PRE-PUPPET SHOW THOUGHTS...

Two days until the “Sleeping Piggy” performance—and word does seem to have gotten around a lot. I suppose we better make sure we’re good. “Puppet perfect,” so to speak.

Still a few things to do: I’ve got to make a new bass guitar for Luke, to match the miniature Gibson Les Paul that Kathryn loaned for Hansolo to play (it’s really a telephone—and it’s the perfect size for a sock puppet); Princess Leah’s pretty yellow helmet (for after she joins the Dark Side) needs its Barbie-flower and “Princess” stickers; and I have to cut silhouettes for the King and Queen (Luke and Leah’s mom and dad), who aren’t socks—they’re offstage voices—but are still pigs, of course. Need to make sure we have camerapeople to do video, too.

And it wouldn’t hurt to rehearse my own lines—not too hard a job, I think, since I wrote the script. Writing things down tends to “freeze” stuff in my memory (that’s why I wait until the last minute to write down any song—I want it to be perfect before it gets “frozen”).

I wasn’t able to connect with the saxophone player—or to find a sockpuppet-sized sax (except by ordering 3,000 of them from China), so we’ll do a lead harmonica on the soundtrack instead of a sax. I tapped “Chippewa Bob” (he of the musical saw) for that; he got a CD today to practice with, and we’ll record his part tomorrow evening. I did find a toy harmonica that’s about Yoda’s size, and bright red so it’ll show up good. (Yoda needs a harmonica holder.) Still waiting on Polly’s vocal. I’ve got two bass tracks from John (and will probably use both of them).

Need to mix everything when I get all the pieces; it’ll be the first time I’ve used Audacity to do that, but I do have a work-around in case it doesn’t work out the way I expected. I can do all the mixing on the Tascam if I have to; I did that with the draft “live” recording of Southern Pigfish’s “For Their Own Ends,” which had bass, rhythm and lead guitars, vocals, drums (muted, because it wasn’t very good), and canned applause—six tracks on a 4-track system. I’ll have six tracks here, too—seven if I add applause. (I probably should add applause—it would be a good way to end the show, and it’s arguable the sock-puppet band might not get applauded any other way.)

It’s not so much that I have less control over the end product when I do the mixing that way, but rather that I have less ability to easily fix mistakes. It becomes very important to be able to do everything right the first time.

I haven’t done anything new on the other projects. The album still needs my vocals, Raps and “plinks,” and Mike’s harmonies, and the “50 Ways” music video is on hold until after the puppet show. While I was out of town for the job interview, I did work up a draft setlist for my part in a 4-person impromptu band for a 3-hour show at the Manzanita Farmer’s Market; need to send it to the rest of the group and see what they think. I do have a lot to choose from—somewhere over 80 songs, maybe a quarter of them co-writes. Related (and still to do): setlist for a half-solo, half-Deathgrass 3-hour slot at the same venue.

Movement is a little restricted this week; the truck had a Close Encounter of the Guardrail Kind en route back from the job interview, and can’t be driven at night until the headlights get replaced (it and I are otherwise fine); that might preclude going to Wheeler to play music Thursday night, but it should be fixed in time to play music Sunday night. Music Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and an open mike Saturday night. Dr. Seuss’ birthday is this week; I ought to find an excuse at one or more of those venues to perform “The Cat with the Strat.”

Joe