To Discard The Life I Once Knew

Apparently, based on Zwan’s first single “Honestly”, Zwan : The Smashing Pumpkins :: The Jicks : Pavement. “Honestly” seamlessly picks up where the final Pumpkins singles left off, and it could easily pass for a late period Pumpkins song, or even something off of Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (think “Muzzle” and “Here is No Why”). I’m curious to hear how much this song will represent the first Zwan record, since the few live Zwan songs I’ve bothered to listen to were considerably more dense and prog-ish. Those songs at least gave me some understanding as to why Dave Pajo and Matt Sweeney were suddenly bandmates with Billy Corgan, because this is not at all the kind of song I would associate either of them with.

I do like “Honestly” a lot, but it seems a little too safe and radio friendly. It’s a bit too cynical for me, I would have preferred Billy to come out with a more brash departure from his old band. Of course, perhaps the Zwan record won’t be a departure at all, but more like Malkmus’ first record which was very familiar and a natural progression from the previous Pavement record. I think that for the both of them, breaking up their old bands and starting new ones had less to do with a desire for a drastic artistic change than it had to do with shedding the expectations of their back catalogue and not wanting to play the old hits in concert anymore. Also, the desire to play with new musicians seems like a pretty obvious thing too; though in the case of this Zwan song, I really can’t tell how Pajo, Sweeney, and the girl from that Tool sideproject band fit into this. Corgan’s still with his old Pumpkins drummer and I can’t even begin to speculate as to what parts of that wall-of-guitar sound were performed by Corgan and what wasn’t. That solo is definitely Corgan’s playing, though. I’ve heard variations of that solo in at least 20 Pumpkins songs by now.