I know I'm the last person who should point and laugh at someone's putting it all out there for the public to read, but Jesus, get a load of
Billy Corgan on his website
www.billycorgan.com/! For a guy who's trying to tell us that, four years after the breakup of Smashing Pumpkins, he's come to a peaceful place in this world (not that I give a rip anymore), he sure has a lot of crap talking to do about his former bandmates. Especially
James Iha, who he boldly--baldly?--claims "broke up the Smashing Pumpkins" and bassist D'Arcy Wretzky, who he calls "a mean spirited drug addict who refused to get help." What does this have to do with Seattle? Not much, other than the fact that while there should be plenty of gossip for next week's column, given the sparkling
Up Records 10th Anniversary celebration, there isn't much local stuff to report this time round, and I'm almost too excited at the prospect of seeing all the new
Modest Mouse songs played live on Thursday at the Showbox to care about much else. The band recently finished a three-show stint in Orlando, Florida--and sold out the venue each night, just like they did in New York several days earlier. If you weren't able to get tickets to Thursday's show, Modest Mouse will play two shows back to back in Portland at the Crystal Ballroom on April 9 and 10, and at the Paramount on April 11 (with
Helio Sequence and
Triumph of Lethargy Skinned to Death Alive), just a couple of days after their new album,
Good News for People Who Love Bad News, comes out on April 6. (The single "Float On" is already out and I'm told you can buy copies of the first pressing at the band's show.) I've heard the record a few times now (it features horns from the
Dirty Dozen Brass Band and a track remixed by the
Flaming Lips' Dave Fridman) and it's another gorgeous album, in that elastic, expansive way that Modest Mouse can do better than anyone else. Do I gush? I can't help it. I think the band is genius. On March 9 fans can get their hands on a copy of
The Moon and Antarctica in a new, remastered, expanded edition featuring new artwork and four previously-unreleased tracks----"3rd Planet," "Perfect Disguise," "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes," and an instrumental version of "Custom Concern"--taken from a 1999 BBC session that happened a few months before the album was originally released. Oh, and in case you didn't already know, Triumph of Lethargy blahdy blahdy blah is one of former
Murder City Devils singer Spencer Moody's bands, along with
Smoke and Smoke, his project with the members of the long-defunct band
godheadSilo. (Smoke and Smoke debuts this weekend at the Sunset Tavern.)
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Neumo's isn't technically entirely open yet (although that changes with this week's Posies show, and Saturday's Yo, Son! has made a smooth transition from its former host, Chop Suey) and already there's talk on the street that Jason Fitzgerald is no longer involved with the club he helped get up and running. At press time, confirmation of the rumor was unavailable.
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You know I love the rock biographies, and a quick scan of what's coming soon on Amazon.com reveals that there's already a forthcoming book on the Darkness, titled--what else?--The Darkness: Permission to Rock, by Dick Porter. There are also a load of books on Bob Dylan coming out in the next 12 months, including Dylan's Vision of Sin by Christopher Ricks, and Highway 61 Revisited: The Tangled Roots of Jazz, Blues, Folk, Rock, and Country Music by Gene Santoro. Other forthcoming music titles include Girls Rock: Fifty Years of Women Making Music by Tisa Lewis et al.; The "White Stripes" and the Detroit Sound by former Stranger music editor Everett True (expect no less than three more books on the same subject by different authors); Perfect Sound Forever: The Story of Pavement by Rob Jovanovic; The Stone Roses: Talking by B. B. Badman; I, Shithead: A Life in Punk by D.O.A.'s Joey Shithead (I already have that and let me tell you, I could put it down); and the one I'm really waiting for, In Search of the La's: A Secret Liverpool by M. W. Macefield.
kathleen@thestranger.com
