I'M BA-ACK...

I’M BA-ACK….

And like the Grateful Dead said, what a long, strange trip it’s been. I’ve been at the new job (300-plus miles away) since the beginning of June, living out of a motel room for going on four weeks because there’s a housing shortage here, and contending with having wireless Internet, which has been hard on “Alice” the computer. She spent 12 days in the ‘puter hospital, in the course of which she got her hard drive wiped, and I lost a lot of software that was pretty old and hard to replace (in one case, the manufacturer had gone out of business, and in another, the company had been bought by Microsoft). “Alice” works again (mostly), but wireless Internet is still spotty, and we’ll sometimes go for days without being able to connect to the Internet. This is the first time since the end of May that I’ve been able to post a blog entry.

Southern Oregon is a culturally active area, with lots of music of all different styles happening, and I’m trying to plug myself into it as expeditiously as possible. There’s a local Songwriters’ Association, which I’ve joined, which puts on open mikes three times a month, and an Old Time Fiddlers group I haven’t connected with yet; there’s a college TV station that broadcasts (among other things) live music by local bands, and (by my count) at least five commercial recording studios in the area.

This is the “pool” I’ll be trying to tap to produce the Next CD. I want—and have not managed yet—to assemble another impromptu “band” to play backup on about 12 songs, and I want them tight enough and familiar enough with the material so we can do the Patsy Cline Thing (live and in one take) in the studio. And I want that by December. It will take some work.

The trip to Nashville for Pineyfest and the Demo Derby are proceeding apace; I’ve worked out arrangements for the 6 songs, and at the end of the month will be sending them CD, lyric sheets, and money. Looks like this year’s trip to Nashville will cost a cool $2,000, between plane fare, the hotel, rental car, food, and the demo. Hope it’s worth it.