GARIBALDI DAYS POST-MORTEM...

Every now and then, you do something just about right. I think we did the Garibaldi Days concert just about right. The audience was small, but most of them were there to see us, I think (some had come earlier, saw that another band was playing, and went away and came back). Sold two CDs, got tips, got another name for the “joelist.” The newspaper got some photos (don’t know if they’ll use them), and so did I—I gave my camera to one of Charlie’s relatives in the audience, and she took a lot of pictures.

I tried to watch the audience carefully (I don’t have a problem doing that, I’ve found, as long as they’re being appreciative). Best? They really liked “Dead Things in the Shower” and “Un-Easy Street” (our standard opening and closing numbers), and also “Tillamook Railroad Blues,” “Crosses by the Roadside,” Betty Holt’s “Our Own Little Stimulus Plan,” “She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself” and “Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus.” (Wait—isn’t that more than half the setlist? Yes. It is.) Had two people ask afterwards, “You’re the guys who play ‘Bluebird on My Windshield,’ aren’t you?” Guess that’s another one that ought to be added to the setlist to be played on a regular basis.

Not practicing the night before was good; a night’s rest really helped—and gave me plenty of time to think through how I’d do things I wasn’t satisfied with at practice. I’d like to continue doing it that way.

It is time to incorporate a few new things into the setlist; haven’t done that thus far this year because there just hasn’t been time to practice anything new. But we will be doing substantially different stuff for the Rocktoberfest—“rockier” material, some of which we haven’t done since last summer. 90 minutes’ worth, too. That’ll be a chance to see how that stuff goes over—and stuff the audience really likes we can make “standards.”

One thing I haven’t seen other bands do is the Rap—patter that fills the space between songs (and also separates songs that might sound too much alike). I hear dead space when other bands are playing, but there’s none when we do; I do not want to give people the opportunity to be bored by silence, so there isn’t any. It adds to the rapid-fire feeling of the performance (even though half the material may be slow). The Rap also triggers for the band what song is coming next (though they really know that already, because they’ve had the list, and the CDs, and we have practiced everything in order). That we can just launch into stuff without anybody having to say anything just adds to the professionalism. I think.

I sent my request for original train songs to writers on Just Plain Folks, Soundclick, and the Actors & Musicians group on Facebook, and to the Coventry songwriters over in England; I’ve already received some songs, with promises of more. There’s some that may be too complicated to do (I’m the one who’s going to have to make draft recordings for the band), and there’s at least a couple I know I can’t sing because the vocals are way outside my voice range in both directions (it actually doesn’t take much to be outside my voice range in both directions). I will see what I can do. And there’s a couple by people who are semi-famous—I’ve asked people who know the writers personally to see if we could get permission to play them. I wouldn’t want to do it any other way.

A lot of the songs are mournful, but that’s to be expected: we’re talking about a way of life that’s pretty much gone away, that folks are very nostalgic about. “The Tillamook Railroad Blues” is sad, too. It just happens to rock at the same time, ‘cause we do that.

Joe