CONCERT SEASON...

Thirsty Lion setlist looks like:

Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (slow and sleazy)
Bluebird on My Windshield (fast bluegrass)
Can I Have your Car When the Rapture Comes? (slow Gospel)
The Termite Song (fast bluegrass)
Hey. Little Chicken (a osrt-of blues)
I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas (mod. slow country)

Just about exactly 25 minutes (I’ve practiced it four times now). Still waiting for confirmation that I can be on first (like, at 8:30) if I show up first; that’ll be important for the advertising. I have warned the fellow in charge of the event that some of the folks who would be coming to see me still have jobs and have to get up in the morning.

I want to go into Portland next Tuesday and stop in at the Thirsty Lion, and see how they run the show and what the hall, audience, and sound engineer are like. (The online photos don’t show the stage. It does look like a sizable place, but—having done it myself—I know how misleading photos can be.) That’d be the time to distribute posters as well

Southern Oregon Songwriters want me to do the programs for the 2009 Summer Concert season at Pfaff Park in Central Point. Same format as last year. I’ll be in one of the concerts, too—22 August. I’ll need a band, and hopefully can assemble one from folks I know down there.

It is time to start organizing Concert Season. Roughly from July 4 until some time in October every year is when I try to have the major concerts, festival performances, &c. I didn’t do much at all in 2008—I lost my job, moved twice, and a lot of festivals were cancelled (or I couldn’t get to them) because of the price of gas. 2009, however, may be shaping up better.

The City of Central Point does their own series of summer concerts in the park, and I hit them up for a slot; it won’t happen this year (their agenda’s full), but I might be able to get one for next year. They have a Labor Day concert, too, that wasn’t on their schedule; I don’t know if that’s booked separately (I think it was last year). I forgot to ask about that one.

I think we-the-band can have a slot at Garibaldi Days for the asking. We could have either two hours between 3 and 6 p.m. (roughly from the time the Talent Show’s over to the time the Beer Garden opens), or 1-1/2 to 2 hours in the Beer Garden from fireworks (10 p.m.) to closing (midnight). Drummer Chris’s suggestion was to take the afternoon, and I think everyone else agrees. More of a listening crowd, with less pressure to play dance music to make people drink more. An afternoon slot means we can do more of my music, too, and not have to learn a whole bunch more new stuff.

Trade-off is the pay for the afternoon slot will probably be nothing (the Beer Garden does pay), unless we can sweet-talk somebody into being a sponsor. Donations for Garibaldi Days are way down, just as they are for most fun activities. People who don’t have money don’t give money.

There’s going to be a Talent Show at Garibaldi Days, too, and I want to play. I wonder if I could enlist Dick and his wife Carol (she of the beautiful voice) to do it with me? We could do Gospel songs. The last time we did that was six years ago, at the county fair.

So… Thus far we have me playing solo at the Thirsty Lion June 9, with the band at the Garibaldi Museum June 27, Garibaldi Days at the Talent Show and with the band, and in Central Point August 22. It’s starting to shape up as a decent Concert Season. I will have to forego the Columbia Gorge Bluegrass Festival, because it’s on the same weekend as Garibaldi Days—and much as I’d like to, I don’t see how I can make it to Pineyfest this summer. There’s just not going to be any money.

Joe