Also this issue: Sound Judgments Nostalgia, varnish and acoustic doors: tuning Verizon Hall to the Orchestra -- and expectations. -Peter Burwasser Progress Report Year one in the Orchestra's new home. -Peter Burwasser Rick Henderson -A.D. Amorosi Kara Lafty -Interview by Patrick Rapa Philadelphia Orchestra -Peter Burwasser The Greg Osby Four -Nate Chinen The Go/The Witnesses/Gregg Foreman/The Trauma Queens -A.D. Amorosi Elliott -Chris Parker

December 12-18, 2002

musicpicks

Zwan

Viewed through The Smashing Pumpkins' "official" new bootleg DVD, Billy Corgan, hair or no hair -- despite fleeting moments of alterna-cred -- always wanted to be a prog-folk-metal six-string hero. Page, Ronson, Fripp and the three-guitar frontline of Blue Öyster Cult inform every lick, be it the goth-gauzy acoustic "Mayonnaise," the fiery "Silverfuck," the whiny "I Am One." So it's natural, once he derailed the Pumpkins, that Zwan -- Corgan's new Reprise label act with ex-Smashing drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, Slint-demigod/guitarist David Pajo and Chavez chugger Matt Sweeney -- would be post-prog wank filled with hard-art bursts of guitar textures and near-polyrhythmic pustules of percussion on their 2003 debut, Mary Star of The Sea. But beyond all this misty mountain hopping, Corgan's finally relaxed his whinnying vocal timbres and become a nuanced and noirish crooner. Such a nice surprise.

Sun., Dec. 15, 6 p.m., $29.50-$38.50, part of the Y100 Feastival, with Coldplay, New Found Glory, Queens Of The Stone Age, Seether and Good Charlotte, First Union Center, 3601 S. Broad St., 215-336-2000.

—A.D. Amorosi