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| Jan 18.98 - Nov 23.97 | Nov 22.97 - The Oldest News ]

James Iha Concert -

James Iha will be playing at the Cabaret Metro in Chicago, March 30. It's called "In The Top Note...An Intimate Concert.". I've heard it's already sold out, so the only you'll get in is if you buy of scalpers for a higher price.

James Birthday! -

It's James Iha's Birthday today, he is now 30 years old. Is it just me or does it seem the pumpkins are getting old? Billy's already 31 years old and James just turned 30.

New Release Dates from Virgin Records Canada -

Virgin Records Canada has posted some new release dates about when the first single will be available.
Here is the info they posted:

Smashing Pumpkins Adore (May 26)
The highly anticipated follow-up to "Mellon Collie & The Infinite
Sadness" from Billy Corgan, James Iha and D'Arcy. Watch for the
first single/video on radio stations and video channels starting April
27th. Can't really tell you what it sounds like, but it is pure Pumpkins!

Beautiful Girls ?!? -

Marylin Manson and Billy Corgan didn't get to see the beautiful people they wanted to in Hollywood recently. The Crazy Girls strip club was so busy it couldn't even clear a table for the rock stars, who arrived with Pantera following the Texas metal band's show at the nearby Palladium. So Manson, Corgan and Pantera huffed off to the Rainbow.

-- Circus Magazine

Pumpkins Sue British Company For Interview Disc -

Smashing Pumpkins Sue British Company For Interview Disc

The Smashing Pumpkins have filed suit against a U.K. firm for releasing a CD and booklet of a 1991 radio interview without the group's consent.

The Pumpkins are seeking an injunction to stop the album's distribution and close to $1 million in damages against Sound and Media Ltd., who purchased the master tapes from the company that originally recorded the interview.

The band contends that the CD contains material intended for a one-time only broadcast and was never cleared for further commerical usage.

Virgin Records has agreed upon a settlement with The Smashing Pumpkins. -

Pumpkin Suit Smashed

Virgin Records and the Smashing Pumpkins have kissed and made up. But the kiss, in the form of a renegotiated contract, cost Virgin plenty. Just two weeks ago it looked as though a bitter court battle was brewing when Virgin filed papers in Los Angeles Superior court suing the band for breach of contract. The suit claimed the band notified the label last fall that instead of delivering seven albums as spelled out in its 1991 contract, the band was delivering just three ... and walking. According to the suit, the band cited a California state labor law which limits personal service contracts to just seven years as its justification for bailing.

That state law, originally used by movie stars as a way to break free from Hollywood's once-dominant studio system, has in recent years become a favorite bargaining chip for musicians, including Don Henley, Toni Braxton and members of Metallica, looking to re-negotiate and sweeten their existing label deals. Since the law has never been tested in court, it's an even more powerful bargaining tool to use against wary record company lawyers. "It's like the Black Hole," says the Pumpkins' co-manager Peter Mensch. "Nobody wants to find out what's on the other side."

The threat worked for the Pumpkins. A senior Virgin source confirms the band won new terms to its existing contract. The Pumpkin's fourth Virgin album, Adore, should hit stores in May, and the band has agreed to deliver original music for album number five as well. As for record numbers six and seven, Virgin might release two compilations (i.e. greatest hits and live albums) to round out the contract. The band would then be free to re-sign or go elsewhere. Naturally, the band also got more money too, with its royalty rate increased, presumably to the superstar range of 20 percent.

As for why the label went to court, the source at Virgin explains that because of a legal technicality and looming deadline, the label had to file papers, or the band would have been free to jump to another record company.

I'm Back from Vacation! Sorry for Lack of Updates -

I have just arrived back home after waiting in the airport for over 4 hours waiting to get on the plane but due to a storm I was delayed. I have lots of news to be added here tomorrow in the morning, My backup person Chad did a little updating but he is a busy man. I'm sorry for the lack of updates but everything will be fixed soon. Lots and lots of news to be added in more detail.
I recieved 294 e-mail messages, please be patient i will answer to all of them and those people that want the Viper Room CD, don't worry I'll contact you too soon.

Here's a picture of where i was:

1999 Album and Beyond -

With "Adore" coming up in May and the greatest rock album of all time being delivered in 1999, the Pumpkins still have two more albums to pump out to fill their contract with Virgin. Well, according to Musiqueplus, the Smashing Pumpkins will put out a 6th album which will be a compilation. Of what, we've no idea. The 7th album will supposedly be a live album, such as Earphoria. None of this can be totally confirmed so don't get any hopes up yet. (Information gotten from post on Listessa.)

Possible Album and Single Release Dates -

According to Virgin Records Sweden, the Smashing Pumpkins will be releasing a brand new single on May 4th. The song being released has yet to be announced. They also listed that on May 25th (probably 26th here in the U.S.) the actual album will be released. This is not completely confirmed but is believed to be true.

Billy's Birthday on March 17th -

Billy Corgan will be celebrating his 31st birthday on March 17, home of the other holiday, St. Patrick's Day. Corgan is also Irish so, in a quote from him, "I was born on St. Patrick's Day, I'm Irish, I'm lucky 7's."

Smashing Pumpkins Already Planning Beyond "Adore" -

The Smashing Pumpkins have announced that they will not be touring America to support their next album, "Adore," which is due out in May.

After playing a grueling one hundred and eleven dates on their last tour, the Pumpkins will spend only six to eight weeks touring mostly in Europe for "Adore", with just a few dates here in the U.S.

What's up? Apparently Billy Corgan wants to get back into the studio to begin work on another new Pumpkins album, due next year. A band manager told the online magazine "Addicted To Noise" (www.addict.com) that the followup to "Adore" will be "the greatest f***ing rock album anyone's ever heard."

Another management source told MTV News that the album after "Adore" will indeed be "Full-out rock," whereas "Adore" is lower key. It's longest guitar solo is four seconds, perhaps suggesting that it's not suited for two-hour shows in large venues.

Billy Corgan spoke to MTV News recently and he talked about "Adore" and his penchant for writing so much new material. "I think that probably more than any other album, there's kind of an eveness amongst all the material, you know."

"I managed to write another double-record, we're just not putting it out. I kind of lost my interest in releasing b-sides. I'd rather release more albums and less b-side compilations... 'cause I think we've done a lot of good work outside of our albums. I think the fans appreciate it, but at the end of the day most people don't even know those things exist" [700k QuickTime].

Post-Adore, Pumpkins Will Aim For 'Greatest Rock Album' Ever -

Post-Adore, Pumpkins Will Aim For 'Greatest Rock Album' Ever

"Billy's goin' for the whole fuckin' world, man," said co-manager Cliff Burnstein of leader Corgan's future plans. Photo by Jay Blakesberg

As they wrap up latest effort, Adore, band already plans to redefine rock with 1999 release.

Addicted To Noise Senior Writer Gil Kaufman reports : Don't ever underestimate the ambitions of Billy Corgan and his bandmates.

Even as the Smashing Pumpkins put the finishing touches on their upcoming album, Adore, the Chicago-based group has already set its sights on recording what co-manager Cliff Burnstein described as "the greatest fucking rock album anyone's ever heard."

"The next one knocks it right out of the fucking universe," Burnstein said. "Billy's totally stoked. Billy's goin' for the whole fuckin' world, man."

Adore (late May), which Burnstein described as a "personal" record, is currently in the final stages of recording in L.A. Though not necessarily packed with the kind of bombastic rock songs that were featured on the band's multi-platinum 1995 album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the new album focuses more on "naked songwriting," Burnstein said.

Burnstein said the group will spend six to 10 weeks promoting Adore -- mostly in Europe, with a few promo appearances in the U.S. -- but there won't be a full-scale tour. The group is expected to launch a major world-tour following the 1999 release of the next album.

Asked if there was a concept for the post-Adore album, Burnstein laughed and said, "Yeah, to make the greatest fucking rock album anyone's ever heard."

For now, however, the band must prepare its latest work for release, an album that's been described by bandleader Corgan as "arcane night music."

"From what I've heard [of the material earmarked for Adore], the new album is songs in the vein of '1979' and 'Thirty-Three,' " Burnstein said of the groovin', electronic tracks from Mellon Collie. "It's not big-ass rock songs. The idea was to write songs and not use the big dynamics."

Rather than layer Adore with rock elements, Pumpkins guitarist James Iha said the music tends to be more introspective and thoughtful. "The Pumpkins record is more of a down record," guitarist James Iha previously told Addicted To Noise. "It's less about rock, but it doesn't sound like my record, half-organic, half-electric," he added, referring to his soft-edged solo album, Let It Come Down. "It's sort-of hard to say what it is actually."

Among the musicians joining Corgan, Iha and bassist D'Arcy on Adore are former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron and Beck's drummer, Joey Waronker, who play on an undisclosed number of tracks. A majority of the songs, however, were recorded with a drum machine as backbeat.

Former Filter drummer Matt Walker, who left the band following the Pumpkins' Dec. 5 slot opening for the Rolling Stones, is not expected to be featured on the new release.

Among the songs expected to appear on Adore are "Ava Adore," "To Sheila," "Perfect" and "Let Me Give the World To You," the latter of which was produced by superstar producer (and American Recordings founder) Rick Rubin (Run-D.M.C., Beastie Boys, Tom Petty).

Former Nitzer Ebb leader Bon Harris is also contributing to the album, although his role is still unclear. The album is being mixed by Flood (U2, Depeche Mode), who will also be working with the Pumpkins on their next album, according to Burnstein. [Tues., March 3, 1998, 6 p.m. PST]

Not much news the last few days -

There hasen't been much news the last few days. Hopefully we'll get some by the end of the week or next week. As it gets closer and closer to May there should be more and more news coming about.

Billy Corgan's House -

I'm looking for pictures of Billy Corgans house that someone is willing to share. Please send me the pictures by e-mail. The MoonKids that operate a pumpkins page and usually have lots of enemies on the news group alt.music.smash-pumpkins will not share his pictures with us here at Netphoria, I'm not going to steal the pictures from him because he'll just harass me just like everyone on the newsgroup. So if you have pictures of Billy Corgan's house please send them in.

Billy Corgan Clears Up The Hole Story -

Billy Corgan Clears Up The Hole Story

Billy Corgan's role in the creation of the next Hole album has been the topic of a great many reports and rumors over the last year. MTV News recently spoke with Mr. Corgan to get the latest and straightest story on his contributions on Hole's next album, and how that role as a kind of stimulus for the band came to be.

Says Corgan, "Courtney and I have been friends for years, and I knew personally that they were having a hard time, so I kind of came up with the notion of well, why don't you just give me a month and let me just see if I can kind of kick them in the ass so to speak and just kind of get the whole record going...instead of the band kind of waiting around for Courtney to decide that she wanted to make another album to kind of get the band's juices going. So, that's what happened," explains the Smashing Pumpkins frontman.

"I got together and just wrote a bunch of songs with them, with them and helped them with their songs," said Corgan. "And that was all very simple. That's kinda' how it started off. We talked about different scenarios about me, the whole term at the time was executive producer, which was just like I was gonna' be the eye in the sky. I was never supposed to produce on a day to day level because that would've meant I couldn't do this record [Smashing Pumpkins' next]. And then I suggested that the material was so strong that they get a real producer, someone who I know could bring the album to its full fruition. And that's it. Everything else that's been added to it's just drama. It's as simple as that." [listen to it: 250 k .au file]

Corgan Says Fans May Be Surprised By Next Pumpkin's LP -

Billy Corgan Says Fans May Be Surprised By Next Pumpkin's LP

Head Pumpkin Billy Corgan had a lot to say to MTV News recently about his band's highly anticipated next record. Foremost in his mind, Corgan says that he feels listeners will not be able to readily categorize Smashing Pumpkins' upcoming body of work.

Says Corgan, "When people ask what this album was like, I use the word "arcane," 'cause I think that it seems to sum up the music best. It¹s kind of like music from the past, but done in a futuristic way. And I think there's natural elements on the album and there are synthetic elements on the album."

He continues, "It's like taking all the textures of all past music and trying to apply it to a kind of new song form and it's all just very songy. There's not a lot of guitar, I think there is one guitar solo, that lasts four seconds."

So what can we expect? "I think people are going to be surprised by the kind of reversal in a lot of ways, but the people that say it's acoustic will be wrong. The people that say it's electronic will be wrong. The people that say it's a Pumpkins' record will be wrong. I will try to make something that is indescribable

Smashing Pumpkins' new album is due out in late May.

James Iha live on AOL -

Live from Chicago, James Iha participated in an America Online chat on February 26th at 9 p.m.(EST).
For the entire transcript, please click here.

Pumpkins win at the Grammy Awards! -

The Smashing Pumpkins won Best Heavy Rock Performance at the Grammy Awards for The End Is The Beginning Is The End.

New Voting Poll Section Added! -

There is now live polls for you to vote on at Netphoria. Click here to take you to the Polling Center, there are 2 topics for you to vote on at the present time.

The Smashing Pumpkins Sued by Virgin Records -

Virgin Records has launched a lawsuit against the Smashing Pumpkins, according to a report in the Billboard Bulletin. The news service says that a lawsuit filed in California yesterday alleges breach of contract and non-delivery of albums and says that the band only produced three albums for the label instead of an expected seven. The band signed to Virgin in 1991.

The suit says that The Pumpkins informed Virgin in October of 1997 that they would not be delivering any more albums after January 13, 1998 under the terms of their current contract. According to Billboard, the band cited a California labor law which limits personal services contracts to seven years, similar to an action recently invoked by Toni Braxton against LaFace Records, an action that's still pending.

Virgin reportedly has countered with a claim that the label is entitled to recover damages for each non-delivered album and seeks compensation in the form of damages, interest and legal costs.

A spokesperson for the Pumpkins declined to comment on the lawsuit, but told MTV news that the band's nearly completed new album will be released on Virgin, despite their earlier October 1997 statement.

The Smashing Pumpkins launched a suit against their publishing company, Chrysalis, early last year for "declaratory relief, rescission, and damages for breach of contract," as well as "slander of title" among other claims. The Pumpkins claimed their 1992 contract with Chrysalis Music was for four albums and was void, but the company was continuing to receive money for a fifth and was wrongly demanding the publishing rights to two more albums.

A Chrysalis spokesperson declined to comment on the status of that action.

Pumpkins Album Almost Finished -

Pumpkins Album Almost Finished

Two weeks left in production of highly anticipated album, Adore, which finds the Pumpkins playing to drum-machine-generated rhythms. Photo by Jay Blakesberg

The Smashing Pumpkins are in the final stage of recording their upcoming album, Adore, which will feature several tracks of the band playing with a drum machine, as well as one song produced by one-time Beastie Boys' producer Rick Rubin.

"They have at least a couple of more weeks of work left on it," said Gayle Fine, the band's publicist, on Tuesday.

Among the musicians joining leader Billy Corgan, guitarist James Iha and bassist D'Arcy on the album are former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron and Beck's drummer, Joey Waronker, who play on an undisclosed number of tracks. Former Filter drummer, Matt Walker, who left the band following the Pumpkins' Dec. 5 slot opening for the Rolling Stones, is not expected to be featured on the new release.

However, it is a drum machine that will provide the rhythm tracks for many of the songs slated for the album, according to Fine. This marks the first time the Pumpkins have made use of a drum machine in place of a drummer for the majority of an album's tracks "The other drummer on the album is a drum machine," Fine said.

The publicist confirmed the titles of three songs slated for inclusion on the album, "Ava Adore," "To Sheila" and "Let Me Give the World To You," the latter of which was produced by superstar producer (and American Recordings founder) Rick Rubin (Run-D.M.C., Beastie Boys, Tom Petty).

The Pumpkins have performed "To Sheila" several times over the past year, including an acoustic version at last year's Bridge School Benefit concert -- organized annually by Neil Young -- although Fine said the final version of the song "may not necessarily sound like it did when they performed it live."

Corgan produced the album, which is slated for a late May release and is scheduled to feature 14 tracks. Although the Pumpkins recorded a number of songs with Chicago producer Brad Wood (Liz Phair, Ben Lee) in Chicago before de-camping for L.A. several months ago, Fine said it was unclear if any of those tracks will make it onto the final release.

Wood, who said he spent two months working on six songs with the Pumpkins -- none of which were completed before the band left for L.A. -- described his studio time with them as "incredible." Wood first worked with Corgan as co-producer on a 1990 single by Chicago band Catherine. "Billy [Corgan] just has an unbelievable work ethic," Wood said. "He is no nonsense, no bullshit. He's just relentless, and I think he'll be here forever. He'll be making music until he's 1,600 years old."

Wood said Corgan's description of the album's sound as "arcane night music" perfectly reflects the tunes he heard. "We were talking about it as 'night music' then," he said. "It's definitely music to listen to all through the night."

No tour plans have been confirmed yet, Fine added.
-- Gil Kaufman [Tues., Feb. 24, 1998, 5 p.m. PST]>>>

Yet Another Article -

PUMPKINS REVEAL DETAILS OF LENGTHY 'ADORE' SESSIONS

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS' new album, 'Adore', will be released by Hut at the end of May. It was recorded in Studio A at Sound City in Van Nuys, California, the same studio where Nirvana recorded 'Nevermind'.

The band started demoing in February 1997 and recorded 30 songs for the album which, at one point, looked set to be a double. The band subsequently cut the number of tracks on the album to 14. The tracklisting will be finalised in the coming weeks.

The recording process for 'Adore' was lengthy and varied. The Pumpkins used a number of drummers including Soundgarden's Matt Cameron and Beck's Joey Waronker. Weeks of work were scrapped, including sessions recorded in Chicago last year with producer Brad Wood, as they were deemed unsuitable. Some songs were recorded live in the studio, at times using drum machines. Other tracks were pieced together overdub by overdub.

During the Chicago sessions, the band parted company with drummer Matt Walker. He had replaced Jimmy Chamberlain, who was sacked in July 1996 for repeated drug use and his part in the fatal heroin overdose of keyboard player Jonathan Melvoin.

Speaking to Rolling Stone's David Fricke in an interview which is to be published by the magazine on Friday, February 27, Billy Corgan (pictured above) said: "It took letting go of the concept of bass, two guitars and drums to actually move forward. We're literally back to where we started which was me, James, D'Arcy and a drum machine. The strangest thing was, as soon as we stopped playing with Matt (Walker) and started playing with a drum machine, we started to play like ourselves again."

Matt Cameron was used on a number of different tracks but appears on only one on the finished record, 'For Martha'. According to James Iha, another song Cameron initially played on, 'Pug', started life as "a minor key blues death march" before Corgan programmed a drum machine and employed a number of synths. The album was produced by Corgan except for one song, 'Let Me Give The World To You', which was produced by Rick Rubin.

Commenting on the band's approach to recording, Rubin told Rolling Stone: "If you have a great song, you can make 20 different records out of it. This is one of the things I told Billy about the rest of the album. The songs are so good that there isn't necessarily a right way to do them. There is no quintessential version, just the one you're in the mood to make."

Track titles on the album include: 'To Sheila', 'Ava Adore', 'Annie Dog', 'Tear', 'Apples And Oranges' and 'Shame'. The Pumpkins are rumoured to be deciding whether to tour the album as a trio using a drum machine and extra musicians. Corgan has said he doesn't want to tour the album extensively. The band were on the road for 14 months with 'Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness'.

No Pumpkins' UK dates have been confirmed although a Glastonbury appearance is rumoured.

Some Netphoria Changes -

• A new section in Netphoria was created called "The Band", in there are the biographies, history and a new section called "Did you know...." which has all kinds of facts about the pumpkins.

• The Simpsons section has been moved over to images, so look for it there.

• The Mailbag page has been updated with a new topic, check it out.

• Also look for a polling/voting page soon!