It’s Halloween, which is always the best time to smash some pumpkins. Here’s a bio on the Smashing Pumpkins.

The Pumpkins first show was on July 8, 1988 at Chicago 21, which featured just Billy Corgan and guitarist James Iha. Bassist D’arcy Wretzky joined next, followed by drummer Jimmy Chamberlin.

The band sold cassettes of demos at their shows, the series of demos became known as Early 1989 Demos.

The Pumpkins made their first vinyl appearance on on the Light into Dark, which was a compilation of Chicago alternative bands. They contributed the tracks “My Dahlia” and “Sun”.

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Here’s a quick look at some of the headlines that caught my attention this past week.

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I got several newsletters from RED today, but two of them really grabbed my attention.

The first is the video for Scott Weiland‘s “Paralysis”, which is the first single from his upcoming second solo album Happy In Golashes.

The song is pretty poppy, but it works for Scott. Anyways, the video is nothing spectacular, but once again, it works for Scott. The only question that I have is this a sequel to Scott’s first solo video “Barbarella”? Seriously, check them both out and let me know what you think.

“Barbarella”

“Paralysis”

MTV recently woke up from the nightmare that is reality TV by unveiling a new music-video-only website that brings back the reason we ever started watching in the first place – the music video.

Head over to MTVMusic.com to check out videos new and old, and share them with friends ala YouTube.

The difference? Aside from having a more attractive video player, these videos are not user-submitted; MTV has the deals to get the videos up legally.

The good? The vids won’t be taken down the next day, which often happens on YouTube.

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The Cure are currently streaming their new album, 4:13 Dream, via MySpace. The album will officially hit the shelves tomorrow.

But what was pretty unique about 4:13 Dream was the release of a new single on the 13th of every month until the album’s release. By the way, The Cure didn’t just a single track every month, these were actual singles with b-sides.

The first single “The Only One” was released on May 13, followed by “Freakshow” on June 13, “Sleep When I’m Dead” on July 13 (which is a familiar date around here at Evolvor) and finally “The Perfect Boy” on August 13.

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I’m feeling a little hungover from a Guns N’ Roses binge this week, so let’s have a quick look at what else is going on in the music world.

AC/DC and their exclusive partnership with Wal-Mart seems to be paying off. The band’s latest album, Black Ice, sold 193,000 copies on it’s first day of release, which was on October 20. The album is expected to sell around 800,000 copies by the end of it’s debut week. So far, Black Ice, is outpacing the Eagles Long Road Out of Eden, which was also a Wal-Mart exclusive. While I don’t like this exclusive deal, or Wal-Mart, it’s working for AC/DC. But, I don’t think too many other bands can pull this off. Let’s hope this doesn’t become a trend.

A few weeks ago I ran a post about Mat Weddle of Obadiah Parker, and his success with his acoustic cover of Outcast’s “Hey Ya”. I had the pleasure of talking with Matt over the past week about the song, his new project, and his thoughts of using the web to promote them.

1. Mat, can you discuss your musical background and any success, albums, etc before you came up with the idea of covering Outcast?

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Holy shit! A new Guns N’ Roses song!

Yup, it’s true. It looks like Hell is about to freeze over, as Axl officially released a new song from the decade plus in the making Chinese Democracy.

The self-titled track was just released to radio stations, and after giving it few listens, I can simply say that it rocks.

While it may not be one of his best tracks, it’s not horrible. It’s a straight ahead rock track that’s been lacking in mainstream rock as of late. “Chinese Democracy” features classic Axl vocals, blazing guitar work and a pretty catchy chorus. It’s good enough to please Guns N’ Roses fans, and it makes me pretty amped about the album’s release, which is reportedly going to be November 23 via a Best Buy exclusive.

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 Safe Sex | STI | Contraception | STD

Did you know that every year in the U.S. there are 19 million new cases of STDs? That’s roughly the population of New York State!

I’m helping to spread the word about a new program that Trojan Condoms & MTV have just started called “Evolve One Evolve All”. The aim is to help people gain more awareness about sexual diseases and become more “evolved” in preventing them. The goal is to get people to interact enough to give away 1 million condoms.

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I’ve been listening to the new Kings of Leon album a lot lately. If you don’t already have a copy then you should go out right now and pick one up. Only By The Night is fucking awesome. Period.

Anyways, as I’ve been listening to KOL, I’ve been thinking about their current success. I mean how did a garage band from Tennessee go on to become Madison Square Garden headliners in five years?

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I’ve been waiting a week now to post this, but alas we had some major technical problems that had to be ironed out. Thankfully, they’ve been resolved so you can expect lots of music and marketing goodies here this week at evolvor.com

First up is a shout out to Greg Rollet and his newly live Gen Y Rockstars website. Greg has been a partner-in-crime in the music marketing world for quite some time now, and his new site is designed to provide musicians with the tools and resources they need to make it happen online.

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On September 7th, I gave a brief presentation at SearchCamp Philly, a marketing “un-conference” in conjunction with PodCamp Philly. I spoke on the advanced track about how to create killer content that attracts links. Much of my work in the internet marketing world has been based on creating viral content to get links to rank for specific keywords in Google.

The same principles apply to getting mentioned in press outlets. Getting links is the same as traditional PR – creating something buzzworthy to get people talking about you. Enjoy.

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On Monday I wrote a little post about the effect of In Rainbows one year after it’s experimental release. Today, in some sort of coincidence, Warner Chappell (who published the album) revealed how well it album actually sold.

Here are some of the very impressive stats, courtesy of Music Ally:

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Last Friday, October 10, Radiohead’s In Rainbows celebrated it’s one year release.

When the news broke about Radiohead releasing a new album that would be digitally released as a pay for what you want model, the buzz was everywhere. Everyone wanted to throw in their two cents on this crazy plan.

While giving away music was, and remains, nothing new to a lot of musicians, having a band as huge as Radiohead practically give away an entire album was mind blowing. Now after having a year to digest In Rainbows, it’s still safe to say to that Radiohead has indeed changed the music industry.

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