Just let me just have one more post about it. Looking at this old blog post today and the photos from the weekend really made me remember what a horrible old building the now Apple store was.

This (on the left) was right in the heart of Perth, a run down old shitty looking shop – with a health food store, bakery and Joynt Venture (bong shop/music store) upstairs. So love or hate Apple, just be grateful that renovations like this can happen in less than 6 months and make our growing city look better and actually feel alive.

Was it everything I expected?

Let’s start with the first question, and let me simply say – yes it was everything that I expected. It was a retail shop opening but it was more how the store opened. I worked in retail from the age of 14 till I was 22, so that is 8 years of solid retail work. In two of the four companies I worked for I was involved in 3 shop openings, but no huge events like Apple opening their first in Perth and with none of the theatrics. I expected hype and I got hype, along with friendly service and a great example of beautiful industrial design.

Was it fun?

If you think arriving in the city at 7am, standing in line for 2 hours in -0.4C tempretures and hanging with your best friend in the whole world before meeting up with other new/old friends to witness a fantastic example of retail launch fun, then this was well and above it.

(Note: I’ve lined up in car parks for 14+ hours to see small intimate gigs by Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins so this was a walk in the park.)

Did they give you ‘the clap’?

Yes! One of the most odd feelings you will ever experience is walking into a store and being met by 30+ staff clapping you in, shaking your hand and giving you high fives *Eiffel tower!*

Will you experience this type of retail event again?

Never say never I guess, but unless it is another Apple store opening I doubt I’ll experience something like this. I can’t see another company, especially another tech company take this leap and this approach into the retail market. That being said, yes Microsoft have their retail stores in America but I think it will be along time until they come to Australia, let alone Perth … and search on YouTube and you’ll see the ‘boot-scooting’ Microsoft do to welcome their customers.

Why?

Because I wanted to do it. I don’t need to justify it to anybody, if somebody called me a “sheep Apple fan boy” then their instant dislike for a company simply because they are ‘that’ company is worse than my apparent fan-boyism. True? I use this one companies products because they all work together, no screwing around with BETA version 2.3a etc for my phone. It works, it works with my computers, it works with my media centre. It is my choice. People that know me well would know that if Nintendo were opening a store, I’d be there too. (Am I blind Nintendo fan boy too? )

Where was I? Oh yeah, all in all, the experience was fantastic. Once in the store we walked around for a little bit, chatted with some staff about the whole set up experience, saw some of the iPod touches that are basically mobile checkouts, looked at some future possible purchases and enjoyed the experience. The exciting thing is now knowing that if I have a problem with any of our Apple products that we can make an appointment with their Genius staff, head right into the store and get it fixed. Something that most other tech / hardware / software companies simply can’t offer in the retail world.

So after months of blogging about this, I’m glad we finally have a store. I’m glad my parents can head in for one on one training classes, I’m happy I can get things fixed without having to send them away, I’m excited there is free open wifi (yay!) and I’m glad Perth has the flagship store in the CBD.

Seriously, go visit and view my photos up on flickr too!

PS: Walking back to the car, poor Sony store around the corner, 10.30am on a Saturday and not a person in store.

It is hard to describe the spot the Pumpkins have within my musical heart, indirectly they’ve played a big part of where I am and who I am today. Getting into their music when I was a teenager lead me into an interest in visual design, I was blown away by the artwork that was created for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Later on when I finally started to use the Internet in the late 1990′s I discovered a large Smashing Pumpkins online community, a place where I met life long friends and even my wife. I would eventually start up the Australian fan community, Ozphoria and this lead me further into the rabbit hole of my career. This really spark my interest in interaction with people online, web design and everything else that comes along with running a community. From organising concerts, collecting live recordings (300+ at last count), collecting official releases, to publishing artwork and to even following the band on Australian tour  and much more they’ve given me some great memories. I also landed the dream job of working for the Smashing Pumpkins as a writer for their website too. So I guess what I’m trying to get across is … I am and always will be a Smashing Pumpkins fan.

So this now brings me to the topic of the post, Twenty Thousand Smashing Pumpkins Songs. As a member for last.fm for nearly 5 years this year I’ve listen to a few tracks over the time, as Im listening to music now my count is at 141854 songs since 9th June 2005. Within that list I hit 20,000 Smashing Pumpkins songs today, the 20,000 track (by pure chance) ended up being Here is No Why. Ironically one of the most important songs to me growing up and even now, I couldn’t not post perhaps my favourite live recording of this song.

“the useless drag of another day
the endless drags of a death rock boy
mascara sure and lipstick lost
glitter burned by restless thoughts
of being forgotten …”

Taken at the height of Mellon Collie’s success this was the band as most of you would know them, live at the Brixton Academy in the UK. Enjoy, watch and wait for the Corgan snarl and scream towards the end. His voice sounds like it could break at any minute, but the power of the band and energy is something amazing to watch.

The Smashing Pumpkins Live at Brixton Academy, London 15/05/96 04 – Here Is No Why

So lets talk stats.

9th June 2005 to 6th February 2010 = 4 years, 7 months and 28 days |  1703 days in total

So with my poor maths skills, on a daily average I listen to approx 12 (11.7) Smashing Pumpkins songs per day. That would be me listening to one disc of Mellon Collie everyday of my life, it doesn’t sound like a lot but when you think every day for this long … it is quite a bit. Now of course this is a bit more than just the 7 studio albums and singles released from the band, the demos, live recordings, interviews that make up the 32 gigabytes that make up my digital Smashing Pumpkins collection does help.

Now the scary thing is, this only count songs played via my various computer or digital music players over the years. This does not count pre-computer listening (scrobbling) days from 1994 to 2005, the hours of listening to vinyl, CD’s or cassettes over the years. To include that would be extremely scary I think.

Finally, the magic moment:

I’m pleased to say that this simple task of remembering to do one thing each day for the entire year was achieved. It was rewarding within itself just to be able to look back at the end of 2009 and see within a blink of an eye moments of my life from the past 12 months. The good, the bad, the sick, the healthy, the concerts, the friends, the new job, the old job, the days in, the nights out, Perth, Melbourne … everything summed up in 365 images.

I now couldn’t imagine not doing this project, it has become a part of my daily routine – always looking for that ‘photo of the day’. So I’ve started it all up again for 2010, but going to try and make it a little more interesting for myself and for people following the progress. One goal is to try and make some of the images a little more interesting than just me sitting on the couch or in the office, it will be a good creative outlet and show more elements that are part of my life. Another objective I have is to include a small description of the days events, just a footnote to look back on without a need for a lengthy journal type update.

That is it really. Expect some fun. Expect many filters and photoshopping for colour correcting too. Feel free to follow this pictorial journal, here is image 001 for 2010: