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Met a fellow today who owns one of the area recording studios (it does help to work at City Hall—you run into everybody sooner or later). He hasn’t recorded any local country musicians, but said he’d done stuff for a Name Act that was country. I think we can do a deal. We traded URLs of our Websites, and I said I’d get him a copy of the CD. (I don’t keep those at work.)

Still looking for a band. I’ve got one fellow who can play a good blues lead guitar, another who can do rock ‘n’ roll leads like Jerry Garcia, and a fellow who can play just about anything (I’d want to use him for fiddle, mandolin, and/or standup bass—he’s got all of those), and another who can play blues harp. That’s actually probably enough to do an album with—but they mostly don’t know each other. I’ll have to introduce them. (And congas. I know a guy who plays congas. I ought to be able to fit that in somehow.)

This is a neat area to live in—I really could play music just about every night, but I have to pick and choose where I go because of all the evening meetings in the course of my job. This week, I got to do Monday night with the Southern Oregon Songwriters, but avoided Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights; next week, I think I can do Sunday and Tuesday, but will miss Wednesday.

Sunday night I kind of look forward to—it’s playing for the drunks, and they’re an interesting experiment in attention-getting. I did well last time (3 weeks ago, that was); I gave ‘em “Eatin’ Cornflakes fcrom a Hubcap Blues,” “The Termite Song” (dutifully announced as my global warming song), and “Naked Space Hamsters in Love.” And it definitely got their attention. Next time, I think, I want to try “St. Paddy,” “Dead Things in the Shower,” and “Armadillo on the Interstate.” I want to build them up to being able to play “Cuddle in the Darkness” as the closing song of a set and see if the chicks really do line up.

Joe