I'm a latecomer to Simon Joyner. My first experience was a special concert at the late Daily Grub, but I never had any of his tapes or CD-Rs. I can't say I saw his records in the bins I thumbed through meticulously as a teen either.
I heard of him like he was a myth. His name at concerts in Iowa was spoken alongside the likes of Samuel Locke Ward and Ed Gray. I eventually found his name as I perused the Unread Records catalog a couple of times, too scared to actually buy anything.
It seemed like his music traveled underground, unearthed in dirty bedrooms and basements or hitchhiking with tumbleweeds to the coasts. Yet his fame and name and scratchy croon bewildered many of my friends as they posted on MySpace then blogged then tweeted his praises. I was listening for a ghost it seemed.
At last, I found a way to connect: a Kickstarter campaign to help create his new double album. Quickly, I threw in my available funds. Other digital fiends swarmed to the site and more than doubled the requested amount. To my amazement, Simon materialized with many humanizing updates. The man, the myth, the ghost was becoming real to me. When I heard that Simon was opening for Jake Bellows a few weeks ago, I had to come finally meet the man and capture a song. And so, here is a track from the new double album, "Red Bandana Blues."
Shot by: Andrew Norman, Angie Norman, Andrew Roger
Audio recorded by: Brendan Greene-Walsh
Edit & audio mix: Andrew Roger