MORE UPDATES--AND A COLLABORATION

It’s a holiday, so there’s time to do an extra post. It has been a good weekend. Got to do music for another song of Diane Ewing’s, and it’s a heartbreaker–"The Alabama Blues." Came out as a two-step, with a very minimalist (but kind of bouncy) lead–trying for the "Country music is pain you can dance to" mantra. Diane liked the music; next step is to figure out where to post it, and then do the usual promote-the-heck-out-of-it routine. This is one I’d like to perform (and I don’t usually perform other people’s music). It felt really good to produce something good–and being a good confidence-builder, it may help other material get out of the box, too.
Why are collaborations important? In a business that depends a lot on mutual back-scratching, it’s important to be able to do things for people. This is something that (surprisingly) I can do. Country music especially insists writers be able to "play well with others"; even though I pointedly ignore the Industry, I can say that yes, there are about an album’s worth of songs where I’ve either written the music or helped write the lyrics. From my end, it’s good for dealing with writer’s block; if words are hard to come by, I can always write music for someone else’s words, and not feel like my creativity has totally disappeared.
Finally got an acceptable recording of "The Abomination Two-Step," too, and it’s posted and got some good comments–a lot of them of the "Don’t worry about them fundamentalists" variety. It’s still not going on a record, but it’s nice to have it recorded after two years. On Soundclick, Lou Quarmwater did an introductory Rap to his latest song, and mentioned me in it as the source of the idea. Weird to think of myself as a Role Model.
"Oil in the Cornfield": Talked to the guy who reportedly had the recording equipment, and he doesn’t; he also has a Tascam, and his setup is more primitive than mine (he dumps to a cassette tape, and I do a computer chip and can burn CDs)–and when he needs a demo, he goes to a commercial studio, too. In the Big City, at the end of two hours of bad road. Reportedly, there are a couple of local musicians who are building studios for their own use, and might be interested in doing work for others when they’re done. For this project, though, it looks like the options are either Judy Skye’s little 6-channel garage studio or re-convening The Collaborators, whichever can happen first.
The lack of any commercial studio facilities near where I live, and the presence of a plethora of studios in the Big City, may be a good reason to join a songwriters’ or musicians’ group in the Big City, and start dropping in on their functions. For me, that’s the Portland (OR) Songwriter’s Assn., which I’ve thought about joining for a couple of years. Intent would be to get over time a group of good musicians familiar with the material, and be able to get THEM into a studio to record when needed. If they’re in Portland, and the studios are in Portland, that sounds more doable. I’d be the only one having to deal with a 4-hour trip on bad road.
The Sunday paper’s "Travel" section had a list of festivals over the next couple of weeks in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia; this is a good reason to read the Sunday paper–nobody appears to maintain any comprehensive list of these events on line, and this’d be an opportunity to assemble one. Many of these festivals hire live music; the ones in Eastern Oregon are potentially real fertile ground, because I may have a Reputation from having lived there and played there the last couple of years.
Actions: From their Websites, find out who books the talent, and mail a Press Kit consisting of (I think) promotional photo, brochure, and copy of the CD, with a cover letter on Music Letterhead. I have everything but the brochure, but it may not be too hard to assemble one–I have some concert photos, a couple of press clippings, and quotes from some folks saying generically wonderful things about my music, and all that will work. E-mail the talent-bookers, too, to let them know the package is coming; that’s not in The Rules, but it feels like a good 21st-century thing to do. Now, this is pretty long-term stuff; any gig isn’t going to happen until a year from now–but if the organizers know their stuff, they’ll start working on next year’s festival as soon as this year’s is over.