Alyssa has been working a ton on the website the past few days. Doesn’t it look so pretty? It’s going to the senior prom with The Drudge Report, and I don’t approve of this. He didn’t even bring a corsage.
There isn’t a whole lot of news to report for the time being, except for the two shows I have coming up in the next couple months. August 16 at the Hawthorne Theater Lounge and Sept 3 at the Ash St. Saloon. The latter will be an electric set and the former will be acoustic. I may try to get a special guest or two.
Public Domain Rainbow report: I have been working on three songs lately: “Nuke Song II,” “Breathe In The Air” (with Alyssa on vocals) and “The Act Of Living.” They’re mostly done, except there is more singing to be sung. I haven’t been able to record vocals lately though because 1) Alyssa has had a cold and 2) IT’S TOO RAGING WARM. Recording vocals when it’s hot is the worst thing ever, because I have to turn off all the fans, close the windows and doors AND have a computer heating up this small space. For some reason, I always end up recording albums in the summer. It’s never a good idea. I think I’m going to build a studio on Antarctica and only record in the middle of the night in July (remember, the seasons are reversed in the southern hemisphere).
Here’s what the track listing is looking like at the moment:
Bad Vibrations
A Different Story
Sexual Taxi
Step Inside
Saving Up The World
Painted Over
Breathe In The Air
Nuke Song II
2012
My Minimum
Not Salman Rushdie
YouTube Celebrity
The Act Of Living
We All Abide
Of course, that will surely change by the time I release the album. It always does. Oh, and when is this album coming out, you whisper? Probably not before the end of the year, unless Ed McMahon comes to my door soon, in which case I’d have bigger issues than an album release to deal with.
Two shows coming up! July 2 at the Twilight and an acoustic set at August 16 at the Hawthorne Theater Lounge. I might have another coming up soon as well. Please come to all of them. You probably haven’t seen me play since last year, because I haven’t played since last year (except for that last-minute Fantasia 26 show).
Modernity Leave is fairly close to being done (29 songs!), but I’m not sure what I want to do with it. My opinion of it changes every day. It’s a heart breaker. Just like Mike Campbell.
I have also been working on two new Public Domain Rainbow songs. One is “Nuke Song II,” which was originally written and recorded for Modernity Leave. I decided it was too good to merely languish in lo-fi land, so I started recording it properly for PDR. It features a LinnDrum and gated reverb. You do the math.
I’m also working on a song for Alyssa to sing the lead vocals on. The song came from a dream I had and I didn’t want to disobey my subconscious, so I wrote it for real the next day. It’s called “Breathe In The Air,” which is a boring title and sounds like a Bette Midler song, but that’s what it was called in my dream, so I’m keeping it. Alyssa also sang it in my dream, which is why I’ve been bugging her to learn it for the past couple weeks. She actually doesn’t even like it that much. She says it’s boring and not a very good song. But she’s wrong you know! When y’all hear the finished version, y’all will be blazed.
I’ve also been working on finishing up the Tiger House album, Geodyssey. I’m very proud of how it turned out. It’s a great little indie pop/rock truffle. You’ll been hearing more of it very soon.
Also, this website is still very much under construction. It’s a big mess right now. But that will change pretty soon. The buffet is still being prepped.
Public Domain Rainbow update: I haven’t been recording much PDR stuff lately because 1) I’ve been busy with the Tiger House album and 2) I’ve been recording a new four-track album! It’s tentatively called Modernity Leave. I can’t gaurantee that it will ever actually come out. It’s going to be pretty nuts. I will decide when it’s done if it’s any good at all. Some days I love what I’ve recorded so far and some days I hate it. I’ll try to decide on a day that I love it. It’s definitely more Meat Grinder-esque, but with some pop songs thrown in to keep things grounded. But that’s what I’ve been up to, recording-wise.
Upcoming shows: I have none at the moment! I haven’t played since New Year’s Eve! If you can provide me with a show, then I’ll give you bag of chips.
I also updated my licensing page with a link to license my music at Pump Audio. If you’re John Stamos looking for a theme to your new hit show that will be canceled after six episodes, please check out that link.
I’ll try to be more frequent with the updates here. Once a month is kind of weak, isn’t it?
I just uploaded six new mind-moisturizing songs from my new album Public Domain Rainbow to my Myspace profile. The album isn’t coming out quite yet, but I thought I’d put a little “sneak peek” out there so you can see if you REALLY want to continue living without Alex Arrowsmith in your life or not. Maybe the songs will even make you refer to yourself in the third person. Like me. However, if they make you refer to yourself in the second person then you might need to seek holistic medical treatment.
Here’s a rundown of the songs:
Sexual Taxi — A Prince/Beck-esque romp through the wrong (or most awesome?) part of town.
A Different Story — Slightly proggy, late-80s/early-90s R.E.M. pop complete with sped-up vocals that only Ween would approve of.
Bad Vibrations — Multi-movement power pop, somewhat reminiscent of songs like “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” “Paranoid Android” and–oops!–”Good Vibrations.”
Saving Up The World — Shiny, hipster-friendly pop complete with ironic synth.
Painted Over — Bouncy, Beatlely, not for rooftops.
My Minimum — Straight-forward power pop that mentions clam chowder.
Like I said, I don’t know when Public Domain Rainbow is coming out, but hopefully sometime later this year. I gotta get my funds together and whatnot. Or find a filthy rich oil tycoon who will release it for me. Those oil men sure know good music when they hear it, believe you me.
Post a comment on my Myspace or something while you’re at it! Let me know that my reality is not a trauma-induced illusion!
Well it’s been two months since my last update! Oops! It’s not because there hasn’t been any action, either. I’ve just been forgetting to update. So yeah, I’ve been recording (mostly a new new new song called “A Different Story” and more “Bad Vibrations”) and I played three shows in December, including one last night at the Banana Stand. The Banana Stand show will be mixed by myself soon enough. Tiger House is recording right now so I’ll have to split my recording resources with that project for the next month or so. Mayhaw Hoons and I have been hatching a plan to record a CD of four track recorded songs along with Jeff Lehman’s William Oaktree project. It would be a split CD or something. All new stuff. It’s not set in stone or anything, but I’ve been wanting to do a four track EP anyway so there’ll be something along those lines happening soon regardless.
I suppose that’s it for now. Public Domain Rainbow is coming along and I still have no idea when it will come out. Do you have an idea? If so, tell me about it!
I just updated the reviews page with a couple of reviews for “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” one from the Portland Mercury and another from Rich at Eartaste. Consider this the overture for the shot heard ’round the world called Public Domain Rainbow, coming out in 2009.
I wrote back in August that I was going to spend all of my caloric intake on writing and recording ONE SONG. Well, I did just that (yet somehow a bunch of those calories still managed to find their way to my midriff). It’s called “Bad Vibrations” (haha!) and it will definitely end up on Public Domain Rainbow. It will blow y’all away. I am always hesitant to make such claims, but I really think it’s a good song. I have spent way more time on this song than pretty much any other song I’ve recorded, and I’ve made sure that every second of it is engaging and radical. It’s not 100% finished yet, but even in its 90% finished state, it pleases me, and I hope you too eventually. Again, I don’t want to set expectations too high, but I just want to say YES, it’s as good as I was hoping for. It should end up being a highlight on PDR.
New Project: THE SONG. Time to get out the sand box, because I’m going to spend the next while working on only one song. But it’s going to be the best song of…well, 2008 hopefully, but I’ll accept 2002 or even 1997. I’m thinking “Good Vibrations” meets “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” for dinner where “Jesus Of Suburbia” is the sommelier and “Sowing the Seeds of Love” is the overly-jolly restaurant owner. If you can make any sense out of that, you’re probably thinking, “Oh it’s going to be one of THOSE songs.” But no, it’s not going to be “epic,” prog or pretentious at all. It probably won’t even be any longer than 5 minutes tops. The project is more of a method thing than anything, but it should have a cut-up kind of sound like the aforementioned “Good Vibrations” and “Happiness Is A Warm Gun.” I kind of already did that with “McCain Campaign,” but this time it’ll be more developed, as well as being an ACTUAL SONG. I just thought it would be interesting to see what happens when I make one song in the amount of time I’d normally spend writing and recording an album. The end result will be on Public Domain Rainbow, which is otherwise finished now. I started writing THE SONG on August 8 and I’ve come up with a handful of killer melodies so far, so get ready and fearful for THE SONG.
Last Thursday Mayhaw Hoons and I went to the KINK studio and recorded two songs for broadcast at a later date (Sept. 2 and 3 I believe). It’s to promote their new Plug In Portland sampler that I’m on. We recorded “Coldplay Got Eaten By Piranhas” and “Not Salman Rushdie.” Mayhaw’s bassing was exquisite. We were in and out of there so fast that it makes My Aim Is True look like Chinese Democracy. It was a total musical invasion of South Ossetia.
