I'm Your Zero

I went on a cd buying binge yesterday since in the last month every week there is something new coming out that I want, and I just kept saying, I'll get it next week when Coldplay comes out, I'll get it next week when Foo Fighters comes out, so I finally got them all last night when Billy Corgan's new solo cd came out. Hopefully, once I give all 8 of my purchases some good listening time I'll come back and let you know what I thought. It shouldn't be too hard, I did do cd reviews a few years ago for a now defunct website.

Billy's solo effort sounds promising, but I haven't given it a proper listen yet, just a rushed one, and it is now coming through my speakers here at my desk, though I can't hear it very well, I have to keep it low since my desk is an inch away from the next desk and not everyone is at lunch yet.

So, while listening to the new solo album, I find out that Billy Corgan took out a full page ad in the Chicago Tribune yesterday announcing that he has "made plans to renew and revive The Smashing Pumpkins. I want my band back, and my songs, and my dreams." I think hooray!!! My favorite band in the world is going to reunite. I only got to see them once on the Mellon Collie tour, and wished that I lived in a bigger market or had more money to travel in those lean college years. In an article in the Tribune today, Billy is quoted "What I've done [by going public] is I've set the intention. It's going to happen." He goes on, "The work's not done. I thought it was done. I left [the Pumpkins] for very noble reasons. My loyalty to James [Iha] was really the big splitter in that. And now that I look at it, I know there is more."

Billy's site has made a transformation lately, mostly due to the new album, but for most of the last year, it was for all intensive purposes a blog and nothing more, and he laid the demise of the Pumpkins at Iha's feet. Is the bad blood over? Have they all turned over a new leaf? Will I get to hear the opening strains of "Zero" played in a venue again? I guess only time will tell. At least for now I have some new material to wrap my brain around.