GUISE!! I have a new digital 7″ single out! It’s called “Pass It Off,” with a b-side (remember those?) of “Truth Serum.” It’s available for FREE on Bandcamp right now! The songs are fuzzy and warm, like a Cure burrito drizzed in New Order sauce. Go get it!!

Real Nights is now available for download and streaming on Band Camp! The download is pay-what-you-want (aka free) so you have no excuse for not getting your filthy paws on this record! Do it!

I finished a new album! It’s different, though; it’s the long-time-coming instrumental ambient album and it’s called Quarks! It’s totally minimalist and definitely NOT pop music, so consider yourself warned. I am super proud of it though, as I’ve wanted to make an album like this for years. But it was only about a year ago that I decided to start on the path toward it in earnest by making lots of demos, figuring out the right synth sounds, arrangements, etc.

It feels pretty rad to put out an album totally different from what I normally do, and yet it is not some “side project,” it IS an “Alex Arrowsmith album.” I had always meant to be more genre-wandering, but I always just ended up making pop music. So now the spell is broken and you have an album that most people will think is boring and unnecessary! So freteth not, the REAL pop album (Real Nights) is coming out very soon!

You can download it and hear it for FREE at Band Camp or get a direct mp3 download here.

It has been said that Twitter is the death of many websites and blogs. I update that thing all the time, but so not this much better-equipped website (yet, do I need a “fail manatee”?). Adding posts longer than 160 characters is hard!

Today, Nick Delffs came over and we recorded the final two overdubs for the next Shaky Hands album (tentatively titled—last I heard anyway—Realms Out Of Reach). It involved vocoder, possibly the last thing anyone would expect to hear in a Shaky Hands song, yet it works perfectly (it IS in the background, not part of some Daft Punkian dance break). And apart from Rafter adding those two overdubs down in San Diego, all the mixing is done too. Now we just gotta release the thing!

I should also mention that I’m going to be playing bass in The Shaky Hands exclusively now that Mayhaw has left. There will be a couple other new people added to the fold as well, but Nick will still be playing drums! That has really worked out well, so there is no reason to change that.

The past month myself, Mayhaw and Ky have been tracking a set of 14 songs for the Alex Arrowsmith & His Pugs album (tentatively titled Real Nights). Like always, I’m engineering/producing/mixing/bluhbluh everything myself but this time with My Pugs in our comfy practice space at Ky’s house in SE Pertland. It is a major departure from all my previous albums, because everything is based around a real band tracking live with no click tracks and no tomfoolery. No ballyhoo. Of course there will be added production, but it all revolves around the basic three-piece takes and it sounds RAD. That should be coming out earlyish 2011. After that, I’ll probably do another Modernity Leave-style album recorded on my four-track. And then another Pugs album. And then the ten-year anniversary reissue of A Bunch Of Songs in November 2012 (with new art by Joe Keatinge!).

We have no Pugs shows coming up at the moment. We wanted to have as few distractions for recording as we could, since we can only get together once or twice a week and if we were playing shows, those would have to be devoted to practicing for a show instead of recording. Also, Mayhaw wants to take a bit of a break from live shows (kind of going back to him leaving the Shakies). But hopefully Ky and I can threaten him inappropriately or something to get him to play some more shows once the album is done.

Also, I play with my friend Nate Birkholz in an on-again-off-again band called Redcoat Turncoat. We recorded an album a year ago (I freaking got to play a real Wurlitzer electric piano) and it just came out last week! We played a release show at Slabtown and it ruled. Lots and lots of funs. Listen and buy!

A video from last weekend’s Alex Arrowsmith And His Pugs show at the Ash St. Saloon here in Portland. Thanks to Colleen Perkins for the video!

In other news, PDR is now on CD Baby and iTunes. Go nuts and use your 401K on buying it multiple times.

Public Domain Rainbow will be on CD Baby/iTunes/whatever soon, but until then, if you would like a PDR straight from the source, here’s how: Paypal $6 to alex@alexarrowsmith.com, and include your mailing address (or email it to alex@alexarrowsmith.com). Easy eh! I LOVE going to the post office (no joke), so this actually works out for both of us.

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.