Thirty years after its release, Billy Corgan looks back at the making of The Smashing Pumpkins ’ era-defining big, bold, bombastic masterpiece Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness .

Fondly remembered this month...

New tribute to their former guitarist Brian James is delivered with real passion.

He turned down Hendrix, butted heads with Lemmy, was saved from a bad trip by Pete Townshend, present at a thousand pop-culture flashpoints… Ten Years After bassist Leo Lyons explains why he’s like “the rock’n’roll Forrest Gump”.

Martin Barre MCNIDDER & GRACE

ALTHOUGH HE WAS 84 and had been ill for several years, the passing of soul-funk-R&B legend and general jack-of-all-trades Steve Cropper still stings — a lot. Perhaps it’s because Cropper, despite his