WHAT ABOUT DAVE?

Like Bilbo Baggins said, “I’m back.” Southern Oregon is always fun, and I always accomplish stuff. It’s what I miss about living there.

Dave, the host at the Wild Goose’s open mike, approached me asking if he could cover any of my songs on his new album—to which the answer, of course, is “Of course.” All my material is up for grabs, and I told him so. Dave plays with a good band (which is getting gigs), and is a good guitarist himself. So I’ll send him a copy of the Songbook, which has links to everything of mine that’s archived on line (there are just a handful of songs that aren’t), and have him tell me what he wants to use.

I’ll send it by snail-mail rather than e-mail; the Acrobat (*.pdf) file e-mails well, but the physical package has the nice label and cover art—and he’s going to need that stuff done for the new album, isn’t he? Good idea to let him know (without being intrusive about it) that I do that stuff, too.

I rather expect he hasn’t thought about copyright fees (most small-time musicians don’t), but I have; I’ll give him a signed waiver giving him permission to record the songs he specifies for this specific album (as soon as he tells me what those are) and not have to pay the fees, because I don’t care. (We’re not talking about a million-seller album here.) All I need is the statement on the album cover for each song, “©J. Wrabek [DATE] dba Outside Services Ltd. Used by permission.”

My first application of the WMPPMS item on the 2010 Worklist: Want More People Playing My Stuff. This is, I think, my niche in the music business. I write songs that other people perform, and record, and make famous, and as a result, I get to write more songs for other people. This is what Bob Dylan did, and John Denver, Willie Nelson, Neil Sadaka, and a bunch of others. It is also cloning myself. Dave and his band are hitting a different (and maybe wider) market than I do, and this gets those people, whoever and however many of them there are, listening to my stuff, too. Note that this particular instance is not making money (though making money at this is another item on the 2010 Worklist). I think that part comes later.

In addition, while Down South, I found a way to get copies of the DVDs from the two public-television shows made for a decent price. Package goes in the mail tomorrow.

And the Wild Goose was fun—it always is. Over its (I think) 8-year run, the Goose’s open mike has become a haven for writers, to the point where it’s expected that you’re going to play original material. Some folks bring their bands, or pieces of them, and some of them are very professional (and getting paid for what they do). It’s nice to know I can go up against those folks and do okay. The Goose crowd, which included those writers plus an audience of which maybe half knew me and half didn’t, got “Take-Out Food” (which is definitely a hit), the Southern Pigfish talking blues “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot” (since there were so many political rants that night, I had to contribute my own two cents), and “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” (which had some people singing along).

“Grendel,” one of the two computers I intend to get out of the four hulks in the garage, has an operating system problem; when Windows “repaired” itself, it corrupted the registry and now Windows XP has to be replaced. That entails buying a new copy of WinXP (since one didn’t come with the ‘puter)—if I can find one. Stores are no longer carrying it. Failing that, the 20MB hard drive is history and will have to be replaced. I do have a spare, but it’s a lot smaller and is running Windows 98.

Before I left on the trip, Chris, John and I got “base” tracks recorded for “Un-Easy Street,” “Armadillo on the Interstate” and “Take-Out Food.” First two we were able to do in one take (these guys are good). Three songs at one time is about the limit of John’s portable unit, which is recording to a 128MB digital-camera chip. On the trip, I got four (of five) verses done for The Ballad, along with the chorus—long trips in the car are good for this. Music Friday and Saturday this week.

Joe