First up is Catherine. Coming out of Chicago the history of Catherine is entwined with The Smashing Pumpkins from the beginning. Both bands practiced out of the same studio in the early 90's and it was Catherine who introduced Billy Corgan to the Big Muff guitar pedal, which so greatly influenced the sound of Siamese Dream. When James Iha and D'arcy Wretzky started their own record label (Scratchie Records) Catherine was one of the first bands they signed. D'arcy was also married to drummer Kerry Brown for a while. (The two split up a while ago, but Kerry is still working with Corgan as an in house sound engineer for all the "new pumpkins" work.) Hot Saki & Bed Time Stories is a lot poppier than anything the Pumpkins ever released, but there's still a lot of melancholy and psychedelia throughout the album which explains the kinship between the two bands. Lead single Four Leaf Clover also features D'arcy on guest vocals.
Catherine - Four Leaf Clover
(While looking that video up, I also came across this video of the original (and still the best) Pumpkins attending band counseling, which shits all over Some Kind of Monster.)
Smashing Pumpkins Counselling
Second we're going to look at Janitor Joe, from Minneapolis. Limited Edition is just under 2 and a half minutes of post-hardcore, proto-grunge noise rock bliss. (They never made a video for it though so you can check out the clip for Boys In Blue here if you need to know what they looked like.)
Janitor Joe - Limited Edition
Bassist Kristen Pfaff left the band in 1993 to join Hole, and part of the lyrics to Limited Edition became the chorus for Miss World. Unfortunately Pfaff died of a heroin overdose in 1994 around two months after the release of Live Through This (and about two months after the death of Kurt Cobain who died 4 days before the album was released).
Once again the lovely people of Universal Music Group have disabled embedding for the Miss World video clip, but you can still go watch it on YouTube right here.
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