PREDATORS, ET AL.

Is there ever such a thing as a slow week?

This one’s got a Southern Oregon Songwriters’ “showcase” next Saturday, and the Wild Goose open mike Sunday. Tuesday, Screamin’ Gulch will practice with Don Maddox, prior to the Rockabilly Shows Wednesday and Thursday. Five nights out of seven ain’t bad.

A new song? Maybe: fellow name of Big Jim Merillees from Scotland had posted some lyrics as an exercise to see how well people could put a melody to it, and I kinda went further—it got music, but then the words didn’t fit the music quite right, so the words changed, too. Same thing that happened a few years back with “The World Enquirer,” which just started as an attempt to learn the old bluegrass song about Jimmy Brown the newsboy.

Big Jim’s song was about Internet predators, which are a big issue (and a big problem) these days; mine is, too—but I had to ask whether anybody’d ever written an Internet predator song from the viewpoint of the predator? I guess somebody has now. I don’t think it’s finished; it’s still got some conceptual holes in it—the guy does get rehabilitated in the end (so he can deliver the all-important Moral Of The Story), but it’s not clear yet how (or if) he gets there. I already have 4 verses, and I’m not sure I have enough time for a fifth—but it’s bluegrass music, so it moves pretty fast. I’ll have to measure it and see.

Since we’re getting close to Valentine’s Day, the setlists include my Valentine’s Day song, “Rotten Candy”—duly introduced as “the song that was rejected by American Idol.” It’s actually a good song—and should serve as a reminder that you CAN get a good product out of deliberately following ALL the rules. It has a really good bass line, and a strong (but simple) melody, and I could see folks in the audience tapping toes even when the song was being performed by just me on guitar and Darrin Wayne on harmonica. I’d love to do this with a band

At SOSA’s “showcase” tonight, got to play lead guitar on some of Darrin Wayne’s songs (and he played harmonica on mine). Was good. Eric (from Musichead Studios) was there, and asked when we were going to record—but I haven’t even got the band together to practice yet. It’ll probably be close to the end of the month before we do the studio.

Joe