The Smashing Pumpkins delivered a double dose of news Tuesday about past and future recordings.

In a video posted on the band’s Facebook page, singer Billy Corgan announced that the current band – which includes no original members besides himself – will record a new album, “Oceania,” that will be released later this year. “Even though I pronounced the album dead” a few years ago, Corgan said, he says the band has a number of songs written and will begin recording them next month, with the aim of releasing an album Sept. 1. “Oceania” will be part of the massive 44-song “Teargarden by Kaleidyscope” project, in which the band has been releasing songs as free downloads soon after recording them. Details of exactly how “Oceania” will be released were not divulged. 

Corgan also said that after about a decade of negotiation the band and its former label, EMI, had reached an agreement to reissue remastered versions of all the Pumpkins’ albums from the band’s first era (1991-2000) over the next three years on CD and vinyl with bonus tracks. In addition, what Corgan calls a “digital box set” will be created that will enable the band to release material from its archives “any way we want,” including free downloads. He said the archival material includes everything from the band’s early rehearsals in Chicago during the 1980s through what was to be its final show at Metro in 2000.

The first reissues will be out by Christmas this year: “Gish” (1991), “Siamese Dream” (1993) and “Pisces Iscariot” (1994). Next year, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” (1995), “The Aeroplane Flies High” box set (1996) and “Adore” (1998) will be reissued. In 2013, the 2000 albums “Machina/The Machines of God” and “Machina II: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music” will be packaged together “in the right order,” Corgan says, to be followed by a greatest hits compilation.

greg@gregkot.com 

Billy Corgan performs at the LaSalle Power Co in Chicago on February 18, 2010. (Andrew A. Nelles, Chicago Tribune)

The Smashing Pumpkins announced Tuesday that they will perform a benefit concert July 27 at Metro for a heroic Chicago musician who was critically injured in an assault.

Proceeds will go toward covering the medical costs of Matthew Leone, bassist in Madina Lake. Leone suffered brain injuries last month when he tried to help a woman who was being beaten by a man identified as her husband on the West Side. Leone was beaten unconscious by the attacker and taken to a hospital for emergency brain surgery. Justin Pavic is charged with aggravated battery in the assault.

Sponsored Link: Amazon's Smashing Pumpkins Store

2.5 stars (out of 4)

greg@gregkot.com

Sponsored Link: Amazon's Smashing Pumpkins Store

    “I am one of many, many more to come,” Billy Corgan sings on “A Song for a Son,” the first of 44 tracks he is rolling out for a new Smashing Pumpkins album, “Teargarden by Kaleidyscope.'

Sponsored Link: Amazon's Smashing Pumpkins Store

    The Smashing Pumpkins are making it official: Mike Byrne, a 19-year-old Portland native, has replaced Jimmy Chamberlin as the band’s drummer.

        In addition, the Pumpkins will make “a major announcement” about a new album next month, a band spokesman said Monday.

       Byrne was among 1,000 drummers who answered singer-guitarist Billy Corgan’s call to audition for the job last April. Chamberlin, who joined the band soon after its formation in the ‘80s, quit the Pumpkins in March. In explaining the move on his Web site, Chamberlin said, “I can no longer commit all of my energy into something that I don’t fully possess. I won’t pretend I’m into something I’m not. I won’t do it to myself, you the fan, or my former partner. I can’t just, ‘Cash the check’ so to speak.”

       Corgan is the only original member left in the Pumpkins, which became one of Chicago’s most commercially successful bands after emerging in 1988. Byrne is a veteran of various Portland indie bands, including Moses, Smell the Roses and the Mercury Tree.

       greg@gregkot.com

Sponsored Link: Amazon's Smashing Pumpkins Store

    You dreamed about one day playing in the Smashing Pumpkins? Here’s your chance.

    After the departure of founding drummer Jimmy Chamberlin from the  Pumpkins last week, band auteur Billy Corgan didn’t waste any time in setting out to find a replacement. He sent out this announcement through his band’s Web site and public relations company Monday:

       “PUMPKINS UPDATE:  Auditions will be held Friday, April 10 in Los Angeles for drummers who are looking to play with The Smashing Pumpkins.  They should send their background info, photos and performance web links via email only to: pumpkinsdrummer@gmail.com.”

      Before you start breaking out that resume and your drum sticks, be forewarned. Chamberlin, James Iha and D’Arcy Wretzky have all left the Chicago band they helped form in 1988, leaving Corgan as the only surviving original member. The Pumpkins remain one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands ever out of Chicago, but you can’t tell the personnel these days without a scorecard.

    greg@gregkot.com

    On Friday, a terse post on the Smashing Pumpkins Web site announced the departure of drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, Billy Corgan’s primary collaborator in the band since 1988. On Tuesday, Chamberlin told his side of the story on his Web site, jimmychamberlincomplex.com:

    “By now you have heard the news of my departure from the Smashing Pumpkins. I will say, without going into any unnecessary details that this represents a positive move forward for me. I can no longer commit all of my energy into something that I don’t fully possess. I won’t pretend I’m into something I’m not. I won’t do it to myself, you the fan, or my former partner. I can’t just, “Cash the check” so to speak. Music is my life. It is sacred. It deserves the highest commitment at every level and the Pumpkins are certainly no different. I’m sorry but it really IS that simple. There is no drama, bad blood, or anything else but a full commitment to music. My best goes out to Billy and I’m glad he has chosen to continue under the name. It is his right. I will continue to make music with the Jimmy Chamberlin Complex as well as pursuing other musical interests. I feel that I have a long way to go and a lot to give. Thanks to everyone for your kind words and support through all of this. I am constantly humbled by all of you! It is an honor and a privilege to play music for a living and I don’t take it for granted not even for a second.”

    In the original post on smashingpumpkins.com, Corgan was said to be returning to the studio in the spring to begin recording new music as Smashing Pumpkins, even though he is the only remaining original member.

    greg@gregkot.com

Jimmy Chamberlin, longtime drummer with the Smashing Pumpkins and singer Billy Corgan’s artistic foil, has quit the Chicago band, the Pumpkins Web site announced Friday.

“Corgan will continue to write and record as Smashing Pumpkins” with plans to resume studio recording in the spring, the terse announcement said. No explanation was given for Chamberlin’s departure. As the Pumpkins wound down their reunion tour last year, Corgan frequently introduced the drummer as “my best friend.”

The drummer’s departure leaves Corgan as the only remaining original member of the band, which formed in 1988 and went on to become one of the most successful rock groups ever out of Chicago.

In a backstage interview with the Tribune after the Pumpkins concert last December that concluded the band’s 2007-08 tour, its first since breaking up in 2000, Corgan spoke eagerly about the future of the band. Chamberlin sat at his side throughout most of the interview, but rarely spoke. Antagonism surfaced on stage when Corgan jousted with audience members, and asked fans, “What do you want from us?”

 greg@gregkot.com

    Two faltering music-business giants butted heads Tuesday in a U.S. House hearing over artist compensation for terrestrial radio airplay. And right in the middle of it was Billy Corgan, the Smashing Pumpkins singer making a rare public appearance in his rock-star-goes-to-Washington suit and tie.

    Under questioning by the House Committee on the Judiciary on Capitol Hill, Corgan spoke out in favor of a bill that would require broadcasters to compensate performers for radio airplay of their songs. Currently, U.S. law stipulates that only publishers (who represent songwriters) must be paid royalties for airplay, unlike most industrialized nations, which require that artists also be compensated when their performances are broadcast.

        The radio industry argues that the 80-year-old practice exists because artists benefit when their music is exposed to the public by radio airplay, which in turn boosts sales of recorded music. But sales of recorded music have declined more than 30 percent in recent years, and artists and record labels are turning to every available revenue stream to compensate for the shortfall.

        Record companies are being “taken … by broadcasters who use our music to build their business,” testified Mitch Bainwol, chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America.

        In years past, record labels paid hundreds of millions of dollars in various forms of payola to play records, so eager were they for airplay. What changed? Among other things, the power of commercial radio has diminished in recent years as a vehicle for exposing new music while various Internet outlets, both sanctioned and unsanctioned, have gained traction with consumers. Yet commercial radio brings in an estimated $16 billion in annual advertising revenue, an inviting target for labels and artists who have seen their income plummet from sales of recorded music.

        Corgan expressed no great love for traditional record companies; his band is currently working without a label. But he said that artists deserve the opportunity to determine how their music will be used and to be compensated for it as they create new business models for themselves.

        “From my perspective, this issue is one of fundamental fairness,” he tesitifed. “These particular performances must have value to the stations or they wouldn't be playing them.”

    Broadcasters asserted that they are already being hammered by the declining economic, and that further pressure from labels and artists to pay royalties would put many out of business, or force them to stop playing music.

    “This bill creates financial disincentives to play music … and significant unintended consequences,” said Steve Newberry of the National Association of Broadcasters. He said radio stations will be even less inclined to play unproven artists and that many listeners will be deprived of local stations that go out of business because they can’t afford to pay royalties.

    Committee members broached the idea of an independent study to determine the economic impact of the legislation, and urged the two sides to negotiate a compromise rather than let Congress impose one.

    “I don’t want to see small minority broadcasters out of business,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). “They’re good for the community. Otherwise we’re at the mercy of the conglomerates. I’m hopeful you guys can work it out.”

        Bainwol said the record industry would be open to a deal with the broadcasters on royalty rates, but radio lobbyist Newberry flatly declined.

    To which Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) jokingly remarked: “OK, slit your throat, but don’t do it here.”

    greg@gregkot.com