Caught in the Carousel

Letter from the Editor - May 2008

By Alex Green

Okay, so maybe I'm not always for the home team. I was born just outside of San Francisco in Marin County and raised all over the East Bay, but my favorite restaurant is in Vancouver, my favorite band is from Manchester, my favorite actor is Irish and my favorite tennis player is from Switzerland. Oh, and the best sunscreen of all time comes from Maui. But for this issue of Caught In The Carousel, it's all about California. For our Scouting Report, Christine Fort sat down with the Berkeley indie pop outfit The Morning Benders who graciously filled out our monthly questionnaire. Our Consummate Top Ten this month comes from the Sacramento-born singer/songwriter Jacob Golden, who has happily provided us with a top ten list and in our Album Reviews section, we review new ones by San Francisco jazz singer Karen Blixt and Sacramento's own The Pinder Brothers.

Oh, and Go A's!

Speaking of baseball, in our MP3 library this month, we're debuting 23 new songs, including singer/songwriter Mike Farley's ode to the current state of baseball called "This Game." We've also got great numbers by Tilly and the Wall, Kite, Flight of the Conchords, Team Genius, We Were The States, Vincent Black Shadow, Mr. Gnome, Foals, The Diggs, Die! Die! Die!, Sera Cahoone, Alamo Race Track and 65 Days of Static. Download them, enjoy them and if you dig them, support the artists by buying them. Cool?

As for the aforementioned album reviews, Thomas Cooney has joined the CITC staff and he hits the ground running, reviewing new ones from both Swing Out Sister and Goldfrapp. Also, new staff writer Dr. Slurpee, Podiatrist To The Stars gives us the advance scoop on the new Portishead album. Welcome to both Mr. Cooney and Dr. Slurpee! We've also got reviews of Air Traffic, Grand Archives, Kylie Minogue, Martin Bisi, Fergus McCormick, Billy Talent, Buckra and more.

Even though our staff was working hard on this month's issue, they were also working hard on their own endeavors, and we've got some great news to report:

Staff writer Yvonne Prinz, author of the Clare series and owner of Amoeba Music has just signed a deal with Harper Collins, who will be publishing her novels The Vinyl Princess and All You Get Is Me. Yvonne is currently finishing up her new novel Renaissance Chick as well as a review for next issue on the Chapin Sisters. We wish her warm congratulations!! (www.stillthereclare.com)

Our talented and wonderful designer Lyn Dunagan may be a creative genius, but she's also an amazing athlete. Lyn completed a triathlon in early April and even with a sore calf muscle that was threatening to get in the way, she beat her goal by finishing with a 2:53:40. We're very proud!!

CITC Editor-at-Large David Porter made the brave and generous decision to cut off his ponytail and donate it for those suffering with cancer. You can watch the whole thing right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YI1zLJl8lo
When watching this I think it's important to note that he doesn't have a grey hair anywhere on his head. Wait until he turns thirty….

Thomas Cooney's essay on Haiti will be in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine on May 4th. For our Bay Area readers, the hard copy hits the streets in the Sunday edition, and for our readers who aren't local, I'll have the link for you next month.

In other news, my former grad school classmate Andrew Demcak has just put out his first book of poetry called Catching Tigers In Red Weather (Three Candles Press). I've just finished reading it and it's truly wonderful. You can find Andrew at www.andrewdemcak.com or www.myspace.com/andrewdemcak.

We've got some huge things coming down the pike, dear readers. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say that they're huge and pike-bound.

It's almost summer. Find all of your slinky things and start tanning your way around them.

Love and Rockets,
Alex Green
Editor, Caught In The Carousel
Alex670@earthlink.net