POP MUSIC REVIEW Pumpkins, Hole Unleash Frustrations W Then Corgan singer- Smashing referred to Pumpkins' Billy himself as "a frustrated Midwestern youth" at the Whisky on Tuesday, he adopted a slightly mocking edge, as if to deflate the notion that his band's brand of rock springs from that cliched soil. But it was hard to hear the Chicago quartet's music as anything other than an explosive release of pressure, a direct, intensely physical expression of the confusion and anger that remain the fuel of rock 'n' roll. muscle. Corgan's light and brittle as paper, twanging lower-octane Neil band really makes voice is as thin, a sheet of dried and rasping like a Young, but the its case with laine and Lloyd, and drummer bill to remember, but, the audience: Jimmy Chamberlin was a driving,, was primed for Pumpkin and didn't exacting force as he kept every- take to Courtney Love's powerful thing pulled taut while coming howls of anguish. * down hard on what seemed like Hole ended its 'set in a tantrum; stormy, extended guitar exchang- every possible fraction of the beats. as Love ordered the band to halt, The Pumpkins came into the es. They pretty much took this thing and hurled her guitar to the Whisky as the new underground The psychedelic-tinged excur- as far as i it can go, with sublime ground. Guitarist Eric Erlandson find of the year, and the club was sions stirred the Whisky audience results. finished things off by demolishing! packed on the first of the two- into stage-diving action, though Smashing Pumpkins was pre- his instrument with a few impresnight stand. While the Pumpkins' the pace wasn't really punk- ceded by smashing guitars, courte- sive swings. Frustrated Midwest; album "Gish" plays some delicate charged. Corgan and guitarist sy of Hole. The tortured, transfix- ern youth, meet frustrated Califorsensibilities against rocking im- James Iha might be this genera- ing L.A. group's pairing with the nia youth. pulses, the band on stage is mostly tions version of Television's Ver- headliners should have made this a -RICHARD CROMELIN*