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Want to be Famous?
This is a special kind of Hell. Billy Corgan, leader of the Smashing Pumpkins, writing on his blog a couple of years ago about what his life was like in 1997, after the Mellon Collie tour ended and he got back home:
I really have become a ‘rat in the cage’…fans sit outside my house and wait for me at all hours of the day…sometimes people sneak up on me from behind bushes…I have 3 stalkers, one who rights letters about how he dreams at night of me raping him (we have to call the police)…people fuck on my lawn (and brag about it to other fans), steal my garbage and post the contents on the internet, or, ha-ha-ha, smash pumpkins on my porch…I have the constant feeling people are watching me in my house… I try at all times to avoid the windows, or I pull my shades down on sunny days…it feels like a state of siege, and I try to just stay numb as best I know how…work is the one place I feel safe…
As someone who’s ochlophobic, I can’t imagine a worse existence.
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…I can—being married to Sandra Bernhardt.
I recall listening to Gish and Siamese Dream way back in the day, at about 150 decibels, in the band house I used to live in. We would sometimes play it through 500 watt per channel PA speakers… I remember hearing those records in, uh, many different frames of mind. The sound would mutate into strange life forms.
Billy Corgan, the boy genius. The self-absorbed, narcissistic, whiney genius whose music I have nevertheless still loved…
Glad he hasn’t killed himself yet.
Mace
How about Hillary?
Smashing Pumpkins suck. I bet Lemmy don’t complain.
Scott….are you still waiting for The Dead Milkmen to make a comeback?
…Speaking of Big Mother Hillary, she was in town [Vegas] again recently Phil…The Postman here, who I’ve known for 12 years and was delivering mail to her Campaign Headquarters her last trip, was informed by a staff member that she was present that day, and asked if he would like to come back and meet Big Mother in person…He told her “Hell, no. Why would I want to meet her? I’ve got work to do.” Compared to Hillary and Bernhardt, Billy Corgan’s not so hard to take. Even if I am far to old for his style of music.
Steve, I hadn’t been, but I am now.
So here is a clip of me at work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN2CZMjbuK0
I am the guy announcing the joust show in white on the big horse. Yes my job is to is to stage warfare as theater in such a way as to obscure the reality and highlight the mythology of war, to turn it into a spectator sport. My job is to lie to the audience and tell them the louder they cheer the more likely it is your hero will win. (of course the show is all choreographed to the very last detail ) My job is to convince the audience these two guys hitting each the represent a struggle of good vs. evil to paint it as a picture of an epic struggle, in which you the audience member has a real part and that is to cheer loudly for the troops er I mean for your knight and if you cheer loud enough then good will overcome evil. So in some ways I have the same job as Dick Cheney he just gets paid a hell of a lot more oh and the other difference is people don’t really die in our shows.
People look at my work and assume all kinds of stuff about me most of it wrong, the knights who have been doing the Renaissance fair for some time stay locked away in their trailers at knight and never go the big parties but you become addicted to the show and then being on stage is the only time you really feel alive. I feel for Billy but I bet he would do it all again.
I’m not sure what the hell it is about Billy that inspires such hatred in some quarters. He’s being ripped to pieces by critics and hard-core fans for using the Smashing Pumpkins name on the new record, even though founding members James Iha and D’arcy Wretzky aren’t involved. But if you read his “Confessions” blogs, it’s clear they weren’t much involved when they were a part of the band. The core members, Billy and Jimmy Chamberlin, are the ones that count the most on every track. James didn’t move into the band’s house when they were recording “Adore”, and wouldn’t show up unless he was specifically needed to record a guitar part. Chamberlin, who was kicked out of the band for drug abuse at one point, wasn’t involved in Adore, but the band kept their name anyway. Why was it OK for them to be the Pumpkins without Jimmy, but not with Jimmy and without James and D’arcy?
I think I once saw “Billy Corgan and James Iha . . . With special guest Jimmy Chamberlain.” And I think D’arcy was there. I don’t know why they weren’t the Pumpkins then, either.
I don’t hate Billy Corgan. I don’t know him. His persona is a little grating at times is all.
Still, he’s a very good sound craftsman–nay an ingenious one–and Jimmy Chamberlain is a fantastic drummer. I’ll give em that.
Never saw them live. The best live shows I’ve seen were P-Funk, Robyn Hitchcock, Primus, and Ween.
Another thing Billy is good at is crafting excellent videos. I’ve never found Billy’s personality to be grating. The only thing he’s done that pissed me off was when he said the Pumpkins “couldn’t compete with Britney Spears” - a stupid and incorrect statement (by his own admission). I wish he’d crafted a more sophisticated explanation for James and D’arcy leaving, which is what actually happened. He’d already replaced D’arcy with Melissa auf der Mauer by that time anyway, so why not just continue the band?
Jimmy might be the best drummer in the world.
Check out “The Aeroplane Flies High” boxed set. It contains many excellent songs from the Mellon Collie sessions, much of it released as B-sides, but superb anyway.
(Fart noise.)