Monday Mash-Up

So at first i didn’t know what to think about the new Smashing Pumpkins album, but the more i listen to it and get comfortable with it the more I like it. Here’s a track i like alot:

Smashing Pumpkins : Zeitgeist : Neverlost
Here’s a little something to jam out to:

Sonic Youth : A Thousand Leaves : Hits Of Sunshine
Another classic:

Ugly Cassanova : Sharpen Your Teeth : Hotcha Girls
Here’s some interesting releases out tommorrow that i’m excited about:









Here’s some Tokyo Police Club:

Here’s The Shins:

For the Atlanta college kids like me, Summer 2007 is over. I went to some cool fests, saw some great shows, and had a fun time so I leave you with this today:

Grandaddy : Just Like The Fambly Cat : Summer…It’s Gone

Video of the Day: Serj Tankian

This politically charged, stop motion and animation infused video is of the song, The Unthinking Majority from Serj Tankian’s forthcoming solo album. I guess he’s dropped the band but he’s still treading in similarly creative waters.

Bonus Video… YEAH!

Here’s a YouTube sponsored Q&A with the Billy and Jimmy of the Smashing Pumpkins covering a variety of topics pulled from user derived questions.

Live Review: Smashing Pumpkins (6-26-2007) The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC


Photos by Jill Donnelly

Before i go into my review of the show, i think I’ll give you my perspective on the band. In a time period where old bands seem to reunite every hour, one of the most important reunions in a while clearly seems to be the Smashing Pumpkins, despite only two of the original members being part of it. The ascension of the Pumpkins in the middle ’90s represent a high water mark for the last golden age of pop music and underground music peacefully coexisting together. After dominating the Billboard charts, the Grammys, and the MTV music awards with Mellon Collie And Infinite Sadness, they were probably the last “biggest band in the world” to really exist. As a teen at the time, The Pumpkins represented everything I loved about the ’90s music scene. I had to purchase Siamese Dream several times due to playing the tape so much it would get ruined. Mellon Collie is inextirpably linked to almost all of my memories of the summer of 1996, one of the best summers of my life. But midway through that summer, with the overdose of their touring keyboardist and the subsequencial kicking out Jimmy Chamberlain from the band would mark the beginning of the end of not only the Smashing Pumpkins, but also the end of an era in music. I can remember being so angry about them kicking Jimmy out of the band. I mean you’re in a rock band, you’re supposed to be doing drugs! That combined with the release of Adore, which to this day I still don’t really like (I mean Kid A is the same idea, only 1000 times better), officially ended my fanboy days with the Pumpkins.

So, after waiting a few years worth of reunion rumours and the lame ticket buying experience, i finally got to see a band i loved as a kid in a tiny 1000 person venue just an arms length from Billy Corgan. We got to the venue probably around 3pm in the afternoon and there were only about 50 people in line in front of us. I think this wait would technically be longer than what i waited to get up close for Radiohead at Bonnaroo last year but at least in line here you could purchase beers and food easily and get out of line to use the restroom so it wasn’t that bad. The opening band was pretty good even though they were not my style (although I wish i went one of the nights Deerhunter was opening). The Pumpkins came out next and rocked out for three hours. Billy Corgan was very much the star of the show and even if this is completely the case musically, the dynamic just seems unbalanced without James Iha’s stage presence. The Faux-Iha replacement, Jeff Schroeder, played his part brilliantly from a musical perspective, though. Very “shoegazy” jamming stuff that I enjoyed alot. The Faux-D’arcy, Ginger Reyes, looked like she could have fallen apart at any second. She held her own, but it was very entertaining to watch her constantly watch Billy and Jimmy looking so scared. They even brought along a Faux-overdosed tour keyboardist.

Overall, the show was really great, but I think it was lacking a little to my high expectations. Mostly because I didn’t really know but a handful of songs. This usually doesn’t deter me from enjoying a band, but it did seem to a little this time and as i think about it I’m still not quite sure why since most everything i didn’t recognize i enjoyed a lot. I think maybe there is just a clear difference between the old stuff and post-Mellon Collie Billy Corgan stuff. Also, I don’t think it really detracted from the music at all, but there was something lacking in my mind without at least James in the band. Regardless of my own critical thinking getting in the way, i highly recommend checking them out somewhere along what I’m guessing will be an endless amount of touring (hey, i asked for it) and I’m excited to hear the new album that came out today.

See the setlist, listen/download the show here (Thanks to Chud for pointing this out)

You can find an endless amount of info on the Asheville residency at Smasheville

Summer Slacking

It’s vacation time at Ohmpark right now, but we’ll be back a full strength on Monday so check back then and we’ll be hitting you hard with that music related 411. A couple of quick things for now, though:

The Smashing Pumpkins will be at The Fox Theatre on October 30th. Learn all the details on tickets here. My full review on the Asheville residency will be forthcoming next week. Here’s the new video for Tarantula:

Check out this awesome Grizzly Bear video.

Don’t forget if you’re in Atlanta this weekend, go to the Fiery Furnaces and Deerhunter show tommorrow night at The Earl.

Videos Of The Day: Smashing Pumpkins Residency In Asheville

For all things related to this, check out Smasheville. Currently I’m in Asheville about to catch them tonight, so here’s some vids that have surfaced from the first two nights:

Live Show: Billy Corgan (2-17-1997)

The Smashing Pumpkins residency at The Orange Peel in Asheville, NC starts this weekend, so here’s some live tracks from the baldster. I’ll be going to one of the shows and will hopefully have video tape of it to share with you.

Billy Corgan
2/17/1997
Carnegie Hall
New York, NY

Taper: unknown
Source: DAT? > ANA-1(Asselin) > DDC-0
Conversion: DDC-0 > Sony PCM-M1 > 7-pin to coax > Delta Dio 2496 > Adobe Audition 2.0
Editor: Andrew Fogelsong
FLAC: master wav’s > CD Wave Editor 1.95.1 > FLAC (level 8)
Notes: dignoise before People Have the Power, incomplete recording

(click to listen)

1. Blissed and Gone (Billy Solo)
2. Death Don’t Have No Mercy [Davis] (Billy Solo)
3. Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies [Cale] (w/Cale and Natalie Merchant) (Billy on guitar)
4. E-Bow the Letter [REM] (w/ Michael Stipe/Patti Smith) (Billy on guitar)
5. The Long Road [Pearl Jam] (w/ Michael Stipe/Natalie Merchant) (Billy on guitar)
6. People Have the Power [Patti Smith] (all-star jam) (Billy on guitar)

Download Lossless Torrent Here

Live Show: The Smashing Pumpkins (5-26-2007)

The Pumpkins-mania continues. Listen to some live songs including a Doors cover:

Smashing Pumpkins
2007-05-26
Venue: AB (grote zaal), Brussels, Belgium

Source: ecm 719 (sony)>md-mt 190 (sharp)>LP2>.wav>flac (master)
Lenght:~177min

(click to listen)

01 (Intro) > United States
02 Today
03 Stand Inside Your Love
04 That’s The Way
05 Bleeding the Orchid
06 7 Shades of Black
07 Home
08 Hummer
09 Bullet with Butterfly Wings
10 God & Country
11 Thirty-three
12 Rocket
13 Winterlong
14 To Sheila
15 Glass & the Ghost
16 Tonight
17 Tarantula
18 Starz
19 Zero
20 Neverlost
21 Doomsday Clock
22 Lucky 13
23 1979
24 Disarm
25 Cherub Rock
26 Untitled
27 (Encore Break #1)
28 Shame
29 Silverfuck > The End [The Doors] (Encore Break #2)
30 Muzzle
31 Gossamer

Download Lossless Torrent Here

Friday Free-Style

We start today with a video of The Smashing Pumpkins comeback show:

I never covered the Pitchfork Fest additions of Mastodon, Junior Boys, Voxtrot, Cadence Weapon, Brightblack Morning Light, The Field, Cool Kids, and William Parker Quartet. Now with the combination of a night with legendary artists performing some of the best albums ever written and two days of the people making the very best albums of the last 2 years, I think musically this is by far the best festival of the year. On top of that, it is only 50 bucks for three days so it is also the greatest bargain of the year. I often have my quips with Pitchfork’s opinions but they sure nailed this line-up. Here it is in case you forgot:

Friday, July 13:

Sonic Youth perform Daydream Nation
GZA/Genius performs Liquid Swords
Slint perform Spiderland

Saturday, July 14:

Yoko Ono
Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues (w/ members of Dirty Three, the Delta 72, and Blues Explosion)
Clipse
Mastodon
Iron and Wine
Battles
Grizzly Bear
Voxtrot
Califone
The Twilight Sad
Girl Talk
Dan Deacon
Oxford Collapse
Professor Murder
Fujiya & Miyagi
Beach House
William Parker Quartet
Ken Vandermark’s Powerhouse Sound

Sunday, July 15:

De La Soul
The New Pornographers
Of Montreal
Stephen Malkmus
Jamie Lidell
The Sea and Cake
Junior Boys
Menomena
The Ponys
Deerhunter
Klaxons
The Field
Cadence Weapon
The Cool Kids
Craig Taborn’s Junk Magic
Nomo
Brightblack Morning Light
Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Lightbox Orchestra

Anybody you don’t recognize on that list, you should look into immediately. More info on Pitchfork Fest here. We will be there and you should too.

The hometown fest that is still the most fun of the decade, Bonnaroo, has announced its cinema tent schedule.

The New Pornographers have a new track floating around the internets: My Rights Versus Yours

Ween releases a new EP, The Friends EP, on June 8th.

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead are looking for a drummer to sub-in for their European tour.

Creative Loafing did a cover story on Atlanta blogs this week and profiled our friends over at Cable And Tweed. Props for repping the B’s in da A.

It’s been a busy week for me and I don’t have that much news for you, so I’ll hit you with a bunch of vids:

Here’s a Cat Power on Jolls Holland:

Here’s a Califone video:

Here’s an Iron And Wine video:

Ween live:

Here’s the new Voxtrot video:

Here’s Arcade Fire covering a Clinic song:

And I leave you with a De La Soul video that will get you through your day:

Torrent Of The Day: Smashing Pumpkins (5-22-2007)

Here’s the first show of the Zeitgist-era Pumpkins:

The Smashing Pumpkins 2007-05-22 Le Grand Rex – Paris, France (16-bit) (FLAC)

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS
2007-05-22
Le Grand Rex
Paris, France

Source: MBHO MBP 603 A / KA 200 N > Sound Devices MP-2 > Edirol R-09
Mic Config: in hat, DINA (17cm, 90°)
Location: Mezzanine (lower balcony), 1st row, center
Transfer: Master WAVs > Digital Editing > CD Wave Editor V1.95.1 > FLAC V1.1.4
Editing: EQ, volume boost and fades in Steinberg WaveLab V5.01b
Dithering: UV22 HR dithering in Steinberg WaveLab V5.01b
Resampling: 48.0 kHz > 44.1 kHz resampling in Steinberg WaveLab V5.01b

Disc 1:
01 (Intro)
02 United States
03 Today
04 Stand Inside Your Love
05 Bleeding the Orchid
06 Doomsday Clock
07 Home
08 Hummer
09 Starz
10 Tarantula
11 Bullet with Butterfly Wings
12 Gossamer
13 [Fade Out]

Disc 2:
01 [Fade In]
02 (Billy talking)
03 For God and Country
04 Thirty-three
05 Rocket
06 Winterlong
07 To Sheila
08 Glass and the Ghost Children
09 Cherub Rock
10 1979
11 Tonight, Tonight
12 [Fade Out]

Disc 3:
01 [Fade In]
02 Neverlost
03 That’s the Way
04 Disarm
05 Zero
06 Untitled
07 (Encore Break #1)
08 Shame
09 Silverfuck > The End [The Doors] (tease)
10 (Encore Break #2)
11 Annie-Dog
12 Muzzle

Notes:
First show since 2000-12-02.
This is the 16-bit version of this recording.
To seamlessly join the three discs, simply remove the fade tracks D1T13, D2T01, D2T12 and D3T01.

The Smashing Pumpkins Ticket Debacle

After partying all night Saturday night, Me and some friends prepared to purchase tickets to the Smashing Pumpkins residency at the less than 1000 person capacity Orange Peel in Asheville, NC yesterday morning. We had 6 people and were utilizing 10 computers. As soon as tickets went on sale at 1pm, we began refreshing the page as fast as possible. The Orange Peel was using a company called Ticketweb to purchase tickets, and they are so horrible they make you appreciate ticketbastard. Basically the end result was hours of trying to get tickets, and nothing. Pages wouldn’t load, your place in line would get lost, and there was even an annoying survey before you could buy them to crash the system. Moral of the story is Ticketweb sucks really bad and I hope they go out of business. Luckily, the Orange Peel is cool and has decided to fire those amateurs and use ticketmaster. So, they have said that less than 10% of total tickets available got sold yesterday, and that tickets will go on sale either this afternoon or tomorrow. So, if you forgot about these amazing shows, or had wasted a Sunday afternoon wanting to smash your computer, you still have a chance to attend one of the biggest music events of the year. For updates, check out the Orange Peel website and good luck.

Here’s the new Smashing Pumpkins song:

Videos Of The Day: The Smashing Pumpkins

High on the excitement of the Smashing Pumpkins shows in Asheville, I give you videos about their last show ever at The Metro in Chicago in 2000:

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