October 21st was the 40th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s death. Few did it like that man…he was a hero and about as real as you can get. As we posted last month, Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Jay Farrar (Son Volt) got together and recorded the album One Fast Move Or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur in a nod to his greatness. The album features 12 original songs with lyrics based on the prose of Jack Kerouac’s landmark 1962 novel Big Sur. Essential reading for sure. It’s all about Jack’s emotionally and spiritually crazy ass life—specifically while he escaped to a cabin in Big Sur to confront his inner demons and find a modicum of peace by the sea. That small stretch of coast in the middle of California is one of the best escapes from the modern way of life our state has to offer. Kerouac wasn’t the only artistic type convinced of that. Henry Miller, Hunter S. Thompson and Robinson Jeffers had a few words to say about that place too. There’s also a feature-length documentary of the same title directed by Curt Worden and produced by Gloria Bailen and Jim Sampas of Kerouac Films. The film includes appearances by writers, poets, actors and musicians including Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Sam Shepard—plus Gibbard and Farrar also both appear in the film. The album and documentary were released a few different ways: as a standalone CD, as a CD/DVD combo or a limited edition boxed set packaged with Kerouac’s Big Sur novel, a 40-page book on the documentary and the CD/DVD. The album will additionally be released on vinyl.

If One Fast Move Or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur is your kinda thing, we’ve got a little treat for you. A free copy of the album and documentary is up for grabs. And a 3-pack of the durable little memo pads above from Field Notes, plus 2 Field Notes pencils, 2 pens, 2 buttons and 2 Field Notes rubber bands to keep it all secure. Nice.

All you’ve gotta do to score the goods is send us an email with “Field Notes” as the subject line and a few sentences about yourself and we’ll select a few of you folks at random. Something really interesting about yourself wouldn’t hurt your chances either. If you win be prepared to share the “about you” words with the world…or at least the sliver that reads Lost In A Supermarket.

Here’s a video of Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar playing “Big Sur” live in a studio