Well it’s just been announced that Deerhunter will open for Smashing Pumpkins on June 29 and 30 at Asheville, NC venue The Orange Peel. Seems the Pumpkins are doing a 9 night residency at the place. Although I imagine I should have always been more upset with the massive influx of yuppies and hippies into the beloved North Carolina town of my birth I find it much more curious that a band like Smashing Pumpkins is doing this. Even though they’re also playing 8 days at San Fransisco’s Filmore the whole idea of nine days in NC is vaguely reminiscent of the Sex Pistols refusing to play any major markets on their one and only(not counting the hilarious “reunion” shows) US tour in 1978 (minus, of course, San Fransisco, which isn’t really “major” but a consolation to the suits nonetheless and the fact that the Pistols played Atlanta on that tour doesn’t count, either, because Atlanta was still deep in Dixie at that point and not the Yankee/hip-hop haven it is now). It’s absolutely no secret, too, that Deerhunter could sit on the edge of the stage blowing harmonicas with the whole band playing “The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald” and Bradford Cox stripping down to a Wonder Woman costume and blow away the bloated,re-animated corpse of Smashing Pumpkins.

The point isn’t that Deerhunter are so killer that whatever they do is beyond reproach (although a solid point could be made concerning such) it’s that Smashing Pumpkins are such eternal dog shit my baby niece could open for them and blow them away (and in that case I’d be biased to begin with but you get my point). The Pumpkins were always dog shit, too. Horrible, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual Jock Rock who made frat boys feel like they were really up on the whole “alternative thing”. They played the 40 Watt here in Athens back when Siamese Dream was just released and, as my luck would have it, I found myself serving sandwiches to James Iha when he came into the sandwich place I worked at. Since I had really only ever heard the band on the radio I had no idea at that point what the band members looked like. So, anyway, Iha was an asshole customer who bossed us around and I’m thinking he’s just your normal run-o-the-mill jerk. Couldn’t understand why the guy I was working with was treating him so nicely. So, Iha eventually leaves and I make a remark about what an ass that guy was. The dude I’m working with says, “Do you know who that was? That was James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins!”.

So, yeah. Here’s to Deerhunter and to being utterly disgusted (yet not at all surprised) that a band with as much artistic relevance as The Eagles just sold out 9 nights in my birthplace.

I was gonna throw out some Deerhunter MP3s here but Kranky has been jumping on people for doing this so just go sample ’em elsewhere. Savvy folks know where to look.