This time last year, William Patrick Corgan said that he’d been working on a Christmas album for a few years that got “junked.”
Now, it appears the Smashing Pumpkins singer/guitarist has taken some of those songs out of the proverbial trash. During the annual Christmas show at Madame ZuZu’s, his vegan tea shop in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Corgan played two unreleased seasonal songs — “Evergreen” and “The Magi And The Shiny Bright” — on an acoustic guitar. He also played “Do You Hear What I Hear?” with his three-year-old daughter Philomena who walked off the stage mid-song.
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It’s unclear whether this was a one-off, or whether Corgan has serious plans to revisit his yuletide project (which we hope is the case). “I had written some songs, and I had found some cool obscure songs, and picked a couple of classics that I liked,” Corgan said in 2018 to USA Today. “I hope we get around to it sometime, but at the moment, it’s completely stalled.”
The performance was also a dedication to mark the passing of Corgan’s father, musician William Corgan Sr. In a video message recorded earlier in the day, Corgan spoke about how his father’s relationship to music shaped his own.
“My father had his own struggles with music and had a very complicated and oftentimes bitter relationship with the music business. He assumed that I would have the same,” he said. “It all started with him, watching him play in basements and at sound checks and empty stinking bars.”
Billy talks about his father’s passing from SmashingPumpkins
Proceeds from the performances will benefit the no-kill animal shelter PAWS Chicago (for more information on donating, click here.) Corgan is a longtime animal welfare advocate. In 2004, he adopted his two late cats, Mr. Thom and Sammi, from the PAWS Chicago flagship shelter. He later adopted Angelface and Diamondbaby from the same shelter. In 2014, Corgan was on the cover of the cat rescue magazine PAWS Chicago with his partner, the fashion designer Chloe Mendel, and their son, Augustus, talking about the process of introducing an infant to “a house full of pets.” Earlier this month, Corgan supported PAWS with a fundraiser on Cameo.
Next year, the Smashing Pumpkins will headline the 2022 Beale Street Music Festival along with the Foo Fighters and Lil Wayne. Tickets for Smashing Pumpkins shows are available here.
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