99-X Live X With Billy Corgan

Feb. 17th, 2000

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What happened is..... On Wed. morning, February 16th at about 6:30 am, the 99-X Morning X (morning-drive deejays) announced that between 8 and 9 am, anyone who showed up at the intersection of Piedmont and Roswell Roads in Atlanta to have their heads completely shaved, a la Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, would get two coveted passes to the Pumpkins' exclusive "Live X" show, broadcast live worldwide, limited to only 100 people.

I like the band's radio material, but I'm not a serious fan by any means........however, Smashing Pumpkins are my roommate Jeremy's favorite band, so he came into my room at around 7am and asked if I could give him a ride there so he could have his shoulder-length hair shaved off. Our friend Joey also signed on for the ordeal, so we raced down there.....and got there almost first.

Jeremy had the longest hair of anyone there, so he became the very first guy to have his hair cut, and was interviewed live on the air (since he was tired, he didn't make too much sense. Relax, there were only about 250,000 people listening....) I had the longest hair there by a wide margin, but I wasn't about to get my hair cut. :)

--And they both got themselves "plus one" on the very limited admission list for the show. The guy there from 99-X also promised Jeremy and Joey front-row.

I didn't bring my camera to the "shave-off," but I did steal the following four photos from 99-X's website. :)


Jeremy---before
Jeremy---after

Joey---before
Joey---after

The performance would be the following day. We were emailed the directions to the secret location where the event would be held; we were also told there would be two sets: the first one for about 45 minutes would be broadcast around the world on the station and over the Net, and the second would be longer and consist of new material they had booked for the studio for. We could go to one or the other, but there wouldn't be anough room for anyone to attend both shows. It was being held at Tree Sound Studios, a cool studio with a woeful lack of parking up in Gwinnett County.

On Thursday we headed up to the studio. Jeremy's guest would be his girlfriend Angie and Joey's guest was...me! The email specified that we had to be there by 2:30 and with favorable traffic, we got there at about 2pm. Still, the parking lot was completely crammed full and we had to park across Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and walk back, a bit of a pain as I'm wearing black boots, black PVC jeans and a black Godhead long-sleeve. (I'm not sure why I bothered to dress up for the show, but I just felt like wearing the same clothes I'd worn to the "shave-off," which were the same clothes I'd worn to the Type O Negative concert on Tuesday night....)

After a few minutes of milling around an announcement was made that:

Since I had the digital camera with me I took the following photos at this point, since I wouldn't be able to carry it inside.....


Notice how full the parking lot is. Angie's car is buried behind three other ones!


This is the front of the tour-bus, sticking its prow out from the side of the studio


A big 99-X Step-Van parked outside



Two group photos of Joey, me, Jeremy and Angie

Billy arrived in a black van and was greeted with cheers as he hustled inside to do a quick soundcheck. Finally at around 3:10 we were allowed inside. The performance studio is a nice wood-floored room, set up with Billy's guitar and a piano, and that's all. No chairs for the audience, so we just had to sit on the floor as best we could, and it was very crowded. After some more delays Billy emerged to wild cheering and began to play a song off the new, not-yet-released CD. His voice and his playing were just about perfect: one of my complaints about some of SP's songs is that sometimes Billy can sound whiny, but not here. After he finished he asked what was next and the 99-X folks let him field some questions from the audience. This was all broadcast over 99-X and the Web, but some of the topics included their relationship with former manager Sharon Osbourne, his feelings on Darcy's recent arrest for crack possession (I think), etc.

This pattern continued for several songs and intervening breaks. Two more songs were from the forthcoming CD. He played the first radio single from it and a great cover of "Rock On," and finished up -- for the worldwide audience -- with the "World is a Vampire" song. At one point he mentioned two of his influences from prog-rock were ELP and Rush, and you could probably hear my cheer for Rush. :)

With the microphones off the atmosphere got a lot more casual and Billy answered numerous questions from the audience. He also took two stabs at "Today" on the piano (one ended quickly, the next lasted a while) but he had some trouble with some of the notes and stopped, He was all grins. It really felt, as he observed, like we were all in his living room watching him play.

Then, to my amazement, he signed one autograph for everyone who showed up -- a pretty hefty crowd. Since we couldn't bring anything inside I hauled out the emailed directions to the studio and had him sign them:

I also asked him which Rush album was his favorite. He thought and said tentatively "Cygnus?" I corrected him. "Signals?" "Yea, that's it!" But after a few seconds as I as walking away he corrected himself. "Hemispheres!" (--Which has the song "Cygnus" on it.) Wow, cool!

After all the autographs were done, all the "shaved-head" people were called back inside to do a photo shoot with the 99-X personalities and Billy Corgan...who wore a hat. :)

Then we all went outside. Billy was briefly outside the black van but I couldn't get my camera out of Angie's car fast enough, so I just settled -- as many did -- for a shot of the black van speeding past and out onto Peachtree Industrial, with cops stopping rush-hour traffic so they could make a hasty getaway. :)

And then we went our separate ways, tired but happy. :)

I was no big SP fan before the day started, but Billy's open answers and complete lack of an ego, as well as his classical guitar performance, really impressed me. I'll take a longer look at Smashing Pumpkins now. :)

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