I'm dying over the news today that the Smashing Pumpkins' albums from 1991 to 2000 are going to be reissued in fully remastered deluxe versions, starting this fall, with bonus material added to each.
First up will be Gish, Siamese Dream and Pisces Iscariot. Next year it's Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, the Aeroplane Flies High box set (Jesus—that thing was five discs) and Adore. Then in 2013 it's Machina/The Machines Of God and Machina II: The Friends & Enemies Of Modern Music.
Sorry, Zeitgest. (Save for two songs, that one was pretty much a misfire anyway. There is also a new album on the way in September called Oceania, which is essentially the next 10 tracks from the 44-song work-in-progress that Billy Corgan has been releasing here and there over the past two years.)
I can't begin to explain what an impact the "peak" years for the Pumpkins had on my own life; being seduced by Siamese Dream as an innocent college sophomore, just as Nirvana completely imploded; adjusting to and navigating the ups and downs of life as an openly gay man, with Mellon Collie as the soundtrack; living in Pittsburgh and free-falling through a turbulent, post-college introspective period with Adore, the year before I moved to Los Angeles.
I miss everything I'll never be. — "Rocket"
I actually didn't buy Gish till way later, and still have never heard Machina the whole way through. I did, however, stand in line at the Sunset Blvd. Virgin Megastore with my friend Mike the night before the latter was released, so he could buy it during the midnight sale. Despite not owning a copy, I firmly believe "Stand Inside Your Love" off that one is a total fucking heart-breaker. Likewise, "Rhinoceros" off Gish is an absolute classic.
My List Of The 15 Essential Guitar-Crunching And/Or Mind-Blowing Smashing Pumpkins Jams, In No Particular Order:
"Here Is No Why" "Cherub Rock" "Soma" "Today" "Love" "Rhinoceros" "Stand Inside Your Love" "The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning" "Crestfallen" "Ava Adore" "Tonight, Tonight" (*My karaoke standby!*) "Mayonaise" "Rocket" "For Martha" "Hummer"
Personally, I just can't wait to finally have Siamese Dream with decent sound quality.
I'm not nostalgic. Nor am I overly-sentimental and living in the past. I couldn't possibly bother with the Britneys, the Pinks, the Willows and the Gagas of Planet Pop if I was. But sometimes there are brief visits back—necessary stopovers, if you will—I need to make to keep the equilibrium stable, and to keep from falling off the edge.
See, these days and these nights, solitary driving hours in my life, have piled up over the decades and could virtually fill a stack of mileage logs jammed behind coffee cans on some dusty shelf in a garage. Only the garage is my head. And they're all stretches of time sound-tracked by radio hits—a bulk of them love songs that, at that the time of release, I had no relatable tie to or relevant frame of reference for.
I know you have to do this too (or at least I want to believe I'm not the only one who does): It's a Sunday afternoon in the highly un-exciting month of January. Something random like 76 cents from a gift card is left in your iTunes account, and the determination is there to just decimate it in one fell swoop. Some pop song from the solitary driving days, some guilty pleasure, some jam out there—one you wouldn't have been caught dead owning on CD single at the time—is in need attention. But which one?
Abruptly it hits you. Then you download it. And that seemingly non-exciting day turns on a dime as you find yourself on a long walk on the rain-soaked streets of the town where you live, with the song now inhabiting a playlist on your iPod, stuck on repeat. Only today those snatches of lyrics and flourishes of melody are so, so relatable. Who cares if you're trudging through a cemetery; a sidewalk behind some Eastern Bloc-style apartment complex; the gravelly alley behind the Wal-Mart by the freeway? The once-elusive references hit you like arrows launched from a crossbow. And, Jesus—it's only 4 o'clock.
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TAKING A DAY AT A TIME
I enrolled in a class called Literature & The Arts during my final semester at community college, and it stands out in my mind for three things: my friend (we'll call her Kaitlyn) who decided to take the class with me, a field trip we embarked on to see La bohème at the Benedum Center in downtown Pittsburgh, and the two instructors we had—one of whom is actually now the mayor of my hometown, and the other who apparently ran into some legal troubles (to put it mildly) a decade later.
(That's Kaitlyn and I to the right, waiting to take the bus to see La bohème.)
Between that class and the others that filled my schedule, there was also editing the school newspaper, the university applications, lofty ambitions for a future screenwriting career and the endless task of hanging out with friends—steadfast new pals made so easily, the way it only happens at that age.
There were also the treks to Pittsburgh and back on weekends (sometimes twice in one day—a 45-minute drive each way). To the Beehive. To the movies. Through the suburban back roads on cloudy days and at 1 a.m. on warm, hopeful nights. The future was inconsequential.
And every time I flipped to a station that was playing Jon Secada's "If You Go" in those spring and summer months of 1994, it was kind of blissful.
(Note that the video is basically all a re-enactment of the final scene from The Graduate.)
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DEALING WITH FEELINGS I DON'T WANNA HIDE
Not sure what the hell it is about this trifle, but I still have the lyrics and the arrangement of every backing vocal and every emotionally-charged improvisation Jon makes in "If You Go" imprinted in my memory—which is remarkable for the fact that, until five days ago, I hadn't heard the song in at least 13 or 14 years.
Learning to love, baby Without taking you along for a ride
It should be noted that when this single was in heavy rotation, the only action I was getting was of the occasional (read: quite frequent) self variety.
Tried to find myself Tried to find the truth Get out from this shell
Of course, there was much more at play, subconsciously, with the way my personal life was heading. But that wasn't on the schedule until next semester.
Sorry if you felt misled But I know what I feel I know what I said
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I'M ALMOST THERE TO SHOW YOU HOW MUCH I REALLY CARE
When the semester finally ended, the school had a formal dance on the Gateway Clipper, which zipped up and down the three rivers that snake along downtown Pittsburgh. There were three part-time jobs (!!!) to tend to that summer. I played tennis almost daily. The Andy Warhol Museum opened, which I visited with my parents. My cousin had a baby. The movies had Forrest Gump. Besides Jon Secada, Top 40 radio had Lisa Loeb's "Stay (I Missed You)," Prince's "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World," Ace Of Base's "Don't Turn Around" and Elton John's "Can You Feel The Love Tonight."
OJ Simpson's SUV chase went down on a Friday night, which I watched on the news while house-sitting for a friend who took off to Europe and talking to another friend—the only person I knew who was transferring to the same university I would be attending in the fall—on the phone.
All that said, despite the words in "If You Go," there wasn't anyone I really wanted. There was no intoxicating summer romance to get lost in. Hell, I don't even recall any actual intoxication in those months.
I can't imagine I skipped over daydreaming about what being in love would feel like. But my reality then was just a close-knit group of friends, harmless songs on the radio and a blinding, brilliant sense of naivete.
And that's probably why it was so perfect.
Don't you think I don't know This is where I belong
Here—you look at the tracklisting for the upcoming NOW That's What I Call The 1990s: The Alternative Pop Collection. I'll be over in the corner mainlining Geritol and fastening a noose out of the drapes.
1. New Radicals, "You Get What You Give" 2. Spin Doctors, "Two Princes" 3. Barenaked Ladies, "One Week 4. Meredith Brooks, "Bitch" 5. Sheryl Crow, "If It Makes You Happy" 6. Joan Osborne, "One Of Us" 7. Lisa Loeb, "Stay (I Missed You)" 8. Des’Ree, "You Gotta Be" 9. Duran Duran, "Ordinary World" 10. Shawn Mullins, "Lullabye" 11. Edwin McCain, "I’ll Be" 12. Tonic, "If You Could Only See" 13. Vertical Horizon, "Everything You Want" 14. Everclear, "Father Of Mine" 15. Live, "I Alone", "Shine" 17. Blind Melon, "No Rain" 18. Sublime, "What I Got"
P.S. Where the hell's that "wanna put my tender heart in a blender" song?
You might have caught that today's date is 9/02/10. In honor of this classiness, I wrote up a retrospective of the 4 Great Musical Moments On The Beverly Hills, 90210 Soundtrack over on Idolator. Check it out!
Since today marks Madonna's 62nd birthday, I couldn't let the occasion slip by without a particular tale of when I was under Ye Olde Vampyre's sway. Yes, chyldryn, we must go back into the mists of time as we did once before in Chart Rigger's Throwback series for Madge. And you'll like this one—it involves teenage boy drama.
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First off, here's my confession on a dance floor: the first Madonna album I ever owned was The Immaculate Collection. It was a Christmas gift from a friend of mine named Mandy, and we used to hang out in her bedroom playing it over and over. She was 14 and I was 16. We'd also alternate with INXS' X, Deee-Lite's World Clique, Pet Shop Boys' Behavior and Morrissey's Bona Drag, but usually it all came back to Madonna. We had a stupid dance we'd do to "Material Girl."
I actually used to defend the Vampyre a lot in those days. My mom once complained that her music sounded "mechanical," and I let her have it. (It was ironic to me, since she bought my dad Madonna's first two albums upon their release.) Anyway, that was then...
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A year-and-a-half later I graduated from high school. A friend invited me and some other broad on her family vacation to Ocean City, Maryland. It was summer 1992, and everything was "Baby Got Back," The Simpsons, Beverly Hills 90210 and Kriss Kross will make you jump, jump.
That was the first vacation I'd ever gone on with friends, sans my parents. We stopped in Baltimore on the way there, and that was the first time I ever heard a car alarm. It was also the first time I developed a crush on a guy.
The three of us hung out on the beach all week, and I played my Madonna "This Used To Be My Playground" and Elton John "The One" cassette singles a lot. One of the girls met this other boy named Jason on the beach who was our age and was vacationing with his mother and younger brother. The four of us hit it off instantly.
Of course, I think the reason for that is that the three of us Pennsylvanians were equally smitten with the athletic blond guy from Maryland. One night Anji's (the girl who invited us on the trip) parents went out, and we had Jason over. The girls made dinner and we all got drunk in the rented condo. There's a tragic picture of Jason and I singing along to Mariah Carey's cover of Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" to each other, holding remote controls up as microphones. I had on a black Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt and denim jean shorts (Christ!). On the TV in the background, the very first episode of Melrose Place was airing.
The four of us were inseparable that week. We spent days on the beach and nights on the heavily-populated, touristy boardwalk. One evening we debated over whether to see Unlawful Entry or Cool World at the movies. (Unlawful Entry won out—unfortunately. I've still never seen Cool World.) In retrospect, it feels silly to note that Jason seemed like a big kid, because, really, we were all kids (I was 18 and the three of them were 17). But there was something very childlike about him.
Me, I was all broody and listening to "The One" on my walkman over and over:
I saw you dancing out the ocean Running fast along the sand A spirit born of earth and water Fire flying from your hands
In the instant that you love someone In the second that the hammer hits Reality runs up your spine And the pieces finally fit
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On our last night together in Ocean City, the four of us went to the amusement park at the end of the boardwalk and rode all the rides. We made the most of it, but there was that nagging melancholy that we'd all connected for a brief moment in time that was about to end. Another year of high school beckoned for the three of them. As did lives in different states. And I had the uncertainty of a freshman year of college looming.
Us three vacationers walked to the hotel Jason and his family were staying at on the morning we left and we said our goodbyes. I'd stayed up the night before writing a long (and probably impossibly embarrassing) letter to him that said something along the lines of the fact that I'd never met another guy like him before. I guess in hindsight, those scribbled words were probably a thinly-veiled acknowledgment of me having a total guy crush for the first time. We all gave Jason a hug and I slipped him the letter.
On the five-hour car ride back to Western Pennsylvania, I kept rewinding and listening to "This Used To Be My Playground" on my headphones. I recall looking away from the rest of them, out the window, and quietly tearing up for a minute.
And looking back, I didn't cry so much over some guy we'd all just met a few days earlier. I think I was simply beginning to realize that a younger fraction of myself got left behind on that beach—the innocent part that still believed in the magic and possibilities that one week at the ocean could offer.
