3 DAYS TILL GARIBALDI DAYS...

Three days till Garibaldi Days… The DVDs of last Saturday’s Ashland public television shows are done—I should have them in a week, and will get to see how they came out. I know that what Darrin and I, and emcee T-Poe, did in the studio was good; what I don’t know is how it came out on “tape.” The Tillamook County Library System are the latest folks to request copies.

The Garibaldi Days program is printed, and looks okay. (Next time, though, I’ll make sure to use a front-page photo that doesn’t go all pixelly when blown up.) People are making copies of pieces of it and posting them around town, and I hope that means they liked the job, too. It was fun—but I have told everybody in creation that if I do this again, we are starting earlier and we will have a firm (and early) deadline.

Another job application sent off—this one to be city manager in the little city of Gold Hill, 16 miles up-freeway from Phoenix, where I used to work, and just outside the burgeoning Medford metro area. Three state jobs, too. Still to apply for: a financial-guru job at the local cheese factory, and two more public-sector ones—a city planner position and a city recorder one, both out of town. I am turning over every rock possible to see if there’s a paycheck hiding under it.

One of the Nashville music publishers I’m now on the mailing list for sent out a call for material for a new Darius Rucker album, so I spent a little time listening to Rucker’s stuff, most of which he apparently writes himself. It’s “modern country,” I guess—stuff that would have been considered rock music 30 years or so ago—but I did run across one song that had a bluegrassy feel to it (even had a banjo playing in the background). So the publisher got sent “Rotten Candy,” the [drum roll] Song That Was Rejected By American Idol in 2007. It is probably my most commercially viable song; it was written, after all, deliberately to comply with every single one of Nashville’s songwriting rules as I knew them—including the ones that didn’t make any sense. And it’s definitely bluegrassy.

All I could send the publisher, though, was a draft recording (the industry would call it a “mixtape”) done on the Tascam. The vocals and guitars (rhythm and lead) are okay, but it’s not the “full band treatment” one is supposed to send folks like this, and I don’t know how it’ll be received. When the band practices the song for our Garibaldi Days concert (it’s on the setlist) we should record it at the same time. I can add the lead guitar—maybe even Electric Banjo—later, and then we’ll have a Real Demo. Suitable for the album, in fact (“Rotten Candy” is one of the songs on that list, too). The lesson (there are always lessons): I should “demoify” every song that’s got the potential to get recorded or performed by somebody else. You never know when you’re going to need it.

The Garibaldi Days Rap doesn’t need to be written; it’s already done (I apparently did it before I went on Road Trip #2, and then forgot I’d done so). All I have to do is memorize and rehearse it. The band will practice Wednesday afternoon and evening, and Friday afternoon. We’re allocating enough time to go through the 2-hour setlist at least twice each session. Dick has heard all the songs, John all but one, and Chris about half of them, and all three are very good at what they do. I am not anticipating we’ll have to spend a lot of time on the material.

Still to do: Posters for the band’s Garibaldi Days concert. Programs for the next SOSA concert (it’s two weeks away, but I promised I’d have them done early). And another column for the newspaper (my third). And the demo to finish for the Dylan-song contest in England. The base track (rhythm guitar, vocal, bass and drums) is done, I think; just need to add lead guitar and blues harp. That one’s destined for the album, too, so the recording can do double duty.

Joe