SOSA SUMMER CONCERT POST-MORTEM...

It was good. Dan on standup bass, Jef (one “f”) on mandolin, and myself. We played:

Pole Dancing for Jesus
Selling Off My Body Parts
Crosses by the Roadside
Free-Range Person
Writer’s Block Blues
The Termite Song

Two new songs, two songs off the album, two older ones; some of the audience had heard “Termite” and “Free-Range Person” before, but nobody’d ever heard the others. Small crowd, but a bunch of unfamiliar faces (the concert had been announced in the Medford paper); with luck, those folks will come to future events.

Our trio (Dan, Jef, and myself) was perfect, despite our not having had any time at all to practice (the three of us had gotten to play “Pole Dancing for Jesus” just once, at Dan’s shop, and nothing else); I think it came off well because (1) these guys are very good musicians and (2) my material is deliberately predictable musically. (Not lyrically. I am unpredictable lyrically—also deliberately.) I do try to signal obviously when chord changes are going to happen—that’s one of the things a competent rhythm guitarist is supposed to do, and I am determined to be a competent rhythm guitarist.

Some folks said we were the best part of the show. That was nice, though I’d dispute that. I think the best—and also the most innovative—was the blend of music and poetry performed by Gene Burnett and T-Poe. The mix of one of T-Poe’s Vietnam poems with Gene’s “If There Was a Wall” was absolutely heart-rending.

Sold one CD there, and two more later, in Jacksonville, where I went to hear Dan play fiddle with the band Stereotyped. They’re not bad, but Dan is definitely their lead instrument (they’re not exactly a bluegrass band—more like punk rock with two guitars, banjo, standup bass, harmonica, fiddle, and no drums). Dan and I got to play during the band’s break—some of his stuff, some of mine, just like at the SOSA concert. What sold the CDs, though, was the Deathgrass T-shirt I was wearing—the guys wanted to buy the CD before they’d ever heard me play. (Dan telling the bar audience earlier that I was in the crowd, like I was some out-of-town celebrity, helped, too.)

I think what we pulled off in Talent is a low-key, homegrown version of what some of the Big Entertainers do. Many of them don’t travel with a band; when they show up out of town for a performance, they expect to have a band waiting for them, familiar with the material, and ready to go on stage and rock. The difference is I know the musicians personally, and we’ve played together. Could this be done in other places? I think so. The key is knowing similar pools of musicians in those other places. (And that means getting out more.)

We will be sans Doc for the Rocktoberfest, too—he will definitely be out of town all day the day we are supposed to perform. Our choices are to play the gig as a 4-piece band, or to substitute another “whiny lead” for the harmonica. My preference would be the latter, and to have the substitute be a fiddle, provided everyone (including the fiddle player) were agreeable. A fiddle as a rock ‘n’ roll instrument? Sure. (A good half of what we’ll be doing at the Rocktoberfest is country music, anyway.)

I didn’t manage to finish the train song on the trip; it got displaced by another tune, which did get finished, I think—a sleazy little blues about (what else?) death. I think I can title it “Husband” (opening line is “When my husband’s dead…”) and send it off to the Coventries (their challenge this month was for songs with one-word titles). It would be really nice to record this with a girl singing it; the subject matter isn’t really appropriate for a guy singer (though I have done gender-inappropriate material in the past—I am slowly assembling an entire set’s worth of songs that are best performed in a gay bar).

Joe