Old News
6/16/2008 (another update!)
Wow, today's a busy day... Thanks to Bill over at Bill's Music Forum for a fantastic review of the Me and My Arrow EP!
6/16/2008 (update!)
On my blog, Songs and Sonics, I just posted an interview with Petter Herbertsson from Testbild!, a unique Swedish band that falls somewhere between pop and avant-garde. Petter's got some great ideas about making music, and the interview is a highly recommended read for fellow musicians. Check it out!
6/16/2008This was a pleasant surprise... I received an e-mail from someone who told me that his seven-year-old daughter enjoyed the Really Really Weird video so much that she drew a picture of it!
So... to the fine artist who drew this picture... thank you very much! You made my day. |
6/13/2008(Sorry for crossing out this entry -- it's not valid since the weekend is over. However, if you want to subscribe to the mailing list, just enter your e-mail address at the top of this page, hit the Submit button, and check your e-mail to confirm.) Do you know what this weekend is? Father's Day? Try again... It's Harry Nilsson's birthday weekend! (He would have turned 67 on June 15th.) And in honor of Harry Nilsson, for this weekend only, The Simple Carnival's Me and My Arrow EP is available as a free mp3 download! The title track on the Me and My Arrow EP is a cover of a Harry Nilsson song from The Point, a psychedelic childrens album and animated television special. The other three tracks are slightly edited versions of songs which will be on The Simple Carnival's upcoming Girls Aliens Food album, to be released on October 1, 2008. |
6/9/2008 (update!)
Over on my musician-oriented blog, Songs and Sonics, I had the pleasure of interviewing the amazingly talented singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Paul Steel.
If you like The Simple Carnival, there's a good chance you'll love Paul Steel's April & I. It's one of my favorite albums from the past couple of years. Highly recommended! Here's a link to the interview.
6/9/2008
Thanks to Chris for the sterling review. |
6/8/2008
Thanks to Alan Haber's Pure Pop Radio, for playing The Simple Carnival on this past Sunday's show. Although Sunday's show has come and gone, you can listen to WEBR online here. |
6/7/2008
Hey, The Simple Carnival has a couple interviews online! Thanks to Eric from This Is Pop Music for conducting this interview, as well as Raoul from Rancho Cocoa for having me on as Weekend Wind Down Guest (You'll need to scroll down the page to find the article).
6/5/2008
Update! Just discovered that The Simple Carnival is now on Pandora Internet Radio! |
5/25/2008
This past week, I had a chance MySpace encounter with Margo Guryan -- a cult figure from the '60s sunshine pop scene. One thing led to another, and I ended up interviewing her for my Songs and Sonics blog. If you enjoy '60s sunshine pop, you absolutely, positively must check her music out! |
5/22/2008
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5/20/2008
Thanks to Chris at Music of the Moment for a nice writeup on The Simple Carnival!
Also, thanks to the uniquely-named The ChickenFish Speaks web site for a positive review of the Me and My Arrow EP.
5/16/2008
Thought you might enjoy this interview I conducted with Matt Williams, a.k.a. The Brigadier.
He's an Electric Light Orchestra/Queen/Teenage Fanclub-like songwriter who makes recordings that sound like a million bucks... but it's just him and his computer/guitar/keyboard in his living room!
Anyway, hope you like the interview -- and his music!
5/12/2008
Russell's Reviews has quite a sparkling review of the Me and My Arrow EP. Thanks so much for the kind words, Russ! 
5/8/2008 (update!)
Just thought I'd pass along something pretty interesting... In my spare time (ha ha ha, what's that? ) I run a blog called Songs and Sonics. It's not so much a blog as it is a set of in-depth magazine-length articles about writing and recording music.
Sometimes Songs and Sonics features interviews with other artists, and I'm very pleased to announce an interview with indiepop legend Louis Philippe. Louis makes great music, and he happens to give great interviews too. This is a highly recommended read, especially if you're a musician/arranger/songwriter. Check it out!
5/8/2008
Thanks to Alan Haber's Pure Pop Radio, one of the longest-running melodic pop radio shows, for playing The Simple Carnival on the upcoming Sunday show (3-5 PM EST). You can listen to WEBR online here. |
4/23/2008Introducing... the first-ever Simple Carnival video! This is the song Really Really Weird from the Me and My Arrow EP. 4/24/2008 Update: Thanks to Raoul over at Rancho Cocoa for the nice words about The Simple Carnival and the video! 4/26/2008 Update: Thanks to Kip over at Rock Sellout for featuring the video! 4/27/2008 Update: ...and another thanks to Rich from Cable and Tweed for also featuring the video! 5/4/2008 Update: There's an in-depth article describing how the Really Really Weird video was made on my Songs and Sonics blog. |
4/18/2008
A "new" Simple Carnival track is online! But first, a bit of background.
A fellow musician, Jonathan Donaldson, is coordinating a Joe Raposo tribute compilation. Who was Joe Raposo? Long story short: He wrote literally thousands of songs for Sesame Street and The Electric Company, a number of songs for Sinatra, dozens of TV theme songs, a handful of musicals, music for several movies... He was amazingly prolific, amazingly talented, and should be considered one of the 20th century's finest pop songwriting practitioners, like Burt Bacharach.
The strange thing is, while everybody knows at least a few Joe Raposo songs (Sing, C is for Cookie, Bein' Green, the theme to Three's Company), relatively few people seem to recognize his name.
Anyway, if you like The Simple Carnival's music, there's an excellent chance you will like Joe Raposo's music as well. I covered a few Raposo songs for fun several years ago, and one of them, J Jump, is now on Joe Raposo's MySpace page. (I'm usually not keen on posting cover tunes online, but this is being done with the permission of Joe Raposo's publishing company.)
The version of J Jump posted on that page is a demo; it will sound different on the forthcoming compilation. The Raposo tribute project is still in an early stage, and it should be interesting to see how things develop.
4/16/2008
Well, what do ya know! Too Much Apple Pie has quite a nice writeup about The Simple Carnival. Thanks, Spike!
4/14/2008
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4/11/2008
The Me and My Arrow EP is on iTunes!
4/10/2008
Muchas gracias to Agustin Fuentes from the La Merienda show on Radio Extremadura (a radio station in Spain, also broadcasting on the web) for playing The Simple Carnival!
4/6/2008
Caitlin's On the Beach was just played on the Jaycast podcast, episode 93. Thanks, Jay!
4/5/2008
Sapricot is a very cool homemade indiepop zine/coloring book -- and it's only $2.00 US/$3.00 international. Get your copy from Louise now! |
4/4/2008
Thanks to Tony Butterworth from The Home Made Hit Show for not just playing Caitlin's On the Beach, but asking me to come on his show and describe how I put the song together. You can hear all the gory details on episode 111. |
4/3/2008
Thanks to Chris Evans from The Curve Ball for playing some Simple Carnival tracks on 101.8 WCR FM Tuesday 9-11 PM GMT. If you can't pick up the station where you live, you can listen live on the web.
A double thanks goes out to Arnd Zeigler, host of a German weekly radio show called Zeiglers wunderbare Welt des Pop -- The Simple Carnival was played not once, but twice on the same show!
3/28/2008
Missy Kulik, the very talented artist who designed the Me and My Arrow EP cover art (as well as the Girls Aliens Food cover art) appears to like her Simple Carnival shirt and CD! The whole story can be found over at the Rancho Cocoa blog. Thanks, guys! Just a reminder: You can win the same t-shirt and CD (well, not the exact same t-shirt and CD -- it doesn't appear Missy wants to give hers up) over at Indie-mp3.com's contest! |
3/27/2008
Want to win a spiffy Simple Carnival t-shirt and a free Me and My Arrow EP? Then check out Indie-mp3.com's contest right now! Hurry -- the contest ends April 11th!
(Thanks to Tom from the excellent www.indie-mp3.co.uk site for hosting the contest.)
3/24/2008
Thanks to Cram from the Living life as a gay DJ in the UK podcast for playing Caitlin's On the Beach! (Warning: The previous link might not be work-safe. But the podcast does indeed sound good. Check it out when you get home.)
If you're a musician, you might find this interesting. Or you might not. I've updated the FAQ with a near-complete list of all the gear I currently use for recording.
Amazon is now carrying the Me and My Arrow EP! The feedback so far has been encouraging and some reviews are starting to trickle in. If you like the EP (and hopefully you do!), I'd appreciate a short review on Amazon's page. Thanks!
3/15/2008
Welcome to The Simple Carnival's brand new web site! Not only will this web site be updated far more frequently than the old one, but... well, there should be actual news to write about!
And speaking of news... a brand new EP has just been released, titled Me and My Arrow. You can check out the leadoff track, Caitlin's on the Beach, on the Music page. (You can order the EP as a CD or as a mp3 download on the Souvenirs page.)
The title track is a cover of the Harry Nilsson classic, but interpreted in a way that I think Harry would've liked. If you're not familiar with "Me and My Arrow," here's a good article about the album and cartoon it came from.
Not only is there a new EP, but, for the first time ever, there is Simple Carnival merchandise -- t-shirts, badges, and stickers. Check 'em out!
And if you click around this site, you will see... my smiling mug! After seven years of The Simple Carnival, I figured it was time to finally stop hiding behind the "faceless studio band" thing. So there I am. You can now put a face with the voice. Hello!
Along with this amazing newfound level of exhibitionism (at least, it feels like exhibitionism to me) is The Simple Carnival's MySpace page. I'd like to see your smiling mug too, so won't you be my MySpace friend?