I’m dedicating this post to our good friends Jay and Carrie, who not only are fans of New York-by-way-of-Phoenix band Miniature Tigers but are soon taking what is sure to be an epic trip to Japan.

How is this relevant, you ask. Well, AbsolutePunk.net is streaming a new Miniature Tigers song called Japanese Woman, a track that will be on the band’s sophomore album Fortress, due out on July 27. It’s sort of a misnomer to call this a new song; the group has been playing it live for at least the past year or so, including a session for AOL’s The Interface last June.

But this is the polished product, on which frontman Charlie Brand sings: “Oh, man, my brother went to Japan / He got caught up in the culture and says he’s never coming home.” I’m sure Jay and Carrie aren’t even considering abandoning us like that.

[STREAM]: Miniature Tigers | Japanese Woman

By the way, you can stream another new Mini T’s song, Mansion of Misery, over at EW.com.

Pharoahe Monch – formerly of Organized Konfusion and owner of what, in my opinion, is one of the most scintillating verses when he opens the 1994 track Stray Bullet – is preparing to drop his third solo album, W.A.R. (We Are Renegades), which will be available on iTunes on July 27.

The first single, Shine – featuring Mela Machinko with production by Diamond D. – shows Pharoahe still on top of his game, a complex and thoughtful lyricist whose rhyme schemes continue to boggle my mind.

As an aside, if you’ve never heard Organized Konfusion’s Stress: The Extinction Agenda (off which the aforementioned Stray Bullet lives), you’re robbing yourself of a true classic.

When Charlie at Stateside Presents let me jump on tonight’s Radar Brothers show as a way to promote this blog’s five-year anniversary, I had big plans: Q&As and maybe some acoustic sessions with the local openers – Letdownright and Soft Drink.

But as it often happens, life gets in the way, and a job that requires I keep late-night hours and a bit of an irregular sleeping schedule has made it harder to keep up with regular posts. So it’s weirdly fitting that I’m cramming one last post in about the five-year anniversary show a mere five hours before it begins.

I suppose, then, there’s something to be said that the blog has lasted this long. Arbitrary a milestone as it may be, I’m proud to have endured through countless promo e-mails, broken-down hard drives and long hours in front of a computer. And whenever I think it’s time to pull the plug, someone tells me they love a song I posted or discovered a band through the site – and, well, that was the whole point of creating this site in the first place.

I’ll spare you some drawn-out, state-of-the-blog missive – there is a show in a few hours, after all – but I will say thanks to the people who continue to read the site and the other bloggers that supported it from the get-go and continue to link to it. Big thanks to Soft Drink and Letdownright for playing tonight (sample their wares below) and to Jason Woodbury for DJing the show and contributing multiple times to this blog.

Most important of all, thanks to my wife, Annie, who has been ever supportive and encouraging of this endeavor, even when it steals some of our quality time.

• Soft Drink | Nuclear Armchairs
• Letdownright | Sensitive to Light
• Radar Brothers | Horses Warriors

In a strange case of impeccable timing, the fine folks at Daytrotter on Monday posted a Radar Brothers session that was recorded in March at South By Southwest.

That works out nicely, considering Jim Putnam and Co. will be playing Yucca Tap Room on Wednesday, a night we’ll be celebrating this blog’s five-year anniversary. That’s a free show that also includes local favorites Letdownright and Soft Drink.

For the Daytrotter session, Radar Brothers performed three songs, all from their newest album, The Illustrated Garden: Chickens, Dear Headlights and Horses Warriors. Head to the Daytrotter site to check it out. And then come to Wednesday’s show, officially put on by Stateside Presents.

And thanks to my Albert Ching and Martin Cizmar at New Times for running this item on the show.

Epic Scottish rockers The Twilight Sad spent Memorial Day in New York recording a session for LimeWire. The result is a five-song acoustic EP, appropriately titled Live at Lime. This precedes a July 26 release (July 27, I assume, in States) of The Wrong Car EP on Fat Cat Records.

LimeWire has graciously offered one of the five tracks from the session – Cold Days from the Birdhouse – as a free download. The rest of the EP can be purchased here for about 4 bucks.

• The Twlight Sad | Cold Days from the Birdhouse (Live at Lime)

The Twilight Sad, Live at Lime EP tracklisting:
1. And She Would Darken the Memory
2. Cold Days from the Birdhouse
3. Seven Years of Letters
4. That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy
5. The Room

Three days after the Walkmen release their new album, Lisbon on Fat Possum, they’ll be taking the stage at the Clubhouse in Tempe on Sept. 17. And as if that wasn’t exciting enough, Japandroids – who already put on what is potentially the show of the year in April – are pegged as the opener.

If my calculations are correct, the Walkmen were last in the Valley opening for Kings of Leon in May 2009, but they haven’t headlined here since June 2006, also at the Clubhouse.

Tickets for the Stateside Presents show are $14 in advance and $15 day of and go on sale Friday, June 25.

• The Walkmen | In the New Year
• Japandroids | Younger Us

RELATED:
The Walkmen, live from SXSW (NPR showcase)
The Walkmen on WOXY.com’s Lounge Act
Japandroids: Younger Us
Japandroids on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic
Japandroids: Art Czars