SMASHING RECORD

Billy Corgan and his bandmates in The Smashing Pumpkins thought for a few years about how to mark the 30th anniversary of the release of their second and landmark album Siamese Dream. It even got to a point where they had a plan, but the plan didn’t pan out. Corgan found himself angry when thinking about missing the opportunity to celebrate what was a special moment in the band’s life.

Then an idea hit him, and it had to do with nuptials. About three weeks before his September 16 wedding with his partner, Chlóe Mendel, it occurred to him friends, family, and colleagues would all be in town, so why not do a show celebrating the record at the couple’s teahouse in Highland Park, Madame Zuzu’s? But there was the small matter of complicating what was already a busy weekend.

“I called Chlóe and said, ‘Can we try and do something the day after the wedding since everybody’s going to be here’?” he says. “She was in full-on, wedding-planning mode and graciously took on the responsibility of setting up the show.”

Then another idea hit him.

Just prior to the release of Siamese Dream in 1993, The Smashing Pumpkins were due to perform in-store at the old Tower Records location on Clark and Belden streets in Chicago. It’s now well-documented rock history that because a copy of the album had leaked and been distributed underground, 3,000 people showed up for the concert. Police were called, streets were closed, and the show was moved outside.

So, as part of the anniversary celebration and to give a nod to the “Triumph at Tower,” one could call it, Mendel negotiated with Tower Records to put in a pop-up store at Madame Zuzu’s for the weekend. This time, there were no cops, and the show went off without a hitch.

“The opportunity to put the whole thing together certainly was unique, but it ended up being as good as it could be,” says Corgan. “We were very, very happy with it and it felt right that we did something. The people around me who were skeptical said it turned out to be pretty special.”

The Pumpkins performed two sets on the evening, pretty much replicating the show they did at Tower three decades ago. Corgan says it took a while for the band to find its groove but by the time the second set rolled around, the band was in sync. He plans to make the concert available on vinyl, something he’s been doing with his archive for some time.

“We’ve been very successful in selling archival releases from the band and that’s a big part of the business model at Zuzu’s, selling vinyl out of my own archives,” he says. “So, we feel we got it. Honestly it was just a magical weekend getting married to the love of my life and going out with the band. It’s a pretty wild journey and doing it all in one weekend made it even more crazy.”

Asked if doing the show at Zuzu’s provided an opportunity to reminisce, Corgan says he was really too busy with the weekend’s other activities to give it much thought. But upon reflection, he says he was around 25 years old when the band recorded Siamese Dream and the record reveals the intensity and the challenges one goes through at that age. Now, it’s more a sense of feeling settled.

“Now I’m in a room in a café surrounded by fans who’ve seen the band over 100 times and my wife, who I have an 11-year relationship with, and my children,” he says. “It’s more like a sense of a full-circle journey; less sentimental, more like a feeling of arrival.”

Anyone who’s followed The Smashing Pumpkins since their early days knows the band, and its individual members, have had their challenges over the years, a lot of them aired in music and gossip publications because of the band’s high profile. Corgan says the feeling of arrival applies to the band as well, especially between he, guitarist James Iha, and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain.

“It’s a wonderful feeling that we have made the peace and survived all that’s been thrown at us as well as what we put each other through,” he says. “There’s a sense I have now that everything that happens going forward is just icing on the cake as long, of course, as it’s about music.”