Smashing Pumpkins
 
What you are about to see is some pretty incredible early footage of the Smashing Pumpkins performing songs from their first demo tape on a local Chicago television show, The Pulse back in 1988.

While the producer of The Pulse Lou Hinkhouse had heard the buzz on the street regarding the band, he hadn’t yet heard their music. Corgan had just moved back to Chicago from Florida after ditching his gig as the vocalist and guitarist of The Marked. After meeting up with James Iha, the two started writing music together with the help of a drum machine (much like his days with The Marked), and were soon doing live gigs around Chicago. Corgan then hooked up with bassist D’arcy Wretzky and the Smashing Pumpkins became a trio. After some urging, Corgan ditched the drum machine and enlisted a human timekeeper, Jimmy Chamberlin. Hinkhouse was “blown away” by the demo and immediately contacted Corgan (who was just 21 at the time), and asked if the band would perform on the show’s “Basement Jam” segment.
 

A 21-year-old Billy Corgan
 
With only a few live gigs under their belt, the Pumpkins agreed to Hinkhouse’s proposal and in the footage below you will see and hear the band perform nine songs, “There it Goes,” “She,” “Under Your Spell,” “My Eternity,” “Bleed,” “Nothing and Everything,” “Jennifer Ever,” “Death of a Mind (that would later be called “Sun” on the 1991 album, Gish),” and the blistering track, “Spiteface.” According to Corgan, during this early time period when the band was still developing their own sound, they were heavily digging on the melancholy sounds of “sad-rock” being made by bands like The Cure…

Continues after the jump…