Video Of The Week: Zwan

Billy Corgan (who these days goes by his full name, William Patrick Corgan, because he's super-serious as a solo performer, playing piano accompanied by strings and stuff) once said of his Zwan bandmates:

I'll never go anywhere near those people again. Ever. I mean, I detest them. You can put that in capital letters. Bad people. (Original Smashing Pumpkins members) James (Iha) and D'arcy (Wretzky) are good people. They might be misguided people, but they're good people.

There's also this blog post of his. Oh, and this Chicago Tribune quote about the band's demise:

The music wasn't the big problem, it was more their attitude... Sex acts between band members in public. People carrying drugs across borders. (Guitarist David) Pajo sleeping with the producer's girlfriend while we were making the record.

Followed by this Entertainment Weekly quote just four weeks later:

Sex and drugs and junk. Tick off the list: heroin, band members having relationships... You don't trust the person next to you. I'm on the bus. I send an email to somebody and I throw my BlackBerry in my little day bag. The next day, my ex-girlfriend calls me screaming. Somebody in the group went into my BlackBerry and forwarded her an email that another girl sends me. I mean, that's the kind of stuff we were dealing with.

But taking away the psychodrama, Zwan's Mary Star Of The Sea may very well be Corgan's last very good album. It's certainly his most consistent output in the past 15 years (it came  out in January 2003).

The video for the lead single Honestly was directed by Bruce Dickson, featuring some nice harmonies and apparent chemistry between Corgan and bassist Paz Lenchantin, former Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin's signature jazz-inspired drum rolls and a bit too much flanger effect on the guitar:

It's colourful and seems more joyous than the tumultuous end(s) of the Pumpkins. Which is the beauty and magic of film, i.e. "make-believe".

Video Of The Week: Pixies

The Pixies released a new video today, directed by current bassist Paz Lenchantin, of their best song in years, Classic Masher:


You can tell Lenchantin had a lot in common with former Zwan bandmate Billy Corgan, as both have a fascination with old-time almost-stop-motion films and over-the-top makeup, frail women and stuttering videos.

Video Of The Week: Pixies

Since Paz Lenchantin has announced she is now the Pixies' full-time bassist and violinist, what better time to feature Another Toe In the Ocean from 2013's EP1 and 2014's Indie Cindy compilation of all three of the band's recent EPs:


The animated video was written, directed and animated by Liviu Boar, with an entire team of artisans helping out: Barbu Harsan (art direction, post-production, compositing, animation), Cami Cuibus (line art, color), Vlad Botos (background art), Atilla Nagy (background art, 3D modeling and animation), Vlad Harsan (3D modeling), Hunor Illyes (background art), Melinda Raduly (background art), Andrei Zaitiu (post-production, compositing, animation), and Laszlo Demeter (post-production, animation).

I'm curious to hear what the new record will sound like, after the last few releases were good yet underwhelming.