News from Charlie
Welcome to my site! Here are some things I've been working on. If you see a song link, feel free to right click and "save as" to download it.
1 November 2011: I just hit the 10 week mark in my Song a Week production challenge, and it's been going great so far! You can follow along on the blog. Last week I produced the song "Mountain Man" by Alpenglow. Jeffrey Schwinghammer created a music video for it:
22 August 2011: I've embarked on a big recording project - I'm going to be producing a song from one new artist every week until December.
1 August 2011: The final challenge of SpinTunes #3 was to write a song inspired by a photo from Reinfried Marass. "Skipping Stones" features Rob Carmichael on drums and Matt and Donna Schubbe on backing vocals.
17 July 2011: The third round of the SpinTunes songwriting challenge was to do a rap. New territory for me! I'm glad I was pushed to try this out though - "Trail In The Snow" (Features Nicole Mellas, Alix Sophia, and Matt Schubbe on vocals)
3 July 2011: Here's my song for round two of SpinTunes #3 - "The Mountain Will Not Yield" (Features Rob Carmichael on drums and Nick Syman on trombone)
26 June 2011: Here's the song I wrote for the first round of SpinTunes #3 - "Grandma and Grandpa" (Features Matt and Donna Schubbe on vocals)
29 May 2011: I wrote a short song to my younger self after watching some footage of an 8-year-old me. I wondered what he would think of me today.
30 April 2011: My roommate Mitchell Johnson and I made a silly video for MNKino this month - "Dear Dairy"
29 April 2011: Oanh Vu, Mark Knutson, Peter Kirschmann and I made a short film depicting the harrowing, snowy adventures of Alex Bleiberg.
December 11, 2010: As Remembered by Alex from Cubicle Cafe on Vimeo.
9 April 2011: I wrote a song called "The Ballad of John and Jesus" for the Songwriting Cycle #2. It was the first time in a while that my old bandmates and I collaborated on a track. Matt Schubbe (@Sh00bs) sang lead, Rob Carmichael did the drumming, and Andy Price worked with me to write the bass line.
25 March 2011: I found some awesome NASA footage of the Apollo 12 launch, and decided to create an ambient soundtrack for it. I kind of want to do a series of these, so if you come across any other cool space footage, let me know. I did this for MNKino #19: Uproot.
3 March 2011: I was a part of Z-Fest Film Festival this year, on a team with Alex Johnson (@alexjphoto), Dan Lehn, Doug Trumm (@dmtrumm), and several other lovely actresses and actors. We ended up with a dark comedy called The Little Death. Jeff Schwinghammer (@JSchwinghammer) was running the camera for most of it. I was running the fake VHS camera.
27 Feb 2011: I co-created an action hero - Tucker Betts! Stars Mark Knustson (@McKnutson) and was created by Jeff Schwinghammer (@JSchwinghammer), Oanh Vu and I. Along with helping film, I did the sound design and picked out the music. I also wrote the lyrics and melodies in Episode Six. I don't know if I should be proud of that or not...
22 Feb 2011: The Frankensong Challenge finished up, and we had four excellent song collaborations from the starting rhythm track I gave each team. Have a listen.
28 Jan 2011: Oanh Vu, Justin Roth, Jeff Schwinghammer and I created a short film called Resonance. Stars Ryan Ruff Smith and Laura Scott. I was running the camera and did the sound design.
Resonance from Charlie McCarron on Vimeo.
6 Jan 2011: The Frankensong Challenge has begun. We've divided 23 songwriters into 5 teams to do a sort of songwriting relay. I've created the "seed" track which each team will use as a base. One by one every songwriter on the team will add their own layer on top. The listening party will be on Tuesday, February 22nd at 8:00pm CST here.
22 Nov 2010: After one full year, this is the last month of Cover of the Month Club. It was a great run. In all, we had 75+ videos from everyone. I hope it helped a few people shed their fear of recording. Although the club will be officially disbanded, I'm looking forward to some future collaborations with you all.
20 Nov 2010: Had a lot of fun working on "The Pac-Man Duet" for Spintunes 2, Round 4. Features Nicole Wilder as Ms. Pac-Man. Enjoy!18 Nov 2010: The Telephone Game premiered! (I did the sound design). It turned out awesome and pretty hilarious on the big screen.
7 Nov 2010: Finished my third round song for SpinTunes 2: "Queen of Heart" - A song from the perspective of a man on the same bus as Rosa Parks.
24 Oct 2010: Finished my second round song for SpinTunes 2: "Over the Bridge" - A stylistic sequel to "Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers.
12 Oct 2010: Finished my first round song of the 2nd SpinTunes songwriting challenge - "Stillwater MN Air" - You can hear all my entries from SpinTunes 1 and 2 here. My new housemates (the Spencer McGillicutty crew) also produced some awesome songs for Round 1! [Mitchell's] [Ryan's] [Brittany's]
23 June 2010: Just finished my superhero song for the first SpinTunes songwriting challenge - "Faster Than Superman"
7 May 2010: Grey Matters is now officially online and downloadable at polyalbum.com. Lots of fun stuff on the site, including this:
3 March 2010: My favorite project lately has been the Cover of the Month Club. The following videos are my personal entries, but check out other peoples' awesome covers or join the fun at coverofthemonth.com
22 January 2010: My Beck month entries - "Milk & Honey" with Nick Syman and "We Live Again"
21 December 2009: My Christmas song entries for the Cover of the Month Club - "A Soalin'" and "A 'Wii' Little Drummer Boy" with Sam on Djembe.
30 November 2009: My entries for Beatles month - "I'm Only Sleeping" with Nick Syman and Matt Mahler and "Something"
10 November 2009: The Cover of the Month Club is officially online. To all my musician friends out there, check out coverofthemonth.com.
25 October 2009: I posted the songs from my Tanzanian students at the Hanga Abbey site. They sang beautifully, give their songs a listen.
30 September 2009: My Grey Matters polyalbum project will be featured on Chris Trimmer's CFRC radio show tonight at 10pm CST. Listen live at cfrc.ca. UPDATE: you can listen to the show here.
24 September 2009: I helped refilm 15 seconds of Star Wars at starwarsuncut.com.
11 August 2009: How many notes can you sing at the same time? "Overtones: The Secret Spices of Musical Sauce"
29 July 2009: I wrote my first article for the soundlounge blog - "How The Shape Of Our Ears Affects What We Hear"
20 July 2009: I'm working on audio for The Telephone Game, an independent film by Jason Schumacher. Some of us crewmembers have started writing a collaborative journal about the making of the film, and my first journal entry is about ADR (recording voiceovers and other lines with the actors)
23 June 2009: Google fatigued? Tweeted toward insanity? Facebook-poked beyond recognition? Take a mental vacation in my page of virtual peace.
15 June 2009: Twelve free-to-download tracks from The Mystery Of Grey Matters are now available here. I'm also beginning work on a "listener's guide" to the polyalbum, with audio clips, commentary, and interviews with the musicians.
19 May 2009: I'm now officially offering my services as a live recording engineer. Visit my recording page to find out more.
26 April 2009: I just returned to Minnesota after an amazing nine months in Tanzania. Check back soon for some pictures of my trip.
