Blogiversary is kind of a dumb word, but hey – there it is. Four years ago today, the inaugural post was made at 12:44 PM and the rest, as they say, is a whole crapload of drivel. The image here isn’t actually of the original site – I think this was my third or fourth redesign in two or three months and comes courtesy of The Wayback Machine. It didn’t preserve all of my interface images or any of my stylesheets – I’m pretty sure my original design wasn’t THAT ugly. Anyways, I went through a lot of iterations, starting out from a blogspot account which sadly no longer seems to exist and eventually migrating to my own URL within a few months.

It’s truly been a long, strange trip – blogosphere wasn’t even a word when I started, and the online landscape is very, very, VERY different now. If you’d told me back in Fall 2002 that my little exercise in boredom would have grown into this time-devouring, sleep-depriving monkey on my back, I’d have surely thought you mad. MAD. And yet, here we are. I’ve blogged trips to far corners of the world (not sure which is further – St Petersburg or Kyoto), reviewed god knows how many CDs, photographed countless concerts and probably posted twice as many Sufjan Stevens interview links. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve blogged and I’ve discovered so much great music and you’ve been along for the ride and for that, I say thanks.

While I can’t necessarily picture myself still doing this in four years, I can’t see myself stopping either. So at some point Mr Unstoppable Force will meet Mr Immovable Object and something will give… I had actually completely forgotten about the significance of today’s date because my mind has been a little more focused on another anniversary that’ll be rolling around in about a month and a half. If you don’t know what that is, well I’ll tell you when it happens. But until then, thanks for coming ’round. And enough with the back-patting, let’s get some linkage.

Centro-Matic are also celebrating an anniversary – 10 years of crafting awesome roots-rock. The Mercury News celebrates with the band.

Okkervil River continues to make the press circuit in Australia in advance of their tour down under, kicking off tomorrow. dB Magazine talks to Will Sheff about homelessness, The Sydney Morning Herald about Okkervil: The Early Years, Time Off tackles the poetry of his lyrics and Beat gets the lowdown on the knife incident.

RBally has posted a complete Wilco show from this July (featuring four new songs) and decided that Canadians are rude to Wilco. I corrected him by stating that Canadians are rude to everyone. We don’t discriminate.

The AP, via The Buffalo News, talks to Golden Smoggers Gary Louris and Dan Murphy while Blogcritics.org chats with Kraig Johnson.

Something Old, Something New declares The Lemonheads’ Evan Dando a thief and offers audio evidence to back it up. Lemonheads are at Lee’s Palace on December 12 and their new album The Lemonheads is out September 26.

Chart talks to Television’s Richard Lloyd.

Yo La Tengo confess to Harp that despite their extreme sports image, none of them are really jocks. I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass – a jocktacular sentiment if ever there was one – is out September 12 and the band will be at the Phoenix October 2. And check out iamnotafraidofyouandiwillbeatyourass.com (can’t believe that URL wasn’t taken) to see video clips of people saying, “I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass”. This is why the internet was invented.

And you may note that there’s another “Virgin Festival Contest” banner up there on the right. Didn’t I just run one of those? Well this one is for the US edition of the Virgin Festival. Go here for more details and to enter if you are around Baltimore or intend to be on the 23rd of September. And my winners for the Canadian V-Fest have been selected – I am sorting out logistics with the organizers right now but if you are a winner, you’ll be notified ASAP. Also note that the final schedule for next weekend is now available in PDF form. I’m rather surprised that each night will go till 11PM – the Toronto Island residents will LOVE that.

np – Yo La Tengo / Electr-O-Pura