*looks at Siddhartha post*
*looks at missing place on shelf for Machina reissue*
God fucking damn it Billy.
Maybe Billy will play at Trump's inauguration....
http://www.alternativenation.net/bil...-donald-trump/
To Bill's credit he does seem to be getting off to a good start with this; as promised, he put up choices between Rhinoceros, Crush and Snail, and Snail's the first winner that'll go onto 50x50. I just wonder if he can see the whole thing through.
Thought the Pumpkins might show up on the Coachella lineup, nope, nor are they scheduled for any other festivals. Didn't Corgan plan to reunite for U.S. fests?
James is doing the APC tour. After that the four of them would need rehearsal time and whatever else to re-acclimate to each other in all likelihood. I don't think it's happening this year but would love to be proven wrong.
Last edited by Shadaloo; 01-23-2017 at 10:16 AM. Reason: duhhh typo hurrr
new thing I read might it sound like the big reunion for the 2018 festival season.
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/thi...pkins-reunion/
I don't really understand the appeal of an OG lineup reunion. Iha wrote, what, six SP songs? His guitar skills and stage presence aren't very notable. And D'arcy? Eh. It just doesn't elicit the same excitement as, say, Slash and Duff returning to GNR.
I guess it's an easy way to get that good Coachella cash before going back into obscurity; Billy's certainly not going to return to the limelight with new music. But something like a tour of playing Siamese Dream or Mellon Collie in full, like every other nostalgia act is doing these days, would be more appealing than seeing James and D'arcy return.
while james' stage presence may not have been astounding, his guitar skills are EXTREMELY notable. he only wrote six songs because billy constantly rejected his ideas, but that doesn't mean he lacks talent. watching the live footage from any era of the band, you can see that he might even be a better guitar player than billy, in some cases.
nopenopenopenopenopenopenope lol
James was stage presence incarnate up through about the MCIS period, then he became much quieter later on. He and Billy used to have the greatest on-stage banter.
Folks need to check SPLRA for text transcripts and see what I mean. You've got years worth of stuff up there, go nuts.
James is responsible for much more than six SP songs; he had a hand in writing Soma and Mayonaise, and it can't be stressed enough that MCIS was a collaborative effort with Billy of course doing the lion's share of writing.
People can go on about how superior and technically better a guitarist Jeff Schroeder is. He's good, but I don't see him running around with a space helmet and feeding toy laser gun SFX into his guitar during Silverfuck (partially because they never play it anymore...and don't get me started on his utter lack of stage presence.)
The narrative that James and D'Arcy were hired guns just like everyone else who followed them is one I'll fight forever dammit (see prior pages and pages in this thread). Anyone who actually believes that IMO hasn't delved too far into SP's history apart from studio releases.
Flood has said that when they were actually together, they were the best sounding band he's ever been around.
Hell yeah. It's actually really, really noticeable just how sharply his stage presence shifts through 1996-1997-1998. By the Adore tour it's apparent he's just losing interest, and it's a matter of record that by the Machina tour he just wanted to get every show over with, move on, and wrap things up.
James and D'arcy are NOT hired guns. They are definitive Pumpkins members and the Mellon Collie/Aeroplane era proves it. A ton of material is all 4 of them together, some are literally single takes of the band together. The Pastachio Medley shows how great they are together. Plus many of these tracks finally got released in full with the expanded boxsets. James and D'arcy hired guns? I think not. I don't care how technical Jeff is, it's doesn't make any of the post original line up songs any better. For all of his technical greatness perhaps then we would have gotten a decent album with him then. The problem is Billy thrives when he actually has a band in the studio. And all of the amazing demo material out there showcasing Billy, James, D'arcy, and Jimmy together are enough to show they aren't just hired guns. James just has a guitar technique that compliments Billy's in the most amazing way. Having two riffers like Billy and Jeff together just doesn't deliver they way Billy and James does. Hell, just listen to how the newer material sounded when James joined Billy and Jeff on stage compared to just Billy and Jeff doing the same song. Right there shows you how well James and Billy compliment each other. As great as Jimmy is on the drums, Billy was still able to deliver a Pumpkins sounding album with just James and D'arcy for Adore, but was missing something when it was just Billy and Jimmy for Zeitgeist. Perhaps Billy they could still deliver a Pumpkins record without D'arcy, but to me the Pumpkins sound is Billy, James, and Jimmy. As weak as Oceania was, I still think Nicole Fiorentino was one of the stronger bassist Billy hired since D'arcy's departure. I'd love to see the original four together. I still think they can keep Jeff around as a third guitarist and make it work, especially the heavy tracks.
Last edited by neorev; 01-23-2017 at 05:15 PM.
Billy, James, and Jeff...
Versus
Just Billy and Jeff...
Personally, I am not a fan of this song, but it sounds so much better with James on stage with them. He just fills out the guitars in a way Jeff doesn't, which I believe is because both Billy and Jeff are riffers while James is more atmospheric and adding elements around the riffs.
James is REALLY good about doing that. Listen to some of the live A Perfect Circle songs like "Weak and Powerless" on Stone and Echo. It sounds awesome with his contributions.
How about this for a reunion? Billy could invite D'Arcy and James back, but keep Jeff, whom Billy and Jimmy seem to have a good relationship with.
Billy- Vocals, guitar
James- Guitar
Jeff- Guitar
D'Arcy- Bass
Jimmy- Drums
Jerry Mathers- As the Beaver
A win-win.
ETA- I've seen SP many times, post 2007 "reunion," and these shows (sans 2008) were great, with the Oceania tour being a highlight. That said, a reunion would be sweet. Loved the concert DVD from the MCATIS box.
Last edited by GulDukat; 01-24-2017 at 09:17 AM.
i don't like to pick apart too many nuances and have generally enjoyed every show post-reunion just fine regardless of lineup, but that being said, count me in regarding james and his contributions. they definitely can't be glossed over that easily as most have over the years... even d'arcy was a good-to-great bass player at times, serving just what was needed and what space allowed. SP gets a lot of their roots from post-punk music (i believe very much in part to d'arcy's taste), a genre which is known for digging into a deep bass groove with less notes and more intent.
I saw SP live during their joint Manson tour and I must say they still put on one hell of a show. Fucking powerful. Jimmy's kick drum was like a punch to the stomach. I was never really a huge fan of the track United States, but damn did they play a blistering version of it.
i think him having a kid actually made him reevaluate. the same thing happened apparently to Andrews and Edwards in Failure.
Jimmy Chamberlin did an interview with WGN Radio in Chicago yesterday and from what he said it does sound like all four original members will be reuniting and touring together next year. So I am pretty stoked!
Listen to the full interview here:
http://wgnradio.com/2017/06/27/smash...angerous-ride/
"We were talking about playing next year with the band and somebody asked me, you know, 'what's it like to coordinate that?'. I said 'it's like Grumpy Old Men 3, only there's three grumpy old men and one's a woman'. That's how it has gotten to be. Later on, we're all kinda crotchety."
Oh, man.
Ohhhhhh, man.
No doubt money's a huge draw. But at the very least Jimmy's always going to be up there for love of the music in large part. And I'd like to think D'Arcy at least would be up there to have some fun too.
It'll still be delicious to see Billy going through with this, five-six years after certain mumblings about Soundgarden.
Nah, in all honesty, I'd love to believe starting a family has mellowed him out a little. How weird to think most of them have kids now
Has there been any news at all about Machina reissue/Day for Night/supposed BC solo album and BC+Jeff's new band this year? What's this with more and more bands keeping total radio silence unless they promote the new stuff?
Sadly nothing whatsoever. The Machina issue was wrapped up in some label/money BS. Billy actually made any questioning about the reissue off limits during his last meet and greets. Day For Night seems to have gone poof. The last thing I heard about his solo album was that he was working on it with Rick Rubin. And he has not mentioned a single thing about him and Jeff's new band beside that initial mention.
All we have to show for anything is that terrible Siddhartha vinyl that they can't seem to sell out of. They've halved the price on it by making it unsigned and even had a sale to get an additional 15% off and it still hasn't sold out. He sold under half of the total stock since its release. I really don't understand what he was thinking with that and I'm an electronic music/synth nut and I don't even want it.
The Grail, the holiest of holies, the Machina Reissue Of Obsession And Desire - ???
Day For Night - title swapped for something else nobody ever found out, then quietly shitcanned. One or two of the potential tracks for the album left over after MTAE were performed live, and an instrumental was used for a wrestling promo.
BC Solo Album - Was asked about it at ZuZu's tea house not too long ago. Expected date is September now apparently.
BC & Jeff's New Band - ???