Catching up with the Internet:

Billboard reports (here) that Conor Oberst will be recording a collaborative album with Jim James and M. Ward sometime in the near future. Wonder who's going to put it out?

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Pitchfork weighed in on the new Son, Ambulance album. You guessed it -- they didn't like it. Rating: 5.4 -- consistent with just about every other Saddle Creek release Pitchfork has reviewed over the past few years. Oh well. Read it here, and go ahead and skip the review's obtuse, poorly written first paragraph.

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Newsweek has a great interview with Billy Corgan about the nature of rock stars and the lack of them these days. I was never a big Smashing Pumpkins fan. Corgan's voice is what Carol Channing would sound like if she were a man -- shrill and annoying. But you can't deny some of his more catchy stuff ("1979" "Drown," "Tonight, Tonight" come to mind). Or the fact that Corgan is one smart sumbitch.

Excerpts:

On the next icon: "What we're going to see now is a different archetype rise up. It's not going to be the Elvis archetype; it's going to be something we can't even imagine. It's going to be someone, maybe, who's more spiritual, somebody who doesn't want anything to do with corporate industry. Somebody who's an Internet star. Some kid who makes tapes in his bedroom and says, 'F---the world. This is my version of it.' And then people will latch on. All the music factories in the world can't manufacture that kid."

On culture: "When everything is everybody's, then nobody owns anything. This culture, I don't think, values the song. It doesn't value the icon. It values the moment and whoever feeds that moment. But we lose that it's human beings creating the moment. And when the culture thinks that it's the puppet master, then, of course, why wouldn't you have 'American Idol?'"

Read the whole thing here.

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Speaking of icons, tonight at Slowdown, '90s icon Black Francis a.k.a. Frank Black plays the big stage. Opener is Omaha icon Brad Hoshaw. 9 p.m. $15. Also, at The Waiting Room, it's the return of Stillwater, Okla., band Colourmusic (you remember, they opened for British Sea Power back in March). Opening is Oui Bandits. $7, 9 p.m.

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