Can the Smashing Pumpkins-D’Arcy Wretzky feud get weirder? Oh, yes.
This has gone beyond stupid.
Yesterday at 12 noon ET, the countdown clock on the Smashing Pumpkins website ticked to zero, revealing a video that announced a tour featuring 75% of the original members. Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin will be joined by guitarist Jeff Schroeder on a reunion roadtrip that will begin in July.
Missing, of course, is original bass player D’Arcy Wretzky. Depending on which story which you want to believe, she was either (a) never invited to join; (b) invited to join on a very limited basis; or (c) invited to join but had that invitation rescinded for some reason.
There’s been a, er, spirited back-and-forth between D’Arcy and the Pumpkins camp. Billy has chosen to remain entirely silent on the issue, letting others do the talking.
Tuesday night, there was a Facebook post by Corgan friend Linda Strawberry defending the decision not to included D’Arcy. I quote: “No one knows what state she really is in. The things I have heard from people near her have been worrying me for months.”
Wait. What “horrific photo?” And what does that have to do with anything?
A few hours after this post went up, Mancow, a Chicago radio guy and longtime Corgan friend, posted that photo on his Instagram account with the caption “Can you guess who this battered former rockstar is? Be the first caller tomorrow …and win.” (What a douchebag!)
That photo quickly spread through Pumpkins-land. I’ve seen it and I’m not even going to link to it. Suffice to say it’s a picture of her swollen and beaten face.
After it started making the rounds, Linda Strawberry was back online with a clarification. The photo was taken after D’Arcy was assaulted by a former assistant and has nothing to do with what D’Arcy looks like today.
D’Arcy, meantime, stresses that she’s been sober and is completely off drugs, living clean and working on her farm. She says about her former bandmates “I’m way healthier than any of them.”
Could this whole reunion be rolled out any worse?
Read the full story at Consequence of Sound.
