The Simple Carnival’s Girls Aliens Food — released in 2008 — made one website’s list for being among the best albums of January 2017. Better late than never, I suppose! 🙂

A nice review of the Smitten album from Powerpopaholic!

When I Skyped into The New York Stereoscopic Association’s meeting last week, someone remarked, “You look like you’re on the Space Shuttle!”

I never thought of my studio as a spaceship, but I like the concept!

A big thanks to John Zelenka and Rosalie Chandler for being such gracious hosts. I wish I lived closer so I could have attended in person!

(Photo credit: Jim Harp)

I had the pleasure of speaking with Bill Everatt at Celtica Radio about the Smitten album. Listen in as I spill the beans about the song “Elizabeth’s House.”

Today’s the big day — The Simple Carnival’s Smitten album is finally here!

All CD pre-orders have shipped. Download links have been sent out to everyone who pre-ordered the album. And if you haven’t ordered anything yet, what are you waiting for? 🙂

(Don’t forget — you can also get the album from Bandcamp or iTunes.)

Thank you SO MUCH for your love, support, and patience over the years. Enjoy the music!

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Get The Simple Carnival’s fantastic final album, Smitten, from Bandcamp or iTunes!

Welcome to Day 13 of the 14 Days of The Simple Carnival! Every day until February 14 (Valentine’s Day), I’ll be posting one cool, free Simple Carnival thing. On February 14, The Simple Carnival’s new (and final) album, Smitten, will be released. It’s been nine years since The Simple Carnival has released an album, so I’d like to celebrate the occasion by sharing a bunch of good stuff over these 14 days.

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So tomorrow is the big day — The Simple Carnival’s final album, Smitten, will be released.

Why is this the final album?

The short version is that the album’s companion project, Smitten 3D, has opened a whole new set of possibilities for me as an artist. By making these 3D music videos for the Smitten album, I discovered that I really love to make films. So after the Smitten 3D project is complete a few years from now, that’s exactly what I’ll be doing — making animated, narrative films…as well as composing the soundtrack music to those films.

Making films is far more demanding than just making music, especially when it’s essentially a one man operation, as I expect my films to be. I will not have the bandwidth to create more music under The Simple Carnival banner as well as take on this related — but different — challenge.

Even though I will be closing the book on The Simple Carnival’s music, I won’t be shutting down this site or disappearing from the internet. CDs and downloads will still be sold, orders will still be fulfilled. The Simple Carnival’s music will continue to exist on streaming sites. I just won’t be releasing any new material under The Simple Carnival’s name. The Simple Carnival’s oeuvre is complete.

So, speaking of The Simple Carnival’s oeuvre, onto today’s Simple Carnival thing…CDs!

If you look at the Shop section of this site, you will see…some of The Simple Carnival’s CDs for sale. You can’t get the Me and My Arrow EP, the Menlo Park EP, or the Sonic Rescue League album on CD from this site. That’s because I have only ONE remaining copy of each of these CDs.

I’m giving these copies — as well as the American release of Girls Aliens Food and a brand new Smitten CD — away for FREE today to one lucky Simple Carnival fan.

I’ll pay for shipping to anywhere in the world. To get a chance to win these CDs, however, you must tell me the correct answer to the following trivia question before midnight EST tonight:

What movie is this Halloween costume from?

Send your response to (deleted). The winner’s name will be drawn out of a hat. The name will be announced here on this site as well as on Twitter.

UPDATE (February 14, 2017): And the winner is…Lawrence Kaufman! Congrats!

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Get The Simple Carnival’s fantastic final album, Smitten, from Bandcamp or iTunes!

Welcome to Day 12 of the 14 Days of The Simple Carnival!   Every day until February 14 (Valentine’s Day), I’ll be posting one cool, free Simple Carnival thing. On February 14, The Simple Carnival’s new (and final) album, Smitten, will be released. It’s been nine years since The Simple Carnival has released an album, so I’d like to celebrate the occasion by sharing a bunch of good stuff over these 14 days.

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Today’s Simple Carnival thing is a giveaway of a prop from the video for “A Geek Like Me”. Yesterday I posted the behind-the-scenes video. “A Geek Like Me” is a track on the upcoming Smitten album, as well as part of the 3D animated music video movie Smitten 3D. In case you haven’t seen this hand-drawn video, here it is:

Note the lyric at 2:22: “You know what Inframan is…”

What is Inframan? It’s a bezerk superhero/action/kung-fu/giant rubber monster movie that is cheesy, hilarious, and thrilling. It’s a fantastic movie to watch with friends.

Anyway, today’s giveaway is the actual Inframan VHS tape that I used as a reference when drawing “A Geek Like Me”:

Now, you might be wondering why I’m not giving away the DVD that I had in my left hand. The answer is, I no longer have it. The VHS tape is still in my possession, though.

What if you don’t have a VHS player? Well, the tape is still a pretty interesting conversation piece to have on a bookshelf. And it’s the actual object that was used in the video, so you’ll be owning a small piece of cult power pop music history!

I’m giving the VHS tape away to some lucky Simple Carnival fan, and I’ll pay for shipping to anywhere in the world. To get a chance to win this tape, however, you must send a message to (deleted) that says “THUNDERBALL FISTS!” The winner’s name will be drawn out of a hat. The name will be announced here on this site as well as on Twitter. Good luck!

UPDATE (February 13, 2017): And the winner is…Thor Klippert! Congrats!

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Get The Simple Carnival’s fantastic final album, Smitten, from Bandcamp or iTunes!

Welcome to Day 11 of the 14 Days of The Simple Carnival!   Every day until February 14 (Valentine’s Day), I’ll be posting one cool, free Simple Carnival thing. On February 14, The Simple Carnival’s new (and final) album, Smitten, will be released. It’s been nine years since The Simple Carnival has released an album, so I’d like to celebrate the occasion by sharing a bunch of good stuff over these 14 days.

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My apologies that today’s Simple Carnival thing is not something new. If you’re a long-time fan, you may have already seen this. But tomorrow’s Simple Carnival thing is connected to this, and I thought it might be a good idea to trot out this behind-the-scenes video out for those who haven’t seen it yet.

“A Geek Like Me” is a track on the upcoming Smitten album, as well as part of the 3D animated music video movie Smitten 3D. First, here’s the finished video.

And here’s the behind-the-scenes video (skip to the 6 min mark):.

Tune in tomorrow — I’m going to be giving away something interesting relating to this video.

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Get The Simple Carnival’s fantastic final album, Smitten, from Bandcamp or iTunes!

The Simple Carnival’s Smitten album got a great review in the March issue of Uncut magazine!

Get The Simple Carnival’s Smitten album from Bandcamp or iTunes!

Welcome to Day 10 of the 14 Days of The Simple Carnival!   Every day until February 14 (Valentine’s Day), I’ll be posting one cool, free Simple Carnival thing. On February 14, The Simple Carnival’s new (and final) album, Smitten, will be released. It’s been nine years since The Simple Carnival has released an album, so I’d like to celebrate the occasion by sharing a bunch of good stuff over these 14 days.

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Today’s Simple Carnival thing is a new behind-the-scenes video for “Everything that Grownups Know”. “Everything that Grownups Know” is a track on the upcoming Smitten album, as well as part of the 3D animated music video movie Smitten 3D.In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the finished video:

And here’s the behind-the-scenes video (skip to the 20 min mark):

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Get The Simple Carnival’s fantastic final album, Smitten, from Bandcamp or iTunes!