Before the Smashing Pumpkins were, well, The Smashing Pumpkins, they were a band out of Chicago trying to find their sound and looking to catch a break. This video (about 60 minutes in length) is from 1988 and was apparently filmed for a local Chicago cable access show (aka shows filmed out of people’s basements and broadcast on local cable before YouTube. Kids, ask your parents about it or go watch Wayne’s World) Pulse Basement Live. The sound of their music in this video is noticeably different than the sound that they developed in the later 1990s on albums like Siamese Dream, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and Adore. I can hear and feel the influence of 1980s bands like The Smiths in some of the earlier songs in the video. It feels like in real time, you are seeing them test new sounds and try to figure out what their sound should be. Really amazing time capsule video of one of the more influential bands of the 1990s.
