I think my network is eating itself. Miles points me to this ebay auction in which the band Harvey Danger auctioned off the right to choose a song for them to cover, as part of a charity thing that Seattle paper The Stranger was doing. The winner of the auction, a wonderful young man named Charles, decides that he wants to hear Harvey Danger cover Code Monkey, which thrills me to no end. Then on the band’s message board, lead singer Sean Nelson claims both to have HEARD and ENJOYED this song. I can verify the former, I’ve met, played in front of, and ENJOYED Sean a few times while Hodgman and I were out seeing and being seen in Seattle. But I didn’t know he’d actually NOTICED me. Harvey Danger also has my respect forever because they gave away their last album for free on the internet. Plus, in gathering links for this post, I discovered that Sean was part of The Long Winters, a band that came across my radar (and whom I ENJOY very much) when I met singer and song writer John Roderick at the New York 826 benefit, sometime in the recent past.

Takeaways: 1) a real band made up of real musicians may cover Code Monkey, 2) Harvey Danger and The Long Winters are great, and 3) all roads lead to Hodgman, usually through Seattle.

4) It is time for the Hoboes to take over the United States government.

Zaiem in Seattle related a story to me in which he heard somebody ask for my stuff in a record store, and the clerk said that a few people had been asking, and no, I was only available on the internet. First, this is fantastic, and it warms my cold little east coast heart to think that you hippies in the pacific northwest are asking for me in stores. The game is afoot!

Second, it’s not quite correct. CDBaby has a deal with a wholesale music distributor called Super D, so that any real live record store can order any CDBaby artist from them to stock in their stores. Including me. So if you’re out there in the, you know, the “United States” and you want your record store to carry JoCo, just let them know that I’m for sale through Super D. And if you own a record store and you’re sick and tired of all the people coming in asking for this damned internet-only music, your problem is now solved. Order a hundred! Super D!

I forgot to blog about this, I was so excited about my special box at the top of the page, but the results are in for the Code Monkey Remix Contest (the JoCo CoMo RemCo). You can see and listen to the complete results at Quick Stop Entertainment, and in fact I urge you to do so. Box Sets one through five are on their way to the lucky winners, and I offer special congratulations to Kristen Shirts, whose fabulously mellow ukulele remix took the number one spot.

Thanks to everyone who entered and judged, it was a lot of fun listening to all the entries…

When I was downstairs at Milkboy last week, eating a cobb salad and waiting for showtime, I did a little interview with Jen of A Thousand Times No podcast, which you may listen to at whatever time is most convenient for you.

The first, a small token of appreciation and Christmas-y good feelings: over at Quick Stop Entertainment there’s a live version of Christmas is Interesting as performed at Johnny D’s in Somerville last week, featuring the delightful backing vocals and shaker chops of Paul and Storm. Quick Stop are the people running the Code Monkey remix contest, as I know you remember well, the results of which should be available very soon.

And here’s the big present you open last: I know not why (perhaps it is “promotional”), but iTunes is giving away the audio book version of The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman. In a deal we made long before he was famous, for every copy you download I get two mouth kisses from John. Go easy, would you?