RELAY FOR LIFE SETLIST THOUGHTS...

TWO HOURS to fill for my solo performance at the Relay for Life July 8 (I’m scheduling me to play in the middle of the night). If I’m playing solo, that’s an average of four minutes per song, not five (or about 15 per hour). Doable? Of course. Two I need to do since they’re about people who died of cancer: Crosses by the Roadside—mod. slow two-step You’ll Make a Real Good Angel (Tarra Young)—almost Gospel And I have a bunch that come off good solo (i.e., without lead breaks). Not in order (yet): Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You—fast bluegrass Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy Doing Battle with the Lawn—fast bluegrass In the Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You—deliberate two-step I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas—slow & sleazy Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass Hank’s Song—deliberate two-step I May Write You from Jupiter—fast bluegrass One Gas Station—mod. fast folk Leavin’ It to Beaver—fast bluegrass Meet Me at the Stairs—fast bluegrass Writer’s Block Blues—slow & sleazy Twenty-Four Seven—fast waltz Welcome to Hebo Waltz—fast waltz Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope)—fast bluegrass Take Me Back to the ‘Sixties—fast bluegrass Last Song of the Highwayman—medieval two-step Dead Fishes—very fast Elizabethan bluegrass Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step Earwigs in the Eggplant—fast Irishy bluegrass 50 Ways to Cure the Depression—folk-rock The World Enquirer—fast bluegrass Oil in the Cornfield—mod. fast folk Twenty Saddles for My Chicken—fast bluegrass Milepost 43—deliberate two-step The Termite Song—fast bluegrass Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up—fast bluegrass Young Donohue (Skip Johnson)—fast bluegrass Prehistoric Roadkill—fast bluegrass “One Gas Station,” “Beaver,” “Oil in the Cornfield” and (according to some) “Hebo” come across as too long if there’s a lead break—and a number of the songs on the list are over four minutes without a lead break, anyway, because I deliberately write most songs so they can be performed either solo or with a band. A few overtly political tunes in there, not too many dead animals, and some songs that are just plain fun with no message at all (like “Twenty Saddles for My Chicken”). Now, to organize the list, and do a Rap. I believe I am rigidly organized all this week and next with virtually no free time at all. Thursday night is a Relay for Life meeting (last one before the event), Friday practice with Coaster, Saturday the first (of two) Dylan shows, Sunday marimba practice, Monday recording at Jim’s shop—and then right after July 4 (which should be a zoo at the hotel) there’s the Coaster show at 2nd Street Market (for which I still need poster, setlist and Rap), the Relay for Life, and the second Dylan show in Nehalem, all within two days. Going to have to treat Life like one of those fast bluegrass songs and do strategic breathing. And—complete aside—I saw that a Shakespeare festival (I forget whether it’s the one in Ashland) is doing a parody of a Shakespeare play, called “The Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa.” One of the things I should be working on in my spare time is the Shakespeare parody I’ve been threatening to write for a long time: “Two Gentlemen of Vernonia—The Musical.” Country music, of course. Joe

A REPUBLICAN CONVENTION...

Went to the Republican Party convention in Salem on Saturday (2-hour drive each way). It wasn’t a total waste of time, but it was close. The idea of people vying to get elected to fly to the other end of the country on their own nickel to “vote” the way they were directed to by the voters in the primary election last month is just weird. (The spectacle of supposedly conservative Republicans proclaiming support for the front-running Republican nominee as if he were conservative was weird, too.) The paranoia-driven efforts by pro-Romney Party leadership to prevent the meeting from being packed or otherwise taken over by Ron Paul supporters (which said Ron Paul supporters appeared to have no intention of doing) were a little ridiculous, and made everything take way longer than necessary. Nonetheless, I did my duty as a precinct committeeperson and cast my ballots for folks I thought (or hoped) were at least (1) not dumb and (2) not crazy. And I got to practice my singing square dance calls and my songs for the July 21 Gospel Show en route. (Which is why my time wasn’t entirely wasted.) I figure now that I’m no longer working as a city manager (and therefore no longer forced to keep my mouth shut politically), I can do more than just observe and complain. So I’ll influence things to the extent I can. (I noticed a lot of first-timers at the Salem meeting saying much the same thing, and I voted for them when I could—and when they appeared to be not dumb and not crazy. One way to change things is to change the people doing things.) Yes, one more thing for Joe-who-now-has-a-job-and-no-time to be involved in. It shouldn’t take much more time the rest of the year, though. No more trips to Salem. (I do not like to waste time.) Coaster’s performance at the 2nd Street Market has been moved (by the Market) from June 29 to one week later, July 6, 6-8 p.m. The good news is that gives us an additional week to practice. The bad news is the performance will be the night before the 24-hour Relay for Life. I should prepare for a whole weekend with minimal sleep. (Kinda like this one’s been.) I still need to do posters for the show, and this’ll give me time to do that. (I did figure out what’s wrong with the scanner unit on the old printer. What I don’t know is whether I can fix it.) I haven’t hooked up the new computer yet—I’d like to pull the RAM chips from the old Compaq in the garage and see if I can boost the new machine’s brainpower even further. Also upcoming: the puppet show troupe’s performance of Jedi Pigs of Oz. Need to practice—haven’t done that yet—and I also need to record the theme song. I’ll do it myself if I can’t get time at Jim’s shop. I might be able to record Coaster playing it (we’re scheduled to practice Friday night)—I need to remember to take the power adapter for the Japanese mixer (I forgot that last Friday) ‘cause it won’t run on normal American power. If I can get a fiddle lead, I can do a sight gag with puppet Yoda (who’s playing a harmonica, and can act surprised—and then upset—at the sounds he/she is getting out of it). I’ve plugged myself into the Relay for Life schedule, too—playing solo, because I wasn’t going to ask anybody else to play with me in the middle of the night. I actually do have a couple of songs appropriate for the event, “Crosses by the Roadside,” the kaddish I wrote for Carol Ackerman when husband Dick died (of cancer), and Tarra Young’s “You’ll Make a Real Good Angel” (her lyrics, my music), which she wrote for a friend who was dying—again, of cancer. For the rest of my two hours, I’ll just do “Joe stuff.” I have plenty of songs that work okay solo. And the Raps—for Relay, for the Gospel show, and for the Coaster show. In the latter, we’ve substituted a couple of the Dylan songs, “Don’t Think Twice” and “When the Ship Comes In,” for tunes on the setlist we didn’t do that well. Next week, too, I have got to find some places to play music. I have not been playing enough. My fingers get sore way too fast—and I have some lengthy performances coming up. Joe

ABOUT THAT FUTURE...

Thought-provoking question from Lorelei Loveridge at Performing Songwriters. What DOES the future of the music business look like, these days? And what is our place in it? One view (by an industry professional) suggests the “amateurization” of music production, thanks to cheap and available technology, has cheapened music to the point of valuelessness; no one will make money off music because it’s all free and anybody can do it. There was a science-fiction story about that—not specifically music, but all kinds of craftsmanship: excessive free time and technology would allow everybody to be a “hobbyist” at everything. If you wanted something, you’d just buy a kit and do it yourself. (And the only people making money would be the folks making the kits.) That’s a very possible (though not pleasant) scenario. As a congenitally hopeful person, I’d like to view it differently—and see opportunities, no matter how dim and small they are. The industry-professional outlook assumes the future will be like the present, only extended—and the future don’t work that way. Second, every problem contains within itself the seeds of its own solution—I think Isaac Asimov said that. There are always opportunities. Cheap and ubiquitous technology is not a problem. That stuff is cyclical. I got to be in on the last wave of it, back in the 1970s; the Dodson Drifters built a recording studio (any working band with a few thousand spare dollars could), and we produced ourselves and others—but we were famous, and our records got played on the radio, because we were good, not because we had the technology. True today. The technology is even better and cheaper—I have a studio myself, out in the garage, and it was cheap to do—but most of the stuff coming out of those ubiquitous home studios is worse than the stuff the big record companies put out. The problem (and remember, that’s an opportunity) is one of ACCESS. What Joni Mitchell called “the Star-Maker Machinery” is pretty well locked up by a few entities pursuing the old AT&T Vertical Integration Business Plan. It works—but only so long as nobody new is allowed in. (And as we’ve seen with AT&T, quality suffers after a while.) Said entities are on or headed for the financial skids, and will either have to co-opt new talent to survive—or not survive. Either way, I do not care. They’re ignorable, and I happily ignore them. What does one do instead? I’d go back to medieval times. Envision ourselves as troubadors: we travel around performing our own and other troubadors’ stuff, and we get paid for it. We get to sell “merch”—from T-shirts to CDs—and make a little extra money. (Madonna said this was going to happen, by the way.) We strive for bigger and bigger audiences. We can do this because there is a market out there for live performance that the big record companies aren’t supplying (and may not be able to). We use that cheap and ubiquitous technology to expand our audiences any way that works. Innovation is the key to success; remember, it’s not in the record companies’ vocabulary any more than it was in AT&T’s. (And keep in mind innovation has a lot of dead ends—just because something’s new doesn’t mean it’s going to work. We try everything we can; we watch carefully what other people are doing, and when we see something that works, we imitate it if we can. This is all stuff the medieval troubadors did.) And the material? I mostly ignore the Big Boys’ material—most of it isn’t very good any more anyway; there’s plenty of good independent music out there that’s way better, and people like it, and want to hear more of it. Wherewith, a War Story. A couple years ago, I performed at a retirement home for a lady’s 98th birthday (paid gig, by the way); she wanted to hear Cole Porter ‘cause she was a fan. I told ‘em, “I can’t play any Cole Porter—but I know some Skip Johnson tunes.” (I didn’t tell them that Skip was a contemporary of mine, and a friend to boot—and that I’d musicated some of Skip’s lyrics.) The Skip Johnson tunes I played were quite in keeping with Cole Porter’s style, and she (and her friends) loved it. What one cannot do is do nothing. That only perpetuates the present (and its problems). Like the old song says (not one of mine—sorry), “Why are you sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play…” Joe

PRACTICE, COMPUTER AND RANDOM THOUGHTS...

COASTER PRACTICE. Went well; our renditions of some of my songs—“The Abomination Two-Step,” “Cuddle in the Darkness,” “Hank’s Song,” “Pole Dancing for Jesus,” “Naked Space Hamsters in Love,” and “Spend the End of the World with Me”—are excellent. We are, I think, ready for prime time—and that’s good, because prime time is coming up. Gigs at 2nd Street Market in Tillamook June 29 (2 hours), the Dylan Shows at NCRD June 30 and July 7 (4 songs), Wheeler Summerfest July 21 (1½ hours). Last one is a paying gig. MORE THOUGHTS ON THE ALBUM. I could title the album Pole Dancing for Jesus, and it’d probably still be marketable. The last two albums have been titled after one of the songs, too. (And then I wouldn’t have to worry about how many songs were on the thing. I could easily end up with more than 13—and it’s possible to fit up to 16 songs on a CD.) I forget whether I’d listed “Dirty Deeds We Done to Sheep” on the album list, but it needs to be there. Bestiality is one of the things you go to Hell for, after all. ANOTHER INTERNET STATION. Clay’s Country (www.clayscountry.com), organized and run by fellow songwriter/musician Clay Pierce, is playing my stuff. Clay specifically requested “Bluebird on My Windshield,” so I sent that to him along with “The Resurrection Blues” and some of the Deathgrass cuts. ANOTHER SINGING CALL. I decided the parody, “Ghost Sturgeon in the Bay,” would work for a singing call; it’s got the right number of beats (32) in the verse. (And only three verses, too. Since singing calls do the music seven times—three for the singing, and four for the “figure” where you’re moving the dancers around—this is ideal.) The off-the-wall subject matter and obviously old-time country melody makes it a good fit for my square dance caller “persona,” too. Found music for it at Palomino, the square dancers record company, and bought it. (Since the song is a parody, there is commercial music available from the original tune.) Yes, it’s seven bucks, but that gives me two more singing calls. I’ll get two, maybe three practices with my guinea pigs before I have to go on stage again (there’s another square dance Aug. 11). NEW COMPUTER. Picked up from John Ramer at Backscratcherz. The original plan was for John to rebuild “Justin,” the gigantic desktop computer with busted processor I’d bought surplus from the Farmer’s Market, but “Justin” had too many things wrong and ended up getting new everything, including a different case. He (or she) is going to need a new name to go with the new-everything. The intent—I have not hooked stuff up yet—is for this machine to be the basic graphic-design/music/video production unit (John says he can keep supplying additional and bigger hard drives as I fill them up); 2000-vintage “StuartLittle” will go out to the studio as originally planned, and “Lazarus” the laptop will be packed away to be used for going out on the road. And I will have a “road job” for Lazarus coming up quickly. I was asked if I could record Coaster playing some of the songs, primarily for the band members’ reference, and I think I can. I should be able to run everybody through the 5-channel mixer (four instruments plus vocal) and output the mix simultaneously to two channels on the Tascam; I shouldn’t need an amp, but if I do, I can run the mix through the little PA and then to the Tascam. It’ll be a “live” recording—I won’t be able to adjust individual volumes later, so players will just have to play louder when they’re doing lead breaks, and such—but we have been practicing that stuff. Since the Tascam can only “do” one song at a time, I’ll need to load each one as it’s done to the laptop and clear the Tascam’s little digital-camera chip “brain” for the next song. That actually takes very little time. We can probably do this Friday night next. I’ll need to practice with the equipment ahead of time to make sure I can run everything properly. (And if by chance I end up with any “radio-ready” recordings, great—I’ll have more material for the album.) I’ll still have two computer hulks kicking around I have no idea what to do with: the HP laptop is a disembodied brain none of whose peripherals work (but if you hook up a remote monitor, keyboard, mouse, and wireless Internet transceiver, it’s fine), and the Compaq is a thoroughly functioning computer—it’s just very dumb and very slow. I could always run “free to good homes” notices, I guess. But who’d want this stuff? AND… I did apply for the city manager job in Soldotna, Alaska—on principle (sister and brother-in-law live there, and I really would like to live in Alaska), though I doubt I have any chance of even getting interviewed for the job. It’s an excuse to set up Skype on the new computer—something I’ve been threatening to do. Joe

THE MID-YEAR REVIEW...

Time again for that mid-year review of the Worklist. How the heck are we doing? ALBUM. I think it’ll be the “religious” songs this time. Tentative title: 13 Reasons Why Joe Is Going to Hell. One song recorded for it thus far—“The Resurrection Blues.” A couple more in the pipeline. I have a place to record (the music store) and sound engineer (Jim). Plan is still to release a song a month (once I find an outfit that won’t charge an arm and leg to do it), then compile them as an album. Figured out (just recently) how to record the Southern Pigfish album, too. GIGS. Being suddenly employed hasn’t affected gigging too much; as with the last job (in 2010), I’ve got Saturdays off. I’m playing with two bands, like last year. Portland gigs are probably out because of the work schedule, but I never made any money off those anyway. (I’d still like to play for the Willamette Writers again. That was on a Saturday.) VIDEO. I’ve come up with lots of ideas, but I haven’t done anything with them. PRODUCE SOMEBODY ELSE. Haven’t done that either. I helped (I think) two artists with advice when they were producing their first albums but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. INFRASTRUCTURE. I built the little PA system (for a total cost of ten bucks), and it works. Three channels, expandable to seven when I plug in the 5-channel mixer, and it fits (mostly) in a suitcase. Located my little Hong Kong video camera (finally), plus the new digital camera I got given last year can take video, too. “Justin” the big desktop computer is being rebuilt to do both music and graphic design, and will be able to burn DVDs. Got professional videography software—no more hokey Windows Movie Maker. Still haven’t done squat about the Joe Website. THE WORLD TOUR. Probably still a ways off. I keep flipping back and forth between having money and no time (because I have a job) and having time and no money (because I’m unemployed). I want to go to England, Ireland, France, The Netherlands and Sweden (because I know writers and musicians in all those places), Latvia (because of the blog subscribers), Mongolia (just because), and the Czech Republic (that last because my grandfather came from there back when it was part of the Austrian Empire). I said I was going to ignore MARKETING and BECOMING A HOUSEHOLD WORD, because the stuff I was doing wasn’t working, but it’s hard—marketing is my background, after all. I still obsess about it. I have had to LET THE FAN BASE GROW ON ITS OWN, because I don’t have time any more. I just don’t pass up opportunities, and I make sure that every performance, whatever I’m doing, is as perfect as it can be, even with limited preparation. WRITING. Only four songs in the last six months—“One Gas Station,” “Spend the End of the World with Me,” “The Resurrection Blues” and “Sleepover at My House” (and I don’t know if the last one’s a “keeper” yet, because I haven’t tried it out on a live audience). There’s the parody, of course, that I wrote for the marimba band, “Ghost Sturgeon in the Bay,” and the one-minute closing-credits song for the Jedi Pigs of Oz puppet show, but I don’t count those as “real” songs. In my middle-of-the-night shifts, when there’s no one around to hear me sing, I’ve been rehearsing for gigs and square dances rather than writing. (I’m also enjoying the job—and I worry about that. I know an absence of pain is bad for creativity.) I have done a few things that weren’t on the Worklist, that probably deserve mention as related. I wrote another play for the sock-puppet “troupe”—it’ll be their last because they’re “retiring”—and like the last three plays, it’s got one of my songs in it. I’m in a marimba band—and have written a song for them, too (the abovementioned parody). I’ve taken classes to become a square dance caller—and one of the songs I’m using in my routine is one I wrote. (I detect a common thread, there.) And I got recruited as the entertainment chairman for three concert events this summer, two of which happen next month. Why am I sleeping at all when I’ve got stuff to do? Joe

SQUARE DANCE CALLER TAKES THE STAGE (BRIEFLY)...

Did my first square dance calling with a real floor of dancers—we had five squares on the dance floor at City Hall tonight, most from out of town. It went okay, and a bunch of ‘em said they liked it (and some said they couldn’t believe this was my first time). Got compared to Willie Nelson (for which I thanked the complimenters profusely, but I’m no Willie Nelson—he can sing, and I can’t). The crowd got the two singing calls I have definitely mastered, “Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me” (the Hee-Haw theme) and “Valvoline” (which I wrote in 1980 and which became the Dodson Drifters’ first hit single). I’m not the first, or the only, square dance caller to use his own music in a square dance, but I am the only one I know who’s done it. I may have managed to pull off what instructor Daryl was telling us student callers we should do with our “guest tips” at dances. Be interesting, he said. Be memorable, he said. Make them want to come to a dance you’re going to be at. I think I did those things. We’ll be having another square dance at City Hall in mid-August. Hopefully, all those visitors will come back. (I also got to compare the dance flyers I’d done for our square dances with those from other clubs (there’s usually a table full of flyers at square dances). Mine are definitely more eye-catching. Haven’t lost my touch.) Next step—more material. I probably have the Merle Haggard tune “Gone, Gone, Gone” down but I really would like to try it out on my guinea pigs before doing it in public. And I’m not sure what else I should work on next. I have three singing calls on the laptop from the old 45-rpm records I got, plus two more that I’d bought online (for seven bucks apiece) from Palomino, the square dance record company. I would—as noted previously—like to record some square dance music of my own, but first things first. I have already set myself quite a bit of studio work to do, and I don’t have that much time any more. The foregoing ties into another “how to” article I ran across, this one advocating the idea of being different when you perform—whether it be in how you sing, what you sing, how you dress, and so forth—and claiming that was the key to success. I agree with the importance of being different; if you want people to remember you, you have to give them something to remember you by. Key to success? Not so much. It is not enough to be memorable—one has to get out and maximize the opportunities to be memorable. That’s something I don’t do near enough myself. Becoming a household word (like toilet paper, say) has been one of the items on the Worklist for the past two years. On the plus side, the square dance calling schtick gives me an opportunity to be memorable to a whole ‘nother spectrum of people—who of course will get to know (1) that I’m a musician, (2) that I write country music, (3) that I play in a band and (4) that I have an album out, because they’ll ask and I will tell them. Another rule there: Never stop selling. Saw “Doc” Wagner at the TAPA play Friday night, and he’s in for the Wheeler Summerfest, Garibaldi Days and Rocktoberfest gigs. Also saw Croix, who was the voice of Luke and Chewy in the last puppet show (he was being “backstage Ninja” for the TAPA play), and he’s in for the Jedi Pigs of Oz puppet show; just need to find time to practice now. Sent the Relay for Life chairman the bad news that the company that provided the sound system for free two years ago wants to charge this year (there’s been a lot of that going around). And I’ll get to practice marimba with the band (or most of them) for the first time in five weeks, right before I go to work for another five days straight. Joe

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE SOUTHERN PIGFISH ALBUM...

A couple ideas, before I forget them… I know, I think, how to record the Southern Pigfish album. I can do it at Jim’s shop! What I need for recording The Band That Doesn’t Exist is a band that doesn’t exist. He’s got one—or at least the musicians that could pretend to be one. And I’ve heard them all—even heard them playing together—and they’re pretty good. Since they’re not a band (most of the time), they can record their tracks separately—which is how Jim does it anyway. What’s necessary for each of those songs is for me to record “base” tracks—rhythm guitar and lead vocal—for each song, and then let Jim add at his leisure “layer” other things as he sees fit. I’d want to make sure each song has bass and drums, because Southern Pigfish is supposed to be a rock ‘n’ roll band; no need to be specific about the lead instrument(s), but it’d be good to have both a “whiny” lead (fiddle, harmonica, flute, &c.) and a “non-whiny” lead (guitar, keyboard, &c.) because I like arranging things that way. It’s okay if the playing isn’t top-notch professional (though most of the musicians Jim knows are quite good—I know most of them, too)—Southern Pigfish are supposed to be a bunch of amateurs. And the songs? The political songs, of course: For Their Own Ends (the “title cut”) Love Trails of the Zombie Snails Vampire Roumanian Babies The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot 50 Ways to Cure the Depression All those are folk-rock. I could add a few others: Test Tube Baby—rock ‘n’ roll Born Again Barbie—rockabilly Gospel The Resurrection Blues—fast blues Angel In Chains—country death metal The Dead Sweethearts Polka—deliberate polka (or fast bluegrass) Last four of those were intended to be on the 13 Reasons Why Joe Is Going to Hell album. They still can (though they should be re-recorded with different musicians). Everything on the list is very non-country—as befitting a rock band. Could use a couple more to fill it out—emphasizing the original mantra, from Southern Pigfish’s famous first “live” recording (done by me, with me playing all the parts): “politically charged Arkansas bluegrass hip-hop sea chanties.” And the videos? All the Southern Pigfish songs were supposed to be videos. Unless the musicians (or most of them) are going to be playing somewhere together, I can’t film them as a group. However I could get footage of each of them recording in the shop, and mix clips together. I have seen videos done like that. My vocals, of course—but I don’t want me on screen. I did say in that original “live” recording that Southern Pigfish had a girl singer, who sounded “like Bob Dylan after the operation.” I’d like to find a female person—one who isn’t regularly performing, and isn’t trying to make a name for herself as a singer—to lip-synch the songs while I film her. I do know a couple of people who might be interested and I’ll have to ask them. A couple of the Southern Pigfish songs require “location” shots. I decided “The Dead Sweethearts Polka” can be mostly shot on the banks of the Nehalem River; “Quoth,” mostly on the beach at Twin Rocks, with a little bit in front of the Ghost Hole Tavern or Garibaldi Pub; and the “Zombie Snails” song really should have snow (and that means driving somewhere ‘cause we don’t get snow here to speak of—and certainly not in Antarctic proportions). “Born Again Barbie,” of course, I had already scripted out as a variety of stop-motion animation (and I have the Barbies for “cast” out in the garage), and “50 Ways” actually already has an excellent “French style” video—I just need to substitute the new soundtrack, if that’s possible. Don’t need live actors for either of those. Y’know, this could be a lot of fun… Joe

UPDATES...

Well, I knew it was going to happen—like Murphy’s Third Law says, “Peanut butter sandwiches always land peanut butter side down.” Four people can run the front desk at the hotel so long as nobody gets sick. So somebody got sick, right? And I got to work 12 hours straight after my traditional Day-of-No- Sleep-and-I-Got-Up-Early-Because-I-Had-Things-to-Do. Thought I’d have to do it again (she’s still sick) but I actually got to go to work two hours late the next night because I’d stayed an extra two hours the morning before, and I actually felt energetic after only five hours’ sleep. I have mastered, I believe, another singing call—this one an old Merle Haggard tune. Choreography for the intro, outro, and middle that I got along with the old 45-rpm record was okay, but the “figure” where you’re moving the dancers around and making them shift places didn’t seem to have enough movement in it. (You never want your dancers to be standing around with nothing to do. You don’t want them to have to hurry—but you want them constantly moving.) So I substituted some choreography from instructor Daryl’s “Safe Singing Calls” list, and it works. I can mostly remember it and I think square dancers will be able to handle it just fine. (Me, too.) I’ll probably be trying it out on a live audience for the first time at Saturday night’s square dance—no chance to practice with my guinea pigs before then. Posters are done for two Dylan “reprise” shows at the North County Recreation District auditorium, June 30 and July 7. Latter date is a problem—it’s the weekend of the Relay for Life, which is supposed to last 24 hours, and I’m the Entertainment Guy. So not only I (with Coaster) but a mess of the performers I’d enlisted for the Relay can’t play Saturday evening ‘cause they now have a gig. The posters came out nice, though; I used a Dylanesque photo of Jim (from the posters for his Dylan show at The Mercantile) which looks almost like a Bob Dylan album cover, plus one I took of “Dylan” performing with His Big Band (bass, drums, keyboard, lead guitar, blues harp, tambourine and kazoo). Coaster has practiced, too, of course—and I think the band is going to sound good. Having Clint on the big bass adds a lot. We have to practice for our June 29 show at the 2nd Street Market, too, and it’d be tempting to add our best Dylan covers to the Market setlist, since we alread know how to play them: “Absolutely Sweet Marie” and “When the Ship Comes In” (sung by me) and “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right (sung by Ken). And in the course of poster production, my old Lexmark printer finally gave up the ghost. (It is something like 8 or 9 years old. That’s really old in printer years.) On the one hand, I appreciate the printer waiting to die until I had an income, small though it be (my truck has a habit of doing that, too)—but on the other hand, it could have waited longer. I’ve asked Jane (who owns an office-supply store as well as playing a mean fiddle) to find me a replacement. I almost forgot! There’s a puppet show to produce, too—contract has been sent off to the county library to pay the Arts Center for putting on Jedi Pigs of Oz. I need to finish the poster (I’ve found some “movie credits” fonts for adding the actors’ names, so it’ll really look like a 1930s Wizard of Oz movie poster), enlist teenager Croix to be the voice of Luke, Chewy and Glyn-the-Good-Witch-Trapped-in-a-Balloon (he was a hit as Chewy last time) and practice. This one will take a bit more practice because the script is probably half an hour long. Oh, and record the closing-credits song, too. Yup, no shortage of things to do. Joe

CHORUS DIFFERENT FROM VERSES?

More songwriting tips, this time from the folks who run SongU. They emphasize the importance of contrast—in their case between verse and chorus, but really it’s possible to take it a lot further. Yes, you can have a different number of beats, and/or a different chord progression in your chorus; there are a couple of John Prine songs where he even made the verses a waltz and the chorus a two-step (and one where he reversed it, and made the verses a two-step and the chorus a waltz). You can play with the lyrics, too. I’ve got a few songs where the chorus talks about something different than the verses, and then ties it together in the last line—“I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas” is the classic, but “Duct Tape” and “Always Pet the Dogs” do it, too. “Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus” does the contrast thing with the music, while still keeping it classic Gospel (I used to think it was pretty subtle, but I’m no longer sure—everybody seems to recognize that “signature” riff at the beginning of the chorus that’s from the “What a Friend…” song). But do you have to do this all the time? Heck, no! The rule I’ve tried to follow (using the term “rule” loosely, of course) I ran across in some “Rules for Writing Congregational Music,” on the Muse’s Muse Website. (A lot of overtly religious writers hang out there.) Their point was you want the chorus to sing differently if you want the congregation to sing along; the slightly different music signals the congregation that the chorus is about to start. They also argue that the chorus music shouldn’t be a lot different from that of the verses, because you want the congregation to be familiar enough with the music so they can sing along. And if you don’t—if you’re expecting your congregation to just listen—you don’t need to worry about it. That advice works with any audience, not just a church congregation. And I do apply that rule—religiously, y’might say. If I think people are going to want to sing along with the chorus, I’ll make the chorus start differently, to signal them. Otherwise, I don’t bother. I have a number of songs where the verses and chorus have the same chord progression and same number of beats (and a lot of writers way more famous than I am do exactly the same). Sometimes I guess wrong: “Hank’s Song” inevitably gets an audience singing, and so does “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” In both cases, the chorus and verse music is identical. Does it matter? Maybe not so much. I try to incorporate two other “rules,” too. (1) I want to be predictable, because I want other people to be able to play along when they’re hearing the song for the first time. I used to “do” a lot of jam sessions before I was employed, and still hope to do so again. So I try to have chord (&c.) changes be logical, and happen at logical places, and like a good rhythm guitarist (following my role model John Lennon) I try to signal when changes are coming so people can follow them easier. And simultaneously, (2) I want every song to sound different—not only from other songs I’ve written but from songs other people have written. That’s difficult in country music—but challenges are good, right? And of 80 or so songs, I have only a few that I can’t play next to each other because they sound the same. Music at the Tillamook Library may not start up again until September, I was told today. This week, I may not get to play music at all unless I get to record songs at Jim’s shop--Friday night we’re going to a play, and Saturday night is the square dance, and I am working every other night this week. Gack. Joe

REINVENTION IN PROGRESS (MAYBE)...

Got my rejection e-mail from the City of Damascus, that revenue-strapped, conflict-ridden new city on the outskirts of Portland—and it didn’t bother me. I know I’m the best person for the job—nobody else has quite as thick a skin—but I’ll happily send them the requisite “best of luck on the path you have chosen” thank-you letter. Waiting on two more, that I’m almost certain will be rejections, too; it’s been way too long since applications closed. And again, it’s okay. I think I have finally succeeded in reinventing myself. I have a job—not being a city manager—and derive tremendous satisfaction from knowing somebody thinks it’s worth paying me money to do something. (Healthiest job I’ve had in over 40 years, too. I really like that.) I’m kind of a fixture in the community, in a little bit of demand as a musician, can spit out contracts, posters and the like on short demand, know enough financial and planning stuff to be sought out occasionally for advice, and I’m going to be a square dance caller. And the house in Cascade Locks will hopefully get a new (and profitable) life as a vacation rental. I’m comfortable with all of it. I got to try out both of my singing calls and some “patter” on a group of experienced dancers for a change Wednesday night; instead of the newbies, we had an extra couple who were visitng from Arizona. I could tell they were enjoying themselves (and everything I did worked just about perfect). So I’m expanding my repertoire. I got from another caller in Daryl’s class six hoedowns (that’s what they call the instrumentals callers do “patter” to) and three singing calls. (They were on old 45-rpm records: the newest dates from the 1970s, some are from the ‘50s, and one’s a lot older than that.) The music is all on “Lazarus” the laptop now, and I’ve been practicing. I have one of the singing calls—a Waylon Jennings song—pretty much down already. It’s probably going to be the most conventional song I do. If I have a style at this calling stuff, it probably leans to off-the-wall traditional-sounding country—my other two singing calls are the Hee-Haw theme “Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me” and one of mine, “Valvoline.” And for a hoedown, I’ve been using the music from “Rubber Dolly,” one of the songs Woody Guthrie wrote for his daughter when she was little. . Need to get the repertoire expanded and practiced because I’ve been told I’ll be doing relief breaks for Harvey Hunsucker when he calls the square dance June 9, and for caller/cuer George Clark when he does a dance here August 11. I probably need eight numbers (square dance callers traditionally do two at a time) in order to give Harvey and George a decent set of breaks in their 2-1/2 hour shows. Did our first read-through of the puppet show drama Jedi Pigs of Oz with Karen; some minor adjustments necessary to the script—we have three puppeteers doing seven voices and it’s important to not have the same puppeteer’s voices having a conversation with each other. It is, I think, the best puppet show yet (it’s also the longest—about half an hour, including the song at the end). Figured out how to do a professional sound, too. I have the closing-credits song for the play still to record—this one’s a ragtimey over-the-top commercial for Hansolo’s wizard services “on Laneda Avenue”—and I’d like to do that at Jim’s shop if he’s willing, rather than on the Tascam. (That way, I can have real musicians playing lead, bass, drums and blues harp.) I’ve got a couple more songs I’d like to record there, too, as soon as he has time: “In the Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You” and “Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope).” 2nd Street Market wants Coaster back June 29, and there’s going to be a reprise of the Dylan Night show at NCRD in Nehalem on June 22 and June 30. Yes, it’s getting busy. Joe