Today's Hotness: The Hold Steady, Dananananaykroyd

>> We twittered this yesterday or the day before upon receiving our third comment from the curious blog policing outfit Web Sheriff relating to Brooklyn's finest, The Hold Steady. The Web Sheriff has been leaving comments here (and we are sure elsewhere) thanking us for not posting any pre-release material from the quintet's Stay Positive, which is available digitally from today and sees physical issuance next month. After thanking us, Web Sheriff launches into a curiously loquacious bit of marketing, noting that Stay Positive is available to stream in full at The Hold Steady's MySpace dojo and at NME; that the single "Sequestered In Memphis" has been available to stream; and, well, you can read the whole thing right here. What's odd is that the message crosses a line from the usual nanny-ish policing into, well, something approaching positive. It is so strange that we wonder if the whole thing is a piss-take and a play on the new album's title.

All of which brings us back around to an update on our original item: it appears that EMusic is not selling Stay Positive today, as had been a plan for a while. We guess Vagrant realized that selling unprotected MP3s at EMusic for $.25 per song -- at least at our subscription level -- while selling less desirable, DRM-hampered tracks for $1 a piece at ITunes didn't really incentivize fans to buy at ITunes' higher price point. Indeed, AmazonMP3 -- which sells unprotected MP3s for $.89 a pop -- doesn't have Stay Positive yet either. All of which reminds us of a funny gag with Big Al Dunbar in the popular situation comedy "What's Happening." But anyway, our point is we hope to never buy another .M4A file again in our lives if we can help it. So we'll wait until July 17, when we'll get the physical release and the various bonus tracks Billboard told you about here last week. The Hold Steady is playing some sort of private show at The Paradise Rock Club in Boston on June 26 that has something to do with Going.com. In fact, we joined Going.com to figure out how we could get into the show, but still haven't figured it out, which isn't that big a deal because we'll be on vacation that week. The Hold Steady kicks off a seven-week strand of tour dates in Baltimore June 27; check out all of the band's tour dates and catch the stream of Stay Positive at the aforementioned MySpace location.

>> Although we'd heard rumors late last week and caught a glimpse of confirmation via the label's MySpace casa over the weekend, it wasn't until very early today that Best Before Records sent official word that it had signed Glaswegian indie rock luminaries Dananananaykroyd. We first wrote about the act here in April. Better still, two-drummer-touting Dananananaykroyd's long-delayed Sissy Hits EP -- which has languished for months and months due to the insolvency of its previous label Jealous -- has finally been issued, not by Best Before but by London-based Holy Roar Records. At six songs selling for five British pounds, this will be an expensive import for U.S. fans, whose numbers will surely be legion once people start picking up the bracing, Dischord-ish post-hardcore anthems these six kids are putting down. You can stream four tracks from Sissy Hits at the sextet's MySpace outpost right here, and better still you can download the thing from EMusic right here. Do it! NME reported last week that the band -- which has recently weathered some line-up changes -- will be recording its debut full-length in August. In case you're not reading between the lines, Dananananaykroyd now is on the same label as our beloved Johnny Foreigner. Keep your fingers crossed for a U.S. tour.