I feel like I should write something on the occasion of the breakup of the Smashing Pumpkins, who played their last show last Saturday.  This was formerly my Favorite Band In The Whole Wide World for most of what you could call my formative years.  Meant a lot to me.  The first band I ever heard of on my own and loved and went out and bought the CD. which is an important moment in a young boys life. It was the song "drown" on the soundtrack for the movie Singles.  Absolutely loved it. Still one of my favorite songs.  At first, I couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl singing. I remember coming back from my aunt's house, where I had piano lessons, and sitting in the Grey Ghost by myself, after my mom and brothers got out, and sitting in the garage on a cloudy fall day and listening to drown over and over.  The soft to loud to screaming to soft again really got me.  For many years, this band meant a lot to me.  Another memory was being jarred awake by the song "rocket," when I was passed out asleep senior year of highschool, when i had a lot of homework and a night job.  It was exhausting, and when I got home I'd put this Siamese Dream on and lie down and just fall asleep for a little while.  It was actually sort of uncomfortable, and I don't know why I did it so often, but right now,  seven years later, it's a fond memory.
    I've been reading some about the band's last show, and their breaking up, and a lot of the articles say things like "This isn't funny, just sad."  Almost all the articles have something like that.  One said "Excuse me while I wipe away a tear. Ok, I'm done."  And the worse part is I can't tell if they're kidding or not.  Fittingly, in the episode of the Simpsons that features the Pumpkins, two of the rock kids are in the audience, and one says "Oh yeah, that's cool."  And the other kid goes "Dude, are you kidding?"  and the first guy replies "Dude, I don't even know anymore..."  There's a wee bit too much sarcasm and irony around for me these days, which might also explain the demised of my once-favorite band.  It's really no wonder they can't survive in today's musical climate.  So often horribly cheesy and corny, but that's really what I loved about them.  Billy Corgan is really a pretentious, deluded fuck, but in the most endearing, earnest way.  And the climate right now doesn't really have room for that.  Maybe the least ironic band I've ever liked.  I'll always feel some sort of connection, because they're the only band I've ever stumbled across and liked without any sort of scene or movement or connotation associated with liking them.  Just me, at sixteen, finding something special.  I've always said there are four songs in the world that always make everything ok for me.  Two are Dinosaur Jr. songs.  I'm not sure those hold up anymore. the other two are the Pumpkins songs "Soma" and "Mayonaise."  Soma is playing right now. And I feel ok.  It's the lyrics, with the soft-to-wailing guitars, everything.  Perfection.  At 3:29 into the song, when it gets loud, I've listened to those 10 seconds probably more than any part of any other song.  Almost everytime I listen to it, I hear something new.  Of course, there's something like 45 guitar tracks in this song, so that's not shocking.  Last night Katey and I sat in my room listening to this album for a little while, and I remembered what it used to be to me.  Besides everything else, it really, really made me want to learn to play the guitar.  Most of the stage theatrics I did when we were Underpants Cowboy I ripped off from the Pumpkins.  Shamelessly. But my jumps and pick-rakes were done with considerably more irony than them.
    Anyhow, I haven't liked their last few albums.  Of their last 4 albums worth- Adore, Machina, and the double album- there was probably enough stuff for two really great albums, and maybe a nice EP.  But I respect 'em for trying to change.  Though I resented it at the time. I always want things to stay how they are. But now I hear myself praising bands like Blur for changing drastically over the last few years, and everytime I do I hear my 18 year old self lamenting the changing sounds of my favorite band.  Maybe it's maturity.  Lotsa changes over the past few years.
    I'm looking at my CD rack. I left about 70  percent of the cds I own in Pennsylvania. Since I graduated college two years ago, I've only taken the top-tier cds with me where I've gone.  Just easier that way, given the frequency with which I'd moved.  Of the hundred or so cds I have here in New York, only three are cds I owned before graduating high school.  And of those three, two are Pumpkins discs.  By the way, whenever I move somewhere and have to reassemble all my stereo equipment, I always put Siamese Dream and play Cherub Rock first to see if everything's working.  Everytime.  Even when I put the cd player in the grey ghost.
    My final thoughts on the matter, which curiously were my first thoughts and caused this rant:  It's all about sincerity.  as much as I've gotten into bands like Pavement and Luna, nobody really trumps the Siamese Dream-era pumpkins in good old wear-it-on-your-sleave sincerity.  Now, I like bands because they don't take themselves too seriously.  That's important, sure, but when it needs a foil.  And I've sort of been missing that.  My Pumpkins fandom has always been the clash of rock sensibilities between me and James I think.  Though for odd reasons.  James can be the smirkiest, most sarcastic asshole you'll ever meet, but it's remarkably, and mean remarkably absent in his music, which is nothing but sincere.  It's actually amazing how plaintive and open he can be.  But he has a disdain for my Pumpkins.  Mostly.  And I think when we were underpants cowboy I may have ruined a nice quiet song of his or two by insiting that it RAWK.  Though for the most part, I must say that many people have told me that James and I mesh really well when we play guitar together.
There have been a lot of lists of important music coming out lately.  I can't find the Pumpkins on there anywhere.  they're the only band I listen to that could conceivably be on such lists.  And they're no where to be found.  Could it be that they were that unimportant in the grand scheme of rock music?  It's irrelevant, I suppose.  I still give the evil-rock hand as a default sign of enthusiasm when I'm in an uncomfortable social situation. They didn't invent it, but I ripped that off from them too.
That's all. A little slice of my mind, as shaped by the music.  I could go on and on.

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