I didn't see this anywhere in OB. Shame on you all.
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It’s the day Smashing Pumpkins fans have been waiting for for weeks: Billy Corgan’s big announcement. The announcement(s) came this morning in a four-minute video message from Corgan on the Pumpkins’ Facebook page.

Highlights of the message, more or less in the order presented:

1. “Owata” to be the 10th Teargarden song

The Smashing Pumpkins have one more song in the recording studio can: “Owata”, which will come out “in about a week, hopefully end of April, beginning of May.” The song will be the tenth track of Teargarden by Kaleidyscope.

2. Pumpkins to record “album within an album,” Oceania

The band will then return to the studio to record, “old-school style,” a full-length album of 9 to 11 songs called Oceania. “Even though I pronounced the album dead, I guess I still want to do another one,” jokes Corgan. “It is part of the Teargarden project,” he stresses. “Most of the songs are already written and we’re just finishing them up now. We’re going to go into the studio May-June-July and hopefully it’ll be out September 1st.”

3. Pumpkins may tour Europe or U.S. in August

“We’re also going to be doing some touring in August,” reports Corgan, with Europe being the most likely terrain. “I’ve heard everything from possible America to possible Europe. … We’re trying to sort that out.”

4. Gish through Machina II to be remastered, reissued with extra tracks

In conjunction with EMI, Corgan says, “We’re going to reissue all the albums. So by Christmas this year, Gish, Siamese Dream and Pisces Iscariot will all come out reissued, remastered, with some extra tracks, unreleased things. And then in 2012, you’ll see Mellon Collie, Aeroplane Flies High, and Adore. … And then in 2013 we’ll have Machina I and Machina II.”

Corgan adds that the releases will also be on “high grade” vinyl, and that the two Machina albums may be “put together finally in the correct running order.” In addition, Corgan “might even possibly remix [the Machina albums], because I know through the years not everyone’s liked those mixes.”

5. Band has full control over past unreleased material

Corgan says the Pumpkins have, “after about nine, ten years of negotiating … finally secured the rights to all the unreleased material in the Pumpkins archives.” The rights encompass “both stuff that we possess, and the stuff that our old label EMI has.”

He later expands: “The cool thing is, what we’ve arranged to do in coordination with EMI is to create sort of a digital box set, and the great thing about the rights we’ve secured is we have the ability to put out any of the unreleased stuff any time we want any way we want, we don’t have to work it out with EMI.”

“This allows us a ton of flexibility. So, you’ll see everything from free stuff that we own…early Pumpkin practices from 1987, there’s concerts, there’s videos, there’s of course the famed last show–sorry about that–so there’s tons of stuff … [T]he great thing is there’s nothing standing now between our ability to get the stuff together and put it out.”

“I’m looking forward to getting the albums reissued, remastered and hopefully introduce a new generation to the great legacy of the band, which you know we worked very hard to have lots of stuff that could one day be looked at again … That’s very close to my heart … putting out those albums again and being able to put some of the live stuff and the unreleased stuff out in coordination with it.”
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Source: Hipsters United

And in case anyone is curious, Billy clarified this today: “When the Warner Brothers rights come back/2014, i’ll prepare re-issues of Zwan, my solo album, and Zeitgeist. Tons of unreleased stuff!”

Discuss.

I'd love to get the first three Pumpkins discs on vinyl.

You can pretty much get original pressings of Gish and SD at any record store and they will sound probably just as good or better than any digitally remastered p.o.s.

Unreleased songs, demos or outtakes however are very cool.
Also, I actually love Machina I and II so it will be nice to see those cleaned up and re-packaged.

I've never seen them at my two local stores. I figured they were long out of print and ebay prices are a bit too high for me.

For SP fans: Any idea how much material from the early days of any value is still yet unreleased? Enough to make this sort of reissue campaign worthwhile?

That's what I was wondering too. I thought that pretty much everthing was out by now, unless there's some obscure demos sitting out there.

Do you mean commercially unreleased (but surfaced in bootleg form) or completely unreleased?

Because Billy Corgan was and still is one of the most prolific songwriters in the history of rock.

Case in point:
There are probably 4 - 5 full CDs of material from before they recorded Gish. Much of this has leaked out in some form or another but I'm certain there's still a lot out there. Some of this stuff ("East", "Jennifer Ever", "Vanilla", "Egg", etc) is outstanding and would be worth a release in its own right.

Most of what was recorded for Gish itself has leaked as well (a lot of this is on Mashed Potatoes) but they demoed a lot of material around this time, including early versions of "Rocket" and "Luna". They also recorded a bunch of shows in January-February 1992 - and most of these shows are PHENOMENAL.

They recorded at least 30 songs for Siamese Dream. Most of these have been released on the album, Pisces Iscariot and as b-sides but here is a list of things that have never seen the light of day (at least from the album sessions; demos of a few of these have surfaced):

Set The Ray To Jerry (electric heavy version)
Doorstep (early electric version of "Meladori Magpie")
Bullet With Butterfly Wings (really early version)
Tulips
She Says

There are also a number of really obscure tracks that were officially released but unless you know where to look or are an obsessive collector can be hard to find:

Siamese Dream
Purr Snickety
The Infinite Sadness
Apathy's Last Kiss

Then there's BBC Sessions (alt versions of "Disarm" and "Quiet" plus the hard-to-find cover of Depeche Mode's "Never Let Me Down Again"), demos of songs, and whatever shows they managed to record from this period.

Mellon Collie...oh man. They said they recorded 56 songs for the album; take out what is on the album and what eventually ended up on The Aeroplane Flies High and you still have "Towers of Rabble", "Speed" (this song is AWESOME - it sounds like a sped-up combination of "Tonight, Tonight" and "Frail & Bedazzled") and whatever else they were demoing around this time. Remember - there are approximately 65-70 "new" songs that are sampled on "The Pastichio Medley". Some of the riffs to these songs are SICK - so I hope Billy decides to let loose some of these songs. There's also songs that were demoed but never appeared again, like "Methusela", that eventually ended up surfacing to the collecting public. Then there's all the shows they recorded (lots), and several shows that were pro-shot either by the band, by TV Stations or by Virgin. So the Mellon Collie reissue has the chance to be incredible.

The Aeroplane Flies High - I can't imagine what they would put on this as far as extra tracks. There will, however be a vinyl reissue - which is awesome.

Adore: they recorded about 40 songs between the multiple sessions. 16 ended up on the album, others were released as B-sides or on compilations ("Czarina", "Once In A While", "Summer", "Waiting", "Because You Are" (featuring Matt Cameron on drums!), "Saturnine", "Winterlong", "Soot and Stars", the immortal "Blissed And Gone" ) and then there is, of course, the legendary "Let Me Give The World To You", the studio version of which has never been released. This is probably the #1 most coveted SP outtake and the reissue will be worth buying for this reason alone. They also recorded a version of "Cash Car Star" around this time that would be fascinating to hear, as well as a cover of "I Want You To Want Me" that would be worth releasing. There are also a lot of songs from this era that surfaced on leaked demo tapes ("Chewing Gum", "Do You Close Your Eyes", "Joy", "Satellites", "Without You", "Jersey Shore", "Valentine", etc) that will be considered. And again, there are a lot of SBDs and pro-shot videos. Considering how many Adore shows exist in SBD form (at least 15), I'm sure there will be less live material, though they may decide to release a version of their Joy Division cover of "Transmission". My bet is that all the b-sides and outtakes from this era will be collected. I can't wait to see the artwork, though.

Machina and Machina II: These were intended to be one album. My guess is that they both get reissued, and with a limited edition version that has both albums mixed together using the original tracklist. Once again, even with three albums of material released and some phenomenal b-sides ("Speed Kills" especially - guaranteed that this will be on there in some form), there is a ton of unreleased material. There are all the alternate versions of songs (almost every song had at least 2 arrangements), there are songs that ended up getting recorded over the course of the tour ("Pale Scales"), there are tour rehearsals where they worked out even more different arrangements of songs both old and new (I'd love to hear a studio version of the reworked "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans") and there are tons of acoustic versions.

And then there's the "final" Metro show, which should be released in its own right. Somebody needs to have an intervention with Billy about that one - as far as I'm concerned, it should be released ASAP.

So yeah, there's lots left in the vault. If Billy and whoever else is helping him really wanted to they could put out reissues that would put Pearl Jam's to shame. I just hope they actually do.

Matt's post got me more interested in the reissues than the OP did.

There's a lot more than I had thought,thanks for the breakdown. I really want the "Aeroplane" release on vinyl, so much good stuff there. The track itself is one of my favorites. I agree, Billy needs to get over his issues with the Metro show and just release it.

Matt, thanks for the more than thorough reply. I'm actually quite interested in these now.

what is his issues with the Metro show?

They were going to release it and it got held up by legal issues. Now it is no longer their final show, though I think quite a few fans see otherwise. It's got to be awkward on all sorts of fronts - there were a number of major screwups that night that would likely need to be edited out (or at least there is one that HAS to be edited out) and it's no longer the last show, and yet the emotion is very, very real that night - Billy bawled his eyes out at the end of the show.

Then there's the legal and logistical headaches. With guest stars (Rick Nielson, the Frogs, Matt Walker, Billy Corgan Sr.) you have to make sure they are paid; the show was 4 and 1/2 hours long, so it would have to be at least 2 discs even before bonus material; and if they never edited down the material (I have to assume that this has already been done, considering that "Fuck You" was released 10 years ago), that will require tons of work as well.

So I assume the show touches a nerve Billy might still not be ready to deal with.

Just curious, what are the parts that need to be edited, specifcally the major one. It's been years since I've listened to that show and never all the way through. Thanks.

All I want is bootlegs from the MCIS tour. That is all.

I second this. I've only seen the band once, and it was with all original members right before it all went to shit. I'd love a chance to buy a soundboard of that.

Whoever was playing the intro music forgot to press "stop" on the CD player, and so when the band kicked into "Rocket" for the first time, the studio version of "Tonight, Tonight" started playing loudly over the band. They had to stop, wait for the CD to stop and then start playing again. That's the kind of thing that should absolutely be edited as it's a major, major distraction and buzzkill.

There is also a major screwup at the beginning of "Rhinoceros" but that's the kind of thing that can be left alone. They restarted the song and it's flawless after that.



I assume we'll get at least one SBD from that era...I mean, that tour went on for 13 months. They had to record some of those I think. There are a number of SBDs from that tour circulating but most of them are either short shows or shortened by radio.

Now would be the time to familiarize yourself with the band's live archive if you have not already.

Thanks for the thorough rundown, Matt.

even tough im a big pumpkin fan, im not that crazy about some of the b sides from machina specially...its like billy writes a lot of material,but its not always that good...
its gonna be great to see some live shows from the siamese-mellon collie era , as well as some shows from adore...
I like the idea of the new band recording a whole record, and i wish they gave for free some bootleg from last year, i saw them and the were really good....
i want the reworked shame!!!

Thanks for that link, Matt. I just found a link to my first and only SP show (Champaign '96). It was my first "real concert" and I've been looking for it for ages. Will download soon.

thanks for the rundown...I figured part of it was the whole "it's not the last show anymore" but wasn't sure what else it could be