[music] BILLY CORGAN - The Future Embrace (Warner Bros.)

There's a song by Dykehouse (apparently the singer's real last name) called "Chain Smoking" that I played for everyone I saw during a few weeks last summer. At the time, I thought it sounded like the Smashing Pumpkins' "1979", but I'm always surprised when actual events corroborate my opinions, so a solo album by Billy Corgan that more or less sounds like that Dykehouse record is kind of a shock. I never listened to Smashing Pumpkins that much, though; maybe this is where they were headed.

I'd rather this had more hooks and oh, while I'm asking for things, having someone else sing would make me happy. So maybe I don't like this record; I just like some alternate-world shadow of it that listening to it helps me imagine. I do that with a lot of records, though, and I still think this is fun, especially "Mina Loy (M.O.H.)" and "Walking Shade". I hear they play that last one on the radio.

[mp3] Just before you beat him up and took his sneakers

Regular Einstein - "Mom's On The Roof" (mp3)

The song's catchy, sure, but I'd listen to two-and-a-half minutes of ping-pong ball noises* if it began with a lyric as good as "I met your Chinese girlfriend / She doesn't hold a candle up / To all the girls you left behind in Massapequa" delivered in Paula Carino's biting drawl. I also love the J. Geils Band-style appearance of several motley backing vocalists for the final chorus.

Paula has a solo album out on 125 Records, and a mention on the website of collaborator John Sharples suggests she's working on another one.

* But you'd listen to that anyway. Well, yes.

[finder] (often disparaging)

You know that idiot online who starts posting quotes from the dictionary when anyone questions their definition of an abstraction?

That idiot works for the US Patent and Trademark Office!

Attorneys find Dykes on Bikes patently offensive, reject name (San Francisco Chronicle, July 14, 2005)