ALBUM THOUGHTS...

A new song to musicate! It’s by Skip Johnson, who in real life is an Adventist minister in New England (and one of the better lyricists I know). Hight “I Wish You Were Here to Hate My Boyfriends.” Maybe the best broken-home song I’ve run into yet. Of course, it’ll be country music (a nice, bouncy two-step, I think)—country music, I maintain, is an overlooked vehicle for talking about social issues, and this is another opportunity to prove the point. It would be neat if Polly Hager could sing this—it really could use to be sung by a girl—but I’ll musicate and record it first.

Poster for the April 24 gig is done. Still have the Rap to do. Might be able to fit in a practice Sunday, even though it’s Easter. (Resurrecting the band, as it were.)

I actually had fans that showed up to Saturday’s music session at the Tillamook Library, people (including some from out of town) who have come to City Hall in Garibaldi in the past—but I wasn’t at City Hall Friday night, and won’t be for another two weeks because of play performances. Those folks have bought CDs. Could I sell them another CD if I had one? Yep. Time to produce one? Yep. As noted earlier, “product” in the Modern World is going to have to be delivered quicker, cheaper, and in small quantities. That’s something independent musicians can do and the Big Boys can’t.

Thing is, it’s going to take a while before the “Deathgrass” CD is ready; John (who is recording engineer as well as the bass player) is frightfully busy through mid-June because of the city budget, which is essentially a second full-time job, and the process he wants to do—which is a good and professional one—is going to take time, just like it would if the Big Boys were doing it. Our September release date is probably realistic. My question is—has to be—whether there’s something additional I could do faster and sooner, without getting in the way of what John is doing.

Two primary considerations are fast and cheap. (Make that three: fast and cheap AND perfect.) The easiest way I know to achieve that is to do the recording “Patsy Cline style”—the band walks into the studio and records everything live and in one or two takes, and everything is perfect because (1) the band are good, (2) they know the material, and (3) the sound engineer is good. That’s how we did the “Santa’s Fallen” album, and it really minimized production costs. (And the album continues to sell.) But that was in Eastern Oregon. I have the band here, but do I have similar studio resources available?

The answer is a firm “maybe.” I have two friends and fellow musicians who are building a commercial-grade studio in one’s house; it’s intended for recording their stuff, but they could maybe be prevailed upon to do some outside work, perhaps in the guise of “experimentation.” They’re still working the bugs out of their system, and I’m not sure how long that will take. There’s Mike’s studio in Rockaway, too, but I haven’t visited and don’t know what he’s got there. I know not all studios have a big room where you could set up a band and have the members not interfere with each other; I ran into some studios in southern Oregon that because of their configuration could only do “layering,” one instrument at a time. That’s both more time-consuming and more expensive.

There’s one other possibility. I’d mentioned before the minister with recording equipment who said his experience was in recording live Gospel shows. I don’t know if he’d be interested in “doing” a tavern, even though it is a benefit (some ministers are sensitive about that sort of thing), but I guess it’s worth a phone call. If he can’t do this one, I would very much like him to record our “Failed Economy Show” benefit concert for the Food Pantry in June.

Joe