The Writer's Blog

SQUARE DANCE CALLING, A SONG--AND A MOVIE?

2012-01-26T00:33:00.000-08:00

Following our square dance meeting tonight (which included a short practice dance with me as caller) and caller class last night, I was told I’m ready to perform at a real square dance, Friday Feb. 17. Guess I better be prepared.

I did get from instructor Daryl music for my preferred singing call, Woody Guthrie’s classic “Rubber Dolly.” Apparently, nobody’s ever used it in a square dance before, so there is no ”stock” choreography—I’ll have to invent my own. (I did get some suggestions.) I expect as I accumulate material, I’ll be concentrating on old bluegrass and country tunes—the same sort of stuff I perform (and write). And I still want to adapt—or write—and record some of my own, too.

Square dance callers’ equipment tends to fall into two types. There are the people who still use 45-rpm records, and there are those that use iPods. The 45s are still in use not because those guys are old (at least three of my caller classmates are way younger’n I am), but because that old equipment is both extremely expensive and extremely durable, and keeps getting passed on as callers die or retire.

My caller setup is different. Its “engine” is “Lazarus” the laptop computer, and it’s built out of audio stuff I mostly already had. I’m proud (as usual) that I managed to put it together for very little money. I do need to make sure I can plug “Lazarus” into other callers’ PA systems, for the times when I go to other clubs’ dances and get summoned up on stage as a “guest” caller; I believe Daryl’s got both types of setups (iPod and 45-rpm record player) in his basement practice room, and I’ll take Lazz to my next class to check.

For music, I can download stuff (there’s both a square dance callers’ record company and a bunch of firms that sell karaoke music), and I can convert to *.mp3 files stuff from old 45-rpm records that I absolutely have to have. I’m not there yet. Like Daryl said, I need to get real good at just a couple things first.

There is reportedly a filmmaker who is interested in one of my songs, “Dead Things in the Shower,” co-written with Bobbie Gallup (she’s the one who knows the filmmaker). Don’t know what to think about this—it’s never happened before, and I have no idea what the results might be. We’ll see what happens.

I might have the last verse done for the “one gas station” song. (It needs four verses in part because “Dr. Iced-T and the Lemon Tarts” is a 4-piece troupe, so I wanted one verse for each of ‘em.) To wrap up (and end on a positive note), the last verse talks about the acoustic music at the coffee shop every night when the power goes out. That was in fact how the Dodson Drifters got started, years ago: playing music down at the local restaurant, because the power went out every night in the winter. I can send the song to the Coventry songwriters group, since it mentions strings—and they wanted songs about strings this month.

That’ll be my experiment recording on the laptop, too, since the Tascam is having noise problems. To try it out on a live audience, I’ve got four opportunities: Thursday night (Wheeler), Friday night (Garibaldi), Sunday night (the Rapture Room), and the following Saturday (open mike at the Arts Center). I’m primarily satisfied that I’ve got it out of my head, and can go do something else.

Joe

HOFFMAN POST-MORTEM--AND ANOTHER NEW SONG...

2012-01-23T11:07:00.001-08:00

Packed house (again) at the Hoffman Center Talent Show; all the acts were real good, and this time none were on stage so long they became boring. Jane and I did “The Abomination Two-Step,” and she was right: it was a big hit. There is probably a market here for the “12 Reasons Why Joe Is Going to Hell” album (especially since host Lori mentioned it when introducing us).

There’s also a potential market for the Joe Songbook (people were asking about lyrics). That one, though, is harder to pull off. The 2009 Joe Songbook, in Acrobat (for distribution) and original PageMaker files (so I could keep adding to it), was on Alice’s old hard drive—I checked my “file” CDs, and I never did archive it, because it was a “work in progress.” Re-creating it from scratch is a lot of work—there are over 80 songs—and I’ve shied away from it. The photos especially are irreplaceable: they included a lot of photos from my week-long trip to Nashville in 2007 for the Pineyfest songwriters’ conference. Alternatively, I can have a ‘puter expert try to extract those files off the old hard drive; that will cost money, though—without any idea whether it will work.

I do have some songbook work to do anyway. The Joe Songbook was published in 2009; I have written at least an album’s worth of songs since then, and those need to be organized, too. And while I can’t use any of the “Alice” photo library for illustrations, I have taken a bunch of new photos—with my “videographer” and “news reporter” personae in mind, I make sure to take the new camera with me everywhere I go.

We (Jane and myself) were asked if we’d be playing at the Manzanita Farmer’s Market this summer (the Market is arranging their summer lineup), and we had to tell them if so, it wouldn’t be in the same form as last year, because 45 Degrees North broke up. Still, we probably could arrange something. Three hours worth of music—but they do pay, and it would be fun. I believe the little PA system would work for that, too.

“Dr. Iced-T and the Lemon Tarts,” a local vaudeville-type parody rap group that’s played the Hoffman Talent Show twice now, mentioned “Pole Dancing for Jesus” in their routine (and the audience noticed it, too); and for me, one line in their rap, “one gas station and an old folks’ home,” turned out to be one of those lines that needed (or at least will get) a song to go with it. I guess I’ll be returning the favor.

En route home from the Rapture Room (flood waters had receded temporarily so we could get there—Nehalem had been under two feet of water earlier in the day), I ended up with a chorus and a verse for the song, in complete enough form so I felt comfortable writing them down. It needs at least a couple more verses, I think (I think it got one more while I was writing this). Taken together, they’ll be a snapshot, of sorts, of life in a one-horse town where the horse died. (I don’t know if I’ll use that line in the song—but yes, there should be a dead animal or animals somewhere. How else would people know who wrote it? So there are dead chickens in the first verse.)

The music is a variation on the old traditional fiddle tune “Pig Ankle Rag,” but quite a bit slower, so I can get all the words in—and with extra beats, of course. The melody, if you can call it that, is almost a monotone (which would be perfect for the Lemon Tarts, if they ever wanted to perform it). It’s even got a tentative title—“The Pig Ankle Rap.”

Caller class Tuesday night, square dance meeting Wednesday night, music Thursday, Friday and Sunday nights. Still haven’t heard anything about the job, and I might not.

Joe

A "MAKING OF THE ALBUM" VIDEO?

2012-01-20T22:57:00.001-08:00

Friend Eileen is planning a documentary on the making of the Sedona Fire album. Neat idea. I’d like to do one of those myself—of my next album. There are only two major time constraints: YouTube has a 15-minute limit, and anything on public television has a 28-minute limit. I’d want to break mine into smaller increments anyway—though I’d want to have a final product that would be coherent in 28-minute blocks, just in case. You never know where these things might go.

There are other people I could do the documentary on besides me—I know of one band that’s been slowly struggling for months toward production of an album—but I always prefer to experiment on myself first; when I do something for someone else, I like to know what I’m doing. I’d love to enlist a videographer to help, but I may well be doing the filming and production on my own. I do have the tools, and thanks to last year’s video class, the education as well.

I have seen “making of the album” videos by some other people. Mine will be different. I’m not going to be spending a lot of time in the studio recording (and therefore there won’t be much film of that); studio time costs money, and I have learned how to minimize the outlay of money. What I’d spend time (and film) on is what happens before and after.

The first step in making an album is picking the material. I said for the next album I wanted the fans’ input on what they’d want to hear, so I’ll send them a list, with links to the “draft” recordings of the songs, and see what they pick. I want roughly 12 songs on the CD (45-60 minutes of music), but I could go as high as 16 songs (80 minutes) if it were necessary.

Arrangements come next: what order the songs should be in, and what instruments I want playing on each song. I’m not limited to just the five pieces in the band; I can pull in other folks (and I know people who play a lot of different instruments). As long as I don’t go overboard, the cost will not be appreciably higher.

Next, picking a studio. I’d use Mike Simpson’s studio in a heartbeat, but I’m not sure it’s going to be available; if not, I’ll have to hunt—again. I’d want to visit several people, covering a range of options, and talk about the pros and cons of each one. I might want to include a visit to one of the Big Boys in Portland, just for comparison purposes. In all cases, I’d have the operators talk about how they do what they do (and with what equipment).

One thing I’d ask them about is recording the album “Patsy Cline style”—all the band together playing live. Some studios (and some operators) can do this, and some cannot. It is one of the biggest cost savings when you’re using a commercial studio, because you’re not spending time layering individual tracks. Alternatively, you can record an album yourself, and I’d talk about the costs and benefits of doing that as well. I’d compare prices—and timelines.

Practice. Patsy Cline’s band was able to do nearly everything note-perfect live and in one take because they’d practiced outside the studio (which cost nothing). This is the other big savings in recording. We pull into the practices any “outside” instrumentalists, too, if possible. And film it, of course.

Not much footage of the musicians recording in the studio; ideally, we’re not there long. However, I‘ll be talking to the sound engineer afterwards, as they mix and master, about how and why they do what they do. And play some of the results.

Post-production stuff: Designing the album jacket and label; finding a manufacturer (or manufacturing your own); “short run” production for the New Business Model. Figuring out how to sell the thing, and organizing the CD Release Party.

One reason to do all this—and to spread it out in several increments—is it builds attention for the album (and hopefully sales), when the album does come out. People who have been watching (and we hope there are a lot of them) know what’s on the album, and why, and how it got there; they have a greater sense of ownership, perhaps, because they have a greater understanding. And how many people know what goes into an album, big or small?

Joe

AND SOME WRITING THOUGHTS...

2012-01-18T21:22:00.001-08:00

Ran across another of those “songwriting rules” articles, this one from one of the big song-contest outfits. I am bothered by hard-and-fast rules. Not only do I not work the way the article said to, I’m pretty sure a lot of famous writers don’t, either—their stuff comes out completely different than it would have if they’d followed those rules. I guess I won’t be entering their contest—not if they’re insisting the winning songs have to fit those rules. Mine won’t.

Unlike the song-contest folks, I am not going to claim the way I do it is The Right Way. There may be no Right Way. You have to do what works for you—keeping in mind that the bottom line is whether an audience is going to appreciate what you’ve done.

I hear music—I don’t write it. One of the legacies of growing up in the ‘60s is I hear music in my head 24 hours a day. I think of it as “the Soundtrack from God.” Most of that music doesn’t have words. That’s where I come in.

Pieces of that soundtrack will start to grow words, and I’ll try to freeze that piece of the soundtrack in place, and make it play over and over again. Sometimes, the subject matter will be deliberate; more often, it’ll be triggered by some event, or maybe a question I’ve asked myself. Yes, the lyrics will usually reflect something that’s going on in my life, but oftentimes I’ll be asking for days afterwards what it was.

I don’t try to pick out the melody on a keyboard; instead, I’m trying to sing what I hear. I’ll figure out what exactly the notes are later. I have a narrow voice range, so I’ll make adjustments to fit what I can do. In the process of singing it over and over again, I’ll be tweaking the words, making them fit better, making them not be redundant, making them easier to remember and to sing. Sometimes, I’ll have a structure in mind; I’ll know how many verses I want and have an idea what I want to get across in each verse. I will keep in mind a few rules of my own: (1) the result must express a complete thought, with no loose ends, (2) it needs to do that in 3-1/2 to 5 minutes, with and without a lead break, and (3) it has to be either saying something new, or saying something old in a new way.

The music for the chorus does not have to be different from the music for the verses. The operative question, according to some writers of “congregational” (i.e., church) music, is, “Is the congregation going to be singing along?” If they are, then the chorus should begin differently, so you can have a transitional measure or two at the end of the verse to signal the congregation that the chorus is about to start. Note they said “begin.” The music for the chorus should parallel that of the verses as much as possible, so that the congregation knows what notes to sing (because they heard them in the verses). Sometimes, my verses and chorus will have the same melody because (1) I’m not expecting the audience to sing along, or (2) I couldn’t find an easy way to start the chorus differently. And sometimes the chorus is completely different from the verses, because that’s the way it sings. Bridges? In my opinion, you want a bridge to cross a body of water you can’t ford, or dodge, or chevy. A lot of lyricists whose work I “musicate” put bridges in songs. I almost never do.

Then I’ll pick up the guitar. My voice range usually dictates what key the song is going to be in. I know enough music theory to know what notes make up what chords, what chords follow each other in logical progressions, and what notes transition from one chord to another. So I will figure out the chords. If I’m in doubt about a particular note, I have a cheap electronic tuner that picks up ambient noise, and I can sing at it, and it’ll tell me what note I’m singing. While I’m thinking (and singing) notes, I’m playing chords, because I will be performing this either solo or as rhythm guitarist in the band.

Next, a little housekeeping: Should the lead break follow the verse progression? Chorus? Something completely different? What will the intro be like? It is important that each song sound different. (In part, that helps me not get confused.)

And finally, I’ll test it out on a live audience. If they like it, it’s good. The only opinion that counts is that of the audience. If they request it again, it’s a “keeper,” and if they request it a lot, it may go on the next album.

And that’s what I do. It’s not what the “how-to” article from the song contest people said. It is closer, maybe, to what the hit writers do. Is it right? Who knows? I’d feel more confident about it if I were making money at it.

Joe

I BAILED ON THE PORTLAND GIG...

2012-01-17T22:25:00.001-08:00

Bailed on tonight’s caller class and Thirsty Lion gig; hated to, but the roads to Portland are bad and near as I can tell will be getting worse—and county emergency management says a “real” storm is on the way. Eric has re-scheduled me for Tuesday, Feb. 14—Valentine’s Day. Told him I’d play all love songs. I have plenty.

Some video thoughts. Some of my songs are easier to script out than others. Some potentially easy ones are:

SPEND THE END OF THE WORLD WITH ME: I’d like to try filming just a clock, with a prominent second hand, ticking toward midnight; overlay the lyrics. I actually have several clocks like that. Could I use them all? Audio: I would re-record the music, mostly because I’d like a higher-quality recording. Just guitar and fiddle (again) might be enough. This one needs to go to market because everybody who’s heard it likes it.

THE STRANGE SAGA OF QUOTH, THE PARROT: I’d film this partly on the beach at Rockaway (where I found some big piles of driftwood), partly in front of the Ghost Hole tavern in Garibaldi. Audio: I’d give this one the Full Band Treatment—bass, drums, lead guitar, and blues harp. I think this election year, this one’s marketable.

THE DEAD SWEETHEARTS POLKA: I’d film this entirely on or near the banks of the Nehalem River (which is wide and deep, and therefore perfect for the song). Another one where I could overlay lyrics. Audio: When I re-record the music, I want an accordion for the “whiny” lead, to emphasize the “polka” aspect.

THE DOG’S SONG: I need about five minutes’ worth of footage of a hyperactive kitten doing hyperactive kitten things. (All the kittens I knew grew up too fast, including Aslan and Hansolo here at home.) For the dog, still shots of Amy, our late giant Doberman, unless I can find a large old dog willing to be filmed. Audio: Music for this one is done—it’s the Deathgrass cut, off the album.

POLE DANCING FOR JESUS: I need a pole (or poles), and dancers. A little outside footage in front of a tavern (I’ll hide the name); for the chorus, I would like a churchlike congregation—and in the final chorus, the dancers would ideally join the congregation. Audio: A full band would make this sound really sleazy (which would be ideal); one needs that heavy bass to give it a Gospel feel. This is the other real popular one, and should go to market for the same reason.

I can do all these myself (or with minimal help, of the “actor” or “hold the camera” variety). Accordingly, when I talk to videographers (I know a couple who are quite good, and there may be more), I should focus their attention on other songs, asking “What can you do with these?” The Arts Center videotapes performances, too—we’ll be videoing the next Open Mike, first Saturday in February—and that’s a good time to get footage of any songs where just a solo performance would be sufficient.

I’ve noticed that’s all that some of those grand-prize-is-a-music-video companies do—they simply film you playing. That’s okay—one simply needs to be aware that’s what one is going to get. It might be professional-quality, but it’s nothing particularly special. I’d like to get more.

Despite not being able (or willing) to travel very far in the Winter Storm, I have two verses (the second and third, I think) and the chorus to the Gospel song (tentative title “Is There Room Up in Heaven for a Sinner Like Me?”). I still need a first verse, to set things up, and a fourth one, to wrap things up. The redemption sentiments notwithstanding, it’s still got some tongue-in-cheekiness. I bet it can’t be performed in church.

Joe

SNOW! (&C.)...

2012-01-16T11:27:00.001-08:00

Ah, snow… It is snowing furiously outside as I write this (I am inside); if it keeps up, I’ll go for a walk and take pictures. Snow was not fun when I was a kid in upstate New York; unless you liked skiing (I didn’t), 6-10 feet of snow on the ground for six months at a time got old really fast. It was a source of income for a kid—we didn’t make our money mowing lawns in the summer, we made it shoveling out walks in the winter, over and over again.

Since moving to Oregon in 1972, I find I enjoy snow; here, it doesn’t happen much, even in the eastern part of the state (where it’s cold, but also dry), and doesn’t stick around long when it does. On the balmy Oregon Coast, it almost never happens at all, so this is a nice novelty. I learned how to drive in the snow, but it is nonetheless nice to not have to go anywhere. Tomorrow, I have to go somewhere—caller class the far side of Portland, and the Thirsty Lion gig downtown—and I hope things will be quieted down enough so that’s possible.

Listened—finally—to the Sedona Fire album, The Spark, and it is extremely well done. A nice mix of original and traditional tunes, some of which we’ve played at the Rapture Room sessions, and some that we haven’t (and should). Their rendition of the old traditional “Wild Mountain Thyme” is, I think, the best I’ve ever heard. The last CD I actually bought was over three years ago (Delonde Bell’s Phoenix Door, also a great album), and I’m glad I got this one.

I believe the whole album was recorded in the Rapture Room, with Michael and Sedona’s equipment, and the result is extremely professional. Accordingly, I’m really interested in how they did it, and (of course) whether any of that professionalism could be applied to any of my stuff. I’m going to have to try recording on the computer—I’ve resisted it for a long time, but the Tascam is finally wearing out, I think: it’s got a persistent buzz I can’t get rid of, even when I record at deliberately low volume and then boost the amplification in Audacity. And the Tascam, like a lot of my equipment, is irreplaceable; it’s not made any more--hasn’t been made in years, in fact (yes, TEAC, the manufacturer, does have new versions, but they’re less portable and don’t do as much).

One thing one can do in Audacity (and in its more sophisticated, more professional competitors) is layer tracks, and it would be fun to do more of that. I can hear parts occasionally by odd instruments (“Ooo, I could put a trumpet there,” and such), and I know people who play those things, and even know where they hang out sometimes.

I know people who play accordion (regular and “Cajun squeezebox”), autoharp, cello, dulcimer, fiddle, flute, harmonica, marimba, mandolin, melodion, saxophone, electric and standup bass, trumpet, exotic and regular drums, and a variety of odd wind instruments, and they’re all very good at what they do.

And lest I get too consumed by my producer role, it’s important to remember that sometimes, minimal is better. When I did the Santa’s Fallen album, I was excited to have some of my songs done by a full band—but Dick Ackerman told me he liked the me-and-solo-guitar renditions of some of those songs (done on a 2003 album I gave away as Christmas presents) better. On the next album, I probably want to have one or two songs that have minimal instrumentation. (Another album? Yes. I’m going to be insistent about having an album out every year, taking my own advice: if you have a small fan base, supply it frequently.)

Which songs? Don’t know. I really don’t know which songs ought to go on the next album; I was going to ask the fans that—and then maybe ask them as well, “Okay, what instrumentation do you think would be good with that?” And see what kind of advice I get.

Caller class and Thirsty Lion Tuesday night; audition with Jane for the Hoffman Center talent show Wednesday night; music Thursday, Friday, Saturday (the Hoffman talent show), and Sunday. I suppose I should dredge up “Love Trails of the Zombie Snails”; it’s my only snow song (it’s about Antarctica).

Joe

ANOTHER THIRSTY LION PERFORMANCE?

2012-01-13T23:48:00.001-08:00

I got invited back to the Thirsty Lion next Tuesday (Jan. 17)—short notice, but I can do it. I’m in Portland Tuesday nights for the caller class. The only thing that’d get in the way would be a job interview, if I do get called for one. This will be my eighth time there, I think. What to play? I like to do different stuff each time. How about:

Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Spend the End of the World with Me—ragtime
Hank’s Song—deliberate two-step (starts slow)
50 Ways to Cure the Depression—folk-rock
Crosses by the Roadside—slow two-step
Meet Me at the Stairs—fast bluegrass

One song off the Deathgrass album (“Crosses”); that and “Meet Me at the Stairs” will give me the opportunity to push the CD. With these, I think I’ve covered all the standard bases—death, lost love, betrayal, religion, and dead animals. As usual, we start out with something slow and sleazy, because this is a tavern, and I seem better able to get tavern-goers’ attention with something slow and sleazy—and then we alternate fast-moving and slow-moving songs.

Got one new song on the list (“Spend the End,” which has been popular). I don’t know how many—if any—of the rest I’ve played at the Lion before; all but one of my previous Thirsty Lion setlists were on old Alice’s hard drive, and are now lost. It may not matter; except for host Eric, the audience may be different (or may not remember—it is a tavern, after all). Without breaks—and all of these songs work okay solo—those six should total the 25 minutes I’m allotted.

Poster and Rap are done; next, notices. Notices, like the poster, are set pieces—all I need to do is change the date.

An idea for the “Spend the End of the World with Me” video. We are told regularly that the Doomsday Clock is inching (or whatever clocks do) closer to midnight. Could we just film a clock for three minutes? I’d need one with an obvious second hand—maybe the Minnie Mouse clock?—and I’d want to film it close to midnight, of course (or adjust the time so it looked closer to midnight): maybe four minutes to midnight, so folks would be in suspense when the song ends. And then I’d just overlay the lyrics. Would that be interesting enough for the video? The only way to find out is to try it.

Good group of musicians at City Hall Friday; with music at the library on Saturday “on hiatus” for the forseeable future, a lot of the folks who were getting their music “fix” there are coming back to Garibaldi. From me, they got “Turn Your Radio On,” my favorite Gospel song (I love doing it when Carol Ackerman is around to harmonize), “Spend the End of the world with Me,” and “Pole Dancing for Jesus.”

There was one elderly fellow in the audience who said he was a retired rockabilly guitarist, and promised to come next Friday with his guitar (which I understand is a J-200 “jumbo,” like mine); I gather he was famous, once—which begs the question whether he still knows anybody in The Industry. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. I may have given up on becoming famous anywhere except locally, like I’ve given up on other things. I won’t stop doing what I’m doing, and what happens, happens. But I no longer expect miracles. In the same vein, I’ll not obsess any longer about that interim city manager job I put in for. If they call, they call—but I won’t wait on them.

Joe

A JOB? AND "RUBBER DOLLY"...

2012-01-12T00:06:00.000-08:00

Well. Got asked today what salary I’d accept for that interim city administrator job. Something might actually happen there. I’m trying not to be too hopeful about my prospects, but I have rehearsed how I’d go about the job if I got it. It is a performance, after all (that’s why I refer to these jobs as gigs); Ronald Reagan once called the Presidency “my greatest role” for the same reason.

I am fond of saying “I know people,” but as fellow songwriter and publisher Bobbie Gallup points out, “it’s not whom you know—it’s who knows you.” Had to find a wireless mike and a podium for Sen. Merkley’s appearance tomorrow at the Arts Center, and with some people’s help, I managed to locate and borrow both. The Garibaldi Lions Club has a podium, and Carol Ackerman had the wireless mikes (two of them) and transmitter. And I’ve baked cookies; I don’t know what the Senator is used to in his other public appearances, but if you’re doing a show at the Arts Center, there will be cookies (made by me), there will be coffee (made by somebody), and we will videotape the event, whatever it is. It is How We Roll.

Nine in the square dance caller class, enough for a square of dancers (to practice on) with one student left over to be caller, on a rotating basis. Instructor Daryl also does a very intense 5-day “caller camp” in the summer, and it’d be fun to go to that, but I expect to be up against the traditional time-vs.-money problem. If I have the time, I will not have the money, and if I have the money, it means I have a job again and won’t have the time. Instead, I’ll get as much as I can out of the weekly sessions—they cost me only ten bucks, a meal, and five hours’ round trip in the truck to way-the-far-side-of-Portland.

Daryl said we should all have a couple of “singing calls” practiced, for the times when we’re at other groups’ dances and we’re summoned up on stage to “do a tip” (I have seen that happen a lot). Singing calls, where you’re singing part of a (theoretically) popular song, and partly calling out moves along with the music, have 64 beats repeated seven times—most country music songs are, or can be, like that. The seven times gives you an “opener,” two “movements” by the “head” pair of couples, a break, two movements by the other (“side”) couples, and a closing. The opener, break, and closing are where the caller gets to sing part of the song—because the dancers are doing a move that will take time to complete.

So you need songs where you can skip more than half the words and it’ll still make sense. (There are quite a few modern country music songs like that.) One I know and can sing that’d be fun to do—not least because it’d be unexpected—is an old song, “Rubber Dolly,” by Woody Guthrie, which became something of a rock ‘n’ roll cult classic in the 1950s. It’s got a great beat, and very, very simple and repetitive lyrics—I think this was one of the songs Woody wrote for his daughter when she was young (he had quite a few of those). I’d probably have to record it myself; I doubt it’s in the square dance callers’ database (and I don’t really want to buy any of their stuff anyway—those things cost seven bucks a song), and I doubt there are any karaoke versions of it available, either. But hey, I have the ability to record stuff, don’t I?

Music Thursday night in Wheeler, Friday night in Garibaldi, and Sunday night at the Rapture Room in Nehalem. Next week: caller class Tuesday, audition for the Hoffman Center Talent Show Wednesday. And will I have to fit an out-of-town job interview into all this, too? I may finish that Gospel song yet…

Joe

STATISTICS (&C.)...

2012-01-09T22:51:00.000-08:00

Blog statistics, again. (Gotta check occasionally.) Of the slightly over 5,000 people that have read the blog on blogspot (five thousand?), less than half are from the United States. The second-largest number of readers is from Russia (534). 73 are from Latvia, 69 from Malaysia, and 61 from China. I do hope those folks are not intending to learn English by reading my stuff. One person—I’m not sure from where—apparently ran across the blog while looking for a photo of a naked hamster (T.A.N.A.F.T., I guess—There Ain’t No Accounting For Taste).

Sorry, no naked hamsters here. Even the hamster in the promotional photo for the “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” song was fully clothed (he had a fur coat). The name does come from the song, of course; the late Sharma Kay gave me a domain name for my birthday the year I wrote the song (nakedspacehamsters.com), and while I never did use it (I still haven’t built that Website I keep talking about needing), I ended up using the name for the blog. Of such things is history made.

(The other two places I post the blog—songstuff and Facebook—do not keep statistics that I can tell. I know some people read it—some people who speak English, in fact—but I don’t know how many.)

With all the traveling (Portland once a week, and north to Wheeler/Nehalem twice a week), I have had opportunity for another song to develop; this one is turning out to be classic Gospel music, of the kind that really could be played in church. I suppose it could be an outgrowth of all the end-of-the-world thinking—if things really do come to a halt this coming December, would a lot of people suddenly find religion at the last minute? And would I be one of them? Maybe. The song might shock both the religious and the non-religious types that know me, but I wasn’t about to suppress the sentiments, whatever they were (and no matter how out of character they are); whatever happens, happens. At this point, I have one verse and a chorus, and probably need at least two more verses.

“Spend the End of the World with Me” is done, I think; link is http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11351111. Jane Dunkin on fiddle, and me on guitar and “Miller bass” (the thing that sounds like a sick dobro). Everything, including the fiddle, was recorded in one take. The song seems to be popular everywhere; I was going to say I didn’t know why, but here’s a thought: People need, in these Troubled Times, to feel good about something, and there isn’t much around that one can feel good about. If, especially, one can show a “feel good” aspect to something bad, people may jump on it. The melody is happy—ragtime music is determinedly bouncy—and it’s difficult to get out of one’s head.

One complaint I heard about “Spend the End” was “But the chorus sounds the same as the verses.” Yes, it does. In my opinion, that’s okay. While the Nashville Rules do say choruses have to have different chord progressions than verses, thyere are an awful lot of popular songs, old and new, that don’t—it is, as Shakespeare said, a rule “more honored in th’ breach than in th’ observance.” I pay more attention to a suggestion I saw in some rules for writing congregational (i.e., to be sung in church) music: You want a chorus to sound different at the beginning IF you want the congregation to sing along. They also said you want your chorus as much as possible like the verses, so your congregation doesn’t have any trouble singing along. Now that makes sense. And I do try to do both those things. I didn’t figure most folks would be singing along with “Spend the End,” and thus far I’ve been right. That Gospel song, though? I think I should plan on congregations singing that one.

A “frabjous” moment: there is apparently one city I’ve applied to that is seriously checking me out. (First time in a long time.) I may know in a couple of days what (if anything) they want to do. In the meantime, I’ve got plenty to do to keep busy.

Joe

THE NEW PA WORKS!

2012-01-07T22:16:00.001-08:00

The little PA works! Ran a music clip from “Lazarus” the laptop into the “CD/AUX” ports on the little amp and it broadcast quite well. These are nice, powerful little speakers. I was able to do a voice-over with the mike, too, which is precisely what I need for square dance calling.

The whole thing—amp, speakers and (for when I need it) laptop—measures less than a foot deep, less than 18 inches high and less than 18 inches wide—very compact. There are cables—around 50 feet of speaker cable, power cable, and the odd cable that connects the laptop to the amp. The equipment, cords and all, fits in a suitcase I’ve got (a modern one, with wheels) and looks quite professional.

The 6-channel mixer (5 of the channels work) has its own cable from its “Line Out” port to the same “CD/AUX” port on the amp, plus its Japanese-to-U.S.power adapter. It does not fit in the suitcase; it does have a case of its own but the case doesn’t have any room for the cable and adapter. (I have a laptop bag that might work, though.) And of course I have cables for the microphone, which has its own case.

The speakers should have mounts; it’s easy to rig up hang-on-a-hook mounts, and those would work in a lot of situations, but I am going to need stand-alone floor mounts too. Mike stands with real heavy (and therefore stable) bases will work. (Made one—had the parts in the garage.) I suppose I could buy another—but I’d rather find a broken one I could get for free. I’ve been determined all along to put this setup together for as little money as possible. My only immediate investment has been the $10 for the speakers; I already had everything else.

Next step is to try it out. For the “concert” test, my best bet is to take the setup to the Arts Center and play through it, both with and without the mixer, and see what it sounds like; it would be nice to videotape myself doing it, to see (literally) how well the system fills a hall. If I could film myself playing a song for which I’d want footage to incorporate into a video later, so much the better. For the “caller” test, I’ll want to take the setup to a square dance session—I have a group of dancers that have offered to let me practice my moves on them, and instructor Daryl says I should be practicing with amplification to get the hang of it.

Square dance callers have this neat attachment on their mike cables that incorporates both an on/off switch and a volume control. Neat tool—but they cost over $100 from the only company that sells them. (Square dance callers are a limited market.) Could I make one? I have an adapter that has a volume control in it, and I can get the part I need to mate it up to my microphone (which already has an on/off switch) for under $10. Then again, I don’t really need it; I can control my volume the way I usually do on stage—by moving closer to or further away from the mike.

Music Thursday and Friday was good. I was told “Spend the End of the World with Me” is a “keeper” (nice when other people say that): audiences like it, and musicians seem able to follow it easily even though it’s ragtime. Fiddle part should get recorded Sunday. Then I can send it off to England, and then do the video.

I’d like the “Spend the End” video to incorporate some of the tricks I saw in the Angler’s Mail video, which was a nicely-done mix of still shots and film footage. Would be good to get some footage of both me playing guitar and Jane playing fiddle for that. The library may have Armageddon paintings I can photograph.

Joe

QUICK TO-DO LIST...

2012-01-04T09:28:00.001-08:00

Quick to-do list:

FOR THE ARTS CENTER: This week: thank-you certificates for all the folks who donated items to the Big Fund-raising Auction. Include a fill-in-the-value-blank receipt for taxes, too. Get some 9x12 envelopes—we’ll need about 40, I think. I can hand-deliver the certificates on my “rounds.” On the radio with Tommy Boye Thursday morning. Next Monday, John Ramer’s new shop will be open in Tillamook; try to get more RAM for the Arts Center’s 1999-vintage PC. Write minutes from the Board meeting Jan. 2, too.

FOR THE NEWSPAPER: Wednesday, see Jim at the music store about the Jan. 21 concert in Beaver (no, I’m not playing there—I’ll be at the Talent Show in Manzanita); see if I can get photos of the place Friday or Saturday. See if the paper ever printed my Oasis Deli article. Thursday, interview and photograph the high school “speechie” who’s going to the U.N. Garibaldi Days meeting next Monday may be the focus of my column next week.

VIDEO: This week, check the Arts Center’s videotapes, and review footage from the last couple of Open Mikes; extract the footage of me if it’s any good. Extract from the PBS DVD a couple of duet tracks of me and Darrin. Add the Deathgrass cuts from the Wheeler Summerfest. Add titles and a Webcam introduction, and we have the “Here’s Joe” DVD. (Sounds very “voila!” but it will take a while because the computer is very slow processing this stuff.)

MUSIC: This week, Tsunami Grill in Wheeler Thursday night, Garibaldi City Hall Friday night, Tillamook Library Saturday afternoon (I think), and the Rapture Room in Nehalem Sunday night. All jam sessions, no gigs. Marimba practice Sunday afternoon, too.

RECORDING: Sunday, I’ll record Jane’s fiddle part for “Spend the End of the World with Me”; I also have a new Stan Good song to musicate and record, “The Next One” (yes, another apocalyptic number). “End” can get e-mailed to England as soon as the fiddle part is mixed in. The Coventry Songwriters meet Jan. 19, and it’d be nice to have something for them—I haven’t in a long time.

SQUARE DANCING: Caller class Wednesday night in Portland; poster for the March dance lessons to help design; meeting minutes to do.

INFRASTRUCTURE: New speakers are hooked up to the PA (finally); run the Dell laptop through the amp—if it works, it’ll travel easier than the Hewlett-Packard. So the Dell will be the Caller Machine. If the speakers work with the amp and mixer, that’s the “solo” PA. The little H-P laptop has been reconfigured so it’s no longer accursed with Windows Vista—but it has parts that don’t work: it has to operate with a remote mouse and remote keyboard, and with all that, it might as well get plugged into a standard monitor and stay in the computer room.

JOBS. I haven’t forgotten the need for a paying job. Waiting on responses from six applications, three of them city manager jobs and three not, but realistically what I’m expecting are rejection letters. I need to do something else—but what? That’s the other task for this week: figure out what.

Joe

SOLICITING GIGS...

2012-01-02T23:32:00.000-08:00

There is a by-now-well publicized Craigslist ad from a restaurant soliciting free live music on a “Hey, you can promote your stuff” basis. It prompted an equally well-publicized response from a musician inviting the restauranteur to come to his house and cook dinner for free for himself and his friends, on a “Hey, you can promote your stuff” basis. On the one hand, I agree. On the other, as one 19th-century humorist said, not so fast.

I figure about half the places I perform I’m going to be playing for free. I subscribe wholeheartedly to the Biblical mantra, “The laborer is worth his hire”; a lot of time and effort got put into this “product” I’m going to display on your stage (and I hope it shows), and I do intend for there to be a payoff. On the other hand, were I the venue owner, I’d be telling me, “Look, you’re an unknown quantity, and I didn’t get this far in business by taking stupid risks. Prove you’re good for my business.” So I’ll play almost anyplace for free—the first time. If you want me back because I’m good for business, we should be discussing how much I’m getting paid.

I have run into a couple of “scam” venues, a restaurant/bar in Portland and a coffeehouse in Hillsboro, that were using the “we’re auditioning for paying gigs” trick to get themselves a constant supply of free live music; to my knowledge, neither of them ever hired any of the performers who ever played there. (The Portland outfit had the nerve to ask me to audition again, saying they had a new manager. My answer was still no.)

But it’s hard to answer the “Is this kid good for business?” question without just breaking down and playing there. Yes, I’ll promote the event as much as I can (though I have a “following” that doesn’t follow me around very well), and I’ll push CDs and the “joelist” when I’m there—and I’ll expect the venue to do its part, too, to encourage customers to come in because I’m performing. (I can help, of course. I know venues don’t have the expertise in promotion, and I do. I can provide posters, for instance. Just don’t hide them and not put them up like that place in Hillsboro did.)

One Bag-of-Tricks item that might make the “hire Joe” process a little easier is the DVD. There are now a couple of films in the Arts Center’s archives of Joe playing solo before a live (and generally appreciative) audience, and I can generate more—there’ll be another Open Mike at the Arts Center the first Saturday in February, and I’ll either play or host and play. I’ve got some duet footage with Darrin Wayne from our PBS TV appearance two years ago (I wish I had some of me and Jane), and I’ve got a couple of whole-song clips of Deathgrass from our Wheeler Summerfest performance last June. A “this is what you can get if you hire Joe” DVD is definitely doable—and I have a computer now that can copy DVDs.

So I’ll make some and try it out. One outfit I definitely want to hit up is the Willamette Writers Group; I played for free for one of their fund-raisers last summer, hoping (as noted above) that it might turn into a paying gig this year—but I bet their memories could use a little jogging. Ditto for the Neskowin Harvest Festival, the big annual fund-raiser for that little private school in South County; I’ve played there before but the people who used to hire me are gone now. And there are a bunch of small clubs up north that seem to book live music on a regular basis; I know a number of the musicians they book, but I myself don’t have a reputation like they do. Maybe the DVD will help.

An entire press kit, including a couple of promotional posters, a professional-looking publicity photo, and that “Joe Is Great!” brochure I’ve talked about before, that I could leave with venues wouldn’t be a bad idea. That’s another of Wrabek’s Rules: If you act like you know what you’re doing, people will assume you do. Not in the rulebook—but it should be—is: Follow your own advice.

Joe

MARIMBA PRACTICE (&C.)...

2012-01-02T00:04:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012. It’s supposed to be a short year, ending December 21; we’ll see if the pundits are right. I’d like to put out an end-of-the-world album, but should do so early (just in case, y’know). I’m sure some of the writers I know will be coming up with good end-of-the-world songs, and I expect I’ll have a few more of my own as the year progresses. (I hope this is one of those years that progresses. I’m tired of going backwards.)

Practice with the whole marimba band this afternoon; ultimately, we’ll have two “soprano” marimbas (marimbae?), two “tenors,” orchestra bells (that thingie looks like a very classy xylophone), and percussion; bandleader Larry has a plank of some exotic wood he’d like to turn into a bass marimba, too. The music is starting to make sense. I probably know more music theory than most of the band—the result of having to learn the guitar “grid” because I couldn’t hear well enough to play by ear—and I think it’s going to help. To work on: making the hand movements on the marimba as automatic as they are on the guitar. (I want to get press-on letters to mark the marimba keys so I don’t have to keep puzzling it out.)

We’ve been practicing “On Top of Old Smokey,” which is a very simple 3-chord waltz; however, everything is easily transferable with minimal learning curve. Change it to 4/4 time, and the same progression becomes “Sweet Little Sixteen” or “Surfin’ USA” or “The Midnight Special,” depending on your age (and the marimba becomes a rock ‘n’ roll instrument); shift the progression 90 degrees (so it’s starting on the C instead of the F) and that 4/4 progression becomes the old bluegrass turkey “Wreck of the Old 97.” Change that back to a waltz, and it’s one of mine, “Twenty-Four Seven.” (Yes, I am hoping we will be able to do some of my songs down the road.)

The marimba is potentially a neat lead instrument, and I think I am knowledgeable enough now to be able to do a marimba track on a song. (I do not know if I am proficient enough. The only way to find out is to try it.) Recording one may not be possible—yet: my Famous Singing Mike will only pick up sound right next to the mike, and with a very narrow “cone,” and the marimba is a good five feet wide. My idea (not implemented yet) is to suspend a board under the marimba, where the resonator unit usually hangs, and affix one of those “tabletop” mikes that picks up vibration from a hard surface (in this case the board). At that point, the marimba would essentially be amplified—which would be good for concert purposes, too. Those tabletop mikes are a little spendy, and I’d like to wait to purchase one—until I have a job, maybe. I may still have a broken one in my Bag of Tricks and it may yet be reparable.

My other sideline project—becoming a square dance caller—is working, too; our class (of three—one of them a musician like myself) has been handed a lot of theory and it, too, is starting to make sense. I have a couple of “singing calls” to learn but I haven’t tried them yet; I want to master “patter” and theory first. Singing is not my forte, and I’ll be limited in what I can sing because of my narrow voice range—but one “artist” whose material I can sing is me (and again, I’d like to incorporate some of my stuff in my “routine”). I understand any song with a specified number of measures (and I don’t know what that number is but I can figure it out) will work for a singing call, and I just need to figure out which of mine would fit.

Two news stories—maybe three—to do for the paper this week, plus the column; caller class Wednesday night and music, I think, on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Fiddle part to record for “Spend the End of the World with Me” and the Hoffman Center Talent Show to practice for. 2012 is starting out to feel almost normal.

Joe

THE AUCTION, THE DREIDEL, AND "SILENT NIGHT"...

2011-12-30T13:16:00.001-08:00

Bay City Arts Center’s auction/dinner is over. 61 people for the dinner—biggest crowd ever, I understand—and 80 came for the documentary movie (ditto). A number of people who came said they did so because of my front-page article in the paper (nice to know the paper did that). I spent most of my time designing the graphics for everything, and fighting with the printer. (I finally figured out the problem wasn’t the printer: it was because my Sotheby’s-style auction brochure was so huge—the Arts Center’s 1999-vintage PC did not have enough RAM to handle it. I think I can get the extra RAM locally.)

And for me? One of my apparent fans got the Deathgrass CD for $5.00 and another one won the Joe Concert for $25.00. Both were happy. (I told them they should be. They got a real good deal.)

I decided I might as well immortalize this Christmas’ search for a dreidel (the Jewish Hanukkah top) in song. The search was unsuccessful—and long—but I did get to go some different places and meet different people in the process. Ultimately I was told by a Presumably Knowledgeable Person that there appeared to be a Dreidel Shortage and I should dust off my woodworking skills and make my own, because that was the only way I was going to get one. (They are pretty simple to make, though I haven’t tried it. At this point, I have a whole ‘nother year before I may need one again.)

Yes, there is probably a song in it (one without any dead things, even). It already has a chorus, thanks to Wednesday night’s long and harrowing trip back from Portland. I had wanted to write a Jewish folk tune, anyway, because it is fascinating music—happy dance music in a minor key?—and the unsuccessful search for a dreidel by a Gentile boy is probably an appropriate subject for a Jewish folk song. At this point, though, my chorus is traditional bluegrass music (I haven’t steeped myself enough yet in the folk melodies), and in fact the melody my chorus has is one I’ve already used in another song. That will have to change. Every song must be different.

I suppose that’s a niche market—but I’m not after a market in this instance so much as I’m trying an experiment. When I wrote “Last Song of the Highwayman” last year, I was deliberately trying to master the medieval ballad. I’m after a similar result in this case. I want to master the Jewish folk song. In one take, of course.

And for next Christmas… I learned this year (in the course of collecting Christmas trivia for the Netarts show) that the 19th-century Christmas carol “Silent Night” was originally written as a JIG. That’s pretty fast-moving music, there—that song would rock. Reportedly when it was first played in public, the younger church-goers really liked it, and the old folks hated it, and this may have been why. These days, of course, it’s done as a very slow waltz—no doubt to pacify those old folks, who are the majority of church-goers.

Envision a music video, with “Silent Night” played the way it’s supposed to be played. We’d set it in one of those Live Nativity Scenes, with the Happy Couple, the Famous Baby, some animals (we will need sheep), and a couple of shepherds. The shepherds pull out instruments—a banjo and trumpet—and another hauls in a standup bass, and they play one verse of “Silent Night” the slow, waltzy way. And then the bass player launches into the jig. First lead by the trumpet (I do know a trumpet player). The Wise Man drift in with electric instruments (guitar, fiddle and keyboard) and a drum set appears (hey, it’s Christmas—magical things happen); second lead is by the keyboard player, or maybe the fiddle, or both. By the end, we’ve got Mary and Joseph dancing a jig with each other and with shepherds and angels, the sheep doing backup vocals (sheep baa in A, I found), and Baby Jesus’ halo flashing in time to the music. It’d be tons of fun to do.

Joe

TONIC LOUNGE POST-MORTEM (&C.)...

2011-12-29T08:55:00.000-08:00

Tonic Lounge show was really good. The place was packed (not because of me, but it’s nice to play to a packed house) and the audience was very appreciative. The other comics were good, too—a couple of them really good. I got paid, and sold a CD—neither of which I expected. For once, one of my gig trips to Portland actually paid for itself (or would have if I hadn’t had to drive 50 miles and 1-1/2 hours out of my way because the highway home was closed b an accident). Got to throw my “Another Thong from Joe” thongs out to the audience, too—yes, I’m a thong-writer—and found they didn’t throw very far (next time I’ll put little weights in them).

The audience appeared to like “The Abomination Two-Step” best, followed by “Dead Things in the Shower.” But really, all the songs were good.

I tried to listen to the winning songs in the contests I entered in 2011 (one should know what other people think is good), but most of those aren’t available yet (and when they are, one will probably have to pay to listen to them). The exception was the one that won the Angler’s Mail contest in England, “We’re Going Fishing.” Yes, it’s a happy, upbeat song—quite listenable, in fact—and the sentiments are nicely positive, unlike “Dead Fishes,” the one I’d sent them. Mine was upbeat, all right, but hardly happy.

Two points that hit home—one important, the other less so. “We’re Going Fishing” had a video. No, Angler’s Mail hadn’t asked for a video, but they got one from these folks, and that video went right to YouTube. Of course YouTube is free but it’s additional great exposure for both the song and the magazine. I can see why Angler’s Mail would pick a song that had a video over one that didn’t. (The video is quite well done, too: a nice, seamless mix of still shots, video, and computer-generated graphics. I want to try some of those tricks myself.) DJ Len Amsterdam’s mantra, again: “Video is the new audio.”

The other thing the writers did that I’m sure gave them a leg up is they mentioned Angler’s Mail in the song. (The video showed the Angler’s Mail logo a few times, too.) If I were the folks at Angler’s Mail picking the winning song, that sure would have got my attention. I couldn’t be that blatant myself, but there is an important lesson there: know your market. The people who wrote “We’re Going Fishing” definitely did.

Would this affect what I write? I don’t think so. I’m not exactly pandering to a commercial market; I’m simply expressing ideas, and hoping they’re understood and appreciated. Yes, I’d like the commercial market to appreciate them, too. The latter consideration might affect what I submit to contests in the future, though. I will do a better job of knowing my market—and if I don’t think I can supply what it wants, I won’t waste my time. The former consideration just reinforces my desire to get everything on video.

“Base” tracks are recorded for “Spend the End of the World with Me” (and the song is only a little over three minutes even with a lead break—this is definitely a shortie). “Lazarus” the laptop got Audacity in the process (along with the occasionally hard to find *.mp3 converter) because the Tascam still has Volume Issues. Next: Jane’s fiddle lead—I’m not sure the song is going to need anything else—and then the video.

Joe

CHRISTMAS LAST?

2011-12-26T10:10:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Day, one should talk about Christmas, right? Nah. Everybody else is doing that. Here are some random music-related thoughts instead.

It was exciting to have “Spend the End of the World with Me” written in just a couple of days—made me feel I hadn’t lost my touch. It’s been performed, too, before a live audience, and they liked it. I’m accordingly hot to get it recorded and videoed, so I’ll feel comfortable about going on to something else.

Recording will be done on the Tascam; I can’t afford to professionally record everything, especially the stuff I’m pretty sure isn’t going anywhere. The “base” tracks I’ll do as usual, with me playing rhythm and a simple lead, and singing, then mixing that down and re-posting it as two tracks on the Tascam—leaving me two tracks for recording the other people (if they’re willing) doing the fancy stuff. I believe I have the ability now to record two instruments simultaneously, using the mixer for the inputs (I have a splitter I can use to rig up two sets of headphones); that’d be fun to try.

I could record the video for the song all in one location, I think, if I could get all the props together. I had assembled a list of desired props to hunt for—and then realized I either have or can find substitutes for all of them. I don’t even have to do “location” shooting of the band: I can use still shots of them, too. It would be nice to have somebody else to run the camera, though, for some of the shots—like the one where I toss a thrift-store globe through a basketball hoop and let it smash on the ground. (Still do need the thrift-store globe, and to borrow the use of someone’s basketball hoop for the occasion—but I have a work-around for that, too, if it doesn’t happen.)

Two more performances coming up. Wednesday, Dec. 28, I’ll be part of Whitney Streed’s “Weekly Recurring Humor Night” at the Tonic Lounge in Portland, and Saturday, Jan. 21, the Hoffman Center in Manzanita is having another talent show. Jane and I will do “The Abomination Two-Step” at the Hoffman, I think—some folks have actually requested it. Whitney’s people in Portland will get “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” plus “Dead Things in the Shower,” “The Abomination Two-Step,” and “Pole Dancing for Jesus.” Having “Dead Things” on the list will allow me to promote the Deathgrass album.

Spent Christmas Eve doing an application for a city-manager job I’m sure I’m not going to get. I got fed up enough with the headhunting outfit recruiting for the job to use my cover letter as an opportunity to lecture them, and the city that hired them, about what they’re doing. It’s too bad there are two days before I can put the stuff in the mail, because I keep having second thoughts about it. Am I burning bridges if I do this? Then again, the city in question has made it clear they don’t want to hire me anyway, and the headhunter outfit hasn’t called me for an interview in 18 years—ever, in fact. I’m not sure any bridges exist, even if I did want to burn them.

It would be fun to put together an album of end-of-the-world songs; I’d be real curious what other writer’s “take” is on Armageddon. (We’d need to have it out to market early, just in case.) The End of Everything has been predicted before—a lot, in fact—and it hasn’t happened yet, and it might not happen this December 21, either. But one of these times, the predictors are going to be right. Given those circumstances, what kind of advice would writers be giving people? What kind of advice should we give?

Joe

"SPEND THE END OF THE WORLD WITH ME"...

2011-12-23T23:31:00.000-08:00

Christmas shopping done, I think—and the “Spend the End of the World with Me” song is done, too. It’s undergoing peer review, and then I’ll essay recording it. Played it at Garibaldi City Hall, and the audience did like it so I guess it’s a “keeper.” Ragtime, definitely; I couldn’t make it come out jazz with me playing guitar but ragtime is kinda close.

It’s only got one verse and a chorus; it’d be nice to have more, but those two things really do sum it up, and saying anything else would be superfluous. And I refuse to be superfluous. Wrabek’s Rule One is make it a complete thought—someone should be able to say, “Well, I guess that’s all that needs to be said about that.” And I think I have a complete thought here, even though it’s simple and primal (of the “Hey, the world’s ending, honey—let’s go to bed” variety).

What do I think makes people like it? (I rarely ask directly.) I think because it’s a happy, bouncy song about a dark and serious issue—the world ending next December. Not that it’s happy about that happening per se but that it finds an aspect of it to be light-hearted about. I do enjoy playing against type.

I need to ask—I think I’ll ask it of all songs from now on—“How would I turn this into video?” I want apocalyptic imagery, I think—but I don’t have the technology or the money to create it on my own. I can think of two possible ways to go. I could do still shots of end-of-the-world paintings by Brueghel (et al.) mixed with news articles announcing the Dec. 21 apocalypse, and maybe live footage of me and other musicians playing; that’d be easiest. Alternatively, I could mimic what Bob Dylan did in his early video of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” (and two British guys did in “I Saw It in the Daily Mail”), and film me (or someone) displaying, and then tossing away, those images while the soundtrack plays. That’d take help—but I’m supposed to be asking for help.

For the soundtrack, I would ideally want a manic fiddle for the “whiny” lead and a honky-tonk piano for the “non-whiny” lead. I do know people who can do those. I’ll record a “base” track first so I can shop it around. (And of course, it may not turn out that way. Like Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want…”)

I have results from all three of the concerts I entered in 2011. Only the Songwriters Association of Washington sent me an e-mail telling me judging was over, and I wasn’t the one who won—I had to go to the other outfits’ Websites to find the results. No, I didn’t win any of the contests. Goodnight Kiss Music said “No Good Songs About the War” was “close” to being in the Top Ten, which is nice (however, the Top Three are the ones who get the good stuff), and Angler’s Mail magazine over in England said they hadn’t picked their #2 and #3 songs yet, just the #1 (which wasn’t me). I guess that means “Dead Fishes” is still in the running, but I won’t hold my breath.

Played Electric Banjo at the Tsunami; hadn’t intended to play it as much as I did, but there were way too many guitarists there, and all of them better’n me. I did have to amplify the thing in order to be heard at all. Got to experiment with some of the effects on the little guitar amp, too. Since the banjo as a species does not have a lot of sustain, I have to play it faster, so I’m fitting more notes into the dead spaces; I do more hammering-on and pulling-off as well (lazy way to get more extra notes). And what I do on the banjo is transferable to the guitar, and vice versa.

With the Christmas holiday upon us, the next time I actually get to play music is The Gig, next Wednesday at the Tonic Lounge in Portland. Lots to do before then.

Joe

RECORDING/VIDEOINGT "QUOTH, THE PARROT"...

2011-12-22T09:49:00.001-08:00

2012 is an election year. A big one. We’ll either re-elect or depose a President, and if the latter, replace him with someone who may or may not be crazy. We’ll be deciding whether to re-elect or depose most of Congress, too. And state legislatures. And city councils all over the country. And people aren’t all that happy with the government they’ve been getting. Might be an opportunity to get attention for a political song.

Specifically, “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot.” Written just a couple of days before the November 2008 election, it never had the chance to get any attention. But there’s plenty of time for that now. And all of the problems that existed then are still around, and the parrot’s “screw them all” message perhaps even more relevant than it was four years ago.

The rendition I’ve got was done on the Tascam, with me playing all parts, and is far from perfect. (Link is http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=7021485.) It’s cute (I’ve shared it repeatedly on Facebook), but is far from “radio-ready.” If I wanted to explore the song’s commercial potential, I’d want to re-record it commercially with a real band. I’ve noted previously this would be an easy song to convert to video.

I’ve got other songs, too, particularly with an economic cast. After two years of doing Failed Economy Shows, Deathgrass has quite a repertoire. We could easily do an entire album of Failed Economy songs.

But “Quoth” is the really political one. It’d be nice to have that one out on the market, being played by radio stations and going viral on YouTube, before too many primaries take place.

How to do that? Well, I have a few options for the recording. Mike Simpson’s Calden West Studios, if he’s got his stuff set up in his new space; the home studio Sara and Wayne (Ocean Bottom Blues Band) have been building; Sedona and Michael’s setup in the Rapture Room (though I want to hear their CD first); or we could set things up at the Bay City Arts Center (where they’ve got a 15-channel mixing board) and I could try to do it there, with help from some people who “have ears.” Nice thing about Mike’s is he’s a known quantity, and very, very good. Nice thing about the Arts Center is we could easily video the song being played at the same time we were recording. I do want to do video.

And the video? I scripted that out a while ago. We start on the beach, probably at Rockaway (where we’re likely to find a pile of driftwood); some beach footage of me, lip-synching, and some footage just of the beach, without me. The lead break—after the second verse—is where we do the credits, and where I’ll want closeups of the band members as well as footage of the band as a whole, playing. Verse three, where me and the parrot go bar-hopping, can be shot entirely in front of the Ghost Hole tavern in Garibaldi. It’d be fun to get some inside footage too, but not essential. (Many things are not essential, just fun.) In the fourth and final verse we’re back to the beach—with maybe some footage in a cemetery, too (I’d scout the cemeteries in Tillamook, Hebo and Bayside Gardens for a “scenic” location). Yes, I’d want assistance with all this. And one of the 2012 Worklist items is to involve other people as much as possible.

A parrot? I’d love to feature a parrot in the video. “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot” is about a parrot, after all. (Having a parrot in the film is not essential, however—but it’d be a lot of fun.) Since baby sister moved out of Beaverton, some years back, I haven’t known anyone with a parrot that flies around the house, perching randomly on things and people. I’d like to meet one (and film one). If anyone within earshot (or eyeshot) has one or knows one, let me know. I could make the bird a star of the 2012 election…

Joe

THE 2012 WORKLIST...

2011-12-21T15:26:00.001-08:00

I think it’s time to try a different tack with this Music Biz thing. 2011 was supposed to be the Year of Promotion, and looking back, I don’t see a lot of progress as a result. Continuing to do the Same Old Thing while expecting different results is the classic definition of insanity; I would rather do something different and hope (more sanely) for different results.

Some advice I gave Michael and Sedona when they were doing the first Sedona Fire album (just released, by the way, and I want a copy—it’ll be the first new record I’ve bought since 2008) was do short runs. Sell what you’ve got, and then do another record. If you’re dealing with a small fan base, supply it, and supply it frequently. I believe I will take my own advice.

So how does that affect the 2012 Worklist?

ALBUM, first. It means I put out another album in 2012. I have a big backlog of material; I have come out with an album’s worth of album-able stuff nearly every year since 2006. While the shortage of money is definitely an issue, I do have production costs down to a minimum level. It won’t cost that much. And I can ask the Fan Base which songs I should put on the album. Yes, I’ll keep working on the all-videos Southern Pigfish album, too. It’s got a ways to go.

GIGS. About half with the band, half solo, just as in 2011. The “closer in” focus doesn’t change what I do, here; it does get me playing out more. Every place I’ve played I should play again, and I will add as many new venues as I have old ones. What doors can people in the Fan Base get me in?

VIDEO. I learned a lot in 2011; in 2012, I can apply what I know and learn more. Every song I have should be turned into music video, and every video should be different. Do videos of some co-writes, too. Again, enlist people—as actors, as filmers, and as musicians. A live concert video of some of the performances at the 2012 Relay for Life, too.

PRODUCE SOMEBODY ELSE. That’s a new one. I know how to do it, and I can do a lot of the pieces myself and where I can’t, I know where to get them done at minimal cost. I’ve done it for myself; the next step is to do it for somebody (or somebodies) else. Who? Somebody who has a following and wants a bigger one, I think—and I do know a few of those; since I don’t have the marketing connections (yet), I have to consider any CD I produce primarily useful for promotional purposes—their promotional purposes, in this case.

INFRASTRUCTURE. I’m getting there—I might have a little PA system now, and I’ve got a computer that can burn DVDs and a good video camera. In 2012, I’ll do the Website (finally), get Skype on the home computer, learn how to do podcasts and streaming video.

THE WORLD TOUR. Still a ways away, but I’ll keep working on it. If I had the money—which I don’t, right now—I’d be on the horn (whatever form “the horn” takes) to the people I know in England, Sweden, et al., saying, “I’m coming—what can we set up?” I want to perform in Mongolia because no one I know has ever done so, and I’d like to meet those 61-plus people in Latvia who are reading the blog.

What’s left from 2011? Marketing? Household word? Staying in touch? Let’s put all that together and call it LINKS. All the people I know, and all the things I do and can do, are connected (and connectable) and can feed off each other. Couple that with the BIG FISH, SMALL POND mantra. Supply the Fan Base, rather than trying to expand it. Let it grow on its own.

And WRITING, of course. The previous standards still apply: I want on average one good song a month, and one good co-write a month; I’ll keep trying new genres (I need to try jazz this year), and expand the writing itself into other forms. What can I do besides plays? Is it time for that country-music opera?

Happy upcoming 2012, everybody. It’s supposed to be a short year, with the world scheduled to end on December 21. I’m sure there’s a song in it…

Joe

NETARTS POST-MORTEM...

2011-12-20T23:54:00.001-08:00

Netarts Christmas show was good. Audience appeared to enjoy the stuff; there were a few people there who knew me, and a couple who’d heard me play before, but most of the crowd were new. The Netarts Community Club is a small place but it was full. And I got paid! I hadn’t expected that. Tips, too. It was actually the best-paid gig I’ve had this year (which isn’t saying much for this year, I know).

No CD sales from the Netarts show, and no new names for the “joelist”—but there were the tips. Got fed a nice dinner, too. I did encourage the Community Club folks to have me back; whether they do so will indicate whether they really liked the show, or whether they were just being polite. I told them what they were going to get wasn’t exactly normal, and it wasn’t.

The songs that went over best were “Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up” and the “Welcome to Hebo Waltz.” I think they appreciated “Santa, Baby” less than most of the audiences I’ve played it for—and conversely, they liked “Even Roadkill Gets the Blues” more than most of the audiences I’ve played it for. (I don’t think they knew exactly how to take “Roadkill”—and I’m no help: I don’t know exactly how to take it either.) They sang along with “White Christmas” (of course) and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” (surprise).

Thursday at the Tsunami in Wheeler and Friday at Garibaldi City Hall will be the last performances of the Christmas songs for another year. I am about ready to do other things. Next Wednesday’s appearance at the Tonic Lounge in Portland, as part of Whitney Streed’s Weekly Recurring Humor Night, will be all non-Christmas songs. ‘Tis the Season Season will be over.

Elsewhere… Got wind of a fellow city manager’s resignation and immediately contacted his mayor about an interim job; I don’t know if I’ll get it, but it was nice to be able to be timely. Two (of four) articles for the paper and my column done timely too. The documentary is done, I understand; I still haven’t seen it but was told instructor Wil Duncan did the soundtrack, and I’m sure it’s good. I’m relieved, on the one hand, that I don’t have to rush composition of a soundtrack just days before the World Premiere of the documentary; on the other, I’m hot to start what they’re calling “Part Two,” because I do want to do a soundtrack and have some ideas for it (and also have some footage that didn’t make it into Part One).

Got given a set of rubber ducks to practice my square dance calls with, and I have a square’s worth (eight) of real dancers willing to let me practice on them, too. Found some “loudspeaker” speakers at a thrift store; they’re small (though maybe that doesn’t matter so much these days), but they will match up to the Radio Shack PA, unlike the ones I’d borrowed. I haven’t tested them yet. If they work I have my PA system, for a total cost of less than $50. I like that. Of course some of the components are more than 50 years old—but so am I.

Joe

NETARTS CHRISTMAS SHOW SETLIST...

2011-12-16T22:34:00.000-08:00

Finished the setlist for the Netarts Christmas show Dec. 20 (Netarts Community Club, 7 p.m.). They wanted all Christmas songs. They’re going to get:

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (Elmo & Patsy Shropshire)—fast pop
White Christmas (Irving Berlin)—slow two-step
Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up—fast bluegrass
Blue Christmas (Hayes & Johnson)—slow, bluesy two-step
Welcome to Hebo Waltz—fast waltz
Even Roadkill Gets the Blues—slow two-step
Another Crappy Christmas (Don Varnell)—fast pop
Santa, Baby (Javits & Springer)—sleazy jazz
I Want a Man for Christmas—rock ‘n’ roll
I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas—slow & sleazy
Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire—slow jazz (and short)

Five of mine, two co-writes (one with daughter), and four covers (only one of which could be characterized as “normal”). And only one new song I had to learn. The 11 songs should cover 45 minutes—five of them are short since everything will be done without lead breaks (and two of the songs are real short). Let’s say it’s a bit different Christmas show. Hope they like it. There will be at least a few people there that I know.

A few of the songs on the setlist need more practice—and about the only chance I have is at the various jam sessions. Last two I went to I played “I Want a Man for Christmas,” and I’ve done the Don Varnell song twice, too. I went to the Friday night jam in Garibaldi (they got “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and it came out all right), and I’ll go to the Sunday night one at the Rapture Room.

I also have The Cold, the one everybody else has (so I can’t blame anybody specific for giving it to me), so I have to get my voice in order for Tuesday. At this point, I have a voice perfect for blues but not much else.

Rap is done; poster is done. I’ll take the Ugly Orange Bucket for tips, and CDs to sell. I’ll also make the pitch (in the Rap) for people to bid on the “win Joe for a concert” entry in the Arts Center’s fundraising auction. Like Gene Burnett said in one of his songs, “Gonna find out what you’re worth.” I’d like to find out I’m worth a lot, so I’m trying to stack the deck to help.

Other things to do: I have the basic footage for my “railroad” section of the documentary; need to combine pieces of that with my collection of historic and modern-day photos and a narration I still need to write. I have the soundtrack to write for the documentary. (I’ve heard rumors—unconfirmed—that I’m expected to script and iterate the narration for the documentary, too.) Articles to finish for the paper—one on the upcoming documentary. (Still have one more interview to do for that.) And practice the marimba, and practice my square dance caller routines so I have something to show off at class next Wednesday.

For the home-built PA system, I appear to have the requisite cable to connect the laptop to either the 2-channel amp or the 6-channel mixer. The mixer and amp are also connected, and the speakers appear to be plenty for what I need. I do not have a way to hook the speakers up to the amp—they have different terminals (bare wire clips on the amp, and RCA plugs on the speaker wires). I’ll modify the amp to work, since it’s mine and the speakers are borrowed—but I’m going to need some advice to make sure I do it right.

And one more December show—Wed. Dec. 28, at the Tonic Lounge in Portland. I’ll be part of Whitney Streed’s “Weekly Recurring Humor Night.”

Joe

SOUL SEARCHING...

2011-12-14T19:51:00.000-08:00

Soul searching (where did I leave that dang thing?)… It appears precisely none of the city-manager jobs I put in for are going to pan out, and I’m told by the experts that shouldn’t surprise me; I’ve been out of the business too long, and the “market” assumes I have forgotten everything I know. I haven’t—but as in songwriting, the market is always right and I have nothing to say about it. I will have to do something else for a living—provided someone is willing to hire me to do something else; I haven’t proven that yet.

This week, though, I’ll try not to worry about it. This is Video Week, time to finish off the “Remembering Tillamook County” documentary. The World Premiere is December 29. Writing and recording the soundtrack is my responsibility. Doable? Of course—but I need to see the whole film first, and that hasn’t happened yet. I have seen pieces of it… What I envision myself doing is recording a base track, basically playing appropriate-sounding chord progressions over the entire length of the film, and then muting the sound when other audio (like interviews or narration) has to take precedence—which will be most of the time. I would like to rope in other musicians to help at strategic points—but that means I have to have my part done early.

Since I like using familiar tools, I anticipate doing all the recording on the Tascam and where I’m dealing with more than four channels, doing the mixing in Audacity. The Arts Center’s Macintoshes have more sophisticated audio software, but I really don’t have time to deal with a learning curve.

There are three “pre-recorded” pieces I want to fit in the film, too. Parts of Deathgrass’ rendition of “Tillamook Railroad Blues” for the opening and closing credits (with train footage and historical train photos for the backdrop). Part of a Kid Siegal song about hunting and fishing, that Charlie recorded at the Wheeler Summerfest. And Native American dance music for the about-the-Indians section (a large part of the funding for the documentary came from a Native American foundation).

Along with the premiere of the documentary, the Arts Center’s having an auction, and of course there’s a Deathgrass CD in among the goodies to be auctioned off. Some folks have offered services, too, from fishing trips to vacation rentals, and I’ve added me to that list, too. “Win me” in the auction and Joe will come perform an hour-long solo concert at your home or business or other place of your choice (I drew the line at “outside in the rain,” though). I wonder whether anyone would be interested in something like that? Every now and then, I get impressions I might have at least some people out there who think having me perform somewhere might draw people in instead of drive them away—and I pointedly do not discourage them. Might be a plus to do this; it’s not like I’m getting many paying gigs places—heck, I’m not getting unpaid ones, either. It could stimulate the market to do more of this.

Late-breaking news: I got tapped to do a Cristmas show at the Netarts Community Club next Tuesday (Dec. 20). They want all Christmas songs—and that means I’ll need to learn some more; besides my six (not all of which are good inclusions for a Christmas show), I can do good renditions of “Blue Christmas,” “White Christmas,” and (of course) “Santa, Baby.” They’d probably like some more traditional stuff. With the deliberate intent of doing some covers (including those mentioned), I am avoiding getting paid; yes, the Ugly Orange Bucket, with its “Tipping Is Not a City in China” label, will accompany me—but I insist on being a stickler for copyrights even if no one else I know is. If this were a paying gig, I would not do any covers—but I don’t have enough Christmas songs of my own to fill an hour’s show.

Joe

ABOUT WRITING CHRISTMAS SONGS...

2011-12-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

Watched an instructional video on “How to Write Christmas Songs.” (It was free. Wouldn’t have watched it otherwise.) It was annoying in part because of the mechanical approach—it assumed all you had to do is write down a bunch of words and phrases with the right imagery, string them together, and voila! Instant Christmas song!

I realize a lot of people do sit down to write deliberately (and I’ve always been impressed by their ability to do that). There are numerous organized exercises for that: the FAWM (February is Album Writing Month), the 50-songs-in-90-days challenge, the November Novel… The premise behind all of those is practice writing—if you produce enough volume, something’s likely to be good—and you will get better at what you do. I don’t argue with the approach. I just don’t work that way myself. I insist on waiting for inspiration to bite (and ideally, draw blood). And I’m more interested in achieving perfection consistently (and don’t mind taking time with it) rather than cluttering my brain with a lot of disposable material. But that’s just me. I am not about to force my peccadilloes on anybody else.

What I found frustrating about the instructional video, though, was that it ignored Wrabek’s Rule Four: Be different—either be saying something new or be saying something old in a new way. Christmas songs are a big challenge, because you have to work with a very limited standard imagery set. If you’re not asking, “How can I do this differently?” what you end up with is more of the Same Old Stuff That’s Already Been Done. And you’re not likely to get attention if you’re just replicating what somebody else (in all likelihood, somebody more established and more famous than you) already did (and probably did better than you).

A couple of cases in point: a pair of Christmas songs by a pair of ex-Beatles, Paul McCartney and John Lennon. McCartney’s “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime” says precisely nothing at all, and says it pretty conventionally to boot. Yes, sappiness obviously sells—but you folks who are just stringing conventional images together into Christmas songs, there’s your competition. Why would people purchase your song over Sir Paul’s? Lennon’s “Happy Christmas (War Is Over),” on the other hand, shouts “I’m different!” If what you’ve got is different, you have given people a reason to purchase your song, irrespective of how established or famous you are.

My Christmas songs are all un-normal. We have dead animals (though “Dead Dog” is about giving, and “Even Roadkill Gets the Blues” about wishes that don’t come true), we torpedo icons (“Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up”), we have an unconventional Christmas—in jail (Don Varnell’s “Another Crappy Christmas,” which I musicated), we address the problem of getting kids to bed Christmas Eve (“Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire”) and what an adult might write Santa for (“I Want a Man for Christmas”). I don’t know as I could say any of them were written deliberately—though I had reasons to do all of them, and to have them done in time for their respective Christmases. Different? I always find it useful to ask, “Can I say that with dead animals?”—even though the song in question may not come out that way.

And they do get attention. “I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas” has been sung by Christmas carolers (scary, true, but it does have a very singable chorus); “Santa’s Fallen” ended up on a Philippine album of Christmas songs (it’s the only song of mine ever published by an outside publisher); and “Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire” was played on the radio yesterday. A stringing-together of conventional images might not have any of those things happen.

Because that’s the other default one has to contend with in Christmas songs. The good ones have staying power. Some of them have been around for years (some for hundreds of years), which isn’t true of much other popular music. You hear them over and over again every Christmas. When famous singers put out Christmas albums (they all do, sooner or later), they don’t cover new songs—they do the “classics.” It’s a big database, and a hard one to make it into. One of the most recent songs that did get added to that database was “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” It was different, that one. One should be different.

Joe

TONIC LOUNGE SETLIST (&C.)...

2011-12-09T09:39:00.001-08:00

For the Tonic Lounge Dec. 28, I’ve got a maximum of 12 minutes. That’s four songs if (1) I’m playing solo (no lead breaks), and (2) the songs are short and (3) people don’t clap too much. (I can ask them to limit their applause. I’m sure that’ll go over well.) How about:

Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?—slow & sleazy
Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step
The Abomination Two-Step—fast bluegrass
Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow, sleazy Gospel

Three of the four are “religious” songs. I really did manage to incorporate the old mantra I gave the Songstuff people, years ago—my songs are about death, lost love, betrayal, religion and dead animals—in just four songs, but it’s not obvious; I’ll have to point it out. I wanted to lead off with “Rapture,” because it needs no introduction (and at 12 minutes, I will be pressed for time). The four are mostly short songs for that reason. Having “Dead Things” on the list (the longest song, at just over 4 minutes) allows me to promote the album, which would be good. No Christmas songs ‘cause ‘Tis The Season Season will be over.

This coming week, most of my spare energy will go into the soundtrack for the “Remembering Tillamook County” video production. I want to use part of Deathgrass’ cut of “Tillamook Railroad Blues” for the sound behind the opening credits (and I will need some train images and footage), and maybe for the closing credits as well. Charlie caught on film about two-thirds of a Kid Seagal song at the Wheeler Summerfest that we’d like to use, too. (Kid’s had two strokes since then.) For the rest of the film, I think it’s mostly my puppy; I’ll need to watch the entire production to figure out what music would go best, record a base track, and then enlist other musicians to help. All in one week. Premiere of the film is December 29.

I now have a lot of homework for the square dance caller class. A lot of moves to learn, and “modules” of moves (the modules are zero-sum things—sequences of moves that end up returning your dancers to the same place they started, whereupon you can do it again). Instructor Daryl is recommending I start practicing on live dancers right away. (He also said it wouldn’t really be necessary to hire a caller to teach square dance classes—I could do it. I appreciate the confidence.) He’s sent me some music, too.

I’d also like to assemble a square (that’s 8) miniature square dance “dolls” I could move around on a board like chess pieces, to see what my calls make dancers do. (In fact, chess pieces would work for this—but what would be more fun would be rubber ducks. I bet I know where I could get some.) Still to do: test out the sound system and make sure those speakers work. And get a cable—if I don’t already have one—to connect the laptop to the amp/amp-and-mixer.

I heard it was the acoustic-folksinger guy who won the “contest” at the Thirsty Lion Tuesday night. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; he was the only one actually from Portland (both I and Heavy Metal Guy had come from out of town) and winning is based on votes—i.e., how big a bunch of fans you can get to turn out and vote for you. There might be a song in it, though—I heard the beginnings of it last night as I was driving home—a dark, very hora-like dance chock-full of minor chords (a lot like that guy’s music, in fact, though with a more conventional chord progression) about someone with an angelic voice who has nothing to say. I have no idea if it’ll be any good—or if I can prevent that Israeli beat from morphing into country music—but it at least will get the frustration out of my system.

And he’s not the only one who could use some good material. There was a girl singing at the Tsunami last night who had a voice that could put Patsy Cline to shame (and that’s hard to do)—and I think she’s got some ambition to do something with it, because she’s teaching herself to play guitar. I’ve met others too. There are a couple of my songs that would work well for this girl—I’d love to hear what she could do with “Rotten Candy”—but I’m not the only writer out there with songs going begging. I know enough people now to be able to put independent, unknown talent together with unknown, independent writers—I could even produce their records. What I can’t do is get them to market. I do not know how to achieve that.

Joe

A FEW THINGS...

2011-12-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

A few things… I’m procrastinating—it is cold outside—but procrastinating really is one of those things that by rights should be done later.

Got speakers from next door neighbor Bob that may work for the square dance caller setup. They’re not super-large but they’re as large as the ones our instructor uses—and he’s able to fill a grange hall with sound. I have Dick Ackerman’s old Radio Shack amp (that we used as the basic engine for 45 Degrees North’s amplification), and my ancient 6-channel mixer (ditto); I think both have a “line in” port. Since the amp is a 2-channel, the mixer might be unnecessary. I will need to get or make a cable that will run from the laptop to whatever the “line in” port is (I think they’re RCA jacks—all this equipment is old).

And because I insist on everything being able to do at least double duty, if the speakers work for square dance calling, they make the amp/amp-and-mixer setup usable for small gigs, too. It all can be upgraded piecemeal later on to newer equipment—and I will do that, once (or if) I get a real job.

Played (which amounted to practicing) “I Want a Man for Christmas” and Don Varnell’s “Another Crappy Christmas” at Jane’s housewarming party. Both were pretty well-received. Got an update, too, on the “Blue Krishna” video project. Film is still being collected. (Good to know I haven’t been forgotten about.) Piecing the final product together will be lots of fun.

And I did figure out the melody to “Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire.” I knew it had to be simple country music if I’d done it, and it was. Mel Torme’s original may be chock full of fruity jazz chords, but I didn’t use anything more complicated than a couple of sevenths. And that signature riff? It’s just a simple bass run. And I can sing and play it at the same time. I think that means I’m read for the Christmas show at the Thirsty Lion.

I’ve been wrestling with Lorelei Loveridge’s suggestion on how to better stay in touch with a growing fan base. She recommended a “Golden Rule” approach: what do I as a fan want out of the people whose music I buy? The “fan generated” video of “Blue Krishna” is part of it, I think. “My people” (if I dare call them that) want to be part of whatever creative enterprise I’m up to; they are not just listeners, in other words. Now, the “Blue Krishna” project doesn’t involve a whole lot of people. The next one should involve more. I’d like to do a video of “I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas” with a whole bunch of singers—that one’s chorus tends to encourage singing along. (And the singers could dress up in their Christmas finery for the production.)

I’ve run across one artist who did regular progress videos from the studio while she was putting her album together; I couldn’t do that precisely—Deathgrass actually spent only a few hours in the studio because the Dead Things in the Shower album was recorded mostly live and in one take—but some film about the process might be educational (and worthwhile). How does one pick a studio? A sound engineer? (I know how I did it, and I could talk about that.) Some talk with the sound engineer about what stuff he has, and how he uses it, perhaps, and some footage of a song being recorded—not much, because the way we do it, it doesn’t take long.

Two trips to Portland this week—Thirsty Lion on Tuesday, square dance calling class on Wednesday. On the radio for the Arts Center Thursday morning, and music at the Tsunami in Wheeler Thursday night. Good thing I have Friday to rest, ‘cause Saturday gets real busy—a Relay for Life retreat in the morning, music at the Library in the afternoon, followed by a reception that wants me to bring cookies. I think the next week is even busier. ‘Tis the season…

Joe

REVIEWING THE 2011 WORKLIST...

2011-12-04T00:20:00.001-08:00

I was patting myself on the back for accomplishing most of the things I wanted to do today. I was able to do so, though, because it was a short list. I have of late assigned myself way too much to do and not managed to do it. I got the new sweatshirt design done (and it was pretty good), and wore it around in public some (where it got mostly appreciative comments), tried to retrieve Wayne the songwriter’s CD from the library (which couldn’t find it), welded “Luke” the ‘puter’s hard drive rack in place (he may finally be operational tomorrow), baked cookies for Jane’s housewarming party tomorrow in Nehalem, and went to a retirement party for the Rockaway librarian.

So, while we’re talking about accomplishing things… What did I accomplish on the Worklist this year?

WRITING: I count only five new songs in 2011—“Pole Dancing for Jesus” (March), “Selling Off My Body Parts” (April), “Earwigs in the Eggplant” (June), “Blue Krishna” (August), and “The Occupation Song” (October, I guess, though it’s still not recorded yet). That’s well below the one-a-month-on-average I decided I’d be happy with. Theme songs for the “Sleeping Piggy,” “Cinderpiggy” and “Jedi Pigs of Oz” puppet shows, but I don’t want to count those as real songs—at one verse/one chorus they’re too short. No co-writes in 2011 (bad).

ALBUMS: Got the Deathgrass album out; that actually worked out just about perfectly. Still plenty of copies to sell. No progress on either the Southern Pigfish all-videos album (though I talked about it a lot) or the “12 Reasons Why Joe Is Going to Hell” album (though “Pole Dancing for Jesus” is a definite inclusion).

MARKETING: The Deathgrass album is for sale on CDBaby both as “hard copy” and as download. I haven’t received any checks from them so I assume there haven’t been any sales. Got some decent concert footage of Deathgrass [below]. Replaced the computers—the conniptions involved in that have been a constant fixture of the blog in recent months—and in the process ended up with a laptop that can burn DVDs (not the one I expected, though). Never did get around to having any CD release parties; the CD is just out there. Sent or delivered copies to a number of radio stations, and I hope they’re playing it—I have no way to tell.

VIDEO: It was a good year for video. Two videos uploaded that I’m relatively happy with, “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” (January) and “50 Ways to Cure the Depression” (March). The video of “Twenty-Four Seven” wasn’t bad (October). All three tried experimental techniques that I believe I’ve mastered now. Concert footage on YouTube of two songs, too—“She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself” and “Dead Things in the Shower”—both performed by Deathgrass at the Wheeler Summerfest. Still in progress: a fan-generated video of “Blue Krishna” to which I’ve committed the old digital camera.

MORE GIGS: I did have more—just not a lot more. Finally got to play the Willamette Writers, though it was for tips, and Whitney Streed’s comedy night at the Tonic, both solo and in Portland; the Summerfest was new for Deathgrass, and I lined up a few new gigs for 2012. Briefly had a second band, 45 Degrees North, which got some gigs (a couple of them paying gigs) before they broke up before the end of the summer.

STAYING IN TOUCH: Ideas more than anything—I didn’t put any work into it. I did make it to southern Oregon for the SOSA Summer Concert Series, but that was the only serious traveling I did. Skype? Website? Maybe now that Computer Hell has settled down.

AND THE WORLD TOUR: I said a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. That one definitely exceeded mine in 2011.

NOT ON THE LIST BUT I SHOULD MENTION ANYWAY: Wrote three plays for the “Pig Wars” sock-puppet troupe—two of them performed (and the video of one came out pretty good), one still to be scheduled. Theme songs for all three puppet shows, too. Joined a just-starting marimba band. Started classes to become a square dance caller.

Next: the 2012 Worklist. 2012 is supposed to be a slightly shorter year, with the world scheduled to end Dec. 21. There is probably a song in it.

Joe

AN ASIDE: SHOULD I RUN FOR COUNTY COMMISSIONER?

2011-12-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

Well, I could. Run for county commissioner, that is. There are two seats (out of three) open and one of the incumbents is running unopposed, even. I don’t have to decide until March—that’s when I’d have to have papers in. Election’s in May.

Why would I want to do something like that? Well, county commissioner here is a paid job, and (as I’ve noted before) I could really use a paying job. It is also work I can do and have done (though not for a county before). The operative question is whether I could have enough name familiarity by election time to be successful. I would not be entering the race to lose. I don’t like losing.

For one of the commissioner seats, there’s presently a five-way race, and I know personally three of the candidates and have talked to a fourth, and would be hard pressed to tell any voter why they should pick me over any of them. I might not vote for me myself under those conditions. All the other candidates announced some time ago—one can start as early as September, here, and some of them did. But the other seat (and these are “at-large” positions—county commissioners are elected county-wide) has an incumbent who’s running for re-election unopposed. Oh, it’s tempting.

I have nothing against the guy; he’s an ex-state bureaucrat, a little conservative (I am a lot conservative), gets around a lot, and appears to know what he’s doing. I’d probably vote for the guy even though I don’t know him well. I do hate to see anybody unopposed, though; you never get a discussion of issues because there’s no one to debate them with.

Could I do a better job than him? Maybe; that’d be the main reason people would want to vote for me, after all. I am one of the tightest people I know with a dollar, and the county is running short on money—the county treasurer has been complaining about that for years. No, I don’t have many specific ideas for saving money—I’d just keep my eyes open and grab every opportunity I could. I have the budgeting experience, the personnel management experience, and I know the laws and regulations the county has to operate under. From being a small-town mayor, a lobbyist, and a city manager, I know a lot of useful people in state and Federal government—probably the incumbent fellow knows a lot of the same folks. And I’m accessible (yes, I think the other guy probably is, too). I consider that important.

There are a few “issue” things we could talk about. I’d like to re-structure county government, replacing the three full-time paid commissioners with a volunteer board elected by district and a county manager; big change (only one rural county in Oregon has done it), but it does save money, as well as getting government closer to the voters. (I would be eliminating my own job in the process—but I’ve done that before.) I’d like to force one or more of the population centers in South County to incorporate as cities—controversial, to be sure, and it would cost those folks some bucks, but it’d save the county money. And I could give ‘em reasons why it’s a good idea. I like the idea of a sales tax on tourists to bring in extra money (and that one’s guaranteed to be controversial, with so many jobs in the county dependent on tourist traffic). I can talk passionately about all these things and not be heartbroken if I don’t get my way. That’s how politics works.

Name familiarity is a key to getting elected to anything (there’s the “household word” problem again, just like in the music business). With no money for advertising, and not much for promotional materials (though I can design those myself), I’d be doing most of my campaigning by talking to people—following the old Biblical dictum: “Whenever two or three of you are gathered together, there am I.” In a rural area like this, one reaches people through the organizations they belong to (and there are a lot of them). On the plus side, I obviously have the time. On the minus side, I am really not sure I know enough people to be able to pull it off.

So think of this as an Exploratory Question. Is there support out there for me to run for county commissioner and not waste my time? I won’t decide for a while, but I’d like to hear from people.

Joe

THE TRIP TO PORTLAND...

2011-12-01T01:07:00.001-08:00

The New Family Marimba is home; it’s got short legs, which I might want to change—but maybe not. (Squatting on the floor to play is supposed to be good for you.) I did get advice from the vendor on electrifying the thing; he’s unaware of anyone ever having done so, but he did have instructions from someone who electrified a different African percussion instrument using a fleet of little piezo mikes, connected in series. I don’t know if that would work with the marimba; one would have to mount a piezo on each “key” (and the “keys” are big resonant wooden blocks, each tuned to a particular note) and connect them to each other with wires—and I worry whether having the wires attached might destroy the resonance of the “keys,” which are suspended on cables and kept separate from each other.

My own amplification idea—also never tried before that I know of—is to suspend a long block of wood beneath the “keys” in place of the standard resonator made of plastic pipe (which makes the marimba sound louder, but also very tinny)—and mount on that block one or more of those “tabletop” mikes that are designed to pick up vibrations from a wooden surface. Those tabletop mikes are a little spendy, but one might need only one—and one could detach the sounding board when it wasn’t needed.

The Dell shop isolated the problem with “Justin”—it’s his CPU, alas. It has given up the ghost, alas. I won’t be replacing that any time soon; those critters are expensive. The Dell techies argued against it, too, advising that new models of this machine are only $400 now and I should just get a new one. (I won’t be doing that, either.) Since the shop refunded my money from the earlier repair job, all I’m really out is the $60 I originally paid for “Justin,” assuming he was a working computer. That’s not too bad. I’ll see if some of Justin’s parts can be cannibalized for use elsewhere. (It’d be nice if the RAM chips fit “Luke” the short-on-brains Compaq, for instance.)

Square dance caller class is fascinating. A lot of information to absorb but the basic concepts already make a lot of sense. I need to memorize calls like I do songs, which means writing them down to fix them in memory; when I’m on stage, I won’t have any props—just like when I’m performing. The instructor is very traditionalist; he doesn’t use a computer to choreograph his (or rather the dancers’) moves—instead, he keeps it all in his head. And he’s encouraging me to do the same. For equipment, I do have a laptop, and a mixer and amplifier (the same ones used for 45 Degrees North); what I do not have is speakers. Instructor Daryl suggested it might be easier and cheaper to build my own, and he may be right.

One suggestion of Daryl’s I would like to implement—assembling a small group of live square dancers (takes 8) who would let me practice my moves on them on a regular (weekly?) basis. It’d be visible evidence for me of what happens when I call specific moves, and how many beats it takes dancers to execute them; it’d also be practice performing this stuff in front of (on, actually) a live (and friendly) audience. Much like performing new songs at an open mike.

I’d planned on using the 6-hour drive back and forth to Portland to practice singing the Christmas songs for the Thirsty Lion gig—and I did; but because I tend to write on long trips, I also managed to come home with a ditty—nothing special, just a little self-promotional commercial saying how excited I’d be to get a half-time job shelving books in the library. (Like “The Occupation Song” says, “I want to occupy the library…”) Ought to pass it on to the county and see if it’d convince them to hire me. True, I’m not exactly qualified for book-shelving—but like the ditty says, “I remember my numbers from when I was a kid, and I can prob’ly figure out the alphabet.” Times may be hard but one should have fun with them anyway. The Hindu deity Ganesha used to recommend dancing: “If it doesn’t make the situation better, at least it makes you feel better.”

Joe

ANOTHER WILD IDEA...

2011-11-29T23:21:00.001-08:00

Got an interesting proposal today. There’s an artist—songwriter, perhaps—who’s putting out an album, and is asking for, well, investors. I could contribute anywhere from $1 to $750, and I’d get a sliding scale of goodies depending on the size of my contribution. For my dollar I’d get a free download of the single of my choice, for instance, and for the $750 she’d come do a concert at my house, bar, Legion Hall, or whatever. (That last is pretty attractive.) She’s trying to raise $8,000.

I like the idea. I’ve had people talk up such proposals before, but this is by far the best thought out. It is tempting to contribute a little bit, just to be able to keep track of how the process goes.

I could do this myself. I’ve talked about doing another album, but am painfully aware there is not the money to do it with. This would be a way to afford it.

Why would someone want to invest in me? Well, I’m not assuming they would; I would rather ask them to invest in The Cause. An entire album of Failed Economy songs, in other words, with half the proceeds after production costs going to the Garibaldi Food Pantry, Deathgrass’ adopted charity. People might be willing to invest in that. And I bet I could keep the costs way, way down.

The process? Pick the songs, first. On an album like this not all of them would be mine—but we can do (and have done) 2-hour shows of Failed Economy songs; we have quite a repertoire, these days. Assemble the band: I’d want to use Deathgrass, of course, but probably include a few extras—female backup vocals would be nice, and so would a fiddle and saxophone (not necessarily on every song, and not necessarily together). We practice—because we’re going to do the recording “Patsy Cline style,” live and (mostly) in one take; that’s the biggest money-saver in putting out a record. I design the cover and label and liner notes (no cost there) and I know which replicating service will give me the best deal (and be able to reproduce my artwork—not all of them can).

Because we’re doing this for The Cause, there are a few other beneficial things we can do. For the songs written by (or co-written with) others, we can ask for waivers of the copyright fees (that was suggested by a music publisher I know); with the requisite paperwork (which I can do) those become tax write-offs for the writers. Any discounts off regular price in the name of The Cause from any service we have to purchase are also tax write-offs for those parties. The more we can get the cost down, the more money can go to the Food Pantry—and not many people would have a problem with that.

And then we promote the heck out of the idea. Radio, newspapers, posters, e-mails and the rest of the Social Networking stuff—and at least one concert, too, to show folks what the product is going to be like. Yes, I’d do the goodies for the investors, too, but carefully—I’d want to make sure everybody who invested got a tax write-off (emphasis on helping The Cause), so their goodies couldn’t be worth as much as the amount of their investment. At the same time, we line up opportunities for sales of the record (and we have to do better than with the Deathgrass CD); if we “press” 1000 CDs (the maximum, I think, this market could take), it could generate upwards of $5,000 for the Food Pantry. We could always start off with less CDs (not trusting that market, with as poor as everyone is these days) and order more later.

Doable? I think so. And it would be a lot of fun. This winter?

Joe

WEBSITE THOUGHTS...

2011-11-28T17:39:00.000-08:00

I have envisioned the Joe Website as primarily a repository for LINKS. I want a link to the blog, links to the Soundclick sites and to ReverbNation, a link to the videos on YouTube, a link to CDBaby for online CD sales, and to the three (out of four) Retail Outlets selling the CD that have Websites of their own. I want some specific “click here for…” links, too, that can change regularly: “click here” to play a song, “click here” to play a video, and so forth.

There are some “un-linky” things I want the Website to do on its own, if it can. I want something people can click to sign up for the mailing list (name and edress is all I need, just like we’ve asked for at gigs). I want a photo gallery—though I’m starting that from scratch, since all the photos that were on old “Alice” are inaccessible since “Alice” died. I want to post the latest gig announcement, whatever that is, with its poster (since it’s become traditional to do posters). Some talk—separate from the blog, I think—about whatever latest “project” is being worked on. Sounds simple (except for the photos, of course). And again, except for the photos, it should be able to be done all on one “page.”

Something on that “page” needs to change every week; I’m not sure what, but it needs to be obvious. People need to know that every Sunday (say), if they check in, there will be something obviously new there. That keeps the “customers” coming back. Inactivity is death. Like Stan Good’s song says, “If it ain’t movin’, it must be lunch.”

There are a number of outfits (including my phone company) that offer free Web hosting on a small scale (and small scale is all I need). I’ve signed up at one (wix.com)—had to start somewhere. I will need to invest in a domain name, and need to put some thought into what that should be. A few years ago, I got given the domain name ”nakedspacehamsters.com” as a birthday present by Sharma Kay, but never used it (I did adopt the name for the blog, though—it’s “nakedspacehamsters.blogspot.com”). I probably want something more professional-sounding for the Website.

And what exactly am I advertising? Me? Deathgrass? Outside Services Ltd.? And if it’s me, which me? I do—or can do—rather a lot of things. Aside from having had a professional career before the economy disintegrated, I write—not just songs but plays and journalistic stuff, too, and I do graphic design work. (I have occasional visions of regaining that professional career, too.) Do I make things too confusing (or present myself as too schizophrenic) if I try to include all that stuff?

Got the computers looked at at Backscratcherz; “Justin” has to go back to the Dell shop (and the Dell shop folks told they didn’t fix the problem, whatever it was), the little HP laptop will get outfitted with Windows XP so it can be a square dance calling machine, and the Compaq got a replacement CD-rewritable drive (which I had on hand—I collect computer parts) that should render it finally usable. The Compaq needs a name—they all need names; I think I will call him “Luke.” Like his namesake, he could be a real Jedi someday, but right now he’s a little slim in the brains department. As Yoda said in “Sleeping Piggy”: “Post smarter.”

I sit down with the Mystery Songwriter tomorrow and find out who he is and why he considers my input important—and Wednesday I’ll pick up the New Family Marimba on my trip to Portland. As presently organizing, the marimba band has five members, and might get a sixth. We might be in a position to play concerts next summer. (And yes, I know at least one country-music song that can be played on marimbas. They ain’t just for that foreign music any more.)

Joe

2ND STREET MARKET POST-MORTEM (&C.)...

2011-11-26T10:59:00.000-08:00

Leftovers Day show was good. Small crowd, but I knew most of them (and also knew where they’d heard about the show). Near as I could tell, they liked all the songs. “Bluebird on My Windshield” was an obvious favorite; so were “The Abomination Two-Step” and (of course) “Pole Dancing for Jesus.” “Hank’s Song” made ‘em think (good), and they liked “The Occupation Song,” which continues to surprise me—I’m not that happy with it, but it’s the audience’s opinion that counts, not mine.

Jane’s electric fiddle was great (as was Jane); we used Ken’s big amp—which is also a 3-channel—instead of the Arts Center’s. Could have used an additional song in the set (too many of the songs were short ones); overall we were just about five minutes short. (The 2nd Street Market didn’t mind—they were closing down as we were packing up.)

Next up: solo gig at the Thirsty Lion in Old Town Portland on Tuesday, Dec. 6. 25 minutes of Christmas songs. I have six of those—if I can re-learn the chords to “Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire.” The sheet music for Mel Torme’s original is insanely complicated, and full of fruity jazz chords, and I know I didn’t do it that way. Mine is country music, with just enough of a riff to suggest I’m aware Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song” exists, and I know how to play it (which I don’t, of course—that’s why I wrote new music).

“Justin” the big computer’s still not working—I should have insisted on proof the repair job was successful before paying the shop in Portland. I can take it back—and I’d have time to do that next Wednesday, when I go to Portland for caller lessons and to pick up the marimba. I do worry I’d be throwing good money after bad, but don’t know how to avoid it. I don’t have a clue how “Justin” is built—everything in that gigantic case is different from what I’m used to—and I’m not sure there’s anyone on the Coast who can work on it now that the techie who reportedly built it has been hauled off to jail. I have a feeling “Lazarus” the laptop is going to be the main computer for a while.

I need to record “The Occupation Song” because people keep asking for it (a good sign). I would like to include on the recording at least mandolin and standup bass (the Crazed Weasels) and fiddle (Jane), but I could do a full-blown production with trumpet, lead guitar, keyboard, and harmonica—I know people who can play all those things really well, and I can mix it in Audacity like I did with “Blue Krishna.”

I might not even have to record each instrument separately—I think I have adapters that’d let me hook up two or maybe even four sets of headphones (if I can get them) so multiple people could play at the same time. My mix—reminiscent of the choreography done on the old Porter Wagoner Show, where they had only one mike on stage and were taping the show live—would have to be perfect, though. The trade-off is if I have to record each instrument separately it will take a lot longer—and I hate to waste anybody’s time. I’m pretty good (if I keep practicing with the Tascam and computer)—but am I that good?

The video is what I expect will be the biggest challenge (and I do like challenges—it’s what got me into city-management work in the first place), because I can’t include any footage of any “Occupy” encampments. The one in Portland is broken up and dispersed and all the others are too far away. I’ll have to make do with (1) footage of where the Portland encampment used to be (it’s still fenced off because it still looks a mess), (2) footage of the little weekly “Occupy Manzanita” demonstration (I’ll have to catch them during the half-hour or so per week that they’re demonstrating), (3) footage of the musicians as they’re being recorded playing the song, and (4) footage of the places mentioned in the song—a coffee shop, a bakery, a library, a restroom, and so forth. I do have all of those immediately to hand.

Rapture Room Sunday night. Meeting a local songwriter Tuesday to listen to something he’s written (I’ll get to find out in the process how he knows me and why he considers my opinion important). Thursday night at the Tsunami, next Saturday at the library. Friday, I’ll skip music in Garibaldi and go to the play instead.

Joe

HAPPY THANKSGIVING...

2011-11-23T16:25:00.001-08:00

Breaking news, first: I’ve been asked to play Eric John Kaiser’s Songwriters Showcase at the Thirsty Lion Pub in downtown Portland, Tuesday Dec. 6. They want Christmas songs (it’s St. Nicholas’ Day), and at this point I can give them five:

I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas—slow & sleazy
Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up—fast bluegrass
Christmas Roadkill—slow two-step
Another Crappy Christmas (Don Varnell)—fast quasi-pop
I Want a Man for Christmas—rock ‘n’ roll

I need one more longer one or two short ones to fill out my 25-minute set. I haven’t written a Christmas song this year, and don’t know if I’ll have one in time—the gig is only 13 days away. In a pinch, I can include “Pole Dancing for Jesus”—I know that one’s popular—and/or “The Occupation Song” (if the “Occupy Portland” campaign is still viable then). I’ll have to do the “Man” song a little differently, of course; rock ‘n’ roll isn’t something one can play solo—it takes a band. I’m sure it’ll come out country.

(I do have one more Christmas song, come to think of it—“Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire,” co-written with daughter a few years back. I’d have to re-learn how to play it; I don’t remember some of the chords. It is real short—one verse, break, repeat the verse—typical 1940s jazz stuff.)

And the next day—Wednesday, Dec. 7—I’m scheduled to go to my first square-dance caller session. Those will be every Wednesday evening (I can see I’ll be doing a lot of goin’-to-Portland this winter). It’d be nice to book a performance at Whitney Streed’s “Recurring Humor Night” on one of those Wednesdays; her show is late, and my class’ll be early. And again, if it’s in December, I can do all them Christmas songs. In both cases, it’d be nice to sell some CDs—though I have never managed to sell enough on any of my treks to Portland to pay for the trip.

To date, I have gotten rid of precisely one-third of the Deathgrass CDs I had pressed; about half, I think, have been sold or are for sale at retail outlets, and the rest I have given away for one reason or another. It’s not a great sales record. But maybe I shouldn’t be worrying about it.

Years ago, when the Dodson Drifters had singles that got radio airplay (and there were only two of those), we never focused on—or planned on—selling any records. That wasn’t the point behind getting on the radio. It was publicity, pure and simple: if the station DJ liked the record (and they seemed to do that), they’d play it a lot, and with luck, people would come to our concerts (we never seemed to have a problem there, either). We didn’t make records to sell, we made them to give to radio station DJs. Of course we didn’t have the distribution network the record companies had, and we knew we couldn’t compete on that playing field. We also didn’t care. As a regionally famous performing band, we were after more and bigger gigs with bigger crowds, because that was where we made our money.

So why all the focus on selling records today? Sure, that’s what the record companies do, and the cheapening of technology makes it easy for people like me to do it on a small scale—but is that a good reason to do it? Record companies until recently didn’t have the ability to make money any other way—but notice that recently record companies have been demanding a cut of “their” artists’ gate fees and merchandise sales, as sales of their (generally overpriced) records have declined. Maybe one should forget about selling the things (except at gigs, of course) and treat them simply as promotional tools, just like years ago—a device for getting more butts in seats. If one is small-scale (and I definitely am), butts in seats is the bottom line. Just like years ago.

Leftovers Day show Friday, music at the Rapture Room on Sunday. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Joe

ABOUT THAT DIGITAL REVOLUTION...

2011-11-22T23:29:00.001-08:00

Good news, maybe, from one of the cities where I’ve applied for the manager job. I’m in Tier Two (those are the people who will be considered if the Tier Ones—the people they really want to interview—don’t work out)—and the Tier One candidates mostly haven’t worked out for one reason or another. So I may hear something soon. Or not. I still haven’t applied for any more city manager jobs. I figure there’s no point. I will concentrate on doing something else.

One evening’s practice with Jane, and we’re ready for the Leftovers Day show, I think. One substitution on the setlist (“Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” instead of “Take-Out Food”), and we’ll do the “Christmas Roadkill” song in its original key of C. The Arts Center’s 3-channel piano amp will work for a PA; my task between now and Leftovers Day is to see if I can make my little guitar amp function as a monitor. We will need one so we can hear ourselves. I still could use some finger-strengthening opportunities, but don’t think there will be any between now and then. No Tsunami Grill this week—Thursday night is, like, Thanksgiving, to be spent with family and a turkey (or in my case, a fish).

A suggestion from Tunecore—another one of the music marketing Websites I subscribed to but never did anything with—that what’s happening in the Digital Revolution is the elimination of the gatekeepers, the people who stand between you-the-artist (or writer) and that theoretical mob of people out there who want to buy what you’ve got. I’m not sure I agree.

A lot of those folks provide services rather than restricting access; your publisher, for example, is the musical equivalent of the real estate agent, peddling your material on his own nickel to somebody who’ll buy it, in exchange for a percentage. They were filters, spotting talent and exposing it to people who could make money off it (and in the process make money for the “talent”). Those folks have been rendered not so much irrelevant, as less profitable, not by the Digital Revolution but by the refusal of the big record companies to accept any outside material. One can argue that the Digital Revolution exists in part because people closed off by the record companies from any access to the record companies were forced to devise an alternative way to get their material to market.

And the New Business Model, whatever form it takes, is going to need filters, too. Right now, we can get our material directly to the public, thanks to that Digital Revolution, but we can’t reach very many people. The consumer has trouble finding good material because there’s a cacophony out there. I’ve likened it to searching for diamonds in a sewer plant; you know they’re out there, but you have to sift through a lot of sewage to find them. We need Digital Revolution versions of Alan Freed, Bill Graham, Colonel Potter, and the like. And there needs to be a way for them to make money so that us-the-talent can make money. That, like Madonna said, may be performance. The record labels don’t control that. They also don’t control the Internet—but that’s so anarchic it may be useful primarily for exposure.

Could I do that? (I’m still trying to find a niche in the music business.) Not yet; I know how it works, I think, and I can produce: I can put lyricists together with composers, and singers, and musicians, and recording studios, and the graphic designers (one of which is me), and I know how and where to get CDs and other “merch” manufactured inexpensively. The marketing? Not so much: that depends on contacts, and I do not know—yet—enough people who could do an independent writer or artist any good. I am at present just another of that cacophony of voices clamoring for attention.

Joe

RELAY FOR LIFE SUMMIT (&C.)...

2011-11-19T22:02:00.000-08:00

All in all, a good trip to Portland. I got a lot of encouragement from the employment consultant, and new leads to follow. “Justin” the big desktop PC got fixed (bought him a keyboard as a “welcome back” present). Got new business-card software, T-shirt transfers, and T-shirts. Got to look over the square dance caller’s equipment—I think I have a lot of what the “job” requires—and he’s interested in teaching me! (He’s teaching another caller-wannabe, too.) We’ll get together after Thanksgiving week.

And the Relay for Life summit was both productive and interesting. Lot of rah-rah, which isn’t at all bad; I’m fascinated by what motivates people, and these folks are both motivated and motivating. It’s not the fund-raising, I think (though they do raise millions for the American Cancer Society in the process); rather, they’re a gigantic mutual support group for those who either have had or have cancer themselves or know someone who has and had to deal with it. It’s a nasty experience by all accounts, and treatment (which is sometimes successful, and sometimes not) is as nasty and debilitating as the disease itself. For those who’ve lost somebody to cancer, the loud, positive, occasionally outrageous, and very, very active Relay is a way to heal; for those who have survived, it’s a way to celebrate.

I guess I fit in there, too, after a fashion. Dick Ackerman, who was both a close friend and neighbor and one of the best blues harp players it’s been my good fortune to know, died from cancer; after months of painful and exhausting chemotherapies he’d been pronounced cured—but I don’t think he was, and I think he knew it. He died a year later while on a cross-country RV trip with his wife—something they hadn’t done in a while. I think I knew it was going to happen, too. I wrote “Crosses by the Roadside,” my kaddish for his wife, months before Dick went on his last ride. (I hate being prophetic.) “Everybody’s got a story,” I was told over and over again at the summit. That one’s mine.

I was there as the Entertainment Chair for the Tillamook County Relay for Life, and I did pick up a number of good ideas I think we can implement. (“Cowpie bingo” is real popular in some places, for instance—it was one of the main events at the Union County Fair when I lived in Union—and we could definitely do that here. We have lots of cows.) Visiting other Relay events to see how other people do things was recommended, and I would like to do that; none of those will happen before summer, though, and by then preparations for our own Relay will be mostly complete.

It occurred to me as I was driving to Portland that job-wise I may actually have gotten what I wanted (a little belatedly, of course). When I quit the City of Garibaldi in 2004, I really wanted to get out of city-manager work. I kept doing it because having done it for 11 years, I couldn’t seem to get interviewed for anything else. That’s changed now. Some of the major recruiters have been on a campaign to “raise standards” by requiring a bachelor’s or (better) master’s degree in “public administration,” and to the extent their campaign’s been successful, it leaves me out—I’m simply a computer programmer with 17 years’ experience as a city manager, and I don’t get called for interviews any more. But isn’t that what I was asking for—to get out of city-manager work? True, I wanted it earlier than now, and I really did want to have a replacement job doing something else. I think what I’m being told is to focus my job-searching on something else. I’ll do that.

Music at the Rapture Room Sunday (meeting with the marimba band, too). Practice Monday night for the Leftovers Day show on Friday. Gonna be busy.

Joe

LEFTOVERS DAY SETLIST...

2011-11-14T23:06:00.000-08:00

Setlist is done for the Leftovers Day show. We have:

SET ONE (11 songs):
Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow & sleazy Gospel
Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up—fast bluegrass
Hank’s Song—deliberate two-step
Welcome to Hebo Waltz—fast waltz
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus—mod. tempo Gospel
The Occupation Song—ragtime
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
Santa, Baby (Javits, Springer & Springer)—slow, sleazy quasi-jazz
Abomination Two-Step—fast polka
Take-out Food (Stan Good)—slow, sleazy quasi-blues

SET TWO (10 songs):
I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas—slow & sleazy
Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Rotten Candy—fast Gospel
Christmas Roadkill—slow two-step
Bluebird on My Windshield—fast bluegrass
Always Pet the Dogs—slow two-step
Naked Space Hamsters in Love—fast bluegrass
Writer’s Block Blues—slow & sleazy
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy

Second set is all love songs (defining “love” loosely, as usual). Still have two Christmas songs, plus three dead dogs, a dead cat, dead bird, dead armadillos (who were in love), and unspecified dead things by the side of the road. Love and dead things seem to go together, I guess.

First set’s got two Christmas songs, too—one of them my one and only cover, “Santa, Baby,” the oh-so-sleazy Javits/Springer/Springer song that Eartha Kitt made famous. It was my most-requested song a couple of Christmases ago, and people started requesting it again last week. The two local-color songs, three “religious” numbers, two about food (one with dead animals) since it’s Leftovers Day, “The Occupation Song” for social commentary and “Hank’s Song” just for fun.

Overall, the setlist tries to show off the fiddle—Jane is a great fiddle player. Some of the songs I’ll be doing in a different key than usual to give the fiddle more range (and a couple of them I’ve found are actually easier to sing in the “new” key). Next step: setlist CDs (I need to re-record four of the songs in the “new” key and record two more from scratch), and the Rap. Need to arrange to borrow amplification for the occasion, and need to get photos for the poster. (Must have a poster.) And we should invest an evening or two before the gig to practice.

Elsewhere: the “Jedi Pigs of Oz” script is done with revisions and it’s okay; got the theme song to record, too. I’m not sure when we get to perform it—maybe not until January. News stories to cover this week for the paper; square dance classes to help arrange; Friday’s the big trip to Portland, and it looks like I’ll have to go the long way ‘round to avoid the snow. Applied for yet another job—and since this one’s Something Completely Different, I’m sure that if they reject me it won’t be for the usual reasons.

Joe

VIGNETTES...

2011-11-13T12:29:00.000-08:00

The truck has brakes now. Considering how they feel (the stopping, and all), I don’t think it really did before (with a standard transmission, it’s not like you use the brakes much). The brake job cost so much money I’m probably committed to keeping the truck for a much longer time than I’d planned.

I didn’t make it to Manzanita for their little weekly “Occupy” demonstration (gotta watch that gas expense, now), but I still might be able to get footage of the “Occupy Portland” encampment. I understand it’s still in business, after some 5,000 people (a lot of them with cameras) showed up Saturday night, along with all four TV stations, to film the presumably-gonna-be-violent “eviction” from the Portland Park Blocks, the forcible dispersal didn’t happen. If the encampment’s still there next weekend I’ll go by.

Sent my submission off to the new Manzanita literary magazine, The North Coast Squid (squid generate ink—hence the title). Had to be poetry; they were accepting prose, poetry, and photography, but my non-work related prose (like the plays) is all too wordy for a literary magazine, and my photography, while occasionally pretty (it did get exhibited at a couple of art shows), is really nothing special (nobody ever bought any of ‘em). Sent the Squid “The Cat with the Strat,” my only real poetic effort in several years (2006), and we’ll see what they do with it. Not a contest per se (though getting published could be characterized as “winning”)—it’s just part of the effort to become a household word.

The big Relay for Life “summit” was seeking donations for a silent auction next Saturday, so they’ll get a copy of the Deathgrass album. I’ll do that for the Bay City Arts Center’s big fundraiser in December, too (where the album might actually get some attention because people in this area know me).

I could include a Deathgrass T-shirt, too—that’d make the prize seem really special. I don’t have the design on computer any more—it’s one of the things lost when “Alice” the ‘puter’s hard drive failed—but I do have a printout, and it will copy onto T-shirt transfer material. (Ought to scan it while I’m at it so the design is preserved electronically.)

Roughly 10 days in which to assemble the Leftovers Day setlist, record a setlist CD, and practice. (I lose two days next weekend with the trip to Portland.)

How do I put together setlists? Or the past couple years I’ve been able to just refer to old setlists, but I can’t do that now—those were all on Álice” the ‘puter’s hard drive, and are lost now. Have to start from scratch. “Envisioning,” first: I imagine what the hall will be like, and what kind of people will be there, both those I know and those I don’t, and I guess what kinds of stuff they’re going to be interested in hearing.

I have certain “defaults” I can work with. Leftovers Day (aka Black Friday) is the traditional kickoff for the Christmas Shopping Season, so we’ll want to do Christmas songs; I have four—six if I dare to include “I Want a Man for Christmas,” which really shouldn’t be sung by a guy, and my rendition of “Santa Baby,” which was my most-requested song a couple of Christmases ago (a cover song is okay here, I think, since we’re not being paid). Food songs? (It is Leftovers Day, after all.) I’ve got three of those, including Stan Good’s “Take-Out Food.” Local color is probably important; we could do the “Welcome to Hebo Waltz” and “Tillamook Railroad Blues.” For the rest, I’ve got lots of love songs (defining “love” loosely, of course) and some “religious” ones, too.

And then we mix ‘em up. Start with an attention-getter—that’s an application of Pete Seeger’s rule: get the audience’s attention with the first song, hold it with the next, and after that, you own them and can do what you want. “Pole Dancing for Jesus,” I think. After that, something faster—“Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up,” perhaps. I usually alternate faster and slower tunes, sometimes mixing in different styles and keys. The basic rule is two songs next to each other should never sound alike. Lots of room for lead breaks, ‘cause Jane is a tremendous fiddler and we should strut her stuff.

Music tonight at the Rapture Room. I can talk to folks about “The Occupation Song” recording and video (they all should be there this time), maybe set something up for the next two weeks. Can I get a Leftovers Day setlist done too?

Joe

SQUARE DANCE CALLING? (&C.)

2011-11-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

Trip to Portland next Friday; bunch of “next time I’m in town” stuff to do. The big Dell desktop still needs to go to a Dell repair place (if they want to charge too much money, though, I’ll either postpone doing something or do it myself). There’s an employment consultant I promised to visit, and I’ve got to go by a music store. I’ll be in Portland because the next day (Saturday) is a big Relay for Life meeting there (and as the local entertainment chairman I need to be at the meeting). I’ll have the guitar with me because y’never know—and I feel naked without it, anyway. I had wanted to swing by the Occupy Portland encampment, to get some footage for “The Occupation Song” video, but I understand the encampment is going to be forcibly dispersed about a week before I get there. (I won’t be able to get footage of the dispersal, either. Too bad.)

That Friday night I will visit a square dance caller in Portland as he’s setting up his equipment, and pick his brain about what he uses and how. “Calling” is something else I want to do; I may already have some of the necessary equipment, and I’m partway there experience-wise—I can perform (been on the band side, I have), and can square dance pretty well myself. Most square dance callers have a really good line of “patter,” and that’s something I do with the Raps when I’m on stage. The best callers seem to be good standup comedians—and I’ve done that, too.

No, it’s not something anyone makes a living at; it’s just something else I can add to the “pin money” repertoire along with musician, playwright, actor, concert promoter and so on. None of those things make money either. I like filling holes—that’s something I do as a lead guitarist—and there’s a definite hole here crying to be filled. There are virtually no callers on the Coast; square dance clubs (like the one I belong to) have to import callers from Portland, a 2-or-more-hour drive on regularly dangerous roads, and it costs money. A caller resident on the Coast might end up being in demand. And there’s some sentiment among some of our local square dancers to help me in this effort somehow (I’m not sure what form that “somehow” might take).

Over the past year I’ve acquired a few new “jobs” (have to use the term loosely because they’re all unpaid): I’m now secretary of the square dance club (right after they voted to disband a couple of months from now—of course that could change) and I’m the entertainment chairman/recruiter for both the Tillamook County Relay for Life Campaign and for Garibaldi Days. All stuff I can do—and all part of becoming a household word, which was one of the 2011 Worklist items (it was on the 2010 Worklist, too). The goal, I think, is to reach the household-word status of, say, toilet paper: that’s a household word people actually pay money for. I have a ways to go before I hit that point.

Organizing the setlist for the Leftovers Day gig (Friday Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving); I do have a partner—Jane Dunkin on fiddle (yay!). Since it will finally be Christmas Season I can play the Christmas songs—all five of them:

I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas (the classic)—slow & sleazy
Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up—fast bluegrass
Christmas Roadkill—slow two-step
I Want a Man for Christmas—rock ‘n’ roll
Another Crappy Christmas (Don Varnell)—sleazy pop

That’s only 20 minutes of a 2-hour show, though. It would be fun (not to mention unexpected) to do a whole set of Yuletide material, all (or most) of it in the “dead dog” or “Santa’s Fallen” vein. All either original, traditional, or by other unknowns, of course, pursuant to the Usual Rules. I wonder if that’s possible? I didn’t have a lot of luck assembling material for that aborted Train Set; I did get a lot of stuff, but I couldn’t sing and/or play most of it. I am seeing Christmasy lyrics show up on the various writers’ sites, however, and some of them may bear musicating. I’d better get my recording capability down, so it doesn’t take much time to produce something. Still need to record “The Occupation Song,” and also the theme song for the “Jedi Pigs of Oz” puppet show.

Joe

"JEDI PIGS OF OZ"...

2011-11-08T00:07:00.000-08:00

Draft script for the Wizard of Oz puppet show is done. Tentative title: “JEDI PIGS OF OZ.” With our all-pigs, all-Star Wars characters cast: Princess Leah as the girl, Luke as the Zombie Scarecrow (who needs a brain), Darth Vader as the Tin Man, Chewy as the Cowardly Wookie, Hansolo as the Great and Powerful Wizard, and Yoda as the Wicked Witch of the West. One new character: sassy Glyn the Good Witch, who’s trapped inside a balloon and can’t get out. (So we can use a balloon and Karen doesn’t have to create a new puppet.)

I was asked, “Did you really write this in just a couple of days?” No; it was less than one, actually—but I’d gone to bed the last few nights thinking about dialogue, and I suppose that counts, too. The script is out for peer review now, and we’ll see if that results in any changes. It’s a longer play than ones we’ve done previously—The Wizard of Oz was a full-length novel (and movie), after all, not just a fairy tale—but not a lot longer. I get to rely a lot on cultural shorthand: people know How The Story Goes, so it’s possible to skip or gloss over parts with no one noticing. (No Munchkins in this play, for instance; no talking trees, field of poppies or helpful mice—and the Flying Monkey (just one) doesn’t fly.)

Our puppeteers don’t have to worry too much about having their lines down exactly, because we’ll have the script posted on the backside of the stage (where we can see it). The main thing we have to wrestle with is getting the moves down; there will be three of us behind the stage, each with a very limited field of movement.

I will still need about a minute’s worth of music by the sock-puppet band for the ending credits; having a song has become traditional now (since it’s been done in the last two puppet shows). I have the first verse down, I think, but will need more. When the band performs, Darth usually ends up being the drum, with Chewy beating on his helmet with a drumstick—but in this play, by the end of the play Princess Leah is wearing Darth’s helmet. Should Leah be the drum instead—and Darth do the lead vocal? That could be interesting; Darth “speaks” through a megaphone (to get that James Earl Jones voice) and singing like that could sound very much like William Shatner doing pop music.

(And this time I’ll record an instrumental version, too, that I can extract from for the opening title and credits. Last time, I backed the opening credits with a clip from Southern Pigfish’s “Darth Vader Blues,” which was the only instrumental I had.)

We could maybe perform the play the weekend of December 10; the Arts Center is free then (but that could change—December is getting a little busy). Failing that, it’ll be January. And of course we’ll film and YouTube it; we’ve got this routine pretty much down, now.

Open Mike at the Arts Center was good. Had just enough performers to feel right, Jim running sound and me being host (and we both got to perform, too). I thought the audience was small, but they did eat most of eight dozen cookies so I guess it wasn’t that small. And a big jam session afterwards. Had a toddler who was out on the floor dancing to Jane’s and my rendition of “Pole Dancing for Jesus,” and I’ll have to see how much of it got caught on video. Just the toddler alone would make a tremendous video backdrop for the song. (And she definitely stole the show.)

So one project (the play script) kinda done. I haven’t talked to the musicians I want for “The Occupation Song” video (most of them weren’t at the Rapture Room jam Sunday night) but I can still record the “base” rhythm guitar and vocal track Thursday at the Arts Center. I’ll just have to approach it the way I did the “Twenty-Four Seven” video—keep the equipment with me and as opportunities happen, grab them.

Joe

MUSIC VIDEO OF "THE OCCUPATION SONG"?

2011-11-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

People seem to like “The Occupation Song”—I played it at both the Tillamook Library and the Bay City Arts Center Open Mike, and it got a good response both times. Guess it’s time to record it. Folks at the library wanted me to make a music video of it, and that’s possible to do, too.

I always want to incorporate new techniques into each new video and this one’s no exception. This time I want to try a variation on the “green screen” technique I saw used in a video of one of Gene Burnett’s songs. The traditional use of the “green screen” is to insert footage of one thing (a singer, say, or band) into footage of something else—but what if you don’t have that kind of technology or technological expertise on hand? What I saw done in the Gene video was a frank overlay—of one film over another. Real impressive. I could take that a little further, and have the two films fade in and out at different times.

We do the recording first; the song drives the video, not vice versa. I think I could film me with a Webcam doing rhythm guitar and vocals (it’d be the first time I’ve done that), extract the audio track from the film and use that as the “base” track on the Tascam onto which I’d pile other instruments. What other instruments probably depends on which of the musicians I know are interested in participating—but I know a fiddle player, a mandolin player, bass player, musical saw player and a few others I’d like to ask. Since the Tascam is portable they wouldn’t have to be together in the same place or at the same time—I can take my mike and my one set of headphones and the laptop to wherever they are, record one track at a time and load it into Audacity (where I’ll end up doing the mixing if there are more than four tracks). I expect I’ll want to add the Electric Banjo, since the banjo is such a great Depression-sounding instrument (and it wouldn’t have to be me playing it—I found out last night I know a real banjo player and I bet I could enlist him).

And while the instrumentalists are being recorded I’ll film each of them playing, on my little digital camera. Probably just little snatches of film that I’ll insert into appropriate points later—I particularly want to focus on the musicians during the two lead breaks. Might could catch a film of some of them playing together that I could use part of, too.

The singer, instrumentalists and “band” are one of the video tracks. For the other, we want stuff: inside and outside footage of a coffee shop, a bakery, and a library (all mentioned in the song), and shots of a porta-potty with a door sign that says “Occupied” (they don’t all say that). I want footage of the little “Occupy Tillamook” and “Occupy Manzanita” demonstrations that have been happening weekly. I’d like to film the big (and semi-permanent) “Occupy Portland” encampment, but that entails going to Portland, and I don’t have an excuse to do so until the 19th (for a Relay for Life meeting). And finally, we spend some time mixing and matching and overlaying, and deciding whether to do this on a Mac or a PC (I have the latter, and have access to the former—they use different software for the video work, and the output looks slightly different, too).

I’ll see some—not all—of the musicians I want to invite at the Rapture Room tonight; the others I can call. I think this is one of those “time-sensitive” projects that probably has to be put out right away in order to have an impact. And I needed something new to work on, anyway. This’ll be fun.

Joe

A GIG, A PLAY, AND AN INSIGHT (OF SORTS)...

2011-11-04T00:02:00.001-07:00

A gig! Well, sort of: the 2nd Street Market called, wanting me to play one of two dates the end of November (I picked Friday Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving). Nice that they called, wanting me—I much prefer that to me soliciting them. 2-hour show; unpaid, of course (the Market has no money, and won’t for a while). I can do two hours easily on my own, but like I told them, I’d rather have company, and I’ll enlist some if I can. That’ll affect what I (or we) play, but not much. They have a nice stage, but no sound. I don’t have a PA system myself, but I may know where I can borrow one for the occasion—like I’ve said before, I do know some people.

I have finished a draft plot layout for a new play with the “Pig Wars” sock-puppet troupe. I think we could pull off The Wizard of Oz (actually, a very sick and twisted variation thereof). The junior high school’s after-school drama program is doing The Wizard of Oz this year, and we might be able to attract some attention to their play by doing one of our own in the same vein.

I know we only need six main actors for the play, because the Southern Pigfish song “Bedpans for Brains,” which is written to be sung by the Wizard cast, has only six verses—one for each character (the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion, the Witch, Dorothy, and the Wizard). We have six sock puppets, too—just have to fit them into appropriate roles.

We could have Princess Leah as Dorothy (the only overtly female role), Yoda as the Wicked Witch (he’s green), Darth Vader as the Tin Man (of course), Chewy as the Cowardly Wookie; Luke could be the Scarecrow (he needs a brain) and Hansolo, who knows it all, can be the Great And Powerful Wizard. We’ll need one additional character, I think—Glyn the Good Witch, who in the movie always shows up in a bubble; in our case she’ll never be able to get out of the bubble, so no one will see her. Don’t need a Toto—Chewy can do that duty (and the “he’s not a dog—he’s a Wookie” can be one of the running jokes). We’ll see what others think.

After a difficult week assembling material for the newspaper column, I’m back to having plenty of stuff in advance: I know what I’m going to write four days before I have to write it. I prefer it that way. Next step (I hope): some news stories for the paper—though I’ve been told I’ll need to file them immediately. Again, if I work at it I can probably have a good idea what I’m going to be writing before it happens.

A reporter for the Washington Times characterized the Occupy Wall Street (and Other Places) people as "idiot lights." It’s an apt description—and no, he wasn’t saying the Occupy people were idiots. “Idiot lights” are the warning lights you'll sometimes get in your car, saying things like "Check Engine." The idiot lights do not fix the problem; they do not tell you how to fix the problem. Sometimes they don’t even tell you precisely what the problem is. They simply signal you that a problem exists and will get worse if you do nothing. The fact that when you ask 20 “Occupiers” what’s upsetting them you get 20 different answers, some of them really off-the-wall liberal answers, is irrelevant; what’s important is not why they’re there, but that they’re there and there are so many of them. They’re warning lights. And—perhaps expectably—nothing is being done about them. In the last Depression, nothing changed even after demonstrators started getting killed, and that could happen again.

Two days till the Open Mike at the Arts Center. I assume I’m the host, since I haven’t heard from Jim, who’s the normal host. I also don’t know who’s coming, or how many are coming. Hopefully some do—I plan on baking a lot of cookies.

Joe

THE GOODNIGHT KISS CONTEST...

2011-11-01T23:45:00.001-07:00

Well, they lied. Broadjam, that is. The pitch was if you signed up for their “Free Mini-MoB” account, you could upload a video for the Goodnight Kiss Music Contest. (The contest would still charge an entry fee, of course.) Alas, ‘tain’t so. I am told I am not “allowed” to upload any videos until and unless I sign up for Broadjam’s not-free ($5-a-month) regular membership, and on my non-existent salary, I am not doing that. (And I hate bait-and-switch tactics. I will not participate in them.)

The alternative is to snail-mail it. I could do that—the old H-P laptop will burn DVDs (one of its few skills)—but I’d have to drive somewhere and purchase a blank recordable DVD, and suddenly the cost of entering a contest I expect to have little hope of winning just went up. I’m better off just sending them a couple of songs, instead of a song and a video. I was going to send the songs by snail-mail anyway, and I have the blank CDs for that—I buy them in quantity.

I expect there will be other video opportunities. I would like the opportunities to be free or nearly free: I am in my infancy as a videographer, and the things I’ve uploaded to YouTube are really experiments—each one I’ve done has incorporated some new technique I’ve learned—on which I am primarily after feedback and input. And it’s not like any of these have “gone viral”; the most popular of them has gotten less than 300 “views” since it was posted back in January, so at best it’s “gone head cold.” Now, with songs, I think I know what I’m doing, and I’m okay with investing a little bit of money in showcasing what in my semi-professional opinion is a good (and potentially prize-winning) product. Videos? Not so much.

What to send? There are 11 songs on the Deathgrass album; I’d already decided to send Goodnight Kiss “Dead Things in the Shower.” “No Good Songs About the War,” I think, will be the other. Production’s good—I love Mike Simpson’s harmonies—and I got to play lead guitar on it, too. That song did win a contest once, so I know somebody thought it was good.

I checked on two other contests I entered—and comfortingly, the reason I hadn’t heard anything is they haven’t decided anything yet. The Angler’s Mail magazine song contest in England only closed yesterday (Oct. 31), and the Songwriters Association of Washington (D.C.) said they won’t be announcing winners until early in 2012. I thought I’d entered a third contest already this year, but if so I can’t remember what it was. With luck they’ll notify me if I won.

I was asked at the Writers’ Group meeting what I expected to get out of entering these contests. Exposure, primarily; if I win top prize or close to it, I’ve got somebody else promoting not so much that particular song as promoting that I exist and I’m a writer. (I still get occasional comments from the Website of that writers’ group in England that awarded us first prize in their “Can you write like Dylan?” contest—back in 2009.) While exposure in remote places might not translate into the “butts in seats” that Madonna (among others) maintains is the key to making money in the music business, it might generate some online CD sales if nothing else.

There is a new literary magazine starting up on the North Coast—the North Coast Squid, they’re calling it. First issue’s due out in February. It would be nice to send them something; it’d have to be poetry, I think—songs don’t lend themselves easily to publication solely in print, and plays (the puppet shows) are a little long for publication in a magazine. They’ll take photos, too, but my photography I am not impressed with. I do have one piece that might work: “The Cat with the Strat,” which started life as a poem; it only got set to music because The Collaborators, the Internet “band” I was working with at the time, wanted to record it and it had to have music for them to be able to do that. I have until the end of the month to decide whether I’m brave enough to send it.

Music Thursday night at the Tsunami, Friday night at Garibaldi City Hall (gotta tell everybody about the Open Mike), Saturday afternoon at the Tillamook library, Saturday night in Bay City (the Open Mike at the Arts Center), and Sunday night at the Rapture Room. I’m ready.

Joe

THOUGHTS ON THE COUNTRY-MUSIC OPERA...

2011-10-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

About The Opera: I don’t have a plot, or characters; one of the folks I told about the idea said if it was a Joe Opera, it had to have dead animals, and I suppose that’s right (Reputation To Protect and all). For all I know, maybe all the characters will be animals—animals are a lot easier to deal with than people. It’s been suggested I adapt something like Bryan Jacques’ “Redfern” series—science-fiction novels whose characters are all animals—but I don’t know as I want to get that cute. Cute anthropomorphic animals have been done to death (sorry) by the Disney people.

It would be tempting—here’s that zeitgeist again—to have the opera be about the economy: the classic Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland routine, perhaps, where we’re out of money, the farm’s being foreclosed on—so “Let’s put on a show!” Twisted, of course: if I were doing it, the humans would be clueless, and the farm animals would put on the show—and somebody (a government agency?) would try to stop them. Unsuccessfully, of course. And because I’m not that into happy endings, the show would end up being a failure (perhaps because only animals come?) and the farm would still get sold and the animals sent to the slaughterhouse. Classic Greek tragedy, where at the end of the play only one actor is left alive—long enough to close the curtains and wish the theatergoers goodnight.

I believe all the dialogue in an opera is sung (unlike a “musical,” where spoken word stitches the musical pieces together), and that’s quite a lot of music to write. One thing I could do to make my job easier would be to have each character sing differently (and consistently): the tempo might change, of course, depending on their being excited, &c., but “their” stuff would always be in the same rhythm and chord progression—the operatic equivalent of having the “Darth Vader Blues” play every time Darth comes on stage (a trick I did use in the first “Pig Wars” puppet show). That would also make the characters, whoever (and whatever) they are, more identifiable to the audience. One can do that with country music. I suppose my actors don’t need to be speaking (or singing) in Italian—but that could be fun, too.

(I shouldn’t think about this so much. I already have a tag line for the “reprise,” that the animals in various groups will sing at various random points during the opera:

“We’re gonna put on a show
And raise a whole lot of dough
And make the evil bankers go away!”)

I got asked twice while I was at the speech tournament (as a judge), “When’s your next gig?” (I’ve been asked that a few more times just in the past few days.) I guess that means I should arrange one, ‘cause I don’t got one. Right now, the next gig is the Christmas benefit concert, though I don’t have a date yet. I haven’t gone around soliciting gigs for myself at the various live music venues, and I should do that, too.

A few more things to do. Time to send off the CD and lyrics for “Dead Things in the Shower” to Goodnight Kiss Music for their contest (I’ll do the DVD entry for “50 Ways to Cure the Depression” online—it’s easier). At that point, my contest-entering for the year will be done. I haven’t won any of the others I entered. A couple more job applications to send off, too. Those are like the song contests, except that I think I have less chance of winning.

Joe

THE ZEITGEIST IN SONGS?

2011-10-27T13:04:00.001-07:00

Zeitgeist. The literal translation is “time spirit,” but it’s not referring to the “It’s 5:00 somewhere” of some country music singers. It’s the “spirit of the times,” the millieu in which we live and (if we’re working) work. These days, the news is full—finally, some say—of news of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and its clones; somebody—a Marine, in fact—was critically injured in a police attack on “Occupy Oakland” in California; and except for the platitudes emanating from the highest levels in Washington, D.C., the economic news is universally bad. Two wars that have yet to stop, jobs that keep disappearing, foreclosures that keep multiplying, inflation that won’t quit... It goes on.

I was asked, “Do you make use of the zeitgeist in your musical efforts?” I wouldn’t phrase it that way. The zeitgeist affects what I write. And no, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We are, like it or not, products of the times we live in. We are what we do (or don’t do). Being unemployed for most of three years, living in reduced (and definitely more worrisome) circumstances, hunting for work in a “we could never hire old white guys” environment, and watching consistent failure impact my self-worth—and being constantly aware that not only am I not alone, I have a lot of company—yes, it affects what I write. A lot of what I’ve penned lately has had a Failed Economy “tinge,” if not a Failed Economy focus. I don’t mind because I am writing to (or for) an audience that I know is either in the same boat I am, or worried that they will be. It’s a common frame of reference, which is important for communication.

Of course I will be different—that’s one of Wrabek’s Rules. I do not preach—I leave that to others. Preaching turns me off, and I assume it does the same to others. I will not be serious (for the most part)—people need to laugh more than they need to cry, these days. And I will be timeless. I don’t always achieve that, but some of the stuff I wrote as much as ten years ago is still relevant, and still being requested, so I sometimes make it.

Does the zeitgeist show up in the work of others? Maybe not as much, or as well done, as I’d like. “Commercial” country music, form and content dictated by Powers That Be on some distant planet, still seems fixated on drinking, and girls, and how wonderful it is to live in the country (which many of the artists may not actually do)—all remote from and divorced from the reality of most folks’ everyday lives. Maybe it’s no wonder people aren’t listening.

I do see the zeitgeist coloring some other writers’ material—Ray Stevens comes immediately to mind, but a lot of his recent material is preachy, too, and I don’t cotton well to preachy stuff. There seems to be more religious music around these days—not surprising, considering people’s search for some kind of answers and need to focus on something stable; that same search and need probably drives the “end times is a-comin’” talk I hear more of these days. A lot of that religious and “end times” stuff is preachy, too, and I shy away from preachiness myself. If anything, I’ll poke fun at ‘em—and I suppose that, too, is an instance of exercising the zeitgeist.

I heard there was a Scandinavian songwriter who’d begun writing a “song cycle.” That’s a pre-medieval format in which each song is a chapter, as it were, in the whole. Interesting idea, but I couldn’t do that without violating another of Wrabek’s Rules, the one that insists I must express a complete thought, with no loose ends, in 3-1/2 to 5 minutes. On the other hand, I keep thinking of that country music opera I’d like to write (there are no country music operas that I know of, and I like breaking new ground)—something on the order of a song cycle might work well for that. Of course, each one of my songs would have to be different—that’s another one of the Rules. And I try to play by the Rules, even if they are my Rules.

I get to help judge a high-school speech tournament Saturday—something I haven’t done in a good two years—and on Sunday, we’re having the organizing meeting for the Marimba Band. Sometimes—maybe a lot of the time—the only way you get variety in your life is to create it yourself.

Joe

CHRISTMAS SHOW SETLIST THOUGHTS...

2011-10-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

For the Christmas Show, we want about an hour and a half’s worth of songs. That’s 18. I should start a list (I like lists). With “Alice” the ‘puter dead, I don’t have past setlists to work from; they were all on her hard drive. I have to invent one from scratch. Could include—not in any kind of order yet, of course:

CHRISTMAS SONGS:
Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up—fast bluegrass
I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas—slow & sleazy
Christmas Roadkill—slow & sleazy
--and maybe:
I Want a Man for Christmas—rock & roll (though a girl should really sing this)
Another Crappy Christmas (Don Varnell)—fast quasi-pop

FAILED ECONOMY SONGS:
Things Are Getting Better Now That Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—fast two-step
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass
Ain’t Got No Home in This World Any More (Woody Guthrie)—fast two-step
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step
--and maybe:
Final Payment (Gem Watson)—deliberate Gospel
50 Ways to Cure the Depression—folk-rock

THE DEATHGRASS “STANDARDS”:
Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues

That’s 16. That’d leave room for a couple of new ones, should any happen in the next couple of weeks, or for a couple more Old Standards if they don’t. I’d like to concentrate on danceable music, just in case there are any dancers, and three danceables that aren’t on the above list are “Test Tube Baby,” Woody Guthrie’s “Dance a Little Longer,” and Diane Ewing’s “Distraction.” One rock ‘n’ roll, one country rock, and one two-step. (Or I could substitute Diane Ewing’s “Alabama Blues,” which is a heartbreaker as well as being a very danceable two-step.)

An hour and a half seems to be a good length; people get tired (the band gets tired, too) if we play two hours. It being a benefit, I’d still have a quick break in the middle for the Donation Pitch, and probably one at the beginning, too. The mid-concert pitch should not be made by us (I could do the one at the beginning if needed). We’ll need refreshments—cookies, coffee and punch—and I’d like to enlist a couple folks to man a meet-and-greet-and-accept-donations table.

Could we do more? Enlist some backup singers, perhaps? Maybe some additional instruments? (I do know some people.) Since it’s a benefit concert, I don’t have to worry about splitting revenue too many ways—there is no revenue, not for the band. I have to worry simply about putting on the best show possible, to attract the biggest possible crowd (and biggest amount of donations). It would take more practice, but maybe not a lot—most of the musicians I know are familiar with at least some of the material, and distributing setlist CDs makes getting familiar with the rest easy. Besides, as some more professional performers have pointed out, my music tends to be very predictable. It’s one of the things that makes it easy to play with me.

Joe

RECORDING DENISE'S SONG--AN IDEA...

2011-10-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

Denise Drake has a new song: “Cheap Replacement,” I believe it’s called. We played it last night at the Tsunami, and I’ve suggested she record it—and she suggested recording it with the “jam band,” i.e., us. I think that actually might be doable. With my equipment, no less. Let’s say it would be a lot of fun to try.

How? My Tascam has four channels, but I can only record on two at a time, and what I record will appear on both the left and right channels simultaneously—I can’t put some things on the right and some on the left, for instance. To do that, I’d have to be enlisting a computer and a lot more sophisticated software than I’ve got (studios have that stuff—I don’t). That’s not necessarily a bad limitation; it’s just one I have to live with.

Rick (from the “Really Cool Stuff” store in Wheeler) has a decent 8-channel PA that the Tsunami’s been using on Thursday nights, and I believe the two mikes are his, too. I could throw my singing mike into the mix for the vocals, and we could use the other two mikes (which have a longer range) to pick up instruments like fiddle and harmonica and percussion that can’t be plugged in. Bass (we need bass—didn’t have one last night), Denise’s rhythm guitar, and lead (Aaron) would be plugged in directly. It would be essential for the PA to have a “line out” port (it’s new enough that it should) because that’s what would have to go into the Tascam’s “line in” port. (I do know a work-around if there isn’t a “line out” port but I’d rather do this normally.) Two sets of headphones (I have them—one for the Tascam, and one for the PA) with which the sound engineer (me, by default) would have to very carefully set everybody’s levels. Then push “record” and we get what we get. If everything’s set right what we get should be good.

Because there will be two tracks left on the Tascam, it is possible to record two additional things separately, with the musician listening through the one set of headphones while his/her instrument is either plugged in or miked. (And that can be done later—it doesn’t have to be done in situ.) One of those extra instruments could be me, but it doesn’t have to be; I wasn’t doing anything special on the song, just my standard approximation-of-the-melody with a few blues licks thrown in—what I usually do when I don’t know what I’m doing. We had several really good lead players there last night, and it’d be much better to use them rather than me. (I can put effects on those “extra” instruments, too.)

To minimize the impact on everybody’s time—this is a tavern situation, and it should not feel like work—I’d want to do some experimentation in advance with the Tascam and PA, to make sure I could really do what I think I can do, and I’d want the “band” to run through the song once while I set levels (that’d also give the musicians a chance to think about perfecting anything they were doing that could use improvement).

And one could video this at the same time (mostly), too. (“Video is the new audio,” remember.) Two cameras, I think (three would be nice)—one fixed-focus on a tripod, filming the “band” from one vantage point all the way through, and the other(s) zooming in on various “band” members and the tavern audience. I’d want to film Denise separately later, lip-synching along with the song, so there’d be footage of her without a mike in her face. And of course I’d want help with that; I am not a pro with this stuff.

I have heard the new fire hall in Bayside Gardens has a pole. That might make it a perfect venue for videotaping “Pole Dancing for Jesus,” and I need to talk to the fire chief. I may have a couple of folks interested in being pole dancers.

Joe

"THE OCCUPATION SONG"...

2011-10-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

I might have broken a writers’ block, finally—and I have the writers’ group to thank for that. It was Bobbi, one of our poets, who came up with the idea of a “Complaint Choir” (envision a gaggle of folks dressed as faux Victorian Christmas carolers, descending upon various places to deliver off-the-wall “carols” about current events) and suggested we all come up with “carols” to sing. (“We all” has only been three, lately. Participation has been just a bit short of abysmal.)

So I did a “complaint carol,” myself, just a couple of hours before our meeting Tuesday night. Found I could write it down from memory the next morning (that’s important—if I can’t remember it, I assume it wasn’t worth remembering), and it’s been sent off for peer review at Just Plain Folks.

“The Occupation Song” (tentative title) was triggered by a poster somebody’d sent from the Occupy Portland protests that said (roughly) “Occupy Your Library—You Might Learn Something.” The song just takes that to its logical, over-the-cliff conclusion—with caustic little side references to not having a job, or a home, or any money. Yes, it’s a political song—though it’s one the political hardliners would be unlikely to be interested in because of its tongue-in-cheekiness. They’d probably think I was making fun of them (which I might be).

It’s probably a throwaway—but I am happy that it came together fast, and structurally is okay, and I’m relatively happy with it. And the words make sense—unlike the “Samba with the Llamas” song, which still isn’t finished. The music (ragtime) pretty much parallels my own “21 Steamer Drive,” but I think I can make it sound different by switching keys and giving it more of a rock rhythm, like Deathgrass does to Coleman and Lazzerini’s “So 20th Century,” which is also ragtime. I’m ready to try it out on a live audience somewhere.

I find myself always asking “What can I do with this?” Songs rarely stand on their own; if they’re not to fade off into obscurity, one has to do something with them. Well, this is a protest song, and protest songs are supposed to be performed; I can do that, but I kinda do that a lot anyway. It would be fun to put together a real, live Complaint Choir to make the rounds in Victorian costume, caroling this and a few others (Bobbi’s carol, about Rockaway Beach, would be a great inclusion, too); I don’t know if I know that many performers who are inclined to be that outrageous. I’ll ask a few folks I know, though, and mention the idea both at the Rapture Room and at the Open Mike November 5 at the Arts Center. A Christmas show, perhaps? We’d need about an hour’s worth of these to pull that off.

Of course I’ll record the song; I always record my stuff, if for no other reason than to preserve it for posterity, so they can enjoy my posthumous fame and fortune should that ever happen. It would be fun to record professionally a whole album of this protest stuff, and have it out just in time for Christmas (no, I do not know where the money to do that would come from). Yes, I already have a design for the album cover—graphic artist, remember? And if one is going to record, one should on principle do a video too.

Slow week for music coming up: I’ll get to play at the Tsunami Grill in Wheeler Thursday night, but there’s no music Saturday (I’ll be at a square dance in Woodburn anyway) and Sunday night I may be trying out for a part in a production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap instead of going to the Rapture Room. (That last depends on whether I think I can deliver an acceptable British accent. Both the parts I’d want require it.) Unrelated to music, I got a questionnaire from the Republican National Committee wanting my feedback on ideas for the 2012 part platform, and I believe I will give them a piece of my mind. I can spare it, and it’s obvious they need it.

Joe

DISCOURAGING WORDS...

2011-10-17T12:36:00.001-07:00

Took a survey from the Future of Music people; they wanted to know how us independent (i.e., non-record company controlled) musicians were doing in the New and Modern World. This independent musician is not doing well, thank you. How much money have I made in royalties from radio stations playing my songs? None. From movie and TV placements of my songs? None. From ringtones? None. (Nice idea though.) From record sales? From the new album, not enough—yet—to make back production costs. (That’s true of most of the Big Boys, too, but my production costs have a lot fewer digits than theirs.) From online sales? Some, but not enough for CDBaby to send me a check. From performances? Twice as much as last year, but still not enough to make even one mortgage payment. From session work? I have actually done some, but it was as a favor to friends, and no, I never got paid or asked to be. From teaching music? None. (That New and Modern World wants you to have a degree in that stuff—and one in teaching, too—before they’ll let you teach.) Blog? Yes, I have one of those—and 62 people from Latvia read it and I don’t know why. And no, I’ve never made any money off that, either.

The question is regularly asked on writers’ sites, “Would you still be writing if there was no money in it?” I can answer that question easily, because there is no money in it and I’m still doing it.

Money isn’t everything, of course. (It just helps with the food, shelter, &c.) I decided some time ago I couldn’t live without writing, and so I write; the stuff has to get exposed to people somehow, because there’s no other way to tell whether it’s good or not—and I end up performing it because no one else will. Everything else developed from there. I recorded an album to get the stuff more exposure (and now have three of them); I formed my own record company and publishing company because no one else was interested, and just might know enough now to be able to help somebody else. And the blog was just to keep track of what I was doing—and maybe to hope that someone reading it might have a shorter journey by not having to make the same mistakes I did. (It’s also great practice writing.)

So fortune eludes me, fame I may already have some of, and both are extraneous to the need to write and to get better at it. It does mean that I have to have a job doing something else to take care of the food, shelter, &c. And three years into the economic collapse, I have no idea what that is. It is apparently not what I’ve done in the past. At this point, I’ve got five city-manager applications in the pipeline, and I’m not seriously expecting to hear good things from any of them (though I’ll know for sure by the end of the month). After I’ve gotten rejection letters from all of them, I think it’ll be time to go do something else. What? No idea. I guess that’s part of the journey, too.

All the foregoing discouraging words are at least in part a reflection of the general discouragement that’s going on worldwide. And the more people get upset, and the more upset they get, the nastier they get about it, it seems; it’s a little like watching a progressive epidemic of rabies. I suppose that’s the general theme I’m ending up with in the “Samba with the Llamas” song: yup, things look bad; nope, they do not make sense (that’s why the lyrics are essentially nonsense with political overtones); all you may be able to do is stay away from it so as not to get infected. And you might as well dance. No, it’s not a solution—but as the Hindu deity Ganesha (the elephant-headed guy) maintained, if dancing doesn’t make the situation better, at least it makes you feel better. Myself, I don’t dance—but I’d be happy to write and play the dance music. And I’ll feel better.

Joe

ULAN BATOR...

2011-10-15T23:17:00.001-07:00

In Going Bovine, by Libba Bray, the protagonist, a high-school kid diagnosed with fatal Mad Cow Disease (hence the title), escapes from the hospital on a quest to find—within two weeks—the one doctor who can cure him (he has to save the world at the same time). The kid fails—turns out there is no cure and never was one—and he dies. His complaint to the angel who sent him on the quest: “But I wanted to live!” And the angel tells him, look, you traveled all over the place; you made a new best friend; you changed a bunch of people’s lives and may even have saved one; you stole from a drug dealer; you were hunted by the police; you played bass with one of the best jazz musicians on the planet; you saved the world; and you lost your virginity to the chick you had the hots for in school—haven’t you lived?

I want to go to Ulan Bator. (Not “I think I want to go”; one piece of advice I got years ago from Stan Sheldon when he was Mayor of Garibaldi and I the city administrator was, “Never say ‘I think.’ You’re the expert. You don’t ‘think.’ You know.” Why Ulan Bator? It’s remote, I’ve never been there, and it’s somewhere I have no preconceived notions about. I’ve never really been outside this country (Tijuana and the Virgin Islands don’t exactly count)—and like the video (the new one) says, if you’re going to do it, you might as well go all the way.

Thing is, I want to go there as a musician, and be playing a concert. There is some work involved in that: I know no one in Mongolia, and have no fans there that I know of. I’d have a better shot in Latvia, where according to Google there are 29 people reading the blog (though I have no idea who they are or why they’re doing it). I have a little experience breaking into new markets—all small, of course, and the people did mostly speak English—and they were markets where people didn’t previously listen to country music. I wonder if that’d be enough to start with? I’ll have to try. (And I can try to develop a fan base in Latvia while I’m at it.)

The “Twenty-Four Seven” video is done and uploaded. (I probably should say a DRAFT is done and uploaded; and it is in fact the third draft.) The new video software—something called “Prism”—has some limitations, but it works enough like Windows Movie Maker and its Macintosh equivalent so the learning curve wasn’t too bad. In the same vein, Photoshop Limited Edition does pretty much the same stuff that Photo Deluxe used to do.

Link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBxyb7NoUW0 The photos themselves were all taken in Tillamook County, between Tillamook and Mohler (where The Cow Nobody Wanted is, in front of the Grange); the two communities are about 25 miles apart. I don’t know if I could have done better or not. The experimental part—besides using all that different software—was combining video (of the Rap) with “French style” slide show (of the song). And next? We could intersperse video with still photography. Or we could do one that was all video, but interspersed clips. (That latter might be easier—and I think it’s how the pros do it.)

The video of “Blue Krishna,” when it’s finished, will be all interspersed video clips, but it’ll be fan-generated—the result of the old digital camera being forwarded around to different people. I want to do one myself, too. I’d like to film me playing the “base” track on the guitar, then extract the audio track, add lead and maybe other instruments and film little clips of them, and put that together. I wonder which song would be good for that?

Lazarus’ new keyboard has arrived. Work to do…

Joe

THE VIDEO--AND A "COMPLAINT CHOIR"?

2011-10-11T23:18:00.001-07:00

Working on the video… A lot of the photos I took were dark (it is dark around here a lot because of the clouds and rain) and I have been fixing that, photo by photo. I also have a habit of taking photos of a wider area than I need, planning on cropping what I need later. (I have cropping to do, too, in other words.) It’s a far cry from the days of black-and-white 35mm cameras, when you had to frame each shot very carefully because the lab in San Francisco was going to give you back—just in time for your deadline—exactly what you gave them. Technology allows you to be sloppy—not necessarily a good thing.

My old (1996) Adobe Photo Deluxe photo-manipulation software is finally dead, and I couldn’t find the Jasc software I’d acquired some years back as a replacement, but my old (1998) PageMaker program came with an early “limited edition” of Photoshop, and that’ll work for my purposes. Downloaded Windows Movie Maker, and a copy of the recording of “Twenty-Four Seven” off Soundclick. Guess I’m ready. I’ll need photos—or film—to display during the Rap, too. I’d forgotten about that. I wonder if I could use the Webcam and just film me talking? I haven’t done that yet.

Got appointed entertainment chairman for Garibaldi Days. I had told them I didn’t want to do that—I just wanted to make sure they knew the band wanted to play—and they told me the best way to ensure that was to have me in charge of entertainment. (I knew that, but I wasn’t after the obvious conflict of interest.) I think basically, they want the band to play anyway. I think we did put on a good show last July.

So I get—again—to tell all the musicians I know that I’m looking for entertainment. Just like the Relay for Life, this’ll be a freebie (though unlike the Relay for Life, I won’t be trying to find entertainers to perform in the middle of the night), and to the extent possible, I’ll be after only local (Tillamook County) acts. I have a feeling there are plenty. Is it possible to fill the entire time between the end of the parade and the time (early evening) when the paid bands start performing at the taverns? I think so.

The best everybody gets is exposure (because we can publicize the heck out of their being there), tips, and the ability to sell CDs and other “merch.” (Down the road, when the festival is a lot bigger, entertainment can get paid. That’s not now.) I think I can rig publicity so these local entertainers get a lot of bang in lieu of not getting any bucks.

Writers’ group meeting was good—not many people, but lots of ideas, and that’s what’s important. Ever hear of a “complaint choir”? Envision a gaggle of Victorian-dressed carolers descending on a public place—and singing pointed hymns about current events. First one I got was from Bobbie, one of our poets, and it’s a sweet little ode directed at Rockaway Beach, our local role model for a dysfunctional government. It needs music, and I’ll do my best to provide some. A cross between “Good King Wenceslas” and a sea chanty, I think. We’ll each bring a “complaint carol” in either musical or poetic form to next Tuesday’s meeting. If we can polish and practice them enough, we could surprise the audience at the November 5 open mike with them. The other thing I asked everyone to do is bring something of their own to the meeting that they’d want to perform at the open mike, and we’ll work on polishing those, too. We have a couple more sessions before the open mike happens.

And just a couple of odd opportunities—not income-producing ones, of course, just fun ones. It was suggested at the Writers’ Group meeting that I had a song the Occupy Portland demonstrators might well be able to use as a theme song—“Final Payment,” the late Gem Watson’s sweet-but-caustic Gospelly number that’s been a regular inclusion in Deathgrass’ Failed Economy Show concerts. No, nobody’s exactly in charge of the Occupy Portland “movement” (I noted that in an earlier blog), but I do know a couple of folks who’ve been going down there; as I’m fond of saying, “I know people.” And there’s a group in Kentucky that’s reportedly planning a big party—with live music—for the upcoming Prob’ly-Not-Going-to-Happen-This-Time-Either Rapture, and I’ve asked whether I could send them “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?”

Joe

RELAY FOR LIFE, COMPUTER REPAIR AND THE SAMBA...

2011-10-09T15:31:00.001-07:00

I should turn into a computer hardware person for a while. A friend replaced the keyboard on his Dell laptop, and said it wasn’t too much of a pain; Lazarus’ keyboard is different, though (Dell was getting as bad as IBM with their “every model must be completely different” mantra)—non-standard shape, and all—but it turns out I can get a replacement keyboard online (and cheaper than going to a repair place) and according to the instructional video, it’s not hard to install. That’d be more professional-looking, too, than hooking up a standard keyboard to Lazz through the USB port.

And if that works, I should consider repairing on my own “Justin,” the big Dell desktop I bought surplus from the Farmer’s Market. I think—but have no way to test—that the reason “Justin” isn’t working is his on/off switch is broken. Solution if that’s the case is to replace the on/off switch. Justin, I was told by the expert who tore into it for me, is a custom-built “gamer’s” computer, with oodles of RAM, a big hard drive, and very high-resolution graphics—exactly what I need for my work. If replacing the on/off switch is as easy as I think replacing Lazarus’ keyboard will be, it’d be a lot cheaper to do that instead of taking a day to trek to Portland with it.

Words that rhyme with “samba”: I’ve already used “Hamas,” “drama,” “mama” and “pajamas” (yes, they all can be made to rhyme). “Okhrana” (the Russian Czar’s secret police), “Donder” (the reindeer) and “lambda” (the Greek letter) are probably too obscure, and “Osama” and “Obama” too current-events (I’d said I didn’t mind, but there are limits). “Dalai Lama” would probably be okay, though (I knew—an aside—somebody who had a llama named “Dolly”), and so would “McDonalds.” And “trauma,” “sauna,” and even “bomber” and “manana.” Yes, they will all rhyme when I’m done with ‘em. More?

I don’t have to have everything rhyme with “samba,” of course; in that first (and at this point only) verse, I’ve also got “Wall Street” and “Main Street,” and “proper” and “opera,” and in the ending tag line there’s “December” and “remember.” But the more words I have trying to rhyme with “samba,” the more sense it will appear to make. I have no hope of it really making sense; we will have to rely on appearances.

Though I refuse to force these things, I would like to be done with it before the weekend; I have a class to help teach on Friday, a funeral to attend Saturday—and maybe a writing seminar to attend, too.

A lady in the audience at the library Saturday videotaped me playing “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” with the group; she did ask if she could post it on YouTube (and the answer to that one is always “yes”), but I haven’t seen it yet. I got to hit up the musicians—the rest of them are collectively the Ocean Bottom Blues Band—about performing at the 2012 Relay for Life July 7-8, and they’re interested. I’ll hit up the folks at the Rapture Room tonight, too; there are folks from two or three bands that regularly come to that. I expect the hardest part will be finding bands willing to play in the middle of the night—but the event is a 24-hour one and somebody has to. And the Relay folks don’t want just bands, either—they’d like all sorts of acts. There are three dance schools in Tillamook, and the square dancers (if there are enough of them around during the winter)—but I know some unconventional entertainers, too. How would Relay for Life feel about standup comedy? Or a fire dancer? (That would be cool in the middle of the night.) I’ll have to ask…

Joe

OF TSUNAMIS AND SAMBAS...

2011-10-07T11:21:00.001-07:00

Well, the Tsunami Grill was fun. Small turnout because of the Oregon Ducks game, and that meant I got to play more stuff, which was nice—but what I really go there for is the chance to play lead guitar to (mostly) rock ‘n’ roll music. I wouldn’t call it “practice,” because I’m trying to be perfect when I do it, and I don’t have many chances to do it. With a few exceptions, the cover songs the other musicians are playing are things I’ve never heard the originals of, so I’m not trying to recreate somebody else’s lead; I just do something that I think fits in. Hopefully, it does.

(And what I do isn’t actually lead work. It’s simply competent—and interesting—rhythm, that’s capable of standing on its own as an in-lieu-of lead if no one else is playing lead—which last night was often the case. I’m still pursuing the role that was marked out for me some years back by a rock band I played with that did a lot of Beatles covers. They wanted me to be their John Lennon, and I decided he wasn’t a bad role model: a competent rhythm guitarist who could sometimes play lead. And wrote stuff.)

I was asked at the Tsunami when my next gig was and had to admit I didn’t have any lined up. I should take care of that. (I said that before but haven’t done anything about it.) I don’t mind playing solo for free and just having the Ugly Orange Bucket out for tips and trying to sell CDs; if I’m playing with the band, though, I want the band to get paid.

Just a few more photos to take for the “Twenty-Four Seven” music video. I need to photograph copies of Great Expectations and Fear of Flying at the library, the lighthouse at God’s Lighthouse church, the billboard in Garibaldi advertising the 2-foot long jerky, the “free hearing tests” sandwich board in Tillamook, the golf course sign next to the cheese factory, the arcade and espresso stand and one of the “Thanks for Visiting!” signs in Rockaway, and The Cow Nobody Wanted up at the Mohler Grange (which ultimately decided they did want it). And then I think I’ll have everything and can begin putting the video together.

“Samba with the Llamas” started to turn political, and I decided I’d let it; it’s likely to be a throwaway anyway, since it’s got (presently) a rather nonsensical (albeit risqué-sounding) tag line. It’s okay if the song talks about current events—I’m not hitting for “timeless classic” here. And I can always safeguard my reputation as a nonpolitical writer by telling folks, “This is a Southern Pigfish song.” They do the politically-charged stuff. I don’t.

One thing I will need before I’m done is a whole lot more words that rhyme, or almost rhyme, with “samba.” Since I refuse on principle to use a rhyming dictionary, I’ll be dependent on what I come up with myself and what suggestions I get from others. (That was a hint, folks.)

I always try to figure out where melodies come from. This one’s bouncy, danceable melody, near as I can figure out, was partly robbed from Jimmy Buffett, partly from the Beach Boys, partly from Stan Good’s “Real Good Coffee and a Real Good Wife” (which I musicated) and partly from Don Varnell’s “Another Crappy Christmas” (which I also musicated). Put ‘em all together, with a few extraneous beats, and it does sound original.

I have no idea whether it’s a real samba or not. I haven’t danced the samba since I took ballroom dancing in junior high school. And if I’m attributing the song to Southern Pigfish, it doesn’t matter. What would a folk-rock band from Arkansas know about sambas?

Music Saturday at the library, and Sunday night at the Rapture Room. Opportunities to remind everyone that I’m the entertainment chairperson for the local Relay for Life campaign, and I want them to perform. July 7-8 at the county fairgrounds.

Joe

UPDATES...

2011-10-05T00:07:00.000-07:00

Stuff to do… “Lazarus” the laptop needs to learn some more programs, mostly of the graphic-design variety; if he’s going to be the “basic” computer he needs to be able to do more basic stuff. Really important is going to be equipping him with a conventional keyboard (one without 3 missing keys, in other words). For the nonce, all the desktop computers—the nearly-new Dell that doesn’t work, the short-on-brains Compaq I got as a temporary replacement for “Alice,” and old “StuartLittle” the semi-portable, can go out to the garage studio. Once I clean the studio, of course.

I am slowly compiling a list of things that need to be done on a trip to Portland, and I’ll endeavor to do them all on the same day; if I’m going to invest $40 in gas, I’m determined to be efficient about it. There’s an employment consultant who’s asked me to come see her, an interim city manager I want to visit with about becoming his permanent replacement, and some computer parts to score—and I’d take the Dell to a professional computer geek if I could find one there. If I could arrange to do a performance while I was in Portland, either at Eric John Kaiser’s Songwriter Showcase (which is on Tuesday nights) or Whitney Streed’s Tonic Lounge comedy night (Wednesday nights), that’d be perfect.

What to perform? I haven’t written anything new lately (but there are some more risqué numbers Whitney’s people have not heard yet—I could do those). And with the looming possibility I could end up with an interim city manager job in short order, I should probably schedule this trip right away. Of course, my track record at landing job interviews hasn’t been particularly stellar of late—but there’s no real excuse for delaying the trip (and the longer I wait, the worse the weather’s going to get, too).

Last two meetings of the writers’ group have had only two people. I fear we are headed for irrelevance, here. I think the assignment I’ll give everybody is to prepare for next Tuesday something to perform at the upcoming open mike at the Arts Center Saturday, Nov. 5; that’ll give us maybe two more meetings in which to polish it. After that, if we haven’t garnered more participation I’m going to have to pull the plug on it.

And that “preparing something” includes me, too. The Coventry songwriters group wanted a “dance song” this month, and I just might be able to deliver. Something happy, bouncy and thoroughly devoid of meaning (at least right now—it might acquire meaning later, as these things sometimes do). Tentative title: “Samba with the Llamas.” And in case anyone was wondering, no, it is unlikely any of the llamas will die.

And a couple of extraneous notes. I got approached by one of the fellows involved in the Food Pantry; he’s trying to put together a Christmas toy drive, and wanted to know if Deathgrass could put on a toys-instead-of-food benefit concert. I bet we could. And I’ve been tapped to round up and organize the entertainment for next year’s Relay for Life, a 24-hour anti-cancer run; I think the assumption was that I know a lot of musicians (I mentioned that to somebody, and they told me that yes, I do know a lot of musicians).

Music Thursday night at the Tsunami Grill, and Saturday afternoon at the Tillamook Library, I think. Friday? I don’t know. My time might be better used getting some recording done. And I still want to finish the “Twenty-Four Seven” video.

Joe

A MUSIC WEEKEND...

2011-10-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

The Hoffman Center crowd really liked “Pole Dancing for Jesus”; I think it got the best applause all evening. Don’t know how to translate that into an income, but I’m definitely getting known. Met another writer who was also performing, and encouraged him to come to the Sunday night jam at the Rapture Room.

Went to play with the Friday Night Group at City Hall but there weren’t many performers there, or much audience, either; Elsie (accordion) and I were about the only ones who could play lead. I had heard from a couple former regulars (who weren’t there, and may not be back) that they, too, had gotten frustrated by the couple of people who can’t keep time, can’t play in tune and don’t seem to be learning—but keep coming to play. I understand. I expect I have a higher frustration level than most folks, having been a city manager, but I haven’t gone much lately myself. I don’t run the show so I can’t change anything. All I can do is not be there. No offense to the non-frustrating folks there—but I want to be playing music on Friday nights and would rather be doing it somewhere more productive.

Without a high level of expertise in the group, I had to stick to the familiar, so the crowd (using the term loosely) got Leon Payne’s “Lost Highway,” “Pole Dancing for Jesus,” “Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues” (because somebody requested it) and Hank Williams’ “You Win Again” (the only Hank song I can actually sing). One out-of-town fellow in the audience asked me how long I’d been playing guitar; when I told him 30-odd years, he nodded, and said “I figured—you sound just like those old guys.” I think it was a compliment. (He was a Hank Williams fan.)

Since the Train Set gig was cancelled, I went to play music at the library (good crew of musicians there, all of whom used to play on Fridays at City Hall), and they got “One: I Love You,” “In the Shadows I’ll Be Watching You,” “Leavin’ It to Beaver” (which I almost never play because it’s so long) and “Naked Space Hamsters in Love,” along with “Pole Dancing” (I was trying to practice that one a lot). At the Arts Center’s reception for the Shoe Project, there seemed to be a bunch of people crowded around my piece, which plays Donna Devine’s “Sometimes She Could Scream.” Hopefully, they were listening—and hopefully they liked it.

What’s next? I really don’t have anything on the horizon, so I need to make something happen. There’s some stuff to finish, of course: two videos, one of which I have control over and one not, and one more song contest to enter. It would be good to schedule another Failed Economy Show benefit for the Food Pantry—maybe this one could be timed for around Thanksgiving. And I should hit up some of the venues around Manzanita, Nehalem and Wheeler that book solo-or-duo acoustic acts, and see if they’d be interested in me. Before the memory of the Hoffman Center Talent Show fades completely from folks’ consciousness.

And sad news: the Oyster Shooters, one of this area’s most famous rock bands (and arguably the best), have broken up after ten years in business. That leaves, I think, a huge void in the local music scene. Could Deathgrass fill it? Doubtful—it’s a different style of music—but there may be a few opportunities, for us and for others. There is a Depression-driven demand for local live music that seems to be getting bigger.

Joe

GETTING BACK TO NORMAL (WITH A ROBOTIC ELVIS)...

2011-09-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

Are things getting back to normal? I hope so. (Then again, one is tempted to paraphrase Bill Clinton: “Define ‘normal’.”) Lazz has only a couple more accomplishments to learn before he can be a Real Computer, I’m finally getting some work done on the house, and every single one of the job applications outstanding is to be a city manager somewhere where I’m not only qualified, but someone knows me. (Of course, the “someone knows me” isn’t necessarily a good thing.) Two—ultimately three—new ones to apply for, too, with the same conditions (or limitations).

A video thought, with respect to “Pole Dancing for Jesus.” We start with one scantily-clad pole dancer, then two, then four, and so on. Chorus is sung by a few pewsful of a “congregation,” in their Sunday-go-to-meetin’ garb, with open hymnals. At (or somewhere in) the second verse, we switch—it’s the congregants acrobatting on the poles, and the chorus being sung by the scantily-clad pole dancers, in the pews with the hymnals. I can’t take credit for the idea—‘twasn’t mine—but it sure would be fun to do. Actually, the go-to-meetin’ folks wouldn’t be hard to enlist—I think absolutely everybody likes this song. Finding the pole dancers (and the poles) might be a little problematic. I’ve got a few dance enthusiasts I can talk to locally, though.

And I have run across a videographer. He’s young, but from what I’ve seen of his work, he’s very, very good. I’d like to turn him loose on “Born Again Barbie” if he’s interested, and see what he’d do with it. I’d scripted out a sort of stop-motion video a couple of years ago, working within the limitations of my old digital camera (so everything was actually still shots, and I relied on the camera’s zoom feature to create the illusion of movement)—but I wouldn’t want him to pay any attention to it. Allowing creative people to “do their own thing” with your raw material encourages the maximum amount of creativity.

I would want to re-record the song. Co-writer Scott Rose had recorded it originally, but I never had a good copy (and he said he’d lost his), and I never had it archived on Soundclick or ReverbNation, so now that “Alice” the ‘puter is dead, the old recording of “Born Again Barbie” is probably gone forever. It’d be good to record it with a real band, too (Deathgrass would be my first choice). I am insistent on doing this for no money, though, so I’m not sure what we’d use for studio facilities. I do know a few folks with home studios, but I don’t know how good they are at what they do.

In the Pushing the Envelope Department: Having done an art project that plays music for the Women’s Resource Center, it’d be fun to do another, more ambitious one. CART’M, this region’s combination transfer station/recycling center/thrift store (I think of it as what a dump would be like if it were run by hippies who were really serious about their principles), does a “Trash Art” exhibition every year; could I make something out of thrown-away (or throw-away-able) stuff that would not only play music, but be animated? That portable CD player I was going to use for my Shoe Project art piece never would play CDs, but its little motor does spin—and little motors like that can make things move. An animated robotic Elvis, perhaps, gyrating its hips as it sings “Test Tube Baby”? That’s another song it’d be nice to re-record—I really like how Deathgrass does it—but I do have the demo that was done in Nashville in 2007 at the Pineyfest songwriters conference. In a pinch, that’d work. Even has a saxophone in the mix.

Mercenary thought. (What? Aren’t we really doing all this stuff just because it’s fun and out of the kindness of my heart? Sure.) What I may be accomplishing with some of this stuff is expanding public awareness of my existence—exposing people in a bigger variety of “venues” to the music through forms they’re used to (even if they’re not what I’m used to). So we have a piece of artwork with shoes that plays a song, and—maybe—a robotic Elvis doing the same sort of thing. In addition to the playing music in all sorts of different places, like with the rockers at the Tsunami Grill and at the Talent Show in Manzanita. Part of that trying to become a household word. (“Toilet paper” is a household word. I haven’t even got that far yet.)

Joe

MOSTLY COMPUTER UPDATES...

2011-09-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

Oh, fun stuff… Had to cancel the Deathgrass performance for October 1, after getting word drummer Chris wasn’t going to be available either. I had substitutions for John (bass) and Doc (blues harp), but this was just getting too difficult. I’m expecting the “Golden Spike” people will be able to get along without us—they have a pretty full agenda. Should be impressive even without us—and despite the rain the National Weather Service is predicting for that day.

It is just as well; that leaves me two nights free this week and I could use them. I’ll play music Friday (didn’t do squat Tuesday). Couple of new jobs to apply for, and I still need to get the important files either extracted from or usable from Alice’s hard drive. Most of the photos for the “Twenty-Four Seven” video are there—and some of them aren’t easily replaceable. However, there’s something wrong with Alice’s old hard drive, and I may need professional help to get those files off. I’m not looking forward to it. As a fallback, I have started re-taking the photos I can, just in case.

The work-around for Lazarus’ inability to burn CDs is the other laptop (I inherited two), a much smaller (and a year newer) Hewlett-Packard. It will burn CDs—maybe DVDs, too—without problems. So I simply transfer files. The H-P still has Windows Vista (uck) but I’m not going to use it for any recording or graphic-design work at this point, so it doesn’t matter.

Step by agonizing step, Lazz is being taught how to do all my stuff. We now have sound, and a remote mouse, and Internet, and can run the Tascam, scanner and printer, and both digital cameras; haven’t managed to hook up a remote keyboard, but I need to—that’ll take care of the problem of Lazz missing 3 keys, which really slows down the typing. Bottom line is of the four (four?) computers currently upstairs in the bedroom, I can probably safely ship two off to the garage. Finally.

And then there’s music. I have really accomplished very little lately: no new songs since “Blue Krishna,” and no musications, either (though I still need to record Ahna Ortiz’ “Nomad Man from Nowhere”), and Concert Season is basically done for this year. Two videos in progress, “Blue Krishna” (which is fan-generated) and “Twenty-Four Seven” (which will be a “French style” slide show), but neither one’s done. I entered the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest, and that one for the fishermen’s magazine over in England; I’m not expecting any more results than I usually get from job applications, of course, but both were contests I felt comfortable I could win.

I still have the entries to send off to the Goodnight Kiss Music Contest (I think I’ll send them “Dead Things in the Shower” off the Deathgrass album and—since they’re also accepting videos—the video of “50 Ways to Cure the Depression,” if I can get it off Alice’s hard drive).

Jane and I auditioned for the talent show in Manzanita, and it sounds like we’re on the agenda. The show is Saturday night, and they’ll get “Pole Dancing for Jesus.” (And yes, that’s another one that would make a great music video.)

Joe

AND "ALICE" IS DEAD...

2011-09-24T23:18:00.001-07:00

“Alice” the ‘puter is dead. I don’t know if ‘twas I that killed her, or whether her motherboard just finally reached the end of its useful life, but she finally gave up the ghost this week. I haven’t quite been ‘puterless; there is “Lazarus,” daughter’s old laptop which got resurrected from the dead and equipped with Windows XP. Lazz does have 2 gigabytes of RAM, but needs all my old software installed to be useful, and that could take a while.

His biggest “issue” is he can’t burn CDs—and that’s apparently a structural defect: user groups have apparently been complaining about that particular model of Dell laptop for years, and specifically about that particular problem. The fancy DVD/CD-rewritable drives never did work. There are work-arounds, of course—one thing I am good at is work-arounds—but it is a time-consuming pain.

Got a replacement computer that’s presently housing Alice’s old hard drive, but it’s got a few problems of its own, that might or might not be related to housing Alice’s brain along with its own (yes, it’s The Machine With Two Brains); it’s too early to tell. It is appallingly slow, and loses track of things, and it shouldn‘t do either one. I have more tests to run. If that computer can be made to work properly, it could help for a while: it’s even got a “firewire” port so I could hook up the Arts Center’s older video camera. It’s a little slim in the RAM department, but it’s not bad. And I’m not investing money in it. I am trying to avoid investing money in anything.

I was going to list the Train Set in this issue of the blog, but I’ll wait; the Lions Club, which is organizing the celebration Saturday—yes, just one week away—has an impressive, if last-minute, schedule of events that may result in Deathgrass not being able to play much at all. I’ve e-mailed them, thanking them for the schedule and asking what they’re up to, and we’ll see. Why is it the free gigs that are always the most trouble?

Of course, we’re not perfect, either: both John (bass) and Doc (blues harp) will be out of town October 1, so Jane Dunkin will be lead on fiddle and Wayne Moore, who played bass for 45 Degrees North, has agreed to do bass. I was hoping we’d get two nights’ practice in this coming week, what with two of the band (and half the material) being new.

On the plus side, I did get the Shoe Project done, and on time; I had to substitute an electric CD player for the little portable one (which didn’t work, despite the thrift store’s protestations), and that meant re-designing the whole project at the last minute, since the big CD player was not going to fit in a little flower basket. The Women’s Resource Center was excited about having a piece of artwork that played music, and I hope they like the song. It plays “Sometimes She Could Scream” (lyrics by Donna Devine, who lives in The Netherlands, music by me—and it is one of the Tascam recordings that came out decent), which is a slightly different look at “abuse.” It was also a deliberate attempt on my part to demonstrate that country music could be a good vehicle for addressing social issues—something it’s almost never used for. The Shoe Projects—they have something like 75 entries—go on display at the Arts Center October 1 but if I manage to get to their reception it won’t be for long: Jane and I are scheduled to be performing at the Talent Show in Manzanita that night. We’ll be treating the assembled multitude to “The Abomination Two-Step.”

Joe

ROCKTOBERFEST POST-MORTEM...

2011-09-18T11:16:00.001-07:00

The Rocktoberfest—at least, our part of it—is over. Yes, it was a good show. Played a lot of people’s favorites, and still managed to concentrate mostly on rock music (with some blues and ragtime thrown in, of course). Larry (sax) was great—a saxophone is ideal for rock ‘n’ roll, and I think Larry would like to play more with us. And while Larry said he liked the rock ‘n’ roll songs best—heck, they all do—I thought some of his best leads were on the more “countrified” songs.

“The Dog’s Song” and “Angel in Chains” are still the hardest songs for me to sing; I’m hitting the very bottom of my voice register on both. (Of course, that doesn’t matter much with “Angel,” because that’s country death metal; it’s okay for the lyrics to be delivered in a flat monotone. It’d be nice, though, to have a lot of reverb on the voice mike when I do that—for ambience.) And some folks told me afterwards “The Dog’s Song” was their favorite of the ones we did, so I do need to be able to sing it better. Perhaps doing it in a different key would help.

For the rest, I could tell people liked Odd Vindstad’s “Simple Questions” (I could see their toes tapping) and “Pole Dancing for Jesus” (that one has been popular absolutely everywhere it’s been played)—and of course the Southern Pigfish anthem, “For Their Own Ends,” which is a consistent hit. Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street” makes ‘em think even while their toes are tapping, which is neat. Sold a CD at the concert, too.

Did I mention it rained? (In fact, as this is written, on Day Two of the Rocktoberfest, it is still raining.) It rained pretty good (though the weather was nice and dry while we were setting up). I think this year, every outdoor gig we’ve had has had rain (we’ve been under cover, though, so it didn’t matter that much); when the weather’s been nice, we’ve been playing indoors. Go figure. The plus side of the rain—which started back up midway through our performance—is it drove the folks who’d been walking around outside into the performance tent, where it was dry, and increased our audience substantially. (Some people did brave the rain to come see us, which was real nice. And some folks said they’d even gotten up early to come, which I think may be the height of dedication.)

I had hoped we would be a hard act to follow, and we might have been. The band on after us—a quintet of older blues musicians—were tight, and quite good on their instruments, but I think we were more entertaining. Yes, those guys could play really, really loud, and had really long (and interesting) lead breaks, but we had lyrics. People act surprised that all our stuff is original; I know we’re a little odd in that regard, but I see no reason to want to play covers. And as the writer of original music, I’d like to see more performers doing my stuff, and stuff by other unknowns, rather than already-famous stuff by already-famous people. I’m just not sure how to arrange that. Deathgrass is proof, I think, that one can do original material and still have an audience and fans.

Next, the Train Set. There’s quite a bit to do for that one (October 1), and it’s occurred to me (finally) that two weeks is not a lot of time. I think we’d better be prepared for bad weather, too. I have been predicting an early fall all year, and I think it’s here. So much for that global warming. At least, I’ll have excuses to play “The Termite Song” and “Love Trails of the Zombie Snails,” both of which talk about the causes of global warming, as audiences huddle and shiver in their winter clothing.

Music at the “Rapture Room” tonight; shares of our Rocktoberfest pay to distribute to the band—and the Writers’ Guild is amenable to meeting on a different night (freeing me up Thursday nights to go play music at the Tsunami Grill in Wheeler).

Joe

OBSESSING ABOUT THE VIDEO...

2011-09-15T16:43:00.001-07:00

I have over 150 photos taken with the “Twenty-Four Seven” video in mind, but I won’t use all of them. I continue to run into “photo opps” that are better than ones I’d taken before—having a camera on hand constantly, and keeping one’s eyes open, is a great habit to get into. With very few exceptions, I have my illustrations for most of the lines in the verses. The chorus is more problematic. The chorus happens four times, and I wanted the photos to be different each time.

“Twenty-four seven,” the opening line of the chorus, is one of the hardest to “picturate.” There’s only one 24-hour restaurant in Tillamook, and it doesn’t advertise the fact. (I did find one sign for it, though.) There are other things that are open all night, though: the hospital, the Sheriff’s Office… I’ll go there.

“You boggle my mind…” There is a kids’ game called “Boggle,” and I did find a copy in a store. The other three iterations of this line need to be something different, though. Are there signs that boggle the observer, for instance?

For “Any which way you slice it,” I have a couple of sales racks of knives and saw blades. A couple of deli signs should fill that out. I know an outfit that sells pizza by the slice, too.

No luck at all with “You’re my bottom line.” I wanted to get photos of some accountants’ front doors, but I haven’t found any. (I know they’re around. Probably hiding—accountants aren’t very popular in These Troubled Times.) May have to illustrate this with some outrageous sale signs instead.

“The cream in my coffee…” A coffee shop sign. Creamer. And a fridge magnet of a cat drinking coffee. One more, and we’re good.

“My moment of truth…” I’d wanted to use entertaining church readerboards, but there aren’t many churches with readerboards around here (and the ones there are aren’t particularly entertaining). Truth may have to take a different (and non-religious) form.

“If wishes were horses…” No horses, alas. I can substitute elk, though. And cows. There are lots of cows in Tillamook County. (In fact, one could do a whole video just of cows. I’ll have to try that. I wonder which song I should use?)

For “I’d marshal my forces,” I’d originally thought of chess sets—and I might still find one. Got a photograph of a group with shovels posing for a groundbreaking, though, and a painting of a convoy of warships at sea. And there are always cows-in-formation.

“And have a field day with you.” No shortage of fields around here (some even without cows), but that wasn’t really what I was after. I want signs. Golf courses, yard sales, perhaps; maybe some of those impromptu anniversary or birthday parties that seem to be rife on the Coast. And I suppose one could always use a field with cows for this.

It’s raining, which I hope is a good thing; the weatherpeople were predicting rain in Portland on Saturday, and we’re usually a day ahead of them on the Coast. With luck, the rain will be over for us by the weekend, and we’ll have nice weather for the Deathgrass Rocktoberfest concert.

The Mid-Atlantic Song Contest got their entry today—“Dead Things in the Shower.” So I did accomplish something. (Applied for a job, too.) I’ll go play music tonight at the Tsunami in Wheeler—I am still obsessed with strengthening my fingers for the gig. It’ll be a chance to practice some of the rock ‘n’ roll numbers on ‘em—to date, they haven’t heard any of those, and they are all rock musicians, after all.

Joe

UPDATES...

2011-09-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

FIVE DAYS till the Rocktoberfest, and there’s lots to do. The Rap is written (though not practiced), and notices sent out; won’t get to practice until at least Thursday night—just two days before the gig (and it might even be Friday instead). Before then, I must play, play, play. Need strong fingers.

Answered a couple of ads on Craigslist (I still check Craigslist), one from a self-described songwriter in Tillamook (I’d like to meet him), and one from a film student in Portland interested in making a music video (I gave him some suggestions—and told him yes, of course he could practice on my stuff). I don’t know if I’ll hear back from either one—people who advertise on Craigslist don’t seem to respond very well.

Music at the “Rapture Room” was nice. About four out-of-towners there, I think, and I hope it impressed ‘em when the whole room sang along with “Pole Dancing for Jesus” and “Armadillo on the Interstate.” I think that’s how writers used to get started, back in the days when you didn’t have to be related to somebody famous to get noticed by The Industry. People liked your songs—ideally, bigger and bigger groups of people. Other people performed the songs (I understand that’s happened a couple of times with “Armadillo”). Eventually, a local DJ got the song on the radio, because they were sure people would listen to their show if they did that. (That’s happened to me at least once. And I hope the DJ was right.)

All that stuff still happens—it just never gets past the “local DJ” point, in part because everything past that point is controlled by the club that doesn’t want any new members. (One Nashville insider told me my attitude was “curmudgeonly.” However, he also didn’t dispute what I was saying.) There is still the Internet—though the Internet, because it is anarchic, is primarily useful as a promotional medium, not a money-making one. Making money off music, as Madonna once said, is a matter of “butts in seats.” And I still don’t have a lot of those.

Transferred Sedona’s pieces of the “Blue Krishna” video to the laptop (yes, it worked), and passed the camera to Kathryn to work with. At this point, the laptop won’t run Windows Movie Maker, though—it says it doesn’t have a sound card (I think it does, and with the new/old operating system, it just doesn’t know it). The laptop also won’t do Internet—though I don’t really care about that, and have a wireless card I can plug in if I want to fix that. “Lazarus” (what else would one call a computer that was brought back from the dead?) does have 1.8 gigabytes of RAM, which is nice, and can burn both CDs and DVDs; it would be good for video work, if I can get the sound working. At this point, if I have to transfer the film footage to “Alice” to work with, I can—but “Alice” still has only 2 gigabytes of free space on her hard drive, even with all my archiving.

Photographs are what fills up the hard drive, because of my insistence on having the highest resolution possible—and “Alice” just got loaded with 65 photographs for the “Twenty-Four Seven” video. And I’m nowhere near done. A lot of those were duplicates, as I tried to find the best camera angles, and I won’t use all of the photos I shot, anyway. (I’ll delete the unused ones later, though I hate to.) Among the hardest shots to find: the horses (or rather signs advertising horses), the “moment of truth” (I wanted to use church readerboards, but I’d like to find entertaining ones), and the “24/7” (there’s only one restaurant in Tillamook that’s open all night, and they apparently don’t advertise it).

It’s possible “Justin” the new computer’s no-workee problem may be just a failed on/off switch (“It is a Dell, after all,” I was told). It still may cost a couple of hundred dollars to find out. Elsewhere, I have the Linda Adams interview to do—I think I’ll discuss the inspirational aspects of roadkill.

And I got Scott Garriott’s album in the mail. Yay!

Joe

SIGNS, 9/11, &C....

2011-09-11T10:26:00.001-07:00

It’s the tenth anniversary of September 11, and the airwaves and cyberspace are full of 9/11 songs. I don’t have one. I tend to leave the serious stuff up to others, and this is no exception. I wasn’t directly involved, and don’t know anyone who was. As a city manager, I noticed our firefighters were the most affected: these are folks who lay their lives on the line regularly, and 9/11 was and is a reminder you don’t always get that life back. And the terrorist attacks? It’s a little like losing a leg, I think: no, your life is not over, but you are going to do things a little differently from now on (though hopefully not a lot differently). Politically, I saw the terrorist attacks used as an excuse to limit people’s freedom by people who were primarily interested in restricting people’s freedom, and I like to think if I had been directly involved, I’d still feel the same way.

Saw a few videos of the old rock ‘n’ roll song “Signs,” with slide shows of (what else?) signs—at times illustrative, at others just funny. A lot of the photos were obviously off the Internet: online photos tend to be poor quality, very fuzzy and “pixillated” if you try to change the resolution. I think that’s because those photos had to be slimmed down to very small file sizes in order to get posted in the first place. I decided some time back not to use any photos from the Internet in any music video. I either take the photos myself, or have someone e-mail me directly photos they took—and in the latter case, I tell them to make sure they’re high resolution (my camera is always set to maximum resolution). I figure that’s one of the trade-offs for high quality.

Took a bunch more photos for the “Twenty-Four Seven” video. I expect I can get most of what I need in the immediate local area, but there are a few shots I need that may entail my traveling as far afield as Lincoln City or Seaside (about an hour north and south).

Found a new contest to enter: Angler’s Mail, a British fishing magazine, was soliciting fishing songs, and one of the themes they were looking for was conservation. So they got “Dead Fishes,” the Elizabethan bluegrass song about a child’s view of pollution. I’m not expecting to win, though it is the sort of contest I like—small market, not much in prizes (they’re giving away a guitar), one judge (who, importantly, does not appear to be from the recording industry). I’m primarily interested in getting a little attention for my stuff, and also for the Coventry Songwriters (I mentioned they were the people who’d told me about the contest). That, the Goodnight Kiss Music contest, and the Songwriters Association of Washington (D.C.) contest, will take care of my contest-entering for the year, I think.

I didn’t search any of these contests out randomly; the D.C. and Angler’s Mail contests I heard about from other writers, and I knew about the Goodnight Kiss contest because I’m on the publisher’s mailing list (and I actually wrote one of the press releases for the thing). I doubt any of that gives me an edge as a contestant, but it does make me more comfortable about entering.

The Rocktoberfest is just one week away, and I need to strengthen my fingers, again. I should play music every chance I can during the next week. Sunday is the jam session at the “Rapture Room” in Nehalem; Monday’s out because of the Arts Center board meeting, but there’s music up north on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and I should go. Thursday and maybe Friday the band will practice—it’ll be our only chance before the gig.

I still have the posters to make for the Rocktoberfest gig, and notices to send out to the “joelist.” I have all the pieces, too, for the Shoes Project. I found a good pair of women’s dress shoes at a thrift store, a CD player at another, and I have the headphones to cut apart for the speakers that I’ll bury in the soles of the shoes. I need to outfit “Alice” with her new CD-rewritable drive (I’ve been avoiding doing that)—I need that to make entry CDs for the other contests, and Train Set CDs for the band.

Joe

THOUGHTS ON TRAIN SONGS (AND A VIDEO)...

2011-09-09T09:43:00.000-07:00

10 songs definite for the Train Set, thus far (and I haven’t gone through everything yet). They fall into the following categories:

GOSPEL:
Life’s Railway to Heaven (trad.)—fast Gospel (starts slow)
Glory Train (Katherine Fear)—fast Gospel
NOSTALGIA:
Tillamook RaIlroad Blues—deliberate blues
HISTORICAL:
Wreck of the Old 97 (trad.)—fast bluegrass
Steamboat Bill (Shields & Leighton)—1910 rock ‘n’ roll
ODDITIES:
Underground (Scott Garriott)—mod. fast folk, with railroad beat
California Zephyr (Christopher Smith)—fast ragtime
The Lightning Express (trad.)—fast bluegrass (starts slow)
The Last Saskatchewan Pirate (trad.)—fast folk
Blue Yodel No. 2 (Jimmie Rodgers)—rock ‘n’ roll

It’s exciting to have permission to do a Scott Garriott song. I really like his music—compelling melodies with very strange lyrics. (And “Underground” has a nice train rhythm. The recording on YouTube has a fiddle lead, too.) I was told Scott’s new album, Dragon in the Doorway, has me playing lead guitar on one of the songs (“Mattress and the Snake Pit”). I remember recording the lead, but I never have heard the final product. I’m getting a copy of the album.

I may well already have the couple more train songs I need to make up an hour’s set. Nonetheless, I assigned the Writers’ Guild “homework” to come up with train songs (actually train lyrics, that I can musicate—it’s mostly poets that have been coming to the meetings), with two caveats in mind: (1) With “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate” in mind, ask what you can say about trains that’s different. Or (2) if you’re going to be nostalgic, answer the question why we’re nostalgic about trains.

I’ll e-mail the “homework” assignment to those who weren’t there, and we’ll see what develops. Bottom line for them all is if they come up with something that’s good, and we can use it, it’s going to get performed by a very good (and quite popular) band, and the writers will be able to be there and hear it. And that, if it happens, will encourage the writers to do more. “Hey, they’re playing my song!” is a powerful incentive.

A bunch of the Train Set songs need to be recorded. I have “Tillamook Railroad Blues” (off the album), and a draft cut of “Steamboat Bill” done for last year’s Bay City centennial, and there might be a video of our “band scramble” band performing “Wreck of the Old 97” at the Jews Harp Festival that I can maybe extract the audio from. The rest I’ll have to record. I did get recordings of everybody’s submissions, but I’ll have to transpose the ones I can sing into a key I can sing them in.

I figured out I can do the music video of “Twenty-Four Seven” with (mostly) photos of SIGNS. It’ll be reminiscent of Dylan’s early music video of “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” except that mine will be photos, not film, and they’ll be snapshots of real signs. (Mine will be in color, too.) The cliches (I prefer to think of them as “cultural shorthand”) are everywhere. I began snapping photos for the video yesterday; might take several days to get ‘em all. I think I need around 65 photos. A few may be hard to get—like finding a “High Water” sign to photograph in the middle of Drought Season. (I do know a public works superintendent, though. Wonder if he has one of those signs stashed away somewhere?)

Supposed to be some passing-through bluegrass musicians coming to the “Rapture Room” jam session Sunday night. Could be fun.

Joe

SOME TRAIN SONGS...

2011-09-07T16:01:00.000-07:00

Still going through train songs… Thoughts below are not complete (and neither is the list—I haven’t digested or tried to play everything yet).

There seems to be a paucity of themes running through train songs, and I’m not sure why. There are a lot of Gospel songs, of the “bound for glory” genre, and most of them are quite good. Trains are a good religious metaphor: a train almost defines “straight and narrow,” has a definite destination, and is rather unstoppable once it gets going. I probably wouldn’t want to do more’n two or three, though, because I don’t want our Train Set to sound like it was all Gospel songs.

Katherine Fear’s “Glory Train” is an ideal example of the genre—and neat because the verses have an unexpected chord progression. One of the best-written Gospel train songs I know is actually public domain—“Life’s Railway to Heaven.” (It was copyrighted by the patent-medicine-salesman-turned-revivalist-preacher who stole the song from a black church, but he did that in 1918, and the copyright’s run out.) It’s a long song, though; five verses (counting the one I wrote for the Dodson Drifters) of 8 lines each, and five choruses (and you have to have one or two lead breaks). But I can sing it.

There are the “history” songs, mostly about train wrecks (and most of those are old songs, because train wrecks don’t happen much any more); we’ll do one, “Wreck of the Old 97” (with the verse Johnny Cash added, and the one I changed)—and we’ll also do the 1910 song that prompted it, “Steamboat Bill” (in which, after Bill’s boat explodes, his widow tells the kids, “Next time, we’re marryin’ a railroad man”).

My “Tillamook Railroad Blues” is nostalgia—a quasi-sad snapshot of the “train on life support.” There is some nostalgia these days about the end of railroading, but it doesn’t seem to take a lot of different forms. There are perhaps opportunities there that aren’t being taken advantage of: yes, we’re sad to see it all go—but why? I’m not sure even “Tillamook Railroad Blues” answers that question. Something (or someone) should.

There are the “oddities.” (I like oddities.) Christopher Smith’s “California Zephyr” is about a baby being born on a train (supposedly a true story), delivered in a nice ragtime style. ”The Lightning Express” (an old bluegrass traditional), about a kid traveling to see his dying mother—and getting kicked off the train because he doesn’t have the fare—was a Dodson Drifters staple; delivered Grateful Dead style, it’s one of the happiest-sounding songs about death I’ve ever run across. Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel No. 2 (T for Texas)” is a lost-love blues, with some great punch lines; it works real well as rock ‘n’ roll.

A real odd one I ran across—it’s British, and apparently public domain—is something called (I think) “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate.” Yes, if you’re going to embark on a career as a pirate in the board-flat wheat fields of Saskatchewan, you’re going to be “sailing” a train, not a boat, and the “gold” you’re going to be stealing is going to be some of those “amber waves of grain.” It’s cute. The moral—never expressed outright, of course—is that yes, you can follow your dreams, but be prepared to make compromises. I haven’t found sheet music (or a recording) for this one; I might have to invent something myself.

What else can you do with trains? “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate” suggests the field is really wide open—but I don’t see many people out in the field. Stan Good sent me lyrics (which I’m not sure I can musicate) about a relationship “headed for a train wreck”; the economy, or what’s left of it, appears headed for one, too. A lot of people are upset about the “gravy train,” also—though there’s a lot of disagreement about who’s on it. And there was that old urban legend, popularized by Huddie Ledbetter, that if you stood in the light of an oncoming train at midnight, you could get out of jail. Is that why so many people are stuck in prison? The train doesn’t come by any more?

Writers’ Guild Thursday night; might practice Friday with Larry and Charlie for the Rocktoberfest gig—can’t get the whole band together until just a couple of nights before the gig. And the Train Set to figure out.

Joe

ITALIAN RAGTIME?

2011-09-06T10:22:00.001-07:00

One of the things I like about playing music with diverse groups of people is you get interesting ideas. Take “Italian ragtime.” I don’t know who at the Rapture Room suggested it, but somebody did. Turns out there is such a thing. (Thanks, Google.) Not much of one, because ragtime was a very short-lived genre, and very specifically American (and black American to boot), though ragtime did enjoy a momentary worldwide popularity—there’s some Czech ragtime, even Indonesian ragtime. And yes, Italian ragtime. I ran across two Italian ragtime tunes, one by an American composer, Rev. Gary Davis, and one by an Italian composer.

It’s actually fairly simple stuff, and I could play it on the guitar with a little practice. Ragtime isn’t about what you play so much as how it’s played. My favorite definition, among those I found, said that ragtime was an attempt to play African-American banjo music on the piano. (That one makes sense—to me, anyway.) Ragtime music doesn’t generally have words, of course—but anything I write has to have words. Words is what I do. I suppose for Italian ragtime, they’d have to be in Italian (“Alice” the ‘puter does have a translator program). Could make it a cowboy song (of the “spaghetti Western” variety, of course).

Add that to the list of things to do. The first thing I am going to finish is cleaning out the garage. After that I will worry about other things.

Michael and Sedona have the old digital camera, with a freshly-scrubbed brain and new batteries; they’ll call or e-mail when they’re done with it, and I’ll download their footage, wipe the brain again, and pass the camera on to someone else. The final product of this experiment—a music video of “Blue Krishna”—should be interesting.

Sent out a few politically charged Labor Day messages; to paraphrase Woody Guthrie, this Labor Day a lot of people didn’t have anything to labor at. The song that got the most attention? “50 Ways to Cure the Depression”—I think because it was on video, and the others weren’t. Like Len Amsterdam said, “Video is the new audio.” That’s a reminder that I should turn all of my music that I can into video—not because there’s any money in it (I have not seen any for me, at least), but because it’s an attention-getting tactic. If I want people to notice my stuff, I have to reach them through the medium they’re noticing in.

I have the video of “Blue Krishna” underway; I’ll see what I can do about “The Dog’s Song” this coming week (I do have a good recording of that, off the Deathgrass album). One that can be done “French style” (fast-moving slide show with text overlays) is “Twenty-Four Seven,” the all-cliches waltz. The soundtrack for that one isn’t bad, even though it was done on the Tascam. As with the “50 Ways” video, I’ll script out what photos I need, and snap them as the opportunities present themselves. Despite being the same “French style,” it will be different—I am insistent on each video being different, just like I want each song to be different.

Other stuff to do: the laptop to set up for video work; Ahna’s song to record; footage to film for the video class (I am really behind); the Train Set to organize; the garage studio to expand; the “My Baby’s On That Train” song to work on; more of Alice’s hard drive to free up (she’s only 95% full now). And the contests to enter. Don’t know about that local bluegrass band—I haven’t heard anything more. I did respond to ads on Craigslist from a couple of country vocalists (one in Texas, and one about 60 miles from where I live) looking for material—and they’ve responded back. Might be an opportunity there.

Joe

STUFF TO DO...

2011-09-03T13:41:00.001-07:00

http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=11015399 “Free-Range Person,” off the Deathgrass album. It’s Labor Day weekend, and (to paraphrase Woody Guthrie) a lot of folks don’t got no jobs to labor at. I suppose at the Library (today) and the “Rapture Room” (tomorrow), I should concentrate on Failed Economy songs, in honor of Labor Day. I do know rather a lot of them.

That rumored bluegrass band will reportedly have banjo, fiddle, mandolin, bass, and guitar (I’d be the guitar, they tell me—and I can play bluegrass guitar). I don’t know what they have in mind to perform; a lot of my stuff lends itself easily to bluegrass, but bluegrass musicians tend to be thoroughgoing traditionalists. (And traditionals—public-domain songs, in other words—are okay, too. I just think it’s important to avoid covers when you’re being paid. There are copyright issues, even if no one else pays attention to them—and as a writer, I’m kinda insistent on paying attention on principle.) As far as my availability for practice, I reminded them that when you’re unemployed, every day is Friday. Just call. As with the job front, I will not hold my breath. What happens, happens. In the meantime, I have stuff to do.

“Alice” needs that replacement CD-rewritable drive installed; after that, I can make the CDs to send to the Goodnight Kiss Music and Mid-Atlantic song contests. I need to burn a CD of “The Dog’s Song” for a local librarian who’s reportedly got a hyperactive kitten that could star in that music video. (Got to catch them kittens while they’re young. Aslan and Hansolo at home are constant reminders that kittens get big real fast.) And I’ve got a ton of files to archive to free up hard drive space on “Alice.”

I have “Nomad Man from Nowhere” (Ahna Ortiz’ song) to record; I’ll dump the product to the refurbished laptop, to see if my vision of mobile recording is really going to be as simple as I thought. (The way things have gone, I no longer expect anything to be simple.) A thought: the laptop is only four years old. Does that mean it can burn CDs, too?

I’ll approach folks Sunday night at the “Rapture Room” about shooting footage for the video of “Blue Krishna.” Potentially, I’ve got three digital cameras to work with, but I might just use one for simplicity’s sake. If everybody’s local, I can pick up and dump video and transfer the camera fairly easily. In fact, if I can connect the camera to the laptop (I have the software), I could do camera transfers on a while-you-wait basis.

It is time to start assembling the Train Set. I’m waiting on songs from one more writer, but he’s been having trouble sending them—I don’t know if I’ll get them. Don’t know if I have enough usable material, that I can both play and sing, to fill an hour’s gig. Have to see. (And following that, I have all those songs to record, so they’re in the key and arrangement we’ll use for the gig.)

For the Musical Shoes, I’ve got a set of headphones to dismantle, and a pair of shoes to tear into, too (the ear speakers will go in the soles), and a memory card to find for the 50-cent *.mp3 player (which I hope works—I don’t know that yet). Can I use the laptop to program the card? If not, maybe one of the Macs at the Arts Center can do it. There are work-arounds for almost everything—some of them just aren’t easy.

In the course of cleaning the garage (which job is not finished), I have figured out how to about double the size of the 5x7 studio—and still (maybe) leave room to park a car (not that anyone would ever use a garage for that). My excuse for doing the expansion would be that I need to move my old watermaster’s desk (vintage 1906, rescued from the City of Vale) out to the garage, and I need somewhere to put it, and it might as well be used as a desk. And it won’t fit in the studio as presently constituted. Expanding the studio is a tad ambitious project, but I do have the materials on hand. Have to finish cleaning the garage first, though, so I have room to move things around.

Joe

"ALICE" IS BACK...

2011-09-02T13:02:00.001-07:00

Well, “Justin” the new computer may not have been such a good deal after all. I believe his power supply has quit now, and that’s a fairly spendy item to replace (and I can’t just swap out one from another computer, because everything in “Justin” is New And Different). I did isolate the keyboard-don’t-work problem: it appears to be a defect in the BIOS (though how it happened, I have no idea). They have fixes for that (which suggests the problem occurs frequently with Dell computers), and I downloaded them—for what it’s worth. Not much I can do with it now.

So “Alice” is back. (Say hi to everybody, Alice.) I will install a replacement CD-rewritable drive, archive a whole bunch of files off the 99.9% full hard drive, and keep her alive a little longer. And “Justin”? He’ll sit in a corner until I can afford to take him to an out-of-town tech—which could be a while. I’ll need a job first. Biggest frustration is I feel I’ve wasted my time (not to mention a little money) these past several days—and I consider wasting my time an unforgivable sin. It’s especially unforgivable when I do it to myself.

On the positive side, the laptop has had its brain wiped and Windows XP installed (no more Windows Vista) so we can start with a clean (and usable) slate. (And no, I didn’t do that myself—I had it done by someone else.) I want to use the laptop for (among other things) mobile recording; it doesn’t need to do anything fancy, just recognize the Tascam as a portable hard drive. (Doesn’t even have to do Internet.)

This will overcome the Tascam’s biggest limitation—the digital-camera chip “brain” that can hold only one song at a time. I can record remotely on the Tascam, mix the product on the Tascam, and then dump it immediately to the laptop—and then wipe the Tascam’s little chip-brain and do it again immediately, instead of waiting until I get back home. Next time I go to southern Oregon, I could accomplish a lot of stuff.

No gigs this weekend (and it’s Labor Day weekend—I shouldn’t let that happen again). I got to go to the Tsunami jam Thursday night and play lead, and I’ll play Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, too, and wear my Deathgrass T-shirt and remind people that I am in a band, and both I (solo) and we (band) are interested in gigs. There are rumors that a local bluegrass band might be starting up, and I’ve encouraged that; I don’t know if they’re interested in me being part of that, but it’d be nice.

I sent a couple more promotional CDs off (one to a concert organizer, one to a radio station in southern Oregon). I’ve still got Ahna Ortiz’ “airship mechanic” song to record, and it’s time to move “StuartLittle” out to the garage studio, too (and clean the studio), and see if he can do wireless Internet from there. I keep coming up with snippets for the new train song (tentative title “My Baby’s On That Train”), and we’ll see if something jells in time to be used in the Train Set. I’ve got The Shoes That Play Music (specifically, Donna Devine’s “Sometimes She Could Scream”) to build for the Women’s Resource Center’s art show, too. I did find an *.mp3 player at a thrift store (50 cents); it needs a digital-camera chip (one of the older, larger ones, it appears), and if I can’t get that locally, it’ll have to wait for the next trip to Portland, whenever that is. For the speakers, I have a broken set of headphones I can cannibalize. And the shoes themselves I’ll get from the garage (another reason to clean the garage).

Entry forms have been posted for the Goodnight Kiss Music contest, so I’ve downloaded mine. I think I’ll send “Dead Things in the Shower” if co-writer Bobbie Gallup okays it. I’ll need the new CD-rewritable drive installed to copy it.

For now, though, it’s off to the garage to work. Say goodnight, Alice.

Joe

NEW COMPUTER--AND VIDEO THOUGHTS...

2011-08-31T21:17:00.001-07:00

The new computer (its name appears to be “Justin”) is up and running. Does Internet just fine, and I've recovered a few Website links—by no means all. Got a word processor (Open Office), Audacity (this time with the *.mp3 “exporter”), installed my old Acrobat, digital camera and Click 'n' Design programs and a replacement photo processor (my 1996-vintage Adobe PhotoDeluxe is too old to work); still need to do PageMaker, the business card program, and a couple others. I also have to switch sound cards, apparently—the one in “Justin” is garbage.

I have tons of files to transfer over, and it won't be that easy. ”Alice” has finally given up the ghost (her motherboard is completely dead), so I'll have to pull her hard drive, add it to a PC of equivalent vintage (I know where there is one), and dump the files to a couple of flash drives to transfer to “Justin.” Alas, change is never easy.

Computer designs changed drastically since “Alice” was built, so I can't just add her old hard drive to “Justin”—I have to re-install each and every program (and some, like my 1997 version of Lotus, won't work any more). It's why I'm not a great fan of progress. (And this version of Windows XP has something called “Windows Dancer.” When you click on it, a dancing girl appears in the corner of the screen, gyrating. Why was that necessary?)

I do want to try creating that fan-generated music video. I think I'll use “Blue Krishna” for the experiment: it's a draft recording, but a pretty good one, and the Hinduesque subject matter may encourage people to be creative. I think Michael and Sedona should have first crack at a camera, since the Krishna painting at their Rainbow Lotus tea house was the inspiration for the song, and then I'll randomly tap others. Everybody can have a CD of the song for reference as soon as I have “Justin” the new 'puter making CDs. If I use folks close to home for my videographers, I can deliver and pick up the cameras personally, making the process move a lot faster. (Still, it'd be fun to do one of these really long distance, and transfer the cameras around by mail. One could end up with some fascinating stuff.)

I can overlay credits during the instrumental break (like I've done in the last two music videos), and maybe overlay lyrics to the song, too, if the footage I get seems to lend itself to it. And I'll want to add a Rap at the beginning, explaining both the genesis of the song and the fan-generated video idea—and give credit to the videographers. (It'd be nice to do that—or part of it—live. I could do that on one of the Arts Center's Macs—but I wonder how my new 'puter would handle a Webcam? I do have one of those, a good one I think, that I never hooked up to either “Alice” or “StuartLittle.”)

And once the “Blue Krishna” video is done, then what? More such videos? A lot depends on how this one comes out. One way or another, every song of mine should be turned into video; not only is “video the new audio,” as DJ Len Amsterdam maintains, but being on video exposes the song to a whole different audience, that's not hearing the songs on CD.

Another performance opportunity: the music program at the 2nd Street Market is under new management (again), and they've asked me if I'm interested in a Friday night slot. Maybe. I appreciate the offer (and I'd said I wanted more exposure), but it'd sure be nice to have accompaniment for something like that. I think I get on people's nerves if I'm singing at them for more than an hour, and this is a 2-hour set.

Sound isn't a problem—I think I can borrow again the 4-channel amp I used for the Willamette Writers gig, and that'll work for the 2nd Street Market's stage. (And of course the gig is unpaid. The 2nd Street Market has a long way to go before they can afford to pay performers. We'd be splitting tips. I'm generally happy to play for free, but I'm uncomfortable asking anyone else to.) The Hoffman Center in Manzanita is doing another talent show (finally)--October 1, same day as the Train Set, but at a different time. Yes, I'm interested. (Have to audition first.) It's been suggested that this time they get “The Abomination Two-Step.”

Music Thursday night at the Tsunami in Wheeler, Friday night at City Hall in Garibaldi, and maybe Saturday afternoon at the Tillamook library (don't know about that one yet—it's Labor Day weekend). Perhaps Sunday night at the “Rapture Room” I can start the camera going around for the “Blue Krishna” video.

Joe

"BLUE KRISHNA"--AND MARKETING...

2011-08-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

“Blue Krishna” is online: http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=10947098 With Sedona Marie (co-owner of the Rainbow Lotus) on flute, and “Rockin’ Dr. Tom” Tracy on sitar. Mixed in Audacity because poor about-to-be-replaced “Alice” the ‘puter couldn’t produce a decent CD to dump to the Tascam.

Fun song, and I am happy with the way it turned out. Commercial? I doubt there’s a market for that sort of thing; it’ll get played (and maybe requested) at the Rainbow Lotus, where it all started, and maybe a few other places, but it’s unlikely to be a regular inclusion on a setlist, much less ever make it to a record. The recording is an interesting experiment—yes, a sitar really can be a bluegrass instrument. (Of course, George Harrison showed it was a rock ‘n’ roll instrument, so no one should be surprised.)

That does beg the question how one does market stuff these days. Even the Nashville pundits agree the old models don’t work any more. (The big record labels appear to be the only ones still maintaining you can’t become a success without a contract from a big record label—but they’re reportedly in serious financial trouble themselves.)

There are a lot of success stories out there featuring folks who ignored or bypassed the “traditional” (record label) route, but the unanswered question in each case is “How did they get noticed?” There are a lot of good writers and musicians out there, and with times hard, more and more are performing in order to make ends meet (for some, it’s the only way they have to make ends meet).

So you do gigs (and maybe some of them will even be paying gigs), and you have music posted online, and videos on YouTube (et al.), and a commercially-recorded CD for sale online and through Retail Outlets and at gigs. None of that guarantees you success or even an income, though they’re important pieces of the “getting noticed” program. (A little like winning the lottery. Very few people win the lottery, but one thing they all have in common is they all bought tickets.)

I’m not after a guarantee, particularly (it’d be nice, of course), but I am a fan of targeted marketing—deliberately going after the people who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer. (That’s how I’ve done personnel recruitments as a city manager, and it’s worked out very well.) In this case, I’m not sure where or who the target is.

That shouldn’t stop me. One can broadcast—it’s inefficient, but one might see a target audience begin to be identifiable somewhere in the process. Internet “stations” abound; they can all get the CD. Venues can get cold calls with a CD (or, if I’m soliciting a solo gig, a DVD of me performing solo). Festivals can get a “You don’t know me, but…” letter—again, with a CD or DVD. And one can drop periodic (and hopefully not annoying) requests into Social Media telling them about these efforts and saying, “Hey, if you know any of these people, would you put in a good word for me?” And I can find these people the same way I find city manager jobs to apply for: keep my eyes and ears open, and when I hear a name dropped, go after it.

More videos to do; video is one place I can be really experimental, since I don’t know enough to have any preconceived notions. I saw an ad from one video production company saying that (for a price, of course) they’d send you a camera and you could shoot a bunch of footage that they’d proceed to turn into a music video. Novel idea, there. I have two old digital cameras that can “do” video. Could I tap some people I know and ask them to shoot some footage that they think would fit a particular song I gave ‘em (I wouldn’t care what it was—could be scenery, or even their band playing the song), and then mail me back the camera? If I could get several people to do this for the same song, I could blend the clips together, and it could be really interesting.

As with the “Blue Krishna” song, it might be nothing more than a Fun Thing. On the other hand, how many artists enlist their fans in making videos of their songs? Why not?

Joe

SONG CONTEST(S)...

2011-08-28T12:15:00.001-07:00

It is time, I think, to enter another song contest. I try to do a couple every year. This one is the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest, put on by a songwriters’ group in Washington, D.C. I really don’t know much about them—but it was comforting that their rules said they’d only accept professionally-produced demos. Most song contests (at least those with professional judges) are like that, but most don’t say so—they’ll say “submit anything,” and not tell you the judges are going to throw out anything that’s not “radio-ready.”

What to send? I’ve got two professionally-recorded albums to work from, Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up (2005) and the Deathgrass album, Dead Things in the Shower (2011), plus five demos done with Mike Dunbar and a gaggle of Nashville session musicians at the Pineyfest songwriters’ conference in 2007. Four of the Pineyfest demos and two of the Deathgrass songs are co-writes, but co-writes are okay, according to the contest rules. I think I’d pick “Tillamook Railroad Blues” from the Deathgrass CD, and (if I feel comfortable spending the money on a second entry) “Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up,” the title cut from the 2005 album.

The prizes are small, which is a hopeful sign—it indicates this contest is small, and I have a better shot at winning. I like to enter contests I think I can win. However, I think the primary thing one gets out of contests is exposure: people hear the song who otherwise wouldn’t know about it, and if they like it, they may check to see what else you’ve done. (And if the people listening and checking are Industry Professionals, there might be business out of it.) A lot of “ifs” there, obviously. And that’s why I hate to invest much money in these things.

I’ll wait to copy the CDs until I have the new (actually, “new”) computer set up and running. Yes, “Alice” is getting replaced. I found a good deal—local, even—and am taking advantage of it. It’s not that “Alice” isn’t good at what she does—after seven years, she should be; it’s that after seven years, her motherboard is going, and various other components (most recently, the CD-rewritable drive) are wearing out. I am neither really surprised or really upset—I know things wear out. However, I do still have Alice’s predecessor, “Wilma,” a 1991-vintage 486 running Windows 95 (built for me by a computer repair guy in Eastern Oregon) out in the garage, and everything on Wilma still works, after 20 years—reminding me they definitely don’t make ‘em like they used to.

There’s a contest coming up in September, too, that I want to make sure to enter; it’s being put on by Goodnight Kiss Music, a publishing company I’m on the mailing list of. They haven’t done a contest in a while, and I do want to make sure the publisher remembers me. (I’ll send something from the Deathgrass album—it’ll be an opportunity to show it off.)

Now that I have a little more free time (since people are not lining up to offer me jobs), I need to get out more. I’ve been primarily jamming at the “Rapture Room” in Nehalem on Sunday nights, the Tillamook Library on Saturday afternoons, and once again at Garibaldi City Hall on Friday nights. I’ve arranged to have next Thursday evening free from the Writers’ Guild, so I can go to the “country” jam at the Tsunami Grill in Wheeler, but I should do more. A few solo gigs, perhaps, or even duets (if I could arrange for a willing accompanist). An increasing number of venues—particularly north of here—seem to be having live music, and a lot of it is solo or duo acts. I’d like to insert myself into that trend. Not because I’m any great shakes as a performer (though I can act like I know what I’m doing), but because I want exposure for the material, and about the only way I can do that is to perform it myself.

Joe

"SNOW PIGGY AND THE THE SEVEN JEDI"?

2011-08-23T21:55:00.001-07:00

The by-now-infamous “Pig Wars” puppet troupe have done four plays now, dramatizing (in order) the legends of the three little pigs, the three billy goats gruff, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Lest they fade into obscurity, we should do another play. But which fairy tale to fracture this time?

Snow White? There is really not a lot of plot in the Snow White story, despite Disney making a full-length movie out of it in 1939. Evil step-parent (that’d have to be Darth) has it in for beautiful (compared to Darth, anyway) Princess Leah, who escapes (to a galaxy far, far away, of course) and hooks up with The Seven Jedi (of which we see only Yoda and Luke—the rest, we’re told, are at work saving the galaxy) and hides out at their secret military base. Darth finds the princess, brings her an evil-looking present (maybe the pumpkin from the last play), knocks her out with a brick (using the Dark Side of the Force, in other words), and the princess stays unconscious until discovered by the handsome prince (Hansolo, I guess).

Of course, we have to have the magic mirror (we used the mirror in “Cinderpiggy” so that Leah would have someone to talk to, but the Snow White legend is really where the mirror comes from). We need a part for Chewy, too. Maybe Chewy should be the one who always gets asked (and answers) the “Who’s the fairest?” question—the mirror could get really annoyed at that. And Chewy has to be the one who’s supposed to dump the girl’s body off in space, and ends up shipping her off to the galaxy far, far away instead—there’s no one else to play that role. Can Chewy pull it off with a one-word vocabulary?

We can’t do the Disney chase scene through the mountains with sock puppets—and we don’t want the evil step-parent getting killed off, anyway: this is a kids’ play. Disney could be violent (especially toward stepmothers), but we won’t. Could we maybe have Darth and Chewy live happily ever after, too (eating cookies, of course)—after giving Leah and Hansolo the annoying magic mirror as a wedding present? And this time, the mirror can join in the “moral of the story is…” discussion at the end. It just might work. We can call it “Snow Piggy and the Seven Jedi.”

I wonder what we’d do for a song? (The one verse, one chorus songs performed by the sock-puppet band have become a tradition now. Have to have one. The public expects it.) And what genre? We’ve done rock (in “Sleeping Piggy”), and country (in “Cinderpiggy”). Bluegrass, perhaps? (I know a fiddle player.) A polka?

I’ve threatened to do a sock-puppet play based on the legend of the Treasure of Neahkahnie Mountain (it was actually the subject of a movie), but I probably won’t—the fairy tales work better for our Star Wars troupe. People know how the fairy tales are supposed to go, because they grew up with them—and then we can twist the tales unmercifully (and humorously) in the course of fitting our “actors” into the roles. If people didn’t already know the story, it wouldn’t work as well.

Found a few more public-domain songs that might be suitable for the Train Set: “The Last Ride,” a dying-hobo tune that may date as far back as 1890 (Hank Snow did it with a real rockabilly beat, which I’d like to imitate), “Reuben’s Train,” which dates from the Civil War (and has a grisly murder in the last verse), and Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel No. 2 (T for Texas),” which was a Dodson Drifters standard—it plays good as rock ‘n’ roll, and there aren’t many rock ‘n’ roll train songs. Of the tunes I’ve been sent by songwriters, I think there are only three I have managed to be able to play and sing—but I’m not done yet. This week, I get to play music Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and maybe even Thursday night before the Writers’ Guild meeting—and there’s another job to apply for that I wouldn’t mind having. And is there a play to write, too?

Joe

WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT...

2011-08-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

So what does one write about? I don’t usually have the “What do I write about?” problem; I’m either working on an “assignment” (from Coventry or the Writers’ Guild, say) or an idea somebody fed me just took form (or flight). I noticed the originals that the professional band performed Saturday night included a lot of love songs (their traditionals were a lot more diverse). Love, I suppose, is a safe thing to talk about: it’s pretty universal—since virtually everybody’s been there, or is there, you can talk about it and be pretty certain your audience will understand.

There may not be many other themes these days in commercial country music. There’s religion (following very conventional, Protestant forms and imagery, though), drinking, and how wonderful it is to live in the country (written and performed, one Nashville pundit noted, by people who have never been there). Maybe not much else. (I don’t listen to the radio much.) There are political songs—comedian Ray Stevens has done a bunch of them—but it’s hard to do political songs without sounding preachy (and even Ray sounds preachy in a lot of them).

And my own stuff? Well, “Earwigs in the Eggplant,” my most recent “keeper,” is a love song, but the love is more an afterthought; it’s an alphabetical (sort of) listing of plants and garden pests, twisted into a love song because it had to be about something. It was deliberately written so that 45 Degrees North would have something about vegetables for the Manzanita Farmer’s Market gig.

“Selling Off My Body Parts” is another hymn for the Failed Economy (and the idea originally came from daughter)—tongue planted firmly in cheek because I very much do not want to be preachy. “Pole Dancing for Jesus” is a religious song primarily in style—and happened because Gene Burnett passed on that clip from Fox News. And “Blue Krishna” is kind of unclassifiable; it’s really just one of those “wondering” things, answering the question (once I’d seen the Krishna painting in the Rainbow Lotus) “Why is Krishna blue?”

And then I’ve got what I think of as the Bad Guys Series, sensitive treatments of a mugger (“Last Song of the Highwayman”), a serial killer (“The Dead Sweethearts Polka”), a stalker (“In the Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You”), and a suicide (“Angel in Chains”). The last three of those resulted from challenges by the Coventry songwriters group over in England, and the first was a deliberate attempt to write a medieval ballad (though I ignored about half the rules for medieval ballad-writing in the process).

It almost follows the mantra I gave the Songstuff folks in my bio: “Happy, upbeat, uptempo songs about death, lost love, betrayal, religion, and dead animals.” Even my love song for my wife from last year, “Always Pet the Dogs,” still has a dead (actually, reincarnated) dog in it.

Two conclusions from the above: (1) I get nearly all my ideas from other people. And (2) I sure don’t follow the conventional pattern. I don’t know if the latter is a good thing; I suppose I could always say, “Well, there’s more to life than love.” (And religion, and drinking, and living in the country or wanting to.) Maybe the focus on love (et al.) in other people’s songs is the result of so much writing being done in a vacuum; when you have a limited frame of reference, perhaps you end up with a limited repertoire. I very much do not want that to happen to me (and I suppose I have to live with the consequences).

Final thought. If what I’m doing isn’t marketable, why do people keep requesting the songs?

Joe

"MOOKSTOCK"?

2011-08-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

I was approached at the library by a fellow promoting a weekend of music to raise money for the music program in Tillamook schools. He’s calling it “Mookstock.” It is a good idea. That’s what the “Moograss” bluegrass festival did, in its run from 2001 to around 2005 or 2006, and it was quite successful.

Would Deathgrass like to play? Yes, but… The fellow was talking about having the thing Labor Day weekend, which is less than two weeks away (he said it had taken the Fair Board a long, long time to get around to signing a contract for use of the county fairgrounds, which doesn’t surprise me), and I told him we couldn’t do it on that short notice—we’re currently working on getting ready for the Rocktoberfest, which is Sept. 17, two whole weeks later than he was talking about. I urged him to postpone the date further (I don’t think he has any commitments yet)—say, to Sept. 24-25, a week after the Rocktoberfest. We could do that, I think. We’ll see.

Sold a CD at the library, too, but I gave one to the promoter dude, telling him he needed it; that was how the Rocktoberfest folks auditioned bands—by getting CDs. That weeds out the groups that aren’t far enough along to have CDs out.

My first reaction, on hearing that the Fair Board was going to charge for use of the fairgrounds, was “They said what?” Just my opinion, but if it’s a benefit for the kids’ music program, nobody should be charging for anything. If ‘twere me—and it is not me, of course—I would tell the Fair Board that if we didn’t get the place for free, we’d go somewhere that was free, and we’d talk about their unwillingness to help the kids.

Tillamook High School, for instance, has much the same infrastructure as the fairgrounds (not as good, true, but one takes what one can get)—there’s a football field, with bleachers, and you could pull one of those mobile stages out into the arena just like you could at the fairgrounds. (If the weather’s bad, you can play inside, too.) Lodging and food for the musicians coming from out of town would be more problematic, but emphasize “free” and “benefit for the kids” and you might get a lot of help.

And Tillamook isn’t the only school district where the music program is hurting. When money gets tight, music, art and drama are always the first things to get scrapped—as if civilizing kids isn’t a big priority. Not only is everybody’s budget slim these days, it’s going to stay that way for a while—or get worse. It’d be nice to do something similar for the schools to the north (Neah-Kah-Nie) and south (Nestucca), too. And in both those cases, the school itself might be the best place to do it. Our schools haven’t been involved near enough in the community, and this might be an opportunity to force them to “interface” a little.

Saturday night, I got to hear a professional band at the Museum (I like seeing—and critiquing—the competition). Three guitars (and a percussionist)—but one guitarist was playing lead, and one “emulating” bass, and two of the guitarists occasionally switched to blues harp (at different times, of course). Those two were also the singers, and they were both writers, so they harmonized on each other’s stuff. Not a bad arrangement. Almost all the material was original or traditional. (I’d had hopes 45 Degrees North could turn into something like this.) Nice to see someone being successful insisting on not doing covers. That’s what I want to do. I am not an entertainer except by default; I’m a writer, and what I want is the best possible exposure for the material I’ve written.

And these guys’ material wasn’t bad, either. One can’t help wondering, though, to what extent having good singing voices makes writers pay less attention to lyrics, and more to presentation. I can’t afford that luxury. Like Bob Dylan, John Prine, Leonard Cohen, Buck Owens, and the other writers I try to emulate, I don’t have a voice, and I don’t have the guitar chops; words is all I’ve got, and I have to make them as perfect as possible in order to get any attention. When (or if) those lyrics get mated up with a decent voice (think Peter, Paul and Mary doing Bob Dylan), you can really have something good.

Joe

ROCKTOBERFEST SETLIST...

2011-08-20T00:56:00.001-07:00

The Rocktoberfest setlist looks like this:

Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow Gospel
Test Tube Baby—Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll
Steamboat Bill (Shields & Leighton)—1910 rock ‘n’ roll
So 20th Century (Coleman & Lazzerini)—ragtime
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues
No Good Songs About the War—slow march
Simple Questions (O.N. Vindstad)—rockabilly
Angel in Chains—country death metal
Writer’s Block Blues—slow & sleazy
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Aginst the Law (Woody Guthrie)—slow blues
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass

Of 18 songs, only six are classifiable as some variety of country music. We’ve got six that are rock, folk-rock, or rockabilly, plus some blues (3), ragtime (1), and country death metal (1). The one bluegrass song doesn’t sound bluegrass at all when Larry plays it on saxophone (it didn’t sound bluegrass when the Grateful Dead did it, either). There’s a mix of tempos and keys, too.

Next step: CDs for the band—and lyric sheets for Larry and Charlie for the songs they haven’t played before. (I think “Pole Dancing for Jesus” is the only one that nobody’s played before. Deathgrass never played it because 45 Degrees North was playing it—but 45 Degrees North has broken up.) I can distribute the stuff tomorrow when I go to play music at the Tillamook Library.

Music with the Friday Night Group wasn’t bad; I concentrated on old, familiar tunes I was pretty sure everybody knew, and that Elsie could or would play accordion lead on. She (accordion) and I (guitar) were the only musicians there who could play lead, and I can’t do a lead while I’m singing. At least, with new strings on the guitar, I can pull off a mostly acceptable quasi-bass (no bass player there, either). Did have a good audience, though.

One new person (another poet) at the Writers’ Guild Thursday night In Jim’s absence, and with Vaughn moved, I seem to have ended up as Team Leader of this outfit, and I’m not sure what to do with it. I’ve been trying to steer everybody toward “oral tradition” poetry—the sort of stuff that’s recited, rather than read—because that kind of poetry is susceptible to musication, and as Leonard Cohen once said, that’s how a poet gets to make a living in the modern world. It would be neat if these poets could turn into polished lyricists, whose stuff could be set to music by people like me (and hopefully many more people than just me)—we’d have a miniature Tin Pan Alley song factory here on the Coast. I’m hoping my musication of Ahna’s “airship mechanic” song (which I do think will come out good) will show them the sort of thing that’s possible, and get them excited.

I have loaded all the “new” hardware into the “Hulk” computer, and it still can’t find either hard drive, or the CD drive. Makes one wonder if the motherboard’s bad. I have no way to test it, except by switching everything to another hulk (I have two more in reserve I can use). And “Alice” the ‘puter’s hard drive is still 99.9% full, making it difficult to do anything major. (Her motherboard’s going, too. She is over 7 years old, which is longer than most computers live—though “Ben,” the PC that I resurrected for the Arts Center, is 12 years old.) Got the old laptop to do a brain-wipe on, also.

Joe

ANOTHER IDEA...

2011-08-18T14:54:00.001-07:00

An idea, to start with: the Women’s Resource Center is having a “Walk in Their Shoes” contest, to call attention to abuse; artists are supposed to decorate shoes (either their own, or ones provided by WRC—WRC has decorating materials, too) illustrating the problem in some way, and they’ll go on display at the Bay City Arts Center. The “Walk in Their Shoes” project will be the Artist of the Month exhibit at the Arts Center for October.

I would like to do this. I would want to do it differently, of course. What about a pair of shoes that played music? I do have a song about abuse (actually, I have half of it—the lyrics were written by a lady in The Netherlands, Donna Devine, and I musicated them), and it’d be fun to use this. (Hight “Sometimes She could Scream,” and the link is http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=6833581. I had wanted to show Donna that country music is a good vehicle for discussing social issues—something it’s almost never used for. No, the song isn’t about “abuse” the way it’s conventionally thought of—but that’s probably a good thing, too.)

I have the shoes; I can either use a pair of worn-out sandals of mine (worn out is good), or abandoned teenaged-daughter shoes from the garage. Paint ‘em pink (probably), and run a big, sharp nail up through the sole. The challenge is making the display play music. (The other challenge is making it do so for next to no money.) I know there are programmable e-proms—the little things they put in those musical cards and stuffed animals—but I don’t know where to get them (or what they’d cost), and I haven’t found one yet that would hold four minutes of music. I need to do something else. A cheapo *.mp3 player, perhaps, or a small battery-powered CD player, hooked up to a tiny set of speakers. (If I do that, it’d be better to use girl’s shoes. I can hide the speakers inside.) I’ve got until Sept. 23 to put it together.

And the why? Making people think is a holistic exercise; you can’t (or shouldn’t) just do it with sound. (There are studies that claim we learn best by experiencing something with as many of the senses as possible—sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.) With the Shoe Project, we get to incorporate more of the senses—sight, touch, smell (I bet the shoes from the garage are musty)—plus the music and message hits people from a direction they’re not expecting, and I do like to do that. We are overburdened with data these days, and we retain our sanity by tuning a lot of it out (unless we have ADD, and can’t, and do go a little crazy). I want my stuff to be some of the stuff that is hard to tune out, and I rely partially on unexpectedness to achieve that. It’s the same mindset that insists on exploring human relationships in terms of dead animals.

I needed (and just got) a new acronym—D.I.R.A. (“Do It Right Away”). I let too many things slide, figuring I’ll have time to do them later, and sometimes “later” never comes. I am pretty fast at doing things (when I do them), and I have been pretty good with time-and-motion studies on myself: I can usually gauge pretty accurately how long it will take me to do stuff. I could probably accomplish a lot if I didn’t wait—and now that the busiest part of Concert Season is over, I don’t have an excuse for waiting to do anything. Like the “Husband” song (which I haven’t recorded yet—I’m still not sure it’s “done”) says, “It’s been a real nice ride, but it’s over now.” I will search the garage for shoes. D.I.R.A.

Also D.I.R.A.—musicating Ahna Ortiz’ “airship mechanic” song; I want to have that for her tonight, at the Writers’ Guild meeting. I’d like to point this up as an instance of how we can help each other. Tomorrow? Three more jobs to apply for (only one of them local, alas); setlist for the Rocktoberfest; and I still have a computer hulk upstairs reminding me I haven’t done squat about it, either. I can solicit gigs again, too. I haven’t approached the Neskowin Valley School about the Harvest Festival, their big annual fund-raiser; I used to play that every year. Music this Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

Joe

FOR THE RAILROAD CENTENNIAL...

2011-08-17T09:49:00.001-07:00

Figured out, I think, how to do a music video of “Tillamook Railroad Blues,” using available technology and (mostly) available personnel. Biggest plus: we have the soundtrack. The song, professionally recorded in a commercial studio,. Is on the Deathgrass album. All we have to worry about is matching video up to it.

For the choruses (there are four), I’d like to use the “lip-dub” technique I saw in that Grand Rapids city music video: you have a crowd of people, all lip-synching to the chorus, and the camera zooms in on first one person, then another, some with props (like guitars or microphones), some not, ending up each time with bigger and bigger crowds of singers.

I’d want some of that to be train passengers, and there, I’d need their cooperation—and I’m not sure how easy that’d be to arrange. If we were doing that “locals only and they ride free or cheap” day October 2, the day after the railroad centennial celebration, I could probably do it easily; I’d know a lot of those folks personally, and they probably know the song. (And to the extent they didn’t, we’d have time to rehearse.)

It wouldn’t be exclusively train passengers doing the lip-synching, of course; I’d want some “on the ground” footage in Garibaldi and Rockaway with people “singing,” too. And for the last chorus, I’d like to have footage of the Lions Club dedication ceremony they’re going to have on Centennial Day, with all them Lions dressed up in their bright yellow vests—and “singing.” Again, I know most of those guys (and gals).

In the verses (four of those, too), I mostly wouldn’t have singers. Some historical (or historical-looking) photos and footage in Verse 1, highway traffic and abandoned-looking track (Verse 2), shots of the “working” diesel engines that are no longer used (Verse 3), and footage of the dedication ceremony (Verse 4). You’d see a singer just occasionally, as a transition between clips, and it’d probably be me by default—again, lip-synching to the existing soundtrack.

For the breaks (two of them on the soundtrack), I would like to have footage of the band playing—and I have some of that, from the Summerfest performance in Wheeler; I don’t know if our rendition of the song there is the same tempo as on the record, but it very well could be, because we’re very deliberate about it. I also don’t know if it’s possible in “editing mode” to zero in on individual players; if not, I’ll have to get some “zoom” footage. A clip of the cameraperson(s), too—one of the things I do with breaks in video is overlay the “special thanks to…” credits. I want a couple of dancers (and I know some good ones who’d probably be amenable).

I don’t have to use train passengers for my chorus “lip-dubbers.” I really could do it entirely with people I know, and not on the train, but with just enough moving-train footage thrown in to create the illusion (one can do that with video), and it might be easier to do it that way—I wouldn’t need to enlist as much help. Still, roping the passengers in would be fun (and, one hopes, fun for them, too). And I like enlisting as many folks as possible in these efforts.

Would I include footage of the Salmonberry Canyon part of the railroad line, that got destroyed (again) in the 2007 winter storm and was never repaired? I would, if I could get to it. I wouldn’t want to be obvious about it—this video isn’t a political statement, after all—but that destruction (and the no repairs) is a fact of life, and one can’t ignore it. I’d probably put it in Verse 2, where we talk about the “shoulda gone out to pasture…”

But wouldn’t this be a fun thing to do to memorialize the railroad’s centennial?

Joe

JEWS HARP FESTIVAL (AND VIDEO)...

2011-08-14T14:24:00.001-07:00

Yes, the Jews Harp Festival was good, too. (Is this one of those “everything is good” years? Or am I finally learning how to do what I’m doing?) When they sorted out the impromptu combos for the Band Scramble, I ended up being front man for ours (rest of the “band” was three Jews harps and a harmonica, so I had to be the one to sing), so we did “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?”, “Wreck of the Old 97” (traditional), and Leon Payne’s “Lost Highway” (which everybody knows—they just don’t know Hank Williams didn’t write it).

When they put me on stage later, to play solo in their evening concert (I was the first “act” not playing some exotic instrument), the audience got “Pole Dancing for Jesus,” “Selling Off My Body Parts,” and “Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues.” (There’s video of that, too, I think. The Arts Center tries to film all performances.) And I did sell a CD (besides donating one to the Jews Harp Guild for their raffle).

More importantly, it looks like the Jews Harp Festival may continue to be held in Bay City, at the Arts Center—at least, after this year’s event there’s increased sentiment for continuing to do it that way instead of moving the festival somewhere else or cancelling it altogether (their Board will decide this later today). The Arts Center does do festival infrastructure well, and that’s a good reason not to change; the Jews Harp Guild’s Director (also a volunteer) and I got to talk marketing a little, too. Mostly, though, I was just around yesterday, trying to help in odd places and acting like I knew what I was doing. Got another Deathgrass concert video processed in my spare time—“Dead Things in the Shower,” again from the Summerfest. Link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpyTFPwzrRA

There’s a video up on YouTube that was done by a bunch of local folks in Grand Rapids, Michigan, after their town was selected for some “America’s Dying Cities” list. In the video (which has gotten over 4 million “hits”), the camera just travels through downtown—this was apparently shot live, and in one take—and everywhere, people are lip-synching to Don McLean’s “American Pie” (in this case, not performed by McLean—I think a local Grand Rapids boy did it).

No, I wasn’t proposing doing the same thing. (Though I could. If I were going to script out a local-folks video, I’d use a more upbeat, hopeful soundtrack, however. My pick would be Gene Burnett’s “Things Are Getting Better Now That Things Are Getting Worse.”) I was thinking of the video I want to make of the Southern Pigfish song, “For Their Own Ends.” That one’s a challenge to turn into video, because one can’t show the band—Southern Pigfish can’t be photographed, because they don’t exist.

But what if I sent the song off to a bunch of people (several dozen would be nice, but I’d settle for less), along with the lyrics, asking them to film themselves lip-synching to the song? Tempting to say “people with video capability,” but I think a lot of folks have that, these days, even though they may not be using it; anyone with a new computer has a built-in webcam, and then there are people like me, who don’t have webcams but have figured out work-arounds (I have at least three, myself). I’d clip pieces from everybody’s films and assemble them, synched to the Deathgrass sound track; could use the breaks for the thank-yous (I’ve done that before). It’d be some work, but I think I have the technology (or access thereto) and expertise to do it now.

That’s not the only Southern Pigfish song I want to convert to video—their whole album is intended to be video, issued on flash drive rather than CD—but it’s the first one I have professionally-recorded sound for. Deathgrass will be performing a few other Southern Pigfish songs at the Rocktoberfest, I think, and if we can get the performance filmed (and the sound comes out decent), I may be able to extract the audio file off the video and use that. Failing that, we just have to wait until I can afford to go into a studio again. For this one, I am not in a hurry. But I want to plug away at it as time permits.

Joe

FARMERS MARKET POST-MORTEM...

2011-08-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

I think we did good at the Manzanita Farmers Market. We had a pretty attentive audience (we tested—with a few of my songs, and one collaboration—the claim we’d heard that nobody really listens to the music, and indeed, they do listen), and an appreciative one, too. I’m sure it was a factor that Jane, Kathryn and Candice are all well-known in the community (I don’t know how much that was true of the other groups that have played there)—but we were good, too. The mix of four completely different styles—to the point where the audience doesn’t know what they’re going to get next—definitely keeps people’s attention.

The show included eight of my songs, including “Earwigs in the Eggplant,” which had been written with the Farmers Market in mind. The audience appeared to like them all.

Nice that we were able to do a 3-hour show and not be playing everything we knew. We could do our best, instead (yes, 3 hours of “best”—we had come rather a long way since we started this, this past spring). We got tips; as soon as I set up the Ugly Orange Bucket with its “Tipping Is Not A City In China” sign, folks began putting money in it. And we got paid, too.

We may have made history of a sort, as well: we are, I believe, the first group ever to play the Farmers Market that was asked by the Powers That Be to turn UP our volume (“too loud” has repeatedly been an issue here)—and I got to tell them we couldn’t, because we had deliberately brought our smallest speakers, knowing how concerned they were about loudness and all. Before we’d finished packing up after the show, I was approached by one of the Powers, asking if we could play there next year. If the band is still together then, sure.

Is that an issue? ‘Fraid so—but we’ll have a meeting about it, before the afterglow of the gig has completely faded, and talk about it. The band’s got both the “too busy” and the “personality conflicts” problems, which are the two main reasons bands break up; on the other hand, there’s sentiment for keeping things together, because we are good together, and have come a long way in a very short period of time. We’ll see what happens.

We could use a better, more professional PA system. Good speakers, for sure—I think the little speakers I have on “Alice” the ‘puter at home are better than the ones we’ve performed through. I’d envision the kind of speakers it takes a hand truck to haul around (and I know a musician who’s got a set he’s going to sell). I worry about the mixer, too—that thing has got to be 40 years old, and early Japanese audio equipment was primitive—and the amp, which is only a 2-channel, forcing all control to be run through the mixer. My druthers, if I had druthers, would be a complete 8-channel PA amp. I don’t know what one would have to pay for one of those.

I have figured out a gizmo to prevent singers from getting too close to the microphones (when they get too close, those uber-professional mikes that everybody but me has tend to distort). In the studio, they use the pantyhose-over-a-coathanger barrier (pantyhose over a coathanger is the poor man’s version—studios pay lots of money for something that looks nicer), but one doesn’t want to use that in performance situations because it blocks the singer’s face. But just the wire frame—without the pantyhose holder, even—attached to the microphone should work as a keep-your-distance thing. I’d like to try it.

For now, more work to do: two Deathgrass performances to organize, the Rocktoberfest Sept. 17 and the railroad centennial Oct. 1—and in both cases, I’ve got some stuff to record to assemble the setlist CDs. More video from Deathgrass’ performance at the Wheeler Summerfest to process, too. And jobs to apply for—I still have hopes of being employed again.

Joe

FRIDAY SHOW; ROCKTOBERFEST SETLIST...

2011-08-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

It’d be nice if 45 Degrees North got to practice a little bit tonight. We won’t have Jane—she’s manning a booth at the county fair (like half the people in the county, I think)—but what I’m after is just some basic refresher on some of the material, before we go on stage Friday. One of the frustrating things about not having any recordings of the group is I can’t just boot up an *.mp3 file if I encounter one of those “Wait—I don’t remember how this goes” moments. (I do have one, though—there’s video of “The Road to Lisdoonvarna” from the last time we played at the Arts Center’s open mike, and that’s one of the tunes I need refreshing on.)

Failing practice—or maybe even if we do practice—I want to go play lead guitar at the Tsunami Grill in Wheeler. I’ve only played music once this week, and I just need to feel better about myself as a musician, again before I get up on stage. Everything is really done: the setlists are done, the Rap is done, and the band is as practiced as they’re going to be.

Deathgrass won’t have Doc for either the Rocktoberfest (Sept. 17) or the railroad centennial (Oct. 1), but we have substitutes: Larry Christiansen is willing to join us on sax for the Rocktoberfest, and Jane Dunkin on fiddle for the Train Set. New material (with luck) for the Train Set—I’d like that to be all train songs—and a bunch of unfamiliar material for the Rocktoberfest, that not everybody has played or that we haven’t played in a long time.

With a saxophone in the band, we can really rock out (and the band really like to play rock ‘n’ roll, anyway). We could have a set that includes:

For Their own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Test Tube Baby—Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Angel in Chains—country death metal
Love Trails of the Zombie Snails—folk-rock
Simple Questions (O.N. Vindstad)—rockabilly
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
So 20th Century (Coleman & Lazzerini)—ragtime
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass

That’s 11 right there, and most of them are pretty fast. I think Larry’s played seven of those with us before, the Woody Guthrie song at the Val Folkema benefit concert in April 2010 and the other six at our last Failed Economy Show; Charlie hasn’t played “Test Tube Baby” or “Zombie Snails.”

Most of the slow songs I have written are two-steps, but I have to have a few slow songs in the mix to break things up (and also give me and the band a chance to catch breath). There are a few that for one reason or another sound a little bit different:

The Writer’s Block Blues—slow & sleazy
Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow Gospel (of course)

Need five more to fill an hour and a half. We could do “No Good Songs About the War” (the excuse being that it won a prize), “Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues” (which people have told me they think is well-written), Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street” (makes ‘em think), and maybe Diane Ewing’s “Distraction” (the sax could definitely add a rockier sound). More? How about “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” Would that be too over-the-top?

I get to process video today at the Arts Center from the Deathgrass performance in Wheeler at the Summerfest July 16. Was filmed with the Arts Center’s new camera, which I haven’t worked with before, so I don’t know what the sound is going to be like. With luck, there’s some good concert footage. Couple new jobs to apply for, too.

Joe

JUST A WILD IDEA...

2011-08-08T23:25:00.001-07:00

More innovation… There’s a trio of folks in Portland who have created a mobile recording studio, with which they’re going to travel the country for a year or so, recording completely unknown independent writer-musicians and submitting the results to the Library of Congress. The goal of this “American Music Preservation Project,” I understand, is to give these writers something that’ll live on after they’re gone. So many never get that. When Jeff Tanzer, lead guitarist for the Dodson Drifters, died, almost all of his music died with him; nothing had ever been recorded, and his widow destroyed all his papers. I had acquired—earlier—the lyrics to just one of Jeff’s dozens of songs, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” the song that prompted “Leavin’ It to Beaver.” I wish I’d collected more.

Would I—or could I—be part of the American Music Preservation Project? Oh, I don’t think so: as this is written, the mobile studio has already left, headed somewhere back East; I doubt I’ll ever see it, or it me. Besides, I have already done a little legacy-building myself. I have two albums out, and I perform—I even went “on tour,” after a fashion, down in southern Oregon last weekend. I know a bit about how the music business works, and have tried a few things, a lot of independents don’t and haven’t (not that knowing or trying does any good—but that’s a subject for another rant).

It’d be nice to take this, or something like it, one step further. It’s good to preserve these guys’ material, but why should it stay locked up in a vault somewhere? Wouldn’t it be nice to give it airplay? I doubt most independents were writing in or for a vacuum; we had something to communicate, and it follows that it should be communicated to as large an audience as possible. Most of us were just never able to reach much of an audience.

I wasn’t thinking of commercial radio—most commercial radio stations won’t play anything except the Top 20 or Top 40 they’re ordered to (another rant, like I said)—but what about that plethora of Internet “stations”? Most of them are hungry for material, and a lot of them were set up deliberately to play stuff the commercial radio stations wouldn’t. In addition, an increasing number of commercial radio stations have gone back to live DJs (there’s more money in it, I’ve heard), who have control over their own playlists; get a record into their hands, and they’ll play it if they think it’s any good, just like in the good old days.

I wonder if one could take it a step further, and have those writers actually get paid for their songs getting played? (That would be a surprise to a lot of those writers—but the Bible does say the laborer is worth his hire.) It might be too much to ask, but I could see how it could be done. One would have to create a performing rights organization along the same lines as ASCAP and BMI, but one that dealt exclusively with the Ignored People. Internet and other stations could pay a fee (a small one, since we’re not talking about outlets that reach a huge market), and each station’s fee would get split up based on what that station played, and how frequently. Complicated? Of course; in fact, the big PROs say it’s too complicated, and that’s why they don’t split up their fees that way (yes, that’s in that rant, too). I could make a computer do it—and if I could, lots of people can.

Just getting songs into the hands of people who’d play them would be challenge enough. As a country boy, I feel it necessary to know the parties—both the station owner/operators and the writers—personally. Just my opinion, but I think the personal connection is important (and lacking in so much business dealings these days). A CD that came blindly in the mail might be nothing more than a new drink coaster, but if it came from Joe—and you know who ”Joe” is—it might be worth a listen.

So… Somebody should do this. Should that somebody be me? Doubtful—I don’t think I know enough people. Yet. I’m working on it.

Joe

SOSA SUMMER CONCERT POST-MORTEM...

2011-08-08T08:44:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joe

MORE FOR THE TRAIN SET...

2011-08-04T09:07:00.001-07:00

16 suggestions for the Deathgrass Train Set (actually, 13 received, and three more on the way—one being written for the occasion). Some statistics: The songs came from as close as Nehalem (15 miles away) and as far away as Rumania. Eight were from writers I know at Just Plain Folks, four from Facebook or people connected to Facebook (three from the Actors & Musicians group), three from the Seniors Group at Soundclick, and one from the Coventry songwriters over in England. I have only ever met one of the 15 writers personally.

Thanks to Christopher Smith, Katherine Fear, Charles Holman, Jerry Miller, Damien Blakely, Skip Johnson, Peggy Mack, Stan Good, Dave Rice, Ray Strode, Kevin Emmrich, Jim Jett, Ben Willis, Ray Wyatt, and John Lawrence Schick. I do not know at this point which stuff I am going to be able to use, because I have not tried to play and sing all of it. (I haven’t received all of it yet, either.)

My ability to play and sing it is going to be the main determinant, because I am, for better or worse, the lead singer for Deathgrass, and I do not have much of a voice range. That means I may have to pass on something I’d really like to do simply because it’s outside my voice range in both directions. In the same vein, I have to record these for the band’s setlist CDs, with me playing it and singing it in the key I’m going to have to sing it in. If the music’s too complicated, I can’t do that, either.

I would like to get 6 to 8 songs we can use, to add to the two we can already do, “Tillamook Railroad Blues” and Shields & Leighton’s 1910 hit “Steamboat Bill,” plus two traditionals I know I can sing, “Wreck of the Old 97” (with the verse Johnny Cash added and the one I changed) and “The Lightning Express” (which was a Dodson Drifters standard). In reserve, in case I need ‘em, are two more traditionals, “The Wabash Cannonball” and “Life’s Railway to Heaven” (the Dodson Drifters version, with the extra verse I added). All the traditionals are fast bluegrass songs, so the other stuff can be slower if need be. And different genres, too—the band is quite versatile.

I might end up with another train song of my own, too. I just have snippets at present (and music, of course), but I’m taking another long trip in The Truck With No Radio, to southern Oregon (I’m performing with Dan Doshier Saturday, Aug. 6 at the Southern Oregon Songwriters Summer Concert in Talent) and long trips are usually good for writing. We’ll see what happens.

I am looking forward to the trip. Nice to do a Monty Python—“Now, For Something Completely Different”—even if it’s only for a couple of days. I know it’s not Progress—it’s only Motion—but I hate the feeling of being stuck in a rut. It’ll feel like a two-day vacation. I’ll have plenty to do when I get back, starting with the Manzanita Farmer’s Market gig Aug. 12. (The Jews’ Harp Festival is that weekend, too; I’ll be able to go one day—Saturday, Aug. 13.) And I’ve still got to fix the PA system so it puts out decent sound.

On the job front, I have pretty much given up on the local jobs; I didn’t get hired for the one I really wanted (city manager in little Wheeler, 13 miles from here), and I’m not expecting the other two potential employers will even interview me. So I’ve applied for another out-of-town interim city-manager gig; I’ll probably know in a week and a half if they’re interested in me. I’ve done the out-of-town thing three times now, so that, too, has become a set piece; it’s no longer unfamiliar. It’s not that different from an out-of-town musical performance, except that it’ll last six months instead of a few hours. And one of these days, there’ll be a song in it…

Joe

MORE TRAIN SONGS...

2011-08-01T23:40:00.000-07:00

More potential material for the Train Set: A Dodson Drifters hit that might be fun to do is “The Lightning Express,” by J. Fred Helt and E.P. Moran (1898). It’s supposed to be a waltz, but the Dodson Drifters never played it as a waltz—we always did it in 4/4 time, starting slow and gradually speeding up (just like a train). Happiest song about death I know (and I’ve written a few). There was a real “Lightning Express,” I found (the Internet is a wonderful place)—a promotional train run in 1876 to see how fast one could get from the East Coast to the West (the answer is 83 hours, a record that’s rarely been broken). But that’s not what the song is about. The song is, as I noted, about death.

Another traditional one we could do is the Gospel song “Life’s Railway to Heaven.” That was copyrighted in 1918 by Charlie D. Tillman, a reported patent-medicine salesman turned revival preacher who had a habit of publishing other people’s hymns as his own. “Life’s Railway” was reportedly ripped off from a Mormon girl poet. Other people have added to the song over the years, including the Dodson Drifters; the version we played had five verses, making it a pretty long song. I know I can sing it because Brother Bill and I used to sing it with the Drifters.

Got lyrics from Rev. Skip Johnson and from “Tampa Stan” Good I can musicate, and I know I can sing those because I’ll write the music so I can sing it. Skip’s is religious (of course), but it rocks—I like that. I’ve received a number of complete songs from people, with more promised—thanks, everybody. My next task is to go through them all and see which ones I can sing. There are at least a few I know are going to be outside my voice range.

And I might end up with another one of my own, too. Dylanesque folk-rock, with a very “train-ey” beat. At this point, I have pieces of a few verses, and don’t know if the thing will get (or need) a chorus; it’s got a good tag line, repeated at the end of every verse (and chorus, if the song gets a chorus): “My baby’s on that train, and I’m gonna let her go.” I worry if the song ends up just verses and no chorus, it might come across as too much like the Southern Pigfish anthem, “For Their Own Ends.” The train song, though, will be more of a blues, and in a different key (I hope). Maybe that’s enough difference. Great to feel productive again. I haven’t written a song since, well, last month.

We’ll be sans a blues harp player for October 1—Doc will be out of town. I wonder if we could substitute a fiddle? (I like having both a “whiny lead” and a “non-whiny lead.”) I know a really good fiddle player… Practice is easy, because I do the CD trick—and I’d want to have setlists, CDs and lyrics (&c.) to everybody a good 3-4 weeks ahead of time. I’ll have to ask—both the band and the fiddle player.

Advice from Performing Songwriters United Worldwide (who just revived their Facebook page, and started a blog, too, on Wordpress): “Do one small thing every day, and one big thing every month.” As I hunker down at the house for an anticipated two days without the truck (which is in the shop with alternator troubles), I wonder if I’ve managed to do that.

I’ve done a lot of little things lately—more than one a day sometimes, mostly because it’s Concert Season. (That’s one reason there’s been an issue of the blog almost every day.) Big things? I might consider the Willamette Writers gig one of those, because it may (I hope) have long-term impacts that I can’t see right away. The Writers’ Guild might be another. In both cases, it is too early to tell if I’ve done something big. I know only that I’ve done something different.

Joe

GARIBALDI DAYS POST-MORTEM...

2011-07-31T10:34:00.001-07:00

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

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

2011-07-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

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

BUH-BYE, FRIDAY NIGHT GROUP?

2011-07-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

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

PREPARING FOR SOUTHERN OREGON...

2011-07-26T23:05:00.001-07:00

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

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

2011-07-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

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

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

2011-07-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

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

2ND STREET POST-MORTEM....

2011-07-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

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

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

2011-07-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

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

"DANNY THE DOG INTERVIEWS"...

2011-07-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

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

The Writer's Blog

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