SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2014 Smashing Pumpkins’ Corgan looks ahead, not back Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan poses for a portrait in promotion of the band’s new album “Monuments To An Elegy” in New York. —AP he Smashing Pumpkins are dead. Long live the Smashing Pumpkins. It’s fair to say lead singer Billy Corgan has an ambivalent relationship with his band - T Revelers dance at the ‘Morning Gloryville’ dance party in east London. — AFP photos as well as with the music industry, the media, fellow musi- cians and his fans. “People say, ‘Are you going to break up the band?’” Corgan said backstage before a recent London show. Fuelled by coffee, “What band is there to break up? There is no band.” Corgan may be the Pumpkins’ only remaining original Londoners hit morning member, but the non-band has just released its eighth studio album, “Monuments to an Elegy.” A slice of grungy pop-rock featuring guitarist Jeff Schroeder, who joined the Pumpkins in 2007, and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, it’s received good reviews - though not good enough for Corgan. “There’s disco before work no way this is a three-out-of five record,” he said, grumbling t dawn before commuting to his about one newspaper’s assessment. job in London’s business district You might think that sounds a bit thin-skinned for the Canary Wharf, 26-year-old man behind two best-selling 1990s albums - “Siamese A Nathaniel Hone joins hundreds of revelers Dream” and “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” - now at a dance party fuelled only by coffee and regarded as classics. But Corgan is not the type to rest on his smoothies. At 6:15 am in trendy Bethnal laurels. He says he abhors nostalgia, and turned down good Green, where art galleries prevail over the money to do a retro “Siamese Dream” tour. “I know exactly franchises common elsewhere in the capi- where that goes,” he said. “That’s Vegas.” Corgan is an icon of tal, the dark streets are almost deserted ‘90s American indie rock, perhaps second only to his late under the drizzle on a recent visit. At the friend Kurt Cobain. end of an alleyway lined with graffiti of In the decades since, Corgan has revealed a willingness to wide-eyed owls runs the Regent’s Canal, speak his mind on everything from politics to astrology and a overlooked by the metal skeleton of an old knack for nursing a grudge. He has had a public spat with gasworks, shaped like an amphitheatre. Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, and recently berated A line of morning revelers is waiting Anderson Cooper after the CNN host poked fun at Corgan’s patiently at the entrance of the Oval cat-cuddling cover shoot for Paws Chicago magazine. Space, a 560 square meter (6,000 square Swaddled in a sweater and scarf backstage at a London club, foot) venue with the feel of an old ware- 47-year-old Corgan is sensitive to the cold - and to criticism. He house. Welcome to “Morning Gloryville”: is alternately confident and insecure of his place in music histo- an alcohol-free disco held before party- Revelers dance at the ‘Morning Gloryville’ disco (above and below). ry, which makes him both prickly and refreshingly honest. goers head to work. “Morning Gloryville attracted to the health and fitness aspect sequinned pants, neon pink shoes and started a year and a half ago. We only had of the event, wear sneakers, shorts and rainbow butterfly wings on her back, Best reaction about twenty-six people at the first event,” tank tops. “Good morning! Are you ready?” admitted it was hard to get up at 6:00am. “Imagine if every week of your life for the rest of your life said co-founder Samantha Moyo, 26. “Now one of the organizers shouts into the “Everybody’s wearing fancy dress, it’s col- somebody’d be walking down the street going ‘Here’s a pic- we’re attracting a thousand people per microphone. “Yes!” reply a hundred enthu- orful, we’re having coffee, smoothies, ture of you when you were 18. Didn’t you have a better hair- event, and we’re in 16 cities all over the siastic voices, quickly drowned out by the we’re having a good time,” Kaye said. “It style then? Look at this T-shirt you were wearing. Don’t you world,” including Bangalore, New York, blaring music. Kaye, 35, wearing gold made my day better already.” —AFP want to wear that T-shirt again?’ That’s what it’s like,” he said. Paris and Tokyo. Babies and children can “It’s a mirrored paradigm which you cannot escape. And if “rave” for free - provided the infants wear you complain, which I have, you’re not grateful.” He’s had his earmuffs against the pulsing club music. ups and downs, but feels with the new record that he’s Moyo describes it as “basically partying regaining his musical mojo. without drink and drugs.” Instead of beer “This is the best reaction I’ve had on an album, up off the or cocktails, those who attend can avail of street, in 20 years,” Corgan said. He says creativity is a funny a bar offering smoothies such as the thing. “When you have it, it feels like a font that just flows “Incredible Hulk”, a green concoction through you, and everything gets real easy. And then one day made of apple, banana, lemon, spinach it sort of slows down or it stops and you tell yourself, ‘I’m just and spirulina-an algae touted as a nutri- having a bad day or a bad month.’ And then next thing you tious dietary supplement. know, people start doubting you, you don’t have that magic touch. And then you start doubting yourself.” Corgan plans to Fancy dress release a companion album to “Monuments to an Elegy,” - DJ Miles Metric, wearing a skin tight titled “Day For Night” - in late 2015. He says he has finally hot pink outfit, is behind his turntables as embraced the philosophy of Popeye: “I yam what I yam.” “I the dancers begin to arrive. Some are wish I had Robert Plant’s voice, or Robert Smith’s voice,” he dressed in pyjamas, while others are in col- said. “I got this one, OK, so go with it. But you have to go orful outfits, carnival fashion or in fancy through all that to come out the other side, to find strength dress as tigers, bears and horses. One and power in it.” — AP group of young people, probably more.