Spring 2009 – Coldwater Studios

Spring 2009 – Coldwater Studios
Teargarden whiteboard
Studio session of The Smashing Pumpkins
Artist	The Smashing Pumpkins
From	March 2009
To	June 2009
Location	Coldwater Studios
Producer(s)	Billy Corgan
Engineer(s)	Kerry Brown

The Spring 2009 Coldwater Studios sessions saw demo recordings of new Billy Corgan compositions, recorded at Kerry Brown's Los Angeles studio. 54 songs were demoed in total, backed by Mark Tulin on bass and Kerry Brown on drums. While the songs would initially be performed with the short-lived Spirits in the Sky and Backwards Clock Society projects that summer, the best 44 of these 54 songs would form the basis of the Teargarden by Kaleidyscope project, including additional material written after this initial demo session.

Tracks recorded

None of the recordings from these sessions specifically are known to have been released, though several have either been re-recorded or have been performed live.

• "As Rome Burns"
• "Astral Planes"
• "Blurricane"
• "Body + Soul"
• "Breath of Life"
• "Caroline, Yes"
• "Circular Change"
• "Clouds"
• "The Dauphine"
• "Emerald Green is the Colour"
• "Fate The Lonely Actor"
• "The Fellowship"
• "Freak"
• "I'm a Believer"
• "Junké"
• "Let You In"
• "Life is Grand"
• "Long Ago-Go"
• "Lost in You"
• "Mandarynne" (The Mandarin)
• "Owata"
• "Right with You"
• "Snare"
• "A Song for a Son"
• "A Stitch in Time"
• "The Trip"
• "Victorian Victim"
• "West Coast"
• "Widow Wake My Mind"
• [approximately 25 more songs]

A Message from Billy

From an April 2009 post on smashingpumpkins.com:

“ Hello from sunny California, where I'm currently working with some of my friends on new SP songs. The mood here is relaxed, serene, and studious as my pals are helping me with some TLC to zero-in on the new direction that I'm trying to take the music. I've made many, many mistakes through the years, and one of them is that I often rush headlong into my next album without really taking the time to reflect on what I've just done, and test my resolve a little on where I'm going. One small detail that I think was beneficial to the band in the early years was we practiced a lot. It wasn't uncommon to have weeks where we practiced 30+ hours, which may not sound like a lot but at high volume this was very fatiguing, and of course exciting too. Through all that playing you would easily come into contact with the emotional value of whether or not a song 'worked', so to speak. Add to that another 20-30 hours per week at home writing music and lyrics, and you can see I was very immersed in that process of checking my ideas between head, home, heart, and practice.

Right now we are just focused on about 5 or 6 songs, using them to try out some new feels to try to find a consistent foundation upon which to build this large multimedia project I have in mind. 44 seems to be the magic #, so let's say I'm shooting for 44 songs on this one. I'll get to how I plan to release them later. Because the work will be conceptual in nature planning it all out also I think will help keep me from losing my way in the evil forest.

” — Billy Corgan, April 9, 2009