Smashing Pumpkins Hint At Gish Box, Tour
That headline may have you feeling shivers down your spine, so I don't mean to crush the moment but I'm gonna, so mark my words: This will go down as a golden age for the music industry's inventive (not inventive) profit regeneration on the back of pure moments from the early '90s. This week we'll dip into Liz Phair's wellspring of carnal confusion at Hiro with Exile live (plus handy repackaged version of the album as souvenir), and the Pumpkins are alluding to doing the same with their debut:
This comes via smashingpumpkins.com:
Does anyone else smell that in the air? Oh yeah, that's Gish!SP.com has another small byte of information for you regarding your favorite first Smashing Pumpkins album: plans are currently underway that will lead to the eventual release of a pre-Gish/Gish box set!
What is to be included on here, no one knows for sure but it should be noted that its release is expected to coincide with the Gish tour sometime in 2008...
Expect more information as it becomes available.
Like any good re-release worth its weight in nostalgia appropriation, the bonus tracks should be a nice add-on (here hinted at with "pre-Gish," probably stuff from Early 1989 Demos). Hearing a live "Snail" or "Rhinoceros" would be pretty great too. Of course this begs of Billy (again) the D'arcy and James question, but more importantly, whether he decides to bring 'em out or not, expect a never ending assault of press pieces pressing the point. Because that's just how interviewers do.
Posted at 9:27 AM by amrit
Tags: The Smashing Pumpkins
I would go way out of my way to see a Siamese Dream tour, but doubtful for Gish.
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When Billy says it's the smell of Gish in the air, I think he really means, "It's the smell of cash streaming into my bank account by tugging on the heartstrings of nostalgic Pumpkins fans." Can't argue that he's not a smart businessman... I'll probably buy it anyway, just as long as the tour hits my city.
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how's that smiths line go? eh, nevermind, you all know which one...
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"Gish" is the noise that Billy makes in my dreams when I punch him in the face.
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nature's kids
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you should totally single out and berate the pumpkins for reissues because like nobody else has done that before and it's obvious that all they want is money and the replacement dudes and u2 and tons of other bands are doing it only for the fans and billy corgan is totally shamelessly cashing in and NOT BONO OR PAUL WESTERBERG
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Billy is always a bit more obvious with his release's financial goals though, which is not so much of an unadmirable thing. After seeing him release Zeitgeist with several different covers, bonus tracks and editions, you have to admit this. I don't particularly mind it, because its part of the business and I give him credit for these new plans' timing.
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Whatever you feel about Billy and the Pumpkins, they were nothing if not prolific. I have to imagine we've heard nearly all the songs by now, but perhaps there are some old chestnuts lying around what would be worthwhile. I'd give anyting a chnace from the Gish/Siamese Dream era that I hadn't heard before.
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"After seeing him release Zeitgeist with several different covers, bonus tracks and editions, you have to admit this."
And what do you have to say about the band releasing Machina II for free?
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ummm...that machina II sucked, nobody cared by then, and giving it away was the only option they had?
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Yeah, no offense but most people outside of the SP community aren't even aware of Machina II even being made or released. It was ahead of it's time in the digital music sense, a gift to devotees but kind of forgotten as time passed (Most music journalist probably don't even count it as a formal release.) As for Zeitgeist's many releases, that was a pretty prickish move on whomever came up with it: It left out all independent retailers and gave the Best Buy's and Target's the upper hand. Then for good measure, it gave Best Buy the upper hand again. I'm not hating on Billy or the Pumpkin's work... Just whomever is cheapening their cred with these lame deluxe editions, special editions, or anything that doesn't offer much new from the original that I can't believe people buy into.
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Um, not to be too picky or anything, but the LULL EP was POST-GISH, not PRE-GISH, as it came out in November of 1991 (Gish came out in May of that year).
And no, I'm not one of those cynics who thinks Billy is doing everything for money. And as Bilz pointed out, Machina II was given away for FREE over the Internet, which was pretty rare for an artist to do back then (in 2000). As far as "Zeitgeist" is concerned, I think Billy just wanted to delve into the digital and independent marketplace head-on and didn't want to leave anyone out. I mean, was it really his idea to have different bonus tracks on all those versions of 'Zeitgeist'? I guess we'll never know.
But there are lots of pre-Gish stuff that rocks but could use remastering, songs like "Honeyspider," "There It Goes," "C'mon," "365 (live)" and so on. So, yeah, as a die-hard Pumpkins fan, I'm genuinely excited at the prospect of a Gish box set.
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"Of course this begs of Billy (again) the D'arcy and James question, but more importantly, whether he decides to bring 'em out or not,"
Fucking hell stereogum, they're not stowed away in his basement or anything. It's pretty well publicized that Corgan and Chamberlin asked if they wanted in and they said "no thanks." Move the fuck on.
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Gish was one of the best albums of the 90s. I loved 'Drown' on the 'Singles' soundtrack after that as well, and then pretty much hated everything else they did. never understood how they kept up such high appeal when putting out such mediocre albums for so long, but Gish is a classic up and down. Not a weak track on the album and some of them - I am one, Siva for examples, stand up well against the best of the best.
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Billy and Jimmy did an interview on BBC1 talking about this, and the idea of releasing some of the band'ss early work:
Billy: "But just to diverge for a second: what we are talking about doing, because we’re going to finally start releasing a lot of archival stuff at the end of this year, we’re going to start doing tours that are focused on particular periods. So we’ll go out and actually do a tour where we’ll say, 'Okay, we’re only going to play songs from the beginning of the band through Gish.'"
A re-release of Gish is interesting, but hardcore fans will be excited about early demos being officially released. Gish came out in 1991, and the band had been active since 1988, meaning there's three years worth of demos to cull from on a potential Gish re-release. Those demos have made their way around online, and include some excellent songs that you can find if you're resourceful enough. My favorites are "My Dahlia," "Stars Fall In" and "Jennifer Ever."
There was rumor in 2000 that Billy had been giving out demos to certain fans for distribution online. The Reel Time Sessions and Fiends & Enemies of Modern Music Demo came out this way. By going through more "official" channels in getting rarities and demos out to fans, it puts some money in the band's pocket and lets fans hear new songs from one of the most prolific bands of the '90s.
A transcript of the interview: http://hipstersunited.com/blog/archives/2008/02/bbc-radio-1-interview-transcript-part-two-of-two.html
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