A Complete Explanation Of Everything

Smashing Pumpkins - RDS, 09/02/08

Billy Corgan gave an interview, years and years ago, to one of those godawful guitar magazines that I might have picked up because it had some handy tab in it at the time. Anyway, I read the shagging interview and one thing he said really resonated with me, from the perspective of writing and playing music. Essentially, it boiled down to the following (and bear in mind I have used this as a template in lots of ways, despite only being a middling Smashing Pumpkins fan)...

The quote went something like:

"We have a rule in this band. If it's more fun to play than to listen to, we throw it out and start again."

I thought that was mega and the absolute purest expression of the philosophy of what music should be about. Certain people I know, believe music should be all sorts of things, difficult, accessible, all manner of variation in between.

My own philosophy was perfectly espoused by that Corgan quote and I've lived and died in bands as a result and probably spent more time wondering about the particular virtues of certain songs than is healthy.

In fact.

I know it isn't healthy.

So tonight, the Pumpkins, or rather Jimmy Chamberlain and Billy, plus a foxy bass player came along and played a show. And in a certain sense, they kicked out the jams. "Today", "Drown", "Cherub Rock", "Bullet with Butterfly Wings", "Perfect", "1979", a new version of "Ava Adore", why amn't I raving about this performance?

Well, probably because in a quid pro quo, the other part of the show was in absolute essence, musical wanking. A stonking 20 minute version of "Tarantula"? No thanks. It was flat out, not very pleasant to listen to.

Then he had a rant about pro-tools and such. Which was highly ironic given that when he kicked Jimmy C out of the band during the ill fated tours of the late 90s, he replaced him with the drummer from Filter. Who were kinda kings of the samples and that form of recording and writing at that point.

All in all, there was a slightly ironic, post something feel to the show. We couldn't laugh at ourselves though.

We'd paid into this thing.

And I'm not sure it was worth it.