The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

Jack Dee look-alike and all-round bald numbty Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins is on the warpath again, this time with some justification maybe. While Jack White thought it was acceptable to sell his soul to Coca-Cola, William is incandescent with rage about the fact his old record label has licensed one of his songs to Pepsi, which is quite a lot like Coca-Cola but comes in a blue can these days. In other words, like Nuts and Zoo, they’re exactly the same. For the uninitiated who might not know what Coke and Pepsi are but do know what Nuts and Zoo are… I digress.

Billy, who left alone for long enough would beat himself into a bloody pulp and then wank into his wounds, has taken the hefty step of suing his old label Virgin, now owned by EMI. Billy recently had a spell on Warners, reviving his old band but not actually getting any of the members in because they’d all rather be showered in piss-soaked bat cack than sit in the same practice room as him. He also famously fell out with Sharon Osbourne and Courtney Love, but who wouldn’t?

Apparently Corgan has had problems with Virgin for years, but the recent conjugal tryst of his old employers with Pepsi has “passed the Rubicon”. Billy is possibly not aware that Rubicon do low rate cans in England that taste a bit like bad Vimto.

“You’re going to see more of this playing fast and loose with the rules, hoping they don’t get caught,” said Billy, arbitrarily. “At face value, it’s not a big deal. But in terms of precedent, it is, because there will be more of this coming.”

When asked why he doesn’t purchase his back catalogue from Virgin and prevent being whored again, he added, “We’ve made offers to pay it all. But they won’t put a number on it. They’ve atrophied the catalogue down so low that they’ll probably crawl back and ask for cash.”

James Iha was unavailable for comment as he was apparently stalking beaches in California attempting to sell people dog-chewed tennis balls, and Darcy was working on a counter in Debenhams saying, “I used to be in a band with Billy Corgan. What a prick.” Allegedly.