May 2013
1 post
March 2012
1 post
THE ROAD TO RELEASE
“You went to bed at what time? Are you crazy?” These are two questions I’m often asked after a friend or family member receives an email from me at 3AM. I know most people go to bed before midnight, especially if you have to get up at 6AM and head to the office to manage a sales force…so perhaps it is crazy. If you’re a musician living a double life, though, going to bed at 3AM and getting up...
January 2012
1 post
November 2011
1 post
ARLENE'S GROCERY
Tuesday night we played our first show at Arlene’s Grocery with our friends from the amazing indie-pop band Portmanteaux. Thanks to everyone who endured the unpleasant sting of the cold rain and wind to make sure we didn’t play to an empty room! It’s probably easier to get a taxi on the dark side of the moon than on a rainy night near 42nd street in New York…which happens to be where we were...
July 2011
2 posts
YOU’RE JUST A PHOTOGRAPH
Sometime last year when I was working on music for my album, I had a flash of an old song called Photograph that I had started to write on the guitar but never finished. I mostly write songs on the piano now, and while I do play guitar on some of my records from time to time, I would never call myself a guitar player. I sat down to see if I could remember how it went. No luck…it was gone. A trick...
D'SIMONE & ENZO
Last October, while searching for musicians to join my live band, (which, by the way is still in progress), I met a pretty amazing bass player. I had posted a few ads on craigslist but wasn’t having much luck finding the right musicians. Then, after a few weeks of frustration, I got an email from a guy named Enzo Penizzotto (cool name…right). So I Googled him and discovered he started his own...
May 2011
1 post
THE PERFECT LOVE STORY
Over the years I’ve collaborated with many musicians, and there’s always a bit of tug-of-war that develops during the creative process. “Can we take that section out…I think this part should be the chorus…what if we make this section half as long” etc., etc. It can be a very painful experience! So you can just imagine how excited I was when I wrote a melody and lyrics for a piece of music...
November 2010
3 posts
Bar East Rocks!
Thanks for coming out to hear us play Saturday night…and a special thanks to Paul at Bar East…awesome place to play!! Check out the photo highlights from the show @ dsimone.com.
THE TRUTH IS SIMPLE
When I first started writing music, sometimes I would labor over the melody for weeks on end, and finding the right words often took longer. Once in awhile, a song would come together in a few days. On a rare occasion, it pops into my head and practically writes itself. Desert Rain is one of those songs…it was created in just about 15 minutes. I was playing guitar and the chords, melody and...
October 2010
3 posts
ARE YOU WIDE AWAKE OR SLEEPWALKING?
When I was a young boy, I took piano lessons from a woman who was a third generation student of Beethoven. Her name was Natale Barrent, and she was a Polish immigrant who had survived imprisonment in a concentration camp during World War II. She was an amazing piano teacher, but I was a kid at the time and of course didn’t realize it. Every week as I struggled through one of Beethoven’s sonatas,...
THE SHOW MUST GO ON
A few months ago I was watching TV and came across a show called Live From Abbey Road…the legendary studio in London where the Beatles recorded many of their amazing hits. I later learned the show was actually a documentary series and throughout its three seasons featured over 100 artists recording live performances. It was really well done and very cool, and I thought to myself, “hey, why...
GETTING STARTED
D’Simone here…aka Charles, Charlie, Chuck, Chaz. Been wanting to start a blog for a while now but couldn’t decide what to talk about first. The other day someone asked me where the name D’Simone came from…a question I get asked a lot…and the answer seemed like a good place to start.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed of having a career in music, but until recently I...
