WELCOME...

This blog is the outgrowth of a songwriting workshop I conducted at the 2006 "Moograss" Bluegrass Festival in Tillamook, Oregon. It presumes that after 30-odd years of writing and playing music, I might have something to contribute that others might take advantage of. If not, it may be at least a record of an entertaining journey, and a list of mistakes others may be able to avoid repeating. This blog is intended to be updated weekly. In addition to discussions about WRITING, it will discuss PROMOTION--perhaps the biggest challenge for a writer today--as well as provide UPDATES on continuing PROJECTS, dates and venues for CONCERTS as they happen, how and where to get THE LATEST CD, the LINKS to sites where LATEST SONGS are posted, and a way to E-MAIL ME if you've a mind to. Not all these features will show up right away. Like songwriting itself, this is a work in progress. What isn't here now will be here eventually. Thank you for your interest and your support.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

CD RELEASE PARTY THOUGHTS...

So… the CD isn’t done yet, but I’m already scheduling the CD Release Party—have a date, have the hall, &c. The experts say I shouldn’t be doing that. HAVE THE CDS IN HAND FIRST, they said. Apparently a lot of bands and musicians end up scrambling at the last minute to have “product” for an already-scheduled CD release party because something happened to delay production of the CDs. It could happen to us, too.

There is a lot of advice online about how to throw a CD release party (and one assumes at least some of it comes from people who know what they’re doing). Among their other pointers:

HAVE FOOD. Check. FREEBIES FOR THE ATTENDEES. A Deathgrass poster, perhaps. I think I know where to get those done cheap. SUPPORT STAFF. Somebody to deal with the food and drink, and somebody to deal with the money; the band can’t do it, because they’ll be playing. INVITATIONS. Can’t do it—the “joelist” has only names and e-mails, not mailing addresses. The media could get engraved invitations, though, along with their e-mails.

THE MEDIA GET ADVANCE COPIES OF THE CD, so the radio folks can play songs from the CD on the air, and the print folks can do reviews, all in advance of the Event—adding to the “buzz” that hopefully will induce people to come. The CDS SHOULDN’T GO ON SALE IN STORES UNTIL AFTER the release party, though, so people will go to the Event to get a copy before anyone else. The vendors are lined up beforehand, and displays made, so the CD goes on sale everywhere (or mostly everywhere) at the same time. Should have the CDBaby account ready, too.

We’ll have to do some things differently, of course. Our Event isn’t going to be held in a tavern; we’ve never been a “bar band,” and our fan base includes (unexplainably) a lot of teenagers. We’ll do it at the Bay City Arts Center (and generate some publicity for them in the process). We could even do it on a Sunday afternoon; one doesn’t have to do this stuff at night.

THE BAND PLAYS, of course—but a lot of the people I know are musicians; why not invite them to bring their instruments and sit in with the band? The Arts Center’s got a 15-channel mixing board—one can do a lot with that. (Big dance floor, too.) We play songs from the CD, of course—that’s traditional—but we don’t have to limit ourselves to that. And everything we do is simple, and easy to follow, and folks have heard it before. It could be more like a party than a performance, in other words. And we are small-time, after all; these folks are friends, not customers.

And—this is really speculative—could the Event be videotaped? Wil Duncan’s video class will still be going on, and the students might be interested in additional practice beyond the documentary they’re working on; yes, two of the students—Charlie and myself—are in the band, but there are five who aren’t. And the Arts Center has the equipment. If it happened, the results could go on the Deathgrass Website (which isn’t built yet)—and I might even be able to make DVDs (since “Alice” the ‘puter finally got her DVD-rewritable drive installed that I’ve had kicking around for months).

Back to the top, though. Need to HAVE THE CDS DONE AND IN HAND FIRST. And there’s still work to do to make that happen.

Joe

Saturday, February 26, 2011

RECORDING THE ALBUM...

Recording session went good. Base tracks for all 11 songs are done; despite spending about four hours in the studio, we did manage to do nearly every song in one take—which was the idea. The lesson (which I already knew): practice saves money. Once the levels were set, things moved pretty fast. Vocals on all the songs were “scratch” vocals, intended to be re-done, but Mike says he’ll keep the one on “She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself” because it’s about perfect.

Need to record Doc’s harmonica, too (he was out of town, but Mike had wanted to record him separately anyway). There are two or three songs where I might want to record me doing lead guitar—“plinks,” actually, nothing fancy—to accent Charlie’s and Doc’s leads. Need to record Raps for (I think) nine of the 11 songs. And there are some songs where I’d really like to have Mike’s backup harmonies. But the hardest part, Mike says, is done. The songs are, in order:

Dead Things in the Shower (co-wrote 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 march
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

All in all, it’s a good mix of tempos, styles, and sentiments—a couple of serious songs (wouldn’t want to go overboard with that stuff), a few social issues addressed (not particularly seriously), and of course some dead animals. I hope the buying public likes it.

An invitation, sort of, to play at the Manzanita Farmer’s Market (“sort of” because I contacted them, after hearing they’d been talking about me). They do pay—but it’s a 3-hour gig, too. Talked to the band about it, and they’re interested, but don’t want to do three hours; they’d be willing to do half that, if I could do the other half solo (which might be possible). I’ve also approached the folks I’ve been playing with on Sunday nights, and they’re interested, too. We could create a band for the occasion out of that, I think—and with three or four people trading off the front-man job, three hours wouldn’t be so hard.

The Garibaldi Days organizers (who are different again this year) are reportedly talking about entertainment, too, and I want to make sure they don’t inadvertently overlook the band (they could deliberately reject us, and that’d be fine—though I’d hope some eyebrows would be raised if they did, because we are good). They’ll be meeting, though, as I’m en route to an out-of-town job interview (another interim city-manager gig)—I won’t be able to be there. No recordings to give ‘em to show what the band sounds like, either, because the album isn’t finished yet.

On the other projects: I have John’s bass tracks for the “Sleeping Piggy” soundtrack; still need “whiny” lead—sax or harmonica—and girl vocal. I have all the photos, I think, for the “50 Ways” music video, but still need to record the rest of the instruments—bass, banjo, and musical saw. “Piggy” first—our performance is in only a week.

Joe

Monday, February 21, 2011

BAND PRACTICE (&C.)...

Band practice went good; the ones we do best are, not surprisingly, “Dead Things in the Shower, “Un-Easy Street,” “Tillamook Railroad Blues” and the Southern Pigfish classic, “For Their Own Ends.” They’re all different, but they all default into a “groove” that’s just plain comfortable. “She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself” was good, too—I think because I’ve played it regularly at that so-called “country jam” in Wheeler (where they do not play country music, and if I have to perform anything, I’ll do a blues).

The song on the album setlist that needs the most work is “The Dog’s Song”—and it’s me that needs the work. I tend to start out singing it in too high a register, and then I can’t hit the high notes later on. I need to practice starting out singing low (though the low notes are hard to hit, too). I’ve got about five days to work on it. Got to be perfect when we go into the studio.

The rest of the songs, I think, are okay. Our renditions were definitely acceptable—but I think everybody went away with ideas how to make their parts better. I have no doubt they’ll be perfect when we do them in the studio.

Basic tracks for the “Sleeping Piggy” soundtrack—a “by Southern Pigfish” song, “Till the Pigs Come Home”—are done. Used the Strat for rhythm guitar (lead and bass runs, roo), since the song is supposed to be rock ‘n’ roll, but it still came out sounding country. It is at least a foot-tapper. (And only a minute and a half long. One verse, one chorus, one lead break, and a tag line. I think this means I can do commercials.)

Now to add more instruments. I want at least bass and (if I can get it) Larry’s saxophone. And Polly’s vocals. (I’d like to have drums, too, since Chewy-the-Wookie will be playing drums in the play, but recording drums is significantly beyond my capabilities at present.) Rehearsal with the puppeteers is Thursday after school, and I want the soundtrack ready to go so the puppets can practice rockin’ out to it with their instruments. (Still need to make the instruments, too. Luke needs a bass, and Hansolo an electric guitar. I have a toy horn for Yoda, but I’d really like to find a toy sax. I can order them from China, but I apparently have to order a minimum of 3,000. I do not need that many—at least, not right now.)

And while I’m at it, I need to finish the “50 Ways to Cure the Depression” music video. I have, I believe, all the photos; I need to finish the soundtrack, adding bass, Bob’s saw, and my banjo. Need it finished in case I run out of time (like, if one of the horde of people I’ve applied for jobs with wants to hire or interview me).

Got a lot of advice on the Website. I think I need to have a few more pieces ready before I can start building: I need photos of the band, recordings of the band, and a video of the band in concert. The last two of those don’t exist yet, but we may be close—we “do studio” end of this week, and there is video of the Feb. 5 Failed Economy Show that I just haven’t seen yet. I have just a handful of photos, but will take more when we’re recording.

On the other hand, I do have all those pieces with respect to me, collected over several years, and I understand I can set up a sort of “sub-Website” for my stuff in the process. Maybe that’s a good place to experiment, since I really do not know what I’m doing. (And I am Da Writer, after all. One of the 2011 Goals—it was also one of the 2010 Goals—was to figure out how to make money off this stuff.)

Oh, and one plus (and maybe lesson for others): One reason the Failed Economy Show (or pieces thereof) will be able to be aired on TV is the songs are original. If they were covers, it wouldn’t be possible because of copyright hassles. So there are advantages—exposure advantages—to not doing famous people’s stuff.

Joe

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

SO WE NEED A WEBSITE...

Two people, now, have contacted me saying Deathgrass needs a Website. (I do agree.) They’ve both advised when you google “Deathgrass,” you come up with nothing (which I have advised is Google’s fault, not ours—it simply proves Google does not and cannot know everything). But I’d agree a Deathgrass Website is not only desirable, but necessary. I’m just not sure how to do it. (Technological dinosaur, y’know.)

Here’s my idea of what a Deathgrass Website should do. It should be simple—accommodating the folks who still have old, slow computers and slow connection speeds (I was one of those for a long time). And it can be one “page,” consisting primarily of links, because a lot of the pieces of an Internet marketing system already exist, and just need to be connected. So we need:

--A link to a music “page” on Soundclick, SoundCloud, ReverbNation, or one of the other online music databases (OMDs).

--A link to “The Writer’s Blog” on blogspot.

--A link to the specific spot on CDBaby (still to be developed) where people can buy the album online.

--And links to everybody who’ll provide links to us. Years ago, a pharmacist I knew in Germany maintained that was the way business would be done on the Internet—“Links. People will pay for links.” I’m not going to pay for links, but as usual, I’d do trades. Might end up with a whole ‘nother page of links.

In addition, I want a button people can click to play a song. That could be a link, too—we don’t need a separate player. The song needs to change regularly—at least weekly, I’ve been told. A button that’d play (link to) a video of the band in concert would be good, too—and we will have some video, from the Feb. 5 Failed Economy Show.

Photos, of course—and there aren’t many photos of the band in existence. I have a camera, but I’m playing in the band and don’t get to use it. I need to make a regular practice of turning over my camera to someone in the audience at concerts, and telling them to take lots of pictures. The camera’s little chip-brain will hold over 100 photos.

And the e-mail list. The Website must provide a place people can sign up to be notified of future gigs, and future albums. We “collect people” at every show, and the list is growing, slowly. The folks collected from the Website (name, e-mail, and location, too, I think) need to get incorporated into the existing list automatically. I’m not sure how. The ability for folks to leave notes is important, too: the ability to communicate personally is one of our strengths, and I want to make sure we can do it easily.

We’ll need a domain name; *.org, *.net, *.us and *.info are easy—it’s only getting a *.com that’s a hassle. And hosting? The phone company (my ISP) used to host customers’ Websites, but they’ve changed names three times (and been bought out once) since the last time I checked. I don’t know if they still do that. I know one outfit that just hosts their Website themselves—it’s on a computer that’s simply on all the time. And I do have a spare computer—“StuartLittle,” out in the garage, waiting to become the “brains” of the studio (as soon as the weather warms up). Could maybe do that.

So where do I go from here?

Joe

Sunday, February 13, 2011

IN WHICH "THE PLAY'S THE THING"...

A new wrinkle for The Play. (Yes, I’m obsessing about The Play. I tend to do that. This is the third play I’ve written for the “Pig Wars” sock-puppet cast, and they are a lot of fun to write for. I keep suggesting stitching numbers on them and retiring them like football jerseys, but I keep running into new opportunities for them. We may do the whole Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen lexicographies before we’re done.)

The “Sleeping Piggy” script is getting peer review; it’ll get tweaked a little before it’s in final form, but probably not much. It’s the legend of Sleeping Beauty, performed by the sock-puppet cast of “Pig Wars” (all Star Wars characters—and all pigs). With some twists, of course: Yoda is the Evil Fairy, Darth Vader gets the girl, and Princess Leah joins the Dark Side (but not really, because this is officially a Morality Play and intended for children). One new character, Chewy (the wookie), who is kind of a cross between Cookie Monster and a rug.

We ought to be able to do the play with one rehearsal, just like last time. That adds a nice amateurish feel to it which I think audiences find charming, particularly with kids doing some of the parts.

This time around, though, we should end up with a very professional video: the performance is scheduled to be filmed by students from Wil Duncan’s video class, so we’ll have multiple cameras (and camera angles). Might even make cable TV. Accordingly, I want professional-looking credits (I assume the credits will be my job, just like last time), and I want a professional-sounding soundtrack to play behind them. I have written a song for it—a simple thing, just one verse and one chorus—and it came pretty easy. One thing that made it easy was Polly Hager volunteered to sing it, and I like writing for her voice.

The wrinkle: As the closing credits roll (or whatever I can make them do with the software I’ve got), instead of them rolling against a blank screen, why not have the song performed by a band—consisting of the cast of the play? We could outfit the sock puppets with little musical instruments, and have them rock out in time to the music. Chewy (the wookie) can be the drummer (and Darth Vader can be the drum, since he has a bucket on his head), Luke can do bass, and Hansolo lead guitar; Princess Leah is the singer,of course (with Polly’s voice), and Yoda might be able to play sax (I know a sax player)—it is rock ‘n’ roll, after all.

The song would have to be performed live, too, along with the play (with the credits added later), in order to choreograph the “band” right. One reason for making the song short is I want the credits to be rapid-fire—with “Pig Wars,” the credits kinda dragged (a limitation of the particular software I was using, which I do not want to use again), and took almost as much time as the play itself. As Shakespeare said, “The play’s the thing”; the credits shouldn’t dominate—and forcing the credits to fit the length of a short soundtrack ensures they can’t.

One more thing we can do: The credits as currently written say the song is “performed by Southern Pigfish.” No one has ever seen Southern Pigfish perform—not surprising, since the band doesn’t exist. There’s no reason why our sock-puppet band can’t actually be Southern Pigfish, and this be their first-ever live performance. (There’s a possibility of more music videos in the socks’ future, too.)

Music Sunday night up in Wheeler; band practice tentatively Friday night, and we’ll “do” the studio the following weekend (except for Doc, who’ll be out of town—but Mike wants to record his blues harp part separately anyway). One of the fans at the Failed Economy show told me later, “Joe, you really need a better singer” (not surprising, since the singer is me). That’s one reason I keep hanging with other groups of musicians. I keep hoping somebody will be interested.

Joe

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

"SLEEPING PIGGY"?

After about the third person called to tell me how much they enjoyed the Failed Economy Show concert, it occurred to me: Garth Brooks doesn’t get calls like this. Poor guy. I’ve written before in these spaces about people’s need to have a personal connection with “their” entertainers; I think we’re managing to achieve that, at the same time we’re becoming just a little bit famous. I love it.

I think at this point, we have a fair number of people talking about how great a show it was, and a bunch of people regretting they weren’t there; if that “buzz” could be kept up (though I don’t know how to do that), we could get a decent crowd at a CD release party.

When? Sometime in March, I’d expect; the CD should be recorded, mixed and mastered by the end of February. A Saturday night, so it’ll be an excuse for a concert, with all the attendant publicity. (A Sunday afternoon would work, too.) Where? Ideally, the Bay City Arts Center (which is available March 19 and 26—both dates are Saturdays). Good performance space, and the possibility of some support staff—and if it works right, the event gets attention for, and traffic to, the venue (and the Arts Center could use that). I’ve only ever attended one CD release party, so I’ll need to collect pointers on how one’s supposed to be organized.

As teacher Wil Duncan was demonstrating to our class the professional video cameras film and TV techs use these days, I realized I might just have one: the old Fisher camcorder I was given when I lived in Union—was it really five years ago?—has all the controls Wil was describing. What it lacks, besides an owner’s manual (which I can’t get—the manufacturer, or the company that bought them out, denies the camera ever existed), is a battery. I found a battery and charger for cheap (yes, the camera may not exist, but you can still get parts for it), and we’ll see if it can be made to work. The challenge is going to be making the camera “interface” with the computer; things like that weren’t even dreamed of back when this camera was made. It will mate up to a VCR, though, and I may be able to create something from there.

And I’ve been asked to script another puppet show—the legend of Sleeping Beauty, this time, with (again) the sock-puppet cast of Star Wars characters we used in “Pig Wars.” Working title: “Sleeping Piggy.” One new character—Chewy (yes, we will finally have a Wookie in the troupe), who I envision as a cross between Cookie Monster and a rug. The tale will have to be twisted a little, since I need parts for Luke, Leah, Hansolo, Darth, and Yoda, too. (Shakespeare probably had problems like this.)

Tentative performance date: Saturday, March 5, at the Bay City Arts Center; that’s the night they’re having both an elementary-school art show and an open mike, so there should be a good crowd on hand. (This is important. People would be unlikely to come on their own. They need to be already there.)

Music this week Thursday night and maybe Sunday night in Wheeler, and maybe Saturday afternoon at the Tillamook Library. I have one more photo to take, I think, for the “50 Ways” music video. Jobs to apply for, too.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

FAILED ECONOMY SHOW POST-MORTEM...

The Failed Economy Show came off good. Smaller crowd than I’d have liked, but everybody brought lots of food (bags worth, instead of the 2-cans-each we’d asked for), and we had some people in the audience who’d never been to one of our concerts before (and I didn’t think to ask them where they’d heard about it).

We ended up not having a drummer—Chris was helping deliver a baby, of all things (when we have crises, they are at least interesting ones)—so we just apologized for his absence, told everybody what was going on, and went ahead and played. We have played without a drummer before. John says it’s more work for the bass player—I think it’s more work for the rhythm guitarist, too—but it’s doable. For part of the first set, we had local boy Larry Christensen on sax, and he is very good; however, his stamina pooped out early, because he doesn’t play enough. (Hopefully, this will encourage him to play more.)

Some statistics: The audience drank almost all 30 cups of coffee, ate about half of the 10 dozen cookies (I think they liked the oatmeal-cranberry ones best), and mostly did stick around after the break (which we kept deliberately short).

Lessons? Definitely have refreshments; people went for those immediately, and were “grazing” throughout the show. Getting together early helped, particularly since we hadn’t had a chance to practice; we played a good hour before the show, and not just songs from the setlist—we did other stuff, too. It just got everybody comfortable playing together again. (Made for really sore fingers, though. I was glad I’d done all that finger-strengthening playing the week before.)

We really could use a separate sound engineer; it took most of the first set to get the sound just right—since what we hear at our end of the room isn’t necessarily what the audience hears out in the hall. And I think I’d make sure to have monitors, or something that can be used as monitors; we didn’t this time, and it was hard to hear myself (even though the audience apparently could). I have a tendency to attack the guitar when I can’t hear myself—I worry nobody else can hear me, either—and I realized when I saw a piece of the video that I didn’t need to do that: I could be heard just fine.

And I think two hours may actually be too long for a lot of the folks, and we could have done better with a performance that was half an hour shorter. That’d be ideal for us, because we could play straight through for an hour and a half—we wouldn’t need a break.

The songs the audience liked best, I think, were Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street” and my “Crosses by the Roadside” (we dedicated the latter to Dick Ackerman); they hung on every word. The one we played best—surprise!—was Coleman and Lazzerini’s “So 20th Century”—we’ve got the tempo and the ragtime beat down just about perfect. And people still think our best dance tune is Southern Pigfish’s “For Their Own Ends”—for which we had, this time, three lead players: “Doc” on the blues harp, Charlie on electric guitar, and Larry on sax. The only song I had trouble with was Frank Papa’s “Have a Good Day”: the lyrics are really rapid-fire, and I’ve got to know about eight lines ahead of time what I’m doing.

There will be video: Video Lady Jane Scott filmed the whole thing, and said she got a lot of usable footage; we will get a copy—and also be told ahead of time when it’ll air on TV, so we can tell folks. I talked to her about making copies of the video on DVD, me doing the packaging, and selling those with proceeds (after costs) going to the Food Pantry (or alternatively, to all four of the Food Pantries in Tillamook County), and she’s interested, I think.

All in all, it was good, I think. Do we want to do it again? Sure. Summer, I think, though. Right now, the next thing I want to get done is the album (studio next Friday), and then the CD release party.

Joe

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

PRE-FAILED ECONOMY SHOW THOUGHTS (&C.)...

THREE DAYS until the Failed Economy Show concert. Delivered a few more posters (never stop selling), and since we didn’t have band practice, baked some of the cookies (still want to do some with cranberries, for those poor, poor folks who are allergic to chocolate). Tuesday night was the first session of the Wil Duncan video class; Thursday night, if the band isn’t practicing, I’ll go to the “country jam session” in Wheeler for more finger-strengthening exercise. Won’t get to play music Friday—that’s the first read-through of the TAPA play, Southern Hospitality, and I have a bit part.

On the radio Friday morning early, to promote the Failed Economy Show one last time. And Saturday is the show. I already feel like I’ve done everything I could, and it’ll either come off or it won’t, and there’s nothing more I can do. Just make sure I know the material (still one song to perfect, Frank Papa’s “Have a Good Day”), and plan on it being fun.

There’ll be two, maybe three, “support staff” from the Food Pantry on hand; not sure what we’ll get from the Lions Club (though I’ve asked folks to ask). I still need to line up someone to take photos; there are no good photos of the band in existence, and I’d like to have some for the album (and for future posters). Coffeepot? I can borrow one—a water jug, too, maybe.

The Hoffman Center Talent Show Saturday night was good. Opportunity to play for (and promote the Failed Economy Show to) a crowd that mostly had never heard me before. They got (at Jane Dunkin’s suggestion) “Dead Things in the Shower.” And—I think—loved it. While reluctance to travel to Garibaldi may discourage some people (I had one person tell me, “Why, it must be 15 miles from here!”), I hope some folks come.

One of the other performers was a girl singer—ex-music teacher, she said—with a good voice and some obvious experience singing blues; she said she was looking for material, and I do have some of that. We traded cards, and I sent her stuff—I do have a few songs, and a bunch of musications, that’d work real well with a female voice. And she can play guitar, too.

So where do we go with this? I don’t know: I tend to get excited when I run across something that’s really good, but I don’t have what Joni Mitchell called “the Star-Maker Machinery” at my beck and call—all I can do is nudge and encourage. With my own songs in mind—because I am perennially mercenary—I would love to see her be a success, and be singing my material when she does so. I don’t know if that’s possible; these days, the only way you sell records (which is the only place the writer makes money) is by performing, and I certainly don’t have any control over that. I don’t even manage to perform enough myself.

I haven’t forgotten the Music Video of “50 Ways to Cure the Depression”: I still have the bass, banjo, and musical saw tracks to record and mix (and a couple of final photos to take); those probably have to wait until next week. Now that drummer Chris is back in town, I could add drums to this, too. That could be fun…

Joe