WHILE WE WAIT...

Last blog, I think, before I go down to southern Oregon for Labor Day. As usual, there are some things that didn’t pan out:

I don’t get to play at the City of Central Point Labor Day concert. (I will get a free ticket to the concert, though.) No Ashland Beanery gig, either—they’re no longer having live music (that’s probably because Chris Parreira, who’s been doing the booking for them, is leaving town—in fact, he’ll have just moved).

I still have the Saturday concert in Central Point 8/30, and the Wild Goose the following night, but that’s it. On the job front, I still think Falls City is going to hire me as their city manager (that may be wishful thinking, but a second interview is a good sign); however, they haven’t told me anything yet. And I need to decide pretty quick whether I’m going to be a full-time college student or a part-time college student; if I’m part-time, I’’m not eligible for any of the student loan money the college is offering (Federal regulations)--I’ll be paying for the tuition and books out of my retirement fund.

No word yet on either the Goodnight Kiss Music contest or the Philippine Christmas album. Waitin’ on a lot of things.

So what do we do while we wait? (Can’t just wait. Might worry.) A few more songs to record the music for, plus another of mine—just a little ditty (short drive in the car) for lyricist Beth Williams, who’s had some medical problems. Hight “I Broke My Girlfriend.” Does have a nice calypso beat—and I can play calypso music on the guitar (I just don’t do it often). Maybe I’ll have Southern Pigfish record that one—they’re good for off-the-wall stuff.

Did music to another song by somebody else—“Sometimes She Could Scream,” by a lady in The Netherlands. Very poignant lyrics about a woman leaving her husband, but told in the third person (so it can be sung by a guy). Good subject matter for country music. Country music isn’t utilized enough for discussing social issues, but it’s more literate than other genres and more usable for telling stories. And you can play around effectively with contrasts—I think I like that best. So the song got an almost bouncy melody (somebody called it “lilting”) to go with those sad, sad lyrics—but the bass (in the background) is just playing a heartbeat, over and over. Kind of epitomizes the classic definition of country music—Pain You Can Dance To. I’d like to do more of that.

I doubt my “niche” in the music business is going to be as a composer, but I like to help people, and if what I do can help get them some attention, great. It does give me an outlet for whatever seriousness I have in my nature; I don’t have to do it, because they’re doing it, and I get to play along, as it were. And I can concentrate on the funnier stuff.

Lot of feedback on “Evil Dead Fairies in My Mobile Home,” the Norwegian Black/Death Metal song, and a lot of it was good. I was told the third verse is weak (I agree, and will re-write it), and I could be more ghastly in my imagery (first time anybody’s told me that). I don’t think I’ll drop the country-boy image, though, even though I’m told it’ll make the song come across like a satire of NBDM. It sounds like the NBDM guys (haven’t seen a girl yet) take themselves way too seriously, and if that’s the case, they need their icons torpedoed a little bit.

So, as summer ends, we’ve done a fair amount of stuff: a bunch of new songs, plus music for other folks’ songs, and we have (or will have) taken a stab at rap, and Norwegian Black/Death Metal, and calypso, and folk-rock, and something jazzy, as well as the “traditional” country music that’s kind of Home Base.

And the lesson in all this? Versatility is good. The more things you can do—and the more people are aware of it—the greater the likelihood somebody’s going to call you and ask you to do something. Back in the days when there were album covers, and liner notes that listed all the musicians who played on each song, you’d see a lot of the same names showing up over and over—the same bass player would show up on a rock album, a country album, and so forth. I want to do the same thing with writing.

Any money in that? Don’t know yet. Another thing I’m waitin’ on, I guess.

Joe

NORWEGIAN BLACK/DEATH METAL?

A Norwegian Black/Death Metal song? Sure. Why not? This was going to be in response to a challenge, but I haven’t seen the challenge announced yet; in the meantime, a heavy-metal band whose bass player I know has expressed interest in recording the song once it’s finished (a nice compliment) and wants me to play electric banjo on the recording (another nice compliment). So the project has gone forward.

The song has lyrics now (the result of another long drive in the car), and I’ve sent them to the bass player for his review. I’ve also posted them on Songstuff, the British writers’ site I subscribe to, and have gotten some constructive feedback there. The song is a sort of synthesis between death metal and country, really. Hight “Evil Dead Fairies in My Mobile Home.” It’s got a dog (missing and presumed dead), and a truck (not working), but also a graveyard; no vampires per se, but there’s an ex-wife (and that’s close). Three chords, which is one more than most Norwegian Black/Death Metal songs seem to have.

It’s probably characterizable as satire, much like the rap “Alphabet Without U” was. Not really expecting this one to go anywhere—just a fun, different thing to do. If John’s band wants to add it to their repertoire, great. I’ll have raised the bar a little bit for the quality of NBDM music (and that bar has been pretty low).

It has been a pretty productive summer, despite living alone most of the time: most of the songs have been “keepers,” and they’ve been coming faster than the one-a-month-on-average I say I’m comfortable with. Starting with the most recent, in (I think) 4-1/2 months time there’s been six that are not only good “performables,” but potentially album material:

Dead Fishes
When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies
21 Steamer Drive
Something’s Missing
Electronic Love
Twenty Saddles for My Chicken

Not playable in public, but still characterizable as “keepers,” are the two Southern Pigfish songs, “For Their Own Ends” and “Bedpans for Brains,” and the rap, “Alphabet Without U”—plus I did music for another Beth Williams song, “Bad Sock, Good Sock.” Creatively, we’re doing okay. At this rate, I could end up with enough material for another album before the last one gets finished.

And now that I’m back with the recording equipment, I’ve got two more songs to do music for. I love being busy at this stuff.

Nine days until the Labor Day Weekend concert; I have a setlist, but it may change (I should include “When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies” for the little kids). I’ll plan on being at the Wild Goose (and they’ll get three of the sleazier new songs) the night after.

What else? There will probably only be other opportunities to play in southern Oregon if I arrange them—they’re not going to happen automatically. (That’s probably the lesson this week.) To that end, I’ve contacted the city manager in Central Point (at one point, he’’d said there might be a slot available in their Labor Day festivities). The Ashland Beanery (small, intimate coffee shop) still has that weekend available (I’d want Friday night)—and that would be a 2-hour solo performance, a good opportunity to test out all the new material. What I’d still want to fit in somehow, if it could be arranged, is more work on the album, if Wayne the sound engineer is available.

ON OTHER FRONTS, no word from the Goodnight Kiss Music contest; it may simply be too early, but there’s nothing to worry about—everything that could be done has been done, and there’s nothing to do but wait. I haven’t seen the liner notes from the Philippine Christmas album—I got sent a file, but can’t open it. Reportedly, the album will be issued not on CD, but on a thumb drive—cutting-edge technology, but they say the market is ready for it over there. (I’m not sure it is in the United States.)

Joe

AND NOW, DEAD FISHES...

Back at the Squirrel House, with a lot of work to do. Gone two weeks, and the lawn’s two feet high again, and the blackberries are coming back. I lose two days from house work this coming week, because Falls City is calling me back for another interview (hopeful sign) and I’m moving my daughter into her dorm. And I still have the kitchen sink to replace (which I have been procfrastinating about).

First task on getting back to the recording equipment was to record “21 Steamer Drive” and “When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies.” Both came out decent. On both, I’ve got the guitar doing three things—a standard rhythm, plinks on the upper end of the high strings, and bass runs on the low strings. I think this is becoming a standard pattern as long as I’m forced to work alone. I used the acoustic guitar for everything on “21 Steamer Drive,” but used the Strat for the fancy stuff on “When They Die”—it’s easier to do lead work high up on that long, long neck, because your fingers can move faster when the frets are closer together.

I have another new song, currently getting peer review over at Just Plain Folks; I’ll record it after I see whether anybody recommends any changes to the lyrics. This one tackles a serious issue—pollution—in “traditional Joe” fashion, with a bouncy, fast-moving, happy-sounding beat. If I have a serious message to convey, I want to get the listeners’ feet moving first; with luck, their hearts and minds will follow.

Hight (tentatively) “Dead Fishes.” (Audiences, when they hear it, may come up with a better titie.) And here’s how we got there. I am always interested in where inspiration comes from, because mine almost always comes from outside. In this case, it was another challenge: a lyricist I know had asked folks to build a song around a couple of couplets he’d written. Very Elizabethan-type stuff, with rural imagery of plowman in the field watching crops grow and waiting for his reward in Heaven, and it reminded me I had wanted a long time ago to set some of Henry VIII’s poetry to music. (“Hank the Wife-Slayer,” as he’s known in literary circles, was actually quite a good poet.)

I had an Elizabethan-style chorus by the time I finished the next long drive in the car. My “plowman,” though, is dead; the story’s told by his grandson, a young kid, growing up in a landscape that doesn’t grow anything, but that’s all he knows, wondering what grandpa was so concerned about (and also wondering why the fish are dying). There’s some memories of my own childhood in there, too; Syracuse, New York, a middling-size industrialized city, was a lot like that, with brightly-colored creeks and landscapes that looked positively alien (there was even a local lake that would dissolve the bottoms of metal boats). And my grandfather had a farm (not close to town), and I spent a lot of summers there.

The “challenge” couplets didn’t fit the music by the time I was done (and it’s the music that drives these things), but I incorporated as much of the imagery as I could. The result, I think, is “Elizabethan bluegrass”—Elizabethan because of the lyrics, and bluegrass because of the music. I could see a band performing this with 16th-century instruments—and I do know some people who play those instruments, but they’re all in Ashland (over 300 miles away) and while I’ll be seeing some of them in two weeks, I probably need to record the song now. The melody’s too catchy, and I have to clear my head for other things. It may be possible to do an “authentic” version later.

And we’ll see what people think. I think this could work a lot like the anti-war song, “No Good Songs About the War,” in that the sentiments are a little unexpected, though the sound is the same, and if you were used to my material, it might make you think. (The goal of all the songs is to get people to think.) I’m not sure how well that works for somebody who isn’t familiar with the “traditional Joe” stuff. I hope it doesn’t come across as just another social-issues rant. There are plenty of those out there, and I don’t need to be adding to the total.

And it is about dead animals, after all—fish, in this case. In fact, I can probably introduce the song by just saying, “And this one’s about dead fishes…”

Joe

LAST DAY HOME, FOR A WHILE...

Last day home, for a while; wife’s car has a new power steering pump, mine’s getting a new alternator, and daughter’s getting new brakes. And once again, vehicles have eaten my bank account.

(There is probably a song in that—but a lot of people have been writing songs lately with that same theme. I already have one, from well over a year ago, “Talkin’ Overpriced Coffee and Gasoline Blues,” and I’ll probably leave it at that. It predicted $4-a-gallon gas way before it happened. I don’t want to be prophetic any more about things like that.)

I have instead gone back to my roots—“roots” in this case being happy, bouncy, danceable little ditties about death. The result is “When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies.” It got pretty good peer review, and I’ll record it when I get back to the Squirrel House. I’ll also ask the band if they’re comfortable having it on the setlist for the Labor Day Weekend concert, and let it be their call. It’ll be a family crowd there in Central Point’s Robert Pfaff Park, and while I’m pretty sure the kids would love the song, I’m not at all sure how the parents would react.

The music publisher in California has the three contest-entry songs from Marge and myself--they cashed the checks. Guess we’re in the running. I got myself on these guys’ mailing list about four years ago, and have managed to stay there despite a lot of moving around and changing of e-mail addresses. It’s a worthwhile place to be.

Their “contests” are for the purpose of obtaining material for somebody-or-other’s album for which the publisher doesn’t have enough of the right songs already in the “catalog.” At that point, a call goes out to the mailing list (which I’m on). Winner of the “contest” gets their song on the album. In this case, they’re trying to fill three slots, I understand, so there may be three winners. I have tried to send them material frequently enough so they’ll remember who I am, and infrequently enough (and close enough to what they ask for) to not be bothersome—always a danger in this business. What I send them is always in response to a call, however; like most publishers, these guys don’t accept unsolicited material.

I’m not sure there’s a lesson in this yet—nothing’s panned out yet. If there is, it’s part of the “you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket” rule. It is necessary to be everywhere, in other words, letting as many people as possible know who you are and what you do (and maybe also what you can do for them). And not stop, of course.

I was trying to explain city planning to a colleague recently, and was emphasizing the importance of vision—what former President Ronald Reagan used to call “the city on the hill.” First, you gotta show ‘em the city on the hill, he maintained—then you (and they) can figure out how to get there. City planners tend to look out 20 years, asking what kind of community do people want to have 20 years from now. I can’t apply the 20-year window to myself; in 20 years, I’ll be almost 79 years old (if I’m in fact still around). But what about FIVE years? Is it possible to reasonably say where I want to be (as the Beatles put it) when I’m 64?

I won’t be retired yet (my wife says I may never retire because I like my work too much). I expect I’ll be playing a lot more music, though—a paying gig every weekend and a full summer Concert Season are probably not too outrageous to expect. An album a year, with both retail and internet sales, is probably doable, too. More connections in Nashville—not for myself so much as for the publishing business’s clients. I’d like to help somebody else become a success. (And I sure do know a lot of good writers now—nearly all of them unsigned and unrecognized.)

As far as getting signed to a record label myself, I don’t think I’d hold my breath (or anyone else’s breath, for that matter). In five years, the record industry as we know it will probably have morphed into something different, or been replaced by something different if it proved too resistant to change. With luck, there’s places for more writers in that New Order than there is now. That’s the part I can’t control.

Good arguments, I guess, for staying as visible as possible. As my friend and fellow writer (and Nashville resident) Bobbie Gallup puts it, “It’s not who you know—it’s who knows you.”

Joe

CONCERT, ET AL...

Another blog away from—well, not exactly home, because I am home, but away from “Alice” the ‘puter, who’s still 125 miles away at the Squirrel House. Can’t wait to get back, but it’s because I have a lot of work to do.

Not just finishing the work on the house, either; I have “21 Steamer Drive” to record (I’ve worked out the music—only four chords, though it sounds like jazz), and a Stan Good song, “Stay-cation,” to do music for and record. There’s another lyricist interested in my setting her stuff to music (she said I came recommended, which is nice). And another set of programs to do for the Southern Oregon Songwriters’ concert series.

Job interview went well; I was the only person they interviewed, so it will come down to a “yes Joe” or “no Joe” on their part, and I’m resolved to be comfortable with whichever way it goes. It is a nice little town, and I could be happy there.

I got from a girl rocker I know in England (the Internet is a marvelous place sometimes) links to Norwegian Black/Death Metal bands, so I can steep myself in the genre preparatory to writing That Song—and I have arranged to have my banjo electrified when I go down to southern Oregon to visit Labor Day weekend (John, the heavy metal bass player who has offered to record it, is excited, and I’m excited to see what recording stuff he’s got and how he uses it).

One concomitant of being away from (mostly) everybody and everything is I’ve got to explore a bunch of different genres I’ve never worked in before. I’ve written a jazzy song (not the first, but way better than the last one I did five years ago), one burlesque, a couple of folk-rockers for Southern Pigfish, a rap, and now I’m seriously going to tackle metal. All in the last three months, too, and on top of doing a couple of “traditional” country songs.

I have a band (maybe) for the 30 August concert—Dan Doshier playing lead (mandolin and fiddle, I think) and a friend of his on standup bass. I like how bands seem to just kind of develop around these things. Setlist for the concert looks like:

Dead Things in the Shower (mod. fast country)
Hey, Little Chicken (sleazy blues)
Armadillo on the Interstate (slow and sleazy)
Bluebird on My Windshield (fast bluegrass)
I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas (mod. slow country)

Since it’ll be a family crowd in Central Point’s city park, I figured going entirely with dead-animal songs would be appropriate. Gotta have something for the kids, as it were.

One place I want to make sure to go while I’m in southern Oregon is the Wild Goose in Ashland, for their historic Sunday night open mike. For them, I can be real sleazy, and I’ll do stuff they haven’t heard yet:

Electronic Love (Internet porn)
Something’s Missing (identity theft), and
21 Steamer Drive (my real estate ad)

If there’s a band (and there might be—most or all of the Penguins on a Rock band may go to this, and I know most of them), I think I want to do the Southern Pigfish song, “Bedpans for Brains,” instead of “21 Steamer Drive.” I think a band could do this just great—and it would definitely be a surprise for the crowd. I doubt they’ve ever heard anything like it before.

Lessons in all this? (There are always lessons.) Be versatile, for starters. Don’t hesitate to try new things. You don’t know what’s going to be successful, and you have to keep your name Out There somehow. And do favors for people. Karma does work.

Joe

MAROONED...

Well, it’s not exactly “marooned.” I am at home in Garibaldi for most of the next week, and I have no car, but that’s because my wife’s is in the shop, and she’s got mine. I will be driving out to the Squirrel House for just a few hours tomorrow, to pick up my dress suit, because I do have a job interview—Falls City did call (so much for predicting the future). I’ll plan on doing SOSA’s concert programs for next Saturday while I’m there; “Alice” the computer is still there, and has not only all the graphic-design and photo-manipulation software, but also the template for the programs from last week.

So do I know what I’m doing? Not any more. If Falls City offers me the job as their city manager (and I refuse to get my hopes up—I’ve been rejected too many times by too many places), I’ll be moving there. I’ll probably have a maximum of three weeks (maybe less) to finish work on the Squirrel House, find a place to live in Falls City, move belongings and furniture to Falls City, help my daughter move into her dorm room at college, AND go down to southern Oregon for the Labor Day weekend concert (which hopefully will be concerts, not just one). I will be a very busy person. (On the other hand, I have had plenty of rest over the past 4-1/2 months.)

And if I don’t get the job, I’ll be living on the Coast, as originally planned, and being a full-time college student (which would get me the bachelor’s degree in roughly 18 months). In both cases, I’ll be doing the same things musically—setting up the publishing company, finishing off the album, and trying generally to make a name for myself wherever I am. And over five months of unemployed-and-thinking-‘bout-stuff, I have set myself out a pretty ambitious list of things I want to accomplish. It is time to do them.

“21 STEAMER DRIVE”: The lyrics for “21 Steamer Drive” got a lot of peer review, and universally favorable reactions—not bad for what was intended to be a spur-of-the-moment, “throwaway” song. A real estate ad, really. People want to hear it recorded, so I’ll have to do that. What I’d envisioned for music (and as yet have not tried to play) is something fairly jazzy (reminiscent of the Sons of the Pioneers in one of their more Benny Goodman moments), with a sick-sounding clarinet doing the lead. I don’t play clarinet—but I do know a local girl, one of my daughter’s high school friends, who does. I don’t know to what extent she can do improvisation, without sheet music—people who’ve had formal musical training tend to end up dependent on sheet music, and it’s unfortunate.

JEWS HARP FESTIVAL: The North American Jews Harp Festival was fun, and it was nice to see everybody again. A lot of them did remember me despite a three-year absence, which was nice. The impromptu “band scramble” band insisted on doing a Joe song, so we played “Armadillo on the Interstate,” and I got to be part of the stage show that night, doing “Hey, Little Chicken,” “The Termite Song,” and “Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus,” all with Denise Harrington doing Jews harp lead. Sold a CD, too (always have CDs available).

NEW PROJECT: A call on one of the writers’ Websites I subscribe to for a “Norwegian Black/Death Metal” song, with Satan in the title and a lot of swear words in the lyrics, and my response was “Why not? I haven’t done that before.” I’ll have to bleep out the swear words, of course (they are Words You Can’t Use in a Country Music Song, and I won’t use them no matter what genre I’m playing), but the bleeps will make it rhyme, won’t they? And I might as well poke fun at the Devil himself—that’s one icon I haven’t torpedoed yet. Definitely his turn in the dunk tank.

Singing (actually, I think you’re supposed to shout if it’s Norwegian Black/Death Metal) in Norwegian is probably beyond me, but I could do it in German—I had five years of German in high school and college—and if the volume is as loud as I understand it’s supposed to be, maybe no one will notice. To make sure the lyrics make as little sense as possible, I think I’ll write them in English first, and then use the “Babelfish” program to translate them into German and back to English; Babelfish’s translations are generally hilarious--almost slapstick comedy for a wordsmith.

I was going to have Southern Pigfish record this—but ran into a bona fide heavy-metal band that are actually interested in doing it, provided I’ll play electric banjo. They said they’d always wanted an electric banjo in the band, because nobody else has one—and as for me, well, why not? I have a banjo, and I can electrify it, and I understand my inability to play it is not going to be an issue here…

Joe

PREPARING TO MOVE (AGAIN)...

Just a few thoughts, because I actually get some musical stuff accomplished, for a change. The entries have been sent to the Goodnight Kiss Music contest (their deadline was 31 July)—“Rotten Candy” by me, and “So Far” and “About Love” by Marge McKinnis (lyrics) and me (music). I think all three songs are perfect for this girl singer, but we’ll see what the publisher thinks.

Designed the program for the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn.’s first summer concert; attractive 4-pager, in black-and-white so it’s easy to print—and it’s a template that will work well for all the other summer concerts (there will be three more—I’ll be playing at the last one, Labor Day weekend). Three of the photos in the brochure are mine, too. I do miss graphic-design work.

Southern Pigfish’s songs have not gotten a lot of attention. There’s two of them “out” now, the folk-rock “For Their Own Ends” and the country love song, “Bedpans for Brains,” and I’m working on a third. And maybe it should be part of the band’s persona that they don’t care about feedback. They’re not going to promote; they’ll just Be There. Of course, I’ll announce it when I write another song for ‘em (and I’ll definitely announce it when I have their album finished—I’m going to be the publisher, after all).

Today, en route to the Coast, the Tillamook Cheese Factory is going to get one of the “Santa’s Fallen” CDs. My daughter works in the gift shop there, and tells me the biggest items in demand by the tourists are the local things—and they ask about local music. The gift shop has plenty of CDs for sale, but not one is local, and the tourists don’t buy them. Is there an opportunity there? The lady who buys the music will be there today. I can get her as many CDs as she wants, obviously, and I’ll even pay to have them shrink-wrapped. (I don’t shrink-wrap the CDs I sell at gigs, because people always seem to want ‘em autographed.)

So, as I prepare to move back to the Oregon Coast (first load of belongings goes with me today), what am I looking forward to? I’ll be not working, I’ll be a full-time college student (but taking most of my classes on line), and I will have very little money—what I have will go mostly to tuition and books. I’ll probably get a “you want fries with that?” student-type job if there are any available (jobs are really hard to come by on the Coast—the economy there has been in a shambles for 30-odd years). I will have time to play music, but probably no money to travel with.

Resources available include the Friday Night Group, a bunch of venues that still haven’t been tapped about having live music, one local recording studio (and a friend of mine, a heavy-metal bass player, is building one in his house—I may see him a lot). And a bunch of local businesses that would probably sell the next CD if I asked ‘em. I won’t have a band until I put one together or hook up with one (and I know from experience that takes time)—but being able to be a small-time music publisher might put me in touch with a lot of local musicians. So publishing is one thing I’ll definitely need to pursue in my spare time.

Still thinking about that publishing class. The ideal format, I think, would be a lecture-and-questions thing—on line, of course: I’d post a thingie, and then people could post comments or ask questions, with the comments and questions and answers all being public, so everybody in the “class” could see them. (A lot of college classes are conducted this way, these days.)

Not sure where to do it; Whitby Shores would be ideal, because so many of the people are so active monitoring each other’s stuff, but I’m not sure the technology exists there—there’s a “comments” feature, but it’s, like, one line long—not enough to ask detailed questions or give detailed answers. MySpace has the technology, but you have to deal with the whole annoying becoming-a-member and setting-up-a-page and getting-“friends” thing—it’s worse than registering for college.

We’ll see. I still have to get my thoughts organized on this.

Joe