Hark! PDR cometh from upon yon hillside! Today I sent off the final artwork and mastered songs to be printed and duped. Finally, after two years from conception to contractions, Public Domain Rainbow is finally and officially DONE. I don’t know when the exact release date will be, but it should be up on CD Baby/iTunes/etc. by the end of the month or early March. The arbitrary release date will be whenever I get the hard copies of the album shoved into my warm living hands.

I have songs from PDR in the player at the top of the page! Take a listen to minute to the songs!

Also! The full band debut of Alex Arrowsmith AND HIS PUGS (myself on guitar/vox, Mayhaw Hoons on bass and Ky Fifer on drums/vox) will be on February 17 at the Hawthorne Theatre. It’s at 8 pm, $4 at the door, 21+. Come out and witness apocryphal history! Also, we have a show at the Ash St. Saloon on March 28. Me and m’pugs must school the world.

I should also mention that I left Tiger House last week. So did Ky. However, Bill and Carl are picking up the pieces of that nuclear blast quite well, and from what I hear, they already have a replacement bassist and are auditioning 6 drummers next week! Awesome eh! I’ll also still be recording future Tiger House CDs and demos and whatnot. So you should still go see their shows. It is important.

Happy hot damn New Year, chieves! I have some exciting news to announce: 1) The full live band debut of Alex Arrowsmith And His Pugs (my pugs being Ky Fifer on drums and Mayhaw Hoons on bass) will be at the Hawthorne Theatre on February 17! It’s a 21+ show, $4 at the door. I hope to see y’all there for this momentous occasion. It will be commemorated at Fort Clatsop for years to come.

And 2) Public Domain Rainbow is coming out NEXT FREAKING MONTH! OR SO! Finally eh?! More to come soon!

The first review of Modernity Leave is in, and believe it or not, it’s a positive one! Looks like I sent it to the right people, because they seemed to get it, and not everyone would. It’s a review site called Babysue, who also gave Applewine a nice review waaaaay back in 2006. So thanks to Babysue for that little Modernity Leave writeup. Go read it!

Public Domain Rainbow update: I have actually been actively working on the album a lot in the past week. In the past few months, I’ve just been tweaking here and there because I’m afraid of finishing it (I might be coming down with Chinese Democracyitis), but I’ve been recording a lot of vocals (both myself and Alyssa), patching up parts that have been bugging me. The album feels very close to finished, and I think it’s because I finally feel like this batch of songs feels complete with the addition of “All You Need Is Love” as the closing song. I didn’t have a good closing song before, but now it feels like I’m finally getting some hotels on my monopolies. So I may end up finishing it pretty soon here. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be releasing it soon, but at least it would be out of my system!

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:

1. Bad Vibrations
2. A Different Story
3. Sexual Taxi
4. Step Inside
5. Saving Up The World
6. Painted Over
7. Breathe In The Air
8. Nuke Song II
9. 2012
10. My Minimum
11. Not Salman Rushdie
12. YouTube Celebrity
13. The Act Of Living
14. 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.

Stay apprehensive, my friends.

Alex

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.

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!

The first of a series, hopefully. Experience it on behalf of the whole planet Earth.