The established narrative has it like this. At the dawn of the 90s, the most popular American rock acts of the day – personified by the likes of Guns ‘N’ Roses – had become so overblown and in hock to their own mythology, that their style of music and all the signifiers that went with it (leather and Spandex stage wear, blown-out hairstyles, boorish lyrics, over-extended, hyper-intricate guitar solos) imploded under the weight of its own preposterousness.

Waiting in the wings was a ragtag bunch of dishevelled drop-outs who proceeded to reinvent the popular perception of ‘guitar music’ in their own image. Out went the testosterone-fuelled showboating and virtuosic lead playing; in came sluggish, glowering aggression, lyrics wrapped up in layers of distance and irony, and an off-kilter, subversive form of ‘anti-playing’ equally indebted to punk, metal and the druggier end of 60s pop that inverted audiences’ understanding and expectations of good musicianship.

Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Jane’s Addiction, Alice in Chains, Tad, Sleater-Kinney, Soundgarden, Hole, Mudhoney, Bikini Kill – plus 80s-era veterans like Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth and The Pixies, admitted to the ‘cool kids club’ on account of their hugely influential output and similarly oppositional attitudes. The barbarians were inside the gates, and now they were now running the show.

Yeah, that’s what they want you to believe. So how do you explain Smashing Pumpkins? Because that band’s singer, songwriter and leader Billy Corgan plainly didn’t get the memo – and yet still went on to become a key player in this new scene as it evolved over the coming decade, while masterminding some of its most commercially successful and enduring albums – not least, Siamese Dream.

William Patrick Corgan Jr. wouldn’t have been alone among his contemporaries in spending large portions of his 70s childhood and early 80s adolescence obsessing over grandiose records by the likes of Queen, Rush, Pink Floyd and ELO, among others. What set him apart was his reluctance to let those influences go, opting instead to remain in thrall to the idea of the rock god – the singular genius who wills into being music that can thrill, transport and win over listeners through careful planning, diligent execution and maximalist sonic heft.

Smashing Pumpkins formed in 1988 after Corgan struck up a friendship guitarist James Iha, a colleague at the record store where both were employed at the time. In short order, they recruited bassist D’arcy Wretzky and scraped by for a while as a three-piece with a drum machine, before flesh-and-blood drummer Jimmy Chamberlain eventually joined their ranks.

The band’s 1991 debut, Gish, was a compelling calling card, serving up copious amounts of the sludgy full-throated heaviosity that was currently in vogue, but tempered with unusually lithe rhythms from the dextrous Chamberlain and flashes of post-punk experimentalism informed by Corgan’s abiding love of The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. In the producer’s chair was one Butch Vig – the man who gave Nirvana’s murky grunge sound a widescreen makeover on their epochal second album Nevermind, now tasked with accurately capturing Corgan’s exacting vision and wild flights of fancy.

Released in 1993, the band’s follow-up, Siamese Dream, saw them take that Gish template and run with it. Reconvening with Vig, Corgan’s intention was to think bigger, go harder, realise all those adolescent dreams and create a masterpiece of his own to rival The Wall. Those ambitions didn’t result in a double album (well, not quite yet, anyway), but what emerged was a record that pulled off the neat track of sounding entirely of a piece with the musical trends of the time, while also somehow being gleefully out of step with what all those bands from Seattle were serving up. You want loud guitars? Yeah, we got those. And guitar solos processed with crazy tape effects. And lots of strings. And bells. Really prominent bells.

Right from the off, opening track Cherub Rock served notice of what listeners were in for – its tricksy, interlocking strums and drum hits soon giving way to a barrage of ferociously distorted guitar that washes over the track like an all-consuming tidal wave.
The latter is perhaps the album’s signature sound, made possible by Corgan and Iha’s discovery of the Big Muff fuzz guitar pedal from US guitar manufacturer Electro-Harmonix. The two would play the same chords on their guitars at different octaves, use the pedal to smother the ensuing harmonies in a swamp of distortion, get it on tape and then repeat the process again. Multiple times.

It wasn’t just the music that ran counter to the prevailing pop cultural mood. Lyrically, Siamese Dream is bracingly sincere and positively gauche when compared to the withering sarcasm and cynicism that characterised the writing of Cobain and co. Galvanised by a course of therapy he undertook after experiencing a nervous breakdown following the release of Gish, Corgan mined his difficult upbringing – his parents divorced when he was three, and he would later endure the attentions of an abusive stepmother – for words and phrasing forever destined to be howled in anguish.

Exhibit A is ‘Today’ – the album’s triumphant-sounding second single, and arguably its centrepiece track, written about a period when Corgan was at his lowest ebb and perilously close to taking his own life: “I wanted more / Than life could ever grant me / Bored by the chore / Of saving face”.

Throughout the album’s gestation, Corgan was, it’s fair to say, a hard taskmaster. Contemporary interviews with Corgan himself and the rest of the band hinted at a difficult and fractious atmosphere in the studio. Years later, Vig would describe the sessions as ‘Fraught with anxiety’. This was partly down to interpersonal issues – Chamberlain was addicted to heroin, Wretzky and Iha were an on-again, off-again couple well into a challenging ‘off’ phase – but largely due to Corgan’s uncompromising perfectionism.

The recording sessions had to be delayed for six months after his insistence that he required more time for writing and getting the structure of the songs precisely as he wanted them. Chamberlain was made to play that‘Cherub Rock’intro an ungodly number of times until Corgan finally had a take he was happy with. Corgan also subsequently admitted to re-recording the bulk of Wretzky and Iha’s guitar parts in a classic ‘If you want a job done, do it yourself’ move (though Wretzky would later dispute this version of events).

One of the most pernicious myths in rock is that artists have to suffer for their art. By the sounds of things, being in Smashing Pumpkins at the time of recording Siamese Dream isn’t something you’d wish on your worst enemy – and yet, the results are there for all to hear. Corgan’s voice might not be the loveliest of instruments, but the dramatic sturm and drang of ‘Soma’ elevates his nasal croon into something that sounds genuinely affecting.

More than anything, it’s the album’s sheer chutzpah that wins you over. Around the point where ‘Rocket’ takes leave of the stratosphere, and the album whips away the velvet curtain to unveil the stately strings, clanging bells and lush orchestration of ‘Disarm’, you have to concede that however dysfunctional and fraught its genesis might have been, what we’re left with is a startling document of a fascinating time when it seemed all bets were off, and that the weirdos, outcasts and oddballs had the world at their feet.

Tickets £3
Doors open 12pm, show starts at 12:30pm
This show is for a seated audience.
The bar will be open throughout.

The session will be curated by Howard Lowe.
The album playback will be followed by a Q&A session.

After a short break, we’ll follow the album with our usual ‘Dead Wax’ session.
Bring along a vinyl disc of your choice and hear a track from it played through the Arts Centre PA. This can be anything you like, for any reason – the more ‘out there’ the better.

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