Jets Under Fire

Adore - Track 1 - To Sheila

Most Smashing Pumpkins fans were taken aback by Adore’s first track “To Sheila.”  After years of bombast, fuzzy guitars,  stadium anthems, and phase-shifting guitar solos, Adore kicked off with one of the softest songs ever created by The Smashing Pumpkins.

The song begins with what sounds like crickets in the middle of the summer, and drones in the background the entire song.  Overall, the song it mixed extremely quiet, featuring Corgan’s love-it-or-hate-it vocals.  I’ve never heard his vocals sound so good.  In “To Shiela” Corgan drops his usual snarl, for a smooth, almost whispered delivery.

The entire song feels fragile.

One of my favorite moments on the album is in the third verse.  All the instrumentation falls out to leave Corgan’s layered vocals with banjo’s.  Yes, it sounds crazy, but give it a listen.  It’s gorgeous.

Then the song exits with a simple piano line, delayed guitars, and the comes back around to the summer night sound.

One of the reasons I love the Smashing Pumpkins is because of Corgan’s fearless attitude in creating what he wants.  Sometimes this has come back to haunt him, but has also left a great variety of songs for us to enjoy.  The guts it takes to release this album and to kick it off with this song is staggering considering where the band had been previously to releasing this work.

Listen to Corgan talk about “To Sheila”

Then Listen to “To Sheila” (sorry, this is the only thing I could find with the studio version)

If you’ve followed us very long, you’ve probably already seen that I love The Smashing Pumpkins.  I’m sure you are left with questions as to why I have such an infatuation with Corgan and everything Pumpkins.  Honestly, I don’t know the exact reasons.   Because of this, I’m going to dissect it right before your very eyes.

To begin I’m going to break down my favorite Pumpkins album: Adore.

In 1996 The Smashing Pumpkins were arguably the biggest act in rock music.  They had released Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, a daring double-album release that went 9-times platinum, and recieved 7 grammy nominations.  At the peak of their popularity, touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain overdosed on heroin in a New York City hotel room, resulting in Melvoin’s death.

Chamberlain, who had been intgral to the Pumpkin’s sound, was fired.

During the time after Chamberlain’s departure, the Pumpkins moved away from the traditional rock sound, to one that infused electronics.  They released “The End is the Beginning is the End” on the Batman & Robin soundtrack, which also won them a grammy for “Best Hard Rock Performance.”  Another electronic based song, “Eye,” was featured on the Lost Highway’s soundtrack.

Musically, a lot was changing in the Pumpkin world before Adore.  From a personal side, a lot was happening also.

Prior to the Adore sessions, Billy’s mother passed away, he watched his marriage end in divorce, and was also dealing with the previous incident with Chamberlain and Melvoin.   This would lead to, in my opinion, the most honest, well-crafted work Corgan has ever released.

It would be a work that would alienate a lot of casual fans, and would be considered a failure by the music industry.  Not in my book.

Track 1 - “To Sheila” Coming Up Next

Until Next Year…

Well, SXSW came and went.  It was a ton of fun as usual.  We played 6 shows, which was nice.  Maybe next year we can get that number up to double digits.  Two of my highlights from the week was getting to meet Ben Kweller and M. Ward.  Both very briefly, but still it’s fun to say I got to meet them.

All of our shows went pretty well.  The show at Emblem Creative was a lot of fun, because Todd and Hollie organized it.  It was fun to see it all come together so well.  They have even bigger ideas for next year.

The Purevolume show also went really well.  They also put us up on their homepage for a week, so that was a big boost.  We really appreciate all they’ve done to help us out.

Thanks to everyone who came out to a show, and a big thanks to Shane Wells at RM64.com who helped us get a couple of the shows.

–Jason

SXSW 2009

SXSW is finally here. It’s always a ton of fun, but also a ton of work. This year we prepared by starting the 4 EP idea back in December, culminating March 17th, the day before SXSW music begins. We made it! We got three new songs recorded, and got a new website, and all the social amenities completed. After booking a few shows for SXSW, we’re now ready to play. That’s the easy part.

It’s funny, people sometimes think band guys are slackers. Sometimes they are, but I don’t feel that our band is. We’re constantly pushing to do more, create more, and become better. Maybe it’s my obsessive compulsive tendencies, but it’s a lot of hard work.

I’m excited to see what happens this year. Hopefully we’ll make few more contacts, and play in front of a few more business people who can help us. After all, that’s part of why you live in Austin as a musician, to have such easy access the industry in your hometown.

Now it’s time to chug the energy drinks, forget about sleeping, and run from show to show, and party to party. Time to connect. Time to make something happen. As my wife always says: “You can sleep when you’re dead!”

–Jason

EP1 is finally available. Head over to:

www.jetsunderfire.com/ep1

To download the songs.  Spread the word!

Surprise!

We have a new EP aptly titled “EP1″ coming out on March 17th.

Surprise!

It’ll be available right here for FREE!

Surprise!

We’ll be releasing 3 more EP’s this year!

Surprise!

The three other EPs will be free also!

Welcome to the new Jets Under Fire.com

This is just one of the many new surprises we have for you this year.  We hope this site will be a place for you to communicate with us.

We admit it, the communication between us has been a little awkward lately. Kinda like when you made-out with that girl/guy, and now it’s just weird.  Well, we’re trying not to make it weird, so pretend we never made out, and post some comments on this site!  It’s taken too long to build!

I find that inspiration is often hard to come by, especially when your stuck in the midst of day to day tasks.  How do you stayed inspired when at your job, or at home?  We’ll to help ourselves out, we’ve created a little tumblog over at:  jetsunderfire.tumblr.com to keep track of those things the we find inspiring.

Right now you’ll find a lot of Beach Boys documentaries, which I find fascinating, and couple on Radiohead.  I get inspired by see how others approach the creative process.  We will also be posting websites, quotes, and anything else that strikes us.

Feel free to check up on that site periodically.  We will when we need that inspirational kick in the pants.  Let us know what things inspire you.

–Jason

It’s been over a year since we built a new website, so I’ve spent the past few months trying to work up this little beast between the shows, the practices, the recording, oh yeah, and the real life, like the job and the wife.

So far, so good I believe.  I guess we’ll find out the further along we go.  I hope this becomes a central location for you to communicate with us, and let us know what you want to see from Jets Under Fire.

Tell us what songs you love.  What songs you hate.  What photos we look cool in.  What photos we look like dorks in.  Tell us what gets you out to shows, what your favorite artists are, etc…or just say hello!

I think this is going to be a fun year! So come take the journey with us!

–Jason

This is the third video from the EP1 sessions.