The Last Days of Smashing Pumpkins

As the Smashing Pumpkins wind down, the band's members are of at least two minds about what the future holds in store. But they agree that the farewell shows have been incredibly intense.

"Yes, there's definitely an air of like, 'It's coming to an end and goodbye and thank you for being there," bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur told the Toronto Sun Sunday, recounting the Pumpkins' July dates in Japan. Auf Der Mauer, who joined the group last fall after the departure of D'Arcy Wretzky, admits she was stunned by the fans' reactions, "the tears, and the following to the airport, and the girls begging for it not to end."

Meanwhile, James Iha promised the Edmondton Sun Friday that the Pumpkins' final shows will be as intense as ever. "I can't really play much better or more passionately," said the guitarist. "Unless we start screaming things incoherently over Allen Ginsberg's Howl or something, I don't know how much further we can go."

As for the final Pumpkins album and the box set promised by frontman Billy Corgan, the other members seem a little sketchy about the details. "He's been fine-tuning some of the unfinished songs from this past record," said Auf Der Mauer of Corgan's activities. "And he's just been, like, still in the creative process of finishing those up."

"A box-set retrospective? I don't know," admitted Iha. "The band hasn't even broken up yet."

And while Iha said he'd be willing to keep soldiering on if Corgan cared to, he also sounded relieved to be giving the Pumpkins a rest - at least for the time being. "I've been in the band [for] 11 years, and [for] about nine to 10 months out of every year, I do the band 24-7. I just don't want to be doing that the rest of my life."

Smashing Pumpkins' Singer Seeks Buyer Who Will Be True To Victorian Home

As Billy Corgan, the Smashing Pumpkins' lead singer and chief songwriter, walks around his empty, Victorian painted lady house in Lake View, he evokes no end of nostalgia.

He recalls the roughly 150 songs and the records that he wrote in the more than 100-year-old home since purchasing it in 1993. He reminisces about the "good luck" and positive energy that he says the house brought him, as his career rose from being a successful alternative rocker in 1993 to a full-out superstar today.

He rues the fact that a house into which he placed so much of his time, effort and money could no longer be a sanctuary for him, because of the attention it drew from fans.

But Corgan, who has just placed the house on the market for $1.05 million, is not just selling his house and moving to a more secluded or secretive residence in Chicago.

Instead, like Nelson Algren and Saul Bellow before him--two artists who opted to pack their bags and move out of the city that embraced them--Corgan is leaving Chicago for good.

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Melissa's Smashing success

Melissa auf der Maur's life in music has come full circle.

Just five-and-a-half years after Billy Corgan recommended that the Montreal bassist replace the deceased Kristen Pfaff in Hole, auf der Maur is returning the favour by helping Corgan's Smashing Pumpkins close out their touring career .

"Yeah, it's kinda funny," says auf der Maur from Hawaii, where she's vacationing before hooking up with Corgan, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin in Vancouver for the Summersault tour.

"It's a perfect way to complete a cycle of life and to start a new one in 2001 -- and I've finally fulfilled a musical dream from a long time ago," she adds, referring to the fact she was initially inspired to form her first band, Tinker, in part by the Pumpkins' 1991 album Gish.

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Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur is ready to move on

Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur is of two minds about frontman Billy Corgan's decision to split up the Chicago alt-rock band by the end of the year.

Don't forget she was a fan of the multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning group first, before she was ever a member.

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THE SMASHING PUMPKINS have announced details of a new, and possibly last single.

The band will release 'Try Try Try' on September 11 through Hut. The single is lifted from the band's most recent album, 'MACHINA/The Machines of God', which was released in February this year, and also features a new track, 'Here's The Atom Bomb'.