SOUNDTRACK: BILLY CORGAN-Tiny Desk Concert #674 (November 20, 2017).
Back in the day, I thought Smashing Pumpkins were pretty awesome. I even enjoyed the bloated Mellon Collie. Billy Corgan is a terrific songwriter with a flair for the drama.
Then I got really turned off by him. Whether his ego exploded or if it just really became public (and the fact that he always wore a shirt that said zero), I;d had enough of him. I didn’t even listen to any of the Pumpkins’ later albums (band fighting didn’t help that).
recently, NPR played the new song by William Patrick Corgan, a sweet piano ballad. And I realized that I really don’t like Corgan’s voice And the more I thought about it the more I didn’t like his voice in the old songs either–but the intensity if the music and his delivery overshadowed the parts that annoyed me (which is more noticeable when the songs are slow and mellow).
So what had Corgan been up to
Billy Corgan is a complicated guy. In the years since that iconic and much-beloved rock band broke up in 2000, Corgan has continued to put out music under various names and projects – including several releases as Smashing Pumpkins, with different lineups – while often stumbling through a bumpy minefield of his own making. To the head-scratching surprise of some longtime fans, he’s gotten heavily involved in pro wrestling, talked conspiracy theories during several appearances on The Alex Jones Show (warning of weaponized zombies in one interview), and, over the years, lobbed innumerable grievances about former bandmates, while trashing other musicians and publicly feuding with a revolving cast of celebrities and public figures.
More recently, Corgan seems to have mellowed. He opted to release his new solo album Ogilala, under his (very grownup-sounding) full name, William Patrick Corgan (though he very recently changed it back to Billy Corgan on streaming services and YouTube), and filled the record with beautifully rendered acoustic songs built on piano and strings.
Corgan plays three songs in the Tiny Desk Concert. Impressively, he plays “with a string quartet he’d just met hours before”: Kristin Bakkegard (violin), Livy Amoruso (violin), Paul Bagley (viola), Carol Anne Bosco (cello).
He opened with a stirring rendition of the 1995 Smashing Pumpkins song “Tonight, Tonight.” It sounds great with the simple acoustic guitar (it’s really a lovely melody) and the strings. I did realize that I don;t really love his vocal delivery, but I’m so caught up on the strings that it’s hard to care.
It’s also odd that he kept on the heavy scarf, hoodie, down jacket and cap, but it didn’t seem to hinder him ob guitar or the final two songs which he played on piano: “Aeornaut” and “Mandarynne.” I don’t understand the titles or what they have to do with the words I can pick out, but the melodies are again, lovely. The blurb say they are about “staying strong and true to yourself and soldiering on in the face of a troubled world.”
He doesn’t say anything, and he seems pretty businesslike, but he acts graciously at the end. And it’s nice to read that
Corgan was nothing but a good-natured delight. After years of selling millions of records and playing packed arenas, he showed up in a cab with just his tour manager and, during setup and rehearsals, joked about being all DIY now.
I haven’t listened to Smashing Pumpkins in a long time. Maybe its’ time to bust out Gish again and enjoy Billy when he had long hair.
[READ: April 30, 3017] Captain Marvel: Rise of Alpha Flight
After two lighthearted series with Captain Marvel, new writers have come along and changed the tone of her story line quite a bit. Indeed, everything is different from the DeConnick stories, right down to the incredibly different appearance of Carol Danvers on the cover and even the logo of Captain Marvel herself. The art in these books is by Kris Anka and Felipe Smith)
When I looked this book up to see where it fit in to the series (it’s very confusing when there seems to be a recurring Volume 1 (this covers issues 1-5)), I read that a lot of people didn’t really like this story line. So I wasn’t expecting to like it either.
But I found that I really enjoyed it a lot. It’s very different from the whimsical stories from DeConnick (this arc was written by Tara Butters and Michele Fazekis) and in fact, since it is all set in space, I felt that it took on a kind of Star Trek quality which I enjoyed quite a lot.
It starts out in the middle with Carol Danvers floating in space, about to be crushed by an asteroid. Then we flash back to yesterday where we see that Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, has taken on a two-year position at Alpha Flight Space Station for two years.
Honestly, I have no idea how AFSS fits in to the Marvel Universe. I really don’t care about a lot of the backstory and inter species problems. And I know that’s my own fault and means I will lose a lot of the story line, but I simply can’t be bothered to figure it out. So, I’ll pick up pieces here and there.
Suffice it to say that Captain Marvel is now in outer space. This is sort of desk job and people wonder why she would want it. (She has her reasons). When she arrives, she is greeted with hostility by Abigail Brand. Brand is more or less in charge of the station, although when she was offer leadership–the position that Danvers has taken–she turned it down. She just seems to resent Danvers.
But the other people aboard do seem to like her, like Puck, a very short, very strong fellow. After a comical run-in with Rocket (that raccoon is everywhere), we learn that her role is to deal with the Eridani (who are doing waste management on the station). This kind of work is dull as dirt (and garbage), so when the ship is about to be hit by ans asteroid, she happily gets involved.
But after the dramatic fight, Science Officer Wendy Kawasaki informs her that what they thought was an asteroid was not. She said it was actually an Eridani ship disguised as an asteroid. And man is she pissed. They lock up the Eridani delegates who say it is n act of war, but before they can even deal with that, something new is on their radar.
An alien vessel is on a direct course with them. And most of the book shows the Captain and her team’s attempts to deal with this intruder.
As they inspect the ship they find that it is very old and most of the crew are dead. But then they detect an organic presence on the ship. It seems to be invading the ship–and possibly even Danvers herself.
In fact, Carol seems to be getting weaker and weaker and then in one of those old-school moments that fans are probably super excited about but which is sorta lost on me, she realizes that she seems to be turning back into Mar-Vell, the Kree Warrior who gave her her powers.
They soon discover that the alien ship’s organic material is more or less infecting the AFSS. And it’s up to Captain Marvel to show the station just how to deal with aliens. The aliens are the Satori who hate the Kree. And because of Carol’s connection to Mar-vell, they assume she has Kree connection (blah blah blah).
So it is up to her to find a way to deal with this invasion (although she has some great help from the rest of her team). Oh, and all along there had been a saboteur on the ship who has caused all kinds of problems.
I loved the ending though, in which she is shown to her desk and is just about to get “conformable” when the alarms go off again and she smiles, saying “Thank God.”
I assume there will be more in this series but this was wrapped up very nicely.
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