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CHAPTER 6

Alongside their own headline shows, Garbage supported a number of acts and played at several high profile festivals. They played at the infamous 'Snoasis Fiasco' in America, when Noel Gallagher was the only band member to turn up, whereupon he played only one and half songs. They also enjoyed a two month support slot with the Smashing Pumpkins, courtesy of Butch's freindship with them ( a tour cut short by the untimely overdose death of the Pumpkins' session keyboardist.) Despite this setback, the fruits of all this hard touring work were that the album gradually climbed past the two million mark, and spent an increadable 45 weeks on the Australian album listings alone!

By the end of the mammoth world tour to support the debut album, Garbage had played over 250 dates in a virtual round the world slog. Along the way, Shirley had become so tired she began hallucinating, and butch (who lost over a stone on the road) found himself similarly exhausted, as he told one magazine; "its bizarre, really, I spend years living in studios, in one place for months on end, then suddenly I'm living from town to town, hotel to hotel, endlessly. I think we'll be glad when we finalyly say 'stop, thats enough'." To assist them on their way around the globe, they recruited bassist Daniel Schulman, who at 30 was the youngest band member- interestingly the bandsaverage age was 38 - Manson was a sprightly 31, butch was 40, steve 37, and Duke a stately 44! Incidently, another bassist, Mike Kashou occasionally helps them out in the studio when they need a more human touch.

Their jaunt around the world was peppered by the international releases of a string of highly successful singles, including 'Only Happy When It Rains', which was released with two songs on the 'B' side that were less than two minutes long, cut into alternative grooves on the record which played at random depending on where the stylus landed. Next up was 'Queer', which despite its provocative title was a huge hit, helped by the collectable clear plastic packaging, encasing Shirley's ode to sexual openness. Their biggest single success was reserved for the release of 'Stupid Girl', which as an undeniable pop classsic hit the upper echelons of all the European charts.

The band also enjoyed their fair share of award ceremonies along the way too. The Grammys were the most prestigious event, but at the MTV Movie Awards they saw their 'Vow' B-side, No1 Crush nominated. Shirley, however, was more fascinated by what she felt was the outrageous arrogance of megastar Whitney Houstan! The enormously popular television shows Roseanne and Homicide have used snippets of Garbage's music and Butch has appeared on several Smashing Pumpkins videos. By now, the band also had a huge Internet fan base, and had been re-mixed by celebrity liokes of Adrian Sherwood, Tod Terry and Goldie. Cher, Jamie Lee Curtis and Chrissie Hynde all announced they were big Garbage fans, and Tricky was so keen he began work with them on the single 'Milk' (unfortunately these session never surfaced as there was a minor public scuffle over both parties being dissatisfied with the work). When the record was finally released, as the original album version, it became another smash hit, making it five out of five from the debut album.