WELCOME...

This blog is the outgrowth of a songwriting workshop I conducted at the 2006 "Moograss" Bluegrass Festival in Tillamook, Oregon. It presumes that after 30-odd years of writing and playing music, I might have something to contribute that others might take advantage of. If not, it may be at least a record of an entertaining journey, and a list of mistakes others may be able to avoid repeating. This blog is intended to be updated weekly. In addition to discussions about WRITING, it will discuss PROMOTION--perhaps the biggest challenge for a writer today--as well as provide UPDATES on continuing PROJECTS, dates and venues for CONCERTS as they happen, how and where to get THE LATEST CD, the LINKS to sites where LATEST SONGS are posted, and a way to E-MAIL ME if you've a mind to. Not all these features will show up right away. Like songwriting itself, this is a work in progress. What isn't here now will be here eventually. Thank you for your interest and your support.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

SCHEDULE & CO-WRITES...

One of the folks who’d reviewed this year’s Christmas song, “Song for Polly and Glyn (A Man for Christmas),” told me he’d listened, and re-listened, thinking “There has to be a dead reindeer in here somewhere.” I think I just got given the lead-in for next year’s Christmas song. Thank you.

Spec’d out a recording schedule with John; tentatively, we’ll do the scratch tracks for the album Jan. 23 & 24, with me (guitar and vocal), him (bass), and Chris (drums). John says his portable recorder can hold the whole dozen songs without trouble. He wants to do the Southern Pigfish songs at the same time (and I’m game). Goal is to have both albums done by September, which would be in time for the Christmas market.

Lynn Orloff’s “Wildflowers” is musicated. Bluegrassy—though it can’t be true bluegrass, because nobody dies in the last verse—and almost a polka (but not quite fast enough). You’re not supposed to have electric guitars in bluegrass music, so I put one in anyway—the lead is done on the Strat. And Lynn liked it.

It is another of those songs that really should be sung by a girl—the fourth in a row of those, in fact. The so-called “Underground Joe Club,” which maintains they like the kinkiness of an old, fat guy singing sexy girl tunes, would no doubt be pleased. (Lynn would like to arrange to have it recorded by a girl—ideally, Polly Hager—before taking it public. I understand and agree.)

That brings up to 17 (I think) the number of people whose songs I’ve musicated: April Johns, Beth Williams, Betty Holt, Bill Osofsky, Derek Hines, Diane Ewing, Don Varnell, Donna Devine, Gem Watson, Jody Dickey, Jon Harrington, Lynn Orloff, Marge McKinnis, Odd Vindstad, Polly Hager, Regina Michelle, Stan Good… I’m sure there’s a couple I’ve missed. Add in Bobbie Gallup and Scott Rose, with whom I’ve co-written things that I’ve also done the music for, and it’s 19. Some of those were one-shot deals, some two; with Stan, it’s been many. In each case, they were great lyrics (I have high standards). These are good writers.

The Industry Professionals say you have to co-write if you’re going to make it in Nashville; the “co-writing fever” seems driven by people wanting pieces of the writers’ copyright fees more than anything else (and the result—songs that sound like they were written by committee—isn’t pleasant)—but having multiple authors each trying to pitch the song to everybody they know obviously multiplies marketing efforts, too. I just think being able to work with others is a useful skill to have.

I am providing a useful service to the lyricists (there’s the Virgo rising again—I must provide useful service). Lyrics alone just aren’t marketable any more—one has to have a finished product (despite all that “co-writing fever” in Nashville)—so I can provide an effective (I hope) delivery system for the lyrics that gives the lyricist something he or she can pitch. There are benefits to me, of course. I never have to write anything serious (and I’m paranoid about writing serious stuff—words are weapons, after all, and mine tend to be sharp), because these other folks are doing it—and I can assuage my serious tendencies by musicating their serious stuff. And I can preserve my reputation as the guy who doesn’t take anything seriously, because even if I’m performing their stuff, it’s their stuff, not mine.

More stuff to do—mostly from a paperwork setup standpoint: I want the income taxes ready to be filed right away, and the “FAFSA”—the document every college uses for student financial aid—ready to go as soon as the taxes are done. I get to wrestle, too, with the State of Oregon’s brand-new job application system, that appears designed deliberately to cut down on the number of people they have to interview. (I like challenges.) Another radio spot (tomorrow), thanking everybody for their donations to the Food Pantry and for coming to the Christmas Show. No music this week, but maybe I can play Sunday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday next week.

Joe

Sunday, December 27, 2009

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

Saturday, December 26, 2009

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

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

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

Saturday, December 19, 2009

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

Friday, December 18, 2009

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

Thursday, December 17, 2009

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

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

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

Friday, December 11, 2009

TO DO: DVDS & A WEBSITE...

One way to keep warm while it’s bitterly cold outside is to clean; got daughter, cousin and daughter’s boyfriend coming this weekend, and wanted to be partway presentable. So I verified the upstairs does have a floor, and it is now clean, and things are organized and put away. Job interview this afternoon, music at City Hall tonight, band practice Saturday, and practice again on Sunday with Chris (drums), John (bass), and Bruce (keyboard)—we’ve been invited to play at the City-Port Christmas potluck Dec. 16, three days before the big Christmas concert, and none of us have ever played with Bruce before.

Turns out our newest Port Commissioner is a personal friend of Jane Scott (the video lady), which I found out when I covered the Port Commission meeting for the paper—so Port Commissioner Sarah got a Christmas concert flyer to pass on to Jane, who hasn’t been returning phone calls. Still a couple more newspapers I can e-mail flyers and press releases to, though time is getting short; as this is written, the concert is only eight days away.

I found (while doing some housecleaning of my own) complete copies—printed both sides—of the old “Joe is Great!” brochure. The back side, which I was missing before, has a panel of cogent quotes from reviewers, which I’ll probably keep, the famous “Wanted in 6 states for playing bad country music” poster-turned-logo designed by my daughter, and a photo of me with the impromptu band that won a band scramble contest at one of the “Moograss” bluegrass festivals (we were paid in cheese). I’d probably substitute a photo of “Deathgrass”—I’ve got a good one—but the layout of the brochure is good, and doesn’t need to be changed. I hate re-inventing things, anyway.

I don’t have an immediate need for the “Joe is Great!” brochure, but Getting Heard, my 1970s “operating manual” for working bands, says I should have one. It’s just one of the tools I need to have in my toolbox, along with CDs (check), 8x10 glossy promotional photo (check), letterhead (check) and business cards (check). I’d add one more tool, that hadn’t yet been invented when the manual was written, and that’s DVDs. If you’re soliciting gigs, what better way to tell somebody what a live performance by you or your band is like than to say, “Watch this”?

I have DVDs of the two public-television shows of my stuff the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. arranged in Ashland, but I don’t have a way to copy them (yet—I do have a DVD-R drive for “Alice,” that I haven’t installed). What would be ideal, though, would be a couple of video clips (one song, if necessary), filmed before a live audience, one clip with me playing solo, and one with the band. A couple of solo performances by me have been videotaped in the past, at the Bay City Arts Center, but I’ve never seen the tapes (though I’ve asked). And if Jane would videotape the Christmas concert, I’d have video of the band.

That’s something that needs to be on the 2010 work list—VIDEO. I want the performance videos above, and also music videos done of some of my songs. I am anxious to try out the technique I think I puzzled out—recording the song first, and then having the band lip-synch (and finger-synch) to it. A few of my songs lend themselves really well to videography; for the rest, filming a performance by the band probably works well enough. One can be tastefully restrained—Porter Wagoner’s “Committed to Parkview” was just shot in what looked like an abandoned nursing home, with no special effects at all. (It was even in black and white.)

Oh, and a Joe Website—that’s another 21st-century item that wasn’t in the 1970s operating manual. I already have most of the pieces: the “joelist” of e-mail addresses, a couple of OMDs where songs are archived, and the blog. I need to create a “clearinghouse” with links to all those things, plus some photos and a “push here to play a song” button. I saw one musician’s Website that had a “love board” (I don’t think they called it that) where people could leave nice comments; I’d like one of those, too. The Website may be my biggest task of the new year.

Joe

Sunday, December 6, 2009

PRACTICE WITH THE BAND...

Practice yesterday with the band. We got through 14 of the 24 songs in 2-1/2 hours. Every single one was good, and some were perfect. In each case, I found myself thinking, “This here is what it’s supposed to sound like.” A 5-piece band—drums, bass, rhythm guitar, “whiny” lead (harmonica) and “non-whiny” lead (guitar), is ideal, I think. Those who come to the Failed Economy Christmas Concert are going to get one heck of a show. We practice again next Saturday. It’d probably be good to have one more practice besides that before Gig Day, but I don’t know if folks’ work schedules will permit it.

The primary value of the practices, besides encouraging me that we’re going to be okay, is it gives everybody a feel for everybody else’s capabilities; I just give ‘em free rein to put their own “spin” on things, and applaud what comes out good (I end up applauding a lot). They don’t need much practice with the material per se, because (1) they are very good, and (2) they have what drummer Chris calls “the homework”—the CDs, setlists, and (for the new guys) lyric sheets with chords. I have noticed they use them. Since I have to have everything organized in advance, the CDs have recordings (draft in some cases, just done on the Tascam) of the songs on the setlist, in the order we’re going to play them, recorded pretty much the way we’re going to play them, because I have thought all that out in advance. We might make some changes as we go along—we’ve done that a couple of times—but we may not.

I don’t know if other bands do this. If they don’t, I wonder why. It sure does minimize the amount of time needed for practice, and that’s important when one is dealing with busy people. (I regularly remind these guys I’m the only one with a lot of free time. I’m unemployed. They’re not.)

We have also developed fairly established patterns. We have started off every show with “Dead Things in the Shower”; it’s a good high-energy piece, and the band falls into it easily. We also finish (the first set, if it’s a long show, or the show, if it’s a short one) with “Un-Easy Street”; it’s a danceable two-step—with a message, no less—that leaves the audience anxious for more. (If you’re about to have a break, you want the audience sticking around for more.) We’ll finish a two-hour concert like this one with “Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad,” the Woody Guthrie tune that the Grateful Dead made famous; they used it as their closing song, too.

I try to keep a constant injection of new stuff—but not a lot: we’ll be doing four new songs at the Christmas concert: two rock ‘n’ roll (“Test Tube Baby” and “The Dog’s Song”), one bluegrass (“Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up”), and one slow and sleazy two-step (“Even Roadkill Gets the Blues,” the Christmas song that doesn’t get played much).

Still to do for the concert: notices to the local Congressman and Senators (by letter), and to the local state legislators (by e-mail); none of them came last time, but it’s cheap and easy to tell them about the show. Press releases to the newspaper I write for, and to a couple of others, are mostly done—they just need to be tweaked a little to make them perfect. The Food Pantry got 50 copies of the poster to put in last week’s food boxes, and I take more posters with me to hand out to local businesses everywhere I go.

I’ve left a message for Jane Scott Productions (Jane is the one who videotapes the county commissioners’ meetings, and a couple of city councils—her stuff is aired on the cable TV system that covers two counties), but no answer back; I’ve noticed she doesn’t check messages very often, and I may have to catch her in person at one of the meetings she’s videotaping. Nothing in Oregon Music News—despite the name, they may really be interested only in musical stuff in Portland. (I guess I’ll just ignore them in the future.)

Music Friday this week. Jobs to apply for, too, and a house to clean. I should find a few venues to make brief appearances at, to promote the concert.

Joe

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

WE WON THE "DOING DYLAN" CONTEST!

BREAKING NEWS… An e-mail from England advised that “No Good Songs About the War” has WON FIRST PRIZE in their “Doing Dylan” contest we entered back this summer. (They wanted to know where to send the prize check for 100 pounds to.) “Deathgrass” (me, John, Dick and Chris) will split it four ways—that was our original arrangement.

Here’s what the judge, John Tams, said:

‘1st “No-one Writes Good Songs About The War.” Ramshackle recording measured against some of the high quality produced offerings. Whilst it holds within it the rough truth-telling of the Carter/Guthrie songbooks it has an economy, topicality and directness that makes this song rise above, most especially to make Katy the heroine. I particularly liked the cyclical ending which took us back to the beginning. I believe Dylan would like this song.’

Ah, that’s nice. Considering that the song was written to prove a point—to show how protest songs are supposed to be written—I guess it proved its point. Now, the Operative Question, as Richard Nixon would say, is how can I parlay this into more business? I’m in contact with a couple of writers in England; I guess the first step is to ask them. The “Doing Dylan” contest appeared pretty small-time, with just one judge (and he not anyone whose name I recognized) and both the entry fee and prize money denominated in British pounds; that’s why I wanted to enter—I like to enter contests I think I can win. (I was surprised to see how many entries they got, and had figured we never had a chance. I guess I was wrong.)

It is, however, fame of a sort—rather like having a song published in The Philippines was last year. If it can’t make any waves in England, it still may be useful for attention-getting in this country. I’ve made sure the radio station DJ who’s interviewing me this Friday about the Failed Economy Christmas Show knows about the award, and I suppose I should put it in the rest of the press releases I send out about the concert. “Deathgrass” may not be the biggest thing to ever hit these parts, but we can sure act like it.

“Song for Polly and Glyn” (subtitled “A Man for Christmas”) is done. Recorded twice, once with my vocal, once without (because Polly wants to sing it, and I’d really like her to), and sent lyrics and recordings to Polly. I can tell it’s an okay song, because I keep wanting to play the recording. I can’t wait to hear it with Polly’s vocals—but I will wait, of course: it’ll be about a week, I’m told, before she’ll be able to record it.

I think this will be the 2009 Christmas song—I try to have a new one every year, and I think last Christmas was the only year I missed.

It’s tempting to try this one out on a live audience—I bet the womenfolk that come to the Friday Night group’s sessions would like it—but I really shouldn’t be the one doing it. It’d be better if it was performed by Polly and her J.D. Jackson Band. And who knows? She might even find a mate with it.

ELSEWHERE: I am out (again) of slimline cases for my CDs, and there’s nowhere around here that sells them; I’ve augmented my supplies in the past when I’ve gone to the big city for job interviews, but I haven’t had one of those in a long time, either. There’s a new blues jam on Sunday afternoons in Newport, an hour and a half’s drive from here, and I could go shopping while I was at it—I don’t think the band will be practicing that day.

The Songbook I’m just putting in thick CD cases (I have some of those, and can get more locally), and printing fancy front and back cover plates. It does look nice. Tempting to craft fancy front and back plates for the “Santa’s Fallen” CD, too, but there’s probably no point—I’ve done without for four years now, and there’s no good reason to change.

Joe