Goodbyes have been blogged.

Yesterday, we launched the 76th and potentially final episode of the AP Show, our bi-weekly new-music podcast co-hosted by myself and Jason.

I'm really bummed about it. Legitimately. It reminded me of when I was a junior in college. I had this '91 Plymouth Sundance (maroon with maroon interior) -- not the coolest car on the block, but it was mine, covered in stickers, stocked with an abundance of mixtapes (the CD player was stolen out of it -- womp womp) and always up for a multi-hour road trip to see a killer show. The car was obviously not that good of a vehicle, but I had some serious sentimental attachment toward it.

Its final hurrah was when I was driving back from Chicago with my girlfriend at the time; we went into the city the night before to see the Anniversary at the Metro. It was approximately a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Chicago back to our college in Rock Island, Illinois (all the way on the other side of the state), and it was late January/early February at the time, so it was very cold. Long story short, about a half-hour outside of the city, my car threw a rod and put a fist-sized hole in its engine. (Call it vehicular suicide.) Black smoke poured out from underneath the hood, so we immediately pulled over and ran for our lives (I was legitimately convinced my car was going to blow up, which in retrospect would've been all sorts of awesome).

Eventually, we got towed back into the city, and the next day, I got the bad news from the mechanic: It was going to cost over $2,000 to fix the thing. The car wasn't worth more than $200 at the time. The worst part is, I actually considered the repairs for two weeks before finally deciding to put the car down (but not before I went back down to the mechanic's and had a friend of mine take pictures of me hugging it).

It's funny how you develop attachments to things that might not be working quite so well. Then when someone finally rips the Band-Aid off, it hurts for a second but then you realize what a relief it is for it to be gone. The AP Show was an incredible experience for me to be a part of; we did 76 shows in two-and-a-half years, about the first half of which we were lucky enough to air on XM Satellite Radio (which was a collegiate dream of mine to do). I absolutely loved recording the show, programming the playlist, responding to letters and the whole thing, even though there were plenty of times when it stressed me out. The past couple shows, all of us involved knew the show wasn't working as well as it could be, but no one wanted to say anything. That's why Mike Shea, my boss, gets paid the big bucks: He emailed us before show 76's taping and simply said, "This is gonna be the last one." After a bit of protest from me, I realized it really was the right call.

That being said, don't think this is the end for AP when it comes to online audio. Mike is still hosting his wildly successful long-form interview series, The AP Podcast (in fact, he's interviewing Ronnie Winter from the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus today and Chris Conley from Saves The Day tomorrow), and I'm still handling the always-fun AP Acoustic Sessions (and we have some really cool ones lined up). Plus, Mike's already approached Tim and I about individually hosting new podcasts that are more focused than the AP Show ever was, and I gotta tell you, I'm really excited about both of them.

So if you were an AP Show fan, don't fret: There will always be something new coming from us that we think you'll dig. In the meantime, download the final episode here and let me know what you think.