Billy Corgan debuts 10 new songs on solo tour
Kevin Bronson on
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Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, touring as part of a nine-piece band called Spirits in the Sky that features Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, played 10 new songs during a 90-minute set Friday night at the Long Beach bookstore {open}. My review of the set appears on SPIN.com. More photos here. Corgan winds up the tour tonight at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood.
The mini-tour of largely out-of-the-way venues – it started last Wednesday in Visalia – offered fairly loose shows with a lineup including Navarro, the Pumpkins’ new 19-year-old drummer Mike Byrne, Mark Tulin (the Electric Prunes) on bass, Mark Weitz (Strawberry Alarm Clock) on keyboards, Kerry Brown (Catherine) on percussion, Ysanne Spevak on violin, Linda Strawberry on backing vocals and Kevin Dippold on flute and mandolin. On Friday, the Corgan was joined by the Pumpkins’ former touring bassist Ginger Pooley (nee Reyes) and her husband Kristopher for the SP number “A Song for a Son,” with a very pregnant Ginger (ex-Halo Friendlies and Ginger Sling) slinging her bass while only six weeks away from her due date with the couple’s first child.
This guy is SO 1990s. Aren’t we through with him? And enough with the bald crap, too. Grow some hair, Billy Pumpkinhead.
If he keeps writing new songs like the ones I heard Friday night, I don’t want to be done with him. They were good.