It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that the Nashville punk band Be Your Own Pet was the only band I listened to in 2008 – the log from iTunes for what’s played on my iPod confirm they were certainly the band I listened to the most last year. Their album, Get Awkward, was a blast of youthful energy from a band that sounded like they were getting in trouble when they weren’t rocking. The best part of the band, though, was their lead singer Jemina Pearl, who is every bit the badass Avril Lavigne pretends to be.

Be Your Own Pet broke up in the summer of 2008 and Pearl and BYOP guitarist John Eatherly moved to New York and recorded a fantastic and edgy pop record called Break it Up, which was just released last week. The album boasts an impressive roster of artists with appearances by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth (who has long been a supporter of BYOP) and Iggy Pop and was produced by Dave Sitek, an in-demand producer and member of TV on the Radio.

Jemina Pearl is currently touring the US while opening for Canadian indie rock band Islands. This tour includes a stop at Chop Suey on Monday, October 19. I spoke with Pearl by phone about a week into the tour and thought she was very friendly and easy to talk to.

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Next Monday night, the Canadian indie rock band Islands comes to Chop Suey and I can hardly wait. Not so much for Islands, but for opener Jemina Pearl, the badass former singer of the punk band Be Your Own Pet (who I had a very nice interview with earlier today that you will be reading here very shortly).

Regardless of who you are there to see, we want to send someone there for free. We have a pair of tickets to give away to a lucky TIG reader. The drill should be familiar by now: e-mail us at tig@threeimaginarygirls.com before 9am on Friday, October 16 with "Be Your Own Island" in the subject line. The winner will be notified shortly thereafter (and hey, before I forget, kids can enter too as the show is all ages).

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Last year, I spent a disproportionate ammount of time listening to Be Your Own Pet's second LP, Get Awkward. It was my favorite album of 2008 and even today has three of the top five spots on my Top 25 most played songs list on iTunes. It was this great teenage punk album made by some Nashville kids who spend their free time eating pizza, watching zombie movies and seeing what kind of trouble they can get into at the mall. It both deflates and confirms the worst suspicions adults had of their generation but just before the economy had its bottom yanked out from underneath itself, you could hardly fault anyone for being apathetic if they were dealt a hand that included growing up young in George Bush's America.

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