The Smashing Pumpkins to release album for free
44 track opus will be released one track at a time

September 17, 2009
http://www.nme.com/news/the-smashing-pumpkins/47349



The Smashing Pumpkins have announced that they are to set to release an album for free.

Titled 'Teargarden by Kaleidyscope', the 44-track album will be released one track at a time with the first due out at the end of October.

"Free will mean free," declared frontman Billy Corgan on his blog Billycorgan.livejournal.com, "which means you won't have to sign up for anything, give an email address, or jump through a hoop. You will be able to go and take the song or songs as you wish, as many times as you wish."

Having started recording the album yesterday (September 15), Corgan also revealed that the story of the album is based on the tarot card 'The Fool's Journey' and that it will be a return to "the original psychedelic roots of The Smashing Pumpkins: atmospheric, melodic, heavy, and pretty".

As well as the free to download songs, 11 four-song EPs and also a deluxe box set will be released once the album has been completed.

This isn’t the first time The Smashing Pumpkins have given away an album with 'Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music', finding its way online for fans to download back in 2000.

Teargarden By Kaleidyscope Vol. I: Songs For A Sailor
May 25, 2010

Product Description
The packaging is a silk-screened wooden box (7¼" tall x 8" wide x 1.05" thick). Each box will contain:

• 4-song CD will have 4 new SP songs and instrumental intros
• 7" vinyl single containing one NEW song plus b-side
• Hand-carved leopard stone obelisk, about 2" tall, similar to marble

1. A Song For A Son
2. Stitch In Time
3. Astral Planes
4. Widow Wake My Mind

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00381YJQO/?tag=imwan-20

Heh... Linda just beat me to this post.

And if you want to see what else is leaking out of Corgan's brain these days, check out http://www.everythingfromheretothere.com

I was posting the link for the free Pumpkins downloads over in the Pumpkins general thread, but I'll put it here now, mostly because "A Song For A Son" is one of my favorites these days:

http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/

Song #3, "A Stitch In Time", went up today.

Just received this e-mail from Amazon:

Good Billy Corgan interview in the new Rolling Stone magazine.

Anyone else rolling their eyes at the title?

"Melon Collie".... "Kaleidyscope".........

Someone kick Corgan in the nads.

It's full of puns. I'm assuming as a musician, "Teagarden" at least partly refers to jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden.

Isn't this sort of a joke anymore at this point?

The Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan has launched open auditions to find a new bassist and keyboard player after Ginger Pooley left the band last week. "We were lucky enough to find drummer Mike Byrne through an open audition process," Corgan explained. "So why not open the doors again to anyone who might be interested for the bass or keyboard position."

Song #4, "Astral Planes", was posted for free download earlier today.

Saw them on Leno last night. The song was awful beyond words, but I don't know the title. It looked like Billy and whoever with no connection to the band playing with what looked like rejects from a Waltons reunion doing backing vocals, just going through the motions.
Just strange and really lousy. Thing is, I saw the tour in 2007 and they were really good-but Jimmy Chamberlain was still there as well as several other members now gone. Oh well.

The Pumpkins have apparently found yet another chick bass player:

http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/pressre ... 100510.php

Got this baby in the mail today. It sort of needs to be seen to be believed...but, as mentioned, the 45, the obelisk, and the CD and CD sleeve all come in a wooden, velvet-lined box--this is not a cheap piece of junk. The 45 is turquoise and has neither a label, nor a sleeve, nor a B-side; it contains an instrumental entitled "Teargarden Theme".

Expensive and silly? Yes, but I'm getting a kick out of it. After all, four of the five songs are available for free on the internet, and for those of us who like physical product...well, this packaging is about as physical as physical product gets.

And I do like these songs. I've loved "A Song For A Son" since I first heard it last year, and the other three songs have grown on me considerably.

Song #5, "Freak", hit the web today.

Song #6, "Spangled", was posted this morning.

Teargarden By Kaleidyscope Vol. II: The Solstice Bare
November 22, 2010

Product Description
Package Description:

• Packaged in a beautiful collector's 12" box

Each Box Contains:

• 4-song CD, 4 NEW Smashing Pumpkins songs
• 12" picture disc with 4 new songs
• The lid covering the box is a metallic/foil wall paper motif, a 1970's design by The Flavor Paper Co.

1. The Fellowship
2. Freak
3. Tom Tom
4. Spangled

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0041KOVUU/?tag=imwan-20

Volume II is nearly two months away from release, but it's already at #18 in Amazon's music department sales chart. Wow.

Who says physical product is dead?

Vol. 2 looks to be about ten dollars cheaper than Vol. 1.

Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan: 'If I don't challenge myself, I get bored'
Frontman admits that however big the challenge 'if I shoot my mouth off, then I'll do it'

October 28, 2010
http://www.nme.com/news/smashing-pumpkins/53606



The Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan has revealed that if he doesn't challenge himself he gets bored.

The frontman was in particular talking about the ongoing release of the group's free 44-song album, 'Teargarden By Kaleidyscope', which they are releasing one song at a time.

"If I don't take off a big enough piece to chew on, I'll get bored," Corgan told Spinner Music. "I thought, 'If I really shoot my mouth off here, then I'll do it.'"

"The last time I really did that was with the 'Mellon Collie [And The Infinite Sadness]' album in the 90s," he continued. "After we had this wave of success with our second album I came out and said, 'OK, we're going to do a double CD' and everyone was like, 'Are you insane?', but it really made me commit on a deeper level to my writing, to the project. I looked at this similarly."

As previously reported, the band will release a new EP called 'Teargarden By Kaleidyscope Vol. II - The Solstice Bare' on November 23, with Corgan quick to reassure fans that he has written enough songs to complete the 44-track studio effort.

"I have more than enough songs," he explained. "I'll probably write a lot more. It's such a different project than preparing for a normal album. It's interesting to write a song and come back to it a year later and have a completely new perspective from whatever you learned in that last year. I'm really enjoying that process."

Got my copy in the mail today. (Funny how Amazon can get a copy of this to me day after it was released, but sets such as the recent Springsteen and Dylan releases take four or five days. But I digress.)

There's not a lot of uniformity in the packaging between this thing and the previous set. That disc came in a wooden box, about eight inches by eight inches; this baby came in a 12" cardboard box with a lid (much like the LP boxed sets used to come in). The lid of the box is covered with a foil-like wrapper' inside is the 4-track CD (in a folded cardboard sleeve). and a 12" vinyl picture disc, which contains 5 songs (the four on the CD plus one bonus). I'll say this: the picture disc itself is gorgeous. I'll play it later on tonight. It comes in a 12" cardboard sleeve.