The "Lucky" 13 - SMASHING PUMPKINS ARCHIVE UPDATE

"Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins has commissioned an intermediary team for the purpose of recommending upcoming Smashing Pumpkins Record Club (SPRC) releases. In conjunction with fan input, “The Lucky 13” team will review archival material, identify possible pricing models, and propose methods and formats of distribution for selected audio and video releases.

The scope of archival material currently under consideration includes professionally taped or filmed live shows, soundboard recordings, unreleased songs, demos and alternate takes.
Fan input is essential to this project. Here are three ways fans can contribute:

1. Email recommendations to TheLucky13Team@gmail.com
2. Share suggestions on your preferred Smashing Pumpkins messageboard. Members of the team will be monitoring designated “The Lucky 13” threads to gather fan input
3. “Like” the “The Lucky 13” Facebook page and leave comments"

 _________________________________________________________________________

Well, despite not believing this will make a shred of difference, here's my two penneths worth

• 1) Rename 'The Lucky 13' immediately. It already feels non-inclusive
• 2) Be transparent; reveal who this team are. If people get even the faintest whiff of a rat, this isn't going to work
• 3) Score an early win - release the damn Metro Show
• 4) [a] Consult the fans who know, who really know, the history and availability of current bootlegs/material
• 4) [b] DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE EXCLUDE Netphoria or any other long standing message board; speak to at least CoolAsIceCream, 34, Redbull, Spaldz and PistolPete
• 5) [a] Do not, DO NOT, bandy about pricing, release models, packaging or anything else for a product which does not exist. Seriously, I repeat, do not do this again
• 5) [b] If a real archivist has been at work, seriously, if you had a real archivist on this project - listen carefully and; release the catalogue for the fans to understand what the base library actually is. Make it easy for them to understand; apportion said library into sections by era and media. Then rate, with examples, quality of said media in it's raw format.
• 5 [c] Define your objectives (is this about releasing quality or quantity). This will help inform said fans what sort of pricing structure they may wish to consider for said material
• 6 Stop being vague. Stop it. Seriously
• 7) [a]Thus, again, create Samples
• 7) [b] and create direct feedback model against said samples ie; polls
• 8) Do not release anything post 2008
• 9) Do not listen to ANYONE who touts GM Palace 1997 as there favourite boot
• 10) Do not listen to ANYONE who touts post 2008 material as superior, in any shape or form, to any previous work. Even Blinking with Fists
• 11) Know your demographic: Listen very carefully, to this; your fans are not, in the main, idiots. Please stop treating us as such with running such an amateur outfit. You have already, once again, opened the flood gates for people to be disappointed that you haven't considered their own absolutely ground-breaking idea;  there is no way on this planet that you are going to be able to aggregate the multitude of vague recommendations / demands / ideas which will inevitably pop-up; the way in which you have [re-booted] this venture is, in my humble personal & professional opinion, a disaster. So start again, again. Make clear you vision and your values for the project, explain how and what you want to deliver and then and then open it up to consultation
•  13) GET. IT. DONE. 

Anyway what say you JC fans? I'm sure I've missed a point or ten...