Radical Rock Reformation
Billy Corgan & his Smashing Pumpkins 2.0 rock into a club future
With all due respect to the Pixies, in the two-day battle between '90s alternative rock icons who have reformed to give live sonic domination one last try, the winner has got to be ... The Smashing Pumpkins and the amplified ambush they laid out at Warehouse Live late Tuesday night.
Granted, this is like having to choose between which Miss America candidate you'd rather date or which one of the Real Housewives of D.C. you'd like to see spontaneously combust. There really are no losers no matter what choice is made.
The Pixies flat out rocked the Verizon Wireless Theater on Monday night. No complaints. But on Tuesday night, Billy Corgan's revived version of The Smashing Pumpkins 2.0 (in which Corgan is the only remaining original member) offered a little extra bit of charisma, aesthetic charm, crowd electricity and a much healthier example of what it's like to create on the electric guitar for the sheer joy it.
To put it more simply, Corgan has refound the love for his band, his musical legacy and his interest in extending that legacy in a way that the Pixies — and many other bands — can't , won't or don't.
Long gone are the days of headlining Lollapalooza and that seems to suit Corgan just fine. His two-hour public introduction to the new Pumpkins lineup — bassist Nicole Fiorentino, drummer Mike Byrne and burgeoning guitar hero Jeff Schroeder — and the vision for his epic Teargarden by Kaleidyscope album on the more intimate club stage worked perfectly.
"Don't be scared" scoffed Corgan to the crowd after performing the lulling ballad "A Song For A Son," for the first time in Houston.
Corgan is trying a different sort of music distribution with Teagarden that allows him to take the music directly to his audiences without any nuisance record label as a middle man. All the new works are released digitally for free at SmashingPumpkins.com as they are completed. Mini-albums that collect four songs at a time are actually pressed into physical CD's with the ultimate goal being a 44-song, 11 CD box set that comprises the entire massive vision.
So far, six songs completed, so very good.
Teargarden is an electric cacophony of hard-rockin' ambience that recalls the bluesy jams of Led Zeppelin and the psychedelic experimentation of Pink Floyd on rockers like "Astral Planes." It is a brilliant return to the pre-superstar gnashing of early albums by the Smashing Pumpkins like Gish (1991) and Siamese Dream (1993).
Following massive success 15 years ago with the brilliant, but more pop-oriented Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the Pumpkins started to explode within. It took complete dissolution, a six-year sabbatical followed by rebuilding the band from the ground up for Corgan to regain the love he once had for the band. He now seems intent on enjoying every minute of it.
"Do you remember this song?" he queried the capacity crowd as the grooved to the descending bass scales of 15-year-old signature Pumpkins' anthem, "Bullet With Butterfly Wings." "This was Pearl Jam's first hit."
The reference to his early modern rock peers seemed to tickle Corgan and his new band, as did riffs on ZZ Top blues licks and a run through the guitar licks that form the spine of Led Zeppelin's "Moby Dick."
But it was the ability to once again share his own music vision — both the new Teargarden material as well as favorites like "Cherub Rock," Drown," and "Tonight, Tonight" that seemed to thrill Corgan the most. And his energy was infectious to the back of the room.
