SOUTHERN PIGFISH...

It happens regularly—I go away for a couple of days, leaving the blog unfinished, and when I come back, I find myself wanting to write about something different.

The latest project is SOUTHERN PIGFISH. Another challenge, this one from a different writers’ site; the task was to create an album cover from three random elements—a randomly-selected photograph (which would be the background), a randomly-selected article title from Wikipedia (which would be the name of the band), and four randomly-selected words from a quotation on a quotations Website. Appealed to the graphic designer in me—I don’t get to do near enough of this work.

So I ended up with a “band” named Southern Pigfish, and an album entitled “For Their Own Ends,” and a photo of an exotically beautiful girl. And a nice album cover, too. The album cover, by the way, is at: http://imgcash6.imageshack.us/img183/2096/pigfishcover71608yg0.jpg

And then, somebody suggested writing the song that would be the title cut of the album. This is where it got to be real fun. I decided to “go Dylan”; a lot of his songs from the folk-rock era had titles that had nothing to do with the song, and that’d give me the freedom to write whatever I wanted and get away with it. I’d been wanting to try my hand at obscurantist lyrics, anyway—I’ve been attracted for a long time to the very strange imagery that pervades Scott Garriott’s folksongs, and wanted to see if I could do the same sort of thing. A lot of Dylan’s songs were political, too, and we have an election going on in the U.S., and a rotten economy, and a foreign war—plenty to talk about.

So there was the “persona” for Southern Pigfish. A folk-rock band doing political commentary cloaked in Dylanesque obscurantism (the obscurantism probably necessary because they’re a Southern band (“Southern Pigfish.” Duh), and political commentary would be frowned upon). Give it a good beat, though, and the band will be popular no matter what they’re saying, because you can dance to it. A long drive to see the fambly over the weekend, and some lawn-mowing, and I pretty much had the lyrics.

So how do you record a folk-rock band when you have to do all the parts, and have only four tracks to work with on the Tascam? I did the rhythm guitar, bass (also on the acoustic guitar) and applause tracks (I decided this had to be a “live performance,” to offset any flubs in the music) on 4 tracks, mixed it down, and played it through the CD burner onto two tracks of the Tascam, then added the vocal and lead guitar (also done on the acoustic). And it pretty much worked. The bass is a little loud, but it had to be—if it were softer, I started to lose some of the notes—and it covers up the fact that the lead guitar isn’t doing much (because I can’t do much, really). I had my canned audience applaud the lead guitar break, anyway, because it felt good.

So now we have a song, and it’s recorded. What do we do with it? Not only is the music a little strange (and not my usual style), the band itself does not exist, and never has. Sure, I can share this around on the Internet, but can’t we do more?

Maybe. I know a radio station deejay in Ashland who does a weekly show on politics, and she used one of my songs (“No Good Songs About the War”) in one of her shows, and now she’s looking for more. “For Their Own Ends” is a potential candidate. I also know a band in Southern Oregon that does a lot of Dylanesque material; I’ll send it to them. (Even Screamin’ Gulch, the punk-rock band I used to play with in Medford, might like this one, because of the beat.)

And it’s not necessary to mention that Southern Pigfish is a complete fabrication—in fact, it might be fun not to. I can introduce the song, when I perform it (with a band, of course—I don’t think this one can be done without a band), simply as “This is the song I wrote for Southern Pigfish, for their new album,” and leave it at that. The album cover looks quite professional (of course—it was designed by a professional: me). It would be fascinating to build up a “buzz” for a band that doesn’t exist, and see what happens. Yes, some folks would have to be let in on the secret—but maybe not many.

Which begs the question “Will there be more Southern Pigfish songs?” I guess there’d have to be, wouldn’t there? I’ll see what I can do…

Joe