While cleaning out some files I found this essay I wrote for an English class.
To look at what kind of album Adore would have turned out to be if Jimmy Chamberlain would have been involved is to look more than him simply drumming on it, but to see what Jimmy had to offer as a member of the Smashing Pumpkins.
It’s been said before in interviews post-Adore era that when Billy and Jimmy get together, there is a spark that occurs. Billy may have a riff that he’s playing around with but Jimmy will push him to go further with it. He gives Billy a different direction to follow in creating the music.
It is well known (through interviews, documentaries, etc.) that the recording of Adore was a period of extreme stress on the members of the Smashing Pumpkins, but for Billy most of all, considering the loss of his mother at the time, as well as the loss of a crucial member of the band. It probably wasn’t until the band was starting to write songs for Adore that they realized that there was something missing with Jimmy not taking part in the creation process and they struggled through the process.
What would Adore be if Jimmy were part of it? I would think that it would have been a little more rocking. It is hard to theorize on this notion as the band would still have a lot of the same issues facing them even if Jimmy was part of the band at the time; the loss of a loved one, the immense pressure of a follow-up to a successful album…perhaps Adore needed to be less rocking to pave the way for a more dynamic Smashing Pumpkins. You could see that once the album morphed into the live show that the songs were rawer and so much more different that the recorded versions in some cases. I think that ‘Live Adore’ is much better than ‘Recorded Adore’. Perhaps they were trying to recapture a little spark of Jimmy when they thought about how the songs should be in a live setting.
Judging from the songs created around the Pre-Machina (Arising Tour Era), you can tell that Jimmy’s influence made the songs more rocking. The spark was back and the Pumpkins were back in full force once again. Adore would have probably had some of the same introspective songs on it (For Martha for example), but there would be a little more oomph added to the album.
Let’s not forget that Adore would be bad-ass if we heard Mr. Chamberlain’s drumming on the album as well! He is arguably the top drummer in the modern age and his drumming only gets better with time (as seen with the release of Zeitgeist; a welcome change from the standard drumming fare seen in the past decade in alternative circles). Not that there is anything wrong with the session drummers (can Matt Cameron really be referred to as a session drummer? It seems so cruel…) on the album, but we would love to hear the drum fills and bombastic playing of Jimmy on the album.
That being said, I know there have been rumours through the years of some Adore tracks existing with Jimmy playing drums on them. While this may just be a fan boy’s dream (and would still be interesting to hear) I think that Adore would have much different than just having his drumming over all the tracks. They would have been completely different songs in spirit.
So the Police are coming to town. It’s touted as their last tour ever.
Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story – Krista lent me some Chuck Klosterman novels which I thoroughly enjoyed. Chuck is an editor at SPIN magazine and his writings are chock full of pop culture references and gets into the minutae of music. I love it. It felt like I was sitting with a friend who is equal to me in my thoughts of music…I have yet to find a person who talks about the little things they love about a song…I have my suspicions that Karilee may fit that bill on the music scene. Or Sara. But I have yet to have those conversations with them. You know the conversations I’m talking about…the ones where you are sitting in a living room listening to some tunes and then comment on a random part of the song and thoroughly dissect it like it’s a frog in Grade Ten biology class.
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs – Another Chuck Klosterman great epic with essays on random subject matter ranging from Star Wars, Breakfast Cereals, the beauty of Saved By The Bell…such obscure subject matter which needs someone to talk about it for an entire generation. I enjoyed his essays although there were a few I skipped altogether (like when he talked about The Real World which is a TV show I hadn’t seen before). In the middle of book laid the Top 23 Questions I would Ask a Person to Answer to Determine if I will Love them. These questions are amazing and I actually have photocopied them and carry them in my backpack for a boring day at the pub.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Thanks to Trish for lending me this novel. Even though I heard the ending inadvertently on the bus one night, I still was anxious to read the last great novel in the Harry Potter series. While I won’t spoil anything here, I will say that it was quite the page turner and I finished it in a few days while in Sudbury with Mom and Dad over the holidays. All in all, a fitting end to the series. While a lot of people have spoken to me and indicated they didn’t care for the last chapter, I thought it was great. My only qualm with the novel is that fell outside of the standard formula of the other novels; in that there is a year at the school, there’s trouble with a new teacher, etc. So it was a different read and at some points I was feeling that the novel wasn’t moving along fast enough. There was literally a few chapters dealing with them wondering what they should do next while they camped somewhere. Meh, that’s a minor point really as we all knew the novel structure had to change. While I am disappointed that this is the end of the Harry Potter train, I was pleased with the last novel…much like I was pleased with Revenge of The Sith.
Moonraker – I picked up a few James Bond novels while in Sudbury and just finished reading Moonraker. From what I can remember of the film, it is nothing based on the novel whatsoever. I believe this had to do with the fact that Moonraker was created for a population who wanted some outer space action ala Star Wars. Nothing of that sort in the novel. It follows our great spy James Bond keeping an eye for sabotage on the Moonraker project and it’s fraught full of suspicion at every turn and red herrings. Can I point out that so far in all the novels of Bond I’ve read, James really gets a number done on him in the final chapters. That never happens in the films! Except for Casino Royale which faithfully reproduced the final torture sequence. But imagine that happening in every novel! It’s true! In Live and Let Die, he gets dragged behind a boat and thrown through corral all the time which slices him up badly. In Moonraker he gets his skin burned by steam. Gadzooks! If this is what being a spy is all about, it isn’t all that glamourous. Either way, I enjoy Ian Fleming’s writings as they keep the pace moving and it’s also interesting to see how the film compares with the original novel (in some cases very faithfully (Casino Royale) but in some cases, not so much (Moonraker).
Last night Vero met me at Place D’Orleans and we headed to Future Shop to pick up a new hard drive to outfit our video editing suite. Let me tell you…this hard drive is pretty sweet. It’s a Lacie 500GB drive which was designed by Porsche! Way nicer than my old hard drive. Sits out the way also and is unobtrusive. It was also only $129 which is pretty well unheard of for a 500GB drive (this particular model usually goes for $259.