[Ed. note: Now that the news is slow again, I am resuming this series of posts.]

Zwan
June 13, 2003
Pielachtal Festivalgelaende, St. Poelten, Austria

Lyric / Declarations of Faith / For Your Love / Honestly / El Sol / Jesus, I > God’s Gonna Set This World on Fire / Desire / Don’t Let Me Down [Beatles] / Settle Down / Endless Summer / Of a Broken Heart / Mary Star of the Sea

Zwan’s last concert was not a landmark event lasting 4 1/2 hours, and tickets were not resold for $1,000. This was because the fans did not know in advance that it was going to be the last show, that it took place as part of “Nuke Festival” in Austria, and that, uh, Zwan hadn’t sold many albums or much dented popular culture. It’s even doubtful whether band members knew this was it; their banter seems unconcerned.

That said, purely on a musico-aesthetic level (i.e., the joy I derive from hearing it), this happens to be my favorite recording of the band — yes, I’ll take it over any of the earliest shows, any of the few “Djali Zwan” gigs, or Mary Star of the Sea — and its factoidal significance as the last zhow gives me an extra excuse to slot it into the list. Like many Pumpkins tours, I find the Zwan world tour to be one on which the band was improving as it went along (but sure, there were off nights such as their final American show at the Aragon Ballroom). The pacing of Zwan’s sets on this tour was mostly determined by the placement of the excursions “Jesus, I” and “Mary Star of the Sea”; on this night the setlist happened to conform to my ideal, with “Jesus, I” playing the crushing-centerpiece role and “Mary Star of the Sea” closing.

“Lyric” was also my preferred opening song; the FM recording of the show is interesting in that it lacks bass frequencies for the first minute or so, but they happen to kick in at a perfect moment (as if “Lyric” ever needed help in lifting my spirits several levels). And to me it just goes on from there, with practically everything seeming just note-perfect, intense and flat blissful. If there’s a dull moment I think it’s the Beatles cover, but instead of lapsing into indifference the band grabs me right back with “Settle Down” and from there it’s on to the bitter end:

This performance of “Mary Star of the Sea”, the very last time Zwan ever did anything, is absolutely my favorite single track they recorded — and that is sort of a tough deal. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I still find myself missing Zwan from time to time. Jimmy has said that the new Smashing Pumpkins is the best band he’s ever been in, and on some dimensions I agree with him — but every band is unique, and I cannot imagine that either the Pumpkins or anyone else will soon produce anything quite like this.

One Atomic Dawg, on his Atomic Blawg, finds “fascinating lyrical depth” in that which he declares to be the 317th best pop song since Y2K. I find this sentence to exhibit fascinating grammatical breadth:

The speaker may even indeed be living in a fantasy world, nostalgia coloring his perception of the past, remembering only what he wants to remember, convincing himself that his perception of their (he and his lover’s) time together is reality (”you can try to wipe the memories aside/But it’s only you that you erase”), unwilling to admit that perhaps what he believes to true — the perfect romance — may only be in his mind, refusing to acknowledge any other reality than the one he perceives, for in that direction (”It’s too far to discard the life I once knew”) lies the destruction of self; therefore, the speaker begins the song by chanting a mantra: “I believe.”

This week’s installment of “As the Pumpkins Sue” finds litigious band leader Billy Corgan suing suburban filmmaker Lester Cohn for $100,000 in damages because of unsatisfactory work and Cohn’s refusal to hand over footage shot between 2003 and 2005.

Cohn had done previous work for Corgan on the Zwan DVD that was part of the limited-edition version of Mary Star of the Sea.

Today’s news follows on the heels of former members James Iha and D’arcy Wretzky’s lawsuit against Virgin Records regarding royalties and breach of contract.

You’re up, Jimmy!

In related news, HU may be in the market for a legal expert if this keeps up…

Zwan
The Roxy Theatre, West Hollywood, California
November 21, 2001
(or another show from earlier that week)

Chrysanthemum / Never Give Up / El Sol / The Empty Sea / Glorious / How Things Are Supposed to Be (inst.) > Cast a Stone / Don’t Let Me Down [Beatles] / Jesus, I / The Shining Path / What Have They Done to Me? / Sorrow / My Life and Times / Of a Broken Heart

Download in SHN format (archive.org)

Not long after the disintegration of Zwan, Billy Corgan came to the conclusion that — to put it gently — the band had not been worth a try. As the Wikipedia entry describes it:

[Corgan] also stated that he can no longer listen to Mary Star of the Sea, because to him it sounds like “thousands of lies upon lies upon lies.”

Today the lead singer and principal songwriter of Zwan has formed another band, he no longer performs any Zwan music in concert, and it seems generally that very few people look back on Zwan with fondness or much respect. Furthermore, only three of the songs on the recording in question even made the cut for Mary Star of the Sea. Somehow I still think that this — one of the very first Zwan concerts, the last in the band’s very brief first tour — is an item that should be heard by the somewhat devoted. Why?

A lot of it is that, as a live band, Zwan conveyed no emotion so much as…wait for it…exuberance. This is not something that the Corgan dabbler (either in listening or in rock-crit reading) would associate with him, but it was consistently present for most of Zwan’s tenure and it is shot through the entirety of this show. Opener “Chrysanthemum” is probably among my ten favorite Corgan tunes of all time, a let-it-all-go anthem (pun intended, BC?) that seems here to sweep up both crowd and band in a burst of propulsive joy. The following five tracks are only slightly less invigorating, with the Matt Sweeney co-write “Glorious” taking the laurel for most immediately ingratiating slice of pop-rock (ever?). Downtempo tracks dominate the second half of the set, highlighted by a remarkable guitar solo on “The Shining Path”.

Billy’s new songs were also notable for the straightforwardness of his lyrics. After the true Pumpkins were obliterated in the ritual sacrifice of Machina, Zwan comes across as a rebirth that might destroy cliché. Corgan’s tales are for everyone again, rather than for the few that had kept up with what had been an increasingly tortured narrative. “A flower’s still a flower crushed to dust inside my hand” is the memorable realization of “Chrysanthemum”; “Never Give Up” is one accessible my-love-is-forever pledge; on another, “Cast a Stone”, Corgan tells his loved one that she (we?) can chuck the first free of fear. “Who says I shouldn’t be released from the last abuse?” he asks, and I find myself holding on to the rock.

While waiting for the Blue Line this chilly late November morning, I happened upon the idea of listening to Zwan’s Mary Star of the Sea. The album is a recent addition to my Ipod, as I’ve been ever so slowly adding albums in terms of the amount I actually want to listen to them (Mellon Collie was another recent add, and for that matter, the Pumpkins have only been represented on the playlist since this summer).

I was on the Zwan bus when it first left the station in 2001, but jumped off around the time of the album’s release, as the joy and excitement of the early live shows was left dulled by a bland-sounding artificial album and a mostly moribund 5-night stand at Metro.

So, in listening to Mary for the first time in probably two years, I was intruiged to realize I found it far more compelling a release than Zeitgeist. I hear many similarities between the two, and it’s not hard to draw a direct progression from the sound of Zwan to the current Mach 2 Pumpkins, in terms of both style, production and execution.

But Mary is a far more satisfying listen, to me. Some of my fellow Hipsters may point to my general disillusionment of the “reunited” Pumpkins as a reason I would draw this conclusion, and while this post does touch on some of my thoughts with the current lineup I’ve been kicking around for a future blog, I will maintain that strip away the band names on the two releases, and my feelings wouldn’t change.

I find MSOTS to be more melodic, with actual hooks and more organic harmonies; with a crisper guitar tone and more intricacy, and still buoyed by often understated drumming from Jimmy. It’s by no means a good album, as the production still leaves me feeling hollow and there’s some questionable missteps. But I can find more worth coming back to than on Zeitgeist.

What say you?