Almost There Blog

Things are more than a little frantic at the moment, with moving house, learning to drive, trying to paint paintings three times the size of the ‘Almost There’ canvases in half the time etc.  So the blog is less of a blog, but more of a news bulletin board for the time being.  With that [...]

The launch night took place on Friday night (20th February) - and it was a huge success.  I would like to thank everyone who came along, all musicians who played - Ric Neale, Jose Vanders and Matt Trinder and everyone involved in making it a really special night.  A serious amount of wine was consumed [...]

It’s promotion mania in the ‘Almost There’ camp (that’s me in my bedroom by the way).  I think I’ve settled on a design for the posters, check it out:

Also, a few nice people have mentioned the project on their blogs - check out lovely words and download a free track from the soundtrack, Matt Cameron [...]

Last night I went along to Poynton Church, where Matt Trinder and friends built a mini-studio to record his song for the Almost There project.  It was an eventful evening, with apparent major technical difficulties (the only help I could offer was ordering pizza), trying to fit everything into a car along with two passengers, a drug sniffer dog taking a [...]

I’ve not been blogging much as late.  I’m on my computer most of the day, doing press releases, myspace things etc. - so I’m not really in the mood.  But, here’s an awesome song by Rod Thomas that I came across on Myspace - I’ve listened to this song a stupid amount of times.  There is also a [...]

I stumbled across a new musician on Myspace that I really enjoy - Dublin singer Michael John.  His sound reminds me of Iron and Wine, but don’t take my word for it - download a free MP3:
Michael John - One In Five
And then add him on Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/musicbymichaeljohn 

Ok, so Sufjan Stevens has been mentioned quite a bit already on this blog - but I’ve finally got hold of a remix of ‘To Be Alone With You’ by Pocketknife that I’m nuts about.  Put this on your Ipod and walk through a busy city in the rain, you’ll feel cool, I promise. 
Download : [...]

Here is the first in a series of trailers to be released in the lead up to my exhibition.  I’m really pleased with it, the song featured is ‘Answers’ by Nizlopi.  If you like it, please feel free to post it to your blog/website/facebook etc.
 Almost There - Trailer #1 ‘Answers’ from Joe Simpson on Vimeo. [...]

One of my favourite websites is La Blogotheque, the takeaway shows.
They do lots of guerilla style live music performances around Paris.  They are so great.  My favourite is Guillemots singing ‘Made Up Love Song #43′ - but I can’t watch that right now.  Check it out the Bon Iver one below, probably helps if you [...]

Breaking news!  So, the dates and venues of the ‘Almost There’ exhibition are:
 
20th February – 1st March 2009
Candid Arts Trust,
Angel Islington, London
 
4th April – 13th June 2009
Waterside Art Centre,
Sale
 
I’m planning on getting my funding application sent off asap now.  Still no word on headphones though…
 
To celebrate this news, I’ve compiled a few MP3s [...]