May has arrived and here at HQ we are all ready for the best summer we’ve ever known, what with all the good records coming out and the hot shit SP20 Festival right around the corner. In fact, the SP20 Fest was voted Best Summer Music Fest in an informal poll I quietly held here at my desk. Want more info? Read this, bub.

The highly anticipated new No Age record Nouns comes out May 6th and will be available on CD and LP and MP3 and maybe even Blueray and/or Cassette if I finally get my way around this fucking place! Seriously though, if you order this fantastical album from subpop.com we’ll throw in a cool poster designed by a Mr. Templeton. A Mr. Ed Templeton. (Google it.) We’re throwing in something else but I want to save my dignity and not type the phrase “buttons and stickers” ever again, so… Wait, I just… Dammit! The No Age dudes just shot their first video (for “Eraser”) and although it’s still in post-production it looks really amazing—there are balloons, a giant skull, the LA River, and…Dean Spunt and Randy Randall from No Age! See? That’s them up above. Please keep an eye out for it—it would be the right thing to do. Click here to get the record. Click here to find out more about No Age.

On May 20th Mudhoney will be releasing their 37th full-length album, The Lucky Ones. Mark Arm sits out on guitar on this one, presumably so he can dance more at their shows. He is a re-mark-able dancer. (Get it?) The Lucky Ones LP will come stuffed with a 7” single of Mudhoney covering Pere Ubu’s “Street Waves” and “Gonna Make You Mine” by the Troggs. We’ll have 200 of these 7”s to give away with pre-orders of the CD so you better hurry. They’re going to try to sign some stuff as well but don’t hold your breath. (I suggested that they might want to go ahead and let their wives/girlfriends sign this one just to mix it up a bit but I was met with a stony silence so I doubt that’s happening.) On the 20th we will also release the first in what will presumably be a not un-long line of reissues for Sub Pop’s 20th, Superfuzz Bigmuff Deluxe! This is a remastered double-CD with an expanded booklet and a ton of live tracks and way too much stuff for me to type so read (then order!) this here. You don’t get anything extra with this because it is full of extras and when did you start expecting so much stuff anyway?

We’re all pretty puffed up around here (chuffed?) about how well this Flight of the Conchords thing is going. We just followed-up their (ahem…) FUCKING GRAMMY-AWARD-WINNING EP, The Distant Future with their self-titled debut full-length, and man, is that thing ever shifting units. So much so that none other than Yahoo! (Google it.) was prompted to comment: “Ashlee Simpson’s new album sold so poorly, it was beaten by a comedy album.” Our comedy album! (Hat Tip to good ol’ Matt “Epsonality/Domino’s Pizza” Olsen for this one.) Flight of the Conchords and many other Sub Pop bands are on tour right now so make sure you use our new and improved tour-search-filter to see if someone’s coming to your town.

So, yeah, this 20th Anniversary thing is really starting to happen! We’re not to a point where we feel comfortable announcing too much more (read: we don’t know yet) but we guarantee at least one to one-and-a-half more great things are on the way. We at Sub Pop value your opinion, even if we don’t always agree with it. So, if you were The Deciderer, what would you do to celebrate?

Today, and this is no April Fools joke, is Sub Pop Records’ 20th Anniversary. When I asked Jon Poneman, aka The Jonald, how it feels to turn 20 he responded, “The company maintains bowel movements at regular intervals so we’re not nearly as grouchy as some other labels our age.” I couldn’t put it better myself, but this is coming from a man who has never once used the bathroom in the office.

April is packed full of highly anticipated releases, starting first with the US release of Foals Antidotes on CD/LP (w/ download code). This is out on April 8th and if you pre-order you’ll get a bonus CDR with B-sides! April 8th is also the release date for the new seven-inch from No Age. It features “Eraser” from the upcoming album plus three covers. April 8th is also the official release date for the Fleet Foxes EP, but you’ve been able to buy that on subpop.com for practically forever so who cares?

On April 22nd we’ll be releasing Flight of the Conchords by Flight of the Conchords and then I’ll get to hear all the world sing “Business Time” wherever I go. The album is on CD and LP (w/download code) and both come with a killer little poster. Also, we’ll go ahead and give you $2 off until street date. Don’t say we never did nothing for you. We almost never stop doing nothing for you.

The first of our anniversary celebrations is tonight (April 1st) at Chop Suey, where The Ruby Suns are playing. Tomorrow (that’s April 2nd) we intend to buy all of Seattle a drink at Hattie’s Hat from 9pm on. You better show up early as the place will surely reach capacity within seconds. Keep your eye out for details on our summertime anniversary show and maybe a little something called the Singles Club. Uh oh—cat’s out of the bag.

On March 4th we’ll be releasing Saturnalia by The Gutter Twins, aka Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli, as well as Sea Lion by The Ruby Suns, aka a band from New Zealand. Both of these records are worth the price of admission so just step up to the plate and buy them, bub. We’re giving $2 off Sea Lion and Saturnalia through release date along with our patented, highly effective sticker/button combo for each band. Want to know more about these fine bands? Look at this and this and this and this. Both The Gutter Twins and The Ruby Suns are on tour—click their names to see if they’re coming to your town!

Sera Cahoone’s new record Only as the Day is Long comes out March 18th and it’s available for pre-order here. Find out all you wanted to know about Sera by looking here and make sure to check her out at her record release show at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle on March 29th and/or her Easy Street Records show on March 18th.

And finally, we have the Fleet Foxes ep available right now. Read this Pitchfork review and then snatch it up—this isn’t available everywhere.

March is also the month of everyone’s favorite music fest—the amazingly brutal SXSW in Austin. We’re having a showcase at Bourbon Rocks on Friday the 14th with Love as Laughter, Sera Cahoone, Grand Archives, Kelley Stoltz, Fleet Foxes, and Blitzen Trapper on one stage and The Ruby Suns, Pissed Jeans, Handsome Furs, The Helio Sequence, and No Age on another stage. All these bands will be playing parties all over the place but I’ll tell you about that on Monday. Let’s do it to it, March.

Welcome to the first installment of “A Form of Paying Attention”—a monthly column by me, for you, containing information about Sub Pop and Sub Pop related goings-on, which will be remarkably similar to the column that was here before but with a new and improved title. I’d like to congratulate Matt ‘Epsonality’ Olsen of Los Angeles, CA for coming up with the winning entry in my “name this column” contest!* As the winner he will receive many fabulous prizes, all of which come from the very nearly warehouse-sized Sub Pop warehouse and do not include cash, Turtle Wax, the Ts in Q, or, regrettably, Ski-doos or personal watercrafts of any type.

February is here, and it’s a LEAP YEAR! This is exciting as it only happens once every 72 years or something. And we are celebrating this rare and marvelous 29-day anomaly by releasing two incredible records this month—Kelley Stoltz’s Circular Sounds and The Grand Archives by Grand Archives. Kelley’s record comes out February 5th and I vigorously suggest that you purchase it as it’s his best to date. If you buy it from us directly we’ll throw in a bonus disc with four songs that you can’t get anywhere else and some buttons and stickers. If you live in Australia, the US, or Canada make sure to go see Kelley on tour. You won’t be sorry. Go here for more Kelley business.

The Grand Archives is the highly anticipated first release from Grand Archives, the new project of Mat Brooke of Carissa’s Wierd and Band of Horses fame. These dudes went from opening some local mid-week show to opening for Modest Mouse in a single bound, so I suggest you check this out immediately. The LP version of the album comes with a bonus 7” single, but we’ll include said 7” single with ALL orders if you pre-order before February 19th. If you order the vinyl version you’ll get free mp3s of the album as well as buttons and stickers. Woah! Grand Archives will be touring the US—click here to see if they’re coming to your town.

Sub Pop turns 20 this year and I’ve heard rumors of lots of surprises this year including, but not limited to, a crazy huge show in the summer sometime and a limited-time-only rebirth of the somewhat legendary Singles Club. Stay tuned for more.

• Honorable Mention goes to Chris Jacobs for his entry “Going Through Your Purse”.

So my boss just comes over to my desk and says to me, “Lacey, are you going to do a new Pandering? It’s a new year and we need a new Pandering, right?” You know what I say? It’s time for a new name for this piece of shit column and I need some serious help coming up with something clever/not dumb. I know some people read this thing from time to time so please help me out and I will reward the winning name with some Sub Pop junk such as a tshirt or a tote bag or something.

Speaking of Sub Pop, the new Helio Sequence record is so good that it’s the only thing we’re putting out this month. Seriously. Go here to check it out and purchase it. I’m pretty sure we’re giving away a bonus disc with some outtakes, etc., but one of my resolutions for 2008 was to not remember anything, so, you know, I’m not sure.

Hey, Sub Pop is going to the Sundance Film Festival in a few weeks and we’re having a party at the Star Bar on the 18th so come by if you’re in town. There will be performances from The Helio Sequence, Kelley Stoltz, and Daniel Martin Moore plus loads and loads of celebrities and snow. See you on the slopes, suckers.

Grunge Panda by Derek Erdman