Listening in the Dark

Emily Sussman Los Angeles, CA, US

MCIS holds such a special place in my heart; it feels like a piece of me. I was 13 and our power was out for days due to a strong hurricane. I would put MCIS in my CD player and lay on my bed in the dark, listening fully, mesmerized, falling in love with a sound that spoke directly to my soul.

Dads Influence

Whitney Scranton PA, US

My dad and I would listen to this album while he worked on weekend projects in his workshop; I was around 6 years old when I first heard it. One of my most vivid memories from then is him telling me to go tell my mom that I was a rat in a cage (she was not amused lol). 

Born on 1979

Rammil PH

I bought this casset album when i was in high school and still i listening to this masterpiece. This album brings me many precius memories of my life.

Buying MCIS album

Phill Caloundra, Queensland , AU

I was 16, shopping with my mum. I saw the album and I begged my mum to buy it for me. When I got home and played it my mind was blown. The different sound and styles within the album. It changed my world forever. That year I picked up my first guitar and never looked back. The way that album changed my life is nothing I’ve ever experienced before. The only other album that had that kind of affect on me was Michael Jackson’s Dangerous album. MCIS changed my life. Great album from a great band

Lily(My One And Only)

Sam Ottawa, CA

When I first met him, I wasn’t sure. Until one night, we worked until closing time. We talked and something shifted. It felt like every other attraction I had for others in my life was purely vain. There was something so different about a connection I felt, for the first time it made sense in my head. He reminded me of the song lily! Every meaningless conversation with him meant everything. On the last day of my summer job, I didn’t end up asking for his number. After that, every day I think about what if I meet him on the streets, or maybe in a coffee shop. I’m afraid I’ll never meet anyone like him, but I still hold on to a small hope of meeting him again, and that’s my mellon collie and infinite sadness.

RURAL PUMPKINS

Alexander Hopetown, Northern Cape, ZA

This goes back to the 90s, before YouTube and all that… My friends and I often roamed the streets of our little town at night, smoking weed out here in rural South Africa, when the light pollution was low and the milky way was very visible and very bright… and in places this small nobody knows the street names, but still know where everything is… so some guys from the city pulled up asking us for directions to a specific street on this specific night… and obviously we had no idea of where to find the specific street… so the guys were shocked, probably reasoning that the place is so small that we should know each and every street’s name, so they asked us “How can you not know where this street is?” and my friend’s girlfriend responded with a SP reference… “We only come out at night.” And so they drove off to search for their destination and we meandered on…

First Concert

Matthew Falls Wilton Manors, FL, US

My Mellon Collie memory is from the Reunion Arena show in Dallas TX on December 1, 1996. It was my first concert.  

I grew up in a town of 2,500 so there weren’t many chances to see shows or any kind of art culture.  I fell in love with a Smashing Pumpkins from your SNL performance of Cherub Rock.  I went out that week and got the CD.  It was my first purchased CD too.  So I had been anticipating MCIS’ release ever since it was announced.  I worked in Camelot music at the time and got the double album the day of release.  It was amazing.  Much different than Siamese, Gish or even Pisces Iscariot.  It had a more glam rock polish and areas of fantasy ballads.  I loved it.  

I decided I had to see you guys as my first show.  I begged my mom and she agreed to a visit at my grandparents in Dallas so she could also take me to the show with my sister.  

We had a blast.  The music was amazing.  I also became a Garnage fan that night because they opened.  Amazing band as well!  It was a little bittersweet since Jimmy wasn’t there.  Just months before the Melvoin tragedy happened.  I was afraid you guys were going to break up and am glad you trucked on… even though know it would’ve been healthier to pause for a bit.

I appreciate the dedication.   I think I bought one of every shirt you guys had at the shop.  I still have my MCIS lady and the one with the rodent opium den on the front and skull on the back.  It’s insane how much they worth now, but I am holding on to those memories. 

Thanks for the amazing show.  Thanks for introducing me to rock.  Thanks for the lyrics in your music. Siamese kinda saves my life. Mellon Collie made me fight for my happiness and be a fun loving teenager.  I have Cyr preordered and can’t wait to experience Smashing Pumpkins again!  I’m glad the band is back together.  I also hold out hope D’arcy may return as well one day.  I won’t hold my breath though.  I’m just glad my band is back.  Keep the music coming.  Much love and gratitude!

Matthew

Most important album release

Deven Marysville, WA, US

It was my sophomore year in HS. I used my lunch money for my first band trip to buy the album. My CD player burned through batteries, but I had an adapter. To this day, best memory from that year.

The sound of hope

Jaison San Jose, CR

1996. I’m hanging out with my best friend. Suddenly the house is filled by a song his older brother is playing from his room. Right away, I lose all sense of time while listening and before I know it, I’m knocking on his door. He opens and I ask. He tells me, “1979 by the SP,” in a tone that indicates I should know that. I feel mortified for a second, before getting lost in the song again. He finds me funny, so he plays it from the beginning and I sit on the floor without moving until Twilight to Starlight is over. I find my band, my sound. It takes me a month to save enough money to buy the album and I listen to it relentlessly, until the words pour out of me organically, as if they are my own. Another 10 years pass before I can see the band live for the first time. Every concert since then, happy tears. And even today, I turn 14 the moment I hear: “Shakedown 1979, cool kids never have the time…”

Thank you!

Roberta Marciel dos Santos Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, BR

I was 16 years old when I saw “Butter with butterfly wings” video for the first time. A black, shy and quiet girl listening and thinking “you know what? I really feel like a rat in a cage…” I just don’t know why, I simply felt in love for all of this. When I started to work, and finally got the double CD, I felt happy – I loved all those lyrics, all those melodies, evrey single one of them! 25 years later,and I still got my beloved CD. With all my heart, thank you.

A teens dream come true

Kristina Seattle, US

Met Billy crossing the street in Seattle. He put us on the guest list for the sold out show! It was amazing! He told us if we had any trouble ask for Gooch or Billy Remy.  It was amazing! The show was literally the best ever! We were in awe! Next time they were on tour we asked for Gooch and got backstage again! Oh to be young 😂 thank you Billy!!!

My Introduction to Alternative Music

Braxton Scottdale, US

The first time I ever heard of the Smashing Pumpkins I was twelve years old and we had just got cable for the first time and I happened to be

watching a little unknown channel that used to play music videos, MTV, I think it was called, suddenly I see this guy with a top hat singing a love song in a starry sky in the midst of what was to my mind as a recreation of an old silent movie, which was weird but charming at the same time. This wasn’t  rock music which was ‘cool’ but a epic orchestral ballad that I thought was unabashedly earnest and sentimental which I didn’t quite understand so I made a dismissive remark about it, not unlike what our MTV heroes Beavis and Butthead would say, to which my older brother, who was the absolute authority of what was cool in music at the time said “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I like it” I was baffled. But then I had heard their heavy songs “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” and “Zero” and again I was like “How the hell does a band do something so heavy and then turn around and do a song like “Tonight, Tonight”? I bought the double album “Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness” and it seemed like a Herculean task listening to all this music but I did it and suddenly I was touched in a way that was both familiar and completely alien to me. Emotions I wasn’t quite used to. The anger and the heartbreak and the ecstasy. I was swept away by poetry of Billy Corgan lyrics. The vocabulary so sophisticated I had to look up the definitions of words he was singing but the universal feeling was always evident. All the freaks and all the ghouls hogged down together in ritual and ceremony. The notion of star crossed lovers. The idea of true love out there somewhere waiting for me to discover it and discover it years later I did and suddenly all the songs took on a different shade once which was black and white now coated in startling gray. This album, this band was responsible for opening up a third eye of artistic and creative expression that at first burned slowly and steadily into a fiery blaze that still engulfs my heart and my soul.

My everything

Jill Waterbury Center, US

I’ve listened to this album on repeat continuously. So much so that it has become the soundtrack of who I am. As I drove through the streets of my hometown screaming from my car that I’m still just a rat in a cage. As I laid in fields gazing at stars with Tonight whispering across my lips. Hearing Cupid De Lock in my head as I took my first kiss. Feeling seen as I listened to Muzzle and cut my scars to see them bleed because I was broken but meant for this world. But mostly the day I walked down the aisle to it’s title track and sung it as a lullaby to each of my life’s greatest accomplishments. This album is the murmur of my soul.

KROQ to CHICAGO

Norma Soto Los Angeles, California, US

The memory I will be with me forever because this was my first ever concert. I won the tickets from KROQ radio station.  Full paid trip to Chicago, Hotel stay and some spending money. This was the best experience ever. Still own the CD given to me on my trip to the concert truely a one of a kind experience. Thank you for sharing your music with us.

Pumpkins in the Garden, pt.1

Brian HOWELL, NJ, US

September 1996.  Just 2 short months after the rescheduled show, it was going to happen.  Mellon Collie, the soundtrack to senior year, was about to take center stage and we were going to “the city” to see Pumpkins in the Garden.  High in the rafters, that night was incredible.  The Pumpkins were more than smashing and it is forever etched into my memory, from the piano’s opening notes to the amazing Porcelina  –> Rocket segue and through the epic Silverf*ck jam, the night meant everything.   The Pumpkins mean the world to me and this evening, I thought would forever be my favorite tsp moment.  It turns out that would come on the floor of the Garden, 22 years later.  July 2018 alongside my 10 year old daughter as we cheered on “our band” during the SAOSB Tour and we sang along together all night.  Passing the music to the next generation…

The World You Can’t Live Without

Brian Philadelphia Pa, US

I was a few months out of High School and struggling to find my through my high school heart aches while struggling my way through my first semester of college. I thought my teen angst was over and behind me, but my late teens and early twenties would provide similar trials and tribulations as well as heart breaks. I remember listening to Mellon Collie on several nights and walks and putting all of my fears and sadness and hopes for the future into the songs. I remember listening to “Muzzle” on many occasions and fearing if I would ever make something of myself., “I fear that I, Am ordinary just like everyone, To lie here, and die, Among the sorrows…” . Would I find the right girl to settle down with, would I have a family, would I get my degree, would I have a career and be successful and whether or not I would make the right decisions. “I knew the emptiness of youth, And I knew, the solitude of heart…”.  In July of 2018, I attended the reunion concert in Philadelphia and it will forever be one the greatest most amazing concerts I have  ever attended. Hearing the songs that got me through my teen angst and seeing  James and Billy together again was such a memorable moment in time. The moment that will forever sir with me however is when they closed the show with “Muzzle” singing along with the rest of the crowd and that final bridge and closing verse really hit me that night. I thought back to myself over 20 years ago listening  to that song and being scared, depressed, uncertain and heartbroken and than here I was in 2018, 41 years old, best shape of my life, a wife and 4 kids at home, a career and a Masters Degree. I had made it, my fears didn’t come true but my dreams did. “And the world, is drawn into your hands, And the world is etched upon your heart, And the world, so hard to understand, is the world you can’t live without…” Thank you for being my best friend on many nights when I felt like I had no one to turn too, thank you for helping me become who I am today.

“Now that the posers are gone…”

Robby Musso Metairie, LA, US

Saw the Pumpkins at the end of the Mellon Collie tour in 1997 in New Orleans. I remember the band wanted to end the tour here because it was during Mardi Gras season and everyone wanted to celebrate after. So it was the last show. At the end, when the lights went out, a lot of people left (not us!). But after what felt like 10 full minutes, SP came back out on stage and Billy said, “Now that the posers are gone, we can really jam” and they all just improvised jazz rock style for another hour.  It was incredible. I feel so fortunate to have been there. Attached here is a photo of just some of my SP collection, including CDs, ZERO shirt, a patch, the ticket stub from that concert, as well as a logo I drew back then in an old sketchbook from school. Thank you SP for being so awesome.  Can’t wait to see you again!

Where it began.

Joshua Morris Perryopolis, PA, US

If I would think of when my musical foundation truly began, I would say it was when I used to watch the Bullet With Butterflies music video not long after it was released. I believe I was 9 years old when I first started seeing it. This song played a massive part in introducing my young self to my love for alternative music and was my introduction to The Smashing Pumpkins. I remember going to the record store at that age to buy Mellon Collie but there were no copies there so I bought Siamese Dream. At some point after, I’m not sure how long, I remember going to a store with my mother to buy Mellon Collie. This album is a very large part of the foundation of my childhood and who I have grown to be.

Cape Town Trip

Jonathan Brandon Mills Hertfordshire , GB

I was tripping in Cape Town, South Africa after taking  a load of seeds, locally known as Malpeta (Devils Thorn) on New Year’s Eve 2001. 

They were a powerful hallucinogenic that shamen and witch doctors would take one or two of to slip into a catatonic trance like state. I took about one hundred. I was on a “Death Wish” at the time after breaking up with my Girlfriend in London. 

The tripping lasted for about 3 weeks but before it was over, I was sectioned for my own good. Before getting hospitalised I had Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, with me in my CD collection, strewn across the Bungalow I was renting. Both discs were on a work surface in the kitchen. 

I started to stare at both of the discs and the images became animated, as though alive, they frowned at me, smiled at me and made other facial expressions. I had never experienced it with any CD artwork, before or since. 

I would be interested to find out if anyone else had such a moment with the Album Art Work. 

First CD Ever!

Morcego Fortaleza/CE, BR

 When a was a Kid a had some vinils, In the 90`s i had really hard times and the K-7 was the salvation. When my life became a little better … First CD EVER that a bought. Love this CD till today …

I met love

Blanka Prague, CZ

I was 17 and I met my first and biggest love ever. His name was Martin and unfortunatly I made so many mistakes, so I lost him. I never met anyone such him.

Mellon Collie album cover drawing

Jose Francisco Javier Garcia Tustin, US

I found this inside a THICK AND VERY HEAVY binder I’ve kept in my closet all these years, or shall I say centuries? Inside, I’ve kept scraps from Smashing Pumpkins and other favorite bands. I drew this when the album was first released, I sure remember buying the double CD album at the Kmart across the street from where I used to live. I saved up my allowance to pay the $24.99 that it cost back then. With tax, it was $27 total. My father picked me up and drove me home, the minute I got home I played it and drew this. I can still feel chills… I was 13, now 25 years later I am 38. Forever a Pumpkin!

Nightsongs

Ross Kingston, Ontario, CA

It was 1995 or 1996, that I first heard MCIS. I was 15 or 16. I would put this album on at night, with schoolnthe next day, and just lay there, looking up at the stars, the horizon over the houses, and just listen. The whole double album front to back. These songs always had a worldly sound to them, they evoked thoughts that eventually inspired me to travel. Thanks, SP!

My all time favorite, a masterpiece

Joshua Wade Kendallville, IN, US

MCIS was the defining music of my teenage years and still to this day I feel there is no other record that can touch all the different emotions and feelings that MCIS can. It is a true masterpiece and it changed my life. Its such a profound experience to listen to this entire piece of art, even all these years later.  I have the double cassette, 4 vinyl records and double CD  version of this truly inspired music. 1995 was a great year, I was 15, in high school and just starting my own band. Every time I hear any of the songs from MCIS I am instantly transported back to that time in my life. I will cherish this music and those memories as long as I live. Thank you Smashing Pumkins.

Unfinished prologue

Keith Swanzey, NH, US

I was a bitter idealistic journalism student and misanthrope trying to understand the world while acting like I owned it. Loved the beautiful noise and the lyrics

An Unusual Case

Juan F. Fajardo San Salvador, SV

My mother visited the US on November 1995. She came back from her trip and told my sister that she fought another woman to buy the CD. It was their last copy. When my mother pulled out the unusual CD case I was intrigued. I’d never seen anything like it before. I thought it was some form of greatest hits, there was just no way this mammoth collection could hold 100% new music. How wrong I was. I was drawn to the artwork instantly, something out of a fairytale. Each image was so evocative but also so very strange. Almost as if they were saying: “Not everything’s as it seems in this fairytale.” A landmark achievement, the crown jewel of alternative “utopia”.