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, July 31, 2011

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

Friday, July 29, 2011

WILLAMETTE WRITERS POST-MORTEM (&C.)...

Had some folks ask me today, as I was making my rounds, how the Willamette Writers gig went. They knew I’d been excited about breaking into a new area. I was going to wait to post a post-mortem, but here ‘tis.

The gig went good, I think. It was outside, and beastly hot—a bottle of lemonade got too hot to drink before I finished drinking it—but the Arts Center’s amp worked well (I guess—people said they could hear me, though I couldn’t hear myself well), and they did like the stuff. I did end up keeping it to an hour; I’d originally planned on going over, but I was sweaty, and my fingers hurt.

54 people (they counted), mostly writers (I think)—and they did listen. I think the only song I didn’t get an appreciative reaction to was “The Taboo Song.” The ones they seemed to like best were “Dead Things in the Shower,” “Pole Dancing for Jesus” (something possesses people to sing along to that song), “Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus,” “Twenty-Four Seven,” “Rotten Candy” and “Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues.” Got to meet in person the two folks I’d corresponded with by e-mail about the gig—and they said they liked the stuff, too. Didn’t sell any CDs, but they did feed me, and that was nice.

I made the point to the audience that I’d made to my correspondents—that it was a good idea to have a writer be entertainment for a writers’ group event. (And I thanked them for thinking of it.) What I hope is that message will be retained when the Willamette Writers’ annual conference comes around in August 2012. They pay the entertainment for that, and I’d like to be it, or part of it. If the pay were enough, I could maybe even supply a band.

RailsNW, which is doing the centennial dinner cruise on the train from Garibaldi to Wheeler and back, would like Deathgrass to perform in the park when the train comes back. Saturday, Oct. 1, 3:30 p.m. for about an hour—and for free. That’s another of those might-turn-into-paying-business-later gigs, maybe; the railroad centennial is going to be a low-key affair, because there isn’t much time to plan anything—but next year, it could be a lot bigger. (They even have a name for it—“Rails 101.”) If we’re in on the ground floor, we can rise with the elevator, so to speak.

I’ve already got confirmation from two of the band that they’d like to do it (I’ll see the other two tomorrow, at the Garibaldi Days gig). I’m sure RailsNW is interested in us because of the “Tillamook Railroad Blues”—I don’t know if any other bands around here know any train songs, much less any about The Local Train; since these are railroad fans, it’d be fun to do a set that was all train songs. Could we pull that off?

Besides the “Tillamook Railroad Blues,” we’ve got one other we’ve done before; “Steamboat Bill,” by Shields and Leighton, was one of the top songs of 1910 (and we played it at Bay City’s centennial last year), but it was also #20 in 1911, the year the railroad was finished—and it does have that “Next time, we’re marrying a railroad man” line in it. Beyond that, there’s a couple more we could do that are public domain—“Wreck of the Old 97,” by that old fellow Traditional, and “The Wabash Cannonball,” by J.A. Hoff (1882). Both are fast-paced bluegrass tunes, and I can play the “signature” riffs on both. That’s 20 minutes’ worth. Could we do more?

Well, maybe. I’ll put out a call to the writers I know (I do seem to know a lot of them) and see if anybody’s got any train songs they’d be willing to let us play—full credit to them, of course. If we can’t get enough, we’ll fill with more of our regular standards. I am insistent about the “we don’t do covers” thing—we play originals and traditionals, and songs by writers who are as unknown as I am. And thus far we have managed to do that, and become popular. (The only exception we’ve made to that rule has been Woody Guthrie—we play a couple of his more obscure numbers. Woody encouraged people to perform his stuff and not pay royalties. “All I wanted to do was write it,” he used to say. “And I done that.”)

Joe

Thursday, July 28, 2011

BUH-BYE, FRIDAY NIGHT GROUP?

Getting ready to leave for the Willamette Writers gig in Portland; got the Arts Center’s 4-channel amp, my mike and stand; taking guitar, “joelist” notebook—and I better print out some business cards while I’m at it. These people don’t know me. Hopefully, they’ll want to when it’s all over.

One change in the setlist: I’m not going to play “Earwigs in the Eggplant,” because I haven’t practiced it on the guitar. I’ll substitute “Blue Krishna” instead. It, too, is about writing on demand, so to speak.

Not only have I had it running through my head a lot, I now have the electric sitar tracks from “Doctor Tom.” There’s actually only one track, but if I insert it twice (in Audacity), offset by a verse-and-chorus, and have one coming through the right speaker and the other from the left, it sounds like “dueling sitars.” I think I’ll keep that. Next week, I’d like to record Sedona’s flute if she’s ready, and then I think the song will be done.

I’d like to send that one off to the Coventry songwriters; they had a “shout it out” challenge a while back which I never responded to—but “Blue Krishna” does have that “Light the boy a candle, and call out his name” line in the chorus. It might qualify. I have been fairly successful in turning a number of the Coventry challenges into something sick and twisted—they want “deep river,” and I give them a song about a serial killer, and so forth.

My suggestions for my piece of the Southern Oregon Songwriters concert have been sent off to Dan, so I’m about as ready for that as I can be, too. Deathgrass has practiced for the Garibaldi Days gig, too. We are ready.

A word about the Friday Night Group, because some folks have asked. It appears to be falling apart. And no, I’m not going to do anything about it, even though I was one of the founders (so to speak), eight years ago, and kind of regard it as one of my children. I don’t control things there any more. I will just watch. And be a little sad.

What’s happened over time is the group has acquired some “musicians” who aren’t, really—they don’t know a lot, and can’t do a lot. Some are learning pretty fast, but others don’t, and that’s been frustrating, I think, for the more experienced musicians. So the best musicians have drifted off, singly or in groups (some have formed bands, and are getting gigs, which is great—one thing the Friday Night Group has always been good at is being a breeding ground for performers). I was one of the off-drifters, too: I want to hang with people better’n I am, because I want to learn from them, and there isn’t anybody left to learn from any more. So I, too, have found other things to do. One of the hosts recently went into the hospital for an operation, and is facing a very long recovery; that’s probably the death knell for the group. There hasn’t been music at City Hall for maybe a month.

I have to regard it as one of those “circle of life” things. It happens, and I can’t prevent or stop it. On the plus side, some of the folks who are determined to keep learning have begun getting together quietly, elsewhere—and I want to encourage that, and them; if something revives in the future, it may be because of them. I won’t do anything myself until after Concert Season is over. I will not have the time.

Joe

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

PREPARING FOR SOUTHERN OREGON...

I think I’ve been writing an issue of the blog just about every day lately. To those who have been reading it, in Latvia and elsewhere: don’t worry—it’s just a temporary thing. I have been frightfully busy, and I have to write things down or I will forget them. I regularly refer to back issues of the blog to remind myself of what I was supposed to be doing.

I was worrying about what to play in the Southern Oregon Songwriters concert Aug. 6—just a week and a half away—and realized I don’t have to worry. It’s been almost a year since I was last in southern Oregon (well, 11 months and a week, but who’s counting?), and I’ve written plenty of new stuff. I can play the new stuff. I can do:

Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow & sleazy two-step
The Dead Sweethearts Polka—fast bluegrass
In the Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You—slow & sleazy
Selling Off My Body Parts—fast bluegrass

One more short one, to fill out my 20 minutes. (Dan Doshier and I are splitting 40 minutes.) “Crosses by the Roadside,” I think—I need to do one off the album, since I’ll be trying to sell CDs while I’m down there. That does put three two-steps on the setlist, but two of them are songs I don’t think anyone’s heard before (and I can try to make them a little different—maybe with Dan playing different instruments on the lead). They are all predictable progressions (all in the same key, even), so they should be easy to follow. Next step: Mix it up with Dan’s stuff, so we’re not too compartmentalized. I may have to wait until I get to southern Oregon to do that. I haven’t heard what Dan wants to play yet.

I suppose I ought to apologize to the audience for not including any dead-animal songs (I have a reputation to maintain, after all); instead, what folks will get is the pole dancers, a serial killer, a stalker, and another of those tongue-firmly-in-cheek anthems about the Failed Economy. There is one song about a dead person, though (“Crosses”). Maybe that’ll be enough.

The above list doesn’t include “Last Song of the Highwayman,” “Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope),” “Take Me Back to the Sixties,” “Earwigs in the Eggplant,” “Blue Krishna” or “Angel in Chains,” all of which were also written since I last went to southern Oregon. Based on crowd reactions, those are all “keepers,” too. I think the ones I put on the setlist are the best attention-getters, however.

The gig will be outside, I believe, at the Community Center in Talent, Oregon, just down the road from Phoenix, where I was briefly city manager, and the audience will probably be mostly other writers, their families and friends. And it will be hot. The Medford area has a climate akin to the Los Angeles area (only with more trees and fewer cars).

I’ve been told it might be possible to play a couple more performances while I’m down there, one of which might even be paid; that’d be nice. I’ll have the Ugly Orange Bucket (with its “Tipping Is Not A City In China” message) with me, and CDs to sell, too. To the extent possible, I’ll be prepared like a good ex-Boy Scout ought to be.

Practice with Deathgrass Wednesday night this week, the Willamette Writers gig Thursday, Deathgrass performance at Garibaldi Days Saturday. The following week I can devote to 45 Degrees North—at least the first part of it. Besides practicing a whole new hour of material (the Manzanita Farmer’s Market show is three hours), I’ve got a sound system to fix: we’ll be playing outdoors, and we need to be loud and sound good—two things that don’t appear to be possible at the same time with the sound system we’ve got, and I still don’t know why.

Joe

Monday, July 25, 2011

ROCKTOBERFEST, CDS AND THE BLOG (OH, MY)...

Looked up the blog statistics again (have to check the market occasionally). Of the 3,000 or so people who have read the thing, well over half are from the United States (of course)—but 239 are from Russia? And 61 are from Latvia? (That’s up from 29 Latvians last time, I think.)

Google will tell you where people found the blog. The bulk of my readers followed the link from Vikki Flawith’s “Shy Singer-Songwriter Blog.” She has a link to my blog on her site. (Thank you, Vikki.) Most of the Russians found me via a Russian search engine (they were apparently looking for “naked space hamsters”—and no, I have no idea why). I have not a clue about the Latvians. I hope they weren’t expecting to learn English by reading my stuff (but this is called “The Writer’s Blog,” after all).

Time confirmed for Deathgrass’ performance at the Rocktoberfest in Rockaway Beach; we’re on at 11 a.m. SATURDAY, SEPT. 17—opening act of the festival, in other words. We like being first—we can set up and check sound at our leisure, and any people that come will probably be there because we invited them, anyway. We’ve done it that way at the two previous Rocktoberfests—the first time inadvertently, the second time deliberately.

We will need to play our “rockier” stuff for the Rocktoberfest. (That’s fine—the band likes rock ‘n’ roll, and they do a real good job with it.) Not in order::

For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
Steamboat Bill (Shields & Leighton, 1910)—rock ‘n’ roll
Angel in Chains—country death metal
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
Simple Questions (O.N. Vindstad)—rockabilly
50 Ways to Cure the Depression—folk-rock
Test Tube Baby—rock ‘n’ roll

--plus, of course, we’ll want to do some of the “standards”:

Dead Things in the Shower (with Bobbie Gallup)—fast two-step
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step
Things Are Getting Better Now That Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—fast two-step
Bluebird on My Windshield—fast bluegrass
When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You—fast bluegrass
Crosses by the Roadside—slow two-step
Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus—mod. fast Gospel

So, 11 that are definitely “rockers” (out of 18). All are songs we’ve done before; I could add new material for this show, though—we will have time to practice. A couple of the “rockers” are really hard for me to sing (and I’ll need to practice). Next: setlist. Rap. Practice.

I know how the Rocktoberfest Powers That Be picked the bands—they had everybody send them CDs. (I wasn’t one of the Powers That Be, but I did get to listen to some of the CDs.) Some of the bands playing aren’t really rockers at all, and I know of at least two bands that aren’t playing the Rocktoberfest that are “rockier” (though still not classifiable as “rock”)—but they didn’t send the Rocktoberfest folks CDs because they don’t have one. The lesson: Have a CD if you can—at least a 4-or-so-song EP. No, it’s not necessary in all cases—nobody asked for CDs for the Wheeler Summerfest, but that’s because all the performers were local, and personally known to the organizers. A CD allows you to communicate, as it were, with venues who don’t know you, but might hire you if they knew what you sounded like.

So could 45 Degrees North put out a CD? Are we ready for that yet?

Joe

Sunday, July 24, 2011

"RAPTURE ROOM" POST-MORTEM (SORT OF)...

I like the “Rapture Room.” That’s the big performance space in downtown Nehalem, next door to (and upstairs from) the Rainbow Lotus. (Its real name is the Nehalem Center for the Creative Arts.) It has great acoustics—we amplified only voices for the 45 Degrees North concert, and left everything else unplugged—and the living-room-cum-kitchen in the next room emphasizes the intimacy. Audience was small—which begs the question, “How do you market something like this?” Every way (and any way) you can, I think; I recommended Michael and Sedona contact the local “Fencepost” columnist for the paper, and also Tommy Boye at the Tillamook Cow Internet station; posters (which they’ve done), and the Internet—you never know what stimuli people are going to respond to. Printed out for them my “Yes! You Have Come to the Right Place!” sign we’ve used for the Failed Economy Show concerts at City Hall.

And word of mouth. The more the space can get used, the more people will know about it, and have ideas what it’s good for. With enough publicity, the “Rapture Room” could become a community center of sorts—in a way the North County Recreation District, which is in the same town (and bigger, and tax-supported, but a little exclusive) hasn’t been able to be.

45 Degrees North were the Inaugural Concert, Saturday afternoon—Michael and Sedona plan on doing one of these a month—and it was good. The tiny crowd was probably the result of the hot, sunny weather—but we still got tips. I think everything worked well, actually: everybody in the band has their own particular strengths, and the mix shows them all off, and audiences seem to like it. Our best tunes are still Dylan’s “Wagon Wheel” and my “Armadillo on the Interstate” (with the trademark 3-part Heavenly Chorus), our standard opening and closing songs, but there are others that are becoming close contenders.

I played a short set at the “Hoffapalooza,” too—the day-long “here’s what we can do” show at the Hoffman Center in Manzanita. Gave them 5 songs: “Dead Things in the Shower,” “Pole Dancing for Jesus,” “When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies” (for the kids), Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street,” and (because I had a little time left) “The Termite Song.” Sold a CD at the “Hoffapalooza,” got names for the mailing list both places.

The coming week is Deathgrass Week; Deathgrass plays Garibaldi Days on Saturday, and I’d like us to have one practice opportunity beforehand. I myself am doing the solo gig in Portland for the Willamette Writers Group Thursday, so Thursday’s out for practice.

After that, I get to obsess about 45 Degrees North’s performance at the Manzanita Farmer’s Market—3 hours worth of music, on Friday, Aug. 12. We’ll need about 12 new songs for that. We should do our Jimmy Buffitt parody, “Manzanitaville,” and my “Earwigs in the Eggplant” (since it was written with the Farmer’s Market in mind), and the Scottish fiddle tune “The Red-Haired Boy” (which has a fascinating history); Kathryn is working out an arrangement to the old jazz tune, “Coconut Grove,” and I think “The Termite Song” would be popular, too. Uptempo; must be uptempo. They want (shall we say) happy, upbeat songs for their customers to shop for vegetables by.

Got two weeks to prepare for that, but no weekends—I’m in southern Oregon for the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. concert Saturday, Aug. 6. Since I’m still unemployed, it’d be nice to hang out a couple extra days and play more music. I wonder if that’s possible? The crowd of writers at the Wild Goose in Ashland haven’t heard “Pole Dancing for Jesus,” “Selling Off My Body Parts,” or “Blue Krishna.” It’d be nice (and fun) if they could.

Joe

Saturday, July 23, 2011

2ND STREET POST-MORTEM....

I think we were good (mostly) at the 2nd Street Market. (The only person who screwed up was me, on “Queenie” the fiddle tune and on “Manzanita Moon.”) Problems with the sound, though. If you got it loud enough so people could hear us, it distorted. The building itself has pretty good acoustics, though, with those brick walls.

Jim from the music store said it’s our PA not being powerful enough; it is only 40 watts, but I wonder. The Dodson Drifters had the late-‘70s model of that same PA (it was only 30 watts then), and it was the basic engine of our battery-powered PA system, powering two gigantic speakers—and we used it for outdoor concerts. I don’t think we ever had a “not powerful enough” problem (or a distortion one).

Could the speakers be the problem? We were using some home-stereo speakers—twice the size of the ones we had in Ilwaco, but still not designed for a room as big as we were playing. There is almost no way to tell whether the speakers are the problem except by hooking up a decent set of speakers. (I might be able to do that at the Arts Center next week—I think they may have a set I could test with.)

How we have the mixer hooked up is another possibility. We have the mixer run through the “CD player” jacks on the back of the PA, and that’s not how I recall the Dodson Drifters doing it. The Dodson Drifters had two 4-channel mixers (battery-powered), and I believe they were run through the microphone inputs—splitting each channel into four, in other words. Should we be running the 6-channel mixer the same way? I don’t know—but the techie guy who owns the Radio Shack store might. While I’m feeling flush, I should go see him. (Before I do that, however, I’ll do some testing myself. That old Japanese mixer will take a special cable, but I might have one that would work for testing.)

Flush? Yes, the bands got paid for performing at the Wheeler Summerfest. Not a lot, but it is the first money I’ve made off music this year. We got tips at the 2nd Street Market, too, from (I believe) seven different people.

And an offer (of sorts), this morning. The square dance club is thinking about putting on a dance with live music—something almost never done any more—and asked if we could do it. (That’s 45 Degrees North. They really want the fiddle player. She’s good, I was told. Yes, she is.) Actually, I think we could do it pretty easily. We would want to do mostly “singing calls,” where the caller is calling out the moves in time with popular (or once-popular) songs, occasionally throwing in snippets of the lyrics. What makes it easy is the caller already has that music in recorded form, on either computer or CD, in “karaoke” format (no vocals) but in a key he or she can sing in—and if I can get that, I can make copies for the band, and we have something to practice to in our spare time.

The club is talking about three dances over a weekend—Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday night. I’m assuming with that kind of schedule, the band is getting paid—not a lot, because the square dance club can’t afford a lot, but something. Like the Good Book says, “The laborer is worth his hire.” It could be quite a draw: square dance clubs and callers went to recorded music decades ago because of the expense of hiring live bands, but the novelty of a live band is likely to bring in a lot of people, because it’s just not done any more. Wouldn’t happen until next summer—which gives us plenty of time to practice.

That’d make two commitments for NEXT YEAR (Deathgrass has already been enlisted to play at the Garibaldi Museum for the Crab Races next March). Does this mean I know what the future is going to be like? No—only that I have confidence there will be one.

Joe

Friday, July 22, 2011

LOOKING FOR INTERVIEWEES FOR DANNY (&C.)...

Having suggested a revival of the “Danny the Dog Innerviews,” I find myself on the lookout for people doing innovative things. One was mentioned at the Writers’ Guild meeting last night. There’s a fellow hight Kray Van Kirk in Alaska who is refusing to sell CDs; all his music is downloadable for free from his Website, www.krayvankirk.com, on a “donate what you want” basis. He does have a family—single parent with kids, he is. Where does he make his money? Concerts—not just in Alaska, but as far away as the East Coast and Europe.

I know somebody else who’s doing the “download it for free, pay what you want” thing, and that’s friend and fellow songwriter Gene Burnett in Ashland. (His Website is www.geneburnett.com.) He’s probably not as widely known as Van Kirk—but he should be. He’s written some really good stuff—one of his songs, “Thing Are Getting Better Now That Things Are Getting Worse,” has become a staple of the Deathgrass setlists. And Gene’s not doing too bad, either. This is a marketing model that probably bears repeating.

Others? I know a music publisher—they’re the real estate agents of the music business—who mostly doesn’t market songs to record companies any more; most of her business is “placement” of songs in TV shows and movies. Having experienced first-hand the closed-circle mentality of the Music Industry (and having formed some definite—and pretty critical—opinions about it), I could hazard a guess why—but it’d be better to ask.

(There are side effects. Those TV and film people are cheap. They’re not going to have your song re-done in their own studio with their own people like the Big Boys do; they’re going to run it “exactly as wrote,” so what you have to give the publisher is a professional “radio-ready” recording. But isn’t that what everybody’s doing these days, anyway?)

For all those folks, the question would be: “How would you like to be interviewed by a dog?”

From a technical standpoint, the interviews are not a big time-consumer (I have to worry about that stuff); I have the tools to do everything, and even some experience at it as well.

The foregoing begs the question, “Am I doing any cutting-edge things myself?” I don’t think so: I’m an expropriator, really—I rob other people’s ideas, and maybe adapt ‘em a little, and mix ‘em up a bit. It’s like the music. The music is just like Hank Williams—except that Hank could sing, and he didn’t write about dead animals. I am always after ideas. And one of the things I do is disseminate those ideas (that’s the background as a newspaper reporter coming into play), and see what other people do with them. Of such things, I think, is change made.

Homework for the Writers’ Guild is to write something—poem or song—about the war. It’s practice being timeless: can you write about something that’s current events in a way that somebody a year, ten years, or 50 years from now can read and say, “Oh, yeah—I know what they’re talking about”? Bob Dylan did that a few times; so did John Prine, once. It’s not easy. I’d presented the group as my “homework” from last time a song by Gem Watson, “Final Payment” (another Deathgrass standard), as an example of a well-written and well-composed song; one of our writers thought it referenced World War II (and I’ve always related it to the economy, even though I’m sure Gem wrote it before things started to fall apart). That’s the sort of timelessness I think one should be shooting for.

45 Degrees North concerts Friday and Saturday; solo at the “Hoffapalooza” Saturday afternoon, too. Willamette Writers Group next Thursday (our Writers’ Guild won’t meet that night), and Deathgrass at Garibaldi Days Saturday. And I didn’t get the job in Wheeler (I’m disappointed, but not surprised).

Joe

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

"DANNY THE DOG INTERVIEWS"...

I pitched an idea to Glyn Duncan at the “Hearts of Country Radio” Internet station (which is playing, I believe, seven of my songs now), and she liked it, and now I’ll need to follow through on it. It’s the “Danny the Dog Innerviews,” that I did briefly (actually, only did one of) for Len Amsterdam’s “Whitby Shores” radio program in Canada.

Danny is a rather engaging pit bull with a Scooby-Dooish personality. He figured in a couple of radio plays scripted and mixed by a lady called “Country Rose” (her real name is something French, that I don’t remember), who did a weekly “radio show” on Soundclick, showcasing country music written by unknowns like me. Rose would enlist people she knew from all over to do speaking parts in her radio plays, and I got to play Danny. It was, I think, sometime in 2009 I got to interview Rose—as Danny—for Len Amsterdam’s program. Len was expert at spotting trends in entertainment, and Rose was symptomatic of a potentially important change in the music industry: she was using the Internet to broadcast music the Big Boys wouldn’t play.

These days, Internet radio stations are ubiquitous; Glyn’s “Hearts of Country Radio” is one of many. But I don’t think anybody since Danny has set one of these operators down and pointedly asked, “Why are you doing this? What do you intend to accomplish? Why is this important?” And maybe it is time to ask those questions again.

Danny is an ideal interviewer persona; he can frame issues in very simple terms (being a dog, and all), and jump around a lot (having a dog’s attention span) while never straying far from the subject. Being a dog, issues like “What did you have for breakfast?” and “Do you have a big refrigerator?” are every bit as important as the future of the music business, and get people talking about their lives and families. So we humanize our subject by (shall we say) “caninizing” the interviewer.

Doable? I think so. I’ve reviewed the recording of “Danny Interviews Country Rose” and think most of the stuff is applicable. One thing that is obvious in that interview is Rose and I know each other; I’d want to make sure I could do the same thing here. Glyn and I should probably talk before I draft up questions.

And could it go further? I’d like to continue the same tack I had with Len Amsterdam—find people who are doing “cutting-edge” things, that have the potential to bring about change, and talk to them about why they’re doing it. Economic depressions is when a lot of innovation takes place, as folks struggle desperately to make ends meet; like Bob Dylan said, “When you ain’t got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose.” And hunting down those people and getting to know them would be good for me, too. I don’t know a lot of the cutting-edge stuff that’s going on out there. I might well be able to take advantage of it myself.

There is a “Rest of the Story.” I got dropped from Len’s radio program because I announced the second person I wanted to interview was Len himself. (I still think it was a good idea, but His Amsterdamness apparently didn’t think so.) And Danny, who is a real dog, had a puppy (no, he didn’t give birth to the puppy—Danny is really male), and his humans, Greg and Deb, named the puppy “Joey”—after me.

Practice tonight (Wednesday) with 45 Degrees North, Writers’ Guild Thursday night; gigs Friday and Saturday. Still don’t know about the dang job.

Joe

Monday, July 18, 2011

WHEELER SUMMERFEST POST-MORTEM...

The Wheeler Summerfest gigs went well—both of them. When Deathgrass played, it was still raining (performance and audience spaces were both under tents, though), but by the time 45 Degrees North were on stage, the sun was coming out. Neat event—it was especially nice that everything—the food, the crafts, the music, even the boat rides—was local, and determinedly so. And folks obviously had no problem hanging out in the rain.

I got the impression folks liked everything Deathgrass did; still, there are “bests.” Southern Pigfish’s “For Their Own Ends” is a consistent hit; so is “Tillamook Railroad Blues” and Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street.” We probably played “She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself” best. A lot of the songs weren’t as uptempo as we’d practiced them on Friday, and that’s my fault—I’m the one who sets the rhythm, and I was tired after four hours of practice with two bands the day before. Mike Simpson handled the sound, so we sounded as good as we possibly could. Didn’t sell any CDs, but did get new names on the “joelist.” Charlie videotaped the performance, and I’ll see sometime this week how that came out.

I think the public (and it was mostly a different “public”) liked the songs of mine that 45 Degrees North did, too. The two that had people singing along were “Pole Dancing for Jesus” and (surprise!) “The Abomination Two-Step.” Of the rest, I noticed people really liked the Irish fiddle tunes once they had heard some background (and many of those tunes have real strange histories)—and they loved “Moon River” (not surprising—Candice and Kathryn’s rendition is, as I’ve noted before, impeccable). Wayne is a very good bass player and it’s good having him with us.

Kid Siegal’s 8-channel PA system was the “house PA” for the Summerfest, and it wasn’t bad. However, I noticed when Kid and his band, the Moneymakers, were playing (after Deathgrass, and before 45 Degrees North), they used separate amps—little ones—to amplify the guitar and bass, and I asked him why afterward. He said, “Oh, I’d never run a guitar through this PA.” Well, we did—twice. And it seemed to do okay.

I’ve heard from a number of musicians now who play in bands, and most of them say they’re really busy this summer—busier, some say, than they’ve ever been before. (I’d second that. I certainly am.) It’s the crying need for cheap, local entertainment that I’ve noted before as a symptom of the Failed Economy. It’s an opportunity for local musicians, and not enough are taking advantage of it.

Inherited both of daughter’s laptops when she moved; I’m not sure which I’d want to keep—they’re both afflicted with Windows Vista, and that’s the first thing I’d need to fix. (They both have other problems, too.) A laptop is my missing piece in remote recording; with a laptop available to upload songs to from the Tascam, it’s possible—finally—to do remote recording of more than one song at a time. But whichever laptop I use for that has got to have a better operating system. Windows Vista is not acceptable. It doesn’t have the drivers for my stuff.

I’ve sketched out the setlist for Deathgrass’ performance at Garibaldi Days; need to make CDs, work out the Rap, send out notices, and figure out a time to practice. It won’t be this week: this week, I’ve got meetings Monday and Tuesday nights, practice with 45 Degrees North Wednesday night, the Writers’ Guild Thursday night, and 45 Degrees North’s performance at the 2nd Street Market Friday night. Saturday, I’ve got two performances—the 15-minute solo one at the “Hoffapalooza” in Manzanita (1:30), and 45 Degrees North’s gig at the “Rapture Room” in Nehalem (4-6). Setlists and Raps for both the 45 Degrees North sets to work out, too. Busy, like I said. Might find out about one of the jobs Tuesday, too.

Joe

Friday, July 15, 2011

CONCERT SEASON STARTS...

Add one more to Concert Season: I’m playing at the Hoffman Center’s “Hoffapalooza” in Manzanita next Saturday, 23 July, at 1:30 p.m. Just me solo (I understand they were contacting Candice, too, about doing the same thing). I’m on for just 15 minutes, which is four songs if I’m playing solo. That could be:

Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step
Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow & sleazy Gospel
When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies—fast bluegrass
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step

Those who were at the Hoffman Center’s Talent Show in January should remember “Dead Things”; “Pole Dancing” is one of those attention-getters that’s been a hit with every crowd to date; “Cookies” is for the kids (I’m told there will be kids there), and “Un-Easy Street” tackles a Burning Social Issue. I can also use “Dead Things” and “Un-Easy Street” to promote Deathgrass and the album (and the Garibaldi Days gig), and “Pole Dancing” to promote 45 Degrees North, which will be playing later that day (4-6 p.m.) in the “Rapture Room” in Nehalem.

I suppose there will be a few more “surprise” add-ins as Concert Season progresses. At this point, though, every weekend until the middle of August is “gigged.” I’m not going to actively solicit any more business; at this point, I want to find out if I have a job—I think I have a decent shot at two of the three jobs I applied for this week (all local, too—yay!), but getting any one of them will drastically reduce my availability schedule. I need to concentrate on fulfilling the commitments I’ve already made.

For efficiency’s sake, I’ll do them in order. 45 Degrees North has two 2-hour shows coming up next week. We can keep everything on our Wheeler setlist—it’s all good, and the band does just fine with it—but need to add maybe 6-7 more songs. I’ve suggested:

Walkin’ After Midnight (Candice)—mod. slow blues
Breitenbush (Kathryn)—uptempo & jazzy
Always Pet the Dogs (me)—slow & sleazy
You’re Still the One (Candice)—uptempo pop
Welcome to Hebo Waltz (me)—fast waltz

Need a couple more. We could do The Carl Thor trio of contra dances—what I’ve dubbed “Mossyfoundit”—if I could work out a guitar part for in between the tunes. I might be able to do that. Would be nice if I could record it, though, and play around with it. I may not have that luxury for a while.

Setlists for both shows should be the same (efficiency’s sake, again). The two shows are back to back (one Friday, one Saturday), but 24 miles apart. Folks who go to one are unlikely to go to the other, unless they are real diehard fans (and I’m not sure we have any of those, yet).

For the Rocktoberfest gig, Deathgrass needs 90 minutes of (mostly) rock ‘n’ roll. I could change our Wheeler setlist to include some “rockers” we have played before:

Simple Questions (O.N. Vindstad)—rockabilly
Steamboat Bill (Shields & Leighton)—1910 ragtime turned into rock ‘n’ roll
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Angel in Chains—country death metal
--and maybe Test Tube Baby—Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll

Packing for practice (which is also packing for the gigs, because I will not have time to do it twice). Purple bag? Check. (I’ve got a few more guitar and mike cords to include, just in case—and the 25-foot extension cord and extra outlets.) The e-mail list notebooks? Check; one for each band (need new covers, so I can tell them apart). Mike stands and mikes? Check. Amps? Check. Cookies? Check. Deathgrass T-shirt and “I See Dead Things” sweatshirt? Also check. Hiwigo…

Joe

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

AND ABOUT COUNTRY MUSIC...

There was a well-publicized article in the Nashville Tennesseean about what’s wrong with country music today (it was nice to see somebody in Music City talking about this—a lot of people outside Music City have been talking about it for a long time). The premise was that all these songs about how wonderful it is to be a country boy or girl were written and performed by people who’ve never lived in the country, and don’t have a clue what they’re gushing about. All probably true.

I have a different idea about what’s wrong with country music, of course (and I did write a song about it—“Hank’s Song,” which was on the Santa’s Fallen album—the recording is at http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=2794921). But the article does beg the question, “What exactly is country music?”

I’m a latecomer to country music, myself; I discovered rock ‘n’ roll in high school (my girlfriend and her friends were listening to it), and rock ‘n’ roll is still my favorite music to listen to. However, the Dodson Drifters—the “bluegrass punk” band that was little (pop. 50) Dodson, Oregon’s only claim to fame—played country music (with a lead singer who sounded and looked like Willie Nelson, we had to play country music), and I gradually developed an appreciation for it. And it is mostly what I write.

Perhaps an answer to “What is country music?” has to start with “Well, why do you write it?” I am fond of quoting Steve Goodman’s definition of country music—“It’s about Mother, trucks, trains, farms, prison, dead dogs and Christmas”—and I’ll periodically tell audiences, “This is a country music song ‘cause it’s got a dead dog and a truck in it.” But it goes deeper than that.

Country music tends toward very specific imagery. Even abstract concepts—and I’ve sung about those—are dealt with in terms of real people doing specific things. “Up close and personal,” as it were. No, it doesn’t have to be about life in the country—though I’ll often throw in country-boy imagery just for fun, noting (for instance) in “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” that a spaceship looks like “a silo with a shiny, pointy nose.”

It’s literate (yes, even with those drawls and “ain’ts”). Country music respects the intelligence of its listeners, assuming they are well-read (if not well-educated); its “cultural shorthand” is peppered with Biblical, Shakespearean and other references in full confidence that the audience will “get it” (and they always do). Other genres don’t do that. One trick I picked up from “Tampa Stan” Good was tossing polysyllabic words and foreign words and phrases into country music songs off-handedly (and always conversationally). “Copulating” in a country-music song? Of course. Why not?

Country music is self-deprecating, too. Us country folks do not mind making fun of ourselves. (And again, other genres seem to take themselves way too seriously.)

And country music can tackle social issues—though it’s not used much that way. Country music is an ideal vehicle for this, because the specificity—framing the message in terms of real things happening to real people—makes the message impossible to ignore. Perhaps the fact that country music doesn’t often get used to talk about issues gives it more of an impact when it is. People don’t expect it. (And I do like to hand folks the unexpected.)

So yes, the “suits” have gotten it all wrong—focusing (again, I think) on appearances and not looking further. (And so, be it noted, did the newspaper reporter.) That’s probably an outgrowth of the “eye candy” fixation that developed as Nashville some years back tried to imitate MTV. Like Danny the Dog (played by me) said in one of his radio interviews, “Everybody’s got to be young and pretty, like on the Disney Channel.” One can at least ignore them as irrelevant, and like Danny, go play with a Frisbee instead.

Joe

Monday, July 11, 2011

PLAYING IN THE "RAPTURE ROOM"...

Sunday’s jam session in Nehalem was next door to the Rainbow Lotus, in a former upstairs apartment that’s been remodeled into a performance space. It’s being officially called “the Center for Creative Consciousness” or some such north Tillamook County moniker; I think of it as “the Rapture Room,” because people coming for the music saw everybody’s vehicles parked on the street and couldn’t figure out where everybody had gone to (and one person did comment, “I didn’t think when the Rapture came, y’all would just end up on the second floor”).

It’s a pretty big space, and has tremendous acoustics. That’s where 45 Degrees North will be performing July 23, a week after the Wheeler Summerfest. (It’ll be the first “christening” of the performance space.) The “Rapture Room” comes across as very informal, since there’s an adjacent room through a big arch that looks like a living room (with included kitchen). I think this’ll be ideal for what we do. The Lotus will provide tea for our concert, and I’ve volunteered to bake cookies.

Michael and Sedona, proprietors of the Lotus, did like the “Blue Krishna” song, so it’s time to record it. I really would like to have a sitar lead on the song (considering the subject matter), and am trying to contact through a mutual friend a musician I know (or know of, rather) back East who built a sitar (and can therefore presumably play one). Failing that, I think I can make the Electric Banjo “emulate” a sitar with one of the effects settings on the Tascam. Perhaps Sedona could play flute, too.

They said they wanted to use the “Rapture Room” for recording, too, and it’d be interesting to see how well it works. I could use it—but my setup allows me to record anywhere, even on a street corner (and I have done that). With my singing mike, which has a small, narrow “cone” within which it’ll pick up sound, and the ability to plug instruments in directly, I don’t need a padded room like most folks do—I didn’t bother to insulate the studio in the garage, for instance. But the “Rapture Room” is a reflective space—that’s what makes it ideal for performing. Conventional recording might end up very echo-ey.

I do think 45 Degrees North is ready for the Summerfest. (I also realize not all of them think so, and practice is good. I just don’t have a lot of time myself to practice in, this week.)

With the idea of being able to create “reference” CDs for 45 Degrees North, like I do for Deathgrass, I’d really like to film our performance at the Summerfest. There’s a trick I know of (and think I can do) with the Final Cut program on the Arts Center’s Macs—extracting the sound from a video file and exporting it as a *.wav file, at which point it can be broken up into pieces and dumped to a CD as individual “songs.” What I don’t know is whether I could get a decent recording out of the video camera. There may be no way to know for sure without trying it.

If the recording comes out good, we might also have a “live” album on our hands. If that’s the case, I’d like to film the Deathgrass performance, too, with the same goal in mind.

And why we need the reference CDs? Because there’s no time any more: Wheeler Summerfest (Deathgrass and 45 Degrees North) July 16; 2nd Street Market (45 Degrees North) July 22; the “Rapture Room” in Nehalem (45 Degrees North) July 23; Willamette Writers Group (solo) July 28; Garibaldi Days (Deathgrass) July 30; Southern Oregon Songwriters Summer Concert in Talent (with Dan Doshier) August 6; Manzanita Farmers Market (45 Degrees North) August 12. Eating and sleeping? Should’ve done that last winter…

Joe

Sunday, July 10, 2011

"CINDERPIGGY" AND THE WRITERS' GUILD...

A new person at the Writers’ Guild meeting Thursday night—a poet. Got to talk some about what makes poetry marketable, and how (or where) poetry and song are related. (They blend at the Oral Tradition: poetry like the old epics, or cowboy poetry, that’s meant to be recited rather than read. All the Oral Tradition stuff can be set to music—and I have done some of that. Played ‘em “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot,” which is a talking blues—actually a talking two-step—deliberately emulating Edgar Allan Poe’s rhythm and writing style.)

I still feel like I’m teaching rather than learning—but I was the Presenter Thursday night, so I guess I was supposed to be teaching. (Good practice, again, for the Willamette Writers Group performance July 28.) Went through “Wreck of the Old 97,” one of my favorite examples of bad writing, and showed how Johnny Cash and I had improved the song, he by adding a verse and me by changing one. (“Johnny Cash and I” has such a nice ring to it.) The group’s “homework” is to take something similar—like one of those one-verse-no-chorus songs from the 1920s—and improve it, keeping to the same writing style as the original. We’ll see how they (we) did next Thursday night.

The Writers’ Guild probably can’t keep up an every-week schedule, but I don’t mind doing it for a while—it helps people get to know each other. Once we’re no longer strangers, it’ll be easier to work together.

The "Cinderpiggy" videos are up, finally. The show is in two parts to comply with YouTube’s 15-minute limit (I’ll remember that next time, and make sure the show, with titlkes and credits, is less than 15 minutes long. “Cinderpiggy” was just under 20 minutes.) PART 1 is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-24YOwV2E6k and PART 2 is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMQXuoRcLUM.

I think I like doing the puppet shows because it is something completely different—but it’s still working in a tightly-defined “box.” It will be a fairy tale—but our actors are both Star Wars characters and pigs. It must have parts for all six of them: Darth, Princess Leah, Luke, Hansolo, Yoda, and Chewy the Wookie (that’s three puppeteers, by the way, using two hands each), and the parts have to accommodate the “personalities” they seem to have developed over the course of four plays. There will always be a moral—these are Morality Plays, after all—though the six characters will inevitably have different ideas what that moral is. And we will close with a 60-to-90-second song written for the occasion and performed by the cast as a band.

What’s next for the puppet troupe? We will need to do another performance—around end-summer, I’d guess—but I don’t know what fairy tale to twist next.

Some vignettes… One of the responses to “Blue Krishna” was, “Joe! Where’s the dead animals?” (It’s nice to be famous for something.) One of the other bands at the Wheeler Summerfest would like me to sit in with them. (It’d be nice to assume that’s because of my guitar-playing ability, but I somehow doubt it.) The suggestion was made that Deathgrass march in the Garibaldi Days parade playing kazoos. (I don’t know if the suggestion was serious, but the answer is no.) The Garibaldi Museum would like to hire us to play the Crab Races next spring. (Answer to that one is yes.) Hearts of Country Radio is now playing seven of my songs. (They also did an interview.)

Practice with 45 Degrees North Sunday afternoon, Arts Center board meeting Monday, practice with Deathgrass Tuesday afternoon. Maybe I’ll be able to put the new strings on the guitar after that. I’ll need them for the Summerfest gigs.

Joe

Thursday, July 7, 2011

ANALYZING "BLUE KRISHNA"

Decision postponed another two weeks on the interim city manager job. I probably should cease considering them a viable prospect. There are a couple of other jobs I should apply for, and I’m not going to put life on hold waiting for these guys. On the plus side, the stress of wondering whether I was about to run out of time next week should force me to be more efficient at using my time. I have not been efficient at all lately.

“Blue Krishna” is done, I think. The lyrics are getting vetted by the “wolves” at Just Plain Folks, and I’ll see if they have anything to add. Depending on what (if anything) they say, the song will get performed at the Rainbow Lotus Sunday night—dedicated to Michael and Sedona, who own the place. It was the painting in their store of a blue-skinned Krishna that prompted the song. (Actually, it prompted my question, “Why is Krishna blue?” which prompted the song. A line like that demands a song to go with it.) It was meant to be a sensitive treatment of His Smurfiness, and I hope it comes across that way.

A little analysis is in order, with tonight’s Writers’ Guild meeting in mind (we were supposed to do songs about the ocean, and I came out with this instead). Was it written deliberately? Yes and no: the “Why is Krishna blue?” idea was interesting, but I get handed a lot of interesting things, and just file them away. It was after I came up with a chorus—and a compelling, hard-to-get-out-of-the-head melody—that I realized I might have something worthwhile. At that point, I did try to stay focused on the melody, and every short trip in the truck (I do tend to do my writing while driving) added little pieces to the lyrics until it was (sorta) done.

The song does follow the thinking patterns I went through—finding the Krishna and being curious (1st verse), some of his not-so-special attributes (he stayed a kid, had a job, played the flute for cows—that’s all in the 2nd verse), the important point—he wrote a moral rulebook nobody paid attention to (3rd verse). Each of the verses ends on a sad note, echoing the “times have changed” idea in the chorus. Last verse, where our protagonist takes Krishna home (tying back to the discovery in the beginning), suggests why Kris should maybe still be considered important—and it’s the little things, of course. All told from a kid’s perspective, because kids are able to look at things with “fresh eyes” (and not be considered nuts in the process). A redneck kid, I guess, since the music is unabashedly a two-step.

I can usually tell where the music came from, and this one’s no exception: it’s robbed from the theme song for the “Cinderpiggy” puppet show, “My Happily Ever After”—tweaked slightly, so it doesn’t sound exactly the same. The “Cinderpiggy” song was a frank throwaway, anyway—I doubt anybody will remember it.

“Blue Krishna” even has a Message (which I didn’t expect), in that “Tell him that the world might change, but some things stay the same” line in the chorus (whose meaning changes slightly each time—I like doing that). Change is not good or bad, it just is. But there are always good parts, if you look for them. I’d hazard a lot of people won’t like the song, because it could be interpreted like advocacy of a non-Christian belief system. I’d disagree—but I also probably do not care. It’s done, and I kinda like it. Now I’m antsy to record it, but I’ll wait until after the song gets performed Sunday; if the audience (and especially Michael and Sedona) like it, it’s worth recording.

Setlists are done for both Deathgrass’ and 45 Degrees North’s performances at the Wheeler Summerfest (which is next Saturday). Both 90-minute sets have 19 songs each (in each case, there’s a couple of short songs). Posters are done; so are the Raps. Next step is the notices to the “joelist” and to Facebook. And practice. Must practice. I will apparently have time to do so. (See? There are always good parts.)

Joe

Monday, July 4, 2011

MY BLUE KRISHNA?

At the Rainbow Lotus tonight, I saw a painting of the Hindu deity Krishna (the Lotus has a lot of that sort of stuff around)—and the guy had blue skin! Which prompted the question, “Why is Krishna blue?” (And yes, that does sound like a song, doesn’t it?)

According to Wikipedia, which is entertaining if not necessarily factual, Krishna’s name means “dark blue” or “black”—and early representations of Krishna show him as a black dude. It’s only in later, presumably less tolerant times that Krishna develops decidedly Aryan features and gets that Smurfy blue skin.

Krishna is presumed to be the author of the Baghavad Gita, but some sources claim Krishna doesn’t really exist—another deity, they say, actually wrote the book under an assumed name. Besides, Krishna is a kid; he’s never shown older than a young man (sometimes he’s even a toddler). He’s the only deity who had to work for a living at an “earthly” job (he was a cowherd). And he often is shown with only two arms, instead of the four that most Hindu deities have (multiple arms, I learned, indicate super powers). He is considered a Supreme Being only in certain towns in India. Some sources call him a ladies’ man (he did play the flute)—while others say the only ladies attracted to him were lady cows. Yes, Krishna might have a lot of reasons to be blue.

In the Disney movie Peter Pan, audiences (presumably comprised of little kids) are told Tinker Bell is dying because not enough people believe in fairies any more, and the kids are told to clap their hands real loud to let Tink know that yes, people really do believe. Maybe that’s Kris’s problem, and maybe something similar is called for. And then “Krishna won’t be blue any more.” Yes?

I don’t plan on mentioning intolerance at all; the message (and I’ll be understated about delivering it) is that belief determines reality. The song presently has a decent chorus, but just one or two couplets out of verses—and the song, I think, will need two or three verses. It’s a two-step, of course. Tentative title: “My Blue Krishna.”

Working on the Deathgrass setlist for the Wheeler Summerfest; biggest hassle is picking which of 80-odd songs we should do. Once I’ve got ‘em picked out, I’ll just burn CDs with the songs, in order, and distribute those along with the setlist. I expect we will be able to get by with one practice before the gig.

It’s very easy, and I wish I could “do” 45 Degrees North the same way. Down the road, perhaps—but I don’t think it’s possible right now. The advantage I’ve got with Deathgrass is I’m the lead singer, and we’re doing my stuff, so it’s easy for me to make recordings (I already have them for a lot of material). 45 Degrees North has three other singers (two vocalists and a fiddle) besides me, and I can’t sing those guys’ stuff (and I think only one of them has the ability to record). We are probably limited to going over stuff in person—and one big advantage of doing so is we work out arrangements for things while we’re doing so. (That is the way the Dodson Drifters used to do it, but the Drifters were practicing every night.) It is time-consuming to do it that way—and one of my worries is I may run out of time if I end up with a job. (I may find out about the job this week.)

Practice with 45 Degrees North Tuesday night this week, meeting Wednesday night, Writers’ Guild Thursday night. Posters are done for Deathgrass and for 45 Degrees North for Wheeler—and I have (I think) a Deathgrass T-shirt design, too. Film from the open mike to clip and manage, the “Cinderpiggy” video to finish—and Krishna has to fit in there somehow, too. Turning blue, he is…

Joe

Sunday, July 3, 2011

THE ARTS CENTER OPEN MIKE...

Bay City open mike was good. Between the attendees at Eric Sappington’s Artist-of-the-Month reception and those at the open mike, they polished off nearly six dozen cookies, so we either had a big turnout or a very hungry one. Besides Eric (who was our featured performer) and 45 Degrees North, we had a couple of cute singing toddlers, some poems, a short story, and a segment of a very interesting science-fiction novel. Good practice for me being emcee. Had the sound set up in advance so I didn’t have to worry about it.

I probably do the open mike a bit different from other hosts. As far as I’m concerned, everybody gets their 15 minutes of fame, just like Andy Warhol promised, no matter what they’re doing. (I myself thought what the spoken-word people were doing was fascinating. I hope others did, too.) Nice that nearly everybody was doing original stuff—without, be it noted, anybody telling them to. This could turn over time into something like the Wild Goose’s open mike in Ashland, which has become a forum for writers to show off new material.

Charlie videotaped the whole event, using two cameras—and I do want to see how he merges the two films. I want to learn how to do that. (And I want to configure the film—2-1/2 hours worth of it, I think—so we can have pieces on the Arts Center’s Website.)

I think 45 Degrees North is getting the Professional Performer Routine down (something Eric and I had talked about—if you act like you know what you’re doing, people will believe that you do). No sound check necessary (it had been done ahead of time)—we could just step on stage and play. Good setlist, showing off our best material—and practiced in advance. We didn’t use a single music stand, even for the Celtic song (and people do notice things like that). I do the Rap—I’m comfortable behind a mike, and I have it all worked out ahead of time anyway.

One couple, as they were leaving, said 45 Degrees North should be the featured performer(s) at one of these open mikes. (That could be arranged. It is good to have an open mike following the Artist-of-the-Month reception—it increases the crowd at both events—and not all artists are also musicians like Eric is. In those situations, you can have somebody else be the featured performer.) They also liked “The Road to Lisdoonvarna,” our latest foray into Celtic music—a fast-paced Irish love song.

Could do another open mike Saturday, August 6—but I can’t host it: I won’t be here. I’ll be in southern Oregon, performing at the Southern Oregon Songwriters Summer Concert. September’s a possibility; that’d be Labor Day weekend, but I don’t see that as any more of a problem than Independence Day weekend was.

Deathgrass is on for the Wheeler Summerfest (also Garibaldi Days at the end of July and the Rocktoberfest in September); now we need to find time to practice. I have warned everybody I might have a job soon (I may find out this week), and if so, it’ll reduce my availability, like (though not as badly as) last year. One of my tasks over Independence Day weekend is to nail down what we’re going to play at Wheeler, and make copies for everybody. I wasn’t happy with my first draft of a setlist—it was really high-energy (good), but I didn’t think it allowed enough “wailing room” for the blues harp. We need slower songs for that, I think. I want, too, to depart a bit from country music—this isn’t really a country band we’ve got here.

Video class Tuesday night, a city council meeting to be at Wednesday night, and the Writers’ Guild Thursday night. Upcoming weekend is the last gig-free weekend for an entire month. Concert Season has started…

Joe

Friday, July 1, 2011

"STEAMBOAT BILL" AND THE WRITERS' GUILD...

Looked up the top songs of 1911, the year the railroad to the Coast was completed; “Steamboat Bill” was #20 that year—and it’s the only one with any connection at all to trains (and a pretty thin one at that). There are maybe half a dozen songs from that year that were memorable; most famous is probably Shelton Brooks’ “Some of These Days,” which Sophie Tucker made famous. (That one would be fun to learn primarily because Candice could probably sing it really well. I doubt the chord progression would be easy.) Most of the top songs of 1911 were quite forgettable (and have been appropriately quite forgotten).

One might be able to put together a setlist of train songs, however (I have had a tentative invitation for Deathgrass to perform at the “Rails 100” celebration October 1-2). “Tillamook Railroad Blues” is a Deathgrass standard, of course, and Skip Johnson said he’s got a train song he can send me; might not be hard to find others. I’d still want to stick to originals and traditionals; I think that’s possible (and important).

Six at the Writers’ Guild meeting Thursday night. Jim Nelson had us all do an idea exercise referred to variously as “mind mapping” and “vomiting on paper”—writing down as fast as possible all the words, phrases, &c., generated by a single keyword (in this case, “ocean”). Some people did get beginnings of songs out of it; I didn’t—though a couple of catchphrases, “Bubbles, Queen of Whales” and “Treasure of the Vampire Fish,” could turn into song material later. For homework (homework?) we are supposed to turn our “ocean” ideas into a song. (Bubbles? You there? C’mon, honey—we got work to do.)

Next week—we are still getting together weekly—it’ll be my turn to be the presenter. I expect I’ll want to talk about inspiration, and where it comes from (which is everywhere, by the way—I am fond of my “Bill Shakespeare” mantra, “The world is a very strange place, and people are very weird critters”).

And for an exercise, could we maybe try to improve on something? Would that be too outside people’s comfort zones? The Dodson Drifters did it constantly (with two writers in the band, it was almost second nature—we even improved Hank Williams and Bob Dylan). The classic example I’d cite is that old bluegrass turkey, “Wreck of the Old 97,” which really is not a well-written song (it is beloved by bluegrass musicians for other reasons)—but Johnny Cash added a verse, and then I changed the last verse, and it got a whole lot better. The task might be to take a one-verse song (there were a lot of them written in the early days of phonographs, when you couldn’t fit a lot on a record), and expand it to where it’d be marketable today—i.e., 3-1/2 to 5 minutes, with at least two verses and a chorus (and maybe a bridge). I do have around somewhere a sweet little one-verse French two-step from the 1920s about the dangers of premarital sex—and obviously the message is still current.

We shared songs, too. Some folks had works in progress, and I applaud their courage in exposing them early. I’m still not comfortable doing that. I did mention I was working on a “werewolf bluegrass” tune, and maybe next time I’ll have something I can expose. It was good to have writers tearing into each other’s material from a wide range of perspectives—that’s a kind and quality of input the pros never get, and I think it’ll be really helpful. One lady had a song I believe I can set to music (I warned her it would come out country if I did); with luck, she’ll send it to me. It’d be my first musication this year (and the Worklist says I should be doing a dozen of them).

Open mike Saturday night at the Arts Center; I’ll host, because Jim will be out of town. Several folks have said they’d come, and it should be fun. (And Charlie will videotape.) With luck, I’ll have help from Jim setting up the sound before he leaves town.

Oh, and for those who were wondering—I think the washing machine is fixed.

Joe