RECORDING THOUGHTS...

As I understand it, the way John wants to record the songs on the album is to (1) record a “scratch track” of himself (bass), Chris (drums), and me (rhythm guitar and vocal), then (2) record on separate tracks each of us playing (and in my case, also singing) to the scratch track, then (3) add lead instruments, and (4) mix the tracks, using his fancy computer program—and eliminating the scratch track in the process.

I don’t know for sure if this is how it’s done in commercial studios, but it sounds like it should work. It is a little complicated, but it ought to produce just about perfect results. Then comes mastering, which I believe is both making the volumes of the individual songs consistent with each other and consistent with the volumes one gets out of commercial recordings, so you can pop the CD into any CD player and not have the listener running for the volume control. Might send that part out—I know at least three people who do that commercially (though I don’t know what they charge, and what they charge is going to be important).

Recording the scratch tracks may or may not be a simple process. From the band’s end, it’s a snap; John and Chris are both very good, and the songs on the album are all ones we’ve played a lot. I would expect we could do each one in one take. Scratch tracks for the whole album—an hour’s worth of music—would be part of an afternoon’s work, if the recording equipment can handle it. It may not be able to—I know John’s portable unit is better than my Tascam (which can only hold one song at a time), but I’m not sure how much better. The alternative to spreading the scratch recording out over two, three or four days would be to migrate Chris’s drum set up to John’s living room, so tracks could be dumped to the computer quickly.

Probably another afternoon or evening to overlay each of the individual instruments—rhythm guitar, bass, drums, lead guitar, blues harp and vocal. (Re-recording the dums would entail Chris’s drum set being in John and Sara’s living room one more day.) Might add (or substitute) Bruce’s piano on a couple of the songs, if he’s interested (I think he might be); we could have me playing lead on the simpler stuff, but I’d really rather have Mike doing all the guitar leads if he would—he is many times better a lead player than I am. And with all that work done, John could mix at his leisure.

Next step: a SCHEDULE. Right now, everybody’s got a little free time, but it’s not going to last.

I think I need a revised setlist for the album. I need to eliminate the two co-writes, substituting songs wrote entirely by me, so I can avoid the expense of paying copyright royalties up front. I hate to do it—“Dead Things in the Shower” and “Un-Easy Street” are among our best crowd-pleasers—but I can’t afford it. I’m doing this album for no money, because no money is what I have.

I can substitute “Crosses By the Roadside” for “Un-Easy Street” easily. “Crosses” is a good song (despite having been panned by a Nashville publisher)—it’s more serious and sad, but almost exactly the same tempo, and a two-step, even. (That’s why I won’t play the two songs together.) What can I substitute for “Dead Things”? Just as in a live performance, one wants to lead off with the almost-best stuff. Do I know what that is, any more?

Joe

UPDATE (AND VIDEO THOUGHTS)...

Christmas is over, and it was nice. Time to get back to normal—if I had any idea what “normal” is. (I probably have to take the Bill Clinton route, and define “normal.” What do I want it to be?)

In two weeks—Friday, 8 January—is my appointment to meet the band in Astoria (60 miles away) I’d applied to play rhythm guitar with. New band, no gigs yet; from my end, it’s just an opportunity to do Something Completely Different. The bandleader wants to do covers, old rock ‘n’ roll with some modern country (which is pretty much the same thing), and I know probably half the songs on his list even if I can’t sing ‘em. I have a Lynn Orloff song to musicate (if she’s willing)—a very fast bluegrassy love song (technically not bluegrass music, because no one dies in the last verse). Lynn is a very competent lyricist, and I haven’t done any songs of hers yet. One more copy of the Joe Songbook to mail out, too—along with the last of my thongs.

I have a couple of playing opportunities to take advantage of—the supposedly weekly blues jam down in Newport on Sundays (I’d get to finally meet Jason Jones if I did that), and Whitney Streed’s comedy thing at the Mt. Tabor in Portland (on Thursdays—I could combine the trip with some other business in Portland). Both, again, would be something different.

One problem with making music videos of my songs is the lyrics are usually chock full of imagery that is probably best left up to the imagination—it doesn’t transfer well to video. There’s a way out, though. Porter Wagoner’s “Committed to Parkview” (his last song before he died, I think) simply had footage of him and/or the band playing in what looked like an abandoned nursing home; it was even in black and white. I can “go minimalist,” too, leaving nearly everything up to the imagination.

I sort of did that in the video of “Me and Rufus, and Burnin’ Down the House.” I just filmed Rufus doing Dog Things (mostly eating) out in the yard at Sara’s house (where the fire damage had been repaired), and used still shots (also of Rufus) with the usual snide text commentary during the Rap, and it didn’t come out bad. (My camera work could use work—but I learned a lot about the limitations of the camera in the process.)

I can do “The Dog’s Song” the same way. I can shoot five minutes of footage of a hyperactive kitten doing destructive things (I know someone who’s living with one of those). I never need to show the dog.

In the same vein—only slightly more complicated—is “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot,” the pre-election talking blues I wrote for Southern Pigfish. Nearly all the song can be beach footage, with maybe some tavern stuff (one verse sort of takes place inside a tavern). I can do it all myself if I don’t have to be in the video—and I probably do not want to be in the video: one of the “mystiques” I’d like to preserve about Southern Pigfish is no one ever sees the band (it isn’t necessary to come out and say that’s because the band doesn’t really exist). I could shoot some footage of someone else lip-synching some of the vocals if I could find someone willing. And in the spirit of Porter Wagoner, one never has to see the parrot.

I could use some feedback on the videos I’ve done; I’d like to show them to an unsuspecting crowd, in other words, and see what their reaction is, much as I’ve done with songs at open mikes. There is a potential venue: Whitney Streed was running a monthly comedy showcase in Portland (I’ve played there once) that included some multi-media stuff. I’ll have to get her the videos and ask if it’s something she’d be interested in.

Joe

THE 2010 WORKLIST...

It was 20 December last year that I published the Worklist; here, a year later, I can say I have accomplished rather little. Except making lists, of course—I am good at lists. Here’s the 2010 Worklist:

FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE A LIVING OFF THIS STUFF. Not just the music, but the related things I do or can do, too—writing, publishing, graphic design, &c. I’ve been told I’m already a household word in the area where I live—but I’m not one people spend money on yet.

FINISH THE JOE ALBUM. Just because most of the stuff is outside my control doesn’t mean it’s not controllable. The pieces are all in place—the band, the setlist, the sound engineer, the equipment, and the process. Now that the Christmas Show is over, I’ll talk to the band about a production schedule.

FINISH SOUTHERN PIGFISH’S ALBUM. That one’s got more sub-pieces; need about four more songs, and every song is going to be a music video because the album is going to be released on flash drive rather than CD.

A WEEK IN NASHVILLE. Sure, why not? The only thing that prevented my going this year was money—I had the time. And I’ve got a good reason to go—being able to film Polly Hager and Glyn Duncan together singing “A Man for Christmas.”

EXPAND USE OF VIDEO. It is possible most of my songs could be turned into music videos, with very little effort or expense. There’s the gig-soliciting DVDs to do, too. I’ve been learning how to use the camera better, but I could use a better camera.

THE JOE WEBSITE. So I have to take a Website design class. So what?

WIN A COUPLE MORE SONG CONTESTS (sounds better than “enter song contests”)—targeting them, of course, as carefully as I did the “doing Dylan” one this year.

WRITE IN SOME DIFFERENT GENRES. I haven’t done ragtime yet, and I only have one Norwegian Black/Death Metal song, “Evil Dead Fairies in My Mobile Home.” Apply that to the album’s worth of co-writes I want to do in 2010, too. Keep writing in any event.

BECOME A HOUSEHOLD WORD. (Like “toilet paper”? Sure—people spend money on toilet paper.) Be involved in things where I can help people—targeting, again, situations where what I know and can do can be put to the most efficient use. Like fellow songwriter Bobbie Gallup says, “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows YOU.”

GET MORE PEOPLE PLAYING MY STUFF. I haven’t a clue how to do this, but it probably ties into the getting-better-known item above. In 2009, one of my songs (“Rotten Candy”) got recorded by the incomparable Polly Hager, and two others are being performed by other folks, and it is because they knew me. How much more of that I can do depends on how well known I am.

TEACH A SONGWRITING CLASS. No clue how to arrange this, either, but I think I’m ready. The Worklist should always include new tasks, even if the old ones aren’t quite done.

I hardly need to add PLAY WITH MORE PEOPLE, but I will. “Deathgrass” may not be able to do concerts for a while, because John will be busy with the city budget, but that shouldn’t prevent me from playing other places. I do know musicians to the east and south, and a fellow to the north trying to assemble a band. I’d like to arrange a St. Leif’s Day concert (March 29).

And there—tentatively—is the Worklist for 2010. Like they said in that Disney movie, “Bring it on.”

Joe

CHRISTMAS CONCERT POST-MORTEM...

The Christmas concert was good. We actually filled most of the chairs in the hall (briefly), and raised a lot of food for the Food Pantry—some cash money, too. Both Doc (blues harp) and Mike (lead guitar) said they want to do it again—and I told them both that could probably be arranged.

Roughly half the people who came were folks I didn’t know, which means they either saw the ads, heard the radio interviews, or heard about the concert from other people. I hope we made some fans. And the rest I did know, and I’m glad they came. We were competing with a number of other Yuletide events, including one right in Garibaldi (at one of the churches) and two in nearby Bay City (5 miles away). Some folks dropped off food and didn’t stay.

They were a generally elderly audience (it’s a generally elderly population), so no dancers; I did see toes tapping, however. Santa made an appearance (I’d talked to him earlier, and told him that would be okay, as long as he didn’t show up while we were playing “Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up”), sporting a big red and white umbrella (because it was raining), and Pastor Barry, proprietor of the Food Pantry, stopped by, too, taking a break from the Christmas program at his church.

Our experiment with the sound did work. Setting the band up against one of the concrete-block walls, projecting towards the kitchen (the one wall that isn’t concrete block) and pointing the speakers slightly inward, did produce a much clearer sound. All the people I asked—fans and strangers—said it sounded good. My voice lasted the whole two hours, with infrequent sips of water, and so did my fingers. Two hours is about the limit, though. (Drummer Chris faded early, and had to stop; I think he’s still recovering from the flu.)

I hated to take a break in between the first and second hours of the show, but I think it’s essential for the musicians (including me); it’s really not possible to play (and in my case, also sing) more than an hour at a stretch without a rest. The problem is you stand to lose a large part of your audience when you do take a break—and we did here. What’s the solution? Refreshments, maybe—if there was coffee, juice, cookies, &c., maybe people would stick around to partake, and then feel guilty about not having left when they had the chance. I’ll have to try it.

Judgments on the material: “The Dog’s Song” is hard to sing unless we play it real slow—but we can’t play it slow because it’s got so many words. I either have to figure out a different key for it or not do it. “Test Tube Baby” was a definite hit; we ended up playing it way too fast (my fault, because I start these things off and the rest of the band follows)—but it worked: it wasn’t too hard to play or sing, either. We should continue doing it that way. “Rotten Candy” was fast, too—but I know it sounds good fast; the important thing is to get the stops just before the choruses just right, and they were perfect. (Such good musicians. I am honored to be able to play with them.)

I think people’s favorites among the Other Writers’ Stuff were Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street” (a consistent hit) and Gem Watson’s “Final Payment,” and among my stuff, “Armadillo on the Interstate,” “Bluebird on My Windshield,” “I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas” (of course), “Tillamook Railroad Blues,” and the new Christmas song, “Even Roadkill Gets the Blues.” The roadkill song is so over-the-top sad I don’t think anyone takes it seriously. (I notice four of the abovementioned top five are dead-animal songs.)

Next steps? I don’t have any gigs on the horizon (it is probably too much to hope that somebody would call us after this one to hire us to play somewhere, but you never know). Failing anything else, I’d like to finish the album. (That’s going to be on the 2010 Worklist.) I’ll thank everybody profusely, and see how much people talk about how good the concert was. Hopefully, a lot of people will say it was.

Joe

CHRISTMAS POTLUCK POST-MORTEM...

General judgment of the folks who put on the City-Port Christmas Potluck is they liked everything exactly the way it was, and they’d like to do it again next year. Including having us (John on bass, me on guitar, Bruce on keyboard, and city councilmember Terry Kandle on fiddle—drummer Chris was sick) play music.

I would make a few changes with respect to the music. First, we need more practice, of course; we really needed to play together more than once before we went on stage. Second, we should be consistently rapid-fire—it’s not necessary to do a Rap between songs like I do, but if you don’t, you should be launching into the next song before the applause dies down. Bruce and I should alternate more, too, so there’s less of a contrast between styles. Third, we should be better organized—no hunting for music, and no last-minute changes, either. We know exactly what we’re going to play, and how we’re going to play it, and we don’t deviate from it.

Fourth is the sound. Some folks said the vocals were “mushy” and hard to hear; a lot of that is because of the room—City Hall’s Dance Floor is a rotten acoustic space, a big square room (built in the 1940s) with echoey cinderblock walls and a low, false ceiling of absorbent tile. And the little stage is in one corner (uck)—the only place in the room that has any electric outlets (double uck). John and I decided to try an experiment with the “Deathgrass” Christmas concert: we’ll ignore the stage, and run extension cords for the power, and put the band up against one wall, facing the kitchen (where the wall is made out of less-reflective sheetrock and has openings), and point the speakers slightly inwards to minimize sound bouncing off the side walls. We’ll see how well that works.

IN THE GOOD NEWS DEPARTMENT, I got to see a video of Randy MacNeil and the Whitney Pier Cowboys’ performance in concert of “Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up.” They’re from up in Canada. Their rendition of the song has fiddle and piano leads, and harmonies on the chorus—they did a fine job. (And they mentioned my name as the author. Thanks, guys.) And I hear Lorelei Loveridge, over in England, is practicing “Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire” so she can do it in concert—and reportedly other people are interested, too. As noted before, that’s success for the writer in the Modern Era—other people performing your stuff.

So how does one take advantage of this? Well, the Canadian band will get a copy of the Songbook (Lorelei already got one), and as I come up with stuff that I think would fit those folks’ style, I’ll tell them about it. Low-key, of course—I don’t want to be annoying, but I do want it understood that all my stuff is available, and it’s free. I’m trying to establish a reputation as a writer, and the way you do that is by other people playing your stuff. I want to create among musicians the kind of “rep” I seem to be acquiring locally—I had one Lions Club person tell me recently, “Everybody I talk to seems to know who you are, and what you do.”

This morning’s radio interview was good, too; got pledges of 100 cans of food for the Food Pantry during the broadcast, and I hope there was more after I was off the air. We are going to define the success of the Christmas concert in terms of how much food we can raise for the Food Pantry, and I hope we get a lot. As this is written, the Failed Economy Christmas Show is less than 24 hours away.

Joe

TWO DAYS TILL THE CHRISTMAS SHOW...

Almost time to publish the 2010 Worklist; I’ll hold off one or two more issues of the blog, though, and let the Christmas concert get out of the way. Updates, first.

The “I see dead things” sweatshirt came out good—I only had to re-print the design four times to get that right, but it ironed on the sweatshirt just fine. I can wear it Saturday night at the Christmas show—if I dare. Lorelei, Polly, Beth and Joanne got their Joe Songbook packages; I have some more to make, but I need more labels (I can get those Friday, when I go into town to help daughter move). Whitney and Dawn, the ringleaders of Life’s SubtleTease, the burlesque troupe, are interested in doing another show (yay!).

I found normal guitar tablature for most of Bruce’s Christmas Potluck songs, and transposed them into the keys he sings ‘em in. I was sure it existed after I looked at Bruce’s sheet music for the Elvis song “Blue Christmas,” and found that full of diminished-ninths and flatted-elevenths and other “fruity” stuff, too—and I know the King didn’t use chords of more than one syllable, because I’ve seen him play on TV. (And I can play “Blue Christmas” myself using only four one-syllable chords.) Same for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”—it has only three chords, and there’s not a diminished-ninth among them.

The only song I couldn’t find normal tablature for was “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (not surprising, since it’s a Perry Como song—but why is Perry Como listed on the Internet as a “country guitarist”?).

And the Christmas Potluck gig did come across mostly okay. Bruce sang some, and I sang some; I think I do a better job of working a crowd, but that may be the result of my own paranoia—I don’t want to risk losing the audience’s attention, so I never give them a chance. My stuff is a little less conventional, and I noticed they were listening. Biggest hit of the evening (I was told so) was my rendition of “Santa, Baby.” I even got a scarf and bling-bling (from two ladies in the audience) to wear while I was singing it.

We were missing Chris the drummer; he’s been sick, and we hope he’ll be back in order by Saturday’s Christmas Show. There is no way to tell. This flu season has been real hard on a lot of people.

No word from the Tillamook Revitalization group, which I assume means I did not get the job. (Too bad; it would have been fun, I think, even though the pay would have been absolutely awful.) It’s okay; I’ve got a couple of applications in the pipeline (both city manager jobs, of all things) and a couple more to apply for. Come January, though, I think I might as well become a full-time student if I can figure out a way to afford the classes (and keep the mortgage paid); I am not doing anything productive spinning my wheels applying for jobs nobody wants me for.

I have decided—we’ll see how well I can pull it off—that I’m going to stop being dependent on the vagaries of reality. No, that’s not a return to the Glorious ‘60s (I lived a very sedate, normal kid’s life in the ‘60s, anyway); rather, I mean I’ll just go ahead and plan what I want to do, rather than waiting to see what happens with a job or anything else. If I want to go to Nashville for a week next summer (one of the things that was going to end up on the Worklist again), I’ll simply plan on it, and save up for it—and if Divine Intervention wants to throw any curve balls my way, I’ll deal with them as (and if) they happen.

I have developed (or re-developed) a number of things I can do—writing, graphic design, music, &c.—and have managed to get (or get back) a little bit of a reputation for it, I think. The Operative Question is whether it can generate an income—I could use one of those. Probably that should top the 2010 Worklist: “Figure out how to make a living off this stuff.”

Joe

MORE PRACTICE...

Practice with “Deathgrass” Saturday, and with what I think of as “Bruce’s band” (that’s Chris, John, and me, plus Bruce on keyboard) Sunday. As this is written, there are two days until we (Bruce’s band) perform at the City-Port Christmas potluck, four days till the second radio interview promoting the “Deathgrass” Christmas Show, and five days until the Show. Suddenly, time is flyin’ way too fast.

For the Christmas show, “Deathgrass” is ready. We went through the second half of the setlist, and every single song was good. Re-did “Test Tube Baby” to incorporate a few more Elvis touches, too. It’s tempting to have nightmares about people not showing up, but drummer Chris is right: it’s too late to worry about that—what happens, happens, and the important part is our being ready (which we are) and having fun (which I have no doubt we will do). Santa has promised to make an appearance, and so has Pastor Barry, proprietor of the Food Pantry. I’ve gotten apologetic e-mails from our local state representative (who is sending a donation), and our state senator and Congressman (who are not); Oregon’s two U.S. Senators have not deigned to respond (they didn’t last time, either).

With Bruce’s band, it’s mostly me that needs the work, I think. Bruce is a good musician, and a good bandleader, too, and John and Chris can both follow him easily, because they’re good, too. I will have to practice some to keep up. A lot of Bruce’s music is very jazzy, full of ninths and diminisheds, and flatted-elevenths and such ilk, and I’ll have to look a lot of those chords up (and download sheet music for the songs). Bruce does have a setlist (good) for the rough hour of music we’re going to do, and I’ve had him e-mail me what key they’re in (because I can’t tell, being mostly tone-deaf), so I can spend the next couple of days practicing.

The potluck set is all Christmas music, and does include three songs I sing (two of which I wrote): “I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas” (of course) and “Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up,” plus “Santa, Baby,” which Eartha Kitt made famous. For some reason, that one’s been getting requested a lot this Christmas season. (I’m sure it’s not because of my sexy singing voice.) Bruce wants me to sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun,” and I think I can do it. It’s in my voice range.

Another video idea: I noticed some people on Facebook (at least, I think they were people—you can’t ever tell with the Internet) gushing over the antics of their kittens. If I could get about five minutes’ footage—nice and clear—of a kitten doing generally destructive kitten things, that’s all I’d need to make a music video of “The Dog’s Song.” For the Rap, I could use still photos of Amy, our now-deceased big (4-1/2 feet at the shoulder) Doberman, who was kind of my role model for the dog in the song. Same technique I used in “Me and Rufus, and Burnin’ Down the House,” only (hopefully) better quality.

I had wanted “The Dog’s Song” to be on the Southern Pigfish album, and I want all the Southern Pigfish songs to be videos; that’s the album I want to release on flash drive rather than CD. I’d still like to use one of Mike Simpson’s middle-school bands to “play” Southern Pigfish on the videos, but it really doesn’t matter; since the players don’t really need to be identified, it could be anybody. Alternatively, one could take the same approach as the Grateful Dead—they were simply never photographed, for years. I never knew what they looked like until I saw them in concert. A similar “mystique” would work for Southern Pigfish. How can you photograph a band that doesn’t exist?

Joe