Memories | The Smashing Pumpkins

17 in a boring music scene

John Williamson Hebron,Maryland , US

I remember skipping school to go buy MCIS, I had enough money to get the double cassette version my local Walmart. The Bullet w/ Butterfly Wings video totally blew away as I wasn’t prepared the heaviness of the song. 1995 was not a good year for rock music and The Smashing Pumpkins came out swinging on this one and helped save the genre. I became enamored with it and still believe at age 42 it is “The Wall” for my generation. Listening to Zero, Tales of a Scorched Earth, By Star Light and even b-sides like Said Sadly, Tribute to Johnny and God take me back to being a carefree Senior in High School. Thank you for providing to the soundtrack of my life.” Farewell goodnight last one out turn out the lights”

The Usual with a Side of Jellybelly

Anne Crofford Falls Church, VA, US

I attended college in NYC from 1999-2003. There was a deli around the corner from campus on 8th Ave between 26th and 27th owned by a sweet family that was always so kind to the F.I.T. community. The son and I realized we had a shared love of Smashing Pumpkins and would often talk about music. I would go there several times a week for lunch and would always order the same thing. When I’d walk through the door, he’d shout out to me, “The usual with a side of Jellybelly, coming right up!” Shortly after 9/11, the deli burned down and we never saw the family again, as they chose not to rebuild. I often think of the deli whenever I hear Jellybelly and wonder how the family is doing, now.

An Amazing Journey

Jessica Canton, US

It was the winter of 1995. The first song I heard him sing that night in was Rocket off of Siamese Dreams. He had this way of staring at you like you were the only thing that existed. Bright green intensity framed by jet black hair and gorgeous cheekbones.

I had seen him before, we went to the same school. I had felt that stare before but I thought there was no way that stare was meant for me. Besides, I was there that night because I was dating his drummer.

My cousin occasionally played in one of his bands

and called me one day on his behalf. That weekend we went night sledding with my cousin and some of his other band mates. He sat behind me on a sled, spoke something softly into my ear about holding on and I was hooked for the rest of my life.

I spent the next five years consumed by him. It was intense, volatile, mesmerizing, magnetizing… fucking magical. Even time itself bent for us. We could spend hours talking only to realize that a mere hour had passed. I could feel his presence without looking. In a room with a hundred other people, I’d know he was there.

We spent a lot of our alone time listening to Mellon Collie. I could spend a life time running my hands over his gorgeous curves and angles, letting the music speak for us. I used to fantazise about walking down the aisle to the Tonight, Tonight instrumental.

But it was also toxic. The constant push/pull, hot/cold. The fights, the misunderstandings, the other girls. We were so young, such stupid kids. Both out on our own for the first time and I was a trainwreck of undiagnosed CPTSD.

We were the highest highs but also the lowest lows and ,eventually, I needed it to end. Our association ended badly and we went out separate ways like we never knew each other at all.

I stayed friends, and even family, with his band mates whom had become some of my closest and dearest friends over the course of our madness. I dated others who I was find of.I got married and had a family. But I never loved anyone else again.

In 2018, our friend died unexpectedly and it drew us back into the same orbit again. I put on a benefit for our friends daughter with all his old bands reuniting to play in his honor.

I hadn’t seen him in close to twenty years. He was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I could still feel him in the room. I could still feel the tension of not being able to touch him.

I was very unhappily married and, unbeknownst to me, so was he. I eventually broke and reached out to him regarding the second benefit. I had every intention of remaining friendly and proper. I did. But that connection, that undeniable magmatism was still there like a freight train that couldn’t be knocked off course.

I thought it was impossible to change my lot. I had no idea how to escape my marriage, I had settled into the idea that that was what my life was going to be and so did he. But I knew I couldn’t go back to life as I knew it, I was still in love with him after all those years.

So, we moved mountains. We broke the whole world. We did the impossible. We had a million complications thrown at us along the way, not to mention a word wide pandemic, but here we are. Together again where we belong.

He’s an amazing step father to my children, and, as I sit here writing this, our new baby daughter is upstairs dreaming.

Our improbable, miracle baby that was conjured up and born through sheer will and the kind of love that few are ever lucky enough to have.

And The Smashing Pumpkins, especially Mellon Collie, have traveled with us on our journey the whole way.

Christmas -95

Aapo Helsinki, FI

Got MCIS as a christmas present. Had heard Tonight Tonight and Bullet, but nothing else. Started listening with headphones on with the rest of my family in the same room – I skipped Tonight Tonight ’cause I knew it already, but then Jellybelly started and when the main groove kicks in, it was the most powerful feeling any song has ever given me, a perfect wall of guitars, a perfect groove, a perfect chorus… I won’t forget that ever and the song (and album) still gives me chills after thousands of repeats.

Their Passion was my World

Matthew Johannesburg, ZA

Smashing Pumpkins poster in the window, with a CD shop full of people – oh how things are changing. This was the era of VHS and CD’s – and how I remember how tape-cassette became uncool.

I was a teenager as I walked into the CD shop, mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday and SP MCIS was def on that list. I was already hooked from Gish and Siamese Dream so this was a no brainer.

The sound created was amazing, the heaviness and yet creative ooze that pulsated from my sound system was too much. I remember how my dad hated the noise, but I didn’t care and why would I, I was a teenager. This album and I became one as I would listen to it everywhere, I tried to learn the chords for songs but the technical wowness was far beyond my skills.

As teenagers, our group would listen to MCIS drink and smoke a spliff walking around at night in the streets with nothing to do but sing MCIS songs fresh in our memory and shout out the world is a vampire while kicking out street lights.

I wouldn’t want to have grown up in a world without Pumpkins!

How MCIS started a personal revolution

Vanessa Desloires Melbourne, Victoria , AU

MCIS is a seminal album for me. I was introduced to it in the classic way by a friend’s old sister. As a 13 year old in 1996 with no real sense of self, it was transporting. I could retreat to different songs as I tried to navigate the uncertainty of transition. D’Arcy was particularly influential. I saw a role model, and naturally picked up a bass, which consumed my teenage years. I wore her Bullet-era blue lipstick to my confirmation. I later turned my back on my painful teenage years, but in 2020 am slowly reclaiming it as foundational to my current strength. I only wish I’d kept my Zero T-shirt.

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

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.

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