UPDATES...

Helped teach Beach Art to pre-teens at the Arts Center for two days. Incredibly tiring work, but tons of fun—and these are extremely creative kids. I accomplished very little beyond that. The third (and last) city that’s looking at me as an interim city manager won’t be making a decision for another week, and I can’t stay on pins and needles that long; I will just not worry about it, and keep busy. There’s plenty to do. Concert Season presently looks like this:

July 16 (Saturday): Both Deathgrass and 45 Degrees North, at the Wheeler Summerfest. 90-minute sets, each.
July 23 (Saturday): 45 degrees North at the Rainbow Lotus in downtown Nehalem. 2-hour set.
July 28 (Thursday): Solo, at Bridgeport Whole Foods in Tigard for the Willamette Writers Conference. A little over an hour.
July 30 (Saturday): Deathgrass at Garibaldi Days, at the Old Mill Clubhouse in Garibaldi. 1-hour set.
August 6 (Saturday): With Dan Doshier at the Southern Oregon Songwriters Summer Concert, in Talent. Dan and I will be splitting 40 minutes.
Sept. 18 or 19 (exact date & time still TBA): Deathgrass at the Rocktoberfest in Rockaway Beach. 90-minute set.

The ringleaders behind the “Rails 100” celebration October 1-2—commemorating the 100th anniversary of completion of the railroad to the Coast—were talking about wanting “period” music. Hits from 1911, in other words. Turns out “Steamboat Bill,” which Deathgrass performed at the Bay City Centennial last year (it was one of the top songs of 1910), was also one of the top songs of 1911. Probably need to make sure it’s on all our local setlists (local setlists is actually the only kind we have).

I’ve been approached by the 2nd Street Market (finally); we—and I think that means either Deathgrass or 45 Degrees North, or both—can have our pick of Fridays or Saturdays in July. Fridays 5-7 p.m., Saturdays 1-3 p.m. We have to provide our own sound system, and it is unpaid. More of a consideration is there aren’t many Saturdays left in July that I have available.

For bring-your-own-PA situations like this, Deathgrass has a good sound system we can borrow, but 45 Degrees North does not: we’ve got a PA, and a 6-channel mixer, but we need speakers—good, decent-sized ones. The little PA can handle pretty big speakers. Affording them when one has no money, however, is a challenge, to say the least.

45 Degrees North will perform at the Bay City Arts Center’s open mike Saturday—another showcase/practice-in-front-of-a-crowd opportunity. We’ll do::

Manzanita Moon—soft jazz (Candice)
Road to Lisdoonvarna [NEW]—fast Irish love song (Jane)
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy (me)
Wagon Wheel (Dylan)—mod. tempo country (Candice)

“Lisdoonvarna” was surprisingly easy to learn. It’s considered a love song (though it doesn’t sound at all like one) because little Lisdoonvarna (pop. 842) on the Irish coast is the site of one of Europe’s largest matchmaking festivals. The other songs are all standards, and we do them well. We will nonetheless practice one more time before the event.

I did get advised that “Hearts of Country Radio,” an Internet radio station in Princeton, Texas, is playing five of my songs—“Rotten Candy,” “The Dog’s Song,” “Crosses by the Roadside,” “Bluebird on My Windshield” and “Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up.” Heard two of ‘em while I was listening. Link is
http://www.krykey.com/Radio/PRSPage.aspx?id=2451

Joe