SHOVELING DIRT...

The Portland band is breaking up. The bass player is getting a divorce and moving to California (not necessarily in that order), the blues harp player got his job back, and I’ve already mentioned the lead guitarist going flaky. I hope both the bass player and harp player continue practicing their instruments, because they’re new at them (albeit good at them), and I hope the lead guitarist realizes he should be practicing, too. I’ve solicited a gig at a Portland coffeehouse (no word back yet, of course), but emphasized it’ll have to be solo.

At home, in between applying for jobs (I now think of it as applying for rejection letters), I’m constructing a raised garden. As with the garage studio a couple of years ago, it’s being done all with on-hand stuff—I do not expect to pay for anything except some extra dirt. Growing one’s own vegetables is a good Depression activity; yes, it cuts into the profits of the grocery store (and I know and like the guy who owns the local grocery store), but at some point I have to give him the same message I give folks about the music business: The world is changing. Deal with it.

And where DO we go now with the music business? Pretty quickly, I won’t have the freedom to travel, because there will no longer be any money at all (I’ve been preparing for it, I guess, by minimizing everything I do). But I do have a few things I want to do.

I want to record another album. Two albums, actually; one of Failed Economy Show songs, the other of my stuff. I wonder if that’d be possible to do with that new mixer John got? If the levels could be set right—which may be difficult to do with a drummer in the mix—we could record bass, drums, rhythm guitar and vocals live, and then overlay a lead guitar part and Dick’s blues harp. For about half the songs in the Failed Economy Show—the country ones--I could do an acceptable lead; for the rest, I’d need someone else. (It’d be nice to have a piano doing the lead on the ragtime version of Coleman & Lazzerini’s “So 20th Century,” for instance.)

And I want gigs. Not only is public performance the only outlet I have for exposing my music to the public, but Madonna’s Mantra says performance is the only way to make it in the music business these days. We start small, I guess—me and solo guitar down at the Ghost Hole on Wednesday nights. I have to ask the owner (who may well say no—Jeff was the main attraction there, not me). But having a “home base” is important for getting other business. If by some wild chance I end up getting another out-of-town job, the Ghost Hole gig can just disappear. It’ll have been just for tips and exposure anyway. I’ll have to see if my two tiny (and old) amps are enough to do the job—it’ll be two more weeks before the librarian has her new PA, and can sell me her old one (if I can afford to buy it).

Need some contests to enter this year, too. American Idol won’t be having a contest this year (rumor has it the new judge, who is a songwriter, will be doing it as part of the deal that got her the judge job); I don’t think there’s a Woody Guthrie song contest this year, either, or a Hank Williams Festival—both were abandoned last year. I don’t see any point in entering any of the big ballyhooed competitions whose purpose seems to be to generate income for the organizers. (I did find one in Michigan that recently decided to start accepting submissions from Outside. And its grand prize, like a lot of the contests I enter, is performing on stage.)

On the good news front, I did musicate Beth Williams’ “Kidney Stone Blues,” and it was okay—people liked it. And I did manage to pull it off in one take (well, four takes—one each for rhythm guitar, vocal, lead, and bass guitar). Now I need something else to do. Besides apply for jobs and shovel dirt.

Joe