Yesterday was the birthday of Billy Corgan. Remember him? He
was the leader of The Smashing Pumpkins. They were tremendously successful from
1993-96 and then . . . not. There was a precipitate plunge in fan adoration
after Corgan fired powerhouse drummer (and heroin addict) James Chamberlin.
Corgan and Chamberlin were the key factors in the Pumpkins, though the other
two members, James Iha and D’arcy Wretzky added a lot to the look and aura and
played live, whether or not they played on all the recordings.
In 1997 sometime, Kajsa and I went to a record show and
bought a copy of Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness (1995). I’d been curious
about it ever since it showed up in record stores with that distinctive cover
art. We were pleased to find that the album had a variety of moods and was at
times a major shot of rock adrenalin. My comment about the Pumpkins, based only
on their appearance, was: “It looks like Pugslie grew up and formed a band.”
Pugslie, of course, was the son of Gomez and Morticia Addams on The Addams
Family. The name stuck, and Corgan was henceforth known as Pugslie in our
house. After hearing Mellon Collie, we tacked on the tagline “savior of modern
rock” to his name.
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| James Iha, D'arcy Wretzky, Billy Corgan, James Chamberlin |
So here, on today’s track, you can hear how Corgan earned
and lived up to his half-facetious moniker, “Pugslie, the Savior of Modern Rock.” Let’s recap: Cobain was dead; The Pixies had
disbanded; Pearl Jam was too earnest; Jane’s Addiction were in hiatus; mostly everyone
else was selling out to Rap. Rock was close to dead. Sure, there was still
R.E.M., but, Monster notwithstanding, they had never been balls-out rockers.
Corgan’s contemporaries, like Jeff Tweedy of Uncle Tupelo and then Wilco, were
on a rather different trip. Roots rock and all that. For a brief patch there in
the dwindling years of the Nineties, the Pumpkins ruled.
And today’s song was one of the chief exhibits from Mellon
Collie, thanks to James Chamberlin. When I heard this I was happy, like I was
when listening to “Baba O’Riley” by The Who, or “Guts” by John Cale, or “The
Nile Song,” by Pink Floyd. We put it on in the car and cranked it. And that was
what rock was all about. From Dad to kid.
I also got a kick out of Pugslie’s strangled singing, as though his vocal chords are being pressed in a vice and he still
manages to sing: “I know I am meant for this world!” Chamberlin’s drum fills
sell this all the way, and I like that Corgan, like
The Pixies, goes quiet at times before stoking up the sledgehammer: “Have you
heard the words / I’m singing in this song / It’s for the girl / I’ve loved all
along / Can a taste / Of love be so wrong?”
That last line was a bit de trop, but the idea of singing all along for
one girl felt merited, even if it’s bullshit.
Since we were approaching the end of Kajsa’s high school
days, the lines “As all things must surely have to end / And great loves will
one day have to part” had a certain melancholy to them. It’s doubtful that
Corgan was thinking about the great love of a parent and child duo but that’s
what was on my mind in those days, especially as the line “I know that I am
meant for this world” kicked with a full-tilt rush, like the surge of joy at
one’s spawn heading out into the world to see what’s what. Go win some college funding, young one!
All of this is a way of saying, I suppose, that Smashing
Pumpkins are forever the band of the late Nineties, to me. During my daughter’s
teens, they tapped into my own adolescence, returning me to the love of
power chords and megaton drumming, as well as little lyrical and moody
inflections, that I associate with listening to Black Sabbath and Deep Purple
in my day.
Hear it in that great opening as Pugslie sounds out the
heart-rending cry that spells the defeat of all our rock’n’roll dreams: “I fear that I
am ordinary / Just like everyone”—then hear the music crash over his head like
a wave that buoys him rather than annihilates him . . . and we’re off.
Recently I read a piece, very mean-spirited, that held
Corgan’s recent incarnations up for scathing ridicule. Dude seems adrift. But I
liked Zwan, Corgan's post-Pumpkins band, and the album Mary Star of the Sea which, as it happened, was
released the year my daughter graduated college as if Pugslie wanted to look in
one last time—“my life has been extraordinary / Blessed and cursed and won”—before
claiming “the silence of the world.”
Now Corgan is 47, and looks more like Uncle Fester.
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