So much good stuff is coming together that it has me grinning like Hannibal from the A-Team. Let’s skip right to the goodies:

I’m going to be in the Northeast for the summer and I plan on playing a good number of shows. I’m especially excited for a couple small tours with Bridge & Tunnel and Scream! Hello. I’m especially glad to get the chance to say goodbye to my friends in Dear Tonight, who are playing their last show in June.

I have a ton of projects that I’ll be working on this summer, including recording some new songs, releasing a vinyl version of “Dead Skin/Dried Blood”, finishing the release of De La Hoya’s discography, and finally getting some decent footage of the last Marathon show available to the public. If everything goes according to plan, lots of music, new and old, will be coming your way within the next few months. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to knock B.A. Baracus unconscious so we can all get in the chopper.

Top-notch tastiness! I feel like I haven’t done much in the past month, and yet there’s tons to report on.
New releases, shows, videos, samplers, and so on.

The most time-sensitive matter here is that Attica! Attica! is on a new 10″ vinyl record that is pre-ordering
now. It has my cover of the Mountain Goats’ “No Children”, which I recorded last autumn
with the help of Chris Antal, Oscar from Nakatomi Plaza, and Chris and Adam from
Scream! Hello. The 10″ features three other covers by The New Dress, Nakatomi
Plaza and Scream! Hello. If you want all the details, it is very
well explained on the Red Leader site. Sure, it’s a bit pricey, but 10″ picture-disc vinyl is not cheap
to produce and ship. And you can sell it for $8,000 on eBay in two years.

The Attica! Attica! road show is picking up steam, first venturing out of Portland, and eventually off
this coast entirely. I’m playing a couple shows in the NW in April, and will be adding more soon.
I’m also very excited to be working on a tour with a NY band called Bridge & Tunnel.
Check the shows page for details.

Last summer’s edition of the A!A! traveling circus landed in Buffalo, and a good dude named
Brandon videotaped the show. He was kind enough to post a video for “A Dirge for the Underground”
on his Blogspot page.

Finally, if you don’t already have every Red Leader Records release, I recommend swinging by their
website and downloading the free sampler. There’s two tracks each from
A!A!, Marathon (including one unreleased track, yow!), De La Hoya, Nakatomi Plaza, Scream! Hello,
Dear Tonight, The New Dress, End of a Year, and Fire When Ready.

One more thing: I think the hardest part about writing music without bandmates is that there is
no one else there to say, “Hey, that’s great, let’s keep that.” I want to thank all of you who
have written to me and said, “Hey, that’s great, thanks for keeping that.” When I’m writing songs
that sound like folk-punk showtunes, not everyone’s going to like it…and that’s okay. But it’s pretty
sweet to hear about it when people do like it. Thanks again, y’all.

The irony of the internet is that I use it to stay connected with people who are far away
from me geographically, but my time on the internet keeps me from being close with the
people who live nearby. Luckily, if you come to the show I’m playing next Tuesday, we can
ditch this whole internet thing altogether and talk in person.

That’s right, I’m playing shows again! I’m back from South America and
my wrists are feeling pretty damn good these days, so I’ll be playing some shows solo and seeing
how it goes.

For those of you who’ve purchased/acquired “Dead Skin/Dried Blood” digitally, I’ve posted all the
lyrics on the writings page. I say “acquired” because “stolen” is a word used by the
major labels to indicate that free art doesn’t buy private jets. (That said, I think Red Leader Records
would appreciate it if all you downloaders did get around to buying it at some point. Me? I don’t see a
penny of it, not until it goes platinum…that’s not true.)

Much to my surprise, Alternative Press decided to do a little write-up on Attica! Attica! in their Feb. 2008
issue. That issue came out in January, and now it’s March, which means that you’ve probably seen it or you
never will…unless you like the library. And guess what? The library is probably the coolest public institution
there is. So I’m really only telling you about this AP tidbit so you get your butt to the bookspot. If you
make it, wander into the periodicals section and look for the AP with Paramore on the cover…I’m in there somewhere.

Ever since the release of “Dead Skin/Dried Blood”, the reviews have come trickling in. There are plenty
of goodies and a handful of baddies, but one of the best is over at Punknews.org.
To be fair, the worst is over at StereoSubversion.com.
(Please take note of how much effort the reviewer puts into ripping apart the record. Classic!)

Finally, there are a couple songs that I recorded randomly last summer/fall that will be coming out in
the next few months. The details are exciting, but still highly super-secret. I’ll let you know.

- Aaron

I’m finally fulfilling my dream and leaving this warmongering imperial
juggernaut we call the United States. Unfortunately, I’ll be back in a month.
Buenos Aires will be a lovely departure, though, and I will leave the winter rains
of Portland for the summer sun of Argentina. Muy bien! (I just started learning
Spanish. I think that made sense.)

In case you’re the kind of person who only buys digital music, the Attica! Attica!
album is now available at eMusic.com and on iTunes. If you get it from iTunes,
we get more money, but if you get it from eMusic, you won’t support Apple or their
DRM-lovin’ major labels. So either way is good. And if you download it from
somewhere else (aka for free), then the RIAA might sue you for $220,000
and not pay us anything. So…weigh your options.

We have several new Blogs from the Inside entries on the Writings page. Bruce
continues his observation and analysis of his time in prison. I think it speaks
for itself, with power and sincerity.

I’ve done a handful of recent interviews. A print interview is available at Big
Smile Magazine, and an audio interview is available on Episode #24 of IndieUprising.net.

Dead Skin/Dried Blood has been getting amazing reviews so far. It seems that most
everyone thinks it’s a 4 out of 5. If my album was in high school, it would be
considered a C+, but if my album was playing House of the Dead 4 (which I beat
with some friends the other night with only 4 bucks at the nickel arcade, yow!),
I think it would be more of an A-. Some of the most glowing reviews can be found
at:

• The Punksite
• Punktastic
• For the Sound
• Late Night Wallflower

I am very proud to announce that the Attica! Attica! full length will be formally released on Tuesday, September 11, 2007. I recommend that you head on over to Interpunk or Smartpunk and pick that up!

The record will be available soon on digital sites like iTunes, but I’ll let you know when that happens.

In other news, I developed some sort of tendonitis in both my wrists, mostly from giving Mountain Dews to the employees of a chicken factory in Southern Washington at 3 AM. This is true, and I’ll tell you the whole story, once my wrists are well enough to type more than five sentences at a time.

I can’t play guitar due to the tendonitis, which threatened to derail my summer tour. Luckily, I had already arranged for the most talented musicians from New York State to join me. With the help of Chris Antal on drums and guitar, Brandon from Fire When Ready on bass, and Bill from The New Dress on guitar, we put together a pretty solid full band. It didn’t hurt that our tourmates Bill and Laura from the New Dress are basically the best people ever and definitely the finest band in Brooklyn. It’s always nice to look disaster in the face (aka going on tour without the use of my hands) and end up having a great time.

The future of Attica! Attica! shows largely depends on the health of my wrists, but they will get healthy again, and so I will play again. In the meantime, I’ll be selling posters at colleges in Kentucky. I’ll tell that story, too, but not right now.