PREPARING FOR THE THIRSTY LION...

Packing (it’ll take a couple of nights)… I had no idea I’d accumulated so much stuff at a temporary job, living out of a room (well, two rooms—one’s been my office) for five months. Good thing I have a truck.

The Thirsty Lion performance Tuesday, Jan. 11 will be my first solo gig in a long time, and my first one there in over half a year, I think. What to play? It’s a tavern, so one can be a little risqué and get away with it; also because it’s a tavern, one has to work a little harder to get the audience’s attention (though sometimes it’s easier to hold it once you’ve got it).

My experience at the Wild Goose in Ashland taught me that it’s best to start out with something slow and sleazy—after that, one can get more uptempo. I’m not sure the intent I’d had earlier, about not playing anything I’d done before, is necessary—it’s been a long time since I’ve appeared at the Thirsty Lion, and I doubt anybody but host Eric John Kaiser remembers me. Best to concentrate simply on being entertaining.

Either six or seven songs; since I’m playing solo, all the songs will be shorter than the standard five minutes, because there’ll be no lead breaks. How about:

Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?—slow & sleazy
I May Write You from Jupiter—fast bluegrass
Take-Out Food (Stan Good)—slow & sleazy
Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope)—fast bluegrass
In The Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You—slow & sleazy
The Abomination Two-Step—fast bluegrass

The rapture song is a good attention-getter, so it will be first. “Charity” was a hit with the Friday Night Group (which was a surprise), and “The Abomination Two-Step” got requested twice out of the blue at the coffeehouse in McMinnville (another surprise). The “Shadows” song I just happen to like myself; it’s one of those where it’s hard to tell if I’m being serious or not (and I don’t plan to tell), and maybe that makes people listen.

There should be room for a seventh song at the end; depending on how the time works out (and I’ll have to time it), that could be either “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” (which itself is pretty short, without lead breaks) or “Meet Me at the Stairs.” The latter would let me make a pitch to buy CDs—which I will have with me. (I’ll have the Notebook, too, for signups for the “joelist.”)

Marketing? I can’t do the trick I’ve pulled in the past, of dropping off posters at Music Millenium and a couple other strategic places a week ahead of time—I can’t afford to make a special trip into Portland. I don’t have a good track record generating a crowd from the “joelist” or Facebook, though (there aren’t that many people from Portland in that database, anyway). I can e-mail a poster and notice to a handful of entertainment editors I’m aware of, and contact the Willamette Writers group (who are mostly in Portland)—I’ve been wanting to solicit a paying gig from them—and see what happens.

No music this week; the Friday Night Group won’t be playing New Year’s Eve, and the library’s closed on the Saturday holiday. Next week, though, there will be—and the magazine photographer’s supposedly coming Friday night (and we’ll be missing three of our people, including our bass player and a lead player, because they have a gig). Hope we’re still able to put on a good show.

Joe

THREE WORKING DAYS LEFT...

Rain, hail, and high wind—but no snow. I’m told it was 59 degrees in Tillamook on Christmas Day. Folks down South, and overseas, were complaining about blizzards; here in northern Oregon, the only place you’ll find a Blizzard is at the local Dairy Queen. I thought this Global Warming was supposed to be, well, global?

Discovered I’d archived this week’s blog onto a CD before I’d finished writing it. What with archiving the blogs, the old newspaper columns, and all the Acrobat conversions of my PageMaker files, I did manage to free up 2GB of space on Alice’s 40-GB hard drive, though—and I’ll need it for projects.

Just three working days left of the Lafayette gig; I’ll spend two days of that getting ready for the new city manager, and one day with him. 15 pages of notes, thus far, on stuff I’ve started that I’m leaving to him to finish (or not, as the case may be—it’ll be his show from now on). I will actually miss everybody, even the folks who were my loudest critics. I didn’t expect the job to be fun, but I think I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself. (I can’t fade off into the sunset, though, because the sun sets too early this time of year. As Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want.”)

There is a lot to do when I get back to Garibaldi. I have work to do on the house that got put on hold last summer when I got the job; a Deathgrass album to record; a Deathgrass benefit concert for the Food Pantry; a couple of solo gigs to line up—to list a few. I have a new Skip Johnson song to musicate, and a lead guitar track to record for one of my favorite Scott Garriott songs (as soon as he e-mails it to me). A pile of job applications I’m waiting on answers to, too.

There are at least a couple of the music videos I can do right away. “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” is easiest, because it can all be done with the computer and scanner, and the music is already professionally recorded (it was on the “Santa’s Fallen” CD). Next easiest may be “The Dog’s Song”; I will want professionally-recorded music for that, but I can get it later. (One more song for Deathgrass to do in the studio.)

For the rest, I may need help. “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot” can be mostly be shot on a beach (with a little footage in front of a tavern), but it’d be nice to have a few cameo shots of me in it, lip-synching the words; it might be possible to set the camera up stationary on the tripod to do that, but it’d be easier if someone else were running the camera.

I did get invited back to Eric John Kaiser’s “Portland Songwriters’ Showcase” at the Thirsty Lion, Tuesday, 11 January; I’ll try, as usual, to give them songs they haven’t heard before (I have my previous Thirsty Lion setlists for reference). Prize—which, as usual, I don’t think I have a prayer of winning—is a session in a Portland recording studio. I’ll hope instead to sell enough CDs to pay for my gas there and back again. It’ll be an opportunity to contact the “joelist” and remind them I still exist, and am still playing music (even though most of them won’t be able to come to the gig).

And Oregon Coast magazine is sending a photographer to the Friday Night Group’s session in Garibaldi Jan. 7. I’m not sure how I ended up being the apparent Contact Person for this—especially being the one who’s been out of town for five months—but I’ll take advantage of it if (and to the extent) I can.

Joe

THE 2011 WORKLIST...

Almost January—and time for the 2011 Worklist. Easy this year, because we didn’t accomplish that much on the 2010 Worklist—no DEATHGRASS ALBUM, no SOUTHERN PIGFISH ALBUM, no JOE WEBSITE; no TRIP TO NASHVILLE (deliberately bailed on that one because of money), and I didn’t WIN SONG CONTESTS though I entered three. I’m still not a HOUSEHOLD WORD (“toilet paper” is still a more familiar household word) , and I still don’t have any better answer to MAKING MONEY OFF THIS than “Perform a whole lot more than I’ve been doing.” Maybe there isn’t one.

On the plus side, I did manage to do a decent VIDEO or two (and learned a lot), and acquired DECENT VIDEO EQUIPMENT. Managed to EXPAND THE FAN BASE a little, playing at the coffeehouse in McMinnville. Nine new songs in 2010, five (maybe six) of them “keepers,” and three of them were in DIFFERENT GENRES; four co-writes (all musications), of which two were “keepers,” too. (I scripted a couple plays, too. That wasn’t on the list.) My productivity dropped sharply after getting the Lafayette job, but I suppose that’s to be expected. There just wasn’t a lot of free time after that.

So for 2011:

WRITING. One good song a month, and one good co-write a month—both on average, of course. Keep exploring different genres; I haven’t done jazz, or ragtime, for instance. Eastern European folk dances? Why not?

THE ALBUMS. Record the Deathgrass album; finish the Southern Pigfish album (and it’s supposed to be videos, on flash drive). I have enough material for the “12 Reasons Why Joe Is Going to Hell” album, and it’d be fun to do that, too. (Let’s be real, though—the money for that would have to come from somewhere.)

MARKETING. CDBaby (for the new album), the Joe Website (simple, with links to everything), and the publishing company. Figure out a way to use the promotional machinery to get more gigs. Get some video footage for gig solicitation of Deathgrass performing, also of me. Train one of the computers to produce DVDs. CD release parties, of course—one on the Coast, and one in southern Oregon.

VIDEO. Vid-ify the half-dozen or so songs I can do easily; line up resources to do the complicated ones. Do an experimental fan-generated video of the Southern Pigfish anthem, “For Their Own Ends,” and if that works, do more.

MORE (AND MORE PAYING) GIGS. Besides the Concert Season stuff from this year, hit all the people I’ve hit up before (or wanted to)—the Willamette Writers’ Conference, Neskowin Harvest Festival, Whitney Streed’s comedy open mike in Portland, Garibaldi Museum, and so on. Some solo, some with the band.

STAY IN TOUCH WITH EVERYBODY. That was the hardest thing to do while I was employed; I did it, but not easily or well. Make it easier and simpler, without being remote or insensitive (or expensive). That’s a challenge a lot of independent musicians face these days—we may be breaking new ground by figuring out how to do it.

Lastly, ORGANIZE THE WORLD TOUR. (I decided there ought be one “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp” item on the list.) I know (or think I know) people in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, the Philippines, Sweden, and on the Arabian peninsula; getting there really is doable for not much money. The operative question is what I’d do after I got there. There may at least be a song in it:

“They applauded my performance back in Ulan Bator,
Though they might not have understood a lot I said;
Din’t know Barbie, or Jesus, or a thing about the war,
But they liked it that the animals were dead…”

Joe

PRE-CHRISTMAS & ALBUM THOUGHTS...

The Christmas-present CDs are done and wrapped for the folks at work; this weekend, I baked more cookies and stuffed stockings. And made some more Christmas CDs. Six songs on those, but only five are actually Christmas songs. (Thought about including “In the Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You,” since I’ve been telling folks this season that it’s really a Christmas song because Santa is a stalker—sees you when you’re sleeping, and all that—but I’ve resisted the temptation.)

Might get to go to the Southern Oregon Songwriters’ Christmas party (it’s next weekend); it appears the weather will be decent for traveling—40-degree temperatures and nothing more dangerous than rain. It would be nice to see everybody—and staying in touch has been hard since I got employed. Yes, there’s e-mail, but I’m a country boy—I like and need “face time.” I haven’t been down there since the concert in August, and that was a real whirlwind visit.

I discovered I had almost forgotten the Album List (and here I was attempting to get the thing recorded in January). Here’s the last iteration. Hight “Dead Things in the Shower” (after the opening cut):

Dead Things in the Shower (with Bobbie Gallup)—fast two-step
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
No Good Songs About the War—slow marching two-step
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Crosses by the Roadside—slow two-step
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues
Rotten Candy—fast Gospel
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step

Two co-writes (our standard opening and closing songs for concerts, and they’ll be the opener and closer on the album, too); two that Mike harmonizes on; and half (at least) that’ll show off Doc’s harmonica playing. And a good mix of styles, too: some blues, some bluegrass, some rock ‘n’ roll. Including “Rotten Candy” lets us put the little sticker on the cover that says “Includes the Song Rejected by American Idol!” And of course, “No Good Songs About the War” won first prize in that contest over in England. We’ll dedicate the album to blues harp player Dick Ackerman, who died last year. (“Crosses by the Roadside” on there for him.)

While I’m thinking about it—and have time—I should design the album cover. I know what it (and the record label) should look like. I just need to stage the photo. I have photos of the band, too—and a good black-and-white one of Dick as well.

Music Wednesday at the coffeehouse in McMinnville; unless something changes at the last minute (and I’m not expecting it to), this will be my last performance there. Since it’s before Christmas (Dec. 15), I should do them the one Christmas song I haven’t performed yet—“Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire.” I’ll have to figure out the tablature again—it appears I never wrote it down when I recorded it. For the serious song, “Hank’s Song,” I think—I haven’t done that there yet. Not sure about the rest.

Never did hear back from the church soup kitchen I’d contacted (on the advice of a lady in Lafayette) about doing a Christmas show. I won’t press; I get enough rejections from potential employers—I don’t need to deliberately solicit them. It’s quite possible the soup kitchen operators listened to the music and decided it was too dark or too funny for their venue. It’s okay. Out in the remains of the garden, I have the tomatoes that never did ripen rotting on their trees to remind me things don’t always work out the way you want.

Joe

A FAN-BASED VIDEO IDEA...

A music video idea, courtesy of Lorelei Loveridge, who describes herself as “chief rabble-rouser” of the Performing Songwriters—United Worldwide group that coalesced in the wake of Performing Songwriter magazine’s demise a couple years ago. (Good group, by the way. Full of neat ideas—and innovation, in my opinion, is what is going to allow independent writers and musicians to make a living in the Modern World.)

There are apparently some artists and groups out there that have done “fan-based” music videos—the video consisting of clips contributed by fans, sometimes footage of them singing, sometimes photos… There’s one Johnny Cash tribute song that consists of line drawings of the Man in Black contributed by fans, and strung together along with the music.

Could I do this? I think so: I’ve wrestled with scripting out video for my songs for a while, and only have four where I could create something that’s both (1) innovative and (2) easy and cheap. (I have a couple that would take production and expertise I simply don’t have and can’t afford.) And I do want to do video; as DJ Len Amsterdam says, “Video is the new audio.” For a lot of the songs, though, I default to “well, maybe we ought to just film a live performance.” I wouldn’t want to do that for everything—in fact, I’d rather do it for very few things. I am insistent that every song has to be different.

My candidate for a fan-based video would be the Southern Pigfish anthem, “For Their Own Ends.” The imagery is strange—Dylanesque obscurantism, after all—but one doesn’t want footage of the band performing it, because Southern Pigfish (as I remind folks every concert) doesn’t exist. On the other hand, the song is popular; we play it every show. (It can be argued that Deathgrass’ performances are why the song is popular—but we wouldn’t be performing it if people didn’t like it.) So it’s a song people might want to contribute something to because they like it.

Here’d be The Call, I think. I’d ask people to both film and record themselves singing along with the song. If they play an instrument (the “joelist” is chock full of other musicians, after all), feel free to play along, too. I’ll take the footage and “soundage” and mix and match things together to where I think it looks and sounds best. (I may need assistance with that. I’m not sure either “Alice” or “StuartLittle” has the brainpower to handle mixing on that scale.) The basic soundtrack on the video, though, would be Deathgrass, recorded in the studio—and I have to do that first, before issuing The Call. That soundtrack is what I’d need to send out to everybody.

And then we’ll see what we got. I have a feeling it might be great. If it is, I might try to do some more, using slightly different parameters (because every song has to be different—see above). I know some painters, some photographers, some mechanics (now, that would be interesting), some actors—there’s a lot of ignored talent out there

Timing? January, perhaps—it’s pretty certain my job in Lafayette ends the end of December, and then I’ll be both schedule-free and income-free until I can garner another temporary or permanent job (which, more than likely, would be out of town again). January, accordingly, would be the time to do all this work, as long as I can do it for very little cost. Another item for the 2011 worklist.

The fan-based video idea is one way to accommodate the need for people (I don’t want to call them “fans,” really) to be connected to “their” artists and writers. They need to feel not only that they know the artist personally, but the artist knows them personally, too. That’s something I and other small-scale independents like me can do, and the Big Boys can’t (especially with the Big Boys’ focus on not letting “non-members” inside their closed circle). The question has always been how to involve “our” people in what we do—just being listeners and audience isn’t really enough. Maybe this is a way.

Joe

A CHRISTMAS EP?

Music at the library Saturday got cut short with a power outage (‘tis the season, I guess). Ice tonight, which will make for a fun trip back to the Valley tomorrow.

Ran into a couple of Christmas EPs—short, 6-song albums—at a thrift store. Both were pretty obviously self-produced. One was a guy vocalist singing some Christmas classics (at least he had real musicians, and it sounded like it was done in a real studio). The other CD had two Christmas classics and four not-very-good originals; girl singer had an okay voice, but it was pretty obviously computer-generated music.

I could do that—and do it better, I think. If I had a record of Christmas songs, though, there would be only five—all originals, of course:

I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas
Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up
Even Roadkill Gets the Blues
Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire (co-wrote with daughter Kimberly)
Song for Polly and Glyn (I Want a Man for Christmas)

First two were recorded in a commercial studio (they’re on the “Santa’s Fallen” album), the other three just on the Tascam (though the chipmunks song is actually pretty professionally done). I took all of them and ran them through the Audacity program to make the volumes consistent (if a professional did that, it’d be called “mastering”).

I do hate to give something that’s only got five songs on it, but I think I will keep this one to the Christmas stuff. (Mostly. I’ll throw in “The Cat with the Strat” as a bonus track. It’s really good—and it’s never been on an album anywhere.) Designed a decent Christmassy label, using one of my archived gift tags as a template. (Last time, I photographed one of our cute Christmas potholders and used that for the label.)

This coming week is shaping up busy: music Wednesday night at the coffeehouse in McMinnville, Saturday afternoon at the library, and Friday I’ll either be playing music in Garibaldi with the Friday Night Group or being Santa Claus for the little kids in Lafayette—I don’t know which yet. Got Christmas presents to get ready for the people I’ve worked with, too—I don’t want to “go poof” without leaving them something to remember me by. Cookies and copies of the “Santa’s Fallen” album for everybody, I expect. And that doesn’t take into account the day-job work, of which there’s quite a bit next week, too.

The Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn.’s year-end bash this year will be Saturday, Dec. 18. Depending on the weather, I could maybe go. (Three 2,000-foot-plus hills to cross between here and there. I don’t want to do that in snow or ice.) No Deathgrass Christmas concert this year—drummer Chris isn’t available—so the weekend’s free; I could hang out in southern Oregon an extra day and see if anyone at the Wild Goose remembers me (they did the last time I went). It does mean I have to have all the Christmas stuff done ahead of time. As usual, not much time.

The Deathgrass “Failed Economy Show” benefit for the Food Pantry will be in January—third Saturday’s when the Dance Floor at City Hall is available. January may be good; people won’t be so busy, and there may be a shortage of good entertainment. We could remedy that easily. Wonder if we could get it videotaped this time?

Joe

"SHOULD I BLOG?"

The question was asked on one of those social-networking Websites, “Should I blog?” I wasn’t able to respond (social-networking sites being into this “friending” thing, that I’ve pretty much stopped participating in), but for what it’s worth, here’s an answer of sorts. It depends on your purpose.

Come January, I will have been doing “The Writer’s Blog” for five years, I think. It started as an attempt to organize my thoughts for a songwriting seminar I taught the last two years of the [now gone, and missed] “Moograss” Bluegrass Festival in Tillamook, Oregon. (Yes, teaching songwriting to bluegrass musicians, who mostly play only “traditional” music, is a little like shipping coal to a nuclear power plant. I was surprised the seminars ended up being popular.)

Of course, as a writer on the make, I’m interested in getting attention for the songs I write, so the blog talked about doing that as well—and attempted to be organized about it. That’s where the annual Worklists and regular “reality checks” come in. As a writer and a performer, I am interested in what works, and what doesn’t—just as I am in my occasional gigs as a city manager—and I write it all down so I don’t forget it.

The blog provides another continuing benefit: it’s practice at writing. Each “issue” is roughly the same length, and expresses (more often than not) a complete thought about (more often than not) a single subject. And I do it at least weekly—following that old Internet rule that one’s Website has to change at least once a week to keep an audience’s attention. (I’ve written issues of the blog more often while being unemployed.) The practice writing for space and writing for deadlines made it easier to do the weekly column for the newspaper. (That’s not what got me the gig, however. Knowing somebody was what got me the gig. The practice with the blog just made it easier to do the work.)

I never counted on an audience, and I’d advise the would-be blogger not to count on one, either. The Internet being the amorphous, anarchic critter that it is, I have no idea who’s reading, or why; I don’t even know how to ask. Nor do I have a clue how to “monetize” (as the gurus at Google’s Blogspot put it) what I do. My advice to the would-be blogger, then, is a question: Is there a specific benefit to YOU—without reference to other people (because there may not be any), and without any expectation of financial reward (because there may not be any) in doing this? If there is, do it. If not, don’t.

These days, a lot of people seem to be doing videoblogs (“vlogs”) instead of the old-fashioned kind. I am not that interested, myself; I don’t see (yet) how adding the video component would make me a better writer. It might be good practice using the video equipment (and I could use the practice), so we’ll see. I do want to “do” video, but I want to use it to add a 21st-century component to my songs, nothing more.

UPDATES: No music at all last weekend, and there won’t be any until at least next Saturday. I heard about another open mike in McMinnville, but it’ll be a couple of weeks before I can go. And there’s reportedly a radio station in Nashville that’s looking for original Christmas songs (and I have five), but I haven’t figured out how to reach the Responsible Parties. I get four days off over Thanksgiving, and it’d be nice if there were an opportunity for the band to practice—but I still don’t have confirmation from everybody whether they can do a Christmas show. Time is getting short…

Joe

HOW'D WE DO THIS YEAR?

Time, as we get close to December, to review the 2010 Workslist and see what got accomplished. This year, not much. I suppose I could blame a lot of it on having had a job since the end of July, but I won’t—the idea was to be able to do both. I managed to fit Concert Season into the schedule, but not a lot else.

What have I accomplished in 2010? I did manage to WRITE IN SOME DIFFERENT GENRES—a medieval ballad (“Last Song of the Highwayman”), a country death metal anthem (“Angel in Chains”), and another polka (“The Dead Sweethearts Polka”). I managed to EXPAND USE OF VIDEO, too: the Hong-Kong-via-eBay video camera turned out to be quite good, I can do video with my digital camera, too, I’ve got a good tripod, and I’ve acquired Skype.

On the other hand, the JOE ALBUM is precisely where it was a year ago; the SOUTHERN PIGFISH ALBUM now has an album’s worth of songs, but is no closer to getting produced. No WEEK IN NASHVILLE, no JOE WEBSITE, and while I did enter three SONG CONTESTS this year, I didn’t win any of them. And I’m no closer to FIGURING OUT HOW TO MAKE A LIVING OFF THIS STUFF.

I suppose I’m a little closer to BECOMING A HOUSEHOLD WORD. (Still not as good a household word as “toilet paper,” though. People spend money on toilet paper.) I did expand a little into the New Market made available by the temporary job; there’s a new (albeit small) fan base that’s gotten used to me being around, and I might yet manage to get a concert out of it before my time here is over. Did a fair amount of work with the Coventry songwriters group in England, too, though my writing volume declined as the job got busier. I’ve done rather a lot of graphic-design work this year, too, for quite a few new people—all of it for free—and I hope that’s gotten some attention.

PLAY WITH MORE PEOPLE? The rock band in Astoria didn’t work out, but “Deathgrass” is a going concern—people definitely know who we are, and we’ve got fans (and I’m continually surprised how many of those fans are young). The eclectic ensembles that I play with at the Tillamook Library, the Forestry Center, Garibaldi City Hall, and (before I had a job) the Garibaldi Pub probably don’t qualify, since they’re usually the same people. I don’t know if there are MORE PEOPLE PLAYING MY STUFF (that probably means there aren’t).

So the 2011 Worklist is going to look pretty much like the 2010 one. MORE VIDEO, to be sure—deejay Len Amsterdam’s mantra, “Video is the new audio,” seems more apparent every day. With a good video camera now, I might be able to do a lot of experimentation. The WEBSITE; the ALBUMS. I expect I have to postpone travel for a while, but that’s okay—I’m not famous enough to be able to get any real advantage out of it. PUBLISHING I really will try to take care of when we record the albums. I probably do not have enough contacts to do a good job of publishing anyone but myself, but I can definitely publish myself.

About six weeks remain until the end of the year, and there are still things I want to (and think I can) do. Chief is another Failed Economy Christmas Show with the band, benefiting the Garibaldi Food Pantry. This time, it’d be nice to get it filmed and re-broadcast on cable TV. I’d like to put a similar concert together in Lafayette, too, to benefit the local food bank here—and it’d be fun to snag one of the “featured” Friday night gigs at the coffeehouse in McMinnville (I can talk to the organizers when I go there to play music Wednesday night).

And there’s a Christmas song to work on, too; I’ve managed to do one every year for several years running—some better than others, of course. Re-reading old files (which I have to do now and then), I ran across a comment on last year’s Christmas song, “I Want a Man for Christmas”: someone had said, “There’s got to be a dead reindeer in here somewhere.” And that’s a line that really needs a song to go with it…

Joe

A DRAFT CHRISTMAS SHOW SETLIST...

Well, the Big Job in Lafayette—recruiting a new city administrator—is done, except for the paperwork. They picked one—and it was the guy from Alaska (thereby indicating the value of Skype). Now, I can work on the city’s money, which I haven’t had a chance to do much with since I got here. Today, however, I’ll do other stuff. A day off—and away from home, spent mostly at the computer, I’ll apply for jobs (I’ll be needing one), do the SOSA newsletter if I’ve got all the material, and write.

I haven’t got confirmation from the band that they can do a Christmas show, but I have a draft setlist anyway. It looks like:

SET #1 (12 SONGS):
Dead Things in the Shower—mod. fast two-step
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy
Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up—fast bluegrass
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
Things Are Getting Better Now That Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—fast two-step
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock
Ain’t Got No Home in This World Any More (Woody Guthrie)—fast two-step
I Want a Man for Christmas—rock ‘n’ roll
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—mod. fast two-step

SET #2 (11 SONGS):
50 Ways to Cure the Depression—folk-rock
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You—fast bluegrass
Even Roadkill gets the Blues—sleazy two-step
Duct Tape—mod. speed country
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass
[NEW] Another Crappy Christmas (Don Varnell)—fast country-rock
Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus—mod. speed Gospel
I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas—slow & sleazy
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass

Five Christmas songs on the list this time, 11 songs about the economy, and the rest just plain fun (and normal inclusions in Deathgrass’ setlists). Only one song the band have never played before. It’d be fun to enlist Indica, the girl who sang with us at the wedding (and this time, give her lyric sheets and a CD); if we could do that, we could substitute a couple of her Gospel songs and really give the audience a treat. Short potty break for the band between sets, which this time I want to fill with stuff to discourage the audience from drifting away; I want refreshments (my cookies, hopefully Jeannette’s cinnamon rolls, coffee and punch), and maybe we should have somebody at the microphone doing announcements. Could we film it this time? (We didn’t manage to film the two previous shows.)

I would really like to do a benefit concert for the food bank here in Lafayette; it could be a “Joe Farewell Concert” at the same time—an opportunity for me to thank everybody for a genuinely enjoyable gig as their temporary city manager. Yes, I’d want a band: bass, drums (unless we’re going to play bluegrass music), “whiny” and “non-whiny” leads—and if other people can sing, we can do their stuff as well as mine. I have a couple of folks, now, that I can ask, who may be or know those resources. It’d have to be in December, because I “go poof” December 31.

Joe

SKYPE WORKS! (&C.)

In Lafayette all weekend… This is the weekend we do the city manager interviews, and it’s a lot like a musical gig with the band: about mid-afternoon, I decided I’d done as much as I could, and it was just going to be Showtime. Tonight was the “meet and greet” with the three candidates and the public, with coffee and cookies and punch, and the performance went well. Tomorrow we do the interviews.

Worth mentioning, because it was my first opportunity to put Skype to work (one of our candidates is in Alaska), using my video camera as a Webcam, with a separate microphone (City’s) and my speakers out of the recording studio in the garage. So we had a little semicircle of chairs around the computer, and people got to talk to the Alaska guy at the “meet and greet,” too, and I think virtually everybody did so. We’ll do his interview tomorrow the same way. About the only thing we couldn’t do (somebody had to point it out) was shake hands.

So all you folks I’ve corresponded with via e-mail in Sweden, England, France, Canada, and the Arabian Peninsula—we’re going to be able to talk. I can hook all this stuff up to both “Alice” at home, and “StuartLittle” here in Lafayette; I think the only thing I need to find is the adapter that allows me to use the singing mike on the computer. (Way better than those cheapo computer mikes—and the cheapo computer mikes aren’t cheap any more, either.) The world, in the words of one of my economics textbooks, just got flatter.

The video camera is quite nice; it’ll do a sharp picture from across the room, and it has a separate cord that’ll connect it to a soundboard—which (I think) makes it possible to do live music videos. I’ll have to try it. I don’t know if it’s possible to mate it up to the Tascam (I’d have to get an adapter), but it should mate up to the big soundboard at the Arts Center. Maybe the best time to test it would be at the next Arts Center open mike (first Saturday in December).

The only music this week was at the coffeehouse in McMinnville (they seem to be getting used to me now; I seem to see several people who hang out until after I play); those folks got “The Taboo Song,” “Leavin’ It to Beaver,” “Born Again Barbie” (for the religious song), and “Always Pet the Dogs” (for the serious one). I’m about out of religious songs; the only one I’ve got left is “The Abomination Two-Step,” though I’m not sure it’s coffeehouse material; next time, I could do “Oil in the Cornfield” for the serious song. The folks in McMinnville haven’t heard either one yet. (I have tried to play different songs every time. To date, they have not heard the same song twice, unless someone’s requested it.)

To do, still: the November Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. newsletter; a setlist for the Failed Economy Christmas Show I would like the band to do in December; next week’s column for the paper; and a couple more jobs to apply for. (I got confirmation this week that I won’t get one assistant city manager job I applied for, because the city manager who was going to hire me got fired.) Trying to organize a Christmas event here in Lafayette; there reportedly hasn’t been one in the past, but now there’s hordes of little kids in town. Santa needs to come in a big way (and I’ve volunteered to “do” Santa—I’ve done it before). There’s a local food bank here, too, that not many people know about. I bet they could use a benefit concert, just like the one in Garibaldi does. ‘Tis the Season.

Joe

WEDDING POST-MORTEM?

Well, yeah. Wedding was nice: TJ is a great minister, and family and friends put a tremendous amount of work into making everything perfect. I even got to be in costume for Hallowe’en (I was dressed up as Father of the Bride). Everything was neat, and the Happy Couple are, I believe, happy.

I wanted to do a post-mortem on the musical performance—because this was a gig for the band, too: the first wedding we’ve ever played. A lot of folks in the bridal party and attendees were excited that “Deathgrass” was playing; some of those had even heard us before (and some were real curious how we’d deal with a performance where we couldn’t do any dead-animal songs).

The answer, I think, is we did pretty well. The limitations—no dead animals, no stalkers, no rotten candy, no jumping off cliffs, no dumping dead sweethearts in the river—did force the learning of some new material; only about a third of the setlist were songs we’d played before. Quite a few of the songs I’d co-written (musicating other people’s lyrics—they address serious subjects like love better’n I do), plus some covers—three I’d been specifically asked to do, and two we thought up on our own.

And we didn’t get to play the whole thing. Our performance was more like an hour than an hour and a half, so we jettisoned about a third of the songs (including three of the covers). Did do Nickelback’s “Far Away”—it was supposed to be the Dance of the Happy Couple—but I know it didn’t sound like Nickelback when we were done: I finally figured out a consistent beat (something Nickelback didn’t have), so I could make what the guitar was doing automatic, and concentrate on remembering the words. We ended up just using my electrified guitar and drummer Chris on shakers—it seemed to sound best that way.

Of the rest, it’s really hard to cite “bests”; there were a lot of “bests,” based on how many people were dancing. They liked Diane Ewing’s “Distraction” (which is a great song, and we do it well), Marge McKinnis’ “About Love,” Woody Guthrie’s “Dance a Little Longer,” “The Dog’s Song,” Southern Pigfish’s “For Their Own Ends,” and (surprise!) “Duct Tape.” I’d forgotten daughter Kimberly’s high school friends (who were mostly there, I think) were some of my earliest fans, and “Duct Tape” was one of their favorite songs. Restores one’s faith in the future, it does, to see teenagers dancing to country music. And our closing song—a pretty faithful rendition of the Monkees’ version of Neil Diamond’s “I’m a Believer”—surprised everyone, I think.

Might we get more wedding (&c.) gigs out of this? I have no idea. Did prove, I think, that we’re more versatile than maybe folks suspected, and what we do is danceable. I hope people remember.

We had a young girl singer hight Indica (a friend of groom Tony’s, I think) sit in with us doing backup vocals, and she does have a good voice (and a pretty good ear); it would be fun to work more with her. (I don’t know how the logistics of that would work.) She was surprised we didn’t have lyrics with us for most of the songs (I only had them for the couple of songs where I was afraid I’d flub the words, and I told her we mostly don’t need lyric sheets because we know the material). Still, it’d be helpful for situations like this if I did have a printout handy of the lyrics and chords of the songs we’re going to do, just so somebody like her could take advantage of it. It’d be easy to do—I have all the stuff on the computer, anyway.

I raised with everybody the idea of doing another benefit concert for the Food Pantry—ideally, a week before Christmas, just like last year (I’m pretty sure the Dance Floor at City Hall will be available that Saturday night). Compared to what we just did, the setlist ought to be easy. We have a lot of Failed Economy songs.

Joe

PUMPKINFEST POST-MORTEM (&C.)...

Well, the Lafayette Pumpkinfest gig is history. Since I didn’t have expectations, it wasn’t bad. I did have to play unplugged—where they had me, there just wasn’t any way to run electricity without creating a tripping hazard—but it’s not like a lot of people were paying attention anyway. There was a lot of stuff going on, and a lot of kids doing it, and a lot of parents trying with varying degrees of success to keep track of them. It is probably just as well I couldn’t be too much of a distraction.

About halfway through the set, I got invited to move into Martha’s Tacos (and did—my fingers were getting numb from the cold) and finished the set there (and thanked the owners profusely for letting me do that). Positive notes: I did manage to play the whole set pretty good without my fingers getting unbearably sore (I’d practiced with the band for 3-1/2 hours earlier in the afternoon). And the timing was perfect—it was exactly an hour.

A number of people did notice—and maybe appreciated—that I was there, even though I doubt any of them heard much of what I was playing. I did hear one of the organizers saying they’d get a PA system next year. (They could use one.)

Practice was pretty good—but I have work to do. I still haven’t got one of the cover songs, Nickelback’s “Far Away,” down at all; John gave me some pointers on the timing, which did help, but it doesn’t help that the song changes timing a couple of times between beginning and end. (I was told that’s what happens when people with no musical training write hit songs.) The others aren’t bad. Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” turns out to be (mostly) the standard “Teen Angel” rock progression, just done as a waltz; “Cinderella” is a really well-written song—I just need to control my voice from cracking when I sing it, because it is really emotional; and Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero” is a fairly set piece (it’s one of my favorite love songs).

We spent a lot of time on “I’m a Believer,” because it’s become such a classic people expect anyone who plays it to sound like the Monkees (turns out Neil Diamond actually wrote it, and he performs it regularly, too—and he doesn’t sound at all like the Monkees). John (bass) and Charlie (lead guitar) were doing a good job re-creating the sound of the Monkees’ cheesy organ without having an organ in the band.

Since I want to sing “Cinderella,” I can’t do the “daddy-daughter dance” with it (and it was intended to be the “daddy-daughter dance” song). Perhaps the best route to go, since I do want to dance with daughter, too (and the “Cinderella” song underscores why that’s important), would be to have the band break into a couple of rounds of the “Saturday Night Waltz,” which is an instrumental (and Doc can lead it—he does it perfectly).

I have absolutely no time the next two (or is it three?) weeks. The band will practice one more time, Friday night; Saturday’s the wedding rehearsal (and I’ve been asked to make my fish lasagna for the Rehearsal Dinner); and Sunday is the wedding (and band performance). The following weekend, I don’t even get to go home—we’re doing the city manager interviews here in Lafayette. Somewhere between now and then, I’ve got another Southern Oregon Songwriters newsletter to do, and need to get one of the City’s computers “Skype-ready” with my video camera (because one of the folks we’re interviewing is in Alaska). And there are rather a lot of jobs to apply for, too. I can’t forget this one runs out soon.

Joe

SETLIST FOR THE WEDDING...

Wedding Setlists and CDs got mailed off to the band yesterday (yes, way, way late). With luck, they get to Garibaldi before I do. Right now (I expect this is still subject to change), the setlist looks like:

Far Away (Nickelback)—soft rock (Dance of the Happy Couple)
Distraction (Diane Ewing)—slow rock
So Far (Marge McKinnis)—slow blues
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
The Frog Next Door—deliberate blues
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock
Duct Tape—mod. speed country (and our only country song)
About Love (Marge McKinnis)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
Lilly’s Song (Screamin’ Gulch)—slow blues
I Want a Man for Christmas—rock ‘n’ roll
This Moment (Maria Picasso)—soft rock
Simple Questions (O.N. Vindstad)—rockabilly
I’ll Be (Edwin McCain)—soft rock
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Love Minus Zero/No Limit (Dylan)—folk-rock
I’m a Believer (Neil Diamond)—pop-rock

All rock (of one variety or another), except for “Duct Tape” (which was specifically requested), and all love songs, except for “Duct Tape” and the Southern Pigfish Song. The three soft-rock covers were requested by the Happy Couple, and I’ve never played them before, myself; they sound like they might be singable, though. Only six songs on the list that the band have ever played before. Next step: practice. Practice a lot.

Since they’re expecting absolutely rotten weather for the Pumpkinfest (the Coast is supposed to get five inches of rain the day before), they’ve arranged for me to be indoors, at the local Mexican restaurant. (And I have expressed hope I won’t drive too many customers away.) I’ll need to bring with me a big extension cord and the little Austin amp for the guitar (my new amp has only one input, which I’ll use for voice).

Took the opportunity to promote the Pumpkinfest (and my performance) at the McMinnville coffeehouse Wednesday night; the crowd got “Twenty Saddles for My Chicken,” Beth Williams’ “The Well in the Glade,” and “Dead Fishes,” all of which are on the Pumpkinfest setlist, and “I Want a Man for Christmas” (on the Wedding Setlist)—and then, because they wanted a “brief song” for a closer, they got “Milepost 43,” about Al David’s missing underwear. (It’s about briefs, after all.)

Latest e-mail from Disk Makers (the CD replicating service I’ve never used because I found one cheaper) was about getting your CD released before Christmas. Yes, I’d like to do that, but time (or the lack thereof) makes that impossible. I’d like to do it right after the first of the year. The thing I’d like to do before Christmas is another benefit concert for the Food Pantry. (We could use just about the same setlist we did last time.) That’s probably enough work outside of work.

Joe

PUMPKINFEST, WEDDING AND FOOT (OH, MY)...

The Hurt Foot’s been kind of dominant the last couple of weeks; yes, it only hurts when it’s being used for standing, or walking, or touches something, but that’s, like, almost all the time. The doctor says it’s getting better—thereby convincing me he’s a more insightful man than I.

And so I haven’t got much done. (Yes, the Hurt Foot is a good excuse for inactivity, too.) I finally did write the Rap for the Pumpkinfest (a relatively easy job—just have to keep in mind virtually no one in that audience has ever heard me before), and piece by piece, as I go to jam sessions and open mikes, I’m getting to run through the songs on the Pumpkinfest setlist, making sure I know them by heart. I’m able to introduce nearly all of those as “here’s another song I can’t play at my daughter’s wedding.”

And I haven’t accomplished much with the Wedding Setlist. At this point, rather a small number of my suggestions have been ruled acceptable by the Happy Couple, and they’ve had four suggestions of their own—all covers (not a problem at this gig, since it’s unpaid), one of which I know I can play, two I think I can play, and one I’m not sure about at all. That still leaves rather a large material lacuna to fill—and said wedding is, as of tomorrow, just two weeks away. Need to get setlists and CDs to the band, and we have to practice all this new stuff. (Gack. In a word, gack.)

I think the only solution to the problem is to take Alice-the-‘puter’s braincase with me when I go back to Lafayette. StuartLittle, over there, can’t copy CDs—no rewritable CD drive. I’ll take the Tascam, too, in case I have to record something (likely); Alice has been trained to interface with the Tascam, too, and StuartLittle hasn’t (considering how old some of this stuff is, I’m not sure the software even can be found any more). I’ll have part of Monday night (still have to write the column for the paper) and Tuesday night to finish this. I can mail the material to the band, and hopefully arrange practice for next weekend.

My only getting-out this weekend was to play music Friday night and Saturday. Got to try out on Saturday’s crowd at the library “Dead Fishes” and “Vampire Roumanian Babies,” which I want to do at the Pumpkinfest, and “I Want a Man for Christmas,” which hasn’t (yet) been rejected for the Wedding Setlist. And they did like all of them. This Wednesday is another open mike at the coffeehouse in McMinnville, and I’ll use that opportunity to promote the Pumpkinfest again. The folks there haven’t heard “Dead Fishes” or Beth Williams’ “The Well in the Glade” yet.

One thing I’d really like to accomplish while I’m making money is to record the album. John hasn’t had any time (and since I became a city manager again, neither have I). It would be worthwhile, I think, to bite the bullet and record the thing at Mike’s studio in Rockaway. As usual, I would want to do it Patsy Cline style—live and in one take—to save money; since Mike would be recording engineer, I expect his lead guitar would have to be added later. Good winter project, assuming I can hang onto some of my money.

And the other is a Christmas benefit concert for the Food Pantry, like we did last year. Probably the ideal date would be Saturday, December 18—I’m pretty sure the Dance Floor at City Hall is available that night (it was last year). We could almost use the same setlist.

Joe

PLANNING FOR PUMPKINFEST...

As repeated storms pound (lightly) the Oregon Coast, I get to do the Marge McKinnis Thing—“I stay inside, ‘cause I want to write about love.” Between next week’s column for the paper, the Southern Oregon Songwriters’ newsletter, organizing the Wedding Setlist, and seeing if I can maybe write two songs for the writers’ group in England, there is really quite a bit to do, but I’ve done rather little of it—I’ve just read, and rested my sore foot.

I’m on for the Pumpkinfest in Lafayette; the chief organizer said she liked my material, and I’ve sent her a poster. 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, 24 October, a week before Hallowe’en. I’m on for an hour, and it’ll be outside (I hope the weather’s decent). I tried to concentrate on kid-friendly material:

Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—relatively slow two-step
Bluebird on My Windshield—fast bluegrass
Doing Battle with the Lawn—fast bluegrass
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Twenty Saddles for My Chicken—fast bluegrass
Vampire Roumanian Babies—fast bluegrass
Ain’t Got No Home in This World Any More (Woody Guthrie)—mod. fast two-step
I May Write You from Jupiter—fast bluegrass
The Well in the Glade (Beth Williams)—spooky waltz
The Dog’s Song—supposed to be rock ‘n’ roll, but solo it’s going to be country
Dead Fishes—very fast Elizabethan bluegrass
When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies—fast bluegrass

In that order, I think. Starts with a couple of relatively set pieces, that are hard to screw up even playing to a strange crowd, and ends with one that’s got a proven track record of appealing to kids—and a couple of Hallowe’en songs, too, in honor of the season. (I’ll need to use the new amp for the vocals, so I can add spooky reverb to my voice for Beth’s “Well” song.) 12 songs isn’t quite an hour’s worth when played solo, though—I may need to asdd a couple more.

For the Wedding Setlist, I’ve got the following—not in order, yet:

Saturday Night Waltz—deliberate waltz (Dance of the Happy Couple)
Glad That You’re Here (Stan “Lightning George” Bolton)—slow blues
Distraction (Diane Ewing)—slow rock
So Far (Marge McKinnis)—slow blues
Test Tube Baby—fast Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll
I Want a Man for Christmas—rock ‘n’ roll
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock
Duct Tape—mod. speed country
About Love (Marge McKinnis)—bluegrass, Buddy Holly style
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
Hey, Little Chicken—mod. slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Lilly’s Song (Screamin’ Gulch)—slow blues
Simple Questions (O.N. Vinstad)—rockabilly
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
A Mosquito Ate My Sweetheart Up (Segura Brothers)—fast Cajun waltz
If You Could (Polly Hager)—soft rock (if I can get the chords)
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass

Includes two songs some of the band haven’t played before, and six that none of them have played before, and two more that even I haven’t played before. We do need to practice.

And I still don’t know if the above is what the Happy Couple want. We could even play some cover tunes for this gig—something I normally avoid—because it’s not a paid performance, so there’s no copyright issues, and promoting ourselves doesn’t enter into it, either—it’s all for the bride and groom, and what they want. (The main limitation I have to work with is I can’t sing most other people’s stuff, because I don’t have the voice range—but I’m cast as the lead singer of the band. I can only do what’s possible.)

Joe

WEDDING WALTZES (&C.)...

Another week, I think, in which to assemble and organize the Wedding Setlist. After that, we’ll need to concentrate on practicing. We’ll have a fair amount of new material to get familiar with. 10 of 18 songs, I think.

I found in my “I been to Phoenix” stuff a CD of Screamin’ Gulch songs, recorded by Wayne, our slide/steel guitarist (his guitar was literally made out of steel) live when he was testing out his recording equipment. And yes, “Lilly’s Song,” written by the drummer’s 7-year-old daughter, is on it. Very professional recording—you don’t realize it was live until you hear people applauding at the end. The 4-part harmonies really “make” the song—hard to believe it’s a punk-rock band doing it. I wonder if Deathgrass could do the harmonies? I’ll have to ask.

Wayne had recorded eight (I think) of my songs before I left, and I never have heard the recordings. I wonder if he still has them? I didn’t think to ask when I played at our impromptu Screamin’ Gulch “reunion” in August. It is probably time to do another visit—after the wedding, I expect, but if I get called for an interview for that assistant city administrator job in southern Oregon, I’ll go whenever they tell me to.

The Garibaldi Museum will be shutting down operations for the winter October 31 without a Deathgrass concert on the agenda, and I’m not going to try to change that. Yes, it’d be fun, but I have do triage on my time—there is simply not enough to do everything I’d like to do. I hit up the Museum’s manager—who is putting together their schedule for next year—to have us be one of the musical groups they schedule (and promote) next summer. August (when families are still on vacation) or September (when the retirees travel because it’s safe now that kids are back in school) would be ideal. There’s usually good weather on the Coast both months.

The open mike at the Bay City Arts Center Saturday night got “Doing Battle with the Lawn,” “Twenty-Four Seven,” “Vampire Roumanian Babies” and “In the Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You.” The audience—a good three times bigger than came to the Sept. 25 concert—wanted to be entertained, so I gave them stuff to laugh at. Based on their reaction, I’m not sure “Twenty-Four Seven” is a good inclusion in the Wedding Setlist. It may be too funny. We do need a waltz: there has to be at least the Waltz of the Happy Couple (a traditional feature of wedding receptions), and I haven’t found anything really suitable.

I did finally find listen-to-for-free cuts of both John Fahey’s “We Were Waltzing the Night Away and Then a Mosquito Ate Up My Sweetheart” and the much older Segura Brothers’ “A Mosquito Ate My Sweetheart Up.” Fahey’s is a fairly simple instrumental, but finger-picked with very strange guitar tunings; I’m not sure we want to chance it. The Segura Brothers song is a Cajun waltz, not a polka, and is so simple it might be boring, but it does have very strange lyrics that would be fun to learn. Just one verse, repeated, with an instrumental in between (that was the style back in the 1920s). I would want to do it in the original French, which might be a little hard to master—but lines like “Your brother looks like a frog and your niece looks like the corner of a sidewalk” sound a whole lot classier in French.

Maybe for the Dance of the Happy Couple, we should just default to the “Saturday Night Waltz”; it’s a fairly simple instrumental—what one might call a “deliberate waltz”—and is quite danceable, is so old it’s public domain, and has an interesting background we can talk about in the Rap. And it’s German (though I learned it from a Danish accordion player in Nehalem, here on the Coast), and both bride and groom have spent some time in Germany.

Music only Wednesday this week—the open mike in McMinnville (and I can probably give them the same songs I did in Bay City). Nothing Friday or Saturday this time around.

Joe

MORE THOUGHTS ON A WEDDING SETLIST...

In the course of searching for wedding-song material, I ran across a Website of “The World’s Most Inappropriate Wedding Songs.” I only recognized one on the list—The Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B” (which is a waltz). I probably have a bunch of those myself that are even worse: “The Dead Sweethearts Polka” (about a serial killer), “Angel in Chains” (about a suicide), “When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You” (ditto, but aspirational), “Crosses by the Roadside” (car accident), “Rotten Candy” (guy—or girl—leaves and takes everything), “Prehistoric Roadkill” (ditto, with dinosaur bones), even April Johns’ “Family Portrait” (about a cheating husband). I’m sure there’s more. (And I didn’t mention any of the dead-animal songs.) Nope, not playing any of that stuff at the wedding.

For the wedding, we want to play (or they want to hear) mostly danceable rock ‘n’ roll love songs. I think we can do that. About an hour and a half’s worth? Sure. For starters, we’ve already got some Old Standards that’d fit the bill:

Test Tube Baby—Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Glad That You’re Here (Stan Bolton)—slow blues
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Duct Tape—mod. speed country

We did “The Dog’s Song” at the Christmas Show, and Stan Bolton’s “Glad That You’re Here” at the first Failed Economy Show, both last year. The others are regular inclusions in the setlists. “Duct Tape” is on the list even though it’s country, because it was requested. Some that I know, that the band have never done and would need to practice:

Distraction (Diane Ewing)—very sleazy quasi-blues
I Want a Man for Christmas—rock ‘n’ roll
So Far (Marge McKinnis)—slow blues
Simple Questions (O.N. Vindstad)--rockabilly
About Love (Marge McKinnis)—bluegrass, Buddy Holly-style
Twenty-Four Seven—fast waltz

Would the last two be a little too country for the wedding couple’s tastes? Maybe not the way the band plays them—they tend to “rock up” almost everything I do, and I expect they’d emphasize the Buddy Holly aspect of Marge’s song (for instance) and give it a real danceable beat. And some I don’t know, but would like to learn:

Lilly’s Song (Screamin’ Gulch)—mod. slow blues
We Were Waltzing the Night Away and Then a Mosquito Came and Ate Up My Sweetheart (John Fahey)—waltz (and I’m not sure what speed)
If You Could (Polly Hager)—provided I can sing it

For the Pumpkinfest (Oct. 24), since it’ll be a huge crowd of kids and their parents, I want to do kid-friendly songs. “When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies,” “Hey, Little Chicken,” and “Twenty Saddles for my Chicken” come immediately to mind. Wonder what else I’ve got? Ooo, “Vampire Roumanian Babies.” It’ll be almost Hallowe’en.

Joe

SOME THINGS I'VE LEARNED...

Over time, I’ve learned a few tricks with respect to music, and thought they might be worth repeating. Some are money-savers, and some are time-savers. Not in order:

CDS OF SETLISTS TO THE BAND has been a big time-saver—necessary for Deathgrass because we’re all very busy people. The setlists include the arrangements, and the CDs have recordings of the songs in the order and with the intros, endings, and lead breaks the way we’re going to play them on stage. Minimizes the need for practice. And everything’s timed, and the Rap scripted out, because I refuse to leave anything to chance.

“PATSY CLINE” STYLE STUDIO RECORDINGS. Big money-saver. Patsy and her band would walk into the studio, play the song live, and it’d be note-perfect in one take. All it takes is being thoroughly practiced beforehand—and the sound engineer being able to set levels right. The “Santa’s Fallen” album was recorded that way, and so were the Pineyfest “demo derby” cuts done with professional Nashville session musicians.

POSTERS. Something I did for the Dodson Drifters, 30 years ago: we had a stock recognizable-design poster we used for every concert—just had to fill in the when and where. These days, one does it with computers, and I can send out the posters both as Acrobat (*.pdf) files and as photos (*.jpg). The stock design is a time-saver—and it’s “cultural shorthand” that helps reach that large population with limited attention spans.

“VIDEO IS THE NEW CD.” So saith Canadian DJ Len Amsterdam, and I think he’s right. No, the band haven’t done any music videos, but we should. This may be one reason people go to concerts instead of buying records—they want the “multimedia experience.” The Southern Pigfish album—all music videos, issued on flash drive—will be an experiment to see if this is right. As usual, it’ll be done for very little money—one reason it’s taken so long.

TECHNIQUES FOR CHEAP MUSIC VIDEOS. The video of Porter Wagoner’s last song, “Committed to Parkview,” is a case in point; deliberately understated, with a lot left to the imagination. I’ve seen—and used—the technique of mixing fast-moving slide show with music and text overlays to make a video out of still photos. I’ve seen one done with simple line drawings, too.

BECOME IDENTIFIED WITH A CAUSE. In Deathgrass’ case, it’s the Food Pantry. Publicity for our benefit concerts for them is publicity for the band, and folks who attend to support the cause end up becoming fans of the band. We become “Oh, you’re the guys who…” It’s an application of the Refrigerator Rule: If you put something in, you get to take it out later.

REPUTATION BEFORE RECORDING. I think that’s what Deathgrass is doing; the Dodson Drifters did it, too—we were regionally famous before we ever recorded anything in the studio. (Actually, we’d built the studio first.) I talk about wanting the album, but we haven’t done much (too busy); we just keep performing, and getting better (and better known). By the time the album comes out, it’ll be a sellout.

UPDATE: Music at least two days next weekend, at City Hall Friday night and the Bay City Arts Center open mike Saturday night. Sunday will be the first Sunday of the month, normally the bluegrass jam at the Forestry Center—provided they haven’t shut down for the year. Winter is coming early this year…

Joe

SEPT. 25 POST-MORTEM (AND A NEW CAT)...

The Deathgrass Sept. 25 concert was good. Small—very small—but appreciative crowd (we were competing for attention with three other events in the area at the same time—a contra dance, a square dance, and the final night of a very good play). Told the audience to applaud real loud, because we (and they) were being recorded by Jim Nelson, who was running sound; I told them, too, the audience was small enough so if we got album-quality cuts out of the recording, we could list them by name in the credits.

Our only chance to practice was just before the performance, while we were doing sound checks—and the songs we practiced came out, for the most part, better than the ones we didn’t. Best, though, were our standard opening and closing songs, “Dead Things in the Shower” and Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street.” A close third: “She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself,” the classic (and fast) blues about anorexia.

Because it was a 2-hour show, we did a bunch of stuff we hadn’t played in a long time—Coleman & Lazzerini’s “So 20th Century,” my “50 Ways to Cure the Depression,” “Crosses by the Roadside” and “I May Write You from Jupiter.” “Jupiter” was a little rough, but everything else came off quite good—especially considering we hadn’t been able to practice at all. Comments afterward included that the band were very good (true) and very tight (true), Charlie was a very good lead guitarist (true), and that we ought to do another show and drag in more people (I agreed—and told ‘em to tell their friends and neighbors what a great performance they missed).

Charlie is willing and available to play the wedding reception Oct. 31; that’d give us five pieces—him (lead guitar), Doc (blues harp), Chris (drums), John (bass), and me. I do think that’s the ideal mix; I think it helps to have both a “whiny” lead (blues harp) and a “non-whiny” lead (electric guitar). Question now is whether they want us to do it. I’m told they want classic rock—good, danceable stuff—and we can do that, sort of. It’s “sort of” because while it’ll sound like classic rock (with 3/5 of the band being rock musicians, that’s easy), it won’t be classic, though, because the material will be either original or by people as equally unknown as I am. It’s what we do. (Besides, as I remind folks regularly, I can’t sing most other people’s stuff anyway—I don’t have the voice range.)

Next steps? I’ve been seeing newspaper articles from other towns saying their local food banks are in trouble (way more demand than supply); I assume there’s a similar problem here (though I know the folks running the outfit don’t like to talk about it). It is probably time to do another Failed Economy Show benefit for the Food Pantry—and like last year, the ideal time to do it would be just before Christmas. With a long lead time, might be possible to do some effective publicity (and practice). And I think everybody in the band really likes to play.

No music, I think, until next weekend, though the job will keep me thoroughly busy. I did get the material for the next column for the paper, started soliciting musicians for a performance at the Second Annual Pumpkinfest in Lafayette Oct. 24, and am ready for the next Southern Oregon Songwriters newsletter, which I believe I can typeset on StuartLittle. And we have a new cat at home (coyotes got our two, I’m told). “Ghost” is a “flame-point” Siamese—an abundance of albino genes, with a little tabby thrown in—a teenage boy cat, intelligent and very affectionate. He is learning slowly that walking on keyboards to get attention is not a good idea.

Joe

ROCKTOBERFEST POST-MORTEM (&C.)...

I think we done good at the Rocktoberfest. The audience was small but appreciative; they listened, laughed in all the right places, danced to Woody Guthrie’s “Dance a Little Longer,” and their feet were tapping to Southern Pigfish’s “For Their Own Ends.” (It still amazes me how many people like that song.) Best rendition yet of Betty Holt’s “Our Own Little Stimulus Plan”—of all the songs we did, really. (We got paid, too. I like getting paid.)

Best song? By far, “Tillamook Railroad Blues.” The setlist calls it a “deliberate blues,” but it’s got a lot of musical choreography in it—and at this point, we’ve got every note (and pause) perfect. And Mike’s harmonies are beautiful (they were beautiful on Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street,” too).

Nice comments from those who heard us. I think (maybe I just hope) we’re carving ourselves out an important niche here: we’re the equal, I think, of any talent in the area, and we have a following—and we play exclusively original material. And audiences seem to like the songs. Now, if they’d start asking other bands to play some of our material, we might really be onto something.

We’re going to be sans both Mike and Doc for the Sept. 25 concert at the Bay City Arts Center. I asked Charlie Wooldridge (BCAC’s vice-president) to substitute on lead guitar (we played together in the “board/staff band” open mike at the Arts Center in July), and he’s willing; I left him a setlist and CDs, and maybe we’ll have a chance to play a little Friday night if I can get back from Lafayette early enough (if I work really hard at it, I can make the trip in just under 2 hours). John will be coming back from a conference, and may not get there till just before showtime. Sound engineer Jim Nelson and I will set up everything early Saturday (and try to rig it so we can record the performance, too).

At this point, September 25 is our last performance of Concert Season; I haven’t pressed for a gig from the Garibaldi Museum (and they haven’t pressed for one from me, either)—it would be nice to do, but it has been really hard juggling gigs with a full-time job out of town, and work on the house. There’s the wedding October 31: I’ve got commitments from Chris, and John, and Doc, but Mike won’t be available. (Doc can carry the lead work on his own—we’ve practiced that way, and it works. Lot of new material to learn, though.)

It was suggested we do “The Frog Next Door” as part of the Wedding Setlist—it is a love song, and it has live animals in it (and it’s a blues, too). It’d be a good substitute for “One: I Love You,” which is a cute love song, but about a stalker nonetheless, and we’re not supposed to “do” stalkers in the Wedding Set. Another possibility is a rockabilly number I musicated for a kid (he’s 37) in Norway, O.N. Vindstad, hight “Simple Questions.” An interesting take on the “boy meets girl” song—in Vindstad’s, the boy never does meet the girl. And it’s got some great lines. (Most of the songs I’ve musicated for other folks do, I think. I am attracted to good writing.)

And I have arranged (I think) to get a hyperactive young kitten filmed to star in the music video of “The Dog’s Song.” Need some still shots for the Rap; I think I have some old photos of Baby Amy, our gigantic Doberman, back when she was young (and only the size of a small horse), and I’d like to get a mug shot or two of the kitten, too. Amy was kind of my role model for the old dog in the song; she had the Old Dog Routine down (and had to contend with little kittens in the house, too).

No meetings this week, and no music till this weekend; the truck will get its alternator fixed, and get a long-overdue tune-up and oil change—things one can afford when one has a job—and I’ve got RAM chips to add to StuartLittle so I won’t keep getting “low on memory” error messages, and the graphic-design software to install, too. Goal is to be able to do the music video of “The Dog’s Song" on StuartLittle. Three jobs to apply for, too; the Lafayette gig may be a big time-consumer, but it’s not going to last forever.

Joe

BEING BACK...

Yes, gots Internet again. New 10-year-old computer; cute li’l thing (I have hardbound books that are bigger), running Windows XP (so I can install all my graphic-design software and get some stuff done in off hours—when I have any, that is). Took a cable-TV techie to make it do wireless Internet over here, though.

My only non-meeting night this week got spent playing music, at the Cornerstone Coffee Roasters open mike in McMinnville. This time, they got “Dead Things in the Shower,” “Take Me Back to the ‘Sixties” (the new one), “Crosses by the Roadside” (I try to include one serious song), and “Meet Me at the Stairs” (to remind them I have CDs for sale). No religious songs this time—I don’t think this crowd is ready for “The Abomination Two-Step” or “Born Again Barbie.”

The audience there seem partial to the fast, humorous bluegrass songs, so that’s what I try to give them, as much as possible. I’ll run out after a while—but not right away. I keep hoping somebody’s going to invite me to be one of the weekend entertainers, but it hasn’t happened yet. I probably need to give it more time; the only “marketing” I’ve done of myself here is showing up consistently at this one open mike. (And there were some of their Friday night performers there this time. Excellent singers, and beautiful harmonies. I am probably not in their league.)

I entertain fantasies occasionally about putting together some kind of musical get-together here, along the lines of the Friday Night Group in Garibaldi; I could devote an evening to it, maybe every couple of weeks, and we could maybe do it at the town’s community center, an aged double-wide in one of the city parks. I would need to know at least a few other musicians, though, and thus far I haven’t made any effort to find them. The dream? Before I leave town for good, I’d like to put ‘em on a show.

Band practice Sunday afternoon was good. We went through “Angel in Chains,” the country death metal song we’ve never done before, “Rotten Candy,” which we hadn’t done in a long time, “Our Own Little Stimulus Plan” (one I hadn’t been entirely comfortable with), Southern Pigfish’s “For Their Own Ends” (to try it out with two lead breaks for Doc on the blues harp), and a couple of others. Everyone’s comfortable with most of the material, though—and they are really good. The Rocktoberfest should be a good show. We kick off Sunday’s 7 hours of performances, at noon. (We’re on for an hour.)

Posters for the Rocktoberfest concert are done, and some even distributed. Still need to do the notice to the “joelist.” Posters (and notice) for the September 25 concert have to wait until I get back home this weekend—I don’t have all my graphic-design software with me, to install on this computer. (Computer has a name now—“StuartLittle.”)

Can the band play at daughter’s wedding? I don’t know yet. John, Chris and I can, definitely; Doc is checking his schedule, and I haven’t heard back from Mike. I do hope we can do it. Not only would it be fun, it’d be a chance to develop (and show off) versatility. Imagine: a whole hour and a half’s worth of original love songs, with no dead animals (or rotten candy, cliff jumpers, dead sweethearts, or stalkers). Who’d ha’ thunk?

Joe

CAN THE BAND PLAY DAUGHTER'S WEDDING?

Quickly, because weekends are busy… Band practice Sunday afternoon (the Rocktoberfest gig is next Sunday, and we need to be ready); have to record “Take Me Back to the ‘Sixties,” and re-record “Crosses by the Roadside” and “50 Ways to Cure the Depression” (because I want to remove a verse from each one, and that’s the easiest way with the equipment I’ve got); and there’s the column to do for the paper. Finish work to finish on the door, and another door to put in (the garage, this time—carpenter ants ate the door frame). I still don’t know if I’m getting to take a computer with me when I go back to Lafayette—I sure hope so.

Daughter Kym gets married Sunday, Oct. 31, and wants Deathgrass to play at the wedding reception (yay!). However, she doesn’t want any dead animal songs. I do have some love songs—one should play love songs at a wedding, methinks—that don’t have dead animals, and we could do those. Ones the band have played before are:

Naked Space Hamsters in Love—fast bluegrass
Test Tube Baby—Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Glad That You’re Here (Stan Bolton)—slow blues

John and Chris have played “Hamsters” and “Glad,” but Mike and Doc haven’t. Ones we haven’t played, but could learn, are:

Distraction (Diane Ewing)—very sleazy quasi-blues
Always Pet the Dogs—mod. fast two-step
I Want a Man for Christmas—rock ‘n’ roll
About Love (Marge McKinnis)—bluegrass, Buddy Holly-style
So Far (Marge McKinnis)—slow blues
Twenty-Four Seven—fast waltz
One: I Love You—mod. speed country

The above is an hour’s worth. We should have an hour and a half, ideally. We could add:

Duct Tape—mod. speed country
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues

Ought to have at least once danceable waltz at a wedding, and “Twenty-Four Seven” doesn’t really qualify—it’s too fast. Maybe we should do one of the traditional (and hence public domain) “state” waltzes. Perhaps the North (I think) Dakota state waltz—“The Mosquito Waltz.” I’ve never heard it, but the name is attractive. (Another one that would be fun to do is “Lilly’s Song,” written by the 7-year-old daughter of Screamin’ Gulch’s drummer. It’s a very sweet love song, which we did as a blues. I may have it on CD somewhere.)

No lost-love songs (I’ll include “Duct Tape” because she specifically requested it). No rotten candy, no jumping off cliffs, no dumping the dead sweethearts in the river, and no stalking. No serious subjects or social issues, either. Weddings are occasions on which to convey happy and hopeful sentiments. That’s a little outside the band’s regular routine, but I bet we can do it just fine. I suppose I have to give the bride away, too, huh?

And I haven’t asked the band yet—I’ll do that tomorrow, at practice. Hopefully, they’ll say yes. It’ll be fun.

Joe

BAY CITY POST-MORTEM (AND SEPT. 25 SETLIST)...

A draft Sept. 25 setlist:

SET #1:
Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Take Me Back to the ‘Sixties [NEW]—mod. fast two-step
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Duct Tape—mod. speed country
Steamboat Bill (Shields & Leighton)—rock ‘n’ roll
Things Are Getting Better Now that Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—fast two-step
Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus—mod. speed Gospel
The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot—talking blues (actually, a talking two-step)
Test Tube Baby—fast rock ‘n’ roll

SET #2:
When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You—fast bluegrass
50 Ways to Cure the Depression—mod. fast two-step
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass
Crosses by the Roadside—slow two-step
I May Write You from Jupiter—fast bluegrass
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues
Ain’t Got No Home in This World Any More (Woody Guthrie)—mod. fast two-step
So 20th Century (Coleman & Lazzerini)—ragtime
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—mod. two-step
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass

Two one-hour sets, with a short potty-and-refreshments break in between. To make CDs for the band, I’ll need to record the “’Sixties” song, and re-record “Crosses” and “50 Ways” (I want to eliminate a verse from each one of those—I think it’ll make them better). Mike and Doc haven’t heard “50 Ways” or “Jupiter”—we did those in the first Failed Economy Show, and haven’t done them since—and nobody’s heard “Quoth.” (Actually, only John’s done “Crosses” before. Haven’t played that since our first concert in February 2009. I didn’t play it for a long time after it was rejected by a Nashville publisher, but I think I’m over that now. I don’t care what Nashville thinks. If I like the song, I’ll play it.)

I had written another version of this blog that talked at length about the Bay City Centennial concert, and I’ll do a brief post-mortem here. It was good. Some musicians who presumably know what they’re talking about said it sounded real good, and they were impressed. Best song? This time, “Test Tube Baby”; a bunch of teenagers had asked for a fast song, just as that one was coming up on the setlist, and we did have ‘em dancing in the sawdust. Second? Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street. It makes people listen. “Steamboat Bill,” the Big Hit from 1910, came off good, too. It probably ought to be a permanent addition to the setlist.

One weekend’s break from concerts—next weekend, and we really should practice. Two concerts coming up fast after that—the Rocktoberfest on Sunday, Sept. 19, and the Bay City Arts Center concert the next Saturday, Sept. 25. I still need to arrange a date for a Garibaldi Museum concert, too.

Joe

A WEEK WITHOUT THE INTERNET...

TWO WEEKS since I’ve posted any issues of the blog? I am sorry. Not only has the new job kept me busy, but I’ve had no laptop the past week, and accordingly no access to the Internet outside of work (and I will not use the work computer for personal stuff). Got to read a lot, and play music some, despite the meetings that took two of the evenings this past week.

Central Point concert came off pretty good. Despite not having played together for three years, Dan (mandolin), Gary (electric bass) and I fit together well. And it was a good crowd—nice night in the park, and it brought people out—and they listened. After the show, Dan and I went to Johnny B.’s, the little tavern in downtown Medford, figuring we could make some music because there weren’t any bands scheduled. Nearly everybody from Screamin’ Gulch, the punk-rock band I used to play with down south, showed up (the percussionist was the only one missing), and we played until about midnight. Small but appreciative crowd. And two requests, surprisingly enough (it had been a long time, and I didn’t think anyone remembered): “Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues” and “Naked Space Hamsters in Love.”

Rest of the weekend was occupied with moving daughter back to college, so there wasn’t time to practice with the band. We’ll be doing the Bay City Centennial concert on the strength of just one practice. I don’t really worry about the rest of the band, but I need to make sure I can remember all the words.

Wednesday night was the open mike in McMinnville, at Cornerstone Coffee Roasters, and I’ve been making sure to go. They got five songs, “The World Enquirer” (which did have the audience clapping in time with the song), “Electronic Love,” “Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope),” “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot,” and “I May Write You from Jupiter.” I think they liked “The World Enquirer” best. I don’t think those folks get to hear much bluegrass music. Sold a CD, too.

I’ve moved the Tascam and its little attachments back home. I don’t (and won’t) get time to record anything while I’m in Lafayette—and until I score a cheap laptop running Windows XP (for which I am not holding my breath—such a find would be almost unheard of), I don’t have any way to interface the Tascam with anything but “Alice” the home computer anyway. I have the new song, “Take Me Back to the ‘Sixties,” to record for the Coventry songwriters group—I’ve sung it enough in the car on these long trips that I know it by heart now.

And this weekend? Good thing it’s a 3-day holiday weekend: besides the Deathgrass concert on Saturday, I have a new back door to put in in the house, SOSA’s September newsletter to typeset, the setlist for the September 25 Deathgrass concert to figure out, record, and distribute, and the column to write for the newspaper. Next weekend, the band should practice for both the “Rocktoberfest” concert Sunday, Sept. 19, and the Bay City Arts Center concert Sept. 25. Oh, and posters. I need to do posters—and distribute them. (Poster for the Sept. 25 concert should be easy to design, since I already have all the photos I need (and can take more at Saturday’s concert). For the “Rocktoberfest,” I need to take a photo of Doc, too.)

I never got to distribute posters for the Bay City Centennial concert; there wasn’t enough time. I did get a message out to the “joelist,” and to the thousand or so “friends” on Facebook, and posters to the Arts Center. I hope that was enough.

Joe

TWO DAYS TILL CENTRAL POINT...

One more day of work, and I’m off for southern Oregon, and the Southern Oregon Songwriters show in Central Point Friday night, 27 August. (Dan and I are on at 6:50 p.m., on the bandstand in Robert Pfaff Park—behind the post office. If you’re in the area, do come. Should be fun.)

Dan will be doing three new songs at the concert (we’ll practice ahead of time). I’ll do five, I think:

Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass
No Good Songs About the War—slow two-step
Hank’s Song—mod. fast two-step
Meet Me at the Stairs—fast bluegrass

Nothing new, but there is one song (“Stairs”) I’m sure they haven’t heard before. Since Dan and I both have CDs for sale, that’s an appropriate one to close with: the chorus openly pitches buying CDs to help the starving musician.

I have a first verse now, I think, to the nostalgia-for-the-‘Sixties song. Need at least one more. Two would be better, but if I’ve got just two verses, I can repeat both bridge and chorus after the break, like I did in “Rotten Candy” and “The Frog Next Door,” and that’ll pad it enough for time. No, I won’t be playing the song on stage in Central Point (or, likely, at any of the other gigs this concert Season), but I may well finish writing it en route—that’ll be my next long trip in the car, and those are always good for writing.

My primary goal at this point is to have the thing done in time to fire it off to the Coventry writers’ group over in England. I missed sending them anything last month because I was just too busy with the new job and all. I’m still busy—but at least I’m not spending five hours every day commuting back and forth any more. I have the recording equipment with me—though I don’t have any way to hook it up to this Windows Vista-afflicted laptop to transfer completed recordings (the little Tascam’s brain is big enough to hold only one song). An alternative to upgrading the laptop (which may not be worth upgrading) would be to use the “line in” port on the old Akai CD burner, dump the Tascam’s song file to a CD, and upload that to the ‘puter—but the Akai is still in the studio, and I’m not sure I feel like hauling it around.

Band practice was good—I’m continually impressed by these guys. Our rendition of “Steamboat Bill,” the 1910 hit, is classic rock ‘n’ roll. I’ve been wondering what a musician (a piano player, probably) back in 1910 would have done with the song; it probably would have been performed as some version of ragtime—which isn’t that far away from rock ‘n’ roll, really: I think the emphasis is just on a different “syllable.” We could use another practice before the gig, to polish the songs that were a little rough; it’s going to be a crammed weekend, but I’ll have to try to make the time.

At practice, my little Yamaha amp had gone into Reverb Mode, which made the acoustic guitar sound very electric and distorted—and made the band play faster. A lot of the songs sounded really good played that way—but that may be a setup that’s hard to create on stage. When we do the show, I’ll be playing through a PA, not the little amp, and I wouldn’t be able to get the distorted-electric sound without an effects pedal—which thus far I’m disinclined to buy. I have looked—I’d still like one for the Electric Banjo—but I’m not buying. I suppose my actions—multiplied many hundreds of times over, of course—are the reason why there’s no economic recovery: people have to invest, to buy durable and frivolous things, and they won’t do that until they think times are going to be better. And right now, I don’t.

Joe

THE McMINNVILLE OPEN MIKE (&C.)...

Looks like I didn’t post an issue of the blog mid-week. I know I thought about it, and even had one partly written. It has been a tad busy, and commuting back and forth to the job—a 2.5-hour trip each way—has left me, by my count, all of three hours to myself, per day, if I’m lucky. It may get easier—I did find a place to stay (a room in someone’s home in Lafayette), and I’ll “move in” (clothes, guitar, laptop, recording equipment, and books) Monday.

Wednesday night’s open mike in McMinnville was good. I gave them “Bluebird on My Windshield,””Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus,” “No Good Songs About the War,” and Stan Good’s “Take-Out Food.” (I seem to have developed a pattern here. One serious song and one religious song each time—until I run out, of course. I don’t have many of either variety.) TWO encores—and both were requests for songs I had done last time, “Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues” and “I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas.”

At one point, I did check out the crowd, and noticed the place had gotten full since I’d started playing; the audience also mostly drifted off after I was done. Is this the beginnings of a fan base over there? I hadn’t told anybody I was coming—just told the hosts last time I would try to be back. Yes, I expect I’ll be back again in two weeks if I can. I gave the hosts posters of the Deathgrass concert in Bay City (and they announced it to the audience), and also got to put a poster up on the coffeehouse’s bulletin board. Gave the hosts a free CD, too.

There’s one duo (guitar and bass) that seems to play the coffeehouse regularly (they were there last time, too), and they’re not bad. They appear to know what they’re doing, and to have been playing together for a while. Mostly old country standards. They could use a lead player (or a rhythm player—I think the guitar dude could play lead if he had the opportunity)—but I’m disinclined to take on extra work. Between the job, Deathgrass, the newspaper (just the column, these days), the ContraBand, and a couple of occasional opportunities to play music, there is not much free time.

I haven’t written anything in a while, either—and I know that will start to bother me after a while. I might have something, though. The latest challenge from Jon Harrington’s Coventry (U.K.) songwriters wanted songs about “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll,” and I can do that. An anthem to the ‘Sixties, I think—that period of which ‘tis said if you remember it, you didn’t really live through it. (Since I was mostly a Good Kid, I do remember the ‘Sixties. Interesting times.) Chorus and bridge (yes, there will be a bridge, even though I abhor bridges) are done; the trick now is to craft verses that are as good as the chorus and bridge are.

If I do manage that, would I want to incorporate the song into the Deathgrass concerts? I don’t think so—not the first two, for sure, and since the third comes pretty fast on the heels of those, maybe not that one, either. I’m highly organized about performances, and try always to have everything worked out and practiced ahead of time; accordingly, the setlists for the Bay City Centennial and the Rocktoberfest are done, as is the Rap for the former (I’ll do the Rap for the latter this weekend). This weekend, I’ll also distribute Rocktoberfest setlists and CDs to everybody. The Rocktoberfest organizers want photos and bios of the bands, too, so that’ll be my excuse to take pictures of everybody (I can catch everybody except Doc at Sunday’s practice—I’ll have to do him separately). After the practice, I’ll send out the notices for the Bay City Centennial concert—I always want to make sure first that I’m advertising something that’s going to be good (though with this band, I don’t think there’s any cause for worry).

Joe

"ROCKTOBERFEST" SETLIST (&C.)...

I’d say I got everything done I was supposed to do this weekend, but it wouldn’t be true: I still have the application for that city-manager job in Alaska to finish. (I still need to mow the lawn and bake cookies, too.) Being employed doesn’t leave a lot of time to do things like that—but the statistical reality I have to face is virtually the only people who are being offered jobs these days are the ones who already have them. (My getting a job was really a fluke.) While I’m temporarily employed, I need to market myself as heavily as possible.

Setlists, CDs and posters for the Bay City Centennial concert are done; I dropped off John’s and Chris’s at their houses, and mailed Mike his. For the poster, turns out I did have good photos of some of us, taken last fall by Carol Ackerman with my camera; the only one I was missing was Mike, and I found an acceptable one of him online. I’d like to do better, but this works for right now.

I’ve arranged (I think) to have Jim Nelson run sound for the “Joe’s Birthday” Deathgrass concert 25 September at the Bay City Arts Center—and also to record the performance. I’d like to get the raw material for a live album out of it. It’s a 2-hour show—24 songs—and I should be able to extract 12 out of that for a record.

Potential setlist for the Rocktoberfest Sept. 19:

Dead Things in the Shower—mod. fast two-step
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock
Test Tube Baby—Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues
Angel in Chains—country death metal
Rotten Candy—fast bluegrass, with Gospel beat
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—mod. fast two-step

10 songs, concentrating on the “rockers,” but with our classic opener and closer (both two-steps) and one bluegrass/Gospel tune. The rest is blues, various subspecies of rock, and country death metal. (“Angel in Chains” is the only new thing on the list. I’d really like to get the opinions of at least some of the band before including it on the setlist, though. I like it—but does (or will) anybody else?)

I’d really like to play at the open mike in McMinnville Wednesday night, if I can fit it into the schedule. This will be the first one since my “debut” performance two weeks ago, and if I’m consistent about it, I’ll both get their attention and be considered “dependable” and a candidate to be a paid performer. (And it is nice to have an appreciative audience. Those folks don’t know how rare that is.) They like the humorous stuff (that’s good—that’s mostly what I write), and I can throw in one serious song and really get their attention. This time, I could give ‘em “Dead Things in the Shower,” “Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus” and (serious) “No Good Songs About the War,” and if there’s time for a fourth, maybe “Bluebird on My Windshield.” And if they want an encore (they did last time), I could do something fairly outrageous—how about “Electronic Love”?

The McMinnville open mike and Saturday afternoon at the Library are my only music this week—though we should have a band practice, too. The Labor Day gig will be only two weeks away.

Joe

BAY CITY SETLIST...

Draft setlist for the Bay City Centennial:

Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
Things Are Getting Better Now that Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—fast two-step
Steamboat Bill (Shields & Leighton)—rock ‘n’ roll
Eatin’ Cormflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Ain’t Got No Home in This World Any More (Woody Guthrie)—fast two-step
Welcome to Hebo Waltz—fast waltz
Duct Tape—mod. speed country
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Test Tube Baby—rock ‘n’ roll
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass
Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—mod. two-step
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass

17 songs (normally, a 1-1/2 hour set would be 18 songs, but two of the Woody ones here are substantially longer than usual). The list includes both the “local color” songs, “Hebo” and the train; it’s mostly old standards the band have done before and do well. “Steamboat Bill,” written in 1910 (and one of the most popular songs of that year), is our main concession to historicity, but there’s three Woody Guthrie songs on the list, too (of three different styles), and he’s a little historic himself.

“Steamboat Bill” and “Ain’t Got No Home” the band haven’t played before. The latter, though, has been on setlists before (it’s just always got cut to save time), and it’s one of those classic two-steps people just seem to slip into easily. Often, when I’ve played this elsewhere, the audience will end up joining in on the last line of each verse, and it’d be nice if that happened here.

Next steps (I have to be ruthlessly organized these days)—record “Steamboat Bill,” make CDs and setlists and get them to the band, and set up time to practice. All that has to happen this coming weekend. Practice probably the following weekend, since I believe John’s out of town this weekend. The other task for this weekend is to typeset the programs for the two Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. summer concerts in Central Point (I’m playing at the second one of those).

And the poster. I know how I’d like to design the poster, but I’ve got to take people’s photographs for it. If I could use the Deathgrass logo (the stuffed dreadlocked skull hanging from the mike stand) as the centerpiece, and surround that with mug shots of the musicians with their instruments, it’d be neat, and would make a nice set piece for future concert advertising. I probably have a usable photo of me in the archives, but will need to take photos of everybody else—probably one by one.

I have all the same stuff to do with respect to the “Rocktoberfest” concert, though that’s two weeks later, has a different (and shorter) set, and we’ll have Doc with us. Still, it’d be nice to have that one done, too. It’s not like I have a whole lot of free time these days.

No music at the Library this Saturday (the staff will be busy at the county fair), and I don’t seem to be able to get back to Garibaldi early enough on Friday nights to sit in with the Friday Night Group. With luck, the Contraband will be getting together to practice, and I won’t entirely lose out on chances to play music.

Joe

THE BAY CITY OPEN MIKE (&C.)...

The Bay City Arts Center open mike Saturday night was good: we had 12 performers, including a poet, a standup comic, and a short-story author (all very good), plus the musicians—Opal (electric autoharp), Bud (guitar), Elsie (accordion), Chippewa Bob (saw), Jim (piano), and Noah, one of Mike Simpson’s “Rockshop” kids, did an original song with little Max on drums. Had an “acapulco” singer, too, and first Opal and then Elsie were able to give him musical accompaniment. Thanks, guys.

Some folks insisted I play something, too—I hadn’t planned on it, since we had plenty of performers, and it’s their show, not mine—so I gave them “In the Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You” at the end. And we followed everything with a general jam session by the musicians, most of whom had come there wanting to do that, rather than play solo like usually happens at an open mike. The solo performances were videotaped (thanks, Charlie), and next weekend, I’ll see if I can’t make DVDs out of it for everybody—the office’s old Macintosh says it can do it, but I’ve never tried.

An experiment that did work out: instead of charging the Arts Center’s usual gate fee (since there was nobody to man the door and collect it, anyway), I just put out a donation jar next to the big bowl of homemade cookies, and people did indeed toss money in—more, in fact, than the Arts Center usually collects in gate fees at these open mikes. I think this is definitely the way to go. Yes, one can question whether folks were donating for the music or the cookies—they did eat almost all the cookies—but who cares? Does it matter?

It was nice (and satisfying) that some of the musicians came because I asked them to, and they said they had fun and I think they want to do it again. The monthly open mike may be on a roll now—a “set piece” that just gets bigger and bigger from here on, and can be one of the area’s regular cultural events. This, I think, is how we make the Arts Center the centerpiece of the community (and Bay City really needs a centerpiece): we have events that get people coming here, and they begin thinking of the Arts Center as a regular Place To Go—and subsequently, to schedule their own things at. I’ve made this pitch to the Second Street Market folks in Tillamook, too, but don’t think it’s sunk in yet.

I have seen minimal advertising thus far of the Bay City Centennial celebration, and expect the Deathgrass promotion will be the bulk of whatever gets out there. I’ll make sure our posters, flyers, press releases, and radio spots mention the other “acts” (while concentrating on us, of course); I’d like to see a big crowd at this, and the promotion is something we can do. I still have to figure out the setlist (I have to arrange the setlist for the “Rocktoberfest,” too), and get CDs of the songs to everybody. That last is probably a job for next weekend. This weekend is going to run out of time very quickly.

And for the Bay City Centennial CDs, I need to record “Steamboat Bill.” The second verse of that song is a bit choppy, and could be improved, I think—and I can probably do that. Jeff Tanzer (lead guitarist for the Dodson Drifters) and I never hesitated to improve other writers’ stuff—we even did it to Bob Dylan and Hank Williams—and I suppose Ren Shields, who wrote the lyrics for “Steamboat Bill,” should be no exception. Next week’s commuting back and forth to Lafayette (2 to 2-1/2 hours in the car each way) should provide plenty of time to work on it.

Played Sunday night with the ContraBand—Jane (fiddle), Kathryn (guitar), and Fred (keyboard). I don’t know if the contra dance organizers want us back, but we’re going to continue playing together anyway, I think. I think the goal is to have a band that can do community dances at (for instance) the local Grange Hall—filling a crying need in the Failed Economy. To the extent I can, I want to participate.

Joe