Billy Corgan’s Internet-wide search for a new drummer has apparently ended, and according to Smashing Pumpkins fan blog Hipsters United a (pretty) young man has emerged victorious: Mike Byrne, the 19-year-old drummer/”demoralizer” for the Oregon band Moses, Smell The Roses. There’s been no formal announcement yet, but Byrne did say that he was “off for another couple of weeks at pumpkin camp” on his MySpace page yesterday, and Moses collaborator Ben Spees referred to him as the “drummer of the future” on Twitter. That’s practically a confirmation, right?


Judging by the tracks posted to the Moses MySpace page, Byrne certainly has the rapidfire chops to keep up with Corgan’s rhythmic twists and turns; the band’s got a sort of garage-prog thing going on, and it cites bands like Battles and the Octopus Project among its influences (alongside Keyboard Cat). Oh, and Animal Collective! This will do wonders for the Pumpkins’ bloggability, I can already tell.


Smashing Pumpkins, The Next Generation?: 19-year-old Mike Byrne in position to succeed Chamberlin as band’s drummer [Hipsters United]

Billy Corgan has turned a snippet of the Smashing Pumpkins‘ alt-rock staple “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” into a spoken-word bit that will serve as the intro to this Sunday’s Total Nonstop Action Wrestling pay-per-view Lockdown, which will feature a bunch of matches confined to a six-sided cage. (Yes, the lyrics have been altered to fit the cage’s dimensions.) Honestly, the most surprising thing about this development is finding out that Kevin Nash is somehow still able to move around a wrestling ring, despite tearing his quads approximately 53 times over the course of his career. The promo—and a recut video for the song featuring wrestlers appearing in the PPV—after the jump.

Corgan and TNA have actually collaborated before, but I have to say, this little bit of promo-cutting makes me think that his heel turn of recent months will culminate in something that lures him into the ring on Sunday night. (NB: I am not going to shell out $30 to see if this happens.) Here’s the new music video!

Lockdown Promo With Billy Corgan [IGN; HT Hipsters United]

Look, I’m not going to try to explain Billy Corgan anymore. In his latest missive, he contemplates recording a 44-track album released one track at a time and accompanied by a film, justifies his continued use of the Pumpkins moniker for a solo project in terms a reality show contestant might use (“I committed myself 100 pct”), refers to himself as a “baby faced killa,” and expresses his hope that “from this day forward this group will represent nothing but love and light” without any plausible justification for doing so. Maybe he should take a couple of years off, you know? [MySpace]

Look, I’m not going to try to explain Billy Corgan anymore. In his latest missive, he contemplates recording a 44-track album released one track at a time and accompanied by a film, justifies his continued use of the Pumpkins moniker for a solo project in terms a reality show contestant might use (“I committed myself 100 pct”), refers to himself as a “baby faced killa,” and expresses his hope that “from this day forward this group will represent nothing but love and light” without any plausible justification for doing so. Maybe he should take a couple of years off, you know? [MySpace]

Look, I’m not going to try to explain Billy Corgan anymore. In his latest missive, he contemplates recording a 44-track album released one track at a time and accompanied by a film, justifies his continued use of the Pumpkins moniker for a solo project in terms a reality show contestant might use (“I committed myself 100 pct”), refers to himself as a “baby faced killa,” and expresses his hope that “from this day forward this group will represent nothing but love and light” without any plausible justification for doing so. Maybe he should take a couple of years off, you know? [MySpace]

Look, I’m not going to try to explain Billy Corgan anymore. In his latest missive, he contemplates recording a 44-track album released one track at a time and accompanied by a film, justifies his continued use of the Pumpkins moniker for a solo project in terms a reality show contestant might use (“I committed myself 100 pct”), refers to himself as a “baby faced killa,” and expresses his hope that “from this day forward this group will represent nothing but love and light” without any plausible justification for doing so. Maybe he should take a couple of years off, you know? [MySpace]

Look, I’m not going to try to explain Billy Corgan anymore. In his latest missive, he contemplates recording a 44-track album released one track at a time and accompanied by a film, justifies his continued use of the Pumpkins moniker for a solo project in terms a reality show contestant might use (“I committed myself 100 pct”), refers to himself as a “baby faced killa,” and expresses his hope that “from this day forward this group will represent nothing but love and light” without any plausible justification for doing so. Maybe he should take a couple of years off, you know? [MySpace]

From last night’s pseudo-est of all pseudo-events, the Bravo-sponsored A-List Awards, lone remaining Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan squires MySpace-made starlet Tila Tequila down the red carpet. You know, the more I see of Corgan these days, the more I am convinced that his wrestling appreciation has resulted in him putting on a Hollywood Hulk Hogan-style persona in an attempt to see just how a “heel turn” would work in a real-world application.

[Photo: Getty]
[HT: Dlisted]

Fresh from the inbox, an e-mail entitled SMASHING PUMPKINS UPDATE: “Auditions will be held Friday, April 10 in Los Angeles for drummers who are looking to play with THE SMASHING PUMPKINS. They should send their background info, photos and performance web links via e-mail only to pumpkinsdrummerATgmailDOTcom.”

In related news, lead Pumpkin Billy Corgan has been demoing some new songs that he says “sound like Spring.” although that isn’t pleasing the commenters over at SP fan site Hipsters United so much:

i see claritin commercials in the future of the pumpkins

WTF does spring sound like. Better sound like rage!!!

Hey, allergies can make anyone cranky!

Corgan “in a great mood,” demoing “new and fresh” material [Hipsters United]

In other music-related Super Bowl news, the Hyundai-commissioned new song by the Smashing Pumpkins, “F.O.L.,” made its debut right before yesterday’s big game in an ad that featured many careening turns and some sort of “make your own ad” contest that takes about five minutes of Flash animations to finally get to. Billy Corgan completists out there can grab the track, which is only 3:05 yet sometimes feels like it’s about double that length (perhaps I need to, as Corgan instructs over and over and over and over again, “feel our love”), at the car company’s site. Clip of the ad after the jump.

Do you think “free advertising from music blogs” was part of Hyundai’s plan all along?

Epic Lap [YouTube]
billy.mp3 [Hyundai Genesis via Hipsters United]

Well, the ad with the new Smashing Pumpkins song “FOL” did, anyway. Last night the Pumpkins fan blog Hipsters United broke the news that “FOL” would be in an ad for the Hyundai Genesis airing during the big game, part of a campaign that will also use serial finger-syncer Yo-Yo Ma. But tough economic times and the recent woes besetting car companies resulted in the spot getting moved to the pregame show. Here’s hoping Billy will take some solace in the fact that said programming block will also include an interview with our still-sorta-brand-new President!

For instance, Hyundai Motor America decided months ago to buy two 30-second commercials in the game, both for the 2010 Hyundai Genesis coupe. But as the financial crisis unfolded, the company began to reconsider that, to perhaps add a spot that would directly address the economy. Such a spot would promote an insurance policy called Hyundai Assurance, which offers car buyers the chance to undo their deals if they lose their jobs.

The idea was “to take advantage of the fact Hyundai has some unusual positioning in the market right now” for reasons that include the insurance policy as well as the lower prices of its cars, said Jeff Goodby, co-chairman of the Hyundai agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, part of the Omnicom Group.

“These guys do have something to say,” he added. “It’s a question of whether you have the money or not.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Hyundai announced that it had indeed rethought its lineup. There will be one spot in the game for Hyundai Assurance, and one saluting the 2009 Genesis sedan for winning a “car of the year” award.

One spot for the Genesis coupe, with the rock musician Billy Corgan, is being moved to the pregame show, where Hyundai will also run a second spot for Hyundai Assurance along with a second spot for the Genesis sedan. Those three commercials will earn Hyundai a title sponsorship of that program.

As if to rub salt in the wounds, Portfolio blogger Jeff Bercovici reached back into the archives to recall the days when Corgan was way too good to sell his songs to companies—although, y’know, maybe the whole idea that he wrote a brand-new song for this campaign makes the whole idea of “honesty, artistic integrity and alternative non-mainstream culture” that he was railing about a mere 10 months ago a bit moot. Or maybe it doesn’t! I just hope he got paid up front.

Smashing Pumpkins Super Bowl Ad! [Hipsters United]
Billy Corgan Now OK With “Crass Commercialism” [Mixed Media]
Advertisers Change Game Plans for Super Bowl [NYT]

Billy Corgan, in his latest attempt to be seen as a total nutball by pretty much anyone who liked him during the ’90s, is saying that Eddie Vedder’s song about the Cubs maybe winning the World Series “killed that shit dead… Eddie ain’t living here to write a song about my fuckin’ team.” Funny, I thought that Ryan Dempster and an anemic performance by the Cubs’ offense were more to blame, but maybe Billy isn’t big on reading the boxscores. [Home Run Derby via Vulture]

A concert that ends with the performer trying to connect with this audience by wondering aloud, as they might, “Did I pay for this shit?” is probably a show that’s beset with problems. So it was with the Smashing Pumpkins’ show in New York City last night, Billy Corgan et al‘s first performance in the NYC metro area in nine (!) years, which ended with Corgan baiting the audience with that very taunt, according to Matthew Perpetua, who was in the United Palace audience last night. There were also “at least 40 minutes of formless prog-metal dirges and artless, atonal drones,” and lousy setlists that eschewed the depths of the Pumpkins’ catalog in favor of the track from the trailer for The Watchmen and other new songs. (Also, he wore a “Zero” shirt but didn’t play the song in question, which just seems cruel, you know?)

Now, it’s bad enough to subject your audience to about 40 minutes of abrasive, deliberately off-putting music, but it’s even more uncool to come back for an encore that mocks them for not being 100% with you, and feeling disappointed for not hearing more of what they expected to hear from a show billed as a 20th anniversary concert. In conventional show biz logic, if you’re going to go that far, you should at least leave the audience with a crowd-pleaser. In Billy Corgan logic, you come out and perform one of the lesser songs from your best-selling album, and then finish off with a song that mixes disingenuous hippy-dippy “everyone is beautiful!” lyrics with improvised sarcastic rants that outright diss the city you’re playing in, mock the fans for paying to see your band, and tell your visibly disappointed audience that you’ll see them in hell. It was full-on douche-tastic passive-aggression. It’s as if he set out to do this heel turn, and purposefully alienate as much of the audience as possible. Well, it worked. Believe me, unless you’ve witnessed other shows on this tour, it’s unlikely you’ve seen a more defeated audience exit from a rock show.

Sure, tonight’s show apparently has a different, better set list. But one can’t help but wonder what’s going on. The only explanation is the heel-turn idea outlined by Perpetua, and really, it seems kinda logical: Corgan’s fetishization of wrestling has resulted in him going all Hollywood on his fans… but they shouldn’t worry, since the next five years will consist of him realizing his transgressions and redeeming himself just in time for a 25th anniversary tour. (After all, anniversaries with precious-metal associations are so much more profitable!)

One Last Trip To Hell [Fluxblog]

ARTIST: Smashing Pumpkins
TITLE: “G.L.O.W.”
WEB DEBUT: Oct. 13, 2008

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The Smashing Pumpkins are the latest band to ride the “media outlets will still write about new releases as long as they’re tied to the Guitar Hero gimmick” train with “G.L.O.W.,” a vicious little homage to ladies’ wrestling that’s covered in razor-slashed guitars a la “Zero,” and even has one of those classically SP-like bridges where everything slows down and the drums start reeling off triplets. I really dig the little bits of Cheap Trick-styled harmonies sprinkled in behind the chorus there, too. The only problem? It’s a smidge too long. Billy, Billy! I understand that you want people playing along with your song to max out their points, but just remember that the wrestling matches you’re paying tribute to are often most effective when they don’t drag things out.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: The Chicago alt-rock station Q101 is back in the business of leaking new material by its heavy-rotation staples, so here you go:

Surely I’m not the only one who thinks that, at this point, the whole “band releasing a new song through Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band” angle is kind of played out, even if other media outlets are willing to lap it up like it’s a dish of slightly melted vanilla ice cream. I mean, the seal has been broken. People are going plastic instead of going platinum. Big whoop. If you really want to get creative with your distribution methods, why don’t you go back to the wax-cylinder route? Or 8-tracks? Plastic guitars are almost… quaint at this point. Now, that’s not to say that I’m not interested in the newest song by the Smashing Pumpkins, which comes out next month in a bundle with “1979″ and “The Everlasting Gaze.” (You know–it’s what us olds used to call a “b-side.”) It’s called “G.L.O.W.,” after all, and anyone who had a TV that pulled in crappy syndicated channels 20 years ago knows that those letters can only stand for one thing.

Here’s a transcript of Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin being interviewed about the song by the somehow-still-employed shock jock Mancow Muller:

BC: Yeah, I’m going to be in the new Guitar Hero, like, actually be in the new game, which was pretty cool. We just recorded a new song, we’re getting ready for our tour, we’re getting ready for our 20th anniversary tour, we’re getting ready to put out a Gish box set.

MM: The new song is called “G.L.O.W.”, right?

BC: Yes sir.

MM: What does it stand for?

BC: Glorious Ladies of Wrestling.

MM: What?!

BC: Don’t you remember the Glorious Ladies of Wrestling?

MM: Yes! Yes, I do.

BC: I bet you had a few private moments with the Glorious Ladies.

MM: I did, I did, actually. Farmer’s Daughter.

BC, JC: [laughter]

Corgan, you may remember, is a longtime wrestling fan, having appeared on an ECW telecast, and even had the indignity of being called a colleague of Fred Durst. (Ouch.) Anyway, as luck would have it, we have an exclusive preview of the song for you right here and right now! MUST CREDIT IDOLATOR!!!!!

G.L.O.W. Wrestling beginning theme [YouTube]
Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling [Official site]
G.L.O.W. [Hipsters United]

• Simon & Schuster has sued both Foxy Brown and Lil Kim for not coming through on books, despite being paid advances. In 2006, Foxy was paid $75,000 in hopes that she’d write an autobiography, while Kim was given $40,000 in 2004 for a novel. (Fiction still gets no respect, even when it’s penned by a famous-ish person.) [Bloomberg via ProHipHop]

• Former Smashing Pumpkins members James Iha and D’Arcy Wretzky-Brown are suing Virgin Records, saying that they’re not being properly compensated for Smashing Pumpkins downloads. Interesting timing, given that downloads of that song from the Batman And A Really Crappy Movie soundtrack shot up from 11 two weeks ago to 10,000-plus last week, thanks to its inclusion in the trailer for The Watchmen. [Reuters]

• Meanwhile, Billy Corgan frenemy Courtney Love is being sued by a management company who says that she hasn’t paid them a 5% commission on last year’s sale of the Nirvana catalog, a portion of which went for $19.5 million last year. [NYT]

• And finally (at least for now), Abkco Music, which controls the rights to the Rolling Stones’ catalog, is suing Lil Wayne over his song “Playing With Fire,” which they claim is a ripoff of the Stones’ “Play With Fire.” They’re also offended that Weezy uses “explicit, sexist and offensive language” in the song, which seems like kind of a strange allegation given that the Stones weren’t exactly saints. [Billboard]

Billy Corgan has pushed back Smashing Pumpkins’ tour honoring the band’s first full-length, the 1991 album Gish, to “distant 2009″ in order to focus on two things: A tour of smaller-sized venues next month which will stop at a casino in Hammond, Ind., among other places in the lower 48 states; and a smattering of shows this November that will “focus on the band’s history, legacy, and accomplishments over their career” and will be billed as a 20th-anniversary tour. Which I guess makes the Gish tour an 18th-anniversary tour? Oh man, does this mean I have to send him something porcelain and something platinum? I hope he’s registered somewhere, at least!

“The August tour is going to be a blast… Expect a very loud and raucous show from us…and we are very, very happy to know we will finally be playing our own shows come November in New York, L.A., and Chicago… The 20th Anniversary shows will be magical… We are already working on lots of surprises.”

I love surprises! I hope one of those surprises, though, isn’t the great idea to hold the Chicago show at the Aragon Ballroom, because even though I saw the Pumpkins there in college, that place may be my least favorite place to see a concert in the world. (Picture a shirtless frat dude giving Kurt Cobain the finger and laughing the lyrics to “Rape Me” during a performance of said song, and you’ll get an idea as to why.

Whoops, sorry! To wipe away those bad memories, here’s the video for “Thirty-Three,” which is in addition to being one of my favorite Corgan songs my favorite number. (I think they do quiet really well, don’t you?)

Smashing Pumpkins [Official site]

According to a post on the Smashing Pumpkins’ official site, “plans are currently underway that will lead to the eventual release of a pre-Gish/Gish box set.” While I welcome any excuse to replace my scratched-to-hell disc from 17 years ago, I’m guessing that Billy Corgan’s motivations are a little more devious; delving into his back catalogue will probably produce sales results that are, at the very least, better than those achieved by Zeitgeist. (Although if he remakes any of the videos with certain brain-dead heiresses playing the role of James Iha, I am out.) But wait, there’s another way for Corgan to get the money out of his band’s Gish-era fanbase, who presumably on average have higher earning power than they did back in ’91:

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…

Yes, Billy and James and… those two new other people… are apparently ready to embrace the new trend of playing old, beloved albums in full in lieu of disappointing new material and embark on a Gish tour! Perhaps Courtney Love can open, since she loooooves “Rhinoceros,” which, to be honest, is never not worth posting:

Ahh, what the hell. More Gish videos! I’m so going to be at this show, I know it. Damn you, Corgan, for hitting my nostalgia sweet spot!

Gish Gish Gish … [Smashing Pumpkins via Fluxtumblr]

From Popbitch: “Smashing Pumpkins have just done a show in Australia for MTV. Singer Billy Corgan requested for his rider a defibrillator and an ambulance. And crew claim they weren’t allowed to walk in his line of sight while he was playing.” To be fair, I wouldn’t want the last thing I ever see to be some gaffer with his crack showing either. [Popbitch / Photo: AP]