smashing pumpkins fly high with new singles

NOVEMBER 1996 / $3.95
NEWS AUTHORITY'"
SMASHING PUMPKINS FLY HIGH WITH NEW
SINGLES BOX SET, DUE NOVEMBER 19
N SID E
OMPACT NEWS
CE CUBES
D RELEASE DATES
PDATES & CORRECTIONS
OUNTRY DEVELOPMENTS
AZZSPEAK
IF LAST YEAR'S EXPANSIVE double CD Mellon Collie and the
Infinite Sadness left any doubts as to whether Billy Corgan - the
mastermind behind The Smashing Pumpkins - is one of rock's most
, prolific songwriters, the November 19
release of The Aeroplane Flies High
should dispel them once and for all.
The five-CD singles box set contains a
wealth of Pumpkins B-sides, many of
which have never been available
domestically, plus five previously unreleased cover songs.
"The band came up with the idea as
a special item to its fans, " Virgin's
Director of Product Management, Eric
Ferris, tells ICE. "This is a collector's
item for those who want to have all
five of the band's singles in one place."
The complete breakdown:
• DISC ONE: "Bullet with Butterfly
Wings," embellished with "... Said Sadly" and the previously unreleased covers "You're All I've Got Tonight" (The Cars), "Clones (We're All) "
(Alice Cooper), "A Night Like This" (The Cure), "Destination
LUES UNLIMITED
ULTIMEDIA MUSIC
OLLECTOR'S CORNER
DIGGING DEEPER INTO THE Sony Music archives of previously
OING UNDERGROUND
ARKETPLACE
11
9
Unknown" (Missing Persons) and "Dreaming" (Blondie).
• DISC TWO: "1979," with "Ugly," "The Boy Cherry" (previously
import-only), "Believe" and "Set the Ray to Jerry" (previously
import-only).
• DISC THREE: "Zero," along with
"God," "Mouths of Babes," "Tribute to
Johnny," "Marquis in Spades," "Pennies" and "Pastichio Medley." Notes
Ferris: "Even though it was released as
a single, Billboard treated this as an
EP on its charts, because of the number of songs and its running length."
• DISC FOUR: "Tonight, Tonight,"
plus "Meladori Magpie," "Rotten
Apples," "Jupiter's Lament" (previously import-only), "Medellia of the
.. Gray Skies ," "Blank" (previously
import-only) and "Tonight Reprise"
(previously import -only).
• DISC FIVE: "Thirty-Three," with
"Transformer," "The Aeroplane Flies
High (Turns Left, Looks Right) ," "The
Last Song," "The Bells" and "My Blue Heaven." By the time the singles box hits , this single will be available, »CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
SONY LEGACY LAUNCHES NEW JOHNNY CASH JOINED BY TOM
ILiVE FROM THE VAULTS' LINE PEm & THE HEARTBREAKERS
CASH'S SOPHOMORE American Recordings CD, UnWITH THE WHO, CAROLE KING JOHNNY
chained, finds the Rock and Roll Hall of Farner once again working
HE CD WATCHDOG'"
7
MAllY STAR
SNOOP DOGGY DOGG
JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION
CHAKA KHAN
CHRIS WHITLEY
unreleased material, Legacy will launch its new "Live from the Vaults"
series on October 29. The inaugural titles are: The Who's two-disc The
Who Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970; a two-disc various-artists
collection titled Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival 1970; and
Carole King's The Carnegie Hall Concert:june 18, 1971.
"It's another way of addressing the material in the vaults of Columbia, Epic and other Sony labels," Mark Feldman, Associate Director of
Marketing and Product Development for Legacy, tells ICE. "Some producers have told us abGur tapes they have found, stacks and stacks of
unreleased live recordings from the '60s and '70s. It was pretty much
standard policy to record almost every live performance by major artists
throughout the years. We're just trying to figure » CONTINUED ON PAGE 10
with producer Rick Rubin to craft a record that recalls Cash's country
roots, while it simultaneously strikes out into new musical territory.
The CD is due November 19.
Unlike its all-acoustic predecessor, 1994's American Recordings,
the new disc features the talents of a full band: none other than Tom
Petty & the Heartbreakers, whose involvement began when Petty told
Rubin he wanted to play bass on the Unchained sessions. Asource at
the label tells ICE that Cash readily accepted the offer from Petty, who
showed up at the studio with a couple of Heartbreakers in tow.
Also lending a hand are Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, who
appears on a soaring version of Spain's "Spiritual," country star
Marty Stuart, whose mandolin solos grace both the Louvin Brotherspenned "Kneeling Drunkard's Plea" and Jimmie » CONTINUED ON PAGE 8
The CD Watchdog column is designed to alert you to problem CDs, covering anything that frustrates or short-changes the CD buyer. Got a gripe? Jot it down with
enough detail to clearly identify it, and moil or fox it in to us. Though we cannot answer all queries, we will investigate and address as many as possible.
®
Movie? I doubt that the fan hysteria one hears on the Why the long delay between releases, we asked? "Given
disc accurately reflects the crowd's reaction to what was the fact that Apple buyers are often Beatie buyers,"
a fourth- or fifth-billed act at an all-day festival.
Heatley says, "it's prudent to spread things out a bit,
INSTANT COLLECTOR'S ITEM
"In particular, there is a trio of female screams that particularly when there might be lots of things they
MCA's soundtrack to Grace ofMy Heart is the subject of seems to occur every 30-45 seconds, albeit at different want to buy. Often we find that they buy the vinyl as
an interesting mix-up. Mike Bodayle of San Antonio, levels in the mix. After six or seven songs, I was so dis- well as the CD. It was that, more than any reason. But
TX, was the first to inform us that he bought the CD on tracted waiting for the
the day it was released, but instead of hearing Kristen screams to repeat that I
Vigard sing the seventh track, "Man from Mars," his CD couldn't finish the disc.
played a version sung by the song's composer, Joni It's already made it to
Mitchell, in a performance available nowhere else. the used CD store. Do
"Then the news breaks that they had recalled it the day you think anyone at
before," Bodayle says triumphantly.
MCA can comment?"
To find out what happened, we contacted Deanna
To get a response, we
Cohen, listed on the CD as "The Executive in Charge of spoke with Paul RataMusic for MCA Records." Cohen tells ICE that the jczak, co-producer of the
Mitchell performance was set to appear in both the soundtrack, who tells
movie and on the soundtrack album, but at the last ICE that the audience
minute the film's director, AJlison Anders, changed her sound works well when
mind. Anders decided that, instead of using Mitchell to experienced in a theater
sing "Man from Mars" over the scene in question, she along with the movie.
wanted Vigard's vocal, just to maintain consistency Any flaws in the backthroughout the picture. "Creatively, she thought it ground noise that our
worked better," Cohen says.
reader detected would
BADFINGER
"Obviously, we were really disappointed, but I said, only become apparent
'Well, I'll put Joni's version on the record anyway.' It's once the music is separated from the visuals, and played there's never a perfect time, unfortunately. "
not that unusual to have a different version on the repeatedly. "If you see the movie one time, you'd never
As for the Apple reissue program in America, we asked
soundtrack than what appears in the film, and AJlison notice it," Ratajczak says.
Capitol A&R rep Wayne Watkins if the U.S. will be folwas very much in favor of the idea. But then Joni
"Unfortunately, this was a feature film converted to lowing suit this fall. "No, we are not," Watkins tells ICE.
Mitchell's management company phoned to let us know record, so [MCA] didn't have the budget. They gave me "The plan is to regroup a little bit, and instead of just
that she didn't feel comfortable having her song on the two days to remix the whole record, which didn't give us tossing the titles out, try to re-analyze the entire catalog
soundtrack if it wasn't in the movie. So again, a disap- time to go back and put all-new crowd noise in it. We and really create some highly visible branding of the
pointment, but...fair enough."
spent the majority of our time EQ'ing the music to Apple name. We're discussing it now. The U.K. wants us
Cohen and MCA executives then notified their manu- sound as good as possible for the CD, and worried less to release those titles, but we're just not ready yet,
facturing plant of the substitution (Vigard for Mitchell), about the crowd.
because right now, I think we'd do a bad job. I'd rather
"We put the crowd in to create that effect because wait, and sacrifice some imports to fans. "
but the aJbum had already been approved by all parties
We asked Watkins if Capitol would ever be issuing
and mastered, creating fertile ground for an accident to there was no audience audible at all on the original
happen. AJI of the printed components were corrected, recording," Ratajczak adds, "because it was run off a PA Mary Hopkin 's Greatest Hits, which came out last
but the first batch of CDs carried the wrong musical per- board. It all had to be put in. They're authentic concert year in the UK "We definitely will," he says. "Probably
formance - that of brand new Rock and Roll Hall of recordings, but we had to create a full-dimensionaJ, six- in 1997." (It should also be noted that the CD of BadfinFame inductee Joni Mitchell.
channel mix in DTS sound [a digital film format for ger'sAs:5 contains one bonus track, "Do You Mind.")
"As soon as we found out about it, we put a cease- audio]. We had to have the crowd coming out of the
and-desist order out," Cohen says. "And I let Joni front, the back, all around you, three-dimensionally. It CURB'SBAD 'TRIP'
Mitchell's manager know that it was an unfortunate - was a huge part of the excitement in creating a concert Jon Bryant of San Mateo, CA, wrote in to express his displeasure with Curb's recent reissue of The Electric
and true - accident. We remedied it as quickly as we film."
could, but for some reason it turned into this spicy story.
Flag's soundtrack for the 1967 Roger Corman film The
Trip. "Imagine my disappointment in finding that the
It was only 19,000 copies, although it was reported as WAITING FOR APPLES TO RIPEN
[much more]." How many of those 19,000 escaped to Tim Casey of Roslindale, MA, e-mails, "What happened CD is missing six of the original album's 18 tracks,"
the public, we wondered? "We don't have any figures to the Apple reissue program? One of their last releases Bryant writes. "After subtracting the deletions, the LP's
yet," Cohen says with a sigh. "You just can't control mentioned that 'other upcoming releases include length of 42: 11 has now been cut to a ridiculous 26:32
everything. "
George Harrison 's Electronic Sounds and Ravi on Curb's CD. What's going on here? What's the point of
Shankar's In Concert,' which was a superb double even reissuing the album in the first place if Curb is
album of a well-recorded Carnegie Hall show. OK, so it going to cut the hell out of it? Please look into this outMORE SOUNDTRACK PROBLEMS
rage."
Rob Taylor of Lyndhurst, OH, has soundtrack troubles of won't crack the Top 10, but...what gives?"
We did, getting Curb General Manager Dennis Hananother sort. He starts off his letter by stating, "This is
As it turns out, there's a separate answer for each side
similar to the letter about Bob Dylan's Unplugged of the Atlantic. Mike Heatley of EMI in London tells ICE non on the phone to discuss the hows and whys of his
from ICE #99 Dune 1995, 'CD Watchdog']. Has anyone that the Harrison and Shankar CDs, as well as Badfin- reissue-thinking. Explaining the composition of The
else complained about the fake crowd noise on the ger's Ass and The Modern Jazz Quartet's Space, are Trip, Hannon tells ICE, "We've got a successful midLynyrd Skynyrd concert film soundtrack Freebird - The being readied for reissue in the U.K. on November 4. price line that's marketed at a » CONTINUED ON PAGElS
ICE NOVEMBER 1996 17