Happy Radiohead Day, everyone! While we’ve been letting The King of Limbs soak in and getting irrationally excited about a conspiracy theory or two, some links of note made a blip on the radar…

• Step aside, Who Is Arcade Fire?! meme. Dancing Thom [Yorke] arrived.
• Read an excellent (and rare!) interview with the Radio Dept., in which Johan Duncanson and Martin Larsson reveal that they’re not familiar with Coachella (where they’re performing at in April), future recording plans, and their lost collaboration with Jens Lekman.
• With help from Hipsters United, Popdust calculated that Billy Corgan’s claim that current Smashing Pumpkins bassist Nicole Fiorentino was on 1993’s Siamese Dream cover has a 0.33% “Truth Threshold.”
• Lykke Li is streaming another cut off her sophomore LP, Wounded Rhymes, “Love Out of Lust.”
• Enjoy new Ryan McGinley-shot Strokes promo pictures here or below.

Of the three covers we’ve noted from the Levi’s Pioneer Sessions, in which groups like She & Him, the Shins, and Dirty Projectors “re-craft the classic songs that have inspired their sound,” Passion Pit’s contribution is perhaps the most fleshed out. Michael Angelakos chose the Smashing Pumpkins’ beloved orchestral rock anthem “Tonight, Tonight” from their epic double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, replacing the original’s string section with an exuberant wash of synthesizers. The results are quite pretty, not to mention nostalgic for this former mid-90s music nerd. Download a free MP3 here and stream it below:

Courtney Love drama isn’t hard to come by… on a daily basis. Today’s episode, however, strikes me as different, namely because Billy Corgan, her former collaborator, lover?, and cool-headed 90s grunge alum, flew off the handle on Twitter. There are a lot of insults one could hurl at someone like Love (her ridiculous money, aka drug, issues, relationship with her daughter, Frances Bean, etc.), but Corgan took on the whole lot. Antiquiet articulated the drama quite well, but I’ll offer a few choice tweets from the sole original Smashing Pumpkin as proof that this beef just got real below…

Don’t get me wrong, we’re all Team Conan ‘round here (Coco was not harmed in the making of this post), but tonight notably marks the television premiere of music from the Smashing Pumpkins’ new 44-song album, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, not to mention the first time their new 20-year-old drummer has appeared on national television to my knowledge.

“Widow Wake My Mind” is from Billy Corgan and company’s first volume in the Smashing Pumpkins’ ongoing Teargarden by Kaleidyscope 44-song box set, dubbed Songs for a Sailor. I’m not sure where Corgan found this Shining twins-fronted backup chorus (a local church?), and we aren’t sold on the song quite yet, but this is a solid performance nonetheless.

Download and/or stream “Widow Wake My Mind,” as well as three other Songs for a Sailor, here, and check out the Tonight Show debut of the new SP lineup below:

Billy Corgan, Mike Byrne, and company have released the next installment in the Smashing Pumpkins’ free 44-song adventure, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, appropriately via the great independent record shop Amoeba on the eve of Record Store Day.

Though their first offering from the collection, “A Song for a Son,” was my favorite so far (I’m particularly fond of Corgan’s guitar solo), today’s free MP3, “Astral Planes,” marks a welcome return to the uber-layered, fuzzy guitars I enjoyed most from when Jimmy Chamberlin was in the band.

Stream/download “Astral Planes” at Amoeba’s site here, and/or grab the three previously released Teargarden tracks after the jump:

Jessica Simpson got to jam with Billy Corgan and so could you! Hipsters United reports that a recent studio collaboration between the Smashing Pumpkins ringleader and the former Newlyweds star, which was well-documented on Twitter and elsewhere, has finally hit the internet. It’s definitely more of a Simpson track than a Corgan one, for sure, but I’m pretty certain that’s Corgan on the guitar solo at least (much lower in the mix for pop radio of course). Now you could download the song for free from Jessica Simpson Headquarters, but if you’d rather not join her mailing list, Pop Sugar is streaming “Who We Are” here.

In other Smashing Pumpkins news, remember how 19-year-old drummer Mike Byrne snagged the coveted spot behind the skins after an audition to replace Jimmy Chamberlin last year? Well, now Corgan needs a bassist and keyboardist, as well.

This isn’t a big surprise per se (it costs a ton of money to keep even a legendary studio in business), but we have a soft spot around here for some spaces and walls that once resonated with such classic records. And so, we sadly must report that Butch Vig and Steve Marker’s Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin plans to close up shop this spring, according to Milwaukee’s Shepherd Express.

Their source, a current studio employee, revealed that they simply couldn’t make ends meet, or as he put it: “Money out > money in.”

Not only were all the Garbage (Vig and Marker’s own band) records made at Smart Studios, but also eight demo versions of songs from Nirvana’s Nevermind were tracked there (the Smart Studios version of “Polly” made the final album), and then subsequently shopped to major labels. Also, Death Cab For Cutie’s major label debut Plans was mixed there, as well as the recording of the Smashing Pumpkins’ debut album, Gish.

R.I.P. Smart Studios. You will be missed.

We knew something was afoot the other day after both Spinner and MTV tweeted about Billy Corgan stopping by their offices. Corgan, it seems, was plotting the premiere of the first song off the forthcoming 44-song Smashing Pumpkins album and EP collection, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. Stream and download “A Song for a Son” for free below or watch video of Corgan recording part of the guitar solo here.

If Corgan holds true to his promise, 43 more songs will be available for free digitally in the coming months, while a physical product will be sold in the form of 11 4-song EPs. The tracklist to the first installment of said EPs was announced on the official SP Twitter today, as well, so now we presumably have track titles for the next 3 Teargarden singles:

1) A Song for a Son
2) Astral Planes,
3) Widow Wake My Mind
4) A Stitch in Time

Stream or download “A Song for a Son” below:

At a free drum clinic in Wisconsin yesterday, former Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin finally unveiled details about his first major musical project since splitting with SP mastermind Billy Corgan earlier this spring. The LaCrosse Tribune’s Kari Knutson reports (via HU) that Chamberlin’s new “progressive, symphonic pop” band has one of the most ungoogleable names ever: This. That’s right, “This.”

Knutson didn’t relay too many other details from Chamberlin’s revelations, aside from that they have “plans to hit the studio in January,” but a Hipsters United reader who attended the event says that This will be recording their new material with Roy Thomas Baker, the producer of numerous classic Queen albums, the second Darkness album, and the Smashing Pumpkins’ most recent LP, Zeitgeist.