Artist	Song
The Smashing Pumpkins	My Dahlia
The Smashing Pumpkins	Here's to the Atom Bomb [new wave version]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Perfect (Puff Daddy mix)
The Smashing Pumpkins	Try, Try, Try [Machina II version]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Cash Car Star [version 1]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Jackboot
The Smashing Pumpkins	Feelium
The Smashing Pumpkins	Glynis
The Smashing Pumpkins	Daydream [demo]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Hope
The Smashing Pumpkins	Translucent
The Smashing Pumpkins	Smiley [acoustic '91]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Mayonaise [alternate acoustic]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Egg
The Smashing Pumpkins	Jennifer Ever
The Smashing Pumpkins	Autumn
The Smashing Pumpkins	Glass and the Ghost Children [acoustic demo]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Chewing Gum
The Smashing Pumpkins	Lover [acoustic demo]
The Smashing Pumpkins	Stumbleine [demo]
The Smashing Pumpkins	If There Is a God [piano vox version]

Comment:

Because The Smashing Pumpkins were such a prolific band, tons of their material remains unreleased. Due to the determination of fans, however, most of it can be obtained today via the Web and tape traders. This volume highlights some of these rarities.


"My Dahlia"

The Pumpkins contributed "My Dahlia" and "Sun" to the 1989 compilation "Light Into Dark" for Halo Records. The songs became their first publicly released recordings. Read more about the history of the compilation and the man behind it, Barry Waterman, at www.lightintodark.com.


"Here's to the Atom Bomb" [new wave version]

Not everything bound for "Machina/The Machines of God" made it there. "Here's to the Atom Bomb," for instance, went through a number of reworkings, resulting in an airy one built on a whoosh-thump rhythm and a dense one built on powerful guitar riffs. The song, in either version, does not glorify the atom bomb. Each has almost entirely different lyrics. The dense one, gleaned from the "Try, Try, Try" single, appears on "Judas O," an odds-and-ends compilation included with limited-edition packages of "Rotten Apples," a greatest-hits collection. The airy one concludes the double LP for "Machina II/The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music" and is known as the new wave version, or simply "Atom Bomb."

For the uninitiated, "Machina II" was the Pumpkins' final album, though it was not released commercially. The Pumpkins' label, Virgin Records, opposed it. The reasons could vary. The suits knew "Adore" didn't put up the numbers that "Mellon Collie" had, and the sales for "Machina" were about half of those for "Adore." They might not have wanted to release another double album so soon after "Mellon Collie," and they probably didn't want to release a Pumpkins album of any length so soon after "Machina." Also, Corgan announced the breakup of the band in May of 2000. According to Rolling Stone, the Pumpkins proposed that anyone who bought Machina could download "Machina II" for free.

Whatever the reasons, the Virgin reps stood firm on their decision. So the Pumpkins went around them. As Corgan told Rolling Stone on the eve of their last show, "I'm thinking, 'This is pretty fucking good, I want this music out.' "

The Pumpkins pressed 25 sets of a double LP and three 10" singles and shipped them to fans, instructing the lucky few to disseminate them. The fans made several high-quality copies, and the album appeared on Web on Sept. 5, 2000. That's how I acquired it.

"Perfect (Puff Daddy mix)"

Yes, it exists! His take on "Ava Adore," however, remains elusive. I think it's unlikely the remix was leaked and confused for an amateur remix, though that is a possibility. I suspect it's at Corgan's house or in a vault somewhere. Perhaps we'll hear it someday. I hope that's the case, because he told Canada's music media service MuchMusic in 1998 that "it's so unbelievably beautiful ... it will prove all the doubters out there wrong about him."

"Perfect," on the other hand, can be tracked down online without much difficulty. Puff Daddy's remix features bagpipe, extra beats, a piano part and a sample pulled from Moby's "Drug Fits The Face (Drug Free mix)." If you listen closely, at 1:27 you can hear Corgan request, "Little more in my vocals."


To read the rest of the liner notes for Volume VII, please follow this link to the miscellaneous forum.

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