A collaborative follow-up to Wilco and Billy Bragg’s 1998/2000 Mermaid Avenue double-volume, in which previously unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics were adapted to new original music, will finally see the light of day next January via Rounder Records. As originally reported back in ‘09, former Uncle Tupelo co-leader Jay Farrar joined My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Centro-matic’s Will Johnson, and Anders Parker for the forthcoming set, titled New Multitudes.

What’s more, the official Woody Centennial site reports (via American Songwriter) that his estate will honor what would have been the folk pioneer’s 100th birthday next year with yet another tribute record: Note of Hope, a 12-track compilation of songs adapted from archival Guthrie writings by bassist Rob Wasserman with Lou Reed, Jackson Browne, Nellie McKay, Tom Morello, Pete Seeger, Madeleine Peyroux, Van Dyke Parks, and others.

Meanwhile, Mermaid Avenue will get the box-set treatment — composed of both previous volumes, an outtakes disc, and the making-of documentary Man In The Sand — next spring. You can hear samples of Note of Hope (due in September) here and check out the tracklist along with a stream of Jackson Browne’s cut, “You Know the Night,” below.

Jay Farrar recently hammered yet another nail in the Uncle Tupelo coffin in a Q&A with Metromix Greenville, saying, “I don’t ever want to see [an Uncle Tupelo reunion] happen, and I don’t think even what Perry Ferrell suggests will make it happen.” What Perry Ferrell had suggested was that a Jane’s Addiction reunion would happen “when the sky rains money.” So the bad news is that money can’t buy a Jeff Tweedy/Farrar reunion, but the good news is that his Kerouac-inspired collaboration with Ben Gibbard makes a pretty good replacement in the interim.

The pair enlisted Nick Harmer, Mark Spencer, and Jon Wurster for a 6-night jaunt through a few major U.S. cities and they even branched out a bit from their album One Fast Move or I’m Gone. Watch here or embedded below as Gibbard and Farrar perform a duet version of Tom Waits’ Closing Time classic “Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards).”

Don’t these guys look like they could be brothers?

Sorry to bombard everyone with tour date news today, but this one’s too cool to pass up. Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Son Volt’s Jay Farrar are taking their upcoming batch of Jack Kerouac-inspired songs, One Fast Move or I’m Gone, on a brief road (plane) trip for four gigs in LA, New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago later this month, PlugInMusic reports.

What’s more, their backup band will include Death Cab bassist Nick Harmer, Son Volt’s Mark Spencer, and Jon Wurster of Mountain Goats and Superchunk. Tickets for these concerts supposedly already went on sale, but I can only find a link for the LA concert here. Based on our first listen from the album, I’d say these gigs will be epic.

Check out the Gibbard/Farrar pseudo supergroup’s 4-city trek below:

10/23 - El Rey Theatre - Los Angeles, CA
10/24 - Bimbo’s 365 Club - San Francisco, CA
10/26 - Lincoln Hall - Chicago, IL
10/28 - Webster Hall - New York, NY

One Fast Move or I’m Gone, the Jack Kerouac-inspired album from Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Son Volt’s Jay Farrar, will finally hit shelves late next month after a couple years in the making. The collaboration started back in ‘07 when the pair contributed songs to a soundtrack project for the documentary One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur, but then they “both wound up in the studio together, just sort of decided to take a step further and record a whole batch of songs,” Farrar said. “It’s kind of evolved into a real project.”

Oh, it’s definitely a real project now. So what does it sound like? We already heard a song with Farrar on vocals, but now NPR has an exclusive first listen to the Gibbard-sung track “These Roads Don’t Move” and it sounds exactly as you might expect: alt-country meets Death Cab. Stream the song at NPR here.

I mentioned this last week, before TwentyFourBit took off on our road trip, but a story that involves Woody Guthrie, Wilco, and Jay Farrar certainly deserves its own post. In an interview with the Austin Chronicle (via The Daily Swarm), Centro-matic’s Will Johnson revealed some huge news about his involvement in the next installment of unreleased Woody Guthrie lyrics set to music composed by a living artist: Jay Farrar, of Son Volt and formerly of Uncle Tupelo, has taken the torch from Wilco and Billy Bragg, helming the recording of the next volume in the Mermaid Avenue series.

What’s more, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James is also performing on the album, according to Johnson. There’s no release date set yet, but the songs have already been put to tape and are currently in the mixing stage.

My initial reaction to this news was that Farrar trying his hand at the same Guthrie project as his former estranged band mate and songwriting partner Jeff Tweedy could permanently burn the Uncle Tupelo bridge, but now I’m thinking the promotion of this volume could make for a pretty awesome reunion tour. I suppose it’s going to take a few more chance encounters in Mexico for that to happen though.

TwenytFourBit’s going on an interstate road trip for most of today, but here are a few bits to enjoy until we get back online.

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt announced the band will go on hiatus after their current U.S. tour. “You never know,” he said. “This could be be the last tour. We do every show like it’s our last show anyway.” More details and (final?) tour dates over at Consequence of Sound.

Lily Allen’s MySpace blog post on file sharing, which calls out Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason, and others, is causing quite a stir in the UK. Now Patrick Wolf has posted a response and Muse’s Matt Bellamy has emailed his thoughts to Allen, which she promptly posted.

The Daily Swarm found this interesting bit: Jay Farrar recorded his own version of Mermaid Avenue, “original music based on unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics at the behest of his daughter.” You know, the record that Wilco already made. What’s more, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James is also on the to-be-announced LP.

The Pavement reunion is not only confirmed, but guitarist Scott Kannberg is now talking. “It’s not gonna be like Echo and the Bunnymen, where they don’t talk to each other, yet they tour every year,” he tells Rolling Stone.

That’s my favorite stuff for today so far. Provided there are no car breakdowns, high speed police chases, or mishaps on the road, we’ll be back shortly.

The future of the Postal Service may be uncertain, as Ben Gibbard said recently that it isn’t really a priority and could end up being the indie Chinese Democracy, but it looks like we’ll be getting a different Death Cab for Cutie side project this fall. Son Volt’s Jay Farrar has revealed that a short session with Gibbard turned into a larger project that will possibly be announced later this year.

“I did work with Ben on this recording project, which started out as each of us contributing songs to a documentary about Jack Kerouac,” Farrar told Riverfront Times’ Annie Zaleski. “We both wound up in the studio together, just sort of decided to take a step further and record a whole batch of songs. It’s kind of evolved into a real project. I guess there aren’t a whole lot of details about it yet, but it’s in the works, and it could possibly come out in the fall, like around October — which I think is a Jack Kerouac anniversary of sorts.”

Photos from the recording sessions for the documentary One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur can be seen on the film’s official site here, including the publicist’s claim that “Farrar and Gibbard’s partnership seems to have been ordained.” Tom Waits and Sage Francis also contributed to the documentary, which makes me kind of wish they had joined the Gibbard/Farrar collaboration as well, giving all these supergroups of late a run for their money.