Spring 1992 – Soundworks

Spring 1992 - Soundworks, Chicago

Produced by Billy Corgan and Kerry Brown

• Bullet Train To Osaka
• Frail & Bedazzled (instrumental)
• Hello Kitty Kat
• Plume
• Starla
• U.S.A. (instrumental)
• U.S.S.R (instrumental)
• Moleasskiss

Recording sessions of new material at Kerry Brown’s Soundworks studio. Originally meant as demo recordings, The Pumpkins' label required b-sides for import singles, so some of these recordings were whipped into a finished state and released.

An epic, mesmerizing track built up around extended solos, “Starla” was produced by Kerry Brown and recorded through a Soundcraft TS12 board onto a TASCAM MS16 one-inch tape machine. Brown used a Yamaha SPX90 for the reverb effect on Corgan’s voice, and an Eventide H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer is responsible for the backwards effect that runs through the first third of the song. “I remember that overdub guitar solo,” says Brown. “Just him, the headphones, and the cabinet. You don’t hear that much anymore. You can’t simulate what you can do with a cabinet in front of you. I mean, Billy was bending notes on a mic stand!”

Billy Corgan on "Starla": -my friend aneta still say to me that this song should have been on siamese dream. but back again to that no record 2x rule. this was recorded the same time as plume, and was also intended to be a demo, but we needed b-sides for our pretty worthless i am one u.k. single (the dark continent) so in a way Plume and starla were they're own single if that make makes any sense at all. recorded over time, or recorded at two different sessions, one for vocals and solos and one for drums, etc,.another song with lyrics written at the last second. i wrote the middle part on the back of an envelope--serve yourself no one else can do for you like you and no one el else fails like me but in my eyes i i burn alive no more words just you and i high in the sky-- some of my favourite lyrics. better that i did not care solo played at 7am. listen for the police car going by.

Billy Corgan on "Starla": this is the stuff legends are made of, recorded in one all-night-go to make a hard deadline. much has been made of this nothing song, but it's the right kind of nothing; where you see that once in a while i am capable of getting out of the way of a good idea that needs space. a cataclysmic solo follows the nuersery rhyme into the cosmos, crashing out whatever is left of your purple heart.

Billy Corgan on "Plume": a groover from the iha file- assembled i - in the same said bedroom and recorded only a couple of days later at kerry's studio. another demo thing that turned ugly and mean and got released. we didn't have a bass so we "borrowed" eric from deep blue dream's--he never knew and were sorry we didn't tell you eric but it sounds good. i know i wrote some of these lyrics waiting for my dad to pick me up from the aeroport. my boredom has outshined the sun. sometimes you don't spend as much time on the lyrics-ansX and sometimes they're better-more how you REALLY feel. plume features the maestro phase, on loan from matt s.

Billy Corgan on "Plume": james st. james brought this one over to the apartment and i loved the cosmic blues in it right way. we did a little demo, and set it aside for what would one day be the pile for siamese dream. but then we got a call saying ominously "um, can you guys crank out two b-sides for a uk single in the next few days?" this and starla were close enough to being ready that we sacrificed 'em both writing the lyrics at the studio the day they were recorded. features one of my favorite lines i've ever written, "my boredom has outshined the sun" and a true one at that.

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