UPDATES...

One final performance of “The Tempest.” I find I will miss it when it’s over. The guys and girls in the cast and crew are very good at what they do, and I appreciate being part of professionalism. Even when they flub lines (and I apparently have the whole play memorized enough that I can tell when someone flubs a line), they do it in character. I expect I will be using Elizabethan slang for a while myself.

I have another book to add to the Music Library—“The Indie Bible,” a resource directory of publishers, &c., that a lot of songwriters swear by. Got it from Marcy White, a songwriter in Florida. Will it help? I have no idea. It probably can’t hurt. I’d like to send Skip Johnson’s latest song, once musicated, to Dolly Parton, for instance—I think it’d be perfect for her, and if she didn’t do it herself, she might know someone who would—and “The Indie Bible” would tell me where and how to do that. What it doesn’t (and maybe can’t) tell me is how to prevent my submission from being rejected out of hand or (worse) ignored, which is what happens to most material sent to artists and publishers.

And were I a publisher, I would be doing the same thing—not because I’d want to deliberately ignore people, but because I wouldn’t be able to deal with the volume of submissions I’d get (most of which, I’m afraid, would be from people with egos way larger than their abilities). It’s like sifting through the sewage treatment plant for the rare diamond you know is there somewhere—it wouldn’t be a productive use of my time, and I bet it isn’t for most publishers. I would instead have a “stable” of writers whose work I could count on being consistently good (and I still wouldn’t use all of it), and do some hunting myself, because I know what’s good and I can find it easier than by sifting through submissions. That does beg the question how an unknown writer—like me—gets somebody’s attention. I still don’t know.

Neither “Duct Tape” nor Stan Good’s “Take-Out Food” made the finalist round in the MerleFest’s songwriting contest. I wasn’t expecting a lot out of the contest, after finding out the judges were all Nashville music industry professionals, and I suppose I got what I expected. They didn’t bother to notify me I wasn’t picked—I had to glean that information off their Website. I think that indicates they were treating their contestants primarily as a source of income (a lot of contests do that). I haven’t found any more contests yet that I see any point in entering this year.

Band practice this Saturday, and then eight days later, on Sunday. These will be our only two chances to practice before the April 24 gig. I’m holding off (as usual) sending notice to the “joelist” about the concert until after our first practice—I want (as usual) to be sure I’m inviting people to something worthwhile. We won’t have Doc at Saturday’s practice—he’s out of town—but we’ll have him the next Sunday. And I haven’t heard from Mike at all. I hope (as usual) it’ll all work out.

I need to cut three songs from the setlist—the organizers want us to play for just 1-1/2 hours, because of the volume of raffle items. I suppose the best way is to find out at practice which songs the band has the most trouble with, and cut those.

Elsewhere: The Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. will have just two Summer Concert evenings this year—on August 20 & 27—and I’ve asked to be one of their performers. With different people in charge of the organization (and people competing for fewer slots), I don’t know what they’ll require. If they want me to audition, I can probably handle it—I just won’t have a band until the last minute, if prior years are any indication.

Joe