Released October 24 2019

Background

Carnival Life is the semi-collaborative project involving Scott Arnold and myself, Taylor Batory. The reason I say it’s semi-collaborative is because Scott came to me initially as a client wanting to record his songs, but as the project went on, he deemed me a member of his band called Carnival Life. I liked the way we worked together on this material, so I’m more than happy to be the other 50% of the band.

Technically, I’ve known Scott for many years, as he was a longtime guitar teacher at Southern Thumb Music in Richmond, MI. Southern Thumb is where I got my start as a guitar player when I was 13 or so. I didn’t take lessons from Scott, but I saw him in the store every time I was there. Eventually, Southern Thumb unfortunately closed and all the students and many of the teachers migrated to another nearby, locally run store called KO Music Studio in Ray Twp, MI. I, myself, got hired as a teacher at KO for a period of time, so Scott and I would see each other more frequently and sometimes talk guitar and music every so often in between lessons. Scott soon discovered that I was running a studio and attempting to start a home studio business, and he was excited at the prospect of recording some of his songs and had the idea to try to record an album with me. Turns out he lived right down the road from me too, so thus began what became Carnival Life.

Beyond this origin story, there isn’t much documentation about how any of this album was made and produced. All of the material on this album was written by Scott, but the wild thing, to me anyways, is that none of it is written down in any medium. Scott just remembered how all the songs went and would play them for me whenever we got together. And here’s where the “semi-collaborative” part comes in. Some of the songs he brought in were like small slices and needed some direction and development. I ended up helping with arranging and also came up with some ideas and lyrics that ended up making it to the album, and Scott was happy with a fair amount of the ideas I brought forward. Scott relied on me to handle the production of the album as well, and it was fun to have another person in the studio to bounce ideas off of when arranging and recording. I also performed the drums on tracks 8-13 of this album and recorded them in my home studio, and I’m happy with how they came out, considering it was one of the few albums where I actually performed and recorded the drums myself.

The original version of this album came out as an EP in October 2019 and consisted of only the last 7 songs. Shortly after it was released, Scott and I already began planning Carnival Life album #2 but quickly ran into a few hurdles that delayed it’s production. Namely the Covid pandemic starting in 2020, but then I moved to Canada in the later half of 2021. This made getting together with Scott a bit more difficult as Scott is an entirely analog sort of person, so online collaboration wasn’t going to happen. I was involved in several other projects at this time too, so the Carnival Life album sort of sat on the back burner for a few years. Scott and I would periodically get together to chip away at putting together the new songs, but these sessions were few and far between. But as it turns out, that’s exactly how Scott liked to work, so he tells me, because of how stress-free all of it was.

Eventually, we were sitting on a batch of newly completed songs and it came time to release the music. Scott and I got together and talked it over, and to my surprise, Scott chose at the 11th hour to not release the music to any digital storefronts or get any physical copies made, but rather abided by the simple idea that the songs were “just for him”. So this album is the material that would have been an “Album 2” but just put in front of the EP we released in 2019. But now, altogether, it acts like an LP. Despite not getting a full release, I got Scott’s permission to post these new tunes for everyone to enjoy wherever I have the ability to share them. I still like sharing anything I’ve had my hand in and I stand by that these songs are pretty cool for what they are.

So that’s all to say, here it is. Carnival Life’s debut LP, Deidre of the Tomorrow. Scott also decided the let the album be available for free on Bandcamp since the new songs won’t be available on any streaming services or digital storefronts outside of Bandcamp. So thank you, Scott, for allowing me to share this music and allowing anyone to enjoy it. Due to the logistical nature of how we’ve worked in the past, this may be the first and last Carnival Life album to get made, so I’m glad I can at least share it with whoever happens upon it online, whether it’s here or on my Youtube channel. Be sure to check the Bandcamp link too, as Scott decided to make it available free for download. So thanks again to Scott for all the good times making music and here’s hoping he’s cooking up more tunes for the future. Cheers, buddy!