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