The video to Ava Adore

Zwan (Billy and Matt) did a Q&A on that Zane Lowe TV show on MTV2 which take took questions from the viewers. Zane asked them the question I sent in about how is David Pajo getting on in the band. Billy and Matt were like…erm, err. Zwan split up 2 weeks later.

3 Likes

I remember that interview! I thought there were more members being interviewed than just the two of them, but I could be wrong…? I’ve tried to find that on the internet on various occasions but don’t think it exists…though I haven’t looked recently

I recorded it onto minidisc, and I’ve still got the disc. I’ll have to upload to YouTube or something.

1 Like

Good lord, I had somehow missed that swine flu thing. It has to be some sort of late manifestation of mental illness then, right? I’d like to think someday soon he’ll get the right people around him who will get him help instead of encouraging it, and we’ll see a return to normalcy. I saw him on that show in the 90s too (I think it was Bill Maher’s old show?) and I also remember him coming across as very intelligent and reasonable, which was consistent with all of the interviews and stage banter through then. It seems like that person would be thoroughly horrified by someone who would go on a show that claims Sandy Hook is fake. This is a depressing year.

1 Like

let me know if you do!

tbf it’s stripped of context a bit the way i’ve yanked it out of the interview. it’s an old AV Club iPod shuffling-type interview about music in general, and the quote comes just after he’s talking about playing with Will Oldham/Palace Brothers in the early 90s and getting deeper into folk and blues at the time when grunge was becoming huge

3 Likes

Dreadful. Bought it. Sold it. Bought it again at a charity shop. Gave it back to charity shop

1 Like

Predictably, I really like it. I think it’s a great album that suffers from its ending sequence (and cover art, obviously). The last three songs aren’t on the same level as everything before (though two of them have pretty good bridges).

I think people who were looking for another Pumpkins album were going to be disappointed. He basically made an electronic-tinged shoegaze album that avoided the pitfalls of a lot of other shoegaze acts (lack of strong melodies, song construction, dynamics, urgency and tension, etc.). I like the original run of Pumpkins albums way more of course, but I have to say I’ve yet to find another album that does what it does.

Best song: “DIA” by far, it’s a classic. I’m also not sure why everyone seems to hate “I’m ready” so much - the chorus melody is fantastic and classic Corgan, it’s very reminiscent of MCIS or Machina. Plus those warbly guitars and that subtle twist of the second chorus.

Good album!

1 Like

Mayonaise. Oh yes.

1 Like

This was the first CD I ever remember seeing in Fopp reduced to £1. You still don’t see many of those.

never bothered to listen to the album, but that video was distractingly bad. Maybe the corny Victorian Goth look that they stuck with from Adore-onward is what really killed their career.

I’m slightly out of the loop, is there anywhere online to listen to Teargarden in full in the proper order? On youtube everything seems to have Astral Plains as Track 2 and is missing a whole bunch of songs.
Figure I might as well revisit it and see if anything stands out during this new music lull.

Hmmm. Not sure. Corgan took them off the website before it went down. Pumpkins.net has a massive archive. The order i believe is:

Song for a son
Widow wake my mind
A stitch in time
Astral planes
(Teargarden theme)
Freak
Spangled
Tom Tom
Lightning Strikes
(Cottonwood Symphony)
The Fellowship
Owata

Something like that…

I’m in the minority and think “Take Me Down” is the perfect ending to Disc 1 of Mellon Collie and the only option for that slot.

It seems like a lot of people hate the Cure cover for some reason, I’m glad someone else likes it.

“Go” off of Machina II is fantastic also:

1 Like

Thanks! I forgot about so many of these. After not having listened to this in years, it’s even more apparent how much the production style and his new vocal style hurt it. “A Stitch in Time” stood out as one of the better ones, I feel like with some tweaks to the two previously mentioned things, it could have a place on a strong full length album.

A couple of other notes:

  • “Song for a Son” hasn’t aged well for me, I really liked it when it first showed up. It feels more classic rock than a Corgan song.
  • I never noticed how much the Astral Planes vocal line sounded like the “Destination Unknown” cover.

when i used to follow A Perfect Circle around, James Iha would do a jokey cover at each show and they were always awful.

sorta like this except covering the smiths in manchester and barely busking through the first verse

1 Like

Yeah song for a son is horrid and spelled disaster for this project from the get go…follwing it up with the cheese fest of widow wake my mind didnt help either.

You could make a decent EP with

Freak
A stitch in time
Spangled
Tom tom
Lightning strikes
Cottonwood Symphony

Still issues with bad vocals, poor lazy lyrics and dodgy recording/mixing but with more refinement could be a passable set

Yeah, that’s exactly what happened, the singing lessons. It’s kind of perplexing because if I remember correctly, he started taking them around Adore and in that time period he still sounded great. But then eventually that vibrato showed up and replaced the emotion. And then doubling down on that, the new style of production pushes that to the front.

His live vocals before the switch were my favorite vocals by anyone ever. There’s just so much emotion in them. I’ve heard so many live versions of Mayonaise where his voice doesn’t quite hit the “I just want to be me” climax correctly, but you can feel him summoning everything he has in him to get there and it’s incredible.

I listened to Still Becoming Apart a couple nights ago and it reminded me how great his vocal performance was on “Apathy’s Last Kiss”

1 Like

4 Likes