Scoring films,writting Smashing Pumpkins songs, and jamming with legends like David Bowie, Billy Corgan seems to be one of the hardest working men in music right now. But his bandmates, James Iha and D Arcy Wretzky have had their hands full with their own large scale project lately - Scratchie Records. The three minds that converged to create the Smashing Pumpkins in the late 80s in Chicago, Corgan,Iha and Wretzky (ex-drummer Jimmy Chamberlain was hired after the band formed) spent the first six years of their fruitful partnership honing the sound that would come to signify Corgan s genius. It was intimated that Corgan wrote all of the songs and nearly played all of the instruments on the band s breakthrough album, 1993 s Siamese Dream. But in reality, Iha co-wrote two songs on that album ("Soma" and "Mayonaise"), and whatever might be said about how the record was made (its liner notes cryptically says "the smashing pumpkins in a rare show of unity..."), it was everyone- Corgan,Iha,Wretzky and Chamberlain - who toured endlessly to bring the band s music to every corner of the world.
As April of 1995 rolled around and the band had begun taking tentative steps on what would become the epic Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, guitarrist Iha and bassist Wretzky were hanging out with Catherine drummer Kerry Brown, D Arcy s husband and Iha s good friend. A discussion about music one night hatched into an idea for a side band, but within hours of discussion,the conversation steered giddily toward starting a small record label of their own. What better way to use their own fame and experiences to perhaps get talented, unknown bands heard? After all they had been in that very same position only six or seven years before playing a Free Fest to a non-paying handful on a windy Chicago hill in the summer of 1990.
D Arcy came at the label idea from a direction unique from Iha. Their backgrounds give some insight into their different, if ultimately compatible approaches. The youngest member of teh Smashing Pumpkins, D Arcy was born not in the Chicago area, as Iha and Corgan were, but in fairly nearby Michigan on May 1st; 1968. She had a fairly average upbringing and, by the few accounts there are, a supportive family. She began playing music in the mid-to-late 80s and it was her presence at many local band s shows around that time that made her face familiar to Billy Corgan(then freshly returned from a stint at college and in his first band, the Marked, in Florida), and James Iha, who was splitting his time then, between college, playing and writting music, and working at a small record store.
Iha, meanwhile, had been born in Elk Grove, and average suburb of Chicago on March 26, 1968. Suburban boredom, that great impetus that has launched
countless other notable careers in mucis, was behind the young Iha s decision to pick up a guitar and learn to play it at top volume
to make himself heard. His first group effort was being in a punk band thatlasted only a few small gigs and many hours in someone s garage when he
was a teenager living at home with his parents and his disabled younger brother. He chose to develop a different tenet of his creativity though, when he
became a graphic design major at Loyola University on the north side of Chicago, relegating his interest in music to his hours working at a record store,
seeing bands, and making his own music at home.
Fast foward to 1995, with two critically acclaimed albums on their resume and musical carte blanche in Chicago. Just three months after dreaming up a record label, Iha, D Arcy, and Kerry Brown had Scratchie Records officially up and running.
With offices in the then-hippest neighborhood in the city, Wicker Park (wich has a clutch of cool residents like Liz Phair and cool places like the Double Door club where the Pumpkins played a secret show under the name Star Children in 1994), Scratchie Records soon became a family affair. Its president is Jeremy Freeman, married to D Arcy s sister, and its broad consists on Jeremy s friends Jamie Stewart and Adam Schlesinger of teh band Ivy. Schlesinger better known as half of the songwritting duo in Fountains of Wayne, a band not only signed to Scratchie, but wich opened for the Smashing Pumpkins on the last leg of the tumultuous, year long "Mellong Collie" tour, and have managed to get their latest single into heavy rotation on radio stations across the country.
The label s owners, are Iha, D Arcy, and Kerry Brown, who provides a middle ground being significantly attached to both Iha and D Arcy and outside of the Smashing Pumpkins inner circle. Iha and D Arcy s Scratchie philosophy is very simple and realistic: let s get these bands anough attention so that they can make a decent living at what they love and let s try our very hardest to be supportive and not screw them over like some other labels do.
The list of musicians on the label s roster is long and varied even though the label itself has only been around for two years. The poppy, college rockish Fountains of Wayne, formed in December of 1995, released their debut, self titled album on Scratchie last October and they ve even already been profiled in Rolling Stone. Fulflej, aan odd hard-edged, genre-blending (hardcore meets hip hop and prog rock) trio from Richmond, VA that have been around since 1986, is the Scratchie band nearest to D Arcy s heart. After hearing them open for Catherine,they stuck in her mind when it came to finding artist for Scratchie. Fulflej s album, Wack-Ass Tuba Riff, came out last October. And proving their adherence to their philosophy about trying to be supportive of their bands, james Iha even loaned the band money when they were dead broke.
Chainsaw Kittens, and enduring rock band from Oklahoma, dance music practitioners pancho Kryztal, an ambient artist named Blaze, a quirky rock band called Phoenix Thunderstone, and a dancehall performer called Lenky Don are among Scratchie s mixture of acts from across the musical spectrum. But perhaps most familiar to Smashing Pumpkins fans are the Frogs. Beyond the fact that Billy Corgan prouced their upcoming Scratchi EP, Starjob (released on May 8), the way-out- lo-fi rock duo from Milwaukee has many ties to the Pumpkins, the band counts Billy Corgan among their most ardent fans.
