Smashing Pumpkins’ “Pisces Iscariot” to Be Expanded with Bonus Discs, Cassette

Having treated fans last year to lavish expanded versions of the Smashing Pumpkins’ first two LPs, Gish and Siamese Dream, Billy Corgan is again working with EMI to release a deluxe edition of the band’s Pisces Iscariot compilation.

Released at the end of 1994, after the band’s wave of success off the Top 10, quadruple-platinum Siamese Dream through 1993 and 1994, Pisces Iscariot collated the best of the band’s many non-LP B-sides (most of which were only available on import singles) as well as three “new” tracks from the Siamese Dream sessions. Audiences were excited to have more of Corgan and company in their CD players, and, with the help of a hit rock single (a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart), the set was a Top 5 hit – at that point, the band’s best placement on the U.S. charts.

Ever the fastidious archiver, Corgan is pulling out all the stops for this expansion of Pisces Iscariot, adding a bonus CD, a DVD and a cassette(!) to the package. The bonus disc includes more original non-LP B-sides and rare, period-appropriate compilation appearances, some of which are newly remixed for this edition, as well as eight newly-released outtakes, many from the band’s earliest sessions in their native Chicago in the late 1980s.

The band’s early Chicago period colors the rest of the bonus material, too: a live performance at Roselle Music in Roselle, IL in 1988, recorded by local access music show The Pulse, features on the DVD (no clarification yet on what the rest of the tracks listed on the DVD entail). Finally, a replica of a self-released cassette the band created in 1989 will round out the set.

Rest assured, more Pumpkins expansions and archival projects will be released after the deluxe Pisces Iscariot. Corgan – who took the Pumpkins back into the U.S. Top 5 with Oceania, an album culled from his 44-song Teargarden by Kaleidyscope project, last week –  has announced his intentions to expand and reissue the band’s entire output (having confirmed work on expansions of the highly acclaimed Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness and The Aeroplane Flies High box set), and in April created The Lucky 13, a specialized production team that will, with fan input, “review archival material, identify possible pricing models, and propose methods and formats of distribution for selected audio and video releases.”

The Pisces Iscariot reissue is out July 17 and can be ordered after the jump. The track listing is also there, too; a huge hand to SP fan site Crestfallen for breaking that story.

They Walk The Line: Johnny Cash Celebrated By Crow, Nelson, Kristofferson, Plus Four New Compilations Due

Much like the train Johnny Cash so often sang about, the celebration of what would have been his 80^th birthday year rolls on.  Following the issue of Bootleg IV: The Soul of Truth earlier this year, Legacy Recordings has just announced the CD/DVD and Blu-ray releases of We Walk the Line: A Celebration of the Music of Johnny Cash.  Due on August 7, these preserve the concert held on Friday, April 20, 2012 at Austin, Texas’ Moody Theater in which a wide-ranging roster of musicians paid homage to the music of The Man in Black.

Don Was served as the event’s musical director, and brought along a number of his famous friends to celebrate their friend Johnny.  Sheryl Crow, Lucinda Williams and Shelby Lynne all were among the headliners, while Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson fit the bill as the evening’s requisite legends.  Younger talents like The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Pat Monahan of Train, and Amy Lee of Evanescence all paid their respects via new interpretations of Cash standards.  Was’ band included many distinguished musicians in their own right: Buddy Miller, Kenny Aronoff, Greg Leisz and The Faces’ Ian McLagan.  Of the evening’s star-studded “I Walk the Line” finale, Rolling Stone wrote, “It was a scene so loaded with talent that an A-list artist like Crow was left singing backup vocals off-mike and clapping while her peers led the crowd in a sing-along.”

In addition to solo songs, many performers seized the opportunity for duets.  Shelby Lynne and Pat Monahan stepped in for June and Johnny on Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe.”  Jamey Johnson joined Kris Kristofferson for Kristofferson’s own “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” and Lynne traded off with Willie Nelson on Tim Hardin’s folk standard “If I Were a Carpenter.”  Nelson and Kristofferson reunited on Jimmy Webb’s “Highwayman,” enlisting Johnson and Shooter Jennings as new Highwaymen for the song.  The Carolina Chocolate Drops enlivened another favorite duet between June and Johnny, “Jackson.”

Hit the jump for details on the CD/DVD and Blu-Ray editions, plus news of four new Cash compilations and pre-order links for all titles!

Young, Gifted and Live: Shout! Factory Collects Two Out-of-Print Donny Hathaway Concert LPs

The late, great Donny Hathaway was rather beautifully celebrated by Rhino France some time ago with the release of a career-spanning box set. While U.S. audiences had no such luck with a similar compilation, Shout! Factory is picking up the slack and releasing a two-disc set containing both of the soul legend’s long out-of-print live albums.

Hathaway had recorded two sensational studio albums when Live was released in 1972. Very little of those albums are replicated here, save for “The Ghetto” and “Voices Inside (Everything is Everything),” both from his debut disc Everything is Everything in 1970. Much of the material herein are soulful covers, including one recent R&B classic (Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”) and two pop/rock tunes (Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” and John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy”). Culled from two live sets on either coast of America (one at Hollywood’s famous Troubadour and one in Greenwich Village’s Bitter End), Live cracked Billboard‘s Top 20, earned Hathaway his first gold record and even became a cornerstone for hip-hop artists (key track “Little Ghetto Boy” was sampled by both Dr. Dre and the Wu-Tang Clan).

Read on to learn about In Performance, a fitting postscript to Hathaway’s too-short career, and where these albums have been all your life.

Short Takes: Neil Young’s Budget Box Set, The Latest from Heart, and Incubus Goes Live

• What’s the contender for the title of Longest-gestating Music Box Set?  That dubious honor would have to go to Neil Young’s Archives, Volume 1, bandied about since the 1980s and not released until 2009.  Available as 10 Blu-rays, 10 DVDs or 8 CDs, Archives provided an immersive journey deep into Young’s vaults, and it picked up a Grammy Award for Art Direction in 2010.  In conjunction with the massive box (supposedly the first of five such sets), Young has branded a number of his catalogue titles with the Archives label including the Performance Series of previously unreleased live concerts, and the Official Release Series of remastered original albums.  To date, only four Official Release Series titles have been released, and those four have just been collected in one budget-priced mini-box by Warner Bros.’ U.K. division.  Official Release Series Discs 1-4 brings together Young’s first four albums in one slipcase: 1969’s Neil Young and Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, 1970’s After the Gold Rush and 1972’s Harvest.  Based on the available artwork, each album is housed in a jewel case rather than a paper sleeve.  These are the same remastered discs released individually in 2009.  As of this writing, the box set is available from Amazon U.K. for £10.47, or approximately $16.29 USD.  It’s selling for $32.22 from Amazon U.S. now.  You might also wish to check out Warner U.K.’s similar 5-CD Original Album Series boxes from artists including Elvis Costello, Madonna and Prince.

Hit the jump for the latest from Heart and Incubus!