The Smashing Pumpkins

[thevoid99]

If the classic-line up will ever return, I say keep Jeff. The guy earned his spot.

[implanted_microchip]

@Shadaloo every vid I've seen of Spaniards has made me love it more and I really want to hear a high quality studio version.

I actually think the biggest issue of Monuments is the production style. It sounds very cold in the mix, very flat. Not a lot of life gets to reach out through it. The songs from it I saw live had way more urgency and impact and in general live footage of songs from it seemed a lot more alive. Monuments and Dorian both seemed like whole other tracks when done live. It's kinda like Zeitgeist in that respect to me.

And at this point Jeff's been there for about a decade straight. I'm sure to Billy he's as used to having him around as he was to having D'Arcy around. That's the dude he's seen every time he's looked over to play for that long. I'd be really surprised if he went anywhere any time soon and I don't mind that at all -- the dude rocks.

[Piko]

Jeff has definitely earned his spot. It'd be stupid to get rid of him.

[fillow]

C'mon, Zwan breaking up had nothing to do with having three guitars.

I guess I'm a minority, but I kinda don't want Darcy back. She's out of music completely for good 15 years and suddenly she's reuniting with the band led by one of the biggest workaholics and control freaks in music business? He fired Mike and Nicole for supposedly not having enough dedication to the band, are you sure Darcy can keep it up? Having your former lover as another band member probably won't help either. This will go down so much faster than if it's just BC/JC/JI...
I'll be happy if it works out of course, but it's a pretty big 'if'.

[Uraki14]

I love Darcy to death but I really see no reason to have her come back to the band. She brought a lot to the band I think.... just not musically. Personally I'd much rather see Melissa return to the band. I don't really see Iha actually coming back to the band either. I think it is rather funny how just because those two shows happened now everyone wants to instantly jump on the "They NEED to reunite train." Can't they just have done it to help mend things? It doesn't have to mean they are getting back together. This whole thing has seriously been so twisted by the fans. While I do think it would benefit the band very much to have Iha bring his sound back to the group unfortunately that just isn't reality probably anytime soon.

[Shadaloo]

C'mon, Zwan breaking up had nothing to do with having three guitars.

I guess I'm a minority, but I kinda don't want Darcy back. She's out of music completely for good 15 years and suddenly she's reuniting with the band led by one of the biggest workaholics and control freaks in music business? He fired Mike and Nicole for supposedly not having enough dedication to the band, are you sure Darcy can keep it up? Having your former lover as another band member probably won't help either. This will go down so much faster than if it's just BC/JC/JI...
I'll be happy if it works out of course, but it's a pretty big 'if'.

Just to note: D'Arcy dated James, not Billy. And that was over with by SD. After the initial awkward period they kept a close friendship. The Graceful Swans Of Never documentary (Required watching for SP fans IMO) makes the point that those two had a strong connection.

She indeed left because she couldn't handle the pressures of being in the business anymore as well as band tensions. Even I have to admit I couldn't see her coming back to do it all again. But I'd welcome her with open arms if she wanted to and was capable. It's good to see she's kept at playing (unlike Melissa - I read an article not too long ago somewhere that said she hadn't picked up her bass in years and was focusing on family and running an art installation, IIRC)

Maybe it could be different these days without the pressures of trying to push out multiplatinum album after multiplatinum album. Who knows. In any case I wouldn't prefer anyone else if she wanted to come back for a studio album at least.

You know what'd be amazing though? Chicago show hits the encore break, lights go out, bam. Daydream starts up and she's there singing her song the way she wanted to back in the day. Crowd would go apeshit and Bill would gain twenty dozen awesome sauce points in my book. Even if it were just for that one song.

[GulDukat]

D'Arcy didn't play on the first two albums and what songs did she write? If the Smashing Pumpkins had been a trio--James, Billy and Jimmy, would their albums have sounded any different?

[Shadaloo]

She co-wrote Daughter with Billy. Which is a footnote, admittedly. And at the very least, MCIS and Adore would be different. Would anyone really fuck with those?

Also, with a different bassist, a good decade of great live performances would certainly have sounded different. Wouldn't change those for the world.


You know, Ringo may have written like a handful of Beatles songs, but assuming that entire band were still alive and wanted to have one more go-around, I wonder how many people would be quick to replace the guy. I mean, Lennon himself said the guy wasn't a great drummer, so what's the harm, mirite?

[implanted_microchip]

Would anyone really fuck with those?

I'd strip off Take Me Down and put The Aeroplane Flies High on it, get rid of Cupid de Locke and have an acoustic Ugly on it, and I'd also possibly take Arms of Sleep out in favor of Rotten Apples or of a completed polished Methusela.

As far as Adore I'd add on Eye get rid of Perfect add in End is the Beginning is the End get rid of Once upon a Time get rid of Pistol Pete and add in Let Me Give the World to You, and maybe even go so far as to remove Shame and replace it with Saturnine or something. In general I'd want to accentuate the more gothic electronic sound of things like Pug and Ava Adore to balance it out with all the songs like the aforementioned. It feels like it leans pretty heavy on the sleepier side of things at times and could've used more of that other sound. But I'd never lay a finger on Annie Dog.

I say this as an enormous Adore fan who considers that one of my gateways into the band and with MCIS being the first Pumpkins album I ever owned (but it wasn't what hooked me). It's kind of weird being a fan who got into the band at the Oceania period, because I've never had that urge to hold the older stuff in the regard as older fans do, and in turn I never romanticized the original lineup.

It's cool to me when James plays and of course as a human being it's lovely to hear D'Arcy is doing well, I just like seeing people happy and overcoming their interpersonal difficulties, but I don't have that sense of "Well this isn't the same band because ___" because that wasn't the band that existed when I became a fan, anyway. I consider Machina and Adore the best of pre-breakup Pumpkins with Siamese Dream regularly fighting between those two and I know that's pretty uncommon. I also don't care about Gish and never listen to it despite it being solid as a brick.

I think SD is the greatest album about child abuse ever made and owe a lot to it emotionally for helping me out with handling stuff. Mellon Collie is a fantastic sampler of "this is everything this band sounds like and this was how it felt to exist in this certain space and time" spread across two discs but it was never a mind-blowing life-changing record for me like it was for so many people. I still have deeply fond memories of being a kid and hearing 1979 on the radio and feeling really at peace, or hearing Bullet or Zero and knowing this was some grimy, angry, dirty thing I wasn't supposed to have contact with yet connecting to it immediately, but I didn't get to really "be there" when that album happened. For me I generally approach all the albums with equal attitude and go from there, I don't lionize the older material and I don't approach the newer material with immediate skepticism or an "it might be good, but it'll never be (insert older record here)" mindset because it was hearing Oceania when they had it streaming that made me really take the plunge and dive in hard after always being a casual/passive fan my whole life and occasionally listening to Adore on rain-soaked Florida days.

It's always been interesting for me seeing the way that most fans have such a mental dividing line and I've always felt that the constant deification of the original lineup is the biggest barrier for new fans when they approach the fanbase. It's extremely oddly obsessive and off-putting at times. I get it, but it's a debate that just seems like it's been had ad nauseum for almost two decades now and that can only get done so many times before it gets numbingly repetitive.

[Kodiak33]

Darcy was well-known for being a good editor for Billy. She made him keep/remove songs off of Adore/MCIS...and Corgan needs a good fucking editor.

[Shadaloo]

I meant in terms of how the songs sounded, not tracklisting. As in "I wouldn't substitute a different bass player". I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I'd swap TOASE for Cherry in a heartbeat.

(And, hilariously, Annie-Dog is just about the one track off Adore I'd swap for half of anything else recorded during that period. I think you are a lunatic but hey, different strokes. ).

I'm aware that my viewpoints on the roster are somewhat colored by forming an immense attachment to SP during my formative years - I'll just never abide the undercutting of James and D'Arcy's input, little or great as it was. D'Arcy was good enough to play bass on grueling tours for the better part of a decade, for fuck's sake. People forget that and just form some stupid mental tier-list of bassists and place her at the bottom based on skill level, so combine that with SD's recording history, and now the running assumption is what, that she was always a shitty bassist because Corgan recorded over her parts? That's just Billy being Billy. She was fine. As far as I'm concerned, any viewpoints about how they're replaceable or irrelevant can just be turned right around and pointed squarely at any member of the band post-2000 and that includes Jeff, and you wouldn't find me arguing that he hasn't earned his place in the outfit as much as James did, for whatever that's worth.

All the same, I'm not blinded by nostalgia or anything. Objectively, Nicole was probably the best player Billy ever had, and I consider him a fool for getting rid of her essentially because she had a band of her own she also put work and effort into.

This band isn't the same band I grew to love not only because the roster is different (though that certainly is a large part of it), but because Corgan's different. That's what that dividing line's all about. The original run of albums was essentially the sound of him as an angry young man taking the world around him to task, with extra flavor and input from the other three. They were a bunch of crazy kids having fun and putting on intense, raw performances. Compare that with Corgan at his current age, fewer and fewer harder songs to be found, focusing more on the folksy and shoegazey aspects of his songwriting. He tried to age gracefully, and I'll leave value judgements of that up to others.

This is why Spaniards sounds like it could be great to me. "Take me as I am." It sounds self-assertive, like he's got a fire under his ass. And I miss that, regardless of the lineup. The last time I got a feel like that from one of his songs wasn't XYU or anything off Machina - it was Gossamer, believe it or not.

[implanted_microchip]

That's fair because Gossamer is fucking great and I refuse to entertain the idea otherwise

Also I was speaking less of your posts and more of the general conversation that dominates Pumpkins fan forums most of the time -- tons and tons and tons of "It's not the real SP unless ___ ___ and ___ are in the band!!!11!!!" and that style of bullshit. Every YouTube comment section for almost any SP song is just filled with that style of stuff. And it's very off-putting and it is very childish to me. And I can't imagine how numbing and frustrating it must have been for Billy to always have that following him. He seems really good-spirited lately and that makes me pretty happy because for whatever reason I find him to be extremely emotionally genuine and in turn care about the guy as much as you can care about someone you do not know personally, I guess, but he's the first to talk about the constant cynicism fucking with his head and it's pretty apparent in a lot of interviews and even in business decisions surrounding the band.

I don't know, to me a song like Dream Machine or Pale Horse or Oceania or even something like Neverlost is just as potent as a lot of the older material to my ears. I also like that the guy didn't try to just feign the kind of mindset that produces songs like Geek USA. It's kept a lot of stuff feeling authentic when a lot of bands become self-parodies of trying to maintain the same emotional pallet that made them successful. Even if I could do without him saying "lover" on every song. I wish they'd go all out on something really, really weird and different like a whole album that sounds like Gossamer but I know that's unrealistic to want.

[Uraki14]

All I know is Im very damn excited to see them Saturday night here. This has been my favorite band forever now and I'm hoping I don't fucking cry like a baby during the acoustic Soma lol It seems like these shows have been getting very good feedback. Although I've read the Q and A sessions are a joke. As in I can't ask about the one thing that was the most important to me (Machina Reissue).

[GulDukat]

She co-wrote Daughter with Billy. Which is a footnote, admittedly. And at the very least, MCIS and Adore would be different. Would anyone really fuck with those?

Also, with a different bassist, a good decade of great live performances would certainly have sounded different. Wouldn't change those for the world.


You know, Ringo may have written like a handful of Beatles songs, but assuming that entire band were still alive and wanted to have one more go-around, I wonder how many people would be quick to replace the guy. I mean, Lennon himself said the guy wasn't a great drummer, so what's the harm, mirite?

I'm not saying she isn't a good bass player, just wasn't sure how important she was to the sound of those early albums. Obviously you know more on the subject. I see what your saying about Ringo, but IDK. I mean, I can accept SP without D'Arcy, but the Beatles without Ringo? That's just not right.

[thevoid99]

I'm not saying she isn't a good bass player, just wasn't sure how important she was to the sound of those early albums. Obviously you know more on the subject. I see what your saying about Ringo, but IDK. I mean, I can accept SP without D'Arcy, but the Beatles without Ringo? That's just not right.

The Beatles w/o Ringo? That is so not right. The fills he created for those songs are definitive. How can you not hear songs like "Rain", "Come Together", "Ticket to Ride", "Tomorrow Never Knows", "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", "Hello Goodbye" and so many others w/o Ringo's fills?

[Shadaloo]

And that's kind of how I feel about SP without James or D'Arcy. I'm used to the modern version, but it'll never sit 100% right to me.

The point I'm making with the Ringo comparison is that, while I do recognize Ringo is a very capable drummer, he's also a great example of someone considered often to be not up to the skill level of the people around him, and that results in him getting shit on for no good reason. But nobody ever sits there and wonders "Man, what would it have been like if they'd decided he wasn't good enough and picked up Keith Moon" or something. Assuming they were all alive and wanted to reunite, they easily could get someone more skilled or talented. But why would they? What would be the point then? When did "partial reunions" become en vogue? (Looking at you, GnR)

Going back to the GSON Pumpkins documentary, a viewpoint expressed therein which I think hits the nail on the head is that the music was the result of four people with very different styles coming together. Jimmy comes from a jazz background, Corgan and Iha were influenced by all kinds of goth, blues, metal and even country stuff. And D'Arcy was classically trained on oboe before switching to bass. So it was kind of a melting pot, and the bass stayed simple and adequately groovy. And it was enough.

Further to that, I'm no expert musician - admittedly, I'm just starting out on guitar - but I think I could honestly count on one hand the amount of original lineup songs where there was anything especially innovative or complex going on on bass (Oceania was kind of amazing in that regard to how prominent it seemed at times). So even if Corgan performed every single bassline himself, I don't know if it would have made much of a difference either way if she'd been the performer. I like to be optimistic and think that maybe his playing acted as a guideline for where he wanted her to go, and she picked up on that from MCIS and onward. Maybe it made her better in the long run.

Something else I tend to keep in mind is that Corgan has always tended to beef himself up a lot at the expense of his bandmates. The Adore reissue DVD turned James' guitar way the hell down in the mix when compared to recordings of the show (this was the case on prior reissue DVDs as well), and the stories about how much Corgan performed on Gish and SD seem to vary from "Most of the guitars and all of the bass" to "Everything except the drums". And I don't doubt there's truth to that or anything, but I tend to question precisely how much when I see him make decisions like that. The truth is somewhere in the middle, probably. Somewhere in the vaults, D'Arcy's bass takes are sitting, and the world will never hear them.

In current news, Corgan's hinted the next album will go in a rock direction. And thank fuck for that!

[Shadaloo]

And James is back tonight once more

[Uraki14]

If you are questioning going to this tour..... BUY a ticket now. I was absolutely blown away. This version of Soma somehow hit me harder than the hard rock album version. It was so much fun to see Billy actually enjoying himself on stage!

[implanted_microchip]

Can anyone point me to the highest possible quality version of Machina II out there? I thought there was just one main download for it and then while poking around YouTube found a couple posts of songs that seemed way better fidelity than what I've been used to.

[seasonsinthesky]

Can anyone point me to the highest possible quality version of Machina II out there? I thought there was just one main download for it and then while poking around YouTube found a couple posts of songs that seemed way better fidelity than what I've been used to.

Methinks you need a read through the Wiki article, mate!

There are several HQ rips for free at Archive.org. My preference is the Q101, but you can directly compare to the Virgin one if you like. They'd be the cleanest of the Archive rips.
Q101 link
Virgin link

(archive.org isn't loading for me right now, though.)

[implanted_microchip]

Methinks you need a read through the Wiki article, mate!

There are several HQ rips for free at Archive.org. My preference is the Q101, but you can directly compare to the Virgin one if you like. They'd be the cleanest of the Archive rips.
Q101 link
Virgin link

(archive.org isn't loading for me right now, though.)

I'm aware of these but much like you can't get them to load at all. I'm pretty sure those pages are just down and no one's caught onto it yet. I'm pretty sure one of those is where I got my copy of it, anyway.

[Shadaloo]

There's also a webrip out there floating about in 320k from when it was up on the last version of the official site. Say the word and I'll be happy to shoot you a dropbox link.

[seasonsinthesky]

I'm aware of these but much like you can't get them to load at all. I'm pretty sure those pages are just down and no one's caught onto it yet. I'm pretty sure one of those is where I got my copy of it, anyway.

Also, were they M2 songs as published on Rotten Apples/Judas Ø? Those are properly mastered from the tapes so they sound considerably better than any rip.

[implanted_microchip]

Also, were they M2 songs as published on Rotten Apples/Judas Ø? Those are properly mastered from the tapes so they sound considerably better than any rip.

I was pretty sure that In My Body was only on M2 but I haven't looked at the Judas O stuff in ages, so I could be completely mistaken.

[Shadaloo]

MII stuff on official releases:

The Try, Try, Try single had Here's To The Atom Bomb
The Untitled single had Try v1
Rotten Apples disc 1 had Real Love
Judas O had Lucky 13, Slow Dawn, and also had Here's To The Atom Bomb.

[implanted_microchip]

MII stuff on official releases:

The Try, Try, Try single had Here's To The Atom Bomb
The Untitled single had Try v1
Rotten Apples disc 1 had Real Love
Judas O had Lucky 13, Slow Dawn, and also had Here's To The Atom Bomb.

It's the different version of Atom Bomb, right?

[Shadaloo]

Yep, different from the one that showed up on the MII LP. FWIW I consider both that (The full band version) and the B-Side version of Speed Kills the 'finished' versions of the tracks.

[neorev]

MII's Here's To The Atom Bomb is an electronic/acoustic version versus the full band version from the Try, Try, Try and Judas O.

[implanted_microchip]

It also has mostly different lyrics if I remember right. I've always been partial to the MII version.

[Shadaloo]

Not to resurrect a discussion we all JUST had, but:

Ex-Smashing Pumpkin D’arcy Wretzky Breaks Her Silence

It's really nice to hear from her finally.