Simon Joyner & The Nervous Stars

Simon Joyner is a world-renowned American singer-songwriter from Omaha, Nebraska who has released 19 albums on independent labels since the early 1990s. His earliest records were influential signposts of the Lo-Fi and home-taping movement which also produced contemporaries like Smog, Lou Barlow, Will Oldham and the Mountain Goats. He is now widely regarded as one of the great songwriters of our generation. Gillian Welch calls him her favorite poet and Kevin Morby and Conor Oberst both claim him as a major influence with Bright Eyes also recording covers of Joyner’s songs “Burn Rubber” and “Double Joe.” John Peel, the famed British DJ, once played Joyner’s album “The Cowardly Traveller Pays His Toll” in its entirety on his show, a rare event journalists at the time referred to as “The Peel Incident.”
Despite often being described as a songwriter’s songwriter, the stubbornly independent artist has soared under the radar for over thirty years, enjoying cult status without ever needing to make the unholy sacrifices the industry often requires of artists looking to survive or live on their music. His storytelling has been compared to Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt, Lou Reed, and Bob Dylan. Over the course of 19 albums his career is hard to pin down as he’s followed a mercurial path, never content to make the same record twice.