WHITLEY SHORES, &C...

Well, mostly house stuff, and not playing music—priorities, y’know. I’ll get to go back to southern Oregon a weekend from now, for a briefing session on the “Star of Stars” show, and I’ll see if I can’t stretch one overnight into most of two days.

WEIRD STUFF: Internet deejay/veejay Len Amsterdam, the most tireless promoter of independent music I know, started his own OMD (Online Music Distributor) Website, hight Whitbey Shores--sort of a MySapce for musicians—and invited me to join. I did, and posted a few tunes there, and started to get a dribble of requests for “friends.” All Canadians, of course—Len lives in Canada, and a lot of the musicians he knows are Canadian.

Two “friends” that showed up were really interesting: they were named “Gordon Lightfoot” and “Neil Young.” The Internet being the gigantic repository of misinformation that it is, I have no idea whether these guys are the Real Deal (or even guys, for that matter); “Gordon Lightfoot”’s information does sound right, though—and very understated, like the man himself—and both of them (the real ones, that is) are Canadian.

I think this means I need to post more songs there. I think the basic rule is you expect no miracles, but do your best to create them. If these are the Real Deal, then I want them exposed to the best of my material; if they’re not, I have hurt nothing. I can play the Bulletin Game (if Len has bulletins enabled), and put “The Writer’s Blog” there, too (ditto).

AN IDEA: A lot of musicians have been sharing (and asking about) how to get gigs. Generally, it seems, you give the venue owner a promotional photo, a “onesie” (basically a one-page version of the “Joe is Great!” brochure, that says what you do and why people lkke it), and a CD. Now, the CD is a good tool in a lot of places—I know Johnny B., down in Medford, books a lot of bands because of what they sound like, and he’s got CDs playing in his tavern all the time—but what if you can’t replicate live the sound that’s on the CD?

I’ve got that problem—not because my CD has a lot of special effects, but because the band on my last CD is over in Eastern Oregon, and I’m not. If I’m playing a gig, it’s either solo or with a band of different, local musicians. What does that sound like? Not like the CD, for sure.

What about a DVD? Of a live performance, say? If I could get my old Fisher 880 video camera working, I could do this. (I can get a battery pack for the thing. What I haven’t been able to locate—even from the manufacturer—is an owner’s manual.) If I understand it right, what one can do is tap the sound out of the “house” PA, and feed it into the camera at the same time the camera is recording video. Do two sets, of a couple songs apiece, one solo and the other with a band. You do it in a venue situation, so you can include crowd reaction—hooting and hollering, and applause (the audience can be coached to hoot, holler, and applaud a lot for the camera), because that’s what the venue owner wants to know—that you can attract and motivate a crowd. Then, all one needs is a DVD-rewritable drive on the computer, and you can make copies to give to venue owners along with the photo and “onesie” and CD. (One probably still needs all those.)

The ideal place to make an experimental DVD would be one of the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. “showcases,” which are mostly attended by other writers and performers. And one could tell ‘em, “Folks, if this works, we’ll do it for everybody who wants it.” A lot of us are trying to get gigs. Could be one of the services the organization provides its members.

Joe