So we finally have made it to the first official SP release:
GISH
Recorded: December 1990–March 1991 Studio: Smart Studios, Madison, Wisconsin (Butch Vigs Studio) Time of Release: May 28, 1991 Label: Caroline (Subsidiary of Virgin) Producers: Butch Vig, Billy Corgan Band Members: Billy Corgan-Vocals, Guitar, Production James Iha-Guitars, Vocals D'Arcy Wretzky-Bass Guitars, Vocals, Layouts Jimmy Chamberlain-Drums Peak Chart Position: 195 Official Released Singles: Siva, I Am One
First my personal thoughts and anecdotes. I didn't start with Gish. My Smashing Pumpkin experience start with the follow up, Siamese Dream. It took me a while to find out about Gish because at the time I only had MTV, word of mouth and shopping and browsing to delve into a bands catalog. Considering I lived in a small town, word of mouth and browsing at any store nearby didn't open me to many "finds" and it wasn't until I started traveling further out that I found that you could get "Everything" from an artist. I remember going to Circuit City for the first time and buying every Smashing Pumpkin single, remix EP, etc. I could grab. Gish was honestly the fourth Smashing Pumpkins album I heard and bought after Siamese Dream, Pisces Iscariot and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I actually bought it right around the same time as the Aeroplane Flies High.... Box Set at a Strawberries. So yeah, even as a fan I was late on the Gish train.
You always tend to connect to the material you first hear from an artist but Gish has grown on me immensely and I have a high amount of respect for it. It's a very spiritual, tribal like album with a very slow melodic feel. If there is a Smashing Pumpkins album to just chill out to then it's this one. This is just the beginning as I'm going to try to break down this an every other album from all angles.
If you'd like feel free to share your thoughts and come along for the ride!
Just to show that every detail of a Smashing Pumpkins album means something I'll post a bit I just found out myself. I always associated it as something in an Asian vain, perhaps short hand for Geisha. Never looked it up until tonight. According to Wikipedia, it actually is connected to silent movie star
Lillian Gish
Lillian was most famous for being a lead in one of the most controversial yet respected films in all of history, the silent "Birth of a Nation". The connection comes from the stories Billy's mother would tell him about the star.
"My grandmother used to tell me that one of the biggest things that ever happened was when Lillian Gish rode through town on a train, my grandmother lived in the middle of nowhere, so that was a big deal..."
~Billy Corgan on where Gish came from
Billy also joked that the original idea was to call it fish but he didn't want the album to be affiliated with these guys:
This album carries a song that I like quite a bit...good memories!!
SIVA!! (very Sabbath)
Cool track! Not surprising as the band knew that having influences was a strength rather than a burden. They carried their influences proudly!
Here's some connections with Black Sabbath!
Smashing Pumpkins/Black Sabbath Connection
Here's a quote from Wikipedia about the love for the band and metal in general:
"Corgan in particular was open about his appreciation of heavy metal, citing Dimebag Darrell of Pantera as his favorite contemporary guitarist.[40][94] When one interviewer commented to Corgan and Iha that "Smashing Pumpkins is one of the groups that relegitimized heavy metal" and that they "were among the first alternative rockers to mention people like Ozzy and Black Sabbath with anything other than contempt", Corgan went on to rave about Black Sabbath's Master of Reality and Judas Priest's Unleashed in the East."
Here's the Smashing Pumpkins covering "Iron Man"!
Iron Man
This shirt design off the Zeitgeist album seems like something Sabbath would dig!
I just listened to "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" for the first time in it's entirety (a friend loaned it to me) and I've got to say that in comparison to "Siamese Dream" I was kind of bummed out over it. There were lots of solid tracks but then there were others like "Tales of a Scorched Earth" and "Where Boys Fear To Tread" that I was not very impressed with... :/
I just listened to "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" for the first time in it's entirety (a friend loaned it to me) and I've got to say that in comparison to "Siamese Dream" I was kind of bummed out over it. There were lots of solid tracks but then there were others like "Tales of a Scorched Earth" and "Where Boys Fear To Tread" that I was not very impressed with... :/
With Tracks like Galapagos, Bodies, By Starlight, Muzzle and Porcelina of The Vast Oceans it's right up there with Siamese to me. I think the two tracks you named are great for being in their because they are the heavy end of the spectrum and it's all the variety of tone, style and mood that made that album the most epic in their catalog! I also think XYU which is ridiculously loud was a great addition to the album!
I am one as you are three
Try to find a messiah in your trinity
Your city to burn
Your city to burn
Try to look for something
In your city to burn, you'll burn
Am I as I seem?
I'm down
Down, so down
Time is right for a guiding light
Your city to burn
Your city to burn
Try to look for something
In your city to burn, you'll burn
See you, don't you just want to
See you, I am one
See you, don't you just want to
See you
See you, don't you just want to
See you, I am one
See you, don't you just want to
See you, I am one
The first track on Gish is also the first single to be released from the album. It was not the first release of the song as you can see further back in my thread it was released on a single back in 1990, two years before Gish. It's one of three songs rerecorded for the album. In another example of Billy's perfectionism he was disappointed that he hadn't done more with the song to change it from the original 1990 single version as they are so similar to each other. I Am One is unique in that is has a double guitar solo and that's something the Pumpkins didn't use again until '98 with Ava Adore!
There was a video made for I Am One but it was shelved until 2001 because none of the band members were pleased with the results. Here's the video that was finally released:
A concert video was shown in long form on the video release:
Vieuphoria
This video came out on VHS in '94 and I actually ended up owning the VHS, the DVD (2002) and CD (Earphoria also in 2002)! It's a great collection of the Pumpkins earliest and peak years showing their greatest live performances and awesome alternate versions of songs. I'll be looping footage from this release with each song review I do!
One thing you'll see in this version of the song is the spoken word rant that Billy does. These moments kind of remind me of a Jim Morrison performance and they are about as sporadic and crazy as his were. Even the band members themselves, not all of them as Chamberlain called it "Art-Breakdown", didn't always care for the rants. The band members called it abrasive and they do get that way. It's definitely a rant and Billy Corgan goes through it with often times negative spoken word in his most sneering vocals.
I personally like the live versions for this as honestly I think any live version I've heard was more enjoyable than the studio. Each time it was something different and it took on a life of it's own. The track was extended to double it's length or more and it was a lot more epic this way.
So without further introduction here's the video for the song:
Different lyrics were taken from these rants and actually ended up in future songs like Zero and the ideas behind his rants which premise centered around the "erosion of the belief structure in America's youth" was very influential in the ideas used for "Melloncollie....." in general! Here's a rant including lyrics from Zero!:
I Am One (rant using future Zero lyrics)
My thoughts overall on the song is that it's definitely made to be heard live as a moving organic piece that can be molded with each performance. The studio version is great as well! Billy's vocals are very understated but this is mostly an instrumental track as Jimmy's great drumming is very dominant and there are awesome guitar solos as well. The bass also has that cool tribal feel that I dig on most of the album. The lyrics were spiritual just like the rest of the album talking trinities and messiahs in a song only Billy knows the meaning of but will never tell leaving the fans to guess and take on their own. I prefer that method myself. The first song in a awesome debut album. Stay tuned for more!
Siva was not released before I Am One but it is the first single to be released for Gish! The name Siva seemed to very appealing to Corgan as he's said in an interview that he had an obsession with the name to the point of considering it as the bands name! Personally I'm glads they didn't! Once again on this album the song has spiritual connotations as the song is derived from the Hindu word:
Shiva
Billy had originally liked it for it's use in relationship to the tantric practices in the sense of the spiritual battle between masculine power Shakti and feminine power Shiva.
Shakti and Shiva
The dual forces battling with each other intrigued Corgan but upon looking further into it and seeing how much Shiva really connected more to the Hindu God he cut off the "h" to fit it more to his original idea and make it more ambiguous!
Siva was the first video directed by the band! The video is a collage of image shots and the band playing! I love the imagery used as it fits in with the motif of the album and really sets up the listener for what they are getting from the album. The immersing of the head underwater, the candle, the tribal like mask, etc. This is one psychedelic spritual "trip"! Here's the video:
Siva
I spin off and lose my head
Throwing stray a spark instead
Gather strenghth down in my heel
And dig it in the world I peel
Way down deep within my heart
Lies a soul that's torn apart
Tell me, tell me what your after
I just want to get there faster
I don't live - I inhale
I don't give - I unveil
Don't want to live in your misery
I don't live - I inhale
Sprinkle all my kisses on your head
Stars full of wishes fill our beds
She said, "I'm dead"
All this pain smothers me
Like a bomb that you can't see
Tell me, tell me what your after
I just want to get there faster
I don't live - I inhale
I don't give - I unveil
I don't live - I inhale
I don't live
This song started off as an acoustic that Corgan had been working on while working at a record store in Chicago! It turned into an epic guitar track with great drumming by chamberlain. The riffs are great, the drumming frantic and this proves that the Pumpkins are just as much a guitar rock band as anyone before or since! It was also epic enough to be made a downloadable track by Rock Band even though it wasn't really a hit single!
Here are some cool early performances of Siva:
Siva (1991 Metro Chicago)
Here's the acoustic version:
Siva (1991 Acoustic @ Atomic Records, Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
(A real cool jam)
Rhinoceros is the first Gish track I'd ever heard. It's the slowest of all the singles but captures the dreamy melodic feel of the majority of Gish the best. I love it and so does Billy as he's carried it throughout his career more than any other song off of the album. The other band members, namely D'Arcy, jokingly refer to it as "that slow song"! It does build to something that represents their soft/loud style as it picks up in it's second half with plenty of guitar soloing. I love the meditative feel of this track and it's my favorite Gish single as far as the studio versions go!
The video for Rhinoceros was a collage of various ideas in which some worked out and some didn't. The result was a putting together the footage of what was left of these ideas they were shot. The original idea was to be similar to this Cure video where the band would be in very close quarters:
The Cure-Close To Me
(audio doesn't come in for some reason so I put an accompanying vid for audio in sync)
The room provided for the vid was actually huge so The Pumpkins chose to do just the opposite and keep as much distance as they could from each other. Here is the final vid:
Rhinoceros
Planned a show
Trees and Balloons
Ice cream snow
See you in June
Could have known
I would reveal
Should have known
I would conceal your way
She knows, she knows, she knows
She knows, she knows, she knows
How's it
She knows, she knows, she knows
Colors show
After the moon
I should go
See you in June
Your way
Open your eyes
To these must I lie
The Rhinoceros track didn't technically have it's own single pressing but rather was included as the leading track of the aforementioned pictured Lull EP! Corgan always considered that the Rhinoceros single regardless! The EP had three other tracks! Any tracks that are covered in later full albums I'll cover in more depth later in the thread!:
Blue
(This track was late put on the Pisces Iscariot B-Side Collection which I'll cover later)
Slunk
(only released as a live portion on the Vieuphoria VHS/DVD release)
Ride on, mother****er
Sister above
Lead on my lover
Daddy's not comin' home
So long my mother
So long ago
She loves me like a lover
Every house is now your home
Even though you lied to me
We love you
Right on, mother****er
Sister above
Yeah, my lover
Every house is now your home
Slunk is a cool real aggressive track. It doesn't really fit in with Gish so even the b-sides out during the same time period of the album changed sounds. It's just an aggressive balls out rock song with Billy's sneering vocals full on and the guitars at a chugging rockin' pace rather than the soft/loud style or dreamy ambiance of Gish. Here's the version off of Vieuphoria which is even more raw:
Slunk (Live In Japan)
The last track is an acoustic that I've loved and it was the first time I heard a song as bare as this by the Pumpkins. The first album I heard, Siamese Dream, was very layered even in it's softer tracks so hearing the simply acoustics and the echoey quality with Billy's angelic vocals was a real treat for me! The track was recorded on what's known as the Moon Demo but showed up on Lull! The track is:
Bye June
Bye June
I hope you make it too
I'm wishing you're there too
I hope you make it June
Bye bye June.
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