The Best Of Jimmy Chamberlin

Well I Never...

From Bad to...

...not quite as bad.

Tommy Lee is the New Drummer for Smashing Pumpkins

Reasons to be thankful

• PUBLICITY - Billy will be happy, his ego will be stoked as the band becomes a talking point again
• Tommy Lee is better than Mike Bryne
• It’s a new direction for the band
• Tommy Lee is definitely not a destructive human being

Reasons to be disapointed

• He might be better than Mike, but not by a lot

To get into it a little more - Motely Crue have some fucking awful music.  It is dreadful.  Really. It is. And Tommy Lee isn't that good. People like show-off drummers I guess.  

Based on my very limited knowledge, and it is rather limited, in terms of drumming style I can only guess Corgan heard in Lee’s limited phrasing - echoes of those kind of parts Chamberlin wrote which lean towards complementing the melodic leads of the music. But unfortunately he also seems to share some of the same over-indulgent, abrasive and tasteless fills that our old pal Byrne was so fond of.  I don’t know if he fucks up quite as often though. I image not...

Still - this move is a good one for the band though. I think. Maybe.

Well, it’s something different at least.  Billy has at least seen sense to hire a drummer who can do a specific job > a drummer who can sit in for a certain style of record.  Chamberlin’s skill set was so broad and is so strong in so many areas (which afforded the band the ability to flit across genre’s with ease) that it was fucking stupid of Corgan to think he could get in someone to replace Jimmy like for like.  What he got was a Jimmy clone, but without the skill to reach each end of the spectrum or the vision and/or ability to be able to lift the band beyond the mediocrity of his drumming.

It makes sense that if the band (re: Belly) wants to put out a “rock” album – he get an ‘experienced’ 'rock' (hair metal?) drummer to sit in. He might not be the best. He might be more show than ability – but if you can’t get one of the true greats who are able to go across genre’s with ease to join the band – better have someone that is ['good' at what they do] than middle of the road. Right? Get someone to embody that aspect of Chamberlin (or as Billy will put it the Smashing Pumpkins) and another drummer to embody another and so on and so forth... oh and ot also helps that he’s a name. Oh boy does it help. 

But anyway, the good thing is, even though he appears to be a terrible person and a rather shitty drummer, he at least has the potential to make the next album sound different. Which is good for SP from my point of view.  It’s all I hoped for in a new drummer following Jimmy.  The lazy rehash of the old tropes on Oceania was a corporate and safe album.  The opposite of what the band has been.  Billy said it himself.  It was too nicey-nicey.   

Anyway, I haven’t heard quite enough of Tommy Lee’s drumming to pin down what his style is per-se, but the good thing is his style certainly isn’t “trying to copy Jimmy Chamberlin, but failing” and that is something we should be thankful for.  I don’t think us drummers will get anything to write home about in terms of interesting parts or shows of technical skill – but what we shouldn’t get is something that sounds lacklustre and best and embarrassingly amateur at worst.

Don't get me wrong I do sort of think the band I once worshipped has become an absolute joke - but I guess I'm still holding on to a tiny shred of hope that once again Corgan will make something that I enjoy.

How can someone who once had one of the greatest drummers of all time in his band, keep hiring shit ones... meh

Sorry for the opinion piece. But whatevs. It is what it is.

You Know the Score...

Who is the Greatest Drummer of All Time? Slightly rhetroical if you're reading this here I guess - but I it also appears the readers of Consequence of Sound have equally discerning taste in music.  Naturally Chamberlin stolls in the top 16 Drummers of All Time in their recent readers poll - but will he be voted to the number one spot...

http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/05/whos-the-greatest-drummer-of-all-time-round-one/full-post/

Jimmy Chamberlin News (Weekly Round-Up)

As promised - here's some stuff > 

1.  Frank Catalano says that the shows him and Jimmy played in Chicago earlier this year have been filmed and not only that but him Jimmy are going back to the studio (doink) to record even more new music. 

2. As part of CIMMFEST - Jimmy will be appearing on a panel entitled "Live Streaming: From Consumption to Cache" on Saturday, May 3rd at 1:30 - 3:00PM (murica Time).  One presumes the panel itself will be live-streamed somewhere, though I can't see mention of it on the festival page.  Anyway,  this is in addition to Chamberlin's performance in his new band "Mary Shelly" and their scoring of the classic Battleship Potempkin.

3. In contrast Jimmy gives Tyson Meade's track Dusty Come Up for Air some old school bombast.  Chamberlin features on 3 of the forthcoming album's 10 tracks.

4. The day you have all been waiting for is here; Jimmy will be heading down to Vic's Drum Shop on the 23rd of April to celebrate REMO-DAY!

And lastly,   following the disappointment that the most recent Smashing Pumpkins' announcement wasn't the triumphant return of Jimmy to his throne  - in a series of rambling and vague posts, it has become apparent that Billy Corgan is using drum machines to write the parts for the next "Smashing Pumpkins" album.  Here's hoping this 'new' (re: old) approach to demoing yields more interesting results than those of Oceania- "Hey Mike, try and play like Jimmy might ok?"

Frank and Jim 'do some Jazz' (April 14)

SPIN - Greatest Aleternative Drummers

 [D'oh- Just doing a bit of house-keeping behind the scenes and I realised I forgot to post this when it was published (21/05/2013). Also, to note Spin fucked up, they put an 8 on the number by accident]

#18 - Jimmy Chamberlin (Smashing Pumpkins)

So much of Smashing Pumpkins' classic sound is defined by Jimmy Chamberlin's titanium snare slaps and gargantuan fills, it's nearly impossible to imagine that when the now-48-year-old musician first saw Billy Corgan's then-trio in Chicago, it was accompanied by a drum machine. Corgan gets credit for writing (and, let's face it, playing) nearly all of the Pumpkins' songs, but their depth and drive are all rooted in Chamberlin's forceful redefinition of psychedelic hard rock. He trained as a jazz drummer, which helps explain how he can turn on a dime from militaristic rolls to swinging cymbals to tight rim shots on a track like "Tonight, Tonight." But his taut, thunderous playing on Gish opener "I Am One" and "Tristessa" and Siamese Dream's "Cherub Rock" and "Quiet" are the rudders that kept Corgan's turbulent ship on course.
Most Booming Moment: Siamese Dream standout "Geek U.S.A." marches to the beat of Chamberlin's smart, syncopated monsoon. CARYN GANZ

http://www.spin.com/articles/best-drummers-list-alternative-music/?slide=83 

Frank Catalano / Jimmy Chamberlin Project Update

Tune in to WBEZ91.5FM at around 3-4PM Chicago Time for an update from Saxophonist Frank Catalano.

 

Absolutely Ground Breaking

Alt Smashing Pumpkins news [and stuff] blog to Crestfallen...

That is all;

ABSOLUTELY GROUND BREAKING

Smashing Pumpkins Archive Project - Dead. Again.

Remember the awesome archive project the Smashing Pumpkin proposed which was headed-up by Crestfallen.com 'author' Monte and 'super-fan' team "the Lucky 13"? Yeah, well - it's been abandoned, for the forseable future.

Let's use the rest of the post to reflect on some of the achivements of the Lucky 13;

























Well done guys - you dun goofed. 

Hipsters United

They are the site the Smashing Pumpkins deserve, but not the one it needs right now.

A little over a year after Blamo closed it's doors, the ladies and gentlemen over at HU have called an end to its 5 year reign as the most rational, balanced and informative source of Smashing Pumpkins news, rumours, reviews and analysis out there.

It will be sorely missed.

I wish them all the best in whatever they do both in this world, and that other real one.

Cheers.

Tonight Tonight, Chamberlin Leaves Skysaw

Skysaw is no-more, Chamberlin demo's Tonight Tonight, Geek U.S.A and Complex tracks.
Get the full lowdown over at HU.

Here's a couple of vids that have appeared, both of SP drumming masterclass Tonight/Tonight





Fingers crossed for a couple more... I'll keep you guys posted. Cheers.

BAM: BOO-YA: Streetcrawler

Jimmy Chamberlin Drum Clinic

 

http://jimmychamberlinchicago-zvents.eventbrite.com/

Corgan Compares Chamberlin to Bonham

Corgan talks some sense this time;

Are there other things you admire about Zeppelin?
When John Bonham died, they announced the band is done. They didn't step back and think about it. I've always respected that, because he was their brother and they knew it wasn't gonna be the same without him. And I had to learn those lessons the hard way. When Jimmy Chamberlin left the band in '96, I thought, "I'll just get somebody. The band is big and we'll find somebody great. It won't be the same, but it'll be just as good in a different way." It just doesn't work like that. You just don't replace your brother like that.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/q-a-billy-corgan-on-vocal-smashing-pumpkins-fans-led-zeppelins-greatness-20120618#ixzz1yBBqjS1z

 

Listen to Chamberlin's take on Moby Dick

Billy Corgan Stirs the Shit, Again...

None too surprisingly with an album to promote, "spiritually enlightened" Corgan once again grabs the headlines by bad-mouthing former friends/lovers/bandmates/other bands... etc etc etc ... from our pals over at HU here's a portion of a recent interview in NME:

Billy Corgan: Success held that band together longer than it should have been held together. It was dysfunctional. There were a lot of years there where I regretted the way it all went down, and now I think it was meant to die when it died how it died. We stole from the Promethean fire to fuel whatever our weird psychic death trip was and then we paid for it. Or got too close to the sun and crashed. It was just meant to be that way. And you can draw parallels from that with Jimmy’s situation [when he left the band in 2009] because maybe that was just a continuance of something that hadn’t been resolved back then.

NME/Emily Mackay: He said in his statement on leaving that he “couldn’t just cash the cheque”…

Corgan: See now, here is a perfect opportunity to bury Jimmy as a fucking liar. But I won’t. That’s a lie. That statement’s just a flat-out lie.

NME: Was it that you wanted to take the band in a commercial direction, and he didn’t?

Corgan: Ha ha! No, it’s the exact opposite. I wish I could explain it, but I don’t trust the world to understand the complexity of it. I think it’s telling that the first thing Jimmy did when he left the band was make a statement about money because that had a lot to do with it. But if you look at what I’ve done since he left, where have I made money?

Later: 

NME: Do you still feel any rancour towards the other band members about the way it ended? 

Corgan: Uhhh… I’m OK with Jimmy. We don’t have a relationship at the moment, but I mean, I have no ill will. I want to see him do well. James Iha I think is just a piece of shit. I think he’s one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met in my life. And D’Arcy, she’s sort of, in her own way, sort of an innocent [...]If there’s any culprit in this it’s Iha. But, y’know, he was there at the right time of my life, we did do good things together, I think he is a good musician when he gives a fuck, which most of the time he doesn’t. And that’s about it.

I'm not even going to bother to try and unravel the layers of bullshit in the above statements.

Talking of Polls...

 Treble runs a feature on their collective 50 favourite drummers, of course, JC is right up there;

... [Chamberlin's] roots are in Buddy Rich and Deep Purple, and that his neurotic, gunslinging style is considered semi-revolutionary among rock drummers for its reliance on jazz-style riffs. His most varied work was on the titanic of nineties avant-rock, Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, famous for its excess but scattered with off-chart gems like "Thru The Eyes Of Ruby," which perfects the Chamberlin snare sound  and "Galapagos," a piece of stormy minimalism which Chamberlin has identified as one of his favorite Pumpkins moments...

The band as it then existed crashed on the rocks, of course... but at the peak of the Pumpkins, no one brought the thunder more regularly — no one in the entire world.

Not that I tend to keep track of these kind of things...

... but Jimmy's show-case for DW drums, released around 10 months ago, just hit 100,000 views on YouTube.  Congrats JC.  If you haven't already seen it, enjoy;

Its somewhat eclipses the view count for the last official release from the Smashing Pumpkins', from 8 months ago, Owata (music video version) sits at 27,000... :O

Jimmy Chamberlin Re-Joins Smashing Pumpkins

(Again, Again, Again)

Just got word that Jimmy Chamberlin has re-joined Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins.  Sources close to the band report that following a serendipitous invite to the true-fan only ‘Amazon Listening Party’ for the Smashing Pumpkin’s forthcoming album,  Oceania, Chamberlin was so awestruck by the quality of the recording that he reached out to former bandmaster Corgan and tabled a deal to re-join the outfit.   

Sources reveal that Chamberlin privately cited many reasons for his return to fold; “it’s been too long… it’s totally driven by a desire to not sound anything like ‘classic pumpkins’ and to explore totally new ground… It’s all about the cash… I just love wrestling and tea and so does Billy…my shaman told me to do it… Teargarden has been an unmitigated success so far – it's the best release method ever”.

However, the official announcement, announced over at Smashing Pumpkins.com states Chamberlin’s true motivation:

"I want Corgan’s dreams, his songs and his band back together..."   

"...I have waved any creative input and final say on everything, it will be, and rightly so, all Billy's. This is a make or break year for the band and only securing the best marketing deal will ensure the bands future, not the music.”

When asked by the "gatekeepers" of Smashing Pumpkins fandom, oddly comment disabled site Crestfallen.com, about the specific moment he realised he wished to reconcile his musical ideology with Billy’s own, Chamberlin explains;

“It was about 7 or 8 tracks into the new record. In each track I heard the drums doing things I have done in other songs or pretty much would do - given the chance.  I kept thinking, this in an odd bastardisation of my originality as an Artist and if Billy wanted to just get someone in to play like me, why not pick, say Matt Walker.  He actually did it OK”.  He continues “I figured that; if they’ve got a new guy in and he’s just going to approximate what I’d do, but so incredibly poorly I can’t really comprehend it, I should probably just do it myself”.  

Chamberlin continues, “I was quietly optimistic that Billy would move forward in new musical directions, as he always used to try and one of the reasons I used to love the band, but now my priorities have changed & it’s why I’m back in; I am all about living in the past now. I am the difference, I am the 97%.  I realised that touring on ‘Rat in a Cage’ into my 60’s, is my real dream future”, gushes Chamberlin.

Talking about the future, for the handful of you out there wondering about the prospects of drumming tyke Mike Bryne, unfortunately the one and only music pundit who was in the slightest bit bothered by his dismissal, didn't have much hope;

“Even if my life depended on it, and I had Bonham, Moon and Rich as my phone-a-friends, I couldn’t pick this guys style out of a line-up of 5 ‘mathrock’ drummers."

Bryne, tweeted his disappointment at his inevitable dismissal; “shit. I dun goofed #imitationnotnecessarilythesincerestformofflattery”. 

Corgan Continues Charm Offensive...

Further to Corgan's most recent contradiction, thanks to Machine Somehow reader Chris and Arachnea, here's a little extract from a recent interview Corgan conducted with Mojo Magazine here in the UK, where he continues to lavish praise on musical soulmate Jimmy Chamberlin... 

Mojo: You were playing with James and D'arcy but the arrival of Jimmy Chamberlin changed everything. How?

Corgan: When Jimmy joined the band we were playing a lot of kind of Cure type songs, very simple beats. Right away I could tell it was almost like he was playing dumb. We had one heavyish song and he was playing it without breaking sweat when any other drummer would have been huffing and puffing, so it wasn't too long before we sold our Jazz Chorus amps – which were the alternative amp of choice – and we got Marshall half-stacks. The louder we played, the louder he played. He was always one step ahead of us. There was nothing Jimmy couldn't do. Jimmy is an incredible emotional interpreter of the song, He would bring these emotional swells, almost like an orchestral swish, to what we were doing.

Did the band come close to splitting around Mellon Collie…?
No... Are you going to kick out one of the greatest drummers in the world who just helped make this massive album? Are you going to kick him out when you are playing this sold-out tour all around the world?...

In 2001 you and Jimmy formed Zwan with Matt Sweeney (Chavez), Dave Pajo (Slint/Sterolab) and Paz Lenchantin. What were you trying to achieve?

Jimmy and I had held this myth that if James and D'arcy had been better musicians the Pumpkins would have been bigger. So Zwan was an attempt at getting better musicians. It wasn't designed to be grandiose like the pumpkins, it was the opposite – let's have some fun, let's make a really good record with people we like. We went to Key West and rented a house. We would sit on the front porch and write songs and play all this kind of groovy stuff. Then, when it got serious the whole thing started to blow up and it was like "Oh my god, I am in the same nightmare again." It was the classic thing where you get out of a bad relationship and you think, "I am never going to do that again," and you go out and get the same kind of girlfriend but worse. That's what I did.

Jimmy Chamberlin DRUM HERO

"I think Jimmy Chamberlin is a fucking animal, just unbelievable." So says drumming tyke Mike Byrne again.

 

Did Corgan just sort of Appologise to Chamberlin...?

Thanks HU xx

Here's a transcript for part of an interview on Radio 1's Zane Lowe program, with Billy Corgan, celebrating Siamese Dream.

Corgan contradicts his previous remarks about the end of his relationship with former Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin...

Zane Lowe: How can you guys not be in contact still? Even if you’re not making music, if you have that kind of spiritual kinship? That’s deeper than that! Isn’t it?

Billy Corgan: You know, we’ve all had — and this may sound a little bit strange, but — we’ve all had great romances in our life, you know? And, they don’t always all go the way we want them to. And it doesn’t mean we don’t love, and doesn’t mean we don’t think fondly of… But I think relationships run their course. Jimmy and I made so much incredible music together, so, you know, if we never play together again, that’s okay with me.

He — you know, I want to speak for him for a second, I feel I can — he wanted to have his own musical journey. He was always on my musical journey. And so I have to really bow my hat to him and say…I think it’s that time in his life where he has to have his own musical journey. He’s entitled to it. He’s earned that. I understand why a fan would want to see him play with me and play those songs. He did it. Maybe having his own band and having his own music experience and not having somebody sort of veto over his head what the drum fill should be…I mean, you’ve got to remember, as psychic as that relationship was, he had to deal with me going, “Nah, I don’t really like that drum fill.” You know, “Can you slow that part down?” Because as the songwriter you get to make the calls. And he was always so so supportive of my music, so, I can’t say a bad word about it. I just think we reached a point where there was nothing else to do, and that’s that. The ugliness part is just the part of…that just goes with breaking up.