Don’t forget that Wilcoworld.net will be streaming the new Jeff Tweedy DVD, Sunken Treasure Live In The Pacific Northwest, in its entirety starting tonight at 9PM ET (6PM Pacific) and will continue to do so until 3AM ET (midnight Pacific) tonight.

The DVD is in stores tomorrow. Billboard thinks it’s grand and according to More Cowbell, purchasing the DVD will entitle you to a free download of the audio of the live performances documented on the DVD – very cool.

And if that’s not enough, the show in Washington DC on Friday night is currently streaming on NPR.

Video: Jeff Tweedy – “The Thanks I Get” (YouTube)
Trailer: Jeff Tweedy: Sunken Treasure Live (MOV)

np – Barzin

I’m not even sure how to start this.

I joke that I’m at least a little obsessive-compulsive, but there must be some truth in that when you consider that the last day I missed posting on this weblog was January 26, 2004. Since then, between January 27, 2004 and today, October 23, 2006, I have posted to this blog for 1001 consecutive days. One. Thousand. And. One. Some entries have been short, more have been long, a few have been epic but they’ve all been on time (give or take, depending on time zones). In that time, I’ve posted dispatches from various points in Canada and the USA, all over Scanadanavia, Russia, Estonia, Poland, the Netherlands, Taiwan and Japan. I’ve also been to some 175 concerts (give or take) and five major music festivals and covered them all, often in fine detail and with probably excessive photographic evidence. I’ve been through some great times and some awful times but have still always managed to put together a post of (I like to think) some merit, almost always by 10AM ET and always on my own.

And while I will modestly say that this is an impressive accomplishment and one I’m quite proud of, it’s not a sustainable work ethic. It’s just not. (Most days) I have a day job and that, in addition to the 25+ hours a week I spend on this site, can often leave me exhausted and/or without the time or energy for anything else. Simply put, the blog is running me and not the other way around and that’s not such a good thing. So a few months ago I did some calendar math and chose today, the thousand-and-first consecutive day of posting, as a nice round number to aim for. Actually I suppose it’s as pointy as it is round but it’s still a fine, palindromic number. But as I was saying, I chose this day to be the day that I celebrated the feat but more importantly, the day I called it quits.

Not the blog, not the website. Just the schedule. The rigid adherence to the calendar that forced me to often plan out my published schedule weeks in advance and fret about the days that there seemed like there simply wasn’t anything to write about – I think regular readers can tell the slapdash posts from the well-assembled ones. But the point is that I’ve felt that the quality of things occasionally suffered for the ever-looming daily deadline and I want to avoid that. So from here on out, things are going to loosen up. Exactly how, I don’t know – I’ve spent almost the last three years in an intense, regimented grind and learning how to take advantage of my self-emancipation or even acknowledging that it exists will take some doing. Expect things to remain pretty damn close to daily – there’s usually a lot going on – but there may be more short posts, more long posts, more posts per day (gasp!), I really don’t know. We’ll see how it goes. But in the long run, I hope being able to think in a longer-term instead of just worrying about the next 24 hours will mean that my interest in and the overall quality of the site will improve as a result, even if you won’t be able to set your watch by it anymore.

As today got closer, it felt like the end of a marathon and the sum weariness of the whole endeavour nearly took me out just short of the finish line more than a few times, but the past week I’ve felt great and refreshed and more into this site than I have been in a while. The monkey on my back has climbed off and is once again on its leash, doing its little dance in front of the barrel organ (okay, weird analogy but I like monkeys). Stuff I’d been procrastinating on for ages, like a new redesign of the site, finally got on the front burner and in fact, I’m almost done. Look for this place to get overhauled in the next couple weeks or so. Which, in turn, brings be to a question for you, gentle reader – how can I make this site better? What would you like to see more of? Less of? I am opening up the suggestion box to all, though obviously I make no promises to follow them. But if you do have an idea or something to offer, please leave a note in the comments.

It was inevitable that the streak would end sometime – it may not be tomorrow, or even in the next week or month, but it will. And when it does and I do miss a day, it will be because I let myself and not because I met some untimely end (though wouldn’t it be ironic if I DID meet some untimely end before I was able to take a day off? Knock on wood). But for now I think I’ll go out and get a life. Or a dog. Or at least a sofa. I’ve needed one of those forever. Maybe I’ll try and find a band again, I’ve been getting reacquainted with my guitars again. But believe you me, the prospect of posting what I want and when I want again is an exciting one.

And anyways, it wasn’t the longest posting streak in blog-land, or even indie rock blog-land. That title belongs, and always will, to Largehearted Boy. He’s Cal – I’m just Billy.

Thanks for indulging me on my emancipation day. See you tomorrow. Or maybe not.

Finally, a contest EVERYONE can enjoy. Austin, Texas’ Voxtrot will release their new EP Your Biggest Fan on November 7 but thanks to Playlouderecordings, you can save the $4 that Insound would have charged you and win a copy for frees right here. I have 10 – TEN – copies of the new record to give away, and entering has never been easier. Just leave a comment telling me who (or what) you are the biggest fan of and why. People, places, things, animal, mineral, vegetable, all fair game. I’ll choose the winners from the submissions and will try to have the CD in your hot little hands by the actual release date (though that’s as much up to the US/Canadian/wherever-you-live postal service as anyone else). And be sure to use your correct email address.

The contest will close at midnight, October 30 and is open to anyone and everyone, so get to it. And while you think, listen to one of the b-sides from the EP below and check out this minisite where you can watch a live performance video and enter yet another Voxtrot contest to win one of Ramesh’s old guitars. CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.

MP3: Voxtrot – “Trouble”

The Awkward Stage / Heaven Is For Easy Girls (Mint) For Vancouverites The Awkward Stage, their name is a much a mission statement as an identity. Main man Shane Nelken has crafted a dozen lush, lightly orchestral pop songs that live in that wonderfully awful period of life known as adolescence. You can just picture the adult Nelken, dapper in his funeral home finery (he works as a cremationist), strolling through a high school dance tossing off deliciously barbed and insightful observations about the horrors of the attendees’ existance and informing them in his slightly arch voice all that it doesn’t actually get better when they grow up. And then they cry. And we laugh. And then cry ourselves because it’s true. The Awkward Stage in Toronto to play a free show at the Horseshoe on Tuesday night – on at 9:45PM – and an in-store at 6 Shooter Records out in Leslieville (1118 Queen St. E) at 7PM. MP3: The Awkward Stage – “The Morons Are Winning”

The Yoko Casionos / These Are The New Old Times (Universal) Also from Vancouver and with a name that I can’t decide if it’s great or awful (but definitely memorable) are the Yoko Casionos – no concepts here except loud, punchy guitar pop. This band has been around for some time in various incarnations and were based for a time in Toronto, so while this is their first full-length, it’s got the polish and confidence of a veteran act. The tight boy-girl vocals come genetically, courtesy of twin frontpersons Misty and Chad Reid, and the music is loud, brash and hooky with the right balance of sweet and snotty. That it manages to stay uptempo throughout without becoming exhausting is a pretty impressive feat. They’re almost done with a massive 28-date, cross-Canada tour supporting Sloan though the Toronto date earlier this month was cancelled and has been rescheduled for November 30 at the Kool Haus. And check out the Ride cover streaming on their MySpace page! MP3: The Yoko Casionos – “Loose Cannon” MP3: The Yoko Casionos – “Cameras On” MySpace: The Yoko Casionos

The Submarines / Declare A New State! (Nettwerk) The backstory for The Submarines is essential for understanding and appreciating this record. Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti were a couple of solo artists in Boston who began working together and then got involved romantically. The relationship eventually dissolved but the fallout provided the inspiration to write the material that would eventually become Declare A New State!, which the pair improbably and possibly ill-advisedly decided to work together on. But over the course of making the record, the couple reconciled and eventually got married. Awwwwwwww. But putting aside the happy ending for a moment, remember that the record itself is actually a breakup record and as such, is full of sad and forlorn but most importantly beautiful pop songs. The vocals are split almost equally between Dragonetti and Hazard and considering the context of its creation, the resulting he-said, she-said gives it a tremendous emotional depth and resonance and the final result is quite possibly the most real and sincere record you’ll hear this year. MP3: The Submarines – “Peace & Hate” Video: The Submarines – “Peace & Hate” (YouTube) MySpace: The Submarines

np – Ohbijou / Swift Feet For Troubling Times

I used to be in this local power-pop band called Lake Holiday. We wrote some songs, played some gigs, went through a lot of personnel and generally had a good time. We also made a record called This Is How We Say Goodbye and it was supposed to come out at various points in the past year, year and a half but never did for a variety of reasons – I think at one point the masters got as far as the CD pressing plant and they subsequently lost them. As the delays mounted, the enthusiasm in releasing something that no longer reflected the state of the band which had since dissolved and resolved with an almost completely different lineup and batch of songs. The final nail was when the guy who runs the label that was going to release it spent the money earmarked for it instead paid for his girlfriend to get a kidney transplant… so yeah, even thinking about feeling bitter would have meant that I was going straight to hell. Consigning it to the dustbins of history was pretty much the only logical course of action.

For my part, I only got a copy of the finished, mixed and mastered record a couple months ago – probably a full year and a half since I tracked my last guitar part – and even then resisted listening to the record until just a couple days ago. Realistically, this is the pinnacle of my musical achievement in this lifetime – my recorded legacy, if you will – and I was reluctant to open up the box and discover if the cat was alive or dead. But I’ve been in a certain mood lately, so I finally gave in and listening with fresh, reasonably objective ears (I haven’t heard some of these songs in well over a year), I think I can honestly say the cat is quite well, if maybe a bit undernourished.

The record is a little rough around the edges – I couldn’t tell you how, when, where or who recorded most of the parts on it including my own – but the energy, songcraft and even the performances are pretty dang good if I do say so myself, and I’m not as biased as you might think. In fact, I’m probably more critical of my own music than I am of anything else that shows up in my mailbox. But for a compact, creative and toothy indie-pop record, I’d happily submit this record against most anything else out there. Listening to this record makes me happy, sad, nostalgic, wistful but most of all, proud. And it seems perfectly fitting that no one will ever hear it.

As for now, Lake Holiday is relocating to the American midwest as Brad Davis moves back to his native US of A. It will surely continue on in a new incarnation but the timing seemed right for a look back from my perspective. My musical activites have dipped to their lowest ebb in probably the past five years – I am actually going later this morning to clear my gear out of my last band’s rehearsal space and bring it home for the first time in half a decade – and I’m not sure what, if anything, I’ll do about it. I mean, those who can, do – those who can’t, write. And it looks like I write, but I’m glad that there’s now some recorded evidence that at one point I could play the guitar alright as well. I’ll make my kids listen to it. But in the name of posterity, I’ve posted a few of my favourite cuts from the album below. Favourite because I play on them the most? Sure, maybe, but indulge me.

While the full-length won’t see the light of day save for the excerpts I’ve linked below, former bassist Five Seventeen has our first EPs (two-thirds of the never-completed “Summer” trilogy) available for free on Archive.org and the Curse Of Sunshine EP, which features some of the album tracks, is available here, there and everywhere. It also has the song that appeared on Veronica Mars last season which you can stream off the MySpace page.

MP3: Lake Holiday – “A Life Worth Living”
MP3: Lake Holiday – “Forever And I”
MP3: Lake Holiday – “Keeping You Away From Me”
MP3: Lake Holiday – “Born On A Train” (Magnetic Fields cover)
MySpace: Lake Holiday

Will Sheff of Okkervil River tells Red & Black that the Black Sheep Boy is dead. Full stop. But he is willing to talk about the titular character of the last album and EP in this commentary for the video for “For Real” – really interesting stuff. I’d like to hear his take on the Lego version (“yeah, I don’t know what the hell this is”).

Video: Okkervil River – “For Real” (MOV)
Video: Okkervil River – “For Real” w Will Sheff commentary (YouTube)
Video: Okkervil River – “For Real” – Lego Version (YouTube)

The Riverfront Times talks to John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats.

Cat Power tells Jaded Insider about her plans for a second covers album. Mayhap she’ll give some of them a spin when she and the Memphis Rhythm Band roll into the Phoenix on November 22. And yes, I’ve elected to go to that one. Fingers crossed.

MP3.com talked to Kyp Malone of TV On The Radio for an hour and it looks like they transcribed the whole damn thing.

Spoon is gearing up for a big 2007 – Britt Daneil gives Billboard a progress update on their new album, optimistically pencilled in for a March/April 2007 release. He also talks a bit about the experience of scoring his first film, the new Will Ferrell flick Stranger Than Fiction which I hope against hope is as good as the trailers make it look.

np – Pavement / Live At The Palace, Hollywood, CA – April 24, 1994