Throughout the continuing story of The Smashing Pumpkins, the history of the band, as led by singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer Billy Corgan, while not precisely repeating, does feel to rhyme.
After the band's initial breakup in 2000, plus the formation and demise of the band Zwan, which featured both Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and who released one solitary yet excellent album "Mary Star Of The Sea" (released January 28, 2003), Corgan decided to create his first official solo album. What began as a song cycle about Chicago (and still remains unreleased), Billy Corgan eventually emerged with the distorted electronic soundscapes of "TheFutureEmbrace" (released June 21, 2005). Yet, in addition to the album, on the same day, Corgan purchased full-page advertisements in both the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune, in which he promoted his album but also expressed the following:
"When I played the final Smashing Pumpkins show on the night of December 2, 2000, I walked off the Metro stage believing that I was forever leaving a place of my life behind. I naively tried to start a new band, but found that my heart wasn't in it. I moved away to pursue a love that I once had but got lost. So, I moved back home to heal what was broken in me, and to my surprise, I found what I was looking for. I found that my heart is in Chicago, and that my heart is in The Smashing Pumpkins.
For a year now, I have walked around with a secret, a secret I chose to keep. But now, I want you to be among the first to know what I have made plans to renew and revive The Smashing Pumpkins. I want my band back, and my songs, and my dreams. In this desire, I feel I have come home again."
And yet, that road home was longer, more complicated and more turbulent that I would assume Corgan had anticipated and undeniably, as he had may hoped.
The Smashing Pumpkins' grand return arrived with the art metal fueled and dire political warnings of "Zeitgeist" (released July 10, 2007), essentially picking up where "MACHINA/the machines of God" (released February 29, 2000) and "MACHINA II/the friends and enemies of modern music" (released September 5, 2000) left off sonically. Yet aside from Jimmy Chamberlin's formal announcement that he was fully rejoining Corgan's vision, no words were given about either guitarist/singer/songwriter James Iha or bassist D'Arcy Wretsky's potential participation, until the album release, which indicated that only Corgan and Chamberlin handled all of the recording themselves.
The subsequent tour only raised more questions as the arrival of Iha and Wretsky's replacements, guitarist Jeff Schroeder and bassist Ginger Reyes-Pooley, in addition to keyboardist Lisa Harriton, occurred without explanation of any sort, thus inadvertently giving the fan community more than enough ammunition to question if what was being seen was indeed a "reunion" at all, which then led to further questions about whether the band on stage had the right to even call themselves "The Smashing Pumpkins."
Musically, the band forged ahead powerfully, notably without any concern or adherence to their past. While the hits were performed consistently, they arrived surrounded by radical re-arrangements, hefty deep cuts, unorthodox cover songs plus all new material including the astonishing often 30 minute plus experience known as "Gossamer." Yet, after a contentious 20th anniversary tour, Jimmy Chamberlin departed the band for the second time, leaving Billy Corgan as the sole original member standing, therefore continuing to confound sections of the fan community in a variety of emotions, from honest confusion to to inexcusable vitriol.
Over the years, Billy Corgan has made consistent references to the nature of family as he speaks of his band, and clearly the nature of family is something of importance to him,. especially with what he has previously explained about his unorthodox and turbulent upbringing. I have long wondered if the first implosion of The Smashing Pumpkins and the desire to bring the band back together was perhaps about something even greater than the music.
Perhaps, whatever family element that had been formulated--essentially a family dynamic he created instead of one he was born into--needed to be reconstituted in order for him to feel fully supported in order to create to his best abilities. I can only wonder as he has never been terribly explicit in this regard but during the period in which he would publicly lash out at James Iha--even going so far as to blame him for the band's initial break up in 2000, there was this part of me that really didn't view it as fury (no matter how ferocious Corgan can be) but it was one filled with hurt and grief as Iha infamously departed the band's final show without a word to his bandmates. Maybe, for Corgan, there was no real closure and for a man still coping with the abuse he suffered as a child, I would imagine that lack of closure to being more than unsettling, to say the least.
Over the next several years, Billy Corgan, along with Jeff Schroeder, continued to wave the flag of The Smashing Pumpkins with a revolving door of musicians, most notably, bassist/singer Nicole Fiorentino and then 19 year old drummer Mike Byrne, who had the completely impossible task of stepping into the Grand Canyon sized hole left behind by Jimmy Chamberlin's departure, yet who also handled himself brilliantly, as far as I am concerned.
Billy Corgan then began what may have been his most experimental artistic and business venture yet, the "Teargarden By Kaleidyscope" project, a planned 44 song conceptual opus based upon the Tarot and would be released a song at a time...and all FOR FREE. And yet, so unfortunately, enthusiasm from fans and the music press was generally underwhelming. Or better to say, the first set of "Teargarden" material, while as inventive, creative and forward moving as anything Corgan had written previously, the connection between the art and the audience was not quite happening. Corgan then re-grouped, changed the release strategy and he and the band, consisting of Schroeder, Fiorentino and Byrne, created the outstanding "Oceania" (released June 19, 2012), the self-described "album within the album" of the "Teargarden" project.
To my ears, "Oceania" was so strong, and the chemistry between Corgan and his new bandmates so palpable, that I felt that maybe, Corgan had found the right collective to truly become a new version of the band and push The Smashing Pumpkins into the future. But, shockingly, and also without any explanation from Corgan, Nicole Fiorentino and Mike Byrne were both dismissed from the band, leaving himself and Schoreder to record and complete "Monuments To An Elegy" (released December 9, 2014) with Motley Crue's Tommy Lee on drums.
As strong as the album is, "Monuments To An Elegy" almost felt like its title. There was something to the proceedings that felt to suggest an ending, which was indeed compounded at the time by Corgan's allusions and hints that maybe there was an end insight for The Smashing Pumpkins, which by this point, even he was nor referring to as a band anymore but as a "concept." The "Teargarden" project ended abruptly and without completion, a subsequent album entitled "Day For Night" was begun but eventually abandoned and for a spell, it looked as if The Smashing Pumpkins had come to an end for the second time.
And now, here is where the history begins to rhyme...
In 2017, Billy Corgan reached his 50th birthday.
In current interviews, he has pulled back the veil to reveal a little bit of where he was emotionally during that period, which happened to be more despondent time in which he was feeling unconfident and surprisingly unsure of his own abilities as a songwriter. As he was pondering a second solo album, one that would become the absolutely beautiful acoustic based poetic confessional entitled "Ogilala" (released October 13, 2017), it took Producer Rick Rubin's valued opinion that the emerging songs were indeed good enough, a viewpoint which gave Corgan the needed encouragement to provide the proper artistic push.
Additionally, Billy Corgan's tenuous personal relationships with Jimmy Chamberlin was mending and most astonishingly, James Iha reached out--after 16 years of silence--to begin being repairing their own relationship. Even more, Corgan had been in a committed relationship with his now fiancée, and had also become a Father for the first time during this period incidentally, (both Chamberlin and Iha are also married and each had become parents as well).
If the concept of family and home carries any significant weight, it feels that not one but two families Corgan had created were now becoming more solidified as existing as healthy, healing spaces. If The Smashing Pumpkins were to return, the moment felt to be most possible at this point rather than 10-12 years earlier.
In 2018, and without bassist D'Arcy Wretsky, The Smashing Pumpkins, now with three fourths of the original band intact plus Jeff Schroeder (an exceedingly wise move to keep him in the Pumpkin ranks), unveiled "Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1/LP: No Past, No Future, No Sun" (released November 16, 2018) and embarked upon a tour that ultimately rewarded them with the level of accolades from fans and journalists that had eluded Corgan for the bulk of the previous decade.
The band sounded even mightier than ever before, as there felt to be a greater sense of purpose at work. That there was an understanding that this time, we've been given an opportunity so let's get it right, let's honor our legacy while still pushing ourselves forwards. As Corgan sings in "Knights Of Malta," the first track from the album, "We're gonna make this happen...We're gonna ride the rainbow."
Maybe the solidification of families and a new stabilization of what home means to Billy Corgan has rejuvenated him and his creative spirit, as that sense of security is intact. Hs already famous prolific creativity has felt to fly int overdrive as since 2018, Corgan has composed both band and solo material, which has included the double album "CYR" (released November 27, 2020) and the double album "Cotillions" (released November 22, 2019), plus the aforementioned first album in the "Shiny" series as well as the third album in the series (entitled "Zodian At Crystal Hall"--I just love that!) as yet unreleased and a new album currently being recorded.
Which all leads us to this point in time as The Smashing Pumpkins' "ATUM: A Rock Opera In Three Acts," a 33 song sequel to both "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" (released October 24, 1995) and "MACHINA/the machines of God" is here for us all to experience and moreso, it feels like the album could only have arrived at this specific point in time. The history has rhymed and has now advanced to where Billy Corgan possibly hoped that it would have ascended years ago.
To recap...
2000/2014 The Smashing Pumpkins reach a conclusion
2005/2017 Billy Corgan releases a solo album while also signaling his intent to reform the band
2009/2021-2023 Billy Corgan announces a large scaled conceptual song cycle combined with an innovative release strategy
Where "Teargarden" did not reach the finish line, "ATUM" has more than crossed it and with the same ideas that Corgan originally envisioned but has been realized in a different way. Essentially, by creating a podcast, "Thirty-Three With William Patrick Corgan," during which he would extensively discuss the album's narrative and premiere a song from the album in sequence over a thirty three week period, fans are therefore receiving songs FOR FREE before the staggered streaming releases of each album third, which would then be followed by the final physical release.
This time, everything feels to be in place between the band members, between the band and the fan community and even the music press is less contentious presently. Fates willing, life within The Smashing Pumpkins universe can continue upon this trajectory in order to fully realize whatever is to come after "ATUM." For now, the triple album rock opera is here and the next posting will take a dive into the work, which I strongly feel is the culmination of the past 16 years, all of which has been weaved into the music and the narrative, something that necessitated this lengthy of a preamble. There are connections to be made certainly...
...Wanna go for a ride?
No comments:
Post a Comment