Huge Article in new EQ Magazine this month

[Esotarious]

I was at work today getting coffee and turned around and saw 4 rows of Billy looking back at me from the cover of the new EQ magazine. There's a pretty epic article around 10 pages or so with some of the best information I've ever read about the Pumpkins in it.

To the people that come to this board most of it will be common knowledge, but the article actually got Billy, Flood, Butch Vig, RTB, and others involved and did a really great job of going through the Pumpkins from past to present. They also talked about the recording sessions from era to era quite a bit.

I'm not sure when it will be available, but it's a great interview and really well written. Check it out!

[laaazy]

do you work at EQ?

[Esotarious]

Originally Posted by laaazy

do you work at EQ?

No, I work at Sweetwater Sound. The new copy of the magazine just came in today.

[ChaosEffect]

Better details maybe?

[Esotarious]

Originally Posted by ChaosEffect

Better details maybe?

I'd scan the article if I had a scanner..but that would probably piss the guys over at EQ off.

Highlights:

- Discussed recording sessions by era in some length.
(what gear and sound they were going for on each album. They also discussed their techniques. Jimmy even got technical on the various kick drums he was using on different records.)

- Next album is going to be "more psychedelic". "Don't worry, I'm sure Sabbath will still be there as well."

- Talked about the Era related shows and corresponding recordings that will more than likely be released.

- Talked about how the band couldn't come out with something like MCIS right away after they reformed because "you can't just walk into production like that....it takes time and you have to build up to that."

That's a pretty loose summary. I was kind of sick today so I'll probably need to read it again. The coolest part for me was reading about how they recorded the guitar tracks with say 3 or 4 different microphones at the same time and used different frequency ranges with each microphone to really dial in the overall guitar sound. That's why you end up with huge amounts of tracks from take to take.

[dustrock]

cool, I might actually have to pick this up.

Interesting that they mention trying to do something like MCIS again....I think this is the 2nd or 3rd time Billy's mentioned MCIS with respect to the next record.

[Pizza Club]

Awesome, I'll have to look for it when I go to the store.

[Elvis The Fat Years]

from the website:

THE AXE EFFECT: BILLY CORGAN’S NOTABLE GUITARS
September, 2008

Billy Corgan on six of his most unique guitars...and the stories behind them!
The Gish Guitar
A mid-70s Strat with flush pole pickups a large headstock, the Gish Guitar defined that early Pumpkins sound and kicked off Billy’s longtime love affair with Fender. Billy bought it from Jimmy, although how Jimmy came to possess is up for debate. “At some point some guy came up to me and said, ‘Jimmy stole my guitar!’ So that’s probably the guitar he sold me,” laughs Billy. “But the great irony is that guitar got stolen from me. I offered a $10,000 reward for it, but I never got it back. I’ll get it back someday.”

The Clapton Strats
First manufactured in 1988, the Eric Clapton Stratocaster was Fender’s first signature release, and was modeled after Clapton’s late-50s era “Blackie” and “Brownie” guitars. While the Lace Sensor pickups didn’t sound very good clean, they had a very distinctive sound when cranked and distorted. It was this fuzzy and ferocious tone that helped shape the Siamese Dream sound.

The Bat Strat
Though his cabinets changed from Siamese Dream to Mellon Collie, Billy continued to use the Clapton reissue Fenders with the Lace Sensor pickups, but one in particular stood out from all the others: a silver model that Billy decorated with bat stickers. “If you said, ‘What’s the guitar you’d want to be buried with?’ I’d have to say the Bat Strat. It’s just beat to living hell. Jimmy keeps telling me to take it back out, so maybe we’ll bring it out for the 20th Anniversary Tour.”

The Mayonnaise Guitar
Bought for $60 at a Madison, Wisconsin pawnshop down the street from Butch Vig’s Smart Studios, the Mayonnaise Guitar—make and model unknown—shows up, of course, on Siamese Dream’s “Mayonnaise,” and was most recently used on Zeitgeist. The guitar’s super sensitive microphonic pickups only enhanced the already visceral effects of Billy’s penchant for tracking in front of his amps.

The Tonight, Tonight Guitar
This semi-hollow body, 1972 Gibson ES-335 was used on “Tonight, Tonight,” one of the Pumpkins’ most popular and unique songs. “It’s got this weird thing on it where you can split the Humbucker,” says Billy, possibly referring to a coil tap switch on some models that allowed the dual Humbuckers to produce a single-coil sound.

The Billy Corgan Stratocaster
Every guitar hero needs his own guitar. The Billy Corgan Stratocaster was created for maximum versatility, and features a DiMarzio Chopper pickup in the middle along with specially designed Humbuckers on the neck and bridge. Like his long lost Gish Guitar, this model has the large, 70’s style headstock and logo, and comes with an extra fancy satin nitrocellulose lacquer body finish. Both black body/white pick-guard and white body/black pick-guard styles are available, and it comes in a vintage tweed case.

[Elvis The Fat Years]

CUTTING ROOM FLOOR: SMASHING PUMPKINS INTERVIEW OUTTAKES
September, 2008

Choice quotes from Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin of the Smashing Pumpkins that didn't make it into the October 2008 issue.


Billy Corgan on his bass playing…
“I was influenced by mostly new wave people: Simon Gallup from the Cure, Peter Hook. In my emerging adulthood I grew up with a lot of new wave and alternative, so I looked at that bass as “the” cool bass style. So if there’s any personality in my bass playing it’s that Peter Hook, ‘use the weird note’ thing. I always wish my bass playing had more to say, but in my head it all goes together like pieces of a puzzle. I understand how the bass works and doesn’t work with all the other pieces in my head, so it probably the thing that gets the short shrift on certain things. Some ideas could have easily been played on the bass, but they were just more effective on the guitar.”

Billy Corgan on Smashing Pumpkins b-sides…
“We would used b-sides as little advertising cards to show people what was coming. We wouldn’t use a b-side that we thought was going to make an album, but we would use a song we thought was maybe a tweener. It was a good opportunity to do a cool version. That’s why some of our best work was probably done very quickly. Boom! Just make it happen; and you’re not beholden to the aesthetic of an album and trying to make a track fit in against the other seven tracks. One thing I talked to Jimmy about is that going forward we should only do mini-sessions. We shouldn’t do that thing of trying to record 12 songs over four months. We should just go in and do a couple, like American Gothic. Just pick a vibe, go in, and live with it. I think that’s a better way for us. I think that’s yielded better recordings.”

Jimmy Chamberlin on the future of The Smashing Pumpkins…
“I have a good friend who is a multi-millionaire in the sandwich industry. He says, ‘I only know how to make sandwiches and that’s what I do.’ The more time you stop to think about business, the more likely you are to die a businessman. I don’t really want to die a businessman. I want to die a musician. I want to make music and leave a legacy of honesty and truth to it.”

Billy Corgan on his traveling recording studio…
“You’d be shocked if you saw how primitive my recording situation is! To this day I continue to use my Tascam 688 eight-track cassette recorder that I bought in 1990. I literally have a drum machine, my ADA MP-1, my Alesis QuadraVerb, and that’s it. That’s how I make my demos. They’re super-primitive. I play them for people and they look at me like, ‘That’s a song?!’ Pete Townshend told me, ‘You know, I really think writers should stay simple.’ When you get in there with all the bells and whistles, something gets lots. Just stick to the basics.”

Billy Corgan on no longer being with a record label…
”There are a tremendous amount of opportunities for a free artist, meaning free from a label structure, to do lots of interesting things. I think the danger is when you start playing to the front row of your audience. The audience that’s going to be there no matter what you do. I think it’s going to take a level of sophistication to continue to be progressive, dangerous, experimental, forward-thinking, and at the same time not lose everybody in the haze of non-directed creativity. You’ve got to get out of the Utopian idea of, ‘Now that I’m free I can just do whatever I want to do,’ and I think it splits your mind. I think the middle doesn’t exist anymore. You can be artistic, you can be mainstream, or you can be both, but you can’t exist in the middle. I think there were times that did work for us, but I don’t think it works for us anymore. We’re going to have to consistently prove to people that there’s a reason why we are a unique band. We still have to be able to show up and write a great song.”

[Gish08]

Awesome read, thank you.

[dustrock]

thanks Elvis!

Interesting that Billy admits some of their best stuff is b-side material, recorded quickly in the studio. my expectations for the next album are rising.

any ideas which Zeitgeist song had the Mayonaise guitar?

[IWishIWasBlank]

Good stuff here.

[better than new]

Yeah most interesting read I've seen on here in a while. My hopes rise for the next album (I wish they wouldn't).

[Quiet CD]

Originally Posted by Elvis The Fat Years

Every guitar hero needs his own guitar.

Plug plug plug.

[tyguy666]

decent. thanks for posting that.

[aldango]

Cheers, thanks. I like how they've been thinking about the band from our perspective recently.

[Mablak]

"There are a tremendous amount of opportunities for a free artist, meaning free from a label structure, to do lots of interesting things. I think the danger is when you start playing to the front row of your audience. The audience that’s going to be there no matter what you do. I think it’s going to take a level of sophistication to continue to be progressive, dangerous, experimental, forward-thinking, and at the same time not lose everybody in the haze of non-directed creativity. You’ve got to get out of the Utopian idea of, ‘Now that I’m free I can just do whatever I want to do,’ and I think it splits your mind. I think the middle doesn’t exist anymore. You can be artistic, you can be mainstream, or you can be both, but you can’t exist in the middle. I think there were times that did work for us, but I don’t think it works for us anymore. We’re going to have to consistently prove to people that there’s a reason why we are a unique band. We still have to be able to show up and write a great song.”

Man, that's probably the worst thing I've ever heard Billy say.

[JRiordan]

- Next album is going to be "more psychedelic". "Don't worry, I'm sure Sabbath will still be there as well."

Definitely gonna pick this up, sounds great!

EDIT: This is at least the 2nd mention that the new material will be psychedelic.

[aztec litany service]

Originally Posted by Elvis The Fat Years

You’ve got to get out of the Utopian idea of, ‘Now that I’m free I can just do whatever I want to do,’ and I think it splits your mind. I think the middle doesn’t exist anymore. You can be artistic, you can be mainstream, or you can be both, but you can’t exist in the middle. I think there were times that did work for us, but I don’t think it works for us anymore.

i don't get this. if you're not doing what you want to do, you're not "free". if you're still playing to what you think mainstream audiences want, why not just record for sony? i don't really get this stuff about "the middle"...huh?

[Caine Walker]

i'm pretty sure that the 'mayonnaise' guitar is an Eastwood.

[markpregen]

Now we know that Jimmy's best friend is Jared Fogle from Subway

[dustrock]

Originally Posted by markpregen

Now we know that Jimmy's best friend is Jared Fogle from Subway

well played, except I think he said "making sandwiches", not eating them.


I don't see why what Billy's saying is so controversial - if you want to have mainstream success, usually you have to follow the rules to a certain extent. You have to do interviews, you have to tour, you have to have singles.

I don't think he means to make a living, but obviously being popular and relevant still means a great deal to him.

Someone like Joann Newsom got stellar reviews of her last album, but I seriously doubt the average person has heard of her.

[skipgo]

most interesting read related to sp that i've seen in some time. I'm glad to get my interest rekindled, because it's been a while since I cared. I'm looking forward to reading the whole thing.

[MstrGhost]

Originally Posted by Elvis The Fat Years

Billy Corgan on his bass playing…
“I was influenced by mostly new wave people: Simon Gallup from the Cure, Peter Hook. In my emerging adulthood I grew up with a lot of new wave and alternative, so I looked at that bass as “the” cool bass style. So if there’s any personality in my bass playing it’s that Peter Hook, ‘use the weird note’ thing. I always wish my bass playing had more to say, but in my head it all goes together like pieces of a puzzle. I understand how the bass works and doesn’t work with all the other pieces in my head, so it probably the thing that gets the short shrift on certain things. Some ideas could have easily been played on the bass, but they were just more effective on the guitar.”

This is actually funny. SP songs are awfully boring to play in bass, except maybe for some in Gish, because all you do is mimic the goddamn rhythm guitar and get buried on the mix. Completely unlike the mentioned artists which played a lead bass on their bands.

[Electron52]

I thought I was the only one that still made cassette recordings. I have the Tascam 424MKII.

[skipgo]

Originally Posted by Electron52

I thought I was the only one that still made cassette recordings. I have the Tascam 424MKII.

i had one of those... wish i still did. maybe i can find one on ebay...

[pulsar]

F

[slunken]

Originally Posted by aztec litany service

i don't get this. if you're not doing what you want to do, you're not "free". if you're still playing to what you think mainstream audiences want, why not just record for sony? i don't really get this stuff about "the middle"...huh?

i think he means he still wants the money and fame associated w/ mainstream success yet he wants to be left alone to do his own thing. so yea...huh?

Originally Posted by Electron52

I thought I was the only one that still made cassette recordings.

really? REALLY?

[Reyngel]

The Mayonaise guitar was used on Zeitgeist?

How interesting.

And it'd be sick if he brought out the bat guitar for the 20th Anniversary shows.

He better be wearing the Zero shirt.

[stumpycat]

Originally Posted by Mablak

"There are a tremendous amount of opportunities for a free artist, meaning free from a label structure, to do lots of interesting things. I think the danger is when you start playing to the front row of your audience. The audience that’s going to be there no matter what you do. I think it’s going to take a level of sophistication to continue to be progressive, dangerous, experimental, forward-thinking, and at the same time not lose everybody in the haze of non-directed creativity. You’ve got to get out of the Utopian idea of, ‘Now that I’m free I can just do whatever I want to do,’ and I think it splits your mind. I think the middle doesn’t exist anymore. You can be artistic, you can be mainstream, or you can be both, but you can’t exist in the middle. I think there were times that did work for us, but I don’t think it works for us anymore. We’re going to have to consistently prove to people that there’s a reason why we are a unique band. We still have to be able to show up and write a great song.”

Man, that's probably the worst thing I've ever heard Billy say.

Black Sabbath + psychedelic = good

But seriously, WTF. The message of the last part especially seems contradictory. Conceptually it's like trying get an impossible figure to look like it makes sense.

http://www.noblur.com/games/illuspix/illus086.jpg