed his mind and disappeared into oblivion.  Keep in mind that all this happened twelve or more years ago, so it’s very unlikely that anyone that worked at that radio station is still there.  That’s the biggest problem with this release – it is so rare that it doesn’t seem legitimate and it’s possible that several people just threw it away thinking it was nothing.  I sold my collection back in ’04/’05 but have continued to keep an eye out for this particular item.

For what it’s worth, in all my seventeen plus years of collecting the Smashing Pumpkins, I have only seen it once; it is very likely that only a few copies may be left.  In my opinion, it’s rarer than any of the early cassette demos.  If people actually knew of the existence of En Concierto en Mexico, there is no way to tell how much it might be worth.”

(Disclaimer: since we have not yet double-checked this story with previous or current owners of this release (they are really hard to find!), we cannot yet confirm these claims. We hope to have confirmation soon.  Also, upon hearing these claims, we immediately updated the online collection entry for this item.  We too felt uncertain about its authenticity.)

This article contributes to an existing discussion on our forums about this truly rare release. We also would like to invite you, as always, to send your findings and experiences via email to  TheSPfreaksTeam.

Remixes (Hut Recordings UK: in-house reference CD)

At a first, superficial, glance this looks like a label’s in-house promo.  These pop up on the market every now and then.  Most of the time, nothing interesting can be found on them, since they (almost) always contain tracks that have been released commercially.  Not in this case however…  This is not just the only known copy of this CD, it is also stuffed with unreleased material from the Smashing Pumpkins’ remixing vault.

On a second, more thorough glance, you can start to realise what is going on.  On this Hut Recordings CD from the UK, the much-rumoured yet never-released “Ava Adore” mixes by Puff Daddy (a.k.a. Puffy) make an appearance.  It took a stunning 13 years to finally confirm the existence of these tracks.  What was the history behind the Puffy remixes?

In this Billboard magazine article, dated January 16, 1999, it was announced that Sean “Puffy” Combs had booked several studios for various projects, including a remix of the Smashing Pumpkins’ song “Ava Adore”.  This was all taking place in the fall of 1998 (note that the CD was manufactured in Summer 1998, as the last line states “Copied From CDR 13.07.98”).

The remixed track has not yet seen the light of day.  And for a long time, this left a question of whether the “Ava Adore” project was actually followed through on.  Was it cancelled somewhere down the road?  Did Sean “Puffy” Combs call it quits halfway the project?  Or did Billy Corgan decide not to approve the mix(es)?  Were they deleted or otherwise destroyed in the studio?  Or were they put on the studio shelves somewhere?  We now know the latter to be true, thanks to the existence of this reference CD with the four different “Ava Adore”mixes.

Note that there are two mixes for “Perfect” by Sean “Puffy” Combs on the CD too.  They have not yet been commercially released.  We already knew about the “Perfect” remixes for a while; they were found on this extremely rare Virgin acetate CD (which also contains a third mix by Puff Daddy for “Perfect”).

A year ago, Billy Corgan alluded to (one of) the Puffy remix(es) for “Ava Adore” on Twitter . He tweeted about listening to the “Ava Adore” Puffy remix on December 17, 2011.  We don’t know which one of the four remixes on the CD this was.  Maybe the one that is ‘Puffy’s choice’?  Or maybe Corgan is just as unaware of the four different mixes as we were?

It is currently unclear whether any of the Sean “Puffy” Combs remixes for “Ava Adore” and “Perfect” are going to be released as (a) bonus track(s) with the Adore album reissue in 2013.  If we understand Corgan’s reference, we have to conclude there is one high on the list of options.  And we hope they will be released, because they sound freakin’ awesome…

See you again next year with more episodes, have a happy and peaceful Christmas and a rockin’ New Year in the meantime!

Announcement by The SPfreaks Team

We’re pleased to share the winning entry of our contest, with the submitted article and decoupage set below. Our winner is now being sent a copy of the Mellon Collie CD Deluxe Box Set and an SPfreaks t-shirt!

The World of Mellon Collie

By: wK

Do you know these guys that “know music”? They’re familiar with every possible band you’ve never heard about, discographies by year, lineup changes, backstories and trivia? They also know their way around the different genres, styles, eras and influences?

Well, I’m sort of that kinda guy.

* * *

The first time I heard “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” was in the summer of 2002, and I had just graduated from highschool. It was a good album with some great hits in it, but nowhere was it as coherent as the previous, grungier, Siamese Dream. The whole thing just seemed too bloated and overly produced for my taste. I had only a few months before recruiting to a mandatory 3-year army service, and had virtually nothing to do with that borrowed time. And, as it happened to be, that summer I fell madly in love with a girl.

* * *

I was always fond of secondary titles appended to the name of a piece of art. If I had to choose one for MCIS it would have been: “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: Music for the Heartbroken, in E♭”. Because when your heart is ill, you’re not simply depressed. Depression is for when something gets fucked up in your life. But when you are truly heartbroken, you are not merely depressed, you become melancholic. The difference being? Whereas depression is your life played as a monochromatic black-and-white film, melancholy is your life on a colored-canvas painting.

Just for comparison, “The Wall” is an album you want to cut your wrists to; Mellon Collie is an album that lets you know that everything is OK, and makes you feel perfectly fine with your sadness, and even lets you enjoy it in a strange way. Perhaps that’s what Billy meant when he described Mellon Collie as “The Wall for Gen X”.

* * *

So, being the self-proclaimed musical expert that I am, I’m very often asked what my favorite album is, and I always answer, without a second’s hesitation: “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness”. “Why?” is the question that almost instantly follows, but it’s always very difficult for me to answer.

Because Mellon Collie isn’t just an ALBUM.

I’ve read somewhere that a great piece of art should conform to the following: It must be universal, introspective, and self-contained. I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that definition, but I think that Mellon Collie is just that; it can touch your inmost personal experiences and memories, while still providing some insight about the ‘world’. Most importantly, it’s not just a bunch of songs put together – it’s a complete universe.

Sure, there are the 28 songs from the official album, but once you are done with these, you begin to grow an appetite for more. Then you dig a little deeper and find out about long-sold-out “The Aeroplane Flies High” box set. At first you may think it’s an ordinary leftover B-Sides collection, but to your amazement you find 28 MORE songs, and damn! Some of these songs are even better than the ones released on the album. And just when you think that you’ve got your hands on all the stuff that could have possibly been recorded on that era, you stumble upon the demo tapes. The acoustic Sadlands sessions, the Pumpkinland rehearsals, the Gravity demos, the 666 video, a plethora of live performances, and of course the music videography highlighted by “Tonight, Tonight” which may possibly be one of the best music videos of all times.

* * *

The fall came, and my friends and I were staying up all night, getting high and drunk on a daily basis, just the way you’d imagine 18-year-old-soon-to-be soldiers facing the unknown. That was when I rediscovered the Mellon Collie universe, and it became the soundtrack to that weird, wonderful time of my life.

Because Mellon Collie isn’t JUST an album.

It’s about opening the booklet and getting that feeling you had when you were little, reading an old children’s book full of soothing Victorian-era anthropomorphic illustrations.

It’s wanting to learn piano just so you could be able to endlessly play the opening title for yourself; It’s wishing that the Reprise in the end of “Ruby” would never end; It’s being awaken by the mid-”X.Y.U” scream after you’ve fallen asleep just a few songs earlier, Or, if you’re lucky enough, falling asleep to the closing piano of the sweet, sweet lullaby that is “Farewell and Goodnight”, feeling at peace with world, even if for a brief moment.

It’s obsessing about the sold-out vinyl version, going into old record stores hoping they might just have it, even when you know they won’t. It’s constantly trying to find it on eBay at a reasonable price, and when you do, you realize it’s a fake cause you’re already an expert on this subject matter by now.

It’s arguing with fellow MellonColliacs on whether “Marquis in Spades” should have been included in the album; It’s wondering why the hell “The Viper” wasn’t properly recorded; It’s constantly trying to build your own perfect album playlist out of the abundance of songs, only to find out that it’s an impossible mission, because you couldn’t let go of even the most obscure of songs, because you love each and every one of them a little differently.

It’s looking at a cookie-shaped moon, hoping it would smile back at you while you smoke a cigarette in the middle of the night; It’s wanting to tattoo one of icons from the lyrics sheet on your leg.

It’s imagining the girl you love, sitting on a huge star, staring at the skies.

 * * *

With every return of the fall, the little green grass begins to cover the hills on the countryside, the colors of the sunset get a little dimmer, the winter clothes being taken out from the back of the closet – that’s when I put on the pink CD in my little stereo, and with the sound of the C♯ piano chord being played, I begin my annual journey to the land of Mellon Collie.

Significant albums have come and gone during my life, some of which were really, really good. And I do return to some every once in a while. But with Mellon Collie it’s a bit different. Because, well, Mellon Collie isn’t just an album.

* * *

Article by The SPfreaks Team

Again, what a remarkable year for Smashing Pumpkins fans!  We saw the release of a long awaited follow up to Zeitgeist.  The album, Oceania, is the first album to incorporate recordings from the post 2009 line-up after Jimmy Chamberlin left the band in March 2009.  It was well received by the public and has convinced the band to continue to push forward with plans to release another album already in motion.  Exciting news!

We also saw two of our favorite releases re-mastered and reissued; Pisces Iscariot and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.  Both releases contained an abundance of bonus material and re-imagined artwork. The winner of our contest “Your World of Mellon Collie” is now enjoying the deluxe reissue of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.  Congratulations!

For our part, The SPfreaks Team was able to become more of a presence in the social networking world.  We were able to increase our site visits nearly 50%, simply by reaching out to the community across multiple platforms.  We were able to support the international community by searching, finding, purchasing, and shipping the exclusive Target US-only Celestials 7” with bonus shirt to countries all over the world.  We provided these items at cost, and even provided a few freebies here and there.  We have begun to assemble an elite cast of writers to author articles of differing interests and research.  One of the biggest articles from 2012 revolved around a band that Billy Corgan started with Greg Bates called Coat of Eyes.  A truly remarkable demo tape surfaced, providing song titles and an inside look at this pre-Pumpkins time period. 

Last but not least, we’d like to highlight not just one, but three impossibly rare releases acquired by some lucky SPfreaks members this year:  First, the almost mythical French Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness promotional 2 CD issued by Delabel.  This was last seen for sale some 5 or 6 year ago and went unnoticed (and cheap!) to an unknown collector.  We were only able to grab some low-fidelity scans of this release to document its existence before it disappeared again.  Rest assured, once received, we will provide appropriate scans that a rare release of this magnitude deserves.

Second, an internal acetate promotional CD was discovered that contained all the mixes of Perfect by Puff Daddy.  These are already widely available you say?  Well the CD also contains Puffy remixes of Ava Adore as well!!!  They have always been rumored, but only confirmed some 14 years after their creation.  For more information on this one-of-a-kind release, please review Collecting to the Extreme, Episode 7.

Third, one of our collectors was kind enough to share pictures of a truly one of a kind possession.  The moon and earth props used in the Tonight, Tonight video!  Obtaining these items was no easy task, but nothing worth obtaining ever is.  Even the hardcore collectors who have almost everything have to sit back in awe at some of the items that have been found in this past year alone.  It’s a great time to be a Smashing Pumpkins fan, and even better if you are a collector of the band’s memorabilia.

At its core, this is what SPfreaks is all about; the community and a communal support for everyone involved.  We need you, and always will!  Help us enjoy and chronicle our favorite band into 2013.  Thanks to the SPfreaks Team for a wonderful year.  Let’s keep it going and rock on!

Interview by Sven Schlijper
Also available in Dutch, translated by Vaughn Bayley

When James Iha played a solo show in Bitterzoet, Amsterdam (NL) on December 6, 2012, several members of the SPfreaks community were present at that gig. They enjoyed a wonderful and intimate concert by James Iha and his band, which was reviewed by Sven Schlijper a few weeks ago. Our member Sven also spoke with Smashing Pumpkins co-founder James Iha between his arrival on Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, and the soundcheck with the band for the performance later that night in Amsterdam.

 
JAMES IHA’S ‘WHISPERING VELVET’ HARMONY

On a bleak day, packed into sweaters and scarves, guitarist, songwriter, and film-music composer James Iha is sitting on a comfortable sofa in the Bitterzoet in Amsterdam.  Look to the Sky, his second solo album of gentle (semi-)acoustic rock, was recently released.  As in his music, his conversation is hardly punctuated with big gestures or earth-shaking one-liners.  Iha is his calm, relaxed self; Zen-like in harmony, and he speaks in the whisper of soft velvet.

“It was at around this time of year in 2000 that we turned the lights off on The Smashing Pumpkins.  For me, the story was finished and it was time to close the book.  After the final concert in Chicago, when I walked out into the cold, besides feeling empty and tired, I was also satisfied.  The mission was accomplished, but I really needed time to recharge my batteries.  We had been busy with the band 24/7.  The Smashing Pumpkins were a brilliant machine; if we weren’t travelling around the whole world on any of those intensive tours, we were in the studio, working with the same dedication and passion.  From the very beginning, somewhere in 1987, up to and including 2000, we were on the bullet-train, without ever stopping for very long.  It was time to take a break, catch my breath and look around. “

No Need
“I think the time that followed should not be described as a ‘black hole’.  While I wasn’t exactly looking to liberate myself from the city that was inextricably linked to The Smashing Pumpkins, I moved to New York City.  In the United States, there is no single city that compares to it.  For me, it is not so much a melting pot of cultures, but it is full of great opportunities to meet interesting people and be impressed.  I immersed myself in that warm bath of possibility, making the most of literature, fashion, art and films, all while I slowly found peace in building my own studio and record label.  When friends and acquaintances asked me to contribute a guitar part or to produce a track, I did it because I could and because there was no sense of it ‘needing’ to be done.”

Small and Fine
“From Vanessa and the O’s to Tinted Windows, and of course, with A Perfect Circle, it’s been possible to see and hear me.  Not often and not exactly in the spotlight, but it doesn’t have to be like that for me and it wasn’t never actually a goal in itself.  I don’t mean this negatively in relation to The Smashing Pumpkins, because that group worked so perfectly and was so successful because there was just one motto: become the biggest band in the world, otherwise there is no band.  All four of us shared that feeling and there was no deviating from the course.  If I’m completely on my own with a certain degree of peace; small can be fine then too.  One is no better or worse than the other. “

Background
“It took about three years before I seriously considered whether I wanted to do something musical again, or before I picked up a guitar with the idea of writing a song.  Every now and then, I made a few guest appearances, then Billy Howerdel from A Perfect Circle – I knew him because he used to work as a guitar-tech for The Smashing Pumpkins – asked whether I wanted to come and play with him and his group.  It was his band and it suited me to take a role as a supporting factor.  In the background and very far away from the outside world, I wrote songs which, in some cases, I worked on for months, but not in one single sitting.  I could spend an entire day polishing arrangements, struggling with the smallest detail and then go the next few weeks without even looking back at it.  You don’t make an album very quickly when you work like this, and that’s why it took so long before Look to the Sky was finished.”

Parenting Tips
“Nathan Larson, who produced the album and contributed a great deal musically, is largely responsible for making the album what it is.  If it was just up to me, I would have spent years longer on it, thinly producing tracks or putting too much into them, and I definitely would have chosen the wrong songs.  Not because I’m too critical or because I’m not a good judge of myself, just because I would be so uncertain.  It’s about ‘love’: love for the songs.  I’m like a loving parent who wants the absolute best for them all.  Since Nathan has more distance, he had good ‘parenting tips’ for the album.”

Comfort Zone
“As crazy as this might sound, coming from the mouth of a man who played umpteen times in the biggest venues or who stood in front of 60,000 people at festivals, performing is not so easy when there’s a poster hanging outside with my name written on it.  It’s something I have to do and I am the only one who is responsible for ensuring the audience has a good time.  When coming on stage with The Smashing Pumpkins or A Perfect Circle, I could always walk out behind someone else.  Plus: with Billy Corgan and Maynard James Keenan, you’re talking about men with a lot of charisma, who come across powerfully and who can play a central role.  As far as concerts are concerned, I’ve done very few shows where I’ve been the center of attention.  A comfort zone, that’s what I need.  Cosy little mini-venues, like on this short tour, give me this; a few years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that I would be playing without a wall of security guards – and not at maximum volume.  Bit by bit, I’ve learnt from my experiences and now I feel more comfortable in my role.  This is helped by the fact that I’m surrounded by songs that are completely mine, which gives me a base of harmony and confidence.”

Grateful
“It’s special to have the feeling that live your life has worked out in such a way that you can say you’re happy.  I’ve reached that place and I’m grateful for every chance that’s offered to me.  Those years of The Smashing Pumpkins brought me to the point where I can peacefully enjoy life.  For me, the band ceased to exist in 2000.  I’ve never looked back in anger.  And I don’t see any reason to do that now that Billy has resurrected the name.  I can understand it too, because we released a fabulous amount of brilliant work.  We touched a lot of souls and there is still opportunity to bring happiness to people; old fans, but also a new generation.  I don’t see any reason to deny them that.  It’s great that Billy Corgan can give them that happiness. “

Sacred Fire
“Now that the old records by The Smashing Pumpkins are being reissued again, I think back about everything we struggled for.  It was often a wild ride, with ups and downs of course, but with those four people together there was a sacred fire that was extremely unique.  I’ve never been part of anything like it anywhere else, and never will be again.  I feel blessed to have been able to work with producers like Butch Vig, Flood and Alan Moulder, when I look at and listen to a repertoire where we went from being dreamy to hard, to bluesy or acoustic, to electronic and through it all, we continued to be The Smashing Pumpkins.”

Harmony
“At the time I also wrote my own songs.  Barely a handful were released under The Smashing Pumpkins moniker.  And that didn’t bother me.  Everything had to fit in with the larger view of the albums and the band.  Songs which we worked on because they might have appeared on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness were fortunately not recorded.  They received their own place on my solo debut, Let It Come Down.  That album can effortlessly – and on its own – exist alongside the monumental masterpiece that we created as The Smashing Pumpkins.  With Look to the Sky, I have the feeling that there doesn’t need to be any talk of it ‘existing alongside’.  Now the album is one with me and my whole life right now; an expression of what I am doing at this very moment and want to share with the world.  In this harmony, I can play my songs mixed in with songs I cherish, whether they’re covers of Patti Smith, or ‘Mayonaise’ which Billy Corgan and I wrote, which I see as an absolute highlight from my time with The Smashing Pumpkins.  That I can entertain people all the way over here in the The Netherlands, fills me with gratitude and happiness. “

Article by Derek Miller

In 1996, after the highly awarded and critically acclaimed release of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the Smashing Pumpkins released a companion box set titled The Aeroplane Flies High.  The box set contains each of the five singles released from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness to include all the b-sides that accompany them.  One disc in particular contains exclusive cover songs made available only within the box set.

The purpose of this article is to give some clarity to the numerous pressings, release dates, promo versions, and even bootleg versions associated with the release.

First US Pressing

The first pressing of the box set was released on November 26, 1996.  According to an article on mtv.com, the initial pressing was limited to 200,000 box sets [1].  The box set was meant to be a collector’s piece.  However, the product had an unforeseen mass appeal and the stores quickly ran out of the product.

Virgin records quickly decided to press more copies for release in the US market.  During this time, some stores gave out vouchers to be exchanged for the box set once the second pressing was complete [1].

First US Pressing Insert

UK Release

The UK version was released the same day as the initial US pressing.  This version has the identical UPC; however, the insert containing the barcode is slightly different and has a few additional numbers.  Specifically, the code UK: SP BOX 2 appears on the label to represent a local release code.  The first Smashing Pumpkins box set, Siamese Singles, came with a similar local release code, SPBOX 1.  Unlike The Aeroplane Flies High, Siamese Singles was only released in the UK, and it was also exclusively pressed in the UK.

The total amount of box sets pressed in the initial run remains at 200,000, however a percentage of these were manufactured for release in the UK.  Of the first pressing quantity, it is unknown how many were shipped to the UK with the slightly different label.

First UK Release Insert

Second US Pressing

Due to the overwhelming demand for the box set, a second pressing was made available on January 17, 1997 [2].  This version comes with a unique barcode, exclusive to the second pressing.

The release was certified platinum by the RIAA on January 27^th, 1997 [3].  Between the original street date and the RIAA certification date, 300,000 units were sold in the US [4], making it realistic that another 150,000 units were sold worldwide, adding up to 450,000 units produced; consequently, the second pressing was likely 250,000 additional units.  This seems congruent with estimated pressing numbers found on other Smashing Pumpkins websites.

Incidentally, January 27^th, 1997 was also the day Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was certified as eight times platinum, or 4,000,000 units of the double CD set sold.

Second US Pressing Insert

Discrepancies

While the box set is relatively consistent across all releases, there are a few intriguing differences that do exist.

The hinges used for each release seem to be somewhat rampant and inconsistent.  There are two versions: one appears very simplistic and the second is somewhat more elegant and ornate.  While it would seem straightforward according to the entries found at SPfreaks, the hinges that ended up on the box set vary from release to release.  Therefore, it is thought the hinges were used in a “what was available at the time” fashion.

        US Sticker (First & Second Pressings)                                             UK Sticker

When sealed, each box set came with a circular sticker to promote the contents inside the box.  The first US pressing sticker displays the proper UPC number.  The UK release also contains the correct number, but adds SK2 at the end.  Clearly, this sticker was meant for the UK release.

However, the second US pressing, although containing a completely different barcode on the reverse insert, displays the exact same UPC number associated with the first US pressing.  It is thought Virgin simply manufactured more of these stickers exactly the same for one of two reasons: first, they already had a sticker plate and thought it unnecessary to generate a new one to press the appropriate code; or two, they did not realize the sticker contained the UPC number and it was not changed due to an oversight or error.

The matrix codes found in each box set can vary slightly from release to release, even though they were all manufactured in the US.  The main identifying feature of a matrix code is the IFPI code, which only came into existence in 1994.  However, using these codes, which are consistent for each CD, all releases have been proven to be US disc pressings.

Promotional Copies

Very few copies of The Aeroplane Flies High box set were released as promos.  Not much is available to distinguish a promotional copy versus a commercial copy; there are no special codes, or stamps, or writing.  The only way to know for sure is to obtain a copy of the box set that is still sealed.  The promotional versions have the barcode removed.  If the box is opened (not shrink wrapped) it is impossible to tell if the barcode was removed in order to mimic being a promotional copy.

In addition to the promotional box sets, two different promotional sampler CDs were manufactured in the US.  One CD contains four tracks and the other CD contains 12 tracks.  These CDs are strictly promotional, so the pressing quantity is hard to track down.  It is decisively known, however, that the 12 track sampler is much rarer than the four track sampler.

Prototype Box

During the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness tour, Billy Corgan had received at least one version of the box set that utilized different artwork than was ultimately released.  Billy Corgan had this box on tour and reportedly left it behind after a concert.  The box appeared on eBay and went to a private collector.  SPfreaks has since contacted the owner of the prototype box, and the price tag is a mere $5,000.  This is more than likely a one of a kind, unofficial release that was never meant to be in the public’s possession.  For more information on the prototype box, please review Collecting to the Extreme, Episode 3.

Prototype Designs

On Thursday, March 6, 2008, Frank Olinsky, who designed the artwork in 1996, released some more sketches for this box on a blog on his website.  Here are a few designs that were considered.  Which one do you prefer?

Bootleg Versions

Due to the popularity of the release, it is not surprising the bootleg market quickly picked up on the demand to try and make a few dollars.  The most notable of these bootlegs is called The Aeroplane Flies Lower.  This deceiving box was bootlegged in Germany.  Although it shares most of the title with its namesake, the unofficial box set actually contains no songs from the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness singles or their respective b-sides.  Instead, it is merely a hodgepodge potpourri collection of Siamese Dream-era singles and an exclusive interview disc.  Interestingly, even the interview disc is not exclusive, as it is available on previous bootleg interview CDs as well.

There are other CD bootleg versions of this release that at least attempt to include the material from the original box set; namely, the Australian and Japanese 2CD versions.  They look somewhat official, but upon further review, it becomes quite obvious the unscrupulous and illegal nature of the releases.  Besides the inclusion of completely irrelevant songs, both releases are dated from 1995; almost an entire year before the official box set was released.  More information can be found by clicking the links above.

References

[1] MTV News.  (December 16, 1996).  Pumpkins’ “Collectors” Set Has Mass Appeal.  MTV.  Retrieved December 13, 2012, from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1434226/pumpkins-collectors-set-has-mass-appeal.jhtml

[2] (n.d.).  7243-8-38564-2-8.  ItemLookUp.  Retrieved December 13, 2012, from http://www.itemlookup.net

[3] RIAA Searchable Database.  (January 17, 1997).  The Aeroplane Flies High.  Gold and Platinum Searchable Database.  Retrieved December 13, 2012, from http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?content_selector=gold-platinum-searchable-database

[4] Wikipedia.  (n.d.).  The Aeroplane Flies High.  Wikipedia.  Retrieved December 13, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aeroplane_Flies_High

Article by Arthur van Pelt

Welcome back, dear Smashing Pumpkins fans and collectors, to the ‘extreme collecting’ series!  Let’s continue our journey in 2013 with even more rarities and highly sought after memorabilia from our favorite band.  This episode will take us back to the first full album Smashing Pumpkins released.  Indeed, the commercial release of the album itself is not rare…  But wait until you have seen all the rare artwork from all the CD pressings come together… With an extremely rare pressing to top it off!

Gish, the worldwide releases from the 1990s

Now, who thought all those different Zeitgeist album covers were over the top?  When they were released in 2007, there was nothing new about them, at least not for the world of Smashing Pumpkins.  In the first half of the 1990s, Smashing Pumpkins did exactly the same thing with their debut album Gish, although on a more subtle scale.  And it was most probably unintentional and not part of a marketing strategy, as it was with Zeitgeist.

First a brief history of the making of the album, and the intense touring that supported its release.  Most of the information below is taken from Starla.org and Wikipedia.org.

The album was named after silent film icon Lillian Gish.  In an interview, Billy Corgan said, “My grandmother used to tell me that one of the biggest things that ever happened to her was when Lillian Gish rode through town on a train.  My grandmother lived in the middle of nowhere, so that was a big deal…”.  Later, Corgan joked that the album was originally going to be called Fish, but was changed to Gish to avoid comparisons to jam band Phish.

Gish was recorded from December 1990 to March 1991 in Butch Vig’s Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, on a budget of $20,000.  Vig and Corgan worked together as co-producers. The longer recording time and larger budget were unprecedented for Vig, who later remembered:

‘[Corgan] wanted to make everything sound amazing and see how far he could take it; really spend time on the production and the performances.  For me that was a godsend because I was used to doing records for all the indie labels and we only had budgets for three or four days.  Having that luxury to spend hours on a guitar tone or tuning the drums or working on harmonies and textural things… I was over the moon to think I had found a comrade-in-arms who wanted to push me, and who really wanted me to push him.’

The album’s sessions, lasting 30 working days, were brisk by Pumpkins’ standards, largely because of the group’s inexperience.  The recording sessions put an intense strain on the band, with bassist D’Arcy Wretzky later commenting that she did not know how the band survived it, and Corgan explaining he suffered a nervous breakdown.

11 tracks made it to the album that was released to most countries on May 24, 1991, although Asia had to wait till September 21, 1991 before they could slide the album into their CD players.  ”I Am One”, the opening track (the only song written by Billy Corgan in collaboration with James Iha;  all other songs were written by Corgan alone), is followed by “Siva”, “Rhinoceros”, “Bury Me”, “Crush”, “Suffer”, “Snail”, “Tristessa”, “Window Paine”, “Daydream” (with D’Arcy Wretzky on vocals), with the hidden track “I’m Going Crazy” closing the album. Four of these album tracks, being “I Am One”, “Rhinoceros”, “Bury Me” and  “Daydream”, were previously recorded by the band in 1989, but all four songs were re-recorded for Gish.  This is the reason why the 1990 7” vinyl version of “I Am One” lasts 11 seconds longer, and sounds slightly different from the Gish album version.

Lots of other songs were written and recorded for the Gish album in this period, but they did not make it to the final cut.  Amongst them, “Pulseczar” (released on Earphoria in 1994 (limited promo CD) and 2002 (album release)), “Smiley” (released on the Peel Sessions EP, and a demo version also appears on the 2011 deluxe reissue of Gish), “Crawl” (released on the 2012 deluxe reissue of Pisces Iscariot) and “Purr Snickety” (released as a “B-Sides Session Outtake” from the Gish sessions on the 2012 deluxe reissue of Pisces Iscariot, after it was used as B-side to the 7” clear vinyl single of “Cherub Rock” in 1993 in a limited, numbered, release of 5,000 copies. 12 months later the song also appeared on the “Cherub Rock” 7” black vinyl in the Siamese Singles box set.).

We also know about the songs “Blue” (released on the Lull EP in 1991, and on the Pisces Iscariot album in 1994), “Obscured” (B-side of the Today single in 1993, re-released on Pisces Iscariot), “Slunk” (so far only released on the Lull EP), “Why Am I So Tired?” (much later released on the Earphoria promo CD in 1994, and in 2002 on its official album release, and more recently it appeared on the 2012 deluxe reissue of Pisces Iscariot again as a track on its bonus CD), “Jesus Loves His Babies” (appears on Mashed Potatoes, and a rough mix was also released on the 2012 deluxe reissue of Pisces Iscariot as a bonus track), “La Dolly Vita” (originally the B-side to Tristessa, it appeared on the 1994 release of Pisces Iscariot, was  re-released on the 2012 deluxe version of Pisces Iscariot, and a slightly different mixed version was released on the 2011 deluxe reissue of Gish).

Once the band had unleashed Gish, they embarked upon a gruelling 18-month world tour.  Billy Corgan later recalled: “Back then I felt we’d really hit on something.  When we toured, the band became ultra-aggressive.  By early ’92 we had become this lean, mean, on the edge, completely rockin’ machine.  With a little bit of wizardry and a little bit of sheer will, we were either blowing people’s minds, or they hated us.”

Billy Corgan had a positive take on the new album.  A few years after its release, he told Guitar School Magazine: “I think Gish is a pretty good album.  It definitely defined our band’s sound.  I’m not proud of it in some ways – I think I could have been a more original in places – but in terms of some things, the guitars for example, I think it’s pretty cool.”

The band played at the Reading Festival in Reading, UK on August the 29th.  It proved to be a disastrous show and nearly led to a break-up.  On the In Conversation interview CD, Corgan describes the show, saying:  ”when fifty-thousand people talk, you can definitely notice, so there’s that pressure to really be good.  And then you know, you don’t get a sound check, you’re walking onto a big, huge stage, you have people working there who normally don’t work, your stuff, instead of being ten feet away is twenty feet away, so it makes the sound different.  And that’s nobody’s fault, but if you get used to working under similar conditions, it all gets thrown to the dogs.”

During an ill-tempered set, Corgan smashed up his equipment.  This included his guitar, which apparently struck the record company president in the head.  Halfway up the bill, the Pumpkins had been expected to “do a Nirvana” and liven up the event as the Seattle-based band had done the year before.  However, the Pumpkins failed to do as was hoped, and sadly the atmosphere reeked of failure, increased by the presence of Nirvana who were headlining the following day.  Corgan later admitted that the band was upset at each other and “it was one of a handful of times where we’ve let each other down”.

By September of 1992, the toll of touring was even more clearly evident.  Drummer Jimmy Chamberlain  was hitting the bottle.  D’Arcy Wretzky and James Iha, who had been dating, had now broken up and were finding life in a band intolerable.  And Billy Corgan was going completely mad…

Despite the internal issues, the album was made, and released worldwide.  We would like to give a quick run-down of the Gish CD album artwork, as it was originally released in 1991 and for the re-mastered version released in 1994.  Sometimes it pays to just open the jewel case, and check what is inside.  A Smashing Pumpkins collector that owns all the Gish CD versions from the list below, and also owns all the rare Asian Gish pressings from Japan, Korea and Taiwan (released with a white obi, and with a green obi) that are not presented here, can proudly consider him or herself to be an ‘Extreme Collector ’.

On a side-note, the five main coloured versions of the Zeitgeist album release (red, yellow, purple, green and silver) include (slightly) different track listings for each colour with the exception of the green-colored Zeitgeist (it contains the same tracks as the red version).  With the Gish album releases in the 1990s, this was not the case; it never came with additional and/or bonus tracks (apart from ”I’m Going Crazy”) or a different track listing anywhere in the world, at least not as far as we know.

Gish silver CD, as released in Australia (left) and in The Netherlands (right) in 1991

This type of silver CD, with different designs, can also be found in Germany, the United Kingdom and South Africa (with the infamous typo on the CD for the song ”Tristessa”: Fristessa).  At the moment, we can only presume there was no official artwork designed for the CD disc itself when the album was released in 1991 (first with the Caroline Records label, quickly followed by a Virgin Records/Hut Recordings release when Gish was just released).  As a result, it appears every CD manufacturer worldwide was allowed to come up with their own design for the CD disc.

Gish purple CD, as released in the US (left, with band photo) and in Japan (right) in 1991

Two other types of CD appeared in the US and in Japan: a purple CD.  Japan kept it rather straightforward, with a text-only CD, whereas in the US those purchasing Gish were treated to a CD featuring a band photo , and the name of the band and the album in the album font.  Note that there is no track listing printed on the CD, and that the image of the Japanese CD on the right is from the promotional release.  It contains the text “SAMPLE” and some Japanese symbols on the inner ring of the CD.

Gish re-mastered red CD, as released in Australia (left) and Brazil (right) in 1994

In 1994, the Gish album was (slightly) re-mastered and reissued for the first time. The design of the CD artwork for this re-mastered release became somewhat more uniform, as demonstrated in the images above and below. Japan also followed this design for the CD in 1994.

Colour variations on the Gish re-mastered CD, as released in Italy (left) and United Kingdom (right)

Gish re-mastered purple CD, as released in Canada (left, with band photo), and United States (right, with the promo release pictured . The commercial release came without the stamped promo text).

This list closes with what is undoubtedly the most beautiful colour the Gish CD album has been featured in.  However, it is an extremely limited pressing, and (almost) impossible to find.

Gish limited gold CD, released in United States in 1994 to commemorate the RIAA Gold sales status

No more than 200 of these gold Gish CDs are known to have been pressed for the band and label employees, and relatives/media partners.  They came with a little note, that states:

‘Hey Caroline Working Stiff!!!*

As you probably know, Smashing Pumpkins Gish has been certified “gold” (sales in excess of 500,000 units) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

In commemoration of this achievement – the first gold record in Caroline Label’s history – we would like you to have this special extremely rare (less than 200) gold disc copy of Gish.

Thanks for all your efforts.  Let’s go platinum.

Regards,
Caroline Label‘

And Gish did indeed go platinum, certified by the RIAA on February 5, 1999 for reaching 1,000,000 albums shipped and sold in the US.

Discovering and hunting down all these rare pressings of The Smashing Pumpkins’ debut album, from all over the world, is what makes collecting fun.  Great fun!  See you again next week, when we will look at an extremely rare promotional CD containing a live concert of Smashing Pumpkins that was played and recorded in a very, very unusual place!

*The note really says ‘Stiff’.

Review by Jeff Becker from The Way That He Sings

“Faster than the speed of sound. Faster than we thought we’d go.  Beneath the sound of hope.“
Billy Corgan

From today onwards, SPfreaks will team up with Jeff Becker. Jeff is a very talented writer who works for The Way That He Sings, a non-profit website fully dedicated to the support of independent rock and pop. We will cooperate on a multi-level scale with Jeff; not only Smashing Pumpkins related articles from his hands will be partly or fully shared, also exclusive material about our favorite band might find its way to SPfreaks in future.

So far, The Way That He Sings has published the following articles about Smashing Pumpkins:

• The Smashing Pumpkins – live in St. Louis – October 18, 2012
• The Smashing Pumpkins – live in Milwaukee – Sept 30, 2012
• Oceania album
• The Smashing Pumpkins -live in Milwaukee in 2011
• Article on the brief Machina 2 sale last year on eBay

Please feel free to ‘Like’ them on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheWayThatHeSings.

As a start, Jeff will present us his reviews of all four Smashing Pumpkins album reissues that we have seen so far. Each week one of them will be published on both The Way That He Sings, and on SPfreaks. And he hopes to suit the needs of those Pumpkins fans that have been hesitating so far in buying any of the deluxe reissues.

The overall release of Gish deluxe gets a 9/10.

CD1 – the original album

Gish, the final product, is not only the precursor of two Pumpkins albums that followed – it probably exceeded even the expectations of Billy Corgan with the scope of its sound.   That’s because Corgan caught lightning in a bottle when he grouped up with Butch Vig and Jimmy Chamberlain.   The Bermuda Triangle of Vig’s keen ear for sonic perfection, matched with Chamberlain’s thumping heartbeat on the drums and Corgan’s growing mastery of both songwriting and guitar playing created the perfect storm.   While that storm came into full fruition on Siamese Dream, Gish created a storm of interest that helped propel the Pumpkins into the stratosphere over the next five years.  While Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie lifted the Pumpkins into the hearts of millions, Gish has remained a remarkable album, even though it was clearly outdone by its predecessors.

The psychedelia of Gish separated it from Pearl Jam’s Ten, Nirvana’s Nevermind and every other band that emerged in the early 90′s.   While grunge dominated the early part of the decade, many of the songs on Gish stepped outside of that stereotype .  Songs like ‘Snail’ and ‘Daydream’ provided the Pumpkins with an early signature, that separation from everything else released in this gigantic era of change in rock music.   Long gone were the glam hair bands of the 80′s, and now we had homeless-looking rockers from Seattle, Portland and Chicago tearing up the airwaves.  This remastered version highlights how much Gish has dug its heels into that point in time and that it holds up remarkably with a sound that is more timeless than something like Pearl Jam’s Ten.   Corgan and Vig had just scratched the surface of what they were capable of and Gish, despite not having any early commercial success, is not looked back upon with the credibility of anything else before 1995.

CD2 – unreleased material

1      Starla (2011 mix) – Nice to have, spectacular quality but it’s hard to decipher it from the original.

2      Siva (Peel Session) – Nice to have and great quality mix from the Peel session.  Not dramatically different from original.

3      Honeyspider (Real Time Demo/2011 mix) – Must own and the 2011 mix brings it life even further.

4      Hippy Trippy (Crush Music Box demo) – Must own.

5      Snail (Live Radio performance) – Nice to have.   Decent quality live radio performance with a muddy mix.

6      Plume (2011 mix) – Nice to have.   Perfect quality alternate version that is similar to the original.

7      Bury Me (Real time demo/2011 mix) – Must own.  Perfect quality again on this powerful demo version.

8      Daydream (Old House Demo) – Must own.  Dramatically different version in pristine quality.

9      Tristessa (Sub Pop single/2011 mix) – Nice to have.  Once again, another alternate version in near-perfect quality.

10    Girl Named Sandoz (Peel Session) – Nice to have.  Similar arrangement and sound to the original.

11    Jesus is the Sun (Apartment demo) – Must own.  Great quality outtake.

12    Blue (Gish Session demo) – Must own.   Acoustic-driven version in perfect quality and a little free Billy chatter at the beginning.

13    Smiley (Gish Session demo) – Must own.  Pristine.

14    I Am One (Real Time demo/2011 mix) – Nice to have.  Great quality – very similar to the original.

15    Suffer (Apartment demo) – Must own.  Significantly different version in outstanding quality.

16    La Dolly vita (2011 mix) – Nice to have, but it’s either similar or the same as the version on Pisces Iscariot.

17    Pulseczar (Gish Session demo) – Must own.  Dark, haunting track and an ideal inclusion here.

18    Drown (Alternative guitar solo) – Must own.  Still a classic track.

DVD –  August 25, 1990 at the Metro, Chicago – live performance

1. I am one (Live at The Metro, Chicago, IL 8/25/90) [DVD] 2. Snail (Live at The Metro, Chicago, IL 8/25/90) [DVD] 3. Rhinoceros (Live at The Metro, Chicago, IL 8/25/90) [DVD] 4. Bury Me (Live at The Metro, Chicago, IL 8/25/90) [DVD] 5. Tristessa (Live at The Metro, Chicago, IL 8/25/90) [DVD] 6. Window Paine (Live at The Metro, Chicago, IL 8/25/90) [DVD] 7. Razor (Live at The Metro, Chicago, IL 8/25/90) [DVD] 8. Sookie Sookie (Live at The Metro, Chicago, IL 8/25/90) [DVD] 9. Godzilla (Live at The Metro, Chicago, IL 8/25/90) [DVD] 10. Crush – Acoustic (Live at The Metro, Chicago, IL 8/25/90) [DVD]

A full, hometown performance highlighting the Gish album shot at the Metro in Chicago back in 1990.   As with the DVD that accompanies the deluxe reissue of Siamese Dream, this is perhaps the definitive show from the Pumpkins’ Gish era.   The audio quality exceeds the video, largely due to the fact the show was shot in a swash of blue and red lights.   In addition, the source of the video doesn’t appear to be a first generation or master copy.  Nevertheless, to the upper 2% or 3% of Pumpkins fans, this DVD will warrant repeated viewings. For the other 97% it’s a one-time showing in most instances.

The performance itself shows the vigor at which the Pumpkins shows had evolved into such a powerful live setting.   Aside from the outstanding tracks, the band was a flourish of eye candy between D’arcy’s long blond locks, Iha’s odd uniqueness (does any other rock star really look like him?), the veins in Chamberlain’s biceps – and of course the exuberant Corgan hiding often behind the classic 1990 bushel of hair.   Clearly, their live show was one of huge underground hype in Chicago early on and their reputation for tearing up a club was just forming.  This show captures that well just as the Smashing Pumpkins firestorm was beginning to take shape.

Article by Arthur van Pelt, Derek Miller, and Sophie Dartois

CD sleeve (front)

Adore Attention Événement!

Smashing Pumpkins performed many concerts categorized under ‘special and remarkable shows’. One of these occasions was in the summer of 1998 when the band visited Europe to promote the release of their latest album, Adore. The tour began May 12^th in the United Kingdom, and after 21 solid shows in less than a month, ended on June 9^th in Greece. In the last week of the European leg of the world tour, Smashing Pumpkins arrived in sunny Paris, France for the Bercy gig after rocking the socks off the audience at the Pinkpop Festival in Holland. But before the band went to the Bercy venue for the night show, they performed one of those ‘special and remarkable shows’ in one of the younger districts of Paris, during the daytime on the rooftop of a well-known French music store.

In more recent years, bands like Ladylike Dragons (left, night performance) and Placebo (right, daytime performance) are also known to have been playing on the rooftop of the FNAC Ternes store.

No more than 50 people are estimated to have attended this intimate performance of Smashing Pumpkins on June 4^th, 1998. Although Billy Corgan jokingly states, “Merci, thank you very much. I’d like to thank all seventy thousand of you.” just before the band played their last song, in fact there were only a few dozen lucky Smashing Pumpkins fans present. However, he may have been referring to the amount of fans who were listening on the radio. Since the space on the FNAC Ternes rooftop can only suit an extremely small audience (for example, SPLRA.org mentions a capacity of 40 people for the rooftop), we presume that ultimately no more than 50 fans could have attended the rooftop show. How did fans obtain their tickets for this extraordinary Smashing Pumpkins show?

With the help of a very rare, numbered, Delabel promotional CD which contains the full show that was performed on June 4^th, 1998, we will try to bring the full story of the FNAC Ternes rooftop performance. The text on the sleeve of the CD is in French, so we asked Sophie Dartois from France to help us translate and to explain the details of this rare release.  Sophie has translated French text for our site before and is a valued SPfreaks contributor.  What follows are her notes and thoughts, and they tell the story of how this promotional CD release came to life:

“The sleeve starts with, “Attention événement!” on the front.  This literally means, “Pay attention, a special event is coming!”  It’s a colloquial sentence used to announce an event and invite people to stay tuned for more info.

Next, we read, “Concert exceptionnel sur la terrasse de la FNAC Ternes jeudi 4 juin 1998 à 17h.”  The beginning speaks for itself since the words are very similar in English. It means that a “unique concert” or “outstanding concert” is going to take place on the rooftop of the store FNAC Ternes on Thursday, June 4^th, 1998 at 5:00PM.  FNAC is the greatest retailer selling cultural products (books, CDs, DVDs, etc.) and hi-fi systems in France. The name initially stood for “Fédération Nationale d’Achats des Cadres” which means “National Shopping Federation for Managers”, but it has been opened to everyone for years now. The company owns several stores in Paris and other cities, and the concert took place on the rooftop of the store located on the “Avenue des Ternes” in Paris, not far from the metro station Ternes, hence the name of the store.

 Street view of the FNAC Ternes store in Paris

Other text on the front is, “Invitations à gagner sur NRJ du 25 au 29 mai”.  This means “Win an invitation card on NRJ from May 25^th to May 29^th”. NRJ is the name of a French radio station, and the abbreviation stands for “Nouvelle Radio Jeune” = “New Radio Station for Youngsters”. The name is a pun when the French letters (“hen heir gee”) are pronounced as it sounds like the word “energy” – hence the panther in their logo. To listen to programs broadcasted on NRJ one can still tune the radio station to 100.3 FM in Paris. Sadly the programs are not as interesting as they used to be, and the new slogan of the station is now “Hit music only”.

New logo of NRJ radio station

Furthermore, the text, “Concert retransmis en direct dans votre FNAC” is found on the front of the sleeve.  It literally says, “Concert broadcasted live in ‘your’ FNAC store”. However, a recently discovered promotional trade ad (pictured below) states the show was broadcast in every FNAC store.  It says “retransmission en direct dans le forum de votre FNAC”, or, “retransmitted live in the forum space of your FNAC store”.  It then states, “sauf Montpellier, Troyes, Villeneuve d’Asq.”.  This means except in the following cities; Montpellier, Troyes, and Villeneuve d’Asq.  Perhaps these stores were not fully equipped for live transmission. It also means that the concert was screened everywhere else. Forum spaces in FNAC stores are places equipped with hi-fi audio equipment, sometimes used as a showroom for high-range audiophile equipment (often tested with classical music). They are also used for mini-concerts and/or signing sessions.

The Smashing Pumpkins rooftop concert was broadcast in all FNAC stores in France,
except for Montpellier, Troyes and Villeneuve d’Ascq.

The sleeve also promotes the release of a new Smashing Pumpkins album. “Nouvel album sortie le 2 juin”.  This text is translated as “New album, release date is June 2^nd”. Obviously this is about the album, Adore.

There is tiny little text on the lower right corner which says, “Ne pas jeter sur la voie publique”.  It is a sentence usually written on handbills which means do not throw this paper on the ground in the streets.  It’s the equivalent of sentences like “do not litter” in the US, or in the UK, “Keep Britain tidy”.

There’s also a green logo which says, “Le prix vert” (green price).   This means when the album is released it is considered on sale for a few days in FNAC stores, with a discount on the standard retail price. “Prix vert” sales are still very common nowadays.

Examples of “Prix vert” logos used by the FNAC organization.

Other logos to be found on the front of the sleeve are, from left to right, Delabel France, Hut Recordings, and FNAC.  At this point, they explain themselves.

CD sleeve (back)

The invitation is numbered. This one is #35, as it states “Invitation No 35” (with the figure in red) on the back of the CD sleeve, and most certainly this number is also referring to the maximum amount of people that the rooftop of FNAC Ternes could hold, which is estimated to 50 people. The invitations are then numbered up to 50, presuming all places on the roof were taken by people that received this type of invitation.  Note – The invitation (or ticket) image has been transposed onto the back of the CD artwork after the show was completed.  The CD itself is not the invitation.

Next, “FNAC Ternes Rendez-vous jeudi 4 juin à 16h30 Avenue Niel à l’angle de la rue Bayern Paris 17ème.”  This part explains where to go and how late to be there. “FNAC Ternes, appointment is on Thursday June 4th at 4:30PM (which is half an hour before the Smashing Pumpkins concert would start) and the meeting point is on Niel Avenue at the corner of Bayern Street, Paris, 17^th sub-district”. On a sidenote, Paris is divided in 20 sub-districts forming a spiral (children in France call it a snail), and the 17^th is in the North-West of Paris. It is considered a good living area in Paris.

Location of the 17^th Sub-district in Paris

Eventually there is vertical text in the lower left corner which says “Pour une personne”. This means “For one person only”.  Lastly, there are the logos (again) of NRJ, Delabel France, Hut Recordings, and FNAC on the back of the sleeve.”

It seems obvious that this CD is very rare (maximum 40 to 50 pressed) and that it was most likely a prize for winners of the NRJ radio station contest.  However, the exact nature of the promo has yet to be verified.  It was manufactured shortly after the FNAC Ternes rooftop concert, and it is very unlikely that it will appear on the market many times in the future.  People that have attended these types of ‘special and remarkable shows’ tend to hold on to all the goodies linked to the occasion.

But Smashing Pumpkins fans are lucky to have a rather good audience recording available of this amazing Adore-era concert on YouTube! Enjoy in the following order: “To Sheila”, “Ava Adore”, “Daphne Descends”, “Once Upon a Time”, “Tear”, “Perfect”, “Blank Page”, “Shame” and “For Martha”.  See you again next week!

Compiled by Arthur van Pelt
Hosting by Alberto 

“So if I feel like playing ‘em, I’ll fucking play ‘em. My mentality has always been, ‘okay, you want it? We’re going to shove it down your throat.’” (1)

Between 2008 and 2010, SPfreaks put together 4 compilations of Smashing Pumpkins live songs and made these available as mp3s. In these months we present a run-down of them. #4, being the last one in the series, was originally posted on 2010.06.22. For all these live compilations, jewelcase artwork has been created. The artwork is included in the downloads.

The booklets need to be printed @ 240 mm x 120 mm & folded to fit inside a jewelcase. The back inlays need to be printed @ 150 mm x 117,50 mm, then folded 6.5 mm from the sides, to fit inside a jewelcase.

For #4 the theme is: Covers! Over the years Smashing Pumpkins never hesitated to play songs from other bands, be it old blues songs, be it modern rock classics. This set of 31 songs, spanning their career from 1988 to 2009, contains many surprising choices of covers. Go grab it!

290 MB & more important: almost 3 hours of Smashing Pumpkins doing covers of other bands. Prepare for a few surprises, guys, because who knew Smashing Pumpkins did “I Just Wanna Make Love To You”, originally written by Willie Dixon in 1954? And what about “Ol’ 55″ of Tom Waits? Here is the full setlist, hope you guys like it!

19881120 – Time Has Come Today (Chamber Brothers)
19890316 – Venus In Furs (Velvet Underground)
19900000 – Godzilla (Blue Oyster Cult, from Mashed Potatoes)
19900000 – Sookie, Sookie (Steppenwolf, ditto)
19910000 – Out Of Focus (Blue Cheer, ditto)
19910000 – Terrapin (Syd Barret, ditto)
19920000 – The Joker (Steve Miller Band, ditto)
19920328 – I’ve Got A Feeling (The Beatles, performed with Pearl Jam)
19930629 – Dancing In The Moonlight (Thin Lizzy)
19930629 – Kooks (David Bowie)
19930912 – Landslide (Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac)
19930912 – Never Let Me Down Again (Depeche Mode)
19940828 – Voodoo Chile (Jimi Hedrix), Fantastic Voyage (Coolio) + concerto in C minor
19950228 – I Just Wanna Make Love To You (Willie Dixon)
19951023 – If You Want My Love (Cheap Trick, performed with Cheap Trick)

19951212 – Emotional Rescue (Rolling Stones), Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2)
19960127 – Boys Don’t Cry (The Cure)
19970109 – Jean Genie (David Bowie, performed with David Bowie)
19970217 – Death Don’t Have No Mercy (Reverend Gary Davis)
19970708 – Glimpses (Yardbirds)
19980523 – Night Boat (Duran Duran, performed with Simon LeBon)
19980624 – I Want You To Want Me (Cheap Trick)
19980712 – Transmission (Joy Division)
19991031 – Ol’ 55 (Tom Waits)
20000124 – Rock On (Essex)
20000905 – Soul Power (James Brown)
20070914 – Heavy Metal Machine + On The Road Again (Canned Heat)
20080229 – The Zoo (The Scorpions)
20080328 – Lips Like Sugar (Echo And The Bunnymen)
20090831 – Lucifer Sam (Pink Floyd)
20091108 – I’ve Got Levitation (13th Floor Elevators)

(1) Another Billy Corgan quote is used to introduce this compilation.

The download of this compilation can be found here. Enjoy & thanks!

Review by Jeff Becker from The Way That He Sings

Other Smashing Pumpkins reviews:

The Smashing Pumpkins – live in St. Louis – October 18, 2012

The Smashing Pumpkins – live in Milwaukee – Sept 30, 2012

Oceania album

The Smashing Pumpkins -live in Milwaukee in 2011

Article on the brief Machina 2 sale last year on eBay

Please Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheWayThatHeSings

The overall release of Siamese Dream Deluxe is scored a 10/10

CD1 – the original album

By 2013 it’s hard to find new words when discussing one landmark album that’s in a very tiny handful of the best rock albums of the 90′s.   If Nirvana’s opening chords to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hadn’t grasped the entire nation the world would look back upon Siamese Dream (along with Pearl Jam’s Ten) as the signature albums that represented grunge at its peak and said an overdue goodbye (and door slam) to the glam rock era of the late 80′s (Whitesnake, Poison, etc).

Siamese Dream is as powerful now as it was in 1993 with no band since then able to replicate the wall of guitar sound that Corgan and producer Butch Vig pulled together.  While playing the remastered version of the album what’s now most striking (when compared to albums such as Zeitgeist) is how Corgan was able to incorporate so many hooks into an album that had guitars coming at you from every conceivable angle.  Who had time for melody?   Well, Corgan did, and if you strip away the volume of guitars what you have are tiny pop gems that are almost nursery rhymes in their primal form – but reworked to set a landscape of sound that is still unmatched.  Recent day impersonators (the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Amusement Parks on Fire) bleed out Siamese Dream in every track but don’t even scratch the surface of songs that leak melody like ‘Mayonaise’, ‘Hummer’ and ‘Luna’.

This deluxe reissue is a tour de force with top notch packaging, a full disc of Siamese-era rarities, and an outstanding DVD of a hometown performance from 1993.   This album, along with Nevermind and The Bends may stand as the top three rock albums in the first half of the 90′s.   What’s interesting is the direction that the Pumpkins took after 1993.  As they prepped Mellon Collie, Nirvana self-destructed in the most tangible method possible and Pearl Jam decided to just get too strange for their fans.  This left bands like the Pumpkins and Radiohead as the unofficial greatest bands in the world as the decade came to a close.  Unfortunately for the Pumpkins, the dysfunction of the mid-90′s took its toll, but not before a series of remarkable albums (none better than Siamese Dream) became etched into our memory.

CD2 – unreleased material

1      Pissant (Rough Mix)  – Skip it.  Very close to the original version.

2      Siamese Dream (Broadway rehearsal demo) – Must own.  Intense, more garage-based jam than anything on the original album.

3      STP (rehearsal demo) – Must own.  Another heavy, intense garage style demo with Billy’s vocals buried deeper than normal in the mix.

4      Frail and Bedazzled (Soundworks demo) – Nice to have.  Slightly longer but overall similar version (albeit instrumental) to the original.

5      Luna (apartment demo) – Must own.  Lovely, and more sparse version than the original in pristine quality.

6      Quiet (BBC Session) (Billy Corgan 2011 mix) – Must own.  Wouldn’t any high quality alternate version of the rocker be a must have?  Absolutely.

7      Moleasskiss (Soundworks demo) – Must own.   Fine Siamese outtake and clearly shows the wide gap between Siamese-era demos and the work that went into the finished original album that was so clean you could eat off of it.

8      Hello Kitty Kat (Soundworks demo) – Must own.  Pumpkins lore rates this track higher than I do – great quality nonetheless and similar in style to the other outtakes presented here.

9      Today (Broadway rehearsal demo) – Nice to have.  Mostly an early demo version of the classic, but it’s more interesting than enjoyable.  Like why would anyone ever play this more than 3x when the original version should be in the Smithsonian?

10    Never Let Me Down Again (BBC session) – Must own.  Sexier, groovier track than nearly anything in this timeframe.

11    Apathy’s Last Kiss (Rough Mix) – Skip.  Great track but similar to the version on Still Becoming Apart.

12    Ache (Silverfuck/rehearsal demo) – Nice to have early demo version of Silverfuck.  On the borderline of being a must have but not quite.

13    U.S.A (Soundworks demo)  – Must own.  Sounds like more Gish to me but very high quality and high-driving instrumental demo.

14    U.S.S.R. (Soundworks demo) – Nice to have.  Brief, high quality below-average instrumental when compared to the other instrumentals on these reissues.

15    Spaceboy (acoustic mix) – Nice to have.  Acoustic mix with what appears to be the original vocal track.  Nothing groundbreaking here on this classic and beautiful song.

16    Rocket (rehearsal demo) – Must own.  Nice early rehearsal in decent quality but the guitar melody hooks were already in place.  Once again, demos like this truly showcase the shine of the original’s album versions.

17    Disarm (acoustic mix) – Same comments as above regarding Spaceboy.

18    Soma (instrumental mix) – Nice to have.  Instrumental track from the original.   Reminds you how beautiful of a track this is and is somewhat a staple of the nursery-rhyme style melodies that Corgan incorporated in the first three Pumpkins albums.

DVD – August 16, 1993 at the Metro, Chicago – live performance

1. Rocket (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

2. Quiet (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

3. Today (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

4. Rhinoceros (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

5. Geek U.S.A. (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

6. Soma (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

7. I am one (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

8. Disarm (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

9. Spaceboy (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

10. Starla (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

11. Cherub rock (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

12. Bury me (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

13. Hummer (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

14. Siva (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

15. Mayonaise (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

16. Drown (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

17. Silverfuck (Live At The Metro, Chicago, 8/14/93) [DVD]

This is the kind of DVD fans should expect.  Outstanding quality and captured during a pivotal time of the Pumpkins skyrocketing growth.   Best yet, it’s not stuck in the MTV-style editing of current times where there’s 18 camera angles and each glance is only for two seconds or less.   There’s no distractions here.  An extremely high energy hometown performance that includes a smiling, bouncing and jovial Corgan behind the mic and guitar for a ripping run through of every major early Pumpkins track in a show that runs just shy of 2 hours.   The body-surfing Olympics taking place is a non-stop attraction as the crowd becomes as much a part of the show as the young band themselves.

The DVD is simply an outstanding addition to this deluxe set.   If there’s a weakness to be found it’s in Corgan’s live voice, and that’s true even today.  His ability to maintain top notch vocals during high energy performances in which he’s also playing lead guitar has never been his greatest thing.   However, overall, this is a can’t-miss performance and certainly worthy of the quality of these reissues.    If this DVD doesn’t satisfy the Siamese Dream deluxe reissue, what possibly could then other than 2 hours of studio footage recording the actual album?

Article by Arthur van Pelt and Vaughn Bayley

We have reached episode 10 of this series focusing on the rare and unique.  Still enjoying it, dear readers?  Because we are!  There is so much to find in the worldwide memorabilia archives of Smashing Pumpkins, it is almost unbelievable.  And when it comes to describing it and giving it context in the musical history of an alternative rock band that has already been around for 25 years, it is a great honor.  Wait!  Did we say 25 years?  We did, didn’t we?  Why didn’t we see a celebration of that remarkable feat?  How many bands can say they have reached their 25^th Anniversary?  Hmmm…  Or maybe neither the band nor its management has read the article about the founding year of Smashing Pumpkins yet?

Either way, today we are checking out another Smashing Pumpkins CD album (anyone remember Gish two weeks ago?), on the basis of its test pressing.  But before we go there, we are going to take a gander at a French live promo CD from 1995 called Live in Chicago 23.10.95.  This promo itself is undoubtedly very rare (it came with a limited batch of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness CDs in France only), but its acetate is even more so;  thus far we have only seen 2 or 3 copies enter the collectors’ market.  But first of all, here is an image of the standard promo. This will surely make a lot of collectors drool, right?

And not without reason; this French cardsleeve promo, which contains five live songs, is highly sought after.  It hardly ever gets listed on eBay these days, so the prices soar when it does make an appearance.  What does this mean for its acetate, the in-house promo pressing pictured below, that was manufactured by Hut Recordings in the United Kingdom?

Both the French promo CD and the UK acetate CD of Live in Chicago 23.10.1995 (note that the date is not mentioned on the Hut Recordings pressing) contain five of the six opening tracks of the October 23, 1995 concert in the Riviera Theater, Chicago (IL).

Why was it decided that this exact Chicago concert should be used for a promotional CD that was added to the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness release?  First, Chicago is the home base of Smashing Pumpkins.  Secondly, the date of the concert; October 23, 1995 was the release date of the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness album.  Finally, the opening of the concert gave the band access to some of the Smashing Pumpkins biggest hit singles, and three of the five songs included on the promo are to be found on the album; “Tonight, Tonight”, “Zero” and “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”.  Note that all three of these songs became singles for the album in 1995 and 1996, starting with “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” when the album was released! 

The recording lacks one of the first six songs played at the concert.  Also a track from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, “Jellybelly” was played as the second song at the concert, but was left off this promo.  And of course, we can’t help but wonder why.  Was it something as simple as difficulties with the recording?  Or are there deeper mechanisms at work.  We know that Billy Corgan had originally considered “Jellybelly” as a first-release single for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, believing it was more typical Smashing Pumpkins fare than “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”.  Could it be that “Jellybelly” does not appear on the live CD as a sign of commitment to “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”?  While we can’t be certain, this is our best guess.

It is not very likely that the acetate pressing of Live in Chicago 23.10.1995 will hit the market very often, because of its extreme rarity. When it does however, expect it to be very expensive; we have seen it go at auction for several hundreds of US dollars.

We have already discussed several test pressings (“Tristessa” on vinyl, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and “Untitled” on CD, among others).  But we also know about a test pressing CD for the Adore album, pictured above.

For an in-depth article about the Adore album, we would like to refer you to Wikipedia.  What is noteworthy about this Smashing Pumpkins album, is the number of people who collaborated with the band to create it.  For example, because Jimmy Chamberlin had left the band in 1996, and no appropriate replacement was found in the meantime, three drummers were used in finalizing the album.  Joey Waronker can be heard on “Perfect”, “Once Upon a Time” and “Pug”.  Matt Cameron drummed his way through “For Martha”, and Matt Walker is known to have performed the percussions on “To Sheila”, “Ava Adore”, “Daphne Descends”, “Tear”, “The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete”, “Annie-Dog”, and “Behold! The Night Mare”.  On top of this, brothers Dennis and Jimmy Flemion of The Frogs, who are known to have worked with Smashing Pumpkins on many occasions before, can be found doing additional vocals on two songs: “To Sheila” and “Behold! The Night Mare”.  These are only a few of the people that collaborated with the band, consisting, at the time, of D’Arcy Wretzky, James Iha and Billy Corgan.

What Wikipedia does not mention however (nor does any other online source dedicated to the Smashing Pumpkins), is the fact that the Adore album was the first Smashing Pumpkins album where, in different countries worldwide, several types of more or less non-standard ‘goodies’ were added to its commercial release.

Before the release of Adore, the most common promotional item to add to a Smashing Pumpkins album release was a long box (Gish in the US), one or two bonus tracks (“Pissant” on Siamese Dream in Japan, “Not Worth Asking” and “Honeyspider II” on a 7”, added to the Pisces Iscariot 12” vinyl in the US) or a sticker, as came with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in a few countries. Only one promotional item really stands out in this pre-Adore era: Earphoria. Earphoria is a very limited promotional CD that was delivered as a soundtrack to the video release of Vieuphoria in October 1994. Note that Pisces Iscariot was released at the same time, and in December 2002, Vieuphoria was reissued on DVD and Earphoria was finally given a commercial release. To Earphoria, we could (and probably should) dedicate a sole article in future…

With Adore, the Smashing Pumpkins marketing machine came up with even more promotional items. In Japan, Tower Records added a special Adore canvas bag to pack the album.  In Taiwan, the CD album (still packed in a jewelcase with the initial black and white Adore artwork) came in a special cardboard sleeve with stunning artwork in color. It is pictured above.  Collectors will find it interesting that this Taiwan-only cardboard sleeve contains a few flaws: the track “Perfect” is not mentioned (but still found on the CD), and “Blank Page” is mistakenly written as “Black Page”.  At the same time, in Hong Kong, a bonus video CD with “Ava Adore” and “Perfect” was used to increase the sales of the album.  And adding bonus items to an album became even more of a tradition with Machina / The Machines of God; a snakeskin bag with an extra booklet in France, a Machina-style black mug in Singapore, a black textile badge in The Netherlands, Belgium and France, and for a short time, a bonus five-track EP called Still Becoming Apart (which included 4 previously unreleased tracks) in the US.

To be honest, however, there is nothing really special about the test pressing CD for the Smashing Pumpkins Adore album (except for it being unique, of course), since it contains the same songs that were commercially released.  So far, we have no clue whether it ever went into the hands of the band, let alone whether Billy Corgan (who, in the end, approves the Smashing Pumpkins’ releases) ever saw this test pressing on his desk.  However, we can say that the song “Tear (flat 1630)” is most probably the same recording and mix as the song “Tear” that was put on the commercial release of Adore two months later.  This will hopefully be researched sometime soon though.

Dear readers and fans of this ‘extreme collecting’ series, this series is off on a holiday for a little over a month. We hope to return with even more rare Smashing Pumpkins memorabilia in March.  See you then, and in the  meantime: happy hunting, happy collecting!

Article by Geo Folkers

Considered by many to be one of the best albums ever made, The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream was released on July 27, 1993 on Virgin Records. The album has sold over 6 million copies worldwide and continues to influence many bands and dreamers alike.

During 1995-1996, a limited edition Siamese Dream wooden box appeared on the market. The box was limited to 1000 copies and was sold at Tower Records in Chicago, amongst other record shops.  The item was a big hit, with eBay auctions routinely selling in the $400 range; for hard core collectors it was a “must have”.

In the French booklet, Chroniques d’Un Monument, even a Virgin Records subsidiary, Delabel, considers the box an official US release!  This incorrect categorization is shown in the picture above.

Despite the craze, there were questions surrounding its authenticity. The box contained an official copy of either the US or Netherlands CD. It also housed an official Siamese Dream 4 or 20 page booklet; however, there were reports of the box being sold without the CD and booklet. It was rumored to have stamped, reproduction autographs of the band as well, but those have never surfaced. Questions about different colored hardware and a dubious barcode were also red flags.

Not knowing any other resource to find an answer, I decided to ask the only person I thought might know something about this: Mr. William Patrick Corgan. He said he had seen the Siamese Dream box years ago at a record store and said, “It’s definitely a bootleg.”

So there you have it! Case closed! And if there should remain any doubt, Billy Corgan himself has signed my copy below to put an end to any controversy.

Review by Jeff Becker from The Way That He Sings

The hidden gem of the Pumpkins official catalog.  Lost in the dream-world trifecta of Gish, Siamese Dream and Mellon collie and the Infinite Sadness is Pisces Iscariot.  So where does it stand among the real Pumpkins’ albums?   Just a mix tape from Billy, or so much more?

Other Smashing Pumpkins reviews:

The Smashing Pumpkins – live in St. Louis – October 18, 2012

The Smashing Pumpkins – live in Milwaukee – Sept 30, 2012

Oceania album

The Smashing Pumpkins -live in Milwaukee in 2011

Article on the brief Machina 2 sale last year on eBay

Please Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheWayThatHeSings

The overall release of Pisces Iscariot is scored a 8.5/10

CD1 – the original album

Blessed heavily with the sound that made Siamese Dream the sonic springboardit became, Pisces Iscariot fits snug on the shelves of all Pumpkins owners – somewhere close to their hearts for sentimental reasons as much as it is due to the quality of the songs.   Driven entirely by the Gish/Siamese Dream timeframe, Corgan is correct in that it’s less an album and more a mixtape.  That doesn’t exclude it from some dropdown Pumpkins’ classics such as the unimaginably perfect “Whir”, the bassy growl of “Blue” and the very classic Pumpkins sound in “Starla”.   From a song quality eyeball it falls somewhere equal to Gish, but well behind the Pumpkins best trifecta of Siamese/Mellon Collie/Adore.   It’s on the next shelf down from the best that Corgan ever put together – and that is ok, because that’s where it was meant to be.

The remastering does a fine job collecting all the sounds you may have think you missed from the original.   The best tracks sound greater, bigger and the new additions here are brought up to the sonic standards of all the Pumpkins releases, allowing them to run together far more seamlessly.   If this release had been marketed back in 1994 as a true “album” it would have stood the test of time, albeit a slight disappointment after following the monster-sized Siamese Dream. However, as a compilation it’s outstanding.

Mellon Collie turned everything upside down in Pumpkinland and Pisces Iscariot was that perfect appetizer. It’s that last piece of the early pre-arena Pumpkins for fans to embrace as Corgan became a far more eclectic songwriter as he hit full stride with both Mellon Collie and Adore.

Is this deluxe reissue package with the extra tracks, remastered original, DVD performance from 1988 and original demo cassette worth the price of admission?  Yes, it’s on the borderline of a no-brainer especially given the sonic quality of CD2 and fine package for the box itself.

CD2 – unreleased material

1. Bye June (Ignoffo Sessions/2012 Mix) – Must own.   Near crystal-clear quality acoustic track sung by Corgan.
2. My Dahlia (Ignoffo Sessions/2012 Mix) – Must own.  Another very high quality spiraling tune without the Pumpkins sound anywhere to be found.  Very much a precursor towards the B-sides that littered the Mellon Collie era.
3. Jesus Loves His Babies (Gish Sessions Rough Mix) – Must own.  Another very worthy addition with a very trademark Gish sound.  Not Gish-album worthy, but optimal for this release.
4. Cinnamon Girl (Ignoffo Sessions/2012 Mix) – Nice to have.  A decent rendition of a decent Neil Young song.  Once again, nowhere else would this be worthy of release than a reissue such as this.  This is the Pumpkins trying to sound like Neil Young versus the Pumpkins trying to repossess the original.   It’s not the landmark rendition we would hope for.
5. Glynis (2012 Mix) – Must own.   A hidden Pumpkins classic that would have fit perfectly on either of the first two albums.
6. Crawl (Gish Sessions outtake) – Must own.  Still yet another excellent sound quality unreleased track from the Gish days, running nearly 7 minutes long.  An absolute winning streak unfolding here.
7. Cinder Open (Eddy St. demo/2012 Mix) – Must own.  Rather beautiful instrumental.
8. Blissed (Sadlands demo/2012 Mix) – Must own.  One more gem, of the many, from the Sadlands demos.   Early vocal track apparent but these are why deluxe reissues add value to a catalog.
9. Slunk (Live) (2012 – Remaster) – Nice to have only because of the obscurity of the song.  The track itself, while sounding like true Pumpkins, has few endearing qualities compared to its peers.
10. Jackie Blue – Must own.  A much more worthwhile attempt at a remake than “Cinnamon Girl” provided.   Classic Pumpkins sounds recapture this track near perfectly.
11. Venus in Furs (Live) – Nice to have, but a rather rough mix of this live cut.   A killer studio version would have looked ahead to the Adore-era sound.
12. Translucent (Sadlands demo/2012 mix) – Must own.  The best track on this disc.
13. French Movie Theme (Siamese Sessions outtake) – Nice to have.  Odd, but high quality track.
14. Purr Snickety (Gish b-sides session outtake) – Must own.  Great quality outtake from Gish.
15. There It Goes (Demo/2012 Mix) – Must own.  The 2012 mix provides this track with a full punch.  Quite outstanding with the full, lighter and more pop-style Pumpkins sound taking charge.  A very worthy candidate for the best piece of this collection.
16. Vanilla (Ignoffo Sessions) – Must own.  Finishing off a rather spectacular release of top quality studio outtakes.
17. Why Am I So Tired (Live in studio demo) – Must own.  A blazing layer of guitars to say good-bye.   A suitable instrumental that is probably a rarity in that it’s a full band effort.

DVD – basement jam, 1988

The DVD’s centerpiece – a rather decent quality video from the Basement Jam in November of 1988 (taken from the Pulse Cable Access show in Chicago) is worth the price alone.  Splattered along with a few random early live performances, it’s a great one-time document of the earliest in Pumpkins history, muchspring prom. Watching it more than once may not be necessary, but not many things in the world are.

1. Intro by Billy Corgan (DVD) 2. Pulse Cable Show Introduction by Lou Hinkhouse (DVD) 3. There It Goes (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 4. She (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 5. She (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 6. Under Your Spell (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 7. My Eternity (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 8. My Eternity (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 9. My Eternity (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 10. My Eternity (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 11. Bleed (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 12. Nothing and Everything (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 13. Jennifer Ever (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 14. Jennifer Ever (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 15. Jennifer Ever (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 16. Jennifer Ever (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 17. Jennifer Ever (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 18. Death of a Mind (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 19. Spiteface (Pulse Basement Jam – Chicago) (DVD) 20. Blue (DVD) 21. Offer Up (DVD) 22. The Joker (DVD) 23. Slunk (DVD) 24. Dancing In The Moonlight (DVD) 25. Snap (DVD) 26. Hello Kitty Kat (DVD)

Cassette

Having sonic expectations at a low point here, this early cassette is actually far more delightful than you’d imagine. Rather sparkling sound quality for this reproduction of the original Pumpkins demos, released in a reproduction of its original packaging. An obvious prelude to Gish is found in nearly every track and it’s one of the more pleasant surprises of the reissue. In full light here are the early Corgan vocals – already becoming a signature and disavowing any signs of the 80′s hair glam rock going on at the time. A signature Pumpkins sound is clearly found on tracks like ‘East’ and this is a prized addition to this already stellar collection.

1. Jennifer Ever (Tape) 2. East (Tape) 3. Nothing And Everything (Tape) 4. Sun (Remix) (Tape) 5. She (Live) (Tape) 6. Spiteface (Tape)

Article by Arthur van Pelt

For today’s article we will put the spotlight on The Frogs, or more accurately, on the two brothers, Dennis and Jimmy Flemion, who founded the band.  Since it is a little over half a year ago that Dennis Flemion passed away at the age of 57, we thought it would be appropriate to honor the many years that Smashing Pumpkins and The Frogs joined forces.  From one of the ’Collecting to the Extreme’ episodes we know that the Flemion brothers did additional vocals on “To Sheila” and “Behold! The Night Mare” on the Adore album, but in this article we will go deeper into their many other collaborations with Smashing Pumpkins.

The information and images below came from several sources (Matador Records, MTV, Wikipedia, Journal Times, Twitter, MySpace, TheMusic.com Australia, SPLRA, SPFC, Hipsters United and Crestfallen) and were reworked for this brief history on Smashing Pumpkins and The Frogs.

 
Dennis (left) and Jimmy (right) in one of their most famous stage costumes.

Dennis and Jimmy are two brothers (Dennis is the eldest) that are best known for having founded the independent (and sometimes controversial) rock/folk band The Frogs in 1980. The Frogs, as a band, but also the individual Flemion brothers, have played an important role in the history of Smashing Pumpkins.  In 1993, Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman Billy Corgan saw The Frogs at a small club in Madison, Wisconsin, and invited them to open for Smashing Pumpkins.  The first time The Frogs did so was at the Unicorn, Milwaukee show on July 23, 1993.  Very soon, The Frogs were opening for bands like Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, Urge Overkill, and other who were fans of the group, to mixed reactions.  For example, on Hipsters United, November 28, 2008, a commenter named Davin explained: “The Frogs got booed off the stage the last time I saw them play with Smashing Pumpkins @ Aragon.”  Nevertheless, The Frogs shared the stage with Smashing Pumpkins on numerous occasions in 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2007 and 2008.

As Gil Kaufman (MTV.com) remembered The Frogs during the then ‘final’ Smashing Pumpkins concert in 2000: “Corgan brought out longtime friends Jimmy and Dennis Flemion of bizarro Milwaukee rock duo the Frogs for a pair of songs early in the show.  Wearing his signature spangly green bat wings, lanky band leader Jimmy Flemion warbled his way through a country-ish reading of the ballad “Blissed and Gone” as Corgan swayed, smiled and acted uncharacteristically goofy, swinging his arms and mugging for the crowd. “I had myself / I had my band,” the head Pumpkin mooned, hands on hips, rolling his eyes like a petulant child.”

And during the 2001 – 2005 period when Smashing Pumpkins was not around as a band, The Frogs was the band Zwan (which featured Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin) invited to enliven their live shows.  We know The Frogs opened for Zwan at the Double Door, Chicago show on April 12, 2002, and possibly others. 

After meeting Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain in 1993, The Frogs wrote two songs about Kurt (“Lord Grunge” being one of them), and also made him a videotape called Toy Porno. The VHS of Toy Porno featured select live performances and stop-motion animations with a number of painted action figures.  The action figures, and other dolls, were used as sexually promiscuous characters in various short sketches.  The tape became constant viewing material on Nirvana’s tour bus.  The videotape has since been made available to fans and has become a cult classic.

The Frogs with Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain.

In the summer of 1994, the Frogs played the second stage at Lollapalooza, with Billy Corgan joining them at every stop, shredding away on lead guitar for their encore of “I Only Play 4 Money” and “Lord Grunge”.  Corgan continued to support and promote The Frogs by producing the short film Meet the Frogs which he included on Smashing Pumpkins’ 1994 Vieuphoria video compilation. The short film brought the group further recognition, but it also confused Smashing Pumpkins fans who didn’t know whether they should take the Frogs seriously as a band.

With their recordings for the Matador, Homestead, Four Alarm and Scratchie labels, but most importantly through their exhaustive Made Up Songs cassettes (and later compact discs), Dennis and Jimmy Flemion were, with their band The Frogs, one of the most crucial, if not one of the strangest American bands of the last quarter century.  Though best known (but not universally beloved) for the explicit subject matters found on It’s Only Right & Natural, as well as for their associations with a number of celebrity patrons, the Frogs’ comedic gifts have occasionally (and most probably unfairly) overshadowed their musical depth.  Just as It’s Only Right & Natural was a huge conceptual departure from their self-issued debut The Frogs, subsequent works like 1997′s grunge-baiting Star Job were a world away from the Do-It-Yourself folk affectations of It’s Only Right & Natural.

Jimmy Flemion and Billy Corgan working on The Frogs’ Star Job EP in 1994

In 1994, The Frogs signed to a new label, Matador Records, who released two Frogs singles to begin with. They also recorded the EP Star Job, produced by Billy Corgan (who used the pseudonym Johnny Goat); however, the album was not released at that time.  From August 1996 to February 1997, Dennis Flemion replaced Smashing Pumpkins’ recently-deceased keyboard player Jonathan Melvoin for the Infinite Sadness Tour. During each night’s encore, Jimmy Flemion performed “1979″ (which was influenced by an unreleased Frogs song, “Pleasure”) with Smashing Pumpkins, as well as selecting audience members to dance on stage.  The Flemion brothers also appeared on the Smashing Pumpkins’ Tonight, Tonight single for the song “Medellia of the Gray Skies”, and they performed, as previously mentions, backing vocals on some songs of the 1998 album Adore.

More recent appearances where Smashing Pumpkins and (one of) the Flemion brothers or The Frogs as a band played together: on November 13, 2007, Jimmy Flemion performed with Smashing Pumpkins at The Backyard in Austin, Texas.  The Frogs also opened for Smashing Pumpkins on December 7, 2008, in Chicago during the band’s ‘Celebrating 20 Years Of Sadness’ tour.

Artwork for several musical releases of The Frogs

On July 7, 2012, tragedy hit the Flemion family.  While out on a boat with family and friends, Dennis Flemion went for a swim and did not resurface.  On July 9^th it was publicly announced that “Dennis Flemion, one half of the Milwaukee duo known as The Frogs, was identified earlier today as the missing swimmer from a Saturday afternoon disappearance on Racine, WI’s Wind Lake.”  The body of Dennis Flemion was recovered from the water on the evening of July 10.  Meanwhile, Billy Corgan took to his Twitter.com page after hearing the news and wrote, “I’m devastated by the loss of my friend Dennis Flemion. Words can’t explain the sorrow.  A tragic loss.  Please pray for his family.”  Funeral services were held on July 14^th, 2012, and attended by Billy Corgan, who performed a new song called “25 Surprise”, which he wrote as a personal tribute to Dennis Flemion.

Billy Corgan Tweet from  July 10, 2012, when he heard about the untimely death of Dennis Flemion.

At Matador Records, Dennis Flemion was remembered by a blogger called Gerard, with the following words.

“There’s a couple of new Frogs albums that came out last week on iTunes; ‘Squirrel Bunny Juniper Deluxe’ and ‘Count Yer Blessingz’. The Dennis that we saw onstage would’ve recognized this tragic event as a huge opportunity to plug some new recordings. Sans wig, drum sticks, etc. he might’ve preferred I’d not even mention it. The fantastic output and fleeting moments of near-fame aside, I hope he’s remembered as a really sweet guy first, and a hugely talented artist second. Our thoughts go out to Jimmy, the rest of the Flemion family, their friends and everyone who was lucky enough to know Dennis.  Simply saying, “he’ll be missed” doesn’t come close to covering it.”

To this date it remains unclear if and how The Frogs, as a band, will continue on after the sudden and unfortunate passing of Dennis Flemion. So far, the two albums mentioned, Count Yer Blessingz and Squirrel Bunny Jupiter Deluxe that were released shortly before Dennis passed away, remain the latest musical output from The Frogs.  And as far as we know, no public appearances by Jimmy Flemion with Smashing Pumpkins have been noted since July 16, 2012, when Billy Corgan played “The Celestials” solo with an acoustic guitar at Dennis and Janice Flemion’s home, following the funeral.

A great article on The Frogs called ‘The Niles Notes: I’m Sad Because the Goat Just Died: Why I Love (And Will Miss) The Frogs, the World’s Greatest Band’ was written for L’etoile Magazine by blogger Niles Schwartz. It can still be found here.