THE GHOST HOLE (AGAIN)...

Performed again at the Ghost Hole here in Garibaldi (two blocks from the house), and again, it was just two of us. I concentrated on uptempo numbers, since the other fellow doesn’t do any (he said he’s working on it, though—he did notice the crowd liked them), and he did lots of Neil Young and Bob Dylan. He’s got a couple of originals that are a real good fit with what he does, and I complimented him on them—they really are better than most of the Neil Young stuff. He should do more. And again, we split the tips (and there was more money this time).

The one song of mine the audience insisted on us playing again was “Naked Space Hamsters in Love.” I think that one may need to be part of the setlist for the Red Room gig if bar crowds react that way to it. It’s very fast bluegrass, and a punk-rock band can do it—it was a favorite of Screamin’ Gulch when I played with them. With both the bass player and drummer in our Red Room Band coming from punk backgrounds, it’d be good to accommodate them. We would sound better.

Ghost Hole Guy hasn’t had a lot of luck in attracting more musicians to his “jam session,” probably because most of the musicians he knows are out of the area, and I probably should do my part to help. I do know a couple of folks in town, and I can announce it at the Friday Night Group’s get-together this week, too. I don’t know if folks’ll come, but they definitely can’t come if they don’t know about it. (I probably should do a few posters, too. The ones that are up are handwritten and very hokey.) Live music needs to be promoted wherever possible, I think; in these troubled times, people will be looking closer to home for entertainment, and it is the job of the entertainers to make sure they find it.

For the venue, the question—and answer—are simple. Does it, whatever “it” is, bring in more customers? If it does, it’s a good thing. The Ghost Hole is a good place to try this; it’s one of four bars in town, and the only one with a little sort-of stage (left over from when they used to have live music on the weekends). None of the others has live music of any kind at any time (one has a karaoke machine). Our old rock ‘n’ roll “band” at the Ghost Hole three years ago—just five guys who got together to play on the weekend—brought enough customers into the bar that other bars were trying to hire us to play for them. It could be made to happen again.

The lesson? Take a big (or long, or wide—however you want to express it) view. How does what you do fit into a bigger picture? Is it possible to take advantage of something that’s going on? It’s a little like 100 years ago noticing an increasing demand for automobiles and realizing you know how to repair tires.

The “Broken Record” master has arrived, so now we’re in Production Mode. New cartridge for the [expletive deleted] Lexmark printer, and enough CDs, cases, and glossy paper (for the covers) to do the job. And a whole day to work on it. I am assuming it will be a labor-intensive task, but I’ll get to see which parts could feasibly be hired out if I were doing this for a living.

More to-dos: A copy of the Joe Songbook to make—I’ll see Fred Friday night. Music Friday night, Saturday (band practice), and Sunday at the Forestry Center. Parts to record for Country Rose’s latest radio play (I’ll be the narrator this time), and the “Ackerman cuts” for the Five Dollar Album—and Beth Williams’ “Kidney Stone Blues.” I meet with the Bay City Arts Center’s Board of Directors Monday night to discuss the possiblity of a Joe Concert.

Still have the Red Room concert to promote, too. I haven’t done much yet, because I’ve been waiting for the band to sound good enough to promote. I did join Facebook, and announce the gig there and on MySpace; I still need to send out a memo to the “joelist”—but not many of those folks are in the Portland area, either. How do I reach more people in Portland? One possibility is to hit up the music stores—not the Guitar Center types so much as the little hole-in-the-wall shops where owners and customers might listen to something besides the latest Top Twenty on the radio—and personally leave them posters. And then what? Press releases to the press? Would that be less of a lost cause if I included a CD? (I’m down to five now. I’ll have to get more.)

Joe