Zwan has always been such a divisive and anomalous band. By the time the Pumpkins dissolved the whole era of alt rock was dead and buried. For whatever reason I figured that was the end of Billy being in bands. I thought he would go the producer route seeing his credits from 97-00. Then out of nowhere, and so quick, Billy and Jimmy were back on the scene with a new band. I think it was late 2002 when a four-disc set made the rounds full of live tracks and the Spun stuff. All of my still hardcore SP friends hated Zwan almost immediately. I actually really dug the AOR style music. Because I had no clue who David Pajo and Matt Sweeney (at the time, I have actually come to really love him) were I never associated Zwan with indie music. I do not remember any advertisement or popular reporting on the band before the album. I find that odd because it was half the Pumpkins in a new band. SP was still mainstream enough to warrant that I would think. During the lead up to MSotS I had only heard the raw live stuff / acoustic songs and seen few pictures including the True Poets stuff with the deer. I had this mental picture of what Zwan would be like visually. When the music videos and the album art dropped it was like a death blow. It was all so jarring as they had zero visual chemistry together. It was always so cringy and awkward. Billy clearly had a thing for Paz as well which fueled it. Billy playing flowery bubblegum pop music with diezel amps and flying V guitars.
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