The Smashing Pumpkins may not exactly be The Smashing Pumpkins anymore. They are sort of a new model with the same old cooky smooth-headed driver. But at least you’ll get to test drive this new model 44 times before you decide if you want to buy it! Corgan has kept the old moniker, but is embacing the Internet medium as his main means of introduction to their new sound for the upcoming Teargarden By Kaleidyscope LP, which as it turns out might end up taking the physical form of 11 different, 4-song EPs. Corgan refers to this new plan as a “44-song free for all” that will be released one at a time starting just after Halloween. After being dropped from his major label, Corgan granted this might not be his wisest economic decision. But he went pretty deep on some things that may be more important than that. “I can’t afford it!!” he says. “But I would rather be free than rich. The [major] labels are dead ghosts walking, and they know it. They never should have left this mystic free, because I am way more of a pied piper than they could ever fathom.” (Via: Rolling Stone)

Performance art, or actual psychoanalysis in progress? Billy Corgan and David Byrne are set to be psychoanalyzed at New York’s Rubin Museum of Arts as part of a series of discussions on the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung. The musicians will appear on separate nights, and will be paired onstage with a psychoanalyst, who will ask them to respond to and interpret a folio from Jung’s Red Book as a jumping off point for a broader conversation.

Corgan will take the stage to be psychoanalyzed on November 14; Byrne’s appearance is scheduled one week later, on November 21st. The Byrne event is sold out, but tickets for Corgan’s sure-to-be-intense session are still available. For those unable to attend, audio and video podcasts of the sessions will be made available at some point after the events.

Pack your things and start heading out west, because Billy Corgan announced six tour dates in Southern California. You can catch Monsiuer Pumpkin as part of newly minted supergroup Spirits In the Sky between August 26th and August 31st. Exact deets such as cities and venues are coming soon so keep on the look-out.

Just in case going to concerts wasn’t enough for you, here’s another opportunity to give Billy Corgan money in exchange for the chance to witness his sparkling attitude and charming personality: fans can now pay to subscribe to video updates of the Smashing Pumpkins in the studio as they record.
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Admittedly, The Tripwire, as of late, is wont to sensationalist stories, especially with anything to do with Billy Corgan. But this, takes the fucking cake.
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