Yoga powers.
To make oneself invisible or small.
To become gigantic and reach to the farthest things.
To change the course of nature.
To place oneself anywhere in space or time.
To summon the dead.
To exalt senses and perceive inaccessible images, of events on other worlds,
in one's deepest inner mind, or in the minds of others.

(Windows work two ways, mirrors one way.)
You never walk through mirrors or swim through windows.

The world becomes an apparently infinite,
yet possibly finite, card game.
Image combinations,
permutations,
comprise the world game.

Cinema has evolved in two paths. One is spectacle. Like the phantasmagoria, its goal is the creation of a total substitute sensory world. The other is peep show, which claims for its realm both the erotic and the untampered observance of real life, and imitates the keyhole or voyeur's window without need of color, noise, grandeur.

The subject says "I see first lots of things which dance — then everything becomes gradually connected".

Few would defend a small view of Alchemy as "Mother of Chemistry", and confuse its true goal with those external metal arts. Alchemy is an erotic science, involved in buried aspects of reality, aimed at purifying and transforming all being and matter. Not to suggest that material operations are ever abandoned. The adept holds to both the mystical and physical work.

They can picture love affairs of chemicals and stars, a romance of stones, or the fertility of fire. Stange, fertile correspondences the alchemists sensed in unlikely orders of being. Between men and planets, plants and gestures, words and weather.

Cinema returns us to anima, religion of matter, which gives each thing its special divinity and sees gods in all things and beings. Cinema, heir of alchemy, last of an erotic science.

The Lords. Events take place beyond our knowledge or control. Our lives are lived for us. We can only try to enslave others. But gradually, special perceptions are being developed. The idea of the "Lords" is beginning to form in some minds. We should enlist them into bands of perceivers to tour the labyrinth during their mysterious nocturnal appearances. The Lords have secret entrances and they know disguises. But they give themselves away in minor ways. Too much glint of light in the eye. A wrong gesture. Too long and curious a glance.

                             Jim Morrison

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 The New Creatures (1969)

I can't believe this is happening
I can't believe all these people
are sniffing each other
& backing away
teeth grinning
hair raised, growling, here in
the slaughtered wind

Do you dare
deny my
potency
my kindness
or forgiveness?

                                    Morrison

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“Memories of moonlight mystery …Romantic melody and the everlasting ghostly soulscape” –AcousticWizard

Penetrate popular culture to see that the legacy of the band is pure anomaly inside the ever predictable façade that is Rock In Roll. A timeless enigma that exists beyond the limit’s of comprehension .The world has yet to relive the collaboration of Jim Morrison, Ray Manzerak, Robby Krieger, & John Densmore. The poetic paradox is blisteringly severe, infectiously pure, enchantingly visceral, erotically true.

Intoxicatingly controversial, unpredictable ...The Edge Of Reason ...Into Realization

"Ladies And Gentlemen ..from Los Angelos California ...The Doors"

A chance meeting between acquaintances and UCLA film school students Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice beach in July 1965 led to the founding of The Doors, one of the premier acts of the late 1960s, in 1965 in Los Angeles, California. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs and, at Manzarek's encouragement, sang "Moonlight Drive." Impressed by the quality of Morrison's lyric, Manzarek immediately suggested they form a band.

Vox-Organ-Player Ray Manzarek was already in the band called Rick And The Ravens with his brother Rick Manzarek while Robby Krieger and John Densmore were playing with The Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from shared meditation instruction. In August Densmore joined the group and, along with members of the Ravens and an unidentified female bass player, recorded a six-song demo on September 2. This was widely bootlegged and appeared in full on the 1997 Doors box set.

That month the group recruited talented guitarist Robby Krieger and the final lineup—Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore—was complete. The band took their name from the title of a book by Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, which was in turn borrowed from a line of poetry by the 18th century artist and poet William Blake: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite."

The Doors were unusual among rock groups because they did not use a bass guitar in concert. Instead, Manzarek played the bass lines with his left hand on the newly invented Fender Rhodes bass keyboard, an offshoot of the well-known Fender Rhodes electric piano, and keyboards with his right hand. However, the group used bass players such as Jerry Scheff, Doug Lubahn, Harvey Brooks, Kerry Magness, Lonnie Mack, and Ray Neapolitan on their albums.

Many of The Doors' originals were composed communally with Morrison usually contributing the lyrics and some melody and the others hammering out the beat and flow of the song. While Morrison and Manzarek were walking on the beach in California, they passed a black woman, and Morrison wrote the lyrics to "Hello, I Love You" in a single night, referring to her as the "dusky jewel." Some criticized the song for its resemblance to The Kinks' 1965 hit "All Day and All of the Night," and The Kinks' lead singer, Ray Davies, sued The Doors.

By 1966 the group was playing The London Fog club and soon graduated to the prestigious Whisky a Go Go. On August 10 they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman on the insistence of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was on Elektra. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at Whisky A Go Go, the first uneven but the second mesmerizing, they signed the band to the Elektra Records label on August 18—the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and engineer Bruce Botnick.

"You Know The Day Destroys The Night... Night Divides The Day"

The Doors' self-titled debut LP, released in January 1967, caused a major sensation in music circles. It featured most of the major songs from their set, including the 11-minute musical drama, "The End." The band—at peak form and bristling with energy and ambition—recorded the album in only a few days in late August and early September 1966, almost entirely live in the studio with most songs captured in a single take. Morrison and Manzarek also directed an innovative promotional film for their first single, "Break on Through," a significant advance in the development of the music video genre.

Their second single, "Light My Fire," established the group along with The Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead as a top new American band of 1967. It was released in April but did not hit the top (with the long middle solo cut out) until July.

In May 1967, the group made their "National" debut by recording a dazzling version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at their Yorkville Studios in Toronto (Yorkville was Canada's version of Haight-Ashbury). It remained unreleased until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in the early 2000s.

The Doors quickly earned a reputation as a challenging, rebellious, and entertaining live act. With his saturnine good looks, magnetic stage presence, and skin-tight leather trousers, Morrison quickly became a major pop sex symbol, although he soon became frustrated with the strictures of stardom. Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) network censors demanded that Morrison change the lyrics to Light My Fire, by altering the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher" (because of the possible reference to drugs) before the band performed the song live on September 17, 1967, on the Ed Sullivan Show. However, Morrison sang the original line instead, and on live television with no delay, CBS was powerless to stop it. A furious Ed Sullivan refused to shake the band members' hands, and they were never invited back. According to one account, Morrison was told he'd never appear on the program again; he replied, "Baby, we've already been on the Ed Sullivan Show"—at the time, an appearance was a hallmark of success. Morrison later insisted that nervousness caused him to forget to change the line. They also performed a new single, "People Are Strange," which they repeated for DJ Murray The K's TV show on September 22.

Morrison further cemented his status as a rebel on December 10 when he was arrested in New Haven, Connecticut, for badmouthing the police to the audience. Morrison said he had been maced by an overzealous police officer after he was caught backstage with a girl.

An American Prayer

Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.

Me and my mother and father, and a grandmother and a grandfather. were driving through the desert, at dawn, and a truck load of Indian workers had either hit another car, or just — I don't know what happened — but there were Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death.
So the car pulls up and stops. That was the first time I tasted fear. I musta' been about four — like a child is like a flower, his head is just floating in the breeze, man. The reaction I get now thinking about it, looking back — is that the souls of the ghosts of those dead Indians... maybe one or two of 'em... were just running around freaking out, and just leaped into my soul. And they're still there.

Do you know the warm progress under the stars?
Do you know we exist?
Have you forgotten the keys to the kingdom?
Have you been born yet
& are you alive?

Let's reinvent the gods, all the myths of the ages
Celebrate symbols from deep elder forests

O great creator of being
grant us one more hour to
perform our art
& perfect our lives

The moths & atheists are doubly divine
& dying
We live, we die
& death not ends it

I touched her thigh
& death smiled

We have assembled inside this ancient
& insane theatre
To propagate our lust for life
& flee the swarming wisdom
of the streets

resident mockery
give us an hour for magic

I'm sick of dour faces
Staring at me from the T.V.
Tower.
I want roses in
my garden bower; dig?

Death makes angels of us all
& gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as raven's
claws

I will not go
Prefer a
feast of Friends
To the Giant family

The program for this evening
is not new. You have seen
This entertainment thru & thru.
You've seen your birth, your
life & death; you might recall
all of the rest — (did you
have a good world when you
died?) — enough to base
a movie on?

They're making a joke of our universe

Let's swim to the moon, uh huh
Let's climb through the tide
Penetrate the evenin'
that the City sleeps to hide

"Five To One Baby ...One In Five ..No One Here Gets Out ALive"

1967

The second Doors LP, Strange Days, was more subdued and less spontaneous than their debut, but the album was notable for its evocative lyrics and atmosphere. Closing track "When The Music's Over" was, like "The End," lengthy and dramatic and helped establish Morrison's reputation as the wild shaman of rock.

1968

Tense recording sessions for the group's third album took place in April as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol. Approaching the height of their popularity The Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.

The band began to branch out from their initial form in their third LP, Waiting for the Sun, (1968), because they had exhausted their original repertoire and began writing new material. It became their first #1 LP and the single "Hello, I Love You" was their second and last US #1 single.

Although Morrison received the most attention, including getting a far larger image on album covers, he was adamant that all the band members should get recognition. Before one concert when the announcer introduced the group as "Jim Morrison and The Doors," Morrison refused to appear unless he announced the group again as "The Doors." While he never felt close to his real life family, he was extremely protective of his band members. Reportedly, he once told Ray Manzarek that he never felt comfortable in a social setting unless Ray or another band member was with him. Many people have concluded that he viewed The Doors as his surrogate family. He repeatedly turned down every solo album opportunity he was offered, and after his death the remaining band members refused to replace him.

In the last two years of his life Morrison curtailed his prodigious intake of psychedelic drugs and began drinking heavily, which soon affected his stage and studio performances. Apparently trying to escape the image of "The Lizard King" that had come to dominate him, Morrison put on weight and grew a thick beard, forcing Elektra to use photos taken earlier in his career for the cover of the Absolutely Live LP, released in 1970. The album features performances recorded on The Doors' 1970 American tour and at the 1969 Aquarius Theatre gig and includes a full-length live performance of "The Celebration of the Lizard."

Their fourth album, The Soft Parade (1969), released in July, further distanced the group from the underground, containing extremely pop-oriented arrangements complete with "Vegas-style" horn sections (their single, "Touch Me," featured saxophonist Curtis Amy). Morrison's excessive drinking made him increasingly difficult and unreliable in the studio, and the recording sessions dragged on for weeks when they had previously only taken days. Studio costs piled up, and the group came close to disintegrating.

In its defense, The Soft Parade was a successful experiment in "quasi-prog-pop" despite Morrison's erratic behavior and numerous technical challenges. The more commercially-oriented songs such as "Touch Me" and "Tell All The People" are memorable; tracks such as "Wild Child" and "Shaman's Blues" are as stripped down and imaginative as ever, with excellent guitar and lyrics.

"Mojo Rising ...gotta keep on a rising"

The group staged a strong return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel.Morrison Hotel had a buoyancy and optimism that the band had never had before with a host of celebratory songs and a couple of lovely ballads. It hit US #4.

The group continued to perform at arenas throughout the summer. Although Morrison faced trial in Miami in August, the group managed to make it to Isle of Wight Festival on August 29. At the festival, the band performed alongside other legendary artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis and Sly & The Family Stone. Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message To Love .

During the Doors' last public performance, at the "Warehouse" in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a mental breakdown on stage, slamming the microphone numerous times into the stage floor. Nevertheless, the group looked set to regain its crown as a premier act with the superb L.A. Woman in 1971. The Doors conceived it as a "back to basics" album that would explore their blues and R&B roots, although during rehearsals the group had a serious falling-out with Rothchild. Denouncing the new repertoire as "cocktail music," he quit and handed the production reins to Botnick. The result was widely considered a classic, featuring some of the strongest material and performances since their 1967 debut. Some dissenters, however, consider nearly half the album to be lackluster blues material that detracts severely from the album's overall quality. However the song "Changeling" has been stated the most underrated song The Doors ever released. The atmospheric single "Riders On The Storm" became a mainstay of rock radio programming for decades.

In 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison decided to take some time off and moved to Paris with girlfriend, Pamela Courson, in March. He had visited the previous summer and, for a time, seemed contented to write and explore the city. But by June he was again drinking heavily and fell from a second story window in May. On June 16 the last known recording of Morrison was made when he befriended two street musicians at a bar and invited them to a recording studio. The results were later released in 1994 on a bootleg CD titled The Lost Paris Tapes.

Morrison died under mysterious circumstances on 3 July 1971; his body was found in the bathtub of his apartment. It was concluded that he died of a heart attack, although it was later revealed that no autopsy had been performed before Morrison's body was buried at the Père-Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.

Rumors persisted for many years that Morrison had faked his death to escape the spotlight or had died at a Paris nightclub and that his body had been surreptitiously taken to his apartment. However, in his book Wonderland Avenue, Morrison's former associate Danny Sugerman states that during his last meeting with Courson -- which took place shortly before her own death from a heroin overdose -- she confessed that she had introduced Morrison to the drug and because he had a fear of needles, she had injected him with the dose that killed him.

http://www.thedoors.com/home

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doors

"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free."

"The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first. You can take away a man's political freedom and you won't hurt him- unless you take away his freedom to feel. That can destroy him. That kind of freedom can't be granted. Nobody can win it for you."

"Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality. I was curious to see what would happen. That's all it was: curiosity."

"Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you."

"If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel."

“You're all a bunch of fuckin' slaves!" 

JIM MORRISON

"Road all night into the dawn

The Sun only see's me ...when I'm gone

Road all day into the night

They only love me when I'm right

Dance with the dragon inside the dream

The memory is fading ...and this must seem

The dying inside of a truthful whole

Let it roll baby roll.... " --AcousticWizard

Since the 1950s, the electric bass has largely replaced the double bass in popular music. The bass is typically used to provide the low-pitched bassline(s) and bass runs in popular music and jazz. The electric bass is also used as a soloing instrument in jazz, fusion, Latin, and funk styles.

Paul Tutmarc developed a guitar-style electric bass instrument that was fretted and designed to be held and played horizontally. Audiovox's sales catalogue of 1935–6 (also featuring a solid body six-string electric guitar) listed what is probably the world’s first fretted, solid body electric bass that is designed to be played horizontally — the Model #736 Electric Double Bass. The change to a "guitar" form made the instrument easier to hold and transport; the addition of guitar-style frets enabled bassists to play in tune more easily (which also made the new electric bass easier to learn).

A self-taught electrical engineer named Leo Fender developed the first mass-produced electric bass in the 1950s. His Fender Precision Bass, introduced in 1951, became a widely copied industry standard. The Precision Bass (or "P-bass") evolved from a simple, uncontoured 'slab' body design similar to that of a Telecaster with a single piece, four-pole pickup to a contoured body design with beveled edges for comfort and a single "split coil pickup" (staggered humbucker).

First introduced in 1960, The Jazz Bass was known as the Deluxe Bass and was meant to accompany the Jazzmaster guitar.The Jazz Bass (often referred to as a "J-bass") featured two single-coil pickups, one close to the bridge and one in the Precision bass' position, each with separate volume and tone controls. The Jazz Bass' neck was narrower at the nut than the Precision bass (1 1/2" vs 1 3/4"). Another visual difference that set the Jazz Bass apart from the Precision is its "offset-waist" body. Pickup positions on other manufacturers' basses are often referred to as "P" or "J" position pickups, in reference to Precision and Jazz basses. Fender also began production of the Mustang Bass; a 30" scale length instrument used by bassists such as Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads ("P" and "J" basses have a scale length of 34").

Following Fender's lead, Gibson released the violin-shaped EB-1 Bass in 1953, followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass in 1959. As with Fender's designs, Gibson relied heavily upon an existing guitar design for this bass; the EB-0 was very similar to a Gibson SG in appearance (although the earliest examples have a slab-sided body shape closer to that of the double-cutaway Les Paul Special). Whereas Fender basses had pickups mounted in positions in between the base of the neck and the top of the bridge, many of Gibson's early basses featured one humbucking pickup mounted directly against the neck pocket. The EB-3, introduced in 1961, also had a "mini-humbucker" at the bridge position. Gibson basses also tended to be smaller, sleeker instruments; Gibson did not produce a 34" scale bass until 1963 with the release of the Thunderbird, which was also the first Gibson bass to utilize dual-humbucking pickups in a more traditional position, about halfway between the neck and bridge.

With the explosion of the popularity of rock music in the 1960's and seeing the success that Fender and Gibson were having with their products, Rickenbacker, Danelectro, ESP Guitars, and many others started to produce their own version of the electric bass. The 1970's also saw the founding of Music Man Instruments, owned by Leo Fender. Music Man produced the StingRay, the first widely produced bass with active (powered) electronics. Specific models became identified with particular styles of music, such as the Rickenbacker 4000 series, which became identified with progressive rock bassists.

In 1971 Alembic established the template for what would subsequently be known as "boutique" or "high end" electric basses. These expensive, custom-tailored instruments featured unique designs, premium wood bodies chosen and hand-finished by master craftspeople, onboard electronics for preamplification and equalization, and innovative construction techniques such as multi-laminate neck-through-body construction and graphite necks. Alembic and another "boutique" bass manufacturers,Tobias, and Ken Smith, produced 4 string and 5-string basses with a low "B" string in the mid-1970s. Ken Smith also developed and marketed the first wide-spacing six-string electric bass.

As the electric bass matured, new designs continued to push the envelope. Ned Steinberger introduced a headless bass in 1979 and continued his innovations in the 1980s, using graphite and other new materials and (in 1984) introducing the Trans-Trem tremolo bar. In 1987, the Guild Guitar Corporation launched the fretless Ashbory bass, which used silicone rubber strings and a piezoelectric pickup to achieve a "double bass" sound with an extremely short 18" scale length.

The standard design electric bass has four strings, tuned E, A, D and G (with the fundamental frequency of the E string set at 41.2 Hz, making the tuning of all four strings the same as that of the double bass). This tuning is also the same as the standard tuning on the lower four strings on a 6-string guitar, only an octave lower. The materials used in the strings gives bass players a range of tonal options. String types include all-metal strings (roundwound or flatwound), metal strings with different coverings, such as tapewound and plastic-coatings, and non-metal strings made of nylon.

Early basses used flatwound strings with a smooth surface, which had a smooth, damped sound reminiscent of a double-bass. In the 1960s and 1970s, roundwound bass strings similar to guitar strings became popular. Roundwounds have a brighter timbre with greater sustain than flatwounds. Flatwounds are still used by bassists who want a more vintage, smooth, or damped sound.

A number of other tuning options and bass types has been used to extend the range of the instrument. The most common are:

Four strings with alternate tunings to obtain an extended lower range. Tunings such as "BEAD" (this requires a low "B" string in addition to the other three "standard" strings), "D-A-D-G" (a "standard" set of strings, with only the lowest string detuned), and D-G-C-F or C-G-C-F (a "standard" set of strings, all of which are detuned) give bassists an extended lower range.

Five strings (usually B-E-A-D-G, but sometimes E-A-D-G-C). The 5-string bass with a low "B" provides added lower range, as compared with the 4-string bass. As well, it gives a player easier access to low notes when playing in the higher positions. Five-string basses are common in certain sub-genres of heavy metal where music often uses an extended lower range.

Six strings (B-E-A-D-G-C). The 6-string bass (B-E-A-D-G-C) is essentially a 4-string bass with both an additional low "B" string and high "C" string. While much less common than 4- or 5-string basses, they are still used in Latin, jazz, and several other genres. A few players have tuned the high C down to a B (giving B-E-A-D-G-B) matching the E-A-D-G-B string found on the lower end of a guitar.

The electric bass is the standard bass instrument in many musical genres, including modern Country, post-1970s-style Jazz, many variants of Rock and Roll, Heavy metal, Punk, Reggae, soul and funk. Even though the double bass is still the standard bass instrument in orchestral settings, some late-20th-century composers have used the electric bass in an orchestral setting. Modern bass playing draws on guitar and double bass for inspiration as well as an increasing vernacular of its own.

The bass may have differing roles within different types of music and the bassist may prefer different degrees of prominence in the music. Early uses of the electric bass saw bassists doubling the double bass part or replacing the upright bass entirely with their new, more portable and easily amplified instrument. By the end of the 1960s, the electric bass had replaced the upright bass in many forms of popular music.

The switch to electric bass moved bassists more into the foreground in a band setting, in several senses:

From an aural perspective, electric bass tone can often "cut through" a live mix better. As well, electric basses can be amplified to very high levels without the problem of feedback "howls" that can plague upright bass players trying to amplify their instruments.

The smaller size of the electric bass allows rapid, complex lines to be played more easily, enabling some musicians to develop a solo role for the instrument.

The switch to the electric bass allowed bassists much more freedom of movement on stage. The double bass sits on an endpin, and stands vertically, and players typically play in a single location for the duration of a song. However, the electric bass is smaller, and is held up with a strap, which allows the electric bassist to move about on the stage while playing, and get closer to other musicians or the audience.

Born in Valdosta, Georgia, Bill was the son of Jim and Mary (Reese) Hicks, and had two elder siblings, Steve and Lynn. The family lived in Florida, Alabama, and New Jersey before settling in Houston, Texas when Bill was seven. Hicks has two school-age stories on the Flying Saucer Tour Vol. 1 album. He said he was raised in the Southern Baptist faith. He was drawn to comedy at an early age, emulating Woody Allen, and writing routines with his friend Dwight Slade. Worried about Bill's behavior, his parents took him to a psychoanalyst at age 17, but the psychoanalyst could find little wrong with him. The therapist apparently joked that Bill's parents would probably benefit more from a few sessions than Bill himself.

In 1978, the Comedy Workshop opened in Houston, and friends Hicks, Slade, and Kevin Booth started performing there. At first, Hicks was unable to drive and so young he needed a special work permit. He worked his way up to once every Tuesday night in the autumn of 1978, while still in high school. He was well received and started developing his improvisational skills, although his act at the time was limited. Bill Hicks, Kevin Booth, and Jay Leno reminisce about the Comedy Workshop years in the It's Just A Ride documentary.

In his senior year of high school, the Hicks family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, but after his graduation, in the spring of 1980, Bill moved to Los Angeles, California, and started performing at the Comedy Store in Hollywood, where Andrew Dice Clay, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, and Garry Shandling were also performing at the time. He briefly attended Los Angeles Community College, mentioning the unhappy experience on Flying Saucer Tour Vol. 1. He appeared in a pilot for the sitcom, Bulba, before moving back to Houston in 1982. There, he formed the ACE Production Company (Absolute Creative Entertainment), which would later become Sacred Cow Productions, with Kevin Booth, and worked at local Houston comedy clubs like The Comedy Workshop (as did Brett Butler). At some point he attended the University of Houston briefly.

In 1983, Hicks started drinking heavily while using other types of drugs, which may have influenced his increasingly disjointed and angry, at times even misanthropic, ranting style on stage. As had become his trademark, he continued attacking the American dream, hypocritical beliefs, and traditional attitudes. At one show, two Vietnam veterans took exception to his statements and sought him out after the show, breaking one of his legs and cracking one of his ribs.

Hicks' success steadily increased (along with his drug use), and in 1984 he got an appearance on the talkshow Late Night with David Letterman, which was engineered by his friend Jay Leno. He made an impression on David Letterman, and ended up doing eleven more broadcast show appearances, all hugely popular, despite being bowdlerized versions of his stage shows.

In 1986, Hicks found himself broke after spending all his money on various drugs, but his career got another upturn as he appeared on Rodney Dangerfield's Young Comedians Special in 1987. The same year, he moved to New York City, and for the next five years he did about 300 performances a year. His reputation suffered from his drug use, however, and in 1988, he quit drugs — including alcohol (Hicks recounts his quitting of alcohol in the One Night Stand special and on Flying Saucer Tour Vol. 1.) He fell back to cigarette smoking as his only vice, a theme that would figure heavily in his performances from then on. (On the album Relentless, he jokes that he quit using drugs because "once you've been taken aboard a UFO, it's kind of hard to top that.")

An infamous gig in Chicago during 1989, later released as the bootleg I'm Sorry, Folks, resulted in Hicks screaming possibly his most infamous quote, "Hitler had the right idea, he was just an underachiever" to a heckler shouting "Free Bird" over and over. Hicks followed this remark by a misanthropic tirade calling for unbiased genocide against the whole of humanity, suggesting that it was not an anti-Semitic comment but rather an expression of his disgust with people in general. Hicks often veered between hope and love for the human race and utter hopelessness. In the same gig, he yelled at a female heckler, calling her a, "drunk cunt" and forced her to leave, telling her to "go see something GOOD!"

In 1989 he released his first video, Sane Man, to critical acclaim. The same performance was re-issued seventeen years later in 2006 and again received, generally, reviews of recommendation.

In 1990, he released his first album, Dangerous, did an HBO special, One Night Stand, and performed at Montreal's Just for Laughs festival. He was also part of a group of American stand-up comedians performing in London's West End in November. He was a huge hit in the UK and Ireland and continued touring there in 1991. That year, he also returned to the Just for Laughs festival and recorded his second album, Relentless.

Hicks made a brief detour into musical recording with the Marblehead Johnson album in 1992, the same year he met Colleen McGarr, who was to become his girlfriend and fiancee. In November of that year, he toured the UK. On that tour, he recorded the Revelations video for Channel 4 in England and the standup performance that would become Live at Oxford Playhouse and Salvation. He was voted "Hot Standup Comic" by Rolling Stone Magazine, and moved to Los Angeles again in early 1993.

The progressive metal band Tool invited Hicks to open a number of concerts for them on their 1992 Lollapalooza appearances, where Hicks once famously asked the audience to look for a contact lens he'd lost. Thousands of people complied. Tool singer Maynard James Keenan so enjoyed this joke that he repeated it on a number of occasions.

In April of 1993, while touring in Australia, he started complaining of pains in his side, and in the middle of June of that year, he learned he had pancreatic cancer. He started receiving weekly chemotherapy, while still touring and also recording his album, Arizona Bay, with Kevin Booth. He was also working with comedian Fallon Woodland on a pilot episode of a new sitcom, titled Counts of the Netherworld for Channel 4 at the time of his death. The budget and storyboard had been approved, and a pilot was filmed. The Counts of the Netherworld pilot was shown at the various Tenth Anniversary Tribute Night events around the world on February 26, 2004.

On October 1, 1993, he was to appear on the David Letterman show for the twelfth time, but his appearance was cancelled somewhat controversially. At the time, Hicks was doing a routine about pro-life organizations, where he encouraged them to "lock arms and block cemeteries" instead of medical clinics, but his routine was cut from the show. Both the show's producers and CBS denied responsibility for the cut, but the reason appeared obvious to many during the following week's  when a commercial for a pro-life organization was aired. Hicks himself felt betrayed, and hand-wrote a 32-page letter of complaint. Later, Letterman expressed regret at the way Hicks had been handled. Unfortunately Hicks had died by that time, and never heard Letterman's sentiments.

One political event that became an object of interest and fodder for comedy was the storming of the Waco compound of the Branch Davidians under David Koresh. Hicks became convinced that the government initiated the destruction of the compound by setting it on fire (he pointed to footage of a tank allegedly shooting fire into the compound as evidence) and then covered up its actions. He also expressed disappointment with the various overseas bombing campaigns ordered by President Clinton and the Warren Commission explanation of the Kennedy assassination.

He played the final show of his career at Caroline's in New York on January 6, 1994. Bill moved back to his parents' house in Little Rock shortly thereafter. He called his friends to say goodbye before he stopped speaking on February 14, and died at 11:20 p.m. on February 26 of pancreatic cancer.Bill was buried on the family plot in Leakesville, Mississippi.

The Arizona Bay album, as well as the album considered his best, Rant in E-Minor, were released posthumously in 1997 by his friend Kevin Booth.

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The Words Of The Madman himself in all is stylistic, logic filled, Glory

"I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your fuckin' mouth."

"Your denial is beneath you, and thanks to the use of hallucinogenic drugs, I see through you."

"It's really weird how your life changes. Tonight I'm drinking water. Four years ago? Opium. Night and day, you know?"

"This is your brain." I've seen a lot of weird shit on drugs. I have never ever ever ever EVER looked at a fucking egg and thought it was a brain.

"If you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, then go home and burn all your records, all your tapes, and all your CDs because every one of those artists who have made brilliant music and enhanced your lives? RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrEAL fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few songs."

"We gotta come to some new ideas about life folks ok? I'm not being blase about abortion, it might be a real issue, it might not, doesn't matter to me. What matters is that if you believe in the sanctity of life then you believe it for life of all ages. That's what I hate about this child-worship syndrome going on. "Save the children! They're killing children! How many children were at Waco? They're killing children!" What does that mean? They reach a certain age and they're off your fucking love-list? Fuck your children, if that's the way you think then fuck you too. You either love all people of all ages or you shut the fuck up."

"Here is my final point. About drugs, about alcohol, about pornography and smoking and everything else. What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body - as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet?"

"Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit... unnatural? You know what I mean? It's nature. How do you make nature against the fucking law?"

"I dunno how much AIDS scares y'all, but I got a theory: the day they come out with a cure for AIDS, a guaranteed one-shot cure, on that day there's gonna be fucking in the streets, man."

"They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference."

"No, I don't do drugs anymore, either. But I'll tell you something about drugs. I used to do drugs, but I'll tell you something honestly about drugs, honestly, and I know it's not a very popular idea, you don't hear it very often anymore, but it is the truth: I had a great time doing drugs. Sorry. Never murdered anyone, never robbed anyone, never raped anyone, never beat anyone, never lost a job, a car, a house, a wife or kids, laughed my ass off, and went about my day."

"We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution."

"I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are."

"We all pay for life with death, so everything in between should be free."

"That's an act, that's a frying pan, that's a stove, you're an alcoholic! Dude, I'm tripping right now, and I still see that that's a fucking egg, alright? I see the UFO's around it, but that's a goddamn egg in the middle. There's a hobbit eating it, but goddammit that hobbit's eating a fucking egg! He's on a unicorn. But, no, th-th-th-that's a fucking egg. How dare you have a wino tell me not to do drugs!"

"I've learned a lot about women. I think I've learned exactly how the fall of man occured in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, and Adam said one day, "Wow, Eve, here we are, at one with nature, at one with God, we'll never age, we'll never die, and all our dreams come true the instant that we have them." And Eve said, "Yeah... it's just not enough is it?"

"I'm gonna share with you a vision that I had, cause I love you. And you feel it. You know all that money we spend on nuclear weapons and defense each year, trillions of dollars, correct? Instead -- just play with this -- if we spent that money feeding and clothing the poor of the world -- and it would pay for it many times over, not one human being excluded -- we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace. Thank you very much. You've been great, I hope you enjoyed it."

"The worst kind of non-smokers are the ones that come up to you and cough. That's pretty fucking cruel isn't it? Do you go up to cripples and dance too?"

"If the FBI's motivating factor for busting down the Koresh compound was child abuse, how come we never see Bradley tanks smashing into Catholic churches?"

"See we just had a misunderstanding. I thought we lived in the U.S. of A., the United States of America. But actually we live in the U.S. of A., the United States of Advertising. Freedom of expression is guaranteed? If you've got the money!"

"The whole image is that eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God's infinite love. That's the message we're brought up with, isn't it? Believe or die! "Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options."

Wouldn't you like to see a positive LSD story on the news? To hear what it's all about, perhaps? Wouldn't that be interesting? Just for once?

"Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration … that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather."

Nickelback was helped early on by Cancon, the Canadian law requiring a certain percentage of music played on Canadian radio to be from Canadian musical artists. Their second full length album, The State, propelled them to the mainstream with two Top 10 hits (one being "Leader of Men") and the follow up album Silver Side Up, with 2002's most-played single "How You Remind Me", gave them superstar status, scoring multi-format smashes on every album since.

The band was playing their second song at the Ilha do Ermal festival in Portugal on August 19, 2002, when singer Chad Kroeger was suddenly sprayed with a full bottle of water, hurled from somewhere within the audience. Kroeger immediately tore off his guitar and confronted the crowd. As he turned away, he was pelted in the back of the head with what looked like a large rock. "See ya," he replied with a wave. With that, the entire band followed him off the stage. Both Kroeger and drummer Ryan Vikedal gave the audience the finger as they strode off. It is thought Kroeger was unharmed by the rock.

Silver Side Up was released on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. On that morning, they were on their tour bus traveling across Pennsylvania less than 10 miles from where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed.

They have received six Juno Awards and were nominated for five more in 2006. Their single "Photograph" was nominated for best single.

In May and June 2006, Nickelback supported Bon Jovi on the European leg of their Have A Nice Day Tour, playing in Germany, The Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and finishing in the UK.

Nickelback with their latest album, topped the nominees with three, the nominations including Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Album (All the Right Reasons) and Favorite Alternative Artist, for the 34th American Music Awards which are going to be held on Tuesday, November 21, 2006.

Nickelback's style is stylistical derivative of the Northwest's grunge scene and is most frequently described as post-grunge. The band is sometimes described as arena rock, and are frequently accused of relying on mediocre composition and being driven purely by commercialism. To a degree, this may be the case--the band is not noted for groundbreaking stylistic or artistically contributions, does perform more than a handful of formulaic compositions, and is not widely acclaimed artistically. The fans, on the other hand feel the band has much to offer, and sales worldwide seem to back them up. The frontman Chad Kroeger serves as the soul of the band, buttressed by the highly competent, solid musicianship of the other bandmembers.

Their fifth album, All the Right Reasons (2005), sees a change in their subject matter. Kroeger deals with nostalgia, friendships and the passage of time in one of the 2005 singles, "Photograph". "Rockstar" has the band enjoying the stereotypical "rockstar" life (drugs, women, money, etc.) and celebrating commercialism at the expense of integrity.

The album has received overwhelmingly negative reviews, with a Metacritic average of 38. All Music Guide called Nickelback "unspeakably awful" in the album's critical review.

Also since Silver Side Up was released, only 2 of 12 singles have not made the Hot 100. These were "Never Again" from Silver Side Up and "Because of You" from the Long Road.

In 2003, an internet meme pokes fun at the similarities between the song How You Remind Me and Someday, referred to as "How You Remind Me of Someday".

Nickelback is often the target of jokes and criticism by comedians such as Brian Posehn, and Tony Martin

In a press conference, bassist Mike Kroeger said to the Cleveland Free Times, "I think that's remarkable for someone to notice that there is a hit quality. If all hits sound the same, then sorry. When you are a band that has a distinct style such as us or AC/DC, that happens. When you have a distinct style, you run the risk of sounding similar."

Chad Kroeger has on several occasions lashed out at his band's detractors in television interviews and during concert appearances by stating the "Nickelback doesn't suck" citing sales figures of their albums as proof.

Nickelback was also a victim of concert bottling while playing a show in Portugal. A popular Portugese news clip diplays the band walking off stage after two songs because the crowd was throwing rocks, among other things, at them.

Having sold more than 25 million records worldwide by 2000, with approximately 18.3 million albums sold in the United States alone as of 2006,the Smashing Pumpkins were one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands of the 1990s, but internal fighting, drug use, and diminishing sales and cultural vitality hampered the band in their later years and led to a 2000 break-up. In April of 2006, the band officially announced that they were reuniting and recording a new album. So far, the only confirmed band members are Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin.

At the age of 19, singer and guitarist Billy Corgan left his native Chicago, Illinois, moving to St. Petersburg, Florida with his gothic rock band The Marked, so called because of the birth marks on his and his drummer's hands. The band had limited success and quickly dissolved. Corgan returned to Chicago, taking a job in a record store. While working there, he met guitarist James Iha. Adorning themselves with paisley and other psychedelic trappings, the two began writing songs together (with the aid of a drum machine) that were heavily influenced by The Cure and New Order. Corgan met bassist D'arcy Wretzky in 1988 after a show by the Dan Reed Network where they argued the merits of the band. After finding out Wretzky played bass, Corgan stated his band's need for a bassist and gave Wretzky his telephone number. Wretzky soon joined the band, and she and Iha would eventually have a short-lived personal relationship.

The first performance of The Smashing Pumpkins was on July 9, 1988 at the Polish bar Chicago 21. However, this performance only included Corgan and Iha with a drum machine. On August 10, 1988, the band played for the first time as a trio at the Avalon Nightclub. After this show, Cabaret Metro owner Joe Shanahan agreed to book the band provided they threw out the drum machine and recruit a live drummer. Jazz drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was recruited for the band after a recommendation from a friend of Corgan's. The addition of Chamberlin was at first an unlikely match, as Chamberlin knew nothing of alternative music at the time. As Corgan recalled of the period, "We were completely into the sad-rock, Cure kind of thing. It took about two or three practices before I realized that the power in his playing was something that enabled us to rock harder than we could ever have imagined". On October 5, 1988, the complete band took the stage for the first time at the Cabaret Metro.Although not an official member of the band at this point, Chamberlin would soon be announced as such, and the complete four-person lineup from this first show at the Metro would be unchanged for the next seven years.

In 1989, the group had recorded a handful of demo tapes, which appeared later on the bootleg release Early 1989 Demos. Their first appearance on vinyl happened that same year when they appeared on the compilation album Light Into Dark with other Chicago alternative bands. They released their first record, a limited edition single of "I Am One", in 1990 on local Chicago label Limited Potential. The single sold out and they released another single, "Tristessa", on Sub Pop, after which they signed to Caroline Records. The Smashing Pumpkins recorded their 1991 debut album Gish with Sonic Youth producer Butch Vig in his own studio, Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, for $20,000. In order to gain the consistency he desired, Corgan often played all instruments save drums, which created tension in the band. The music fused heavy metal guitars, psychedelia and dream pop, garnering them comparisons to Jane's Addiction. Gish became a minor success, with the single "Rhinoceros" receiving some airplay in Modern Rock radio. After releasing the Lull EP in October 1991 on Caroline Records, the band formally signed with Virgin Records which was affiliated with Caroline. The band supported the album with a tour that included opening for bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, and Guns N' Roses. During the tour, Iha and Wretzky went through a messy breakup, Chamberlin became addicted to narcotics and alcohol and Corgan entered a deep depression,writing some songs for the upcoming album in the parking garage where he lived at the time

With the breakthrough of alternative rock into the American mainstream due to the popularity of grunge bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, the Smashing Pumpkins were poised for major commercial success. At this time, and amid their protests, the Pumpkins were routinely lumped in with the grunge movement due to their cathartic sound and heavy metal influences such as Black Sabbath. In a Halloween night interview on MTV's 120 Minutes in 1993, Corgan remarked, "We've graduated now from [being called] 'the next Jane's Addiction' to 'the next Nirvana', now we're 'the next Pearl Jam.'" The group nevertheless contributed the song "Drown" to the platinum-selling soundtrack of the 1992 movie Singles, a film set in the Seattle grunge music scene.

Corgan said that in the wake of Nirvana's landmark 1991 album Nevermind, "We felt a great pressure that if we didn't come up with a record that was huge, we were done. It was that simple in our minds. We felt like our lives depended on it". Feeling enormous critical and commercial pressure, Corgan's depression deepened to the point where he contemplated suicide. To counteract his depression, Corgan worked overtime, saying he practically lived in the studio for the 1993 follow-up album, Siamese Dream. The album was recorded at Triclops Sound Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, mostly between December 1992 and March 1993, with Butch Vig reprising his role as producer; the band lived in Marietta during the Siamese Dream recording sessions. The decision to record so far away from their hometown was motivated partially to keep away from local friends and distractions during the recording, but largely as a desperate attempt to cut Chamberlin off from his known drug connections. In this respect, the strategy failed miserably, as Chamberlin quickly managed to find new connections and often was absent without any contact for days at a time.

The recording environment was fraught with difficulty. The band fought constantly. Contemporary music press portrayed Corgan as somewhat of a tyrant during the recording sessions (accusations that Corgan admitted there was some truth to, although he felt the press misunderstood the situation), with rumors circulating that he had recorded all the guitar and bass parts himself. It was never confirmed exactly how much each member participated on the album; Corgan did say he performed a majority of the guitar work, but only because he could record tracks and parts in far fewer takes. In all, it took over four months to complete the record with the budget exceeding $250,000. The troubles surrounding the recording sessions did not hamper the band's chances of success, however. Siamese Dream debuted at number 10 on the Billboard charts, sold over four million copies in the U.S. alone, and garnered the Pumpkins international attention for the videos for the songs "Today" and "Disarm" through heavy rotation on MTV.

While the Pumpkins were successful, they weren't universally adored by the alternative rock community. Accusations of careerism by the indie scene were levied against the band since its early days. Indie rock band Pavement's 1994 song "Range Life" refers to the band with the lines "I don't understand what they mean/And I could really give a fuck" which have been widely interpreted as an insult (although Stephen Malkmus, lead singer of Pavement, has stated "I never dissed their music. I just dissed their status."). Former Hüsker Dü frontman Bob Mould called them "the grunge Monkees", and fellow Chicago musician/producer Steve Albini wrote a scathing letter in response to an article praising the band where he countered the Pumpkins were no more alternative than REO Speedwagon and determined them "by, of and for the mainstream" and "ultimately insignificant". Others such as Courtney Love of Hole (who dated Corgan before marrying Nirvana's Kurt Cobain) were vocal supporters of the band.

In 1994, Virgin released the B-sides/rarities compilation Pisces Iscariot which outperformed Siamese Dream by reaching number four on the Billboard charts. Also released was a VHS cassette titled Vieuphoria featuring a mix of live performances and behind-the-scenes footage. Following relentless touring to support the recordings, including headline slots on the 1994 Lollapalooza tour and at Reading Festival in 1995, the band took time off to write the follow-up album.

Corgan worked non-stop over the next year and wrote, according to statements in interviews, about 56 songs for the next album. Following this spell of concentrated creativity, the Pumpkins went back into the studio with producers Flood and Alan Moulder to work on what Corgan described as "The Wall for Generation X," a comparison with Pink Floyd's famous double concept album.

The result was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, a double album release featuring 28 songs and lasting over 2 hours (the vinyl version of the album contained three records, two extra songs and an alternate tracklisting). The songs were intended to hang together conceptually as a symbol of the cycle of life and death.Praised by Time as "the group's most ambitious and accomplished work yet",Mellon Collie debuted at number one on the Billboard charts in October 1995 and was even more successful than Siamese Dream, selling over sixteen million copies worldwide. At the time, the album was the best-selling double album of the decade. It also garnered seven 1996 Grammy Award nominations, including Album of the Year. The album spawned five singles--"Bullet with Butterfly Wings", "1979", "Zero", "Tonight, Tonight", and "Thirty-Three"--of which the first three were certified gold and all but "Zero" entered the Top 40. Many of the remaining songs that did not make it onto Mellon Collie were released as B-sides to the singles, and were eventually compiled in The Aeroplane Flies High box set. As a testament to the band's popularity at the time, Virgin Records originally intended to limit the set to 200,000 copies, but produced more after the original run sold out due to overwhelming and unexpected demand.

Along with the success of the album, the band found commercial and critical acclaim with music videos. The '"1979" and "Tonight, Tonight" videos combined to win 7 MTV Video Music Awards at the 1996 ceremony, including the top award, Video of the Year, going to "Tonight, Tonight". The video was also nominated for 3 Grammys at the 1997 ceremony. The critical success of these videos was met with equal fervor from fans. Of the "Tonight, Tonight" video, Corgan remarked, "I don't think we've ever had people react [like this]...it just seemed to touch a nerve."This moment marked the height of the band's popularity. With considerable play on MTV, "Zero" shirts commonly sold in malls, and awards from major organizations, the band was considered one the most dominant and popular bands of the time.

In 1996, the Pumpkins embarked on a massive world tour in support of Mellon Collie. Corgan's look--a shaved head, a longsleeve black shirt with the word "Zero" printed on it, and silver pants--was an iconic image of the period. The band also made a guest appearance in an episode of The Simpsons in 1996 titled "Homerpalooza". However, the year was not an entirely positive one for the band. In May 1996, the Smashing Pumpkins played a gig at The Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. The venue was overcrowded and despite the band's repeated requests for moshing to stop, a 17 year old fan named Bernadette O'Brien was crushed to death. The concert ended early and the following night's performance in Belfast was cancelled out of respect for her. Despite Corgan’s protestations that moshing’s “time [had] come and gone,” the band would continue to request open-floor concerts throughout the rest of the tour.

The band suffered a personal tragedy on the night of July 11, 1996, when touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin and Chamberlin overdosed on heroin in a hotel room in New York City. Melvoin died, and Chamberlin was arrested for drug possession. A few days later the band issued a statement notifying the public that Chamberlin had been fired as a result of the incident.Though the band finished the tour with another drummer and keyboardist, in retrospect Corgan called it the worst decision the band ever made, damaging themselves and their reputation in the long run.Meanwhile the band had given interviews since the release of Mellon Collie stating that it would be the last conventional Pumpkins record,and that rock was becoming stale. James Iha said at the end of 1996, "The future is in electronic music. It really seems boring just to play rock music."

After the release of Mellon Collie, the Pumpkins contributed three songs to various compilations. One of these was "The End is the Beginning is the End" (also appearing in a revamped form as "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning") for the Batman & Robin soundtrack. Despite Chamberlin's absence, the song featured a heavy sound not unlike "Bullet With Butterfly Wings." The song later won the 1998 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. Despite this, the group's sound turned drastically away from guitar-driven rock with two additional songs from compilations: "Christmastime" from A Very Special Christmas 3 and "Eye" from Lost Highway. Both contributions relied heavily on electronic influences and served as precursors to the group's next album.

Recorded following the death of Corgan's mother and his divorce, 1998's Adore represented a significant change of style from the Pumpkins' previous guitar-based rock, veering into electronica. Trimming much of the guitar-driven sonic underpinnings, the record was cut using drum machines and was infused with a slightly darker aesthetic. The group also modified its public image, shedding its alternative hipster look for a dark Gothic persona. Although Adore received favorable reviews and was nominated for Best Alternative Performance at the Grammy Awards, the album had only sold about 830,000 copies in the United States by the end of the year, which lead the music industry to consider it a failure; the album nonetheless sold three times as many copies overseas.

On June 30, 1998 the band embarked on a 17-date, 15-city charity tour. At each stop on the tour, the band donated 100% of tickets sales to a local charity organization. This act of charity caused the band to lose money on the tour due to the costs incurred, which had to be entirely funded from the band's own pockets. All told, the band donated over $2.8 million to charity as the result of this tour.^[38]

In 1999, the band surprised fans by reuniting with a rehabilitated Jimmy Chamberlin for a brief tour dubbed "The Arising", which showcased both new and classic material. The lineup was short-lived, however, as upon the completion of 2000's MACHINA/The Machines of God, Wretzky departed the band. Former Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur was recruited for the "Sacred and Profane" tour in support of the album. Auf der Maur also appeared in the videos accompanying the album.

MACHINA was initially promoted as the Pumpkins' return to form, after the more gothic, electronic-sounding Adore; however, on its release, many reviewers and fans took issue with the album's "Wall of Sound" production, finding that what was intended to have been a reappearance of the band's signature hard rock sound had been overprocessed — in particular, stripping away the warmth and nuance for which Iha's and Corgan's guitar work had become known. In addition, many longtime fans became disenchanted with the conceptual nature of the album and its mystical and spiritual themes. The album debuted at number 3 on the Billboard charts, but quickly disappeared and as of 2006 has only been certified gold. Music journalist Jim DeRogatis, who described the album as "one of the strongest of their career," noted that the stalled sales fof MACHINA in comparison to teen pop ascendant at the time "seems like concrete proof that a new wave of young pop fans has turned a deaf ear toward alternative rock."

On May 23, 2000 in a live radio interview on KROQ (Los Angeles), Billy Corgan announced the band's decision to break up at the end of that year following additional touring and recording.^[42] The group's final album before the break-up, MACHINA II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music, was released in September 2000 in a limited pressing on vinyl with permission and instructions for free redistribution on the Internet by fans. Only 25 copies were cut, each of which was hand numbered and given to friends of the band along with band members themselves. The album contained 1 LP and 3 EPs released under the Constantinople Records label, created by Corgan. This is the only Smashing Pumpkins album released that is not under the Virgin Records label. Originally, the band asked Virgin to offer Machina II as a free download to anyone who bought Machina. When the record label declined, Corgan opted to release the material independently.

On December 2, 2000, the Smashing Pumpkins played their final concert at The Metro, the same Chicago club where their career had effectively started twelve years earlier. To commemorate this, and as a special thank you to their fans, attendees at the concert were given a recording of the band’s first concert at The Metro, Live at Cabaret Metro 10-5-88. The Smashing Pumpkins' final commercial recording was a single, "Untitled", released to coincide with the final show. A video of the entire 4 hour concert (3 main sets and 4 encores in total) has yet to be released, though a video of the final performance of "Fuck You (An Ode to No One)" is included on the Greatest Hits Video Collection (1991-2000) DVD.

2001 saw the release of a greatest hits compilation, Rotten Apples (Greatest Hits), which included various singles spanning their career. The double disc version of the album, released as a limited edition, included a B-sides/rarities collection called Judas Ø. The Greatest Hits Video Collection DVD was also released around the same time, which compiled all of the Pumpkins promo videos from Gish to MACHINA along with unreleased material. Vieuphoria was released on DVD in 2002, as was the soundtrack album Earphoria, previously only released to radio stations in 1994.

Billy Corgan and Chamberlin would reunite in 2001 as members of Corgan's next project, the shortlived supergroup Zwan. Their only album, Mary Star of the Sea, was released to generally positive reviews, and after cancelling a few festival appearances Corgan announced the demise of the band in 2003 under cloudy circumstances. During 2001 Corgan also toured as part of New Order and provided vocals on their comeback album 'Get Ready'. In October 2004, Corgan released his first book, a collection of poetry entitled Blinking with Fists. In June 2005 he released a solo album titled TheFutureEmbrace. It was greeted with generally mixed reviews and lackluster sales. Only one single, "Walking Shade," was released in support of the album.

On February 17, 2004, Corgan posted a bitter message on his personal blog calling Wretzky a "mean-spirited drug addict" and blaming Iha for the breakup of The Smashing Pumpkins. On June 3, 2004, he added that "the depth of my hurt [from Iha] is only matched with the depth of my gratitude". Iha responded to Corgan's claims in 2005 by saying "No, I didn't break up the band. The only person who could have done that is Billy".

Jimmy Chamberlin married longtime girlfriend Lori in April of 2002, and they had a daughter, Audrey, who was born in December of that year. During 2004 and 2005, Jimmy Chamberlin pursued a hobby in car-racing in Florida. He also formed an alternative rock/jazz fusion project band called The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex. They released an album in 2005 titled Life Begins Again. Corgan provided guest vocals on a track titled "Lokicat."

James Iha served as a guitarist in A Perfect Circle, appearing on their Thirteenth Step club tour, and their 2004 album eMOTIVe. He has also been involved with other acts such as Chino Moreno's Team Sleep, and Vanessa and the O's. He continues to work with his own record label as well, Scratchie Records. He is currently living in New York.

D'arcy Wretzky has not made any public statements or appearances nor given any interviews since her departure in 1999. On January 25, 2000, she was arrested after she allegedly purchased three bags of crack cocaine, but after successfully completing a court-ordered drug education program, the charges were dropped. She currently resides in Watervliet, Michigan, where she owns a horse farm and three antique shops.  One of the horses D'arcy owns, "Jet Set Miss", was accepted into the Arabian Horse Pilot Program in August 2000 after passing inspection in Romeo, Michigan.

Jason grew up musically playing with Marty Friedman, with whom he co-wrote many songs and by whose sense of melody he was influenced while spurring him to greater heights of guitar technique. Their 'by ear' harmonization of melody lines remains today as their trademark.

Jason and Marty toured together with Cacophony in Japan and across the U.S. In 1989 Jason left to pursue a solo career, releasing his first solo album titled Perpetual Burn in 1988.

At the age of 20, he joined David Lee Roth's band, which was considered an excellent gig for an up and coming guitarist (i.e. Steve Vai, who Becker replaced). Whilst recording the album A Little Ain't Enough and preparing for the respective tour, he began to feel what he called a "lazy limp" on his left leg. He was soon diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS - aka Lou Gehrig's Disease) and given five years to live. He could barely finish the recording, using low-gauge (thin) guitar strings and other techniques to make it easier to play with his weakened hand. No one knew of his illness at the time except for his friend Steve Hunter. Although he managed to finish the album (which later went gold), he was forced to depart from the tour due to his inability to perform on stage.

In 1996 Becker released an album entitled Perspective, an instrumental album composed by him (with the exception of the Bob Dylan´s song Meet me in the Morning featured as the last track). The composing of the record's music had begun before ALS completely crippled his ability. By using guitar and later, when he was unable to use both hands, a keyboard, he continued to compose while his disease worsened. However, when Becker could no longer physically play even a keyboard, his friend and music producer Mike Bemesderfer helped him with a music-composing computer program which could read the movements of his head and eyes. This enabled Becker to continue to compose after he lost control of virtually his whole body.

He eventually lost the ability to speak (since he could not move his mouth) and now communicates with his eyes via a system developed by his father. Although his ALS gradually robbed him of his ability to play guitar, to walk, and eventually even to speak, he still remains mentally sharp and through the aid of a computer continues composing. In the back of the Perspective CD case, Jason states "I have Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease). It has crippled my body and speech, but not my mind". In his 30s, his medical condition has remained stable since 1997, which is rare for ALS.

Several years later Becker released Raspberry Jams (1999) and Blackberry Jams (2003), the first contained various unreleased demo-tracks and the latter contained demo-tracks and alternate versions of songs that were later reworked and published into other albums.

Two tribute albums have come out for Jason Becker entitled Warmth in the Wilderness I and Warmth in the Wilderness II, featuring such guitarists as Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Rusty Cooley, Mattias "IA" Eklundh. These players pay tribute to Jason by playing the songs that he played throughout his career, and some of them even wrote their own tribute songs in honor of him. The albums profits were sent to Jason to help him with his disease.

Jason and his friend, actor Matt Schulze are planning a movie about his life, tentatively titled Mr. Tambourine Man. According to Jason's official website, Fender and Charvel are going to make guitars for the movie and are planning to release a number of them to the public.

Shrapnel records will be releasing a "Best of Jason Becker" album. The album will feature a new song composed by Jason & featuring Greg Howe & Steve Hunter on guitar, as well as older, never-heard songs. Jason is also back in the studio, and is currently working on new material, he is hoping to utilize some of the same musicians that played for him on Perspective, Michael Lee Firkins is one of the many players that are scheduled to return to the studio.

In 1981, The Mob put together sufficient funds to record a demo tape. Once again, Tate was enlisted to help. The group recorded four songs - "Queen of the Reich," "Nightrider," "Blinded" and "The Lady Wore Black." The group brought their demo to various labels and were rejected by all of them. Tate also was still committed to staying in his then-current band, Myth.

At the urging of their new manager, The Mob changed their name to Queensrÿche (reportedly inspired by the first song on their demo). They were the first band to apply the heavy metal umlaut to the letter Y. As Tate later joked: "The umlaut over the 'y' has haunted us for years. We spent eleven years trying to explain how to pronounce it."

The demo tape was widely circulated and received a glowing review in Kerrang! Magazine. On the strength of the growing buzz surrounding them, Queensrÿche released their Queen of the Reich EP on their own 206 Records label in 1983. Based on the success of the EP, Tate agreed to leave Myth and become Queensrÿche's permanent lead singer. That same year, the band signed to EMI and re-released Queen of the Reich as Queensrÿche to moderate success, peaking at #81 on the Billboard charts.

After the EP tour, Queensrÿche travelled to London to record their first full-length album. The band worked with producer James Guthrie, who had worked with Pink Floyd and Judas Priest. Released in September 1984, The Warning featured more progressive elements than the band's debut. It peaked at #61 on the Billboard album chart, a moderate commercial success. While none of the singles released from The Warning charted domestically, "Take Hold of the Flame" was a hit for the band outside the US (particularly in Japan).

Rage For Order, released in 1986, introduced a much more polished look and sound for Queensrÿche. The album featured keyboards as prominently as guitars, and the group adopted an image more closely associated with glam rock or glam metal than with heavy metal.

In 1988, Queensrÿche released Operation: Mindcrime, a narrative concept album that proved a massive critical and commercial success. The album's story revolved around a junkie who is drugged into performing assassinations for an underground movement; the junkie ("Nikki") is torn over his misplaced loyalty to the cause and his love of a reformed hooker-turned-nun ("Mary", vocals by Pamela Moore) who gets in the way. "Mindcrime" has often been mentioned by critics alongside other notable concept albums like Pink Floyd's The Wall and The Who's Tommy. The band toured through much of 1988 and 1989 with several bands, including Guns n' Roses and Metallica.

The release of Empire (1990) brought Queensrÿche to the height of their commercial popularity. It peaked at #7 and sold more than three million copies in the US, more than their previous four releases combined (it was also certified silver in the UK). The power ballad "Silent Lucidity," which featured an orchestra, became the band's first Top 10 single. While the band retained its socially conscious lyrics (touching on topics such as gun control and the environment), the arrangements on Empire were more straightforward than anything they had released to date.

The subsequent "Building Empires" tour was the first to feature Queensrÿche as a headlining act. The group utilized their headlining status to perform Operation: Mindcrime in its entirety, as well as songs from Empire. The tour lasted 18 months, longer than any tour the band has undertaken before or since.

After taking time off to deal with personal issues, the band released Promised Land in October 1994 (a companion CD-ROM, featuring a Promised Land-themed game and other interactive features, was released in March 1996). It was a dark and intensely personal album, reflecting the mental state of the band at the time. Although the album debuted at #3 and was eventually certified platinum, it was clearly not the commercial success Empire had been. As with many other heavy metal and hard rock acts, Queensrÿche's commercial fortunes waned as grunge music and alternative rock surged in popularity

Queensrÿche released their sixth full-length studio album, Hear in the Now Frontier, in March 1997, to mixed critical and fan reception. The album debuted at #19 but quickly vanished from the charts. The musical sound and style of the album was more basic and stripped down than anything the band had released to date, and some fans and critics pointed to the grunge musical style as being a major influence on the record. Despite the reaction, the singles "Sign of the Times" and "You" received substantial airplay.

Compounding the disappointing sales of the album were issues that plagued the band on the subsequent tour. Less than one month into the Hear in the Now Frontier tour, Geoff Tate became seriously ill and the band was forced to cancel concert dates for the first time. In an even bigger blow, the band's longtime label, EMI America Records, went bankrupt during the same period. Queensrÿche was forced to use their own money to finance the remainder of the tour, which ended in August after only two months. The band played a handful of December shows in South America due to contractual obligations, and it was during this time that founding member Chris DeGarmo announced he was leaving Queensrÿche.

Although the official reasons for DeGarmo's departure have not been made public, members of the band have cited burnout and a desire to pursue interests outside of Queensrÿche as reasons for his departure. After he left Queensrÿche, DeGarmo recorded and performed with Jerry Cantrell and was in a short-lived band called Spys4Darwin, which released one EP in 2001. DeGarmo is now a commercial airline pilot.

DeGarmo was replaced by guitarist and producer Kelly Gray. Gray's connections with Queensrÿche went back to the early '80s, when he was the guitarist for Myth, Geoff Tate's previous band. Gray had also previously worked as a producer for bands such as Dokken and Candlebox. Queensrÿche's first album with Gray was 1999's Q2K. It was also the first album for their new label, Atlantic Records. Musically, Q2K bore little resemblance to the progressive metal of the band's past, and also displayed stripped-down sound similar to Hear in the Now Frontier. Gray was not embraced by the fans, who felt that his more bluesy style did not suit Queensrÿche. Additionally, declining popularity forced the band to tour in clubs and theaters, rather than larger arenas and outdoor ampitheaters.

After the release of a greatest hits collection in 2000, Queensrÿche embarked on another tour, this time in support of the newly reunited Iron Maiden. This enabled the band to play Madison Square Garden for the first time. Unhappy with the lack of support they felt they received from Atlantic, Queensrÿche moved to Sanctuary Records in 2001. In July of that year, the band performed a handful of dates at the Moore Theater in Seattle, Washington. The shows were recorded and released in September 2001 as Live Evolution, the band's second live album. Kelly Gray departed Queensrÿche soon after.

The band entered the studio as a quartet in the spring of 2003 to record their next album. In April, they announced they had been joined by Chris DeGarmo, although his future status with the band was uncertain. In July, Queensrÿche released their first and only album of new material on the Sanctuary label, Tribe. DeGarmo, who played on and co-wrote four songs, did not officially rejoin the band nor take part in the supporting tour.

Kelly Gray's official replacement turned out to be Mike Stone, who accompanied the band on the Tribe tour as second guitarist to Michael Wilton's lead. In June 2003, Queensrÿche launched a co-headlining tour featuring another popular progressive metal band, Dream Theater. The two bands alternated the opening and closing spots, and ended the shows by playing a handful of songs together. Fates Warning was the special guest for the tour.

In July 2004, Queensrÿche announced their plans to record a follow-up to 1988's Operation: Mindcrime. To generate fan interest in the upcoming album, the band hit the road in the fall of 2004 with the "An Evening With Queensrÿche" tour. The tour opened with a shortened greatest hits set followed by a revised production of Operation: Mindcrime with live actors and video; Pamela Moore reprised her role as Sister Mary. The band played a pre-recorded version of "Hostage," a track from the upcoming album, through the PA as an encore after the end of their set. The second leg of the tour began in early 2005. Before embarking on a third leg of the tour in the fall of 2005, Queensrÿche toured with Judas Priest across North America, playing an hour-long set consisting mostly of the band's older works and one song from the soon-to-be released sequel, entitled "I'm American."

Operation: Mindcrime II was released internationally on 31 March 2006, and is said to answer some of the questions posed by the first album. The album is Queensrÿche's first for their new label, Rhino Entertainment, to which they signed in 2005. Ronnie James Dio provided the vocals for Dr. X, the villain of both albums. The album debuted at #14, the highest chart position for a Queensrÿche album since 1997. The group is currently touring in support of Operation: Mindcrime II. Pamela Moore is joining the band to perform both Mindcrime albums in their entirety. Queensrÿche recently announced that Ronnie James Dio will appear at select dates to reprise his role as Dr. X.