Clouds #1

I freakin' love clouds!

Happenings....

The Black Book Of The Universe has a release date of 4/6/10. We are really excited. It's nearly a year to the day that we were freezing our arses off in the Penrose State Forest shooting the album cover and other snaps.

Since my last post we've had some great live reviews from our Vasco Era tour (and some erm, not so good ones). I've attached one of the good ones, and one of the bad ones. Yin and Yang and all that!

So what's on the cards? I'm doing a little acoustic show on the 18th of May at Cafe Lounge. Rores is helping out on percussion and Pabs on 2nd guitar. Gonna sneak in a few cheeky covers i think.

The next step is sorting out hoo-ha surrounding the release, and crossing my fingers that people will dig it!

xox

LIVE REVIEW/SPECTRUM/30/4/10 by Doubtfulsounds, www.fasterlouder.com.au

Simon Carter has been hard at work over the last year recording, mixing and a preparing to release his debut solo album The Black Book Of The Universe. On the back of a support tour with The Vasco Era he played a set with his band that seemed to rock and roll with its own surging momentum. The band was exceptionally tight and seemed a great deal more relaxed than previous gigs when they were still finding their feet live.

Carter’s solo songs swung from classic pop to almost Pink Floyd guitar sounds and progressions. By the nature of his songwriting the songs stood out from pretty much everything that is happening on the local Sydney scene. Absent are distortion drenched garage rockisms or electro infused sounds and in their place is a deluge of melody and clever arrangements. Songs like Symbio brought to mind a strange jam session between Tears For Fears and Style Council, it is a fantastic classic sounding pop song that demands radio play.

The approach that Carter has taken with his songs is a bold one. In lesser hands the slow solos, twin keyboards and dramatic song structures would fall flat but on stage the band is so locked in and Carter sings and plays with such conviction that it all works. In The Wilderness I Wept rose and fell, rocked and swayed like Suede with a pulsing bass and some atmospherics that accelerated into the chorus with swagger and an urgency. It was controlled yet felt like that moment when a rollercoaster drops. Bombast never sounded so good.

Eschewing current trends Carter has a batch of timeless songs that don’t regress to slavish retro-isms. He showed that he can deliver them live with a killer band and fittingly included a sugar rush version of White Light/White Heat that was more akin to Bowie’s version than The Velvet Underground’s. Like Bowie did so successfully, Carter showed he is in his own way attempting to put some credibility back into artful and creative pop music.

LIVE REVIEW/INPRESS/CORNER HOTEL/10/4/10

Ex The Cops frontman Simon Carter introduces his band as The Salesmen. What this sextet's spruiking, we're not buying. A pair of keyboardists bookend the stage and my plus one enquires "What's their demographic?". Much is made of mid-song dynamic shifts and there's an improv quality to song structures. "This song is about losing your fucking marbles," intros Carter, but this band look like they would be the least likely individuals to run amok. Time Crawls."

The Mountain

Yo! This is the first single from my debut solo rekurd "The Black Book Of The Universe".

It's called The Mountain.

There's a FREE DOWNLOAD below my rantings.

The genesis for the song popped into my head as me and my missus were driving down a dirt road to Paradise, near Glenorchy, New Zealand (Yes, Paradise is a real place! I've attached a photo of the valley from our horse-riding vantage point. I felt utterly ridiculous on the back of a horse, but then I actually started to like it. Such amazing creatures.) The beauty there is just so amazing that it spurred the cogs of my mind into action (which doesn't happen very much i'm afraid to say!) and as we got out of the car and looked up the Dart River Valley, the chorus popped into my head and i filed it away. Later I sang it into my mobes back in Queenstown so I wouldn't forget it. When I got back to Sydney, I finished the track off.

It's a song about feeling completely over-awed by your surroundings. Feeling small, alone and utterly helpless in the face of such an overbearing problem that you can't imagine how you can ever triumph over it. 2009 was full of those types of situations for me and my family.


6 The Mountain by simonjcarter

supporting........The Vasco Era

Got an email from my loverly booking agent Harbour about supporting the Vasco Era which I jumped at. I have met them at a Melbourne BDO when The Cops were playing on the same day as them and from memory they are lovely lads. Their new stuff sounds great too.

Will be an absolute blast to play venues I haven't played in ages like the Zoo and the Corner (last time was with Bethadupa I think). The plan is for us to work up to playing these venues ourselves in the not too distant future (hopefully).

I have scored the main support on these shows which is great.

Saturday 10th April @ The Corner, Melbourne
Friday 16th April @ The Cambridge, Newcastle
Saturday 17th April @ OAF, Sydney
Saturday 23rd April @ The Zoo, Brisbane

www.myspace.com/thevascoera

Oxford Art Factory

We had the first proper public show last Thursday as part of a residency we scored at the Oxford Art Factory.

First of all I wanna thank everyone who came down to check it out - it meant a lot that people still care about my music and want to catch it live. I was freaking out that it would be empty. Actually I was really freaking out about playing live again because bar the Rats Nest showcase, I hadn't been on stage for nearly two years!

Even though I was having a bloody ball, I realised with growing horror that I've almost completely forgotten what the hell to do up there in between songs. It used to come quite easy being all sweaty, playing rock tunes and just occasionally skipping past to yell some cliched shit into the mic. "Hey, yeah, woo, how the hell is the front row? Hot? Shit it's hot up here. C'mon!" etcetera etcetera. Now I feel like some fumbling geography teacher. It'll get better I guess.

Another thing that I realised I had missed so much was playing with a unit. A bunch of people who are all in synch. In The Cops it was the same. You get to the point where everyone knows the songs well enough to just let the whole thing take it's own course and become whatever it becomes on the night. That is one of the best feelings in the world, and with the lads it was a magical thing having that moment on Thursday (and here's to many more!).

Now we just have to get out there and spread the word of the album live, and hope people want to listen. *crosses fingers*.

I'll have some live footage and/or photos up for the next few shows.

xo

The first solo show!

So we finally got to the show after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, and well, it was worth it because playing the tunes in front of people was satisfying to the max.

I can't speak for the other hardened killers in my band, but I was SHITTING MY PANTS. And I never get nervous before a show. The inside of my mouth felt like the Sahara Desert, and the dodgy Sav Blanc wasn't helping either. I couldn't even look anyone in the eye; it was like 5 years of getting pissed and getting in people's faces at Cops shows had been a walk in the park compared to this. Suddenly I turned around on stage and there was no Beck to make fun of me, smiling as I made a tit of myself. Shit! Naked!

What I did see before me was killers. Stone cold sexy killers who slayed that gig with a machette and a hand grenade. It suddenly dawned on me that a new era of my musical career had begun, and it involved being surrounded by sausage. Grand Sausage. Chorizo-fuckin'-burn-your-ring-off-sausage! My boys mean more to this record than anything. Their heart (and sausage) is well in it, and they came to the party and flogged the shit out of it. I doff my hat and every other part of my body to The Boys.

After that, I turned around and just sang and had a great time. Loved it. Can't believe I just did nearly 2 years of not playing live. Never again. Never.

A heartfelt thankyou must go out to Lucky, Noni, Jeremy and the Rats Nest crew who made us feel like part of the family. Wicked people and wicked venue. Also to the people that showed up. It meant a lot to me that nearly 2 years of hard work was being appreciated, and I was chuffed with the turnout for a non-advertised gig. xoxo

Blah blah i've blagged on too much. Bring on the Oxford Arts Factory residency we just scored in Jan/Feb!!

Hard Rain Video Premiere

and here the sucker is!! hope you enjoy it!