spfc.org : chronology : 1992

Billy later stated that in '92, "we were the best rockband that we ever could have been." He felt that in this time period, the band had attack, style, thinking, and aggressiveness.

January: Spiral Scratch magazine did an article on the Pumpkins entitled "Fuck Off.. We're From Chicago!" The article describes Gish explaining that Billy spent four months in the studio perfecting it. It also told that it took from December 1990 until March 1991 and ended up costing $20,000, a modest budget then. James was asked how Butch Vig was added to the project, "Just a phone call really. People had suggested to us working with him before." In addition, the article continues to draw upon the band's history and Billy describes the Marked as "Hindu-influenced gloom."

February: "Daughter" was included on a 7" one-sided flexidisk included only in subscriber copies of the April 4, 1992 issue of Reflex magazine. This was the first issue to test the "subscriber only" distribution method in hopes of raising sales, but the project failed and the magazine shut down six months later. Therefore, the numbers of existing copies are extremely low. Also, the track is identical to the one on the 1989 "Moon" demo tape.

March: Guitar Player magazine featured a profile on the band entitled "Exploring the Outer Frequencies." Of special interest, Billy describes his take on "Rhinoceros", the song from Gish as "I recorded 17 tracks of feedback for that one. I wanted it to sound like World War I airplanes dive-bombing around your head. I took three or four guitars and put them through a stereo vibrato; then I took about six guitars through a Leslie going the other way. I then unblended in some guitars to smooth things out."

On the 27th, Jimmy Chamberlain joined Pearl Jam onstage for one song at the Alumni Hall in Milwaukee, WI.

On the 28th, Billy, James, and D'Arcy came on stage during Pearl Jam's encore for two songs. Jimmy Chamberlain had probably accompanied the band as well. They played "Window Paine" and a cover of "I Got a Feeling" by the Beatles, D'Arcy's favorite band.

July: The band played at the Tourhout/Werchter Festival in Tourhout, Belgium. They were asked at the last minute when Pearl Jam cancelled due to illness.

The band did two acoustic appearances. The first one was an in-store show at Blackout Records in Chicago, on the 11th. The second was on the 23rd at the Cabaret Metro.

August: The band played at the Reading Festival in Reading, UK on the 29th that proved to be a very disastrous show and nearly led to a break-up. On the "In Conversation" CD, Billy describes the show in frustration as "when fifty-thousand people talk, you can definitely notice, so there's that pressure to really be good. And then you know, you don't get a soundcheck, you're walking onto a big, huge stage, you have people working there who normally don't work, your stuff, instead of being ten feet away is twenty feet away, so it makes the sound different. And that's nobody's fault, but if you get used to working under similar conditions, it all gets thrown to the dogs." Billy smashed up his equipment during an ill-tempered set. Among it, was his guitar and apparently it had struck the record company President in the head. Halfway up the bill, the Pumpkins had been expected to "do a Nirvana" and liven up the event similar to how the Seattle band had been the year before. It didn't occur, and sadly the atmosphere of failure increased by the presence of Nirvana headlining slot the following day. Billy later admitted that the band was upset at each other and "it was one of a handful of times where we've let each other down."

The "I Am One" single was released on Hut Records. The CD features the b-sides "Plume" and "Starla". The 10" featured has "Bullet Train to Osaka" and "Terrapin" for additional songs. Terrapin was a song that was recorded live at Rose Records in Chicago, IL on 06.23.91. The Australian version has different cover art.

September: However, touring had now taken its toll. Jimmy Chamberlain, the drummer, was hitting the bottle. D'Arcy and James, who had been dating, had now broken up and were finding life in a band intolerable. Billy was going mad.