PROGRESS?

Had to do a quick reality check on how well I was doing as a writer this year. The answer is I’ve written eight new songs in ten months. (I’d have preferred ten, or an average of one a month.) I only count “keepers”; unless they’ve been played for, and requested by, audiences, they’re “forgetters,” and I don’t count them at all. Some on the list are better than others, of course.

The Dog’s Song (pretty fast rock ‘n’ roll)
Crosses by the Roadside (mod. slow two-step)
Love Trails of the Zombie Snails (folk-rock)
Me and Rufus, and Burnin’ Down the House (mod. fast country)
Always Pet the Dogs (mod. fast two-step)
50 Ways to Cure the Depression (fast Gospel)
I Broke My Girlfriend (slow & sleazy)
The Taboo Song (also slow & sleazy)

Of those, “Crosses” and “The Dog’s Song” are by far the best, and are album material. “Rufus” is going to become a music video (starring Rufus—I got some good footage of him Sunday), “Taboo” is already a “French style” music video, and the zombie snails will go on Southern Pigfish’s album—it’s more their style (politically charged Arkansas bluegrass hip-hop sea chanties) than mine.

“Always Pet the Dogs” was for my wife, for her birthday, and the only thing that mattered was whether she liked it (she did); and “I Broke My Girlfriend” was for Beth Williams’ album of songs about broken things produced earlier this year. “50 Ways” was deliberately written for the Failed Economy Show the band did last May. They’ve all been performed, though, and came across okay.

Then there are the collabs. I’ve done ten of those, over the past ten months (I was surprised), and in all cases, they’re “collaborations” where I’ve simply musicated someone else’s lyrics. Six of the ten are Stan Good songs. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s turning into one of those classic writing partnerships, like Rodgers & Hammerstein or Taupin & John; I’m just on the lookout for good writing wherever I can find it, and Stan has done a lot of good writing. “Un-Easy Street” is some of the best I’ve ever run across, and the band’s been doing that song every show.

I’m still not sure what’s going to happen with the Failed Economy Sequel. I have a call in (not returned as of this writing) to “Doc” Wagner (blues harp); Wayne (lead guitar) doesn’t want to commit, again (I think that means he really doesn’t want to play with us); Mike Simpson (lead guitar) will be out of town that day, but may know somebody. I think our cutoff date has to be Wednesday; if I know by Wednesday we’re going to do it, I can mention it in my column for the newspaper (which a lot of people apparently read), which will come out the Wednesday before the concert. If I don’t have a lead player by Wednesday morning, we’ll have to shine it on.

And since I don’t know, I think I have to act like it’s going to happen. That means finishing the setlist, and seeing if I can get the one new song that’s not recorded—Al David’s “Poverty Blues”—recorded in acceptable form so it can go on a CD for the band. (If I can’t sing it, we can’t perform it.) Need to design a poster, too, even though I don’t know whose names are going on it. If I take the original soup-kitchen photo I used for the last Failed Economy Show poster, and just flip it 180 degrees, it’ll look new, but still recall the “old” photo. I can do that.

Elsewhere, I found another job to apply for (another fun job—I’ve applied for lots of jobs that are not fun). This one’d be to be city finance officer in Rockaway Beach, five miles from Garibaldi. (I wouldn’t have to move, in other words.) I am trying hard to not be too hopeful. I’m sure there are tons of people with armloads of college degrees in this stuff, and all I’ve got to offer is 15 years’ experience—and the tendency these days is to value education as paramount and dismiss experience altogether.

Joe