ALBUM THOUGHTS (&C.)...

Saturday’s practice with the band in Astoria went good. Just three of us—myself, Joe the bass player, and Larry the drummer—but we went through a lot of material. Joe made CDs with the songs (good) and we played along with those as we tried to figure out the keys; I can play a lot of the stuff—the trick is going to be making the songs sound different, because so much old rock ‘n’ roll uses the same handful of progressions. I played the Strat, which is really better for this material than an acoustic guitar. (The Strat really needs new strings, though.) Next time we practice isn’t until Feb. 12, so I’ve plenty of time to work with this stuff.

It looks like the trip to southern Oregon for the Jan. 24 SOSA annual meeting is doable. The windstorms are supposed to be over, and the weather will continue to be unseasonably warm (for January). It is supposed to get below freezing in Medford Saturday night, which might behoove my traveling Saturday night rather than Sunday morning. Either way, a good half the trip is in the dark, but if I leave Saturday right after our recording session in Garibaldi, the roads in Medford may not have frozen by the time I get there. (This is important because the truck does not have snow tires or studs.) While down there, I’ll get to play at the Wild Goose Sunday night, but I’m not sure what else.

Still not sure what to do for the 12th song on the “Deathgrass” album. It needs to be a fast number, not a two-step; it doesn’t have to be bluegrass—it could be in a different style, and/or in a different key. And it ideally should be one of mine—there’s already four co-writes on the album. Best contenders I’ve got right now are “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” (my preference), “The Termite Song” and “When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You,” all bluegrass tunes. That’d make the setlist look like:

Dead Things in the Shower (with Bobbie Gallup)—fast two-step
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
Take-Out Food (Stan Good)—sleazy & manic (or is that manic & sleazy?)
No Good Songs About the War—mod. slow two-step
Naked Space Hamsters in Love—fast bluegrass
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Rotten Candy—fast bluegrass with a Gospel beat
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—mod. two-step
You’ll Make a Real Good Angel (Tarra Young)—mod. slow Gospel

Three two-steps of varying speeds, three fast bluegrass (one with a Gospel bass), one Gospel, one blues, one rock, and a couple that are unclassifiable but definitely country. Subject matter from sleazy to Heavenly. And three songs with dead animals (four if you count the chicken, whose fate is clear). If we can get Mike Simpson on lead guitar and “Doc” Wagner on blues harp, this will be something to listen to (and hopefully worth buying). I’ll include on a separate CD the Southern Pigfish songs. There’s just 6 of them, thus far—but John really wants to do “Love Trails of the Zombie Snails,” and the recording of “For Their Own Ends” can do double duty; we can use Doc’s harmonica on the Southern Pigfish cut, and Dick’s on the Deathgrass one.

And even though nobody took me up on my “write a traditional ballad” suggestion, I nonetheless have a traditional ballad of my own taking shape. Three verses thus far (out of maybe five or six), plus a tentative chorus (with a refrain in it, so everyone can recognize its Traditional Balladness). Being awake in the dark, with the power out and the wind and rain pounding the house, is almost as good a writing opportunity as a long drive in the car. It’s not like one can do anything else.

Joe

FIRST CONTEST OF 2010...

A winnable contest, maybe—the Chris Austin Songwriting contest, put on by Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, N.C. as part of the annual MerleFest. (No, the “Merle” is not Merle Haggard. This Merle is kin to Doc Watson.) Three finalists get to perform their entries on stage at MerleFest, and that’s what is attractive as far as I’m concerned. I have always done best at competitions that entailed performing on stage—I don’t know why. If you get to be a finalist, they put you up for free in Wilkesboro, but you have to get there on your own nickel (I’ve run into that in other contests). Deadline for entries is in mid-February, and the MerleFest itself is the end of April. I could handle entering one, maybe two songs.

Which? Well, the song’s got to be good, but production has to be first-rate, too; yes, the rules say (they always say) you can send them anything, but I had a fellow who judges at one of these contests tell me that no matter what the rules said, he’d never vote for anything that wasn’t professionally produced, and I assume his attitude is shared.

There are two Stan Good songs (his lyrics, my music) I’d consider superior contenders. The most recent, “Take-Out Food,” was recorded just in the home studio, but the recording is pretty good; I wouldn’t hesitate to put it up against commercially-done material. The other is “Un-Easy Street,” which is a great crowd-pleaser and has become a permanent fixture of the band’s repertoire—and was going to go on the next album. The home-studio recording I have of it isn’t very good, however.

So I’ll enter either “Take-Out Food” or “Un-Easy Street.” If it makes finals, I have to go to Wilkesboro and perform it on stage. “Take-Out Food” has to have a lead break—song’s too short without it—which means I have to have accompaniment on stage. The MerleFest folks will pay to put up one “accompanist,” too, but not pay for getting him or her there. I need somebody in the immediate Wilkesboro area to be my lead player—but I may have found one in the person of Steve “Little Stevie” Biederman, who lives sorta nearby.

“Un-Easy Street” works without a lead break (we performed it that way at “Rocktoberfest”), so I can do it solo on stage if I have to (it’s better with a lead player, though). But I need a better, and ideally professional, recording to enter in the contest. “Un-Easy Street” was one of the songs we were recording for the album, so it WILL be professionally recorded. Can I get the recording done in time? (It’s a possibility. The band were real excited when we won the “Doing Dylan” contest in England. They could be excited about having the chance to do it again.)

And I’m glad people are so excited about it. Makes me feel more confident about entering the thing.

ON OTHER FRONTS: The new computer is assembled, but I haven’t made it work—it’s troubleshooting time, and there’s a lot of trouble to shoot. I should have tested the machine every step of the assemblage process, but I didn’t, and now have to pay for my hubris. New strings to put on the Strat. And music tonight.

Joe

THE WEBCAM & THE ALBUM...

A WEBCAM! Went through the owner’s manual for my daughter’s old digital camera (same make as mine, but a newer model), and it said the thing can function as a webcam. Apparently mine can, too—it’s got the same ports (no owner’s manual, though). It’s supposed to be hooked up to AC power when you’re webcamming, but that’s apparently not essential; the owner’s manual says that’s just to prevent the batteries wearing down. (It does go through batteries rather fast.) I do have an AC adapter with the proper voltage (though not made for the camera), and it turns out the digital camera will fit my video camera tripod (yay!). I have an adapter, too, that’ll let me use my singing mike for sound instead of one of those cheapo computer mikes. It appears I’ll need a USB extension cord—the one from the camera to the ‘puter is short. I may be skype-able yet.

The owner’s manual told me a couple things I already knew, too: the camera can shoot 80 seconds of “film” before having to shut down and save what it did (I’d noticed it was a little over a minute between “saves” when I shot the Rufus video), and the optical zoom doesn’t work when you’re filming (so that’s why my zooms on the Rufus video looked so bad). One online review of the camera said, “These things are pretty old, but they’re pretty good.” I’ve had mine for seven years.

THE ALBUM: What if, along with dedicating the album to the late Dick Ackerman, we included songs from the Failed Economy Shows? In addition, I’d include “You’ll Make a Real Good Angel,” the kaddish for Carol written by Tarra Young and myself, and the Stan Good masterpiece about buzzards and roadkill, “Take-Out Food.” It could look like this:

Dead Things in the Shower (with Bobbie Gallup)—fast two-step
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
No Good Songs About the War—mod. slow two-step
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Take-Out Food (Stan Good)—sleazy & manic (or is that manic & sleazy?)
Rotten Candy—fast bluegrass with a Gospel beat
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—mod. two-step
You’ll Make a Real Good Angel (Tarra Young)—mod. slow Gospel

That’s 11. I need one more. It should be uptempo, or in a different key, or a different style, or a combination of two or all of those. Probably one of mine—there are already four co-writes on this album. And it’d be nice to keep to the Failed Economy/homelessness/hunger theme. What?

The kaddish, of course, would be the finale. We’d have two recordings on the album where Dick does play blues harp, “No Good Songs About the War” (which won the “Doing Dylan” contest in England) and the Southern Pigfish song, “For Their Own Ends” (which was going to be our alternate entry in the contest). Those were the only two where we got Dick’s blues harp recorded before he died.

I’d want to rope Mike Simpson into playing lead guitar on all the songs if he’s willing, and Doc Wagner into doing blues harp on the ten songs Dick isn’t playing on. There are some copyright fees to be paid here—to Bobbie Gallup, Stan Good, and Tarra Young; I’d basically be hoping that by the time the album’s done in September, I’ll have the money to pay them.

Music Friday (with the Friday Night Group) and Saturday (with the band in Astoria). And I’ve been asked to build somebody a computer. That will be different—and fun.

Joe

MORE UPDATES...

A nice compliment, that sort of indicates how the world is put together these days. I saw somebody complimenting a guy’s song, saying “that sounds like a Joe Wrabek tune”—as if everybody ought to know what that is. The guy who said it was in England, and the guy he was saying it about was in Canada. The world has become a very strange place…

There’s tentative sentiment on the part of the band for including Tarra Young’s “You’ll Make a Real Good Angel” (lyrics by her, music by me) on the “Deathgrass” album and dedicating the album to the late Dick Ackerman. Of course, they haven’t heard the song yet, but I think they’ll feel the same way once they do.

Including that song changes the mix on the album, and I’ll have to re-examine what I was going to include and why. Probably means a revised list. We are still scheduled to record the base tracks on Jan. 23. I’ll want to give everybody revised CDs and songlists well before then.

Also done is the music and recording for Stan Good’s “Take-Out Food,” the song about buzzards and roadkill Stan said he wrote with me in mind. (So how could I not do the music?) It did come out good; I was trying for a blend of sleazy and manic (which are kind of opposites), and managed to achieve it. I performed both songs at the Tillamook Library, and both went over well—“Take-Out Food” especially so. I wonder if this ought to get added to the band’s repertoire?

Still to do: Glynda Duncan’s “He’s a Man—This Is a Bar.” It’s an opportunity to work on something serious (after the buzzards and roadkill, I probably need to).

Friday night was the first get-together of that band in Astoria (60 miles away) I talked myself into. They’re all about my age (nice to see some aging musicians), three of the four are unemployed (so there is a drive to make money at this), and they are very good. I’m definitely not their equal as a musician, though I can play some of the stuff they do; I do have a couple of advantages they can use—I can transpose in my head (since I’ve been doing it so long), and I have some tips on marketing. So maybe they’ll keep me. They like rock ‘n’ roll; I like rock ‘n’ roll, too—I just don’t get to play it much. I think I’ll put new strings on the Strat, and try playing it next time we practice (next Saturday).

I had a few people at Saturday’s square dance (can’t say “several” because there were only several people there) tell me how much they missed the community dances most towns had years ago (there are some small towns in remote places that still do); I think that was a suggestion we try to do some. It would be fun. I’ll ask the band if they’d be interested. I asked the questioners what kind of music they wanted—since the band can play all sorts of different styles—and was told, “country and rock ‘n’ roll from the ‘60s.” From my standpoint, that means music that SOUNDS like that, because I mostly can’t sing anybody else’s stuff, but I have some—rather a lot, in fact. It’d be nice to find somebody else who could sing—we could do more stuff. Venues may not be a problem; besides the Dance Floor at City Hall in Garibaldi (which is rented out nearly every weekend), there’s one in Bay City, 5 miles away, at the Arts Center (which isn’t). One couldn’t expect money out of the dances, at least for starters; one would have to just start doing it, and if crowds started showing up, start putting out something like the Friday Night Group’s “donation llama” (ugly thing, made out of an orange crate—but people leave money in it).

Two more jobs to apply for; that’ll bring up to five the applications I have in the pipeline (and four of them are city-manager jobs, again). Wish I could say I expected anything out of the exercise. I’m afraid I no longer do.

Joe

SOME SOSA IDEAS...

Sunday, Jan. 24, is the annual meeting of the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn., in Talent (appropriately), just south of Phoenix. I’d really like to go. It is going to have to depend on the weather, which is chancy this time of year—and I’m driving an old truck, with no snow tires (don’t need ‘em on the semi-tropical Oregon Coast), and driving at night—and I can’t get an online weather forecast longer than two weeks out.

SOSA has some problems: a relatively static membership (not many new people, in other words), and declining attendance at their “showcase” events (a lot of that because SOSA members have gigs in other places now). That last is a success-related problem, actually—the organization has “cycled through” some successful people, but almost no one has come in to replace them. I’d hate to see the organization go under; it has accomplished a lot for the people who are in it. The challenge seems to be roping more people in.

So what can SOSA do? Well, the organization’s got to offer some benefits one can’t get without being a member; they’ve got to offer some services that potential members would consider desirable; and they’ve got to be well-known enough so people not only want to bang on their door, they know where the door is. Do I know enough to help with any of that? I’m a novice at this promotional stuff, after all.

Last one first. I’ve done a little of the household-word stuff. I think one of the best things one can do is become associated with a Cause. The “Deathgrass” benefit concerts for the Food Pantry have become awfully well-known; we can generate a good crowd, and good money—and that translates into our being able to generate a crowd and revenue for other things. What cause? Pick one (not too flaky, of course)—one advantage of These Troubled Times is there are a lot of people needing help. So the organization arranges the benefit concerts, and showcases, publicizes, &c., the individual players at the same time.

The member benefits? The access to public TV is cool; I was told SOSA’s shows could appear on a regular schedule if they just did more of them. Okay, do more. You don’t necessarily have to repeat people—mix ‘em up, in duos, trios and small bands. I’ve been harping on the need for performance DVDs, too. Maybe the organization should invest in a video camera. The “showcase” CD (which wasn’t done last year) is a good promotional tool, too—but need to focus on distribution, so more people know about it. Your music and/or links on a SOSA Website (SOSA also doesn’t have a Website any more, and the MySpace page is a poor substitute). When I moved to southern Oregon, I’d never have known there was a songwriters’ association if they hadn’t had a Website. Access to a good commercial recording studio at discount rates would be good, too.

Attracting people? Being better known, and offering member-only services, helps. I’d like to see some coaching and critiquing. Something the Eugene Songwriters Assn. does is a monthly critiquing session—everybody brings their latest material, and everybody critiques it. SOSA’s never done that that I know of. What SOSA has done that I haven’t seen anyone else doing is the “showcases,” that give people experience performing their stuff. Both, I think, are necessary. I probably fixate a lot on the writing part, because I think it is teachable—and I don’t see it being taught. The people I know who’ve become decent writers have mostly puzzled it out on their own—and there are plenty of good performers who either don’t have anything to say, or don’t know how to say it very well. If one of the prerequisites to making it in the music business is having material that’s better than anybody else’s, then somebody should be helping those folks.

Could SOSA do both—training performing and writing? I’d like to see songwriting classes taught through the local community college (and teaching a class is one of the items on my 2010 Worklist). Has the organization ever gotten its 501(c)(3) tax exemption? They should.

Follow-up question, of course, is to what extent I can help with this stuff. I am 300-plus miles away, after all. However, I’ve got the time to travel a little bit, and the Internet allows me to do some things long-distance. I’ll pass it all on. I’ve already volunteered myself to do their newsletter next year. I can do more than that.

Joe

A KADDISH FOR CAROL ACKERMAN...

I wanted a kaddish in memory of Dick Ackerman, our blues harp player, who died December 29 (his 80th birthday). The kaddish is an old Jewish tradition that, while I’m not Jewish, I’ve always liked. It’s called the “song for the dead,” but it’s not FOR the dead, precisely—the dead are either in a better place or otherwise don’t care—but rather for the living, for those left behind. The idea, as I understand it, is that a person lives on in the ways they have touched other people’s lives, and the kaddish sort of expresses that; it says why that person was important.

I have previously written two kaddishes (kaddishi? I’m not sure what the technical plural is). The passing of Corky “Dawg” Bernard, my first mentor as I explored songwriting online, prompted “Requiem for a Grey Dog,” written for his wife Bobbie. “Crosses by the Roadside” was originally going to be for Carol Ackerman—at the time, Dick was undergoing surgery and chemotherapy for cancer (I guess they didn’t get it all)—but after Dick’s health improved, I dedicated the song instead to fellow songwriter Sharma Kay, who was killed in a car accident this year (and “Crosses” is describing an auto accident, after all). I don’t know if anyone but Bobbie ever heard “Requiem for a Grey Dog”; I know a lot of people have heard “Crosses by the Roadside,” because it’s been performed a lot.

And the kaddish for Carol? I just might have one already. A few years ago—back before “Alice” the ‘puter got the Windows XP upgrade that erased all her document files—I’d worked with a “Christian country” lyricist, Tarra Young, on something she’d written for a friend who was dying of cancer. I musicated it (tweaking the lyrics a bit, as usual), recorded it, and sent it to Tarra—and never heard anything. I found out a little while ago she had a Soundclick page, and the song was on it. (I guess she liked it.) The link, by the way, is http:www.soundclick.com/share?songid=5361727.

I think—tentatively—this is the kaddish for Carol. It’s a bit upbeat (Carol being a good religious person, and knowing Dick has gone to a Better Place); expresses the sadness of missing him while at the same time being happy to have known him; and has that lovely line in the chorus, “You’ll make a real good angel.” And of course, the sentiments are a lot closer to home now than they were then.

It’s not Jewish music, of course—none of my kaddishes (kaddishi?) are. I haven’t written any Jewish music. (I should. One of the items on the 2010 Worklist is to write in different genres.) “Requiem” was bluegrass, and the other two are two-steps. (Yes, you can dance to this.) My guitar playing on the recording on Tarra’s Soundclick page is a bit hesitant; I would not be hesitant now. (I guess that means I have gotten better since whenever-that-was.)

I’ve been practicing singing it; I still can’t get through the song without my voice breaking, but it’s getting better—the trick is to stuff all the emotion into the singing, while remaining unemotional yourself. That’s just hard to do when something hits very close to home. I want to play this the next time I get together with the Friday Night Group (which won’t be for almost two weeks), because all of them knew Dick; it’d be neat if we could all play it for Carol when she gets back. In the same vein, I wonder if the band would be interested in recording it. I’m not sure it should go on the album; if it did, I’d want to dedicate the album to Dick, but that wouldn’t be a bad thing to do. At very least, I’d like to give Carol a copy of the song done by the band he helped make famous.

Music this week Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and maybe Sunday. It’s been a long hiatus.

Joe

HAPPY NEW YEAR (I THINK)...

Got to watch another band perform on New Year’s Eve. True, I’d rather have been playing on stage, but this was a good opportunity to observe the competition at work (over a decent shrimp dinner)—and these guys are getting paying gigs, and we’re not. I really should do more of this competition-assessing (though my fingers get itchy watching someone else play).

6-piece (I guess) band—lead and rhythm guitars, bass, drums, sound guy (I want one of those) and lighting guy. I don’t know if the lighting guy was being paid as an equal member of the band, but the sound guy should have been—he did a lot of work. One of the guitarists did a set as an Elvis impersonator, and was really good.

They started off really poor, but did get better after Elvis arrived. I think starting off with something slow and jazzy, and following it with more slow and jazzy, was a bad move; long pauses between songs isn’t good, either. A sure signal they’d misjudged the crowd: the first song that got almost everybody out on the dance floor was a Buck Owens tune. (And these guys don’t play country music.)

Could our band have done better? Mostly, yes. “Deathgrass” shows always start out with a good, upbeat dance tune (and it should be recognizable by now), and the Rap between songs ensures the audience never has a chance to get bored (and the band still get to catch its collective breath). We have the crowd’s attention constantly. Songs do not sound alike. A lot of what we play is country music—which apparently appeals to audiences around here. Since we’ve been playing to mostly the same kind of audience, I haven’t worried much about tailoring setlists, though I have done that for solo gigs, and with other bands; one reason for visiting the venue ahead of time is to talk to people there about what the crowd is like and what kind of music they like to hear, so you don’t have to guess (and risk guessing wrong). And I’m always doing post-mortems, reviewing what worked best, what didn’t, and what could be done differently (and better). So we’re doing a lot of this stuff right, I think.

We don’t do covers (at least, not covers of anything famous). That New Year’s Eve band did all covers, of course; I think most bands do. I still don’t consider it necessary (and hope I’m right). At this point, people around here would be surprised if I performed anything that wasn’t original—but that’s because they’ve gotten used to me.

(And maybe it’s improved people’s perceptions a little. I think most folks shy away from original music because they assume somebody who isn’t already famous, and on records and on the radio, can’t be any good. I hope in this little, local area, I’m proving that wrong. I am (or hope to be) proof that you can play your own stuff, and people will come to listen to it even knowing it’s your stuff, and they’ll dance to it, and even leave money behind. But it has taken a few years to get to that point.)

Friday, I go north to Astoria, for the first get-together of the “infant” band Joe Sims has been trying to assemble up there (I talked them into considering me as their rhythm guitarist). All covers, of course—but I don’t mind: I don’t have to sing ‘em. I’ll pass on my Performance Points as best I can: Start off with a bang. Don’t give the audience a chance to get bored. Vary your tempo. And make sure you’re playing what the audience wants.

As I’m looking through the list of 50 songs Joe sent—all rock ‘n’ roll and Modern Country (which is much the same), and no “traditional” country at all among them—I have to ask the question, “How well have you gauged our market? Are we playing these songs just because you want to sing them, or have you figured out these are what people want to hear? And if so, how did you decide that?”

Oh, and it is January First, isn’t it? Happy New Year, everybody. May your Twenty-Ten be better than your Twenty-Nine. On my end, I sure will be working at it.

Joe