While your breakdown of the Billy Corgan Show was much clearer and less emotionally driven than my own, it was nice to read that I’m not the only person who saw them and felt jilted, abused, and left out in the cold.

Billy’s minions ate me alive on my review of their Denver show (denverpost.com/reverb) and my companion blog (breedavies.blogspot.com).

Wah, wah waaaah.

Funny, because I think I’ve woken up in the morning singing “Rage Life” more than I’ve woken up singing any Smashing Pumpkins song. What a douche, for realz.

Essentially, I think it is fair to say that (and let me state now that I am not a so called “Corgan Apologist” and I admit some of his work is trash) when he is good, my god, is he a fucking genius. Usually, this genius comes out when he effectively balances the contrasting elements of his music and pulls in some insanely gorgeous bassist (just kidding, but come on, Paz? wow was she beautiful). The blogger, in my opinion, could not be more on point when he calls the man out for his new formula for metal songs which is as follows:

“Jimmy, take out that drum rudiment method book, flip to a random page, and uhhh play it on your rack toms for the next 20 minutes… ok yeah that is perfect, now that I have reduced one of the best drummers of this generation to a fucking Casio, time to mask the blatant lack of emotion, melody, tune, genuine lyrical sentiment, and direction that my current songs are marred with, turn my big muff pedal up fucking all the way and play some minor key progression of power chords while I rant about gothic imagery or kafka or something for a while.”

Am I being a bit harsh? probably… United States is a decent enough tune, but you get the point. Once again the blogger brings up a valid point that an artist best suits themselves and their fans typically when they play to their strengths. The critics here seem to think that this automatically means you need to be Hannah Montana. Pink Floyd played twenty minute drugged out noise jams BECAUSE THAT WAS THEIR MOTHER FUCKING STRENGTH! Sonic Youth hold their guitars up to their amps and create otherwordly noises because that is what they do best, they are masters at the craft and people enjoy coming to see them do this, they enjoy seeing them push the boundaries in that realm. Would you claim that Sonic Youth was challenging their audience if they came out and played Coldplay cover songs for 40 minutes? I doubt it, you’d probably be pissed, understandably so, just like this blogger and I am. Corgan’s strength is, among other things, a great sense of melody and tension/release, and solid lyrics. He is completely allowed to eschew his hit songs and experiment, all we are asking for is that he use his natural musical talents to his advantage, so that not only are we the audience awed by his considerable talents, but also he maxs out his own artistic potential instead of settling for singles that are released on guitar hero 3.

I’ve said far too much. A large contingent of everything he did up through Zwan was wonderful, the Future Embrace had a few moments, and unfortunately… well just go back to the top of the comment and start reading again that basically summarizes it hahahaha thank you and goodnight!