..: SPfreaks :..

2012.01.21 | ‘SP: THE EARLY YEARS’ COVER SONG CONTEST

On behalf of ThePumpkins.net and Act IV we are extremely happy to announce another cover song contest! This is their press release.

"Four years ago, Act IV and ThePumpkins.net collaborated on the successful Zeitgest Cover Song Contest, where fans were asked to submit covers of their favorite Zeitgeist era tracks to win some cool Smashing Pumpkins-related prizes. Now, with the recent re-issues of the first two classic Smashing Pumpkins albums, Gish and Siamese Dream, Act IV and ThePumpkins.net are collaborating to once again bring the fans another special contest.

The SP: THE EARLY YEARS COVER SONG CONTEST will be along similar lines to the Zeitgeist cover song contest. But this time around, fans are asked to submit covers of their favorite Pumpkins originals spanning the early part of The Smashing Pumpkins’ career (1988-1994), from the earliest pre-Gish demos to Pisces Iscariot and Vieuphoria. In addition to winning some great Pumpkins-related merch, the winners of the contest will earn a spot on an extended version of Ghost Children/Machines of God, a digital EP being given away as a free incentive with the Ghost Children 2/Friends and Enemies charity compilation. Two spots are up for grabs, with the ‘Best Cover Song’ being awarded by selection committee, and the ‘Fan Favorite Cover’ being selected by you, the fans!

The winners of both the ‘Best Cover Song’ and ‘Fan Favorite Cover’ selections will receive:

1) A copy of the Deluxe CD/DVD re-issues of both Gish and Siamese Dream
2) A spot on the extended version of the Ghost Children/Machines of God digital EP.
3) A copy of the Ghost Children 2/Friends and Enemies charity CD, the Ghost Children/Machines of God digital EP, and a recently unearthed original CD copy of the Ghost Children compilation, not available to the public for nearly 10 years!

For the contest, organizers have reached to out all corners of The Smashing Pumpkins Fan Community for help. We are pleased to announce exciting partnerships with our Pumpkins fan site sponsors, Blamo.org/Siva, Crestfallen.com, Ozphoria, SPfreaks, and Starla.org, who will be celebrating their 15th anniversary in 2012. Act IV also would like to welcome back, Neil Main, the creator of the popular, original Ghost Children charity compilation, to the fold. Neil was also an integral participant and collaborator with the Act IV organizers during the two Act IV charity concerts at the legendary Metro in Chicago in 2001 and 2002. The organizers also welcome, Ashley Fahey, former webmaster of the Smashing Pumpkins UK fan group.

In addition, we have developed a special partnership with Nameless Entity Media (formerly Tranquilizer Records), an online radio station and fan community. All contest entrants are invited to join their fan community and contact Nameless Entity Media to explore the possibility of having your cover and your original music featured on the radio (where applicable), being interviewed on air, and much more!

Depending on the success of the contest, organizers will consider the possibility of future contests and digital releases. So keep CD quality versions of your covers available, just in case! Please note that covers of songs the Pumpkins covered themselves will not be accepted. Before uploading your cover, please carefully review the Contest Rules.

Submissions will be accepted starting on December 21, 2011 and the contest will run until February 21, 2012. After the submission deadline passes, voting will commence. The winners are tentatively set to be announced on March 17, 2012.

For more information about the contest, please visit ThePumpkins.net. If you wish to know more about the Ghost Children 2 charity compilation and all things Act IV, please visit the Act IV website. Act IV is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary."

2011.09.18 | SP Record Club, OCEANIA album & TOUR NEWS

The hardcore fans, and also the average fans, will not have missed it: Smashing Pumpkins recently started the Smashing Pumpkins Record Club. Go to SmashingPumpkins.com to find out more. And don't forget to search for the somewhat "hidden" download for another song, Geek U.S.A. - Suicide Kiss No Vox demo!

Next to that, Billy Corgan just announced a few hours ago on Twitter that the new album is ready. "Oceania is done... I am so proud of this record, and this band". In the meantime, the band also figured out a rather extensive US and EU tour to try out the new songs of Oceania. The tour is called "The Other Side Of The Kaleidyscope", and the new songs will be mixed with some Greatest Hits from the past. These are the dates, as published on the tourpage of the website of the band.

USA tour October 2011

2011/10/05 Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles
2011/10/07 Fox Theatre, Oakland
2011/10/08 Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas
2011/10/10 Ogden Theatre, Denver
2011/10/13 The Riverside Theater, Milwaukee
2011/10/14 Riviera Theater, Chicago
2011/10/15 The Fillmore, Detroit
2011/10/17 9:30 Club, Washington
2011/10/18 Terminal 5, New York
2011/10/19 Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, Providence
2011/10/21 Orpheum Theatre, Boston
2011/10/22 Tower Theater, Upper Darby

Europe tour November & December 2011

2011/11/02 Annexet, Stockholm
2011/11/04 Spektrum, Oslo
2011/11/05 The Grey Hall (Freetown Christiania), Copenhagen
2011/11/07 Vorst Nationaal, Vorst (Bruxelles)
2011/11/08 Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam
2011/11/09 Zenith, Paris
2011/11/11 Apollo, Manchester
2011/11/13 O2 Academy, Glasgow
2011/11/14 O2 Academy, Newcastle
2011/11/15 Brixton Academy, London
2011/11/16 Brixton Academy, London
2011/11/18 O2 Academy, Sheffield
2011/11/19 O2 Academy, Birmingham
2011/11/21 Pier 2, Bremen
2011/11/23 Tempodrom, Berlin
2011/11/24 Palladium, Koln
2011/11/25 Stadhalle, Offenbach
2011/11/27 Zenith, Munich
2011/11/28 Mediolanum Forum, Assago
2011/11/29 PalaFabris, Padua
2011/12/01 Gasometer, Vienna
2011/12/02 Komplex, Zurich
2011/12/03 den Atelier, Luxembourg-City
2011/12/06 Sala Razzmatazz, Barcelona
2011/12/07 La Riviera, Madrid
2011/12/08 Campo Pequeno, Lisbon

2011.05.10 | MYTHBUSTING THE TRISTESSA VINYL

In 1990, Smashing Pumpkins released their second single, Tristessa, on Sub Pop Records. In the United States, Tristessa was released as a 7” vinyl single. Sub Pop also released a German 12” version, which included an extra song, Honeyspider, not made available on the US pressing.

The 7” vinyl was pressed in unusually high quantities. Mass production yielded an estimated total of 7,500 copies. This number is consistent with other singles pressed at the time; however, Sub Pop has only officially confirmed 2,500 color copies, on pink vinyl. More importantly, three (3) prominent colors have surfaced on the market over the years: pink, black, and gray versions(*). The gray versions are noticeably harder to come by, and therefore, completely accidental — right?

Collectors soon proposed a logical, albeit completely misguided, theory to explain how the gray versions came into existence. Put quite simply, the gray color is a result of the pressing plant not cleaning the plates when switching from pink to black, or vice versa. This would explain the limited quantities and also Sub Pop not officially acknowledging a gray pressing.

There is only one problem with this explanation: it is entirely false.

In order to dispel this rumor, SPfreaks teamed up with Pette Discographies, a discography site specializing in Sub Pop vinyl. Detailed below are reasons why we think this pressing was in fact intentional, and not a result of mixing pink and black vinyl.

• Combining pink and black vinyl does not produce gray vinyl.

Rather, the end-product is a purple hybrid. Luckily, this is not just an opinion — it’s happened before with another Sub Pop release. The color produced by combining pink and black vinyl can be seen here.

• Too many gray copies exist on the market.

If the gray vinyl was the result of a color overlap, the quantities produced would be exceedingly scarce — potentially 30 to 40, at best. It will never be known exactly how many gray copies were pressed, but based purely on scarcity, it is estimated somewhere in the 200-300 range.

• The range of color is inconsistent with a mistake.

An erroneous pressing resulting from leftover vinyl in the plates would display a wide range of color from one copy to another. However, this is not the case. All known copies are the same standard marbled gray color.

• Sub Pop is misleading. Often.

Sometimes it’s intentional, but many times, it is not. The fact that they did not disclose a gray pressing does not mean anything. Many colors for other releases have also never been mentioned. For example, note the Afghan Whigs’ single, Sister Brother. Sub Pop talked about the red and black vinyl, but never mentioned all of the other colors that they produced. The same applies to the Nirvana Sliver single — they mentioned the blue and black version, but none of the many other variations.

Now, at this point, it all seems so cut and dry. But wait! If the gray vinyl was no accident, why do so many of them exist? Our friends at Pette Discographies offer up another suggestion:

“Now, there is the outside chance that it was a mistake, but not as previously reported. It's remotely possible that the pressing plant started making these in a color other than the one that was specified, discovered the error, and changed over to the correct color. I have seen this happen before, but it is not that common. More likely is a scenario in which the pressing plant did not have enough of the one color (pink) to finish the order as placed, and filled out the remaining color copies ordered with a different color.”

SPfreaks would like to thank Pette Discographies for the ideas and suggestions put forth regarding this and other Sub Pop releases. However, in true collector form, we’d like for you to have a look at just a few more color variations (if you can stomach it).

Tristessa 7”: Purple Vinyl (next to Pink copy)
Tristessa 7”: Gray Vinyl (with Pink Marbling)
Tristessa 7”: Pink Vinyl (with Gray/Black Marbling)

These three examples seem to suggest that some cross-contamination did, in fact, occur when switching between pink and black pressings (as well as between the pink and gray pressings). These rare examples fall in line with all assumptions that simultaneously disqualify the gray vinyl from being an accident. Indeed, color variations exist within the Tristessa single, and are definitely worth a second viewing.

(*) Other color variations exist, but for the purposes of this article, we will concentrate solely on these three colors.

2011.04.27 | Billy Corgan's videomessage: HOT NEWS!

Finally, an official announcement of the super unreal happy news that William Patrick Corgan promised us. And it appears that most fans are impressed with the news. First of all, there is the next Teargarden song - ‘Owata’. This song has been played live several times already, in different styles, so who knows how the studio version will turn out! We’ll see next week.

In a few months, we will see the release of Oceania, an album which will be part of the 44-song Teargarden by Kaleidyscope project – taking a new direction, which William hinted at back in December. And before the end of the year, we will see reissues of the albums Gish, Siamese Dream, and Pisces Iscariot, digitally remastered with extra songs from the Smashing Pumpkins vault, some known and some perhaps unknown.

Then in 2012, we will see the reissue of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, The Aeroplane Flies High, and Adore, with Machina/The Machines of God and Machina II: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music released as one package for the first time commercially, in 2013. And last but not least, a tour is planned for the latter part of the year, no dates have been announced, but it is likely that North America and Europe will get some live shows. It looks like it's all happening now for the Smashing Pumpkins!

Check out the complete videomessage of Billy Corgan on Facebook.