THE GREAT PUMPKIN

I almost forgot about this, but last week, Billy Corgan made the Bush-ian move of putting out a press release late Friday noon, no doubt hoping that it wouldn't get much attention (and full well knowing that most of the music press was at SXSW). He announced that drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was leaving The Smashing Pumpkins and that he'd been going on without him. Meaning that Billy is the only original member of the band. It's weird: no one seems to mind that Nine Inch Nails = Trent Reznor, but Billy has taken criticism for using the band name without the involvement of guitarist James Iha and bassist D'Arcy. But I guess Trent established that he is NIN early on, while Billy tried to make it seem like the Pumpkins were a "band." Billy Corgan hasn't been doing interviews, but I wonder what he would say is the difference, at this point, between a Smashing Pumpkins album and a Billy Corgan album.