Rock drummers across America have been fighting to get a shot at being the new drummer for Smashing Pumpkins (original drummer Jimmy Chamberlain left the group last month), and apparently a teenage unknown is one of the few to pass the first round of auditions and have a chance to play with the band for a week.

Mike Byrne of Beaverton, OR, 19, posted the following on his MySpace page: "Mike is jamming with the Smashing Pumpkins for a week in May. Holy crap."

Early reports say it's down to Byrne (who clearly can play, see above) and former System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan. It's pretty hard not to root for the little guy here.

Last night was the Los Angeles debut of the unlikely supergroup Tinted Windows, featuring Smashing Pumpkins' James Iha, Cheap Trick's Bun E. Carlos, Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger and Hanson's Taylor Hanson. Tickets to the show at the Troubadour, Hollywood's best sounding venue, sold out quickly -- fortunately I got my $30 in early (what, you think I get on the guest list for these things?!)

Continue reading »

Green Day's new album 21st Century Breakdown is a three part concept album supposedly even more haughty than the last one. This means it's either going to be really fantastic or grandiose rock and roll gasbaggery. The first single, 'Know Your Enemy', thankfully pushes the odds toward the former.

The album follows a young couple through their trials in the modern world through three parts: "Heroes and Cons," "Charlatans and Saints," and "Horseshoes and Handgrenades." Like Zen Arcade if the protagonist had a girlfriend? And cost more that $3200 to record? Maybe.

It's Green Day's first with producer Butch Vig, who helmed little albums like Nirvana's Nevermind and Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream, as well as lesser known gems like Freedy Johnston's This Perfect World and L7's Bricks are Heavy. There's no discernable grunge stamp on 'Know Your Enemy' that I can hear, but Breakdown will most certainly go beyond Green Day's traditional format on display here.

21st Century Breakdown comes out May 15th.

Note: Sorry about the ad. WB kills all YouTubes.

I've always felt that rock stars and blogging were a horrible combination. You take someone who no one's ever told to be quiet, has made a living off of their unbridled self-expression (yet still feels misunderstood) and give them a keyboard and mouse. Expect an outpouring, even without the drunkblogging problem.

Anyways, Billy Corgan gave us 2,400 words that basically amount to "I'm going to work on a lot of stuff, I'm committed, and a love you all and am sorry that sometimes I act like a jerk."

He did talk a bit about the next steps for Smashing Pumpkins. Corgan is working on writing and recording 44 songs, and taking his time finding a drummer. This captured a certain power-pop fiend's interest, though:

As I stated earlier in this post we've just been rocking amongst friends, so for the moment Kerry Brown, my best man and co-producer is manning the skins. The past few days we had Daxx Nielsen in to play on a few things, who is a great drummer himself. Lord forbid I would want 44 different drummers on 44 different tracks, but I suppose anything is possible.

Daxx Nielsen is the son of Cheap Trick guitarist (and Colbert Report theme penner) Rick Nielsen. I saw him play drums in Cheap Trick when Bun E. Carlos was out of commission because of surgery a few years ago and he was fantastic. It would be very strange if of the two drummers that Cheap Trick has ever had (and one barely counts), one of them is backing Corgan and the other is backing ex-Pumpkin James Iha in Tinted Windows.

Corgan ended with a promise to cool his jets and get down to right-size, saying, “SP will be about peace from this day forward as well. The music WILL also reflect this shift in devotion and humble gratitude. You shall see!”

Yes, just you wait and say just how capable I am of humility! I'll show you!

Smashing Pumpkins are doing a cattle call to fill their drum chair recently vacated by Jimmy Chamberlain.

LA Snark:

Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins is auditioning drummers Friday, April 10 in Los Angeles. Send Bio/Photo to pumpkinsdrummer@gmail.com

The idea that there's even an appearance of a chance for just anyone to get their chops heard and have a chance at playing drums in a band this legendary doesn't come around very often, so if you want to have a dog in the fight (i do) send them along the info.

Tinted Windows, the supergroup we've mentioned before that features Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, Fountains of Wayne bassist/tunesmith Adam Schlesinger and Hanson singer (yes, Hanson) Taylor Hanson, has unveiled a track off their new album which will hit on April 21st.

The bar for supergroups has been set awfully low in recent years (I'm talking to you, Audioslave) -- but Tinted Windows sound like you want them to: Cheap Trick with Fountains of Wayne's lyrical cleverness, Smashing Pumpkins blistering guitars, and a really gifted singer. At least that's my take.

What's yours? What supergroups hit and missed for you in the past?

Only seconds after going through the comments of last night's very hopping Cheap Trick thread, I head over to Pitchfork and what do I see?

According to Billboard.com, there's a new band that exists on earth called Tinted Windows featuring former Smashing Pumpkin James Iha, Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, handsome Hanson brother Taylor, and Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger.

I am looking at my calendar right now. It is not April 1.

This barely, almost makes sense. Iha and Schlesinger (who's a master tunesmith, more on this in a second) own a studio together. The Smashing Pumpkins and Cheap Trick are the two most important bands to ever come out of Illinois and it stands to reason that at some point they've met and shared an acknowledgment of that fact, and probably felt very smug about it. Hanson, after their original bubblegum emergence, became a very critically respected cult act (really!) by making a string of albums that at their best sound like a combination of the Jackson 5 and... Cheap Trick. Yeah, let's start a band.

Meanwhile, there's no one better to write songs in this band than Schlesinger, a master tunesmith who wrote "That Thing You Do" for the movie of the same name, "Pretend to Be Nice", the only great song on the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack, and a host of other moneymakers.

Tinted Windows (I agree with Pitchfork - can't you get a better name than that?) will be playing at South By Southwest in Austin on March 20th, and though SXSW is the definition of the word "clusterf--k", I now wish I was going.