Photos by Andrew Siegel

by Ryan Scammell

Who was this band Zwan anyway? I had been calling them Zwar for a few days [confusing them with the 80s novelty band GWAR whose claim to fame was elaborate insect-like costumes and spewing plastic vomit on the crowd] until my roommate corrected me.

I had only the vague knowledge that Zwan was some sort of post-millenial pop-pyschedelia superband helmed by Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins who I know mostly as a result of MTV pumping my adolescent viscera full of “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” (“Rat in a Cage” as I knew it) alongside four hundred some-odd reveling mud-folk. That and the nostalgic value of recalling distinctly the album covers of Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness among my best friend’s 8th grade CD collection. (For me, the Pumpkins fell within in that beautiful moment in time when adolescents finally begin to choose music for themselves.)

But who was rest of this band? Were they significant too? Or just lackeys attached to a Corgan post-Pumpkins side project? Research did little to help clear things up: Jimmy Chamberlain (drums) was also a Pumpkins member. Guitarist Matt Sweeney had come from Chavez and Skunk. David Pajo (guitar/bass) had originally been with Slint and Tortoise (Tortoise being the only one of these bands that I had heard of, and that being only in passing). I was most interested in learning about Paz Lenchantin of A Perfect Circle, who enchanted (see last name) me less with her bass playing ability and more with her beautiful straight jet-black hair.

Zwan seemed like nothing more than another concept group.

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The superband concept has never appealed to me. Certainly I have a slight affinity for some of the bands that stood on that late-60s/early-70s borderline. Bands like Blind Faith and the Dirty Mac, while they managed to retain some semblance of musical integrity (and a couple good songs came as a result) still tended to feel artificial. The music had the tendency to lose its complexity as it moved towards a meeting ground for musicians who generally explored in opposite directions.

The distinctive “sound” that bands search for and that fans eventually attach to is lost, it seems, in the superband. What’s left is a muddied sound that comes when the sounds of a few bands try to fuse. As a result, the superband acts as a kind of badge of super-fandom rather than attaining a higher plateau artistically.

Back in the late 60s the pop-counter-culture’s breadth spanned such a generational expanse that the superband concept retained an element of validity, just by its ability to reach such a broad audience. But here we are in the post-millenial music scene; pop-counterculture no longer exists. There isn’t one specific musical form that the generation can connect on and call “our” own. Instead, the present day music scene has splintered into a myriad of miniature subcultures. And instead of music acting as a connecting force as it seemed to have done in the 60s, it works to segment our generation.

Indie-rockers v. jamband followers v. rap kids v. club kids. The original concept of the superband was to embody the idea of “coming together” – to bring a group of audiences together under one roof for a moment of musical interconnection. Even Corgan describes the purpose of Zwan as “to create some sort of musical harmony in a disharmonious world.” But This Time, This Generation seems far too segmented to ever come together in this sense.

Just the make-up of Zwan seems to suggest that it was a rock producer’s wet dream rather than it actually having the ability to piece together the wide-spread spectrums of contemporary music. At best it could bring together a variety of pop-rock fans that all like the same thing to begin with.

Because of the heavy segmentation between the musical genres, the ability of a superband to say, bandage the gaps between fans, appeared impossible. And here I was a jamband kid, placed in the middle of a pop-rock environment. How was Zwan going to connect with me, a guy whose ears are tuned to expect improvisation, complex musical forms, and 20-minute songs? What could the band do to bring me over?

I was plagued by these questions and desperate to find answers from the band that had spurred so many of these thoughts. So here I was at the concert with a bag full of pre-conceived notions and unimpressive knowledge of the band (which is to say practically none at all) with the exception of the heavy research I had done about Paz.

[I had been fantasizing about her in the lonely hours of my empty apartment, planning various methods of making her fall in love with me should I be granted but half a moment to connect on a glance. All I would need – just that half of a moment – to sink the psychic tentacles of my love into the deepest caverns of her being and even she would be unable to resist my unkempt-unshaven, 190lb. 5’6” frame.]

I had taken two pills of the just turned illegal low grade hallucinogen 5-Meo-DipT (affectionately called “Foxy” – a name I abhor because of its attachment to club culture – but that’s another whole article in itself) and waited to see what would happen.

I was generally unimpressed with the band musically. Of course, they had their moments; best when they teased the edge of a neo-psychedelia sound that pleasantly departed from the ultra-hip/pop-art-orgy that their website heralded. But the music seemed to lack a defined direction. Often, the band would start with an interesting head, but then fall into a Pumpkins-esque mold, which may or may not be the result of Corgan’s recognizable screeching vocals. (Note: His striped shirt and shaved head made him look like a sinister Charlie Brown).

Everything seemed to balance on Corgan’s guitar work that proved uninspired – his licks all sounded familiar – rooted too deep in pop-anthem-rock-guitar-solo clichés. The songs rarely seemed to vary much from these tried-and-true forms (verse-chorus, etc., except for the occasional fake-out ending, which faked no one) and lyrics drenched with the shallowness of sixth-grade poetry (“Do you believe in love? Do you believe in me? Do you believe in peace?”) or delusions of grandeur (the song “Jesus, I.” seems to suggest that Corgan believes he is “Jesus, Reborn”). The lack of musical complexity didn’t surprise me considering Corgan admittedly cannot read music.

But I kept wondering if I was missing something. All the people I saw and asked how they liked the show all replied “Oh, man! They’re awesome!” But the sea of static heads in the auditorium seemed to suggest the contrary. The band seemed to be rocking out on stage, but the music died in the dead air that rested like a fog over the heads of the audience, who all looked like they were staring at their refrigerators and contemplating their grocery lists.

Was I right in my assumption that contemporary music had become too segmented to cross over? Was this a harbinger of the disintegration of art? That we could no longer move forward, only further apart? Or had my preconceived notions stained my journalistic lens?

The concert had done nothing to sate my thirst to know what the band thought about the future of our quickly disintegrating generation. So, with the help of a friend on A&O I managed to sneak backstage with a tape recorder and a six-pack. I planned to get in to see the band and find out their opinions on the generation and the future direction of art and, of course, chance that infinitesimal moment to connect with Paz. But, I was thwarted when I found guarding the door to the green room a 6’4” poster boy for the Hell’s Angels (leather, brown hair, pony-tail, beard). I had to think quick. Could I get in with bribery of a beer? Or would this behemoth ox of a man devour the whole case before allowing me entry? Should I risk a swift boot to his groin, dash into the dressing room and capture Paz with my illuminating glance before the bouncer would take me outside and ritualistically carve graffiti (“momma didn’t love me”) into my body with a straight razor?

At this point the Foxy was wearing into its speedy after-effects and I couldn’t stop chewing on my pen like a rabid squirrel enticed by the fingers of an all-too-innocent child reaching to pet the “munk-chip mommy, look!” The bouncer was looking at me like I was some sort of malcontent hiding in the corner plotting to kick him in the nuts and make for the band’s dressing room, so I turned and headed back out. Figured I could do more research online – get the information second hand – some journalist I was. And Paz probably wasn’t worth a second glance anyway. Rumor has it she has some strange disfiguring birthmark on her back that vaguely resembles Elvis – could I really fall in love with that?

So I took off, intent on heading to the Lakefill and finishing the six-pack on my own to contemplate the stars and the unanswerable questions about the meaning of existence and the universe, when I turned the corner of the hallway and found myself face to face with an overgrown fetus of Brobdingnagian proportions -- Billy Corgan. Suddenly, the explosion of thoughts: Quick! Get out your pad with your interview questions! No! Shit! Offer him a beer first before he telepathically swallows you into his gigantic cranium. “What defines our generation?! Does art have a future?! What is your favorite color?!!!”

But the words did not come. Instead, Corgan said to me “Dude, are you all right?”

I hadn’t noticed, but in my crazed frenzy of thought and horrible teeth-chattering I had bitten my blue Bic medium-point pen in two and I was standing there stammering incoherently and frothing blue at the mouth. Corgan never had the chance to hear the answer.

I imagine he assumed that I was some psychopath bent on cannibalizing smurfs, which may or may not have been true, because when I looked up he was gone. He had taken off around the corner and disappeared into that closely guarded dressing room.

I wish someone could have caught a photograph of me – twisted with one arm outstretching a beer in the wrong direction, the other hand reaching to shake the hand of a person who wasn’t there, a broken pen in my mouth and a chin stained blue from drooling ink.

I slumped against the wall and opened up one of the beers. About a minute or so later, my friend from A&O walked by and said, “Hey man, did you get the interview with Corgan? He just walked by.” I opted not to get into the ghastly details of the bumble-fuck that was the past 10 minutes. Instead, I offered him a beer and he sat down next to me. We sat silently for a moment, examining the grout between the tiles on the opposite wall. I wondered what Corgan might have said, and whether or not it would have had any validity anyway. After about a minute my friend said, “Dude, what the fuck happened to your mouth?” I shook my head and we took off for the lake to contemplate the stars and unanswerable questions of existence and the universe.

Ryan Scammell might be a famous producer someday, but he’ll never get on Paz. Tell him you love him anyway at r-scammell@northwestern.edu.