The re-done music video of “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” is okay. Link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShwUFt8_UPc and as this is written, it’s had 30 “hits” since it got posted two days ago. The video was an opportunity to dust off my cartoonist skills—hadn’t really had a chance to use them since I was a newspaper editorial cartoonist, over 30 years ago—and make sure I hadn’t lost my touch.
The question was asked (inevitably) whether I could do an encore. My initial reaction is “Probably not.” I can’t think of any other of my songs that would lend themselves to a cartoon interpretation—but I’m open to suggestions. I am also trying to stick to my rule that each video has got to be different. Having done this one this way, and having had it come out (I think) competent, I am disinclined to do another one the same way. (Of course, I am always capable of breaking my own rules, too.)
For the video of the “Tillamook Railroad Blues,” I don’t think we can do footage of us playing on the train; the train doesn’t have 110-volt power, and I don’t want the hassle and expense of getting a generator. I got rid of the Dodson Drifters’ old battery-powered PA amp back in 2008 (thing still worked, after 30 years—Radio Shack made good stuff) and never thought I’d need something like that again. We can film the band playing at either Garibaldi or Wheeler Station (where there is electricity), and meld that with footage of and from the train; that should work. The key is competence: it is fine to be understated—one just needs to be professionally understated.
We’re on for SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5 for the Failed Economy Show benefit for the Food Pantry. The City Hall Dance Floor’s been reserved, the first media announcement has been made (in my column for the newspaper), and the poster’s done and ready to be distributed. Saturday, at the Arts Center’s open mike, I should be able to talk to our would-be fiddle player and backup singer and see if they’re interested in being part of the show. Practice will be Friday night, Jan. 28. Tentatively, we’re scheduled to record the album the Friday after the show (Feb. 11).
It’s probably good that all this is taking place as fast as it is—I have a job interview Friday, Jan. 21, and while I refuse to be hopeful (I have been rejected too many times), there is always a chance they could hire me. That job is in the Willamette Valley, again—just far enough away to make commuting infeasible. If the job is offered, I’m taking it—applying the Standard Rule of “whoever gets me first, gets me.” I can do lots of stuff, and am quite comfortable doing any of it.
A brief post-mortem on the Thirsty Lion gig—about all it deserves: it was fun, primarily because I like playing; financially, it was a bust—either the predicted ice storm (which did hit while I was there) or the prospect of having to listen to me sing kept people away in droves, as it were, and I was playing to a mostly empty house. Two people did come specifically to hear me (thanks, Kym and Tony); the other performer, a blues ukelelist(!) named Patrick, had a bigger cheering section (he was quite good) and probably got the prize. (The other two scheduled performers didn’t come, presumably because of the bad weather.) Far more exciting than the gig itself was the 4-hour trip home—two hours of which was spent just extricating myself from Portland, which was the only place that had any ice. Would I do it again? Probably not in the winter again.
Lots of music this week—Friday night at City Hall, Saturday afternoon at the library, Saturday night at the Arts Center. There’s talk of re-starting the all-acoustic Wednesday afternoon jam session at the Garibaldi Pub, now that I’m back in town (nice compliment there, I think).
Joe
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
THE NEW (DRAFT) MUSIC VIDEO...
ZA draft of the “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” video is on YouTube. I won’t include the link, because I think I can re-make the video better. I was after enough funkiness to be charming, but what I got is too much; it needs to be competent as well, and the draft is very short on competence.
Problem is with the scanner, I think: using the scanner was supposed to make all the images the same size, but it didn’t—the paper was the same size, but the scanner only caught the part of the paper that had drawing on it. I can fix that problem, I think, by having something in the corners of each piece of paper—the scanner will be forced to consider that part of the “drawing.” (There is an advantage to having tools that aren’t too intelligent.) That should make each drawing the size of the paper, and will give me the consistency I need.
Hardest part may actually be forcing myself to re-do it. I tend to not like re-doing stuff. I like having it perfect the first time because I don’t want to go back to it.
In this case, re-doing shouldn’t be a long and painful process. It only took about three hours to do the line drawings and scanning, and less than an hour to put it all together. Of course, this one was easy. Other music videos will necessarily take longer, because they will entail actually using a camera and doing captioning. And I will be more insistent about being perfect the first time.
I do have the luxury, if one can call it that, of not having to work on just one thing at a time. I have laden myself up with enough “I’ll do this when I’m unemployed again” work that I can (and should) be doing several things at once, all the time. Just like I did when I was working as a city manager. So along with this first video, the Deathgrass album cover has been designed, along with the CD label (both stark and simple, and eye-catching), practice with the band for the album and the “Failed Economy Show” concert mostly arranged, and some of the publicity lined up.
I have a draft poster for the Failed Economy Show, too, though I’m still not sure of the date (I think it’ll be February 5). It helps to be able to do this stuff fast. This coming Tuesday night is the Thirsty Lion gig, and I’ll be doing at least a couple of other things on the trip to Portland, to be as efficient as possible. I will be avoiding the snow on the way there, too. I don’t have time to worry (which is another luxury, I guess).
I looked up the copyrights for the songs on the album, and with one exception they’re all between 2005 and 2009, so they’re all post-Santa’s Fallen music. (The “Tillamook Railroad Blues” (2002) was on the first, solo album I did, but has never been recorded with a band.) I wonder if I should include lyrics? Back in the days of vinyl LPs, I always liked having lyrics on album covers; that’s how I learned to play a lot of those songs. If I could fit everything on an 8x14 sheet, it’d work (8x11 paper can’t be folded properly to fit inside a CD case). I’d have to do my own packaging if I did that—no outside service would be able to do it—but I’m probably going to have to do my own packaging anyway, to save money. It might be easier to include a coupon instead, for a “2011 edition” of the Joe Songbook (which has all the lyrics, and chords, too) at a discount price. The coupon would be a nice giveaway at gigs, too.
Whatever I do has to be uber-professional, though; if I can’t make what I do the equal of anything out on the commercial market, I don’t want to do it. If I’m going to compete in the same marketplace as the Big Boys, I have to be able to do everything as good as they do. And mostly, I can. (And that’s why I’ll re-do that video of “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” Soon. It did get 13 “hits” the first day, though.)
Joe
Problem is with the scanner, I think: using the scanner was supposed to make all the images the same size, but it didn’t—the paper was the same size, but the scanner only caught the part of the paper that had drawing on it. I can fix that problem, I think, by having something in the corners of each piece of paper—the scanner will be forced to consider that part of the “drawing.” (There is an advantage to having tools that aren’t too intelligent.) That should make each drawing the size of the paper, and will give me the consistency I need.
Hardest part may actually be forcing myself to re-do it. I tend to not like re-doing stuff. I like having it perfect the first time because I don’t want to go back to it.
In this case, re-doing shouldn’t be a long and painful process. It only took about three hours to do the line drawings and scanning, and less than an hour to put it all together. Of course, this one was easy. Other music videos will necessarily take longer, because they will entail actually using a camera and doing captioning. And I will be more insistent about being perfect the first time.
I do have the luxury, if one can call it that, of not having to work on just one thing at a time. I have laden myself up with enough “I’ll do this when I’m unemployed again” work that I can (and should) be doing several things at once, all the time. Just like I did when I was working as a city manager. So along with this first video, the Deathgrass album cover has been designed, along with the CD label (both stark and simple, and eye-catching), practice with the band for the album and the “Failed Economy Show” concert mostly arranged, and some of the publicity lined up.
I have a draft poster for the Failed Economy Show, too, though I’m still not sure of the date (I think it’ll be February 5). It helps to be able to do this stuff fast. This coming Tuesday night is the Thirsty Lion gig, and I’ll be doing at least a couple of other things on the trip to Portland, to be as efficient as possible. I will be avoiding the snow on the way there, too. I don’t have time to worry (which is another luxury, I guess).
I looked up the copyrights for the songs on the album, and with one exception they’re all between 2005 and 2009, so they’re all post-Santa’s Fallen music. (The “Tillamook Railroad Blues” (2002) was on the first, solo album I did, but has never been recorded with a band.) I wonder if I should include lyrics? Back in the days of vinyl LPs, I always liked having lyrics on album covers; that’s how I learned to play a lot of those songs. If I could fit everything on an 8x14 sheet, it’d work (8x11 paper can’t be folded properly to fit inside a CD case). I’d have to do my own packaging if I did that—no outside service would be able to do it—but I’m probably going to have to do my own packaging anyway, to save money. It might be easier to include a coupon instead, for a “2011 edition” of the Joe Songbook (which has all the lyrics, and chords, too) at a discount price. The coupon would be a nice giveaway at gigs, too.
Whatever I do has to be uber-professional, though; if I can’t make what I do the equal of anything out on the commercial market, I don’t want to do it. If I’m going to compete in the same marketplace as the Big Boys, I have to be able to do everything as good as they do. And mostly, I can. (And that’s why I’ll re-do that video of “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” Soon. It did get 13 “hits” the first day, though.)
Joe
Friday, January 7, 2011
SOME PUBLICITY, SOME PLANS & SOME STATISTICS...
Nice write-up in Oregon Music News (http://www.oregonmusicnews.com --it’s in their “This Just In” section). I hope it brings some traffic to the Thirsty Lion gig—it’d be real fun if it did. (It would also indicate that a lot of people read the Oregon Music News, which would also be good to know.) The article also mentioned Deathgrass and the upcoming Failed Economy Show, giving me an opening to talk to them again.
Is there a lesson there? Persistence, maybe; I had attempted to contact them before—but this time, I wasn’t promoting a performance on the Coast, but rather one in Portland (yes, the Visiting Artist From Out of Town thing). So this time there was the right nexus, too. And the “Portland Songwriter Showcase,” which I don’t think they’ve reported on before, is something they ought to know about and be interested in.
Still waiting on the date for the Failed Economy Show; it’s going to depend on whether Charlie (our lead guitarist) manages to bring jazz guitarist John Stowell out to the Arts Center for another seminar—if he does, the Stowell seminar will be Jan. 29, and we’ll do the Failed Economy Show on Feb. 5. Setlist for the show is done, and distributed to the band; Rap is almost done; and I have another Depression photo from the Farmer’s Home Administration archives to use on the poster.
And we might have a fiddle player with us, too! (Actually, there’s a chance I could also enlist a girl singer—she sang with us at the wedding—and a saxophonist—who played with us at the benefit for Val Folkema last April. We could have quite an ensemble.)
I discovered that Google’s Blogspot keeps STATISTICS. They do make for a fascinating (if incomprehensible) snapshot. I knew, for instance, that some people were actually reading “The Writer’s Blog.” Apparently, since I started, 1,537 people have done so. Thank you, whoever you are (or were).
Biggest number of “hits” happened this past October (the month that daughter got married, and the band played the reception), and the “issue” that got the most reads was the Rocktoberfest post-mortem (Sept. 19, 2010). In fact, three of the top five “issues” in readership were concert post-mortems.
The demographics of the “audience” are a little strange. That 671 readers were from the U.S. is understandable; I live there, too. I can understand having readers from England (52), Canada (51), and Germany (132), because I do know people in those places (I don’t know that many, though). But 133 in Russia? Apparently there’s a Russian service that’s been re-broadcasting the blog in Russian—why, I have no idea. And I have no explanation for the readers in Luxembourg (44?), China (39?), Poland (32?), Brazil (28?), and Latvia (27?). I hadn’t planned on visiting those countries when I did the World Tour, but maybe I should.
Of course, I have no way of knowing who those people are, or how to reach them; the Internet, alas, is like that. Knowing those readers are out there (or at least that Google thinks they are) is tantalizing, but I don’t know how to take advantage of that information. (I suppose I could always do an issue of the blog in, say, Latvian, and see what happened.)
Since the Friday Night Group was short-handed this week, I was the only lead guitarist, which was both fun and challenging. Music Saturday afternoon at the library—and I saw a poster advertising a Saturday night jam session in (of all places) teeny little Hebo, Oregon. Tempting to go just to play them the “Welcome to Hebo Waltz.” It’s never been played in Hebo.
Joe
Is there a lesson there? Persistence, maybe; I had attempted to contact them before—but this time, I wasn’t promoting a performance on the Coast, but rather one in Portland (yes, the Visiting Artist From Out of Town thing). So this time there was the right nexus, too. And the “Portland Songwriter Showcase,” which I don’t think they’ve reported on before, is something they ought to know about and be interested in.
Still waiting on the date for the Failed Economy Show; it’s going to depend on whether Charlie (our lead guitarist) manages to bring jazz guitarist John Stowell out to the Arts Center for another seminar—if he does, the Stowell seminar will be Jan. 29, and we’ll do the Failed Economy Show on Feb. 5. Setlist for the show is done, and distributed to the band; Rap is almost done; and I have another Depression photo from the Farmer’s Home Administration archives to use on the poster.
And we might have a fiddle player with us, too! (Actually, there’s a chance I could also enlist a girl singer—she sang with us at the wedding—and a saxophonist—who played with us at the benefit for Val Folkema last April. We could have quite an ensemble.)
I discovered that Google’s Blogspot keeps STATISTICS. They do make for a fascinating (if incomprehensible) snapshot. I knew, for instance, that some people were actually reading “The Writer’s Blog.” Apparently, since I started, 1,537 people have done so. Thank you, whoever you are (or were).
Biggest number of “hits” happened this past October (the month that daughter got married, and the band played the reception), and the “issue” that got the most reads was the Rocktoberfest post-mortem (Sept. 19, 2010). In fact, three of the top five “issues” in readership were concert post-mortems.
The demographics of the “audience” are a little strange. That 671 readers were from the U.S. is understandable; I live there, too. I can understand having readers from England (52), Canada (51), and Germany (132), because I do know people in those places (I don’t know that many, though). But 133 in Russia? Apparently there’s a Russian service that’s been re-broadcasting the blog in Russian—why, I have no idea. And I have no explanation for the readers in Luxembourg (44?), China (39?), Poland (32?), Brazil (28?), and Latvia (27?). I hadn’t planned on visiting those countries when I did the World Tour, but maybe I should.
Of course, I have no way of knowing who those people are, or how to reach them; the Internet, alas, is like that. Knowing those readers are out there (or at least that Google thinks they are) is tantalizing, but I don’t know how to take advantage of that information. (I suppose I could always do an issue of the blog in, say, Latvian, and see what happened.)
Since the Friday Night Group was short-handed this week, I was the only lead guitarist, which was both fun and challenging. Music Saturday afternoon at the library—and I saw a poster advertising a Saturday night jam session in (of all places) teeny little Hebo, Oregon. Tempting to go just to play them the “Welcome to Hebo Waltz.” It’s never been played in Hebo.
Joe
Thursday, January 6, 2011
SETLIST FOR THE FAILED ECONOMY SHOW...
The Failed Economy show will be either JAN. 29 or FEB. 5—both are Saturdays. Tentatively, the setlist for the 2-hour show looks like this:
SET #1 (11 songs):
Dead Things in the Shower (with Bobbie Gallup)—fast two-step **
50 Ways to Cure the Depression—country rock
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues **
Things Are Getting Better Now that Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—fast two-step
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues **
No Good Songs About the War—slow, marching two-step **
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock **
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy **
Rotten Candy—fast Gospel **
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step **
SET #2 (11 songs):
Have a Good Day (Frank Pappas)—country rock
Final Payment (Gem Watson)—mod. speed Gospel
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll **
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
Ain’t Got No Home in This World Any More (Woody Guthrie)—fast two-step
So 20th Century (Coleman & Lazzerini)—ragtime
Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass **
Crosses by the Roadside—slow two-step **
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass
11 of those 22 songs are also going to be on the album—also intended to be done in January—so our practices (next weekend, tentatively) can do double duty. (I’ve told the band two practices ought to do it.) Publicity still to do; I seem to have acquired a couple of media contacts now, that I can maybe use to advantage. This time, I want to have refreshments at the break, to discourage the crowd from drifting away—my cookies, and (if I can locate her—her boyfriend, who’s in his 90s, has been sick) Jeannette’s cinnamon-rolls-to-die-for. And this time, I’d like to have the event videotaped. The publicity this time will extend to a couple of additional counties, and it’d be fun to have the event on TV.
Oregon Music News did e-mail me back, and I sent (at their request) my version of an electronic press kit—a couple of photos, the “Joe is Great!” text from the Songbook CD, and links to the two Soundclick “pages.” Couldn’t give them any videos of me playing, but I sent links to the music videos of “The Taboo Song,” “Leavin’ It to Beaver,” and “Me and Rufus, and Burning Down the House.” Sounds like they’ll say something about the Thirsty Lion gig. Can I get them to say anything about the Failed Economy Show and the album? We’ll see.
The open mike at the Bay City Arts Center Jan. 15 wants to focus on freedom (it being Martin Luther King weekend), so I think I’ll give them “The Writer’s Block Blues,” “Free-Range Person,” and “50 Ways to Cure the Depression.” They’re all about freedom (albeit a little tongue-in-cheek), and the last one specifically says (a la Paul Simon), “We’ve got to help each other in our struggle to be free.” If there’s time, the Arts Center crowd can have “Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope)”—I think that’s the only one nobody there has heard yet. And that show will get videotaped. I’ll see if I can extract my part to use for promotional purposes.
Yes, it’s busy—deliberately so: not only did I save up a lot of stuff do do while I was working, but I really enjoyed being constantly busy while I was working, and would like to keep it up. ‘Sides, as I’ve been telling folks, I could get employed again at a moment’s notice. I don’t know if that will happen, but I hope it does.
Joe
SET #1 (11 songs):
Dead Things in the Shower (with Bobbie Gallup)—fast two-step **
50 Ways to Cure the Depression—country rock
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues **
Things Are Getting Better Now that Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—fast two-step
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues **
No Good Songs About the War—slow, marching two-step **
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock **
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy **
Rotten Candy—fast Gospel **
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step **
SET #2 (11 songs):
Have a Good Day (Frank Pappas)—country rock
Final Payment (Gem Watson)—mod. speed Gospel
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll **
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
Ain’t Got No Home in This World Any More (Woody Guthrie)—fast two-step
So 20th Century (Coleman & Lazzerini)—ragtime
Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock
Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass **
Crosses by the Roadside—slow two-step **
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass
11 of those 22 songs are also going to be on the album—also intended to be done in January—so our practices (next weekend, tentatively) can do double duty. (I’ve told the band two practices ought to do it.) Publicity still to do; I seem to have acquired a couple of media contacts now, that I can maybe use to advantage. This time, I want to have refreshments at the break, to discourage the crowd from drifting away—my cookies, and (if I can locate her—her boyfriend, who’s in his 90s, has been sick) Jeannette’s cinnamon-rolls-to-die-for. And this time, I’d like to have the event videotaped. The publicity this time will extend to a couple of additional counties, and it’d be fun to have the event on TV.
Oregon Music News did e-mail me back, and I sent (at their request) my version of an electronic press kit—a couple of photos, the “Joe is Great!” text from the Songbook CD, and links to the two Soundclick “pages.” Couldn’t give them any videos of me playing, but I sent links to the music videos of “The Taboo Song,” “Leavin’ It to Beaver,” and “Me and Rufus, and Burning Down the House.” Sounds like they’ll say something about the Thirsty Lion gig. Can I get them to say anything about the Failed Economy Show and the album? We’ll see.
The open mike at the Bay City Arts Center Jan. 15 wants to focus on freedom (it being Martin Luther King weekend), so I think I’ll give them “The Writer’s Block Blues,” “Free-Range Person,” and “50 Ways to Cure the Depression.” They’re all about freedom (albeit a little tongue-in-cheek), and the last one specifically says (a la Paul Simon), “We’ve got to help each other in our struggle to be free.” If there’s time, the Arts Center crowd can have “Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope)”—I think that’s the only one nobody there has heard yet. And that show will get videotaped. I’ll see if I can extract my part to use for promotional purposes.
Yes, it’s busy—deliberately so: not only did I save up a lot of stuff do do while I was working, but I really enjoyed being constantly busy while I was working, and would like to keep it up. ‘Sides, as I’ve been telling folks, I could get employed again at a moment’s notice. I don’t know if that will happen, but I hope it does.
Joe
Sunday, January 2, 2011
BEING BACK: PART I...
Started to write the blog this morning, and ended up writing a job application instead. That’s a hopeful sign for the future. A lot of Monday’s activities will be job-related, too—I want to stop by the newspaper office and meet the new editor, and see if she might have additional work for me, let the folks at West Coast Temps know I’m available again, and check with the unemployment office (now that I’m unemployed again). On the not-job-related front, I’ll try to get signed up for a slot on the 2nd Street Public Market’s stage, attend the Bay City Arts Center’s board meeting for the first time in months, and make the rounds in person to collect stuff for the newspaper column—again, for the first time in months.
Looks like we can record the Deathgrass album in January; I’ll see two of the band in person Monday, and will call the other two. I want to do this Patsy Cline style—live and in one take—so we’ll need to be thoroughly practiced before we go into the studio. I’d like to do the recording in one evening if possible—then, the rest of the time can be Mike’s, doing the mixing and mastering. The Album List looks like this (still):
Dead Things in the Shower (with Bobbie Gallup)—fast two-step
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
No Good Songs About the War—slow marching two-step
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Crosses by the Roadside—slow two-step
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues
Rotten Candy—fast Gospel
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step
I’m assuming Charlie on lead guitar (because Mike will be sound engineer—but I want Mike’s harmonies on “Tillamook Railroad Blues” and “Un-Easy Street”). A good half of those songs show off Doc’s blues harp playing. There’s one—“No Good Songs About the War”—where I’d really like to play lead guitar (I did it on the cut we sent to the “Doing Dylan” contest in England), but I think I’ll let it pass; almost anybody can play lead better than I can, and the goal is to have a good product, not for me to show off. I write stuff. That’s enough.
And—wanting to be as efficient as possible—practice for the album can do double duty for practice for the Failed Economy Show. I just don’t know when that concert will be. Third Saturday of January is out, but that Sunday might be okay (it’s a holiday weekend); the two or three following Saturdays might be okay, too. I’d like to have a month to work on the publicity, and I haven’t done anything to date (being employed, and all). Again, I want to do it in January, because I don’t know what February may bring (I keep hoping it’ll bring another job).
The recording will provide tracks for a couple of music videos, too. “The Dog’s Song” I’ve already mentioned; for “Tillamook Railroad Blues,” ideal would be to shoot footage of the band playing on the train (and I’ve been angling for a “Deathgrass cruise” event on the train this coming summer).
Music Friday and Saturday this week; next Tuesday’s the Thirsty Lion gig in Portland. No response from Oregon Music News to my message about the Thirsty Lion (I am not surprised—they don’t seem to accept outside input well), but I did hear from the Willamette Writers group—hopefully, some of them will come. Might have a familiar face or two at the show after all.
Joe
Looks like we can record the Deathgrass album in January; I’ll see two of the band in person Monday, and will call the other two. I want to do this Patsy Cline style—live and in one take—so we’ll need to be thoroughly practiced before we go into the studio. I’d like to do the recording in one evening if possible—then, the rest of the time can be Mike’s, doing the mixing and mastering. The Album List looks like this (still):
Dead Things in the Shower (with Bobbie Gallup)—fast two-step
Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
No Good Songs About the War—slow marching two-step
Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Crosses by the Roadside—slow two-step
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues
Rotten Candy—fast Gospel
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step
I’m assuming Charlie on lead guitar (because Mike will be sound engineer—but I want Mike’s harmonies on “Tillamook Railroad Blues” and “Un-Easy Street”). A good half of those songs show off Doc’s blues harp playing. There’s one—“No Good Songs About the War”—where I’d really like to play lead guitar (I did it on the cut we sent to the “Doing Dylan” contest in England), but I think I’ll let it pass; almost anybody can play lead better than I can, and the goal is to have a good product, not for me to show off. I write stuff. That’s enough.
And—wanting to be as efficient as possible—practice for the album can do double duty for practice for the Failed Economy Show. I just don’t know when that concert will be. Third Saturday of January is out, but that Sunday might be okay (it’s a holiday weekend); the two or three following Saturdays might be okay, too. I’d like to have a month to work on the publicity, and I haven’t done anything to date (being employed, and all). Again, I want to do it in January, because I don’t know what February may bring (I keep hoping it’ll bring another job).
The recording will provide tracks for a couple of music videos, too. “The Dog’s Song” I’ve already mentioned; for “Tillamook Railroad Blues,” ideal would be to shoot footage of the band playing on the train (and I’ve been angling for a “Deathgrass cruise” event on the train this coming summer).
Music Friday and Saturday this week; next Tuesday’s the Thirsty Lion gig in Portland. No response from Oregon Music News to my message about the Thirsty Lion (I am not surprised—they don’t seem to accept outside input well), but I did hear from the Willamette Writers group—hopefully, some of them will come. Might have a familiar face or two at the show after all.
Joe
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
PREPARING FOR THE THIRSTY LION...
Packing (it’ll take a couple of nights)… I had no idea I’d accumulated so much stuff at a temporary job, living out of a room (well, two rooms—one’s been my office) for five months. Good thing I have a truck.
The Thirsty Lion performance Tuesday, Jan. 11 will be my first solo gig in a long time, and my first one there in over half a year, I think. What to play? It’s a tavern, so one can be a little risqué and get away with it; also because it’s a tavern, one has to work a little harder to get the audience’s attention (though sometimes it’s easier to hold it once you’ve got it).
My experience at the Wild Goose in Ashland taught me that it’s best to start out with something slow and sleazy—after that, one can get more uptempo. I’m not sure the intent I’d had earlier, about not playing anything I’d done before, is necessary—it’s been a long time since I’ve appeared at the Thirsty Lion, and I doubt anybody but host Eric John Kaiser remembers me. Best to concentrate simply on being entertaining.
Either six or seven songs; since I’m playing solo, all the songs will be shorter than the standard five minutes, because there’ll be no lead breaks. How about:
Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?—slow & sleazy
I May Write You from Jupiter—fast bluegrass
Take-Out Food (Stan Good)—slow & sleazy
Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope)—fast bluegrass
In The Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You—slow & sleazy
The Abomination Two-Step—fast bluegrass
The rapture song is a good attention-getter, so it will be first. “Charity” was a hit with the Friday Night Group (which was a surprise), and “The Abomination Two-Step” got requested twice out of the blue at the coffeehouse in McMinnville (another surprise). The “Shadows” song I just happen to like myself; it’s one of those where it’s hard to tell if I’m being serious or not (and I don’t plan to tell), and maybe that makes people listen.
There should be room for a seventh song at the end; depending on how the time works out (and I’ll have to time it), that could be either “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” (which itself is pretty short, without lead breaks) or “Meet Me at the Stairs.” The latter would let me make a pitch to buy CDs—which I will have with me. (I’ll have the Notebook, too, for signups for the “joelist.”)
Marketing? I can’t do the trick I’ve pulled in the past, of dropping off posters at Music Millenium and a couple other strategic places a week ahead of time—I can’t afford to make a special trip into Portland. I don’t have a good track record generating a crowd from the “joelist” or Facebook, though (there aren’t that many people from Portland in that database, anyway). I can e-mail a poster and notice to a handful of entertainment editors I’m aware of, and contact the Willamette Writers group (who are mostly in Portland)—I’ve been wanting to solicit a paying gig from them—and see what happens.
No music this week; the Friday Night Group won’t be playing New Year’s Eve, and the library’s closed on the Saturday holiday. Next week, though, there will be—and the magazine photographer’s supposedly coming Friday night (and we’ll be missing three of our people, including our bass player and a lead player, because they have a gig). Hope we’re still able to put on a good show.
Joe
The Thirsty Lion performance Tuesday, Jan. 11 will be my first solo gig in a long time, and my first one there in over half a year, I think. What to play? It’s a tavern, so one can be a little risqué and get away with it; also because it’s a tavern, one has to work a little harder to get the audience’s attention (though sometimes it’s easier to hold it once you’ve got it).
My experience at the Wild Goose in Ashland taught me that it’s best to start out with something slow and sleazy—after that, one can get more uptempo. I’m not sure the intent I’d had earlier, about not playing anything I’d done before, is necessary—it’s been a long time since I’ve appeared at the Thirsty Lion, and I doubt anybody but host Eric John Kaiser remembers me. Best to concentrate simply on being entertaining.
Either six or seven songs; since I’m playing solo, all the songs will be shorter than the standard five minutes, because there’ll be no lead breaks. How about:
Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?—slow & sleazy
I May Write You from Jupiter—fast bluegrass
Take-Out Food (Stan Good)—slow & sleazy
Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope)—fast bluegrass
In The Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You—slow & sleazy
The Abomination Two-Step—fast bluegrass
The rapture song is a good attention-getter, so it will be first. “Charity” was a hit with the Friday Night Group (which was a surprise), and “The Abomination Two-Step” got requested twice out of the blue at the coffeehouse in McMinnville (another surprise). The “Shadows” song I just happen to like myself; it’s one of those where it’s hard to tell if I’m being serious or not (and I don’t plan to tell), and maybe that makes people listen.
There should be room for a seventh song at the end; depending on how the time works out (and I’ll have to time it), that could be either “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” (which itself is pretty short, without lead breaks) or “Meet Me at the Stairs.” The latter would let me make a pitch to buy CDs—which I will have with me. (I’ll have the Notebook, too, for signups for the “joelist.”)
Marketing? I can’t do the trick I’ve pulled in the past, of dropping off posters at Music Millenium and a couple other strategic places a week ahead of time—I can’t afford to make a special trip into Portland. I don’t have a good track record generating a crowd from the “joelist” or Facebook, though (there aren’t that many people from Portland in that database, anyway). I can e-mail a poster and notice to a handful of entertainment editors I’m aware of, and contact the Willamette Writers group (who are mostly in Portland)—I’ve been wanting to solicit a paying gig from them—and see what happens.
No music this week; the Friday Night Group won’t be playing New Year’s Eve, and the library’s closed on the Saturday holiday. Next week, though, there will be—and the magazine photographer’s supposedly coming Friday night (and we’ll be missing three of our people, including our bass player and a lead player, because they have a gig). Hope we’re still able to put on a good show.
Joe
Monday, December 27, 2010
THREE WORKING DAYS LEFT...
Rain, hail, and high wind—but no snow. I’m told it was 59 degrees in Tillamook on Christmas Day. Folks down South, and overseas, were complaining about blizzards; here in northern Oregon, the only place you’ll find a Blizzard is at the local Dairy Queen. I thought this Global Warming was supposed to be, well, global?
Discovered I’d archived this week’s blog onto a CD before I’d finished writing it. What with archiving the blogs, the old newspaper columns, and all the Acrobat conversions of my PageMaker files, I did manage to free up 2GB of space on Alice’s 40-GB hard drive, though—and I’ll need it for projects.
Just three working days left of the Lafayette gig; I’ll spend two days of that getting ready for the new city manager, and one day with him. 15 pages of notes, thus far, on stuff I’ve started that I’m leaving to him to finish (or not, as the case may be—it’ll be his show from now on). I will actually miss everybody, even the folks who were my loudest critics. I didn’t expect the job to be fun, but I think I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself. (I can’t fade off into the sunset, though, because the sun sets too early this time of year. As Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want.”)
There is a lot to do when I get back to Garibaldi. I have work to do on the house that got put on hold last summer when I got the job; a Deathgrass album to record; a Deathgrass benefit concert for the Food Pantry; a couple of solo gigs to line up—to list a few. I have a new Skip Johnson song to musicate, and a lead guitar track to record for one of my favorite Scott Garriott songs (as soon as he e-mails it to me). A pile of job applications I’m waiting on answers to, too.
There are at least a couple of the music videos I can do right away. “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” is easiest, because it can all be done with the computer and scanner, and the music is already professionally recorded (it was on the “Santa’s Fallen” CD). Next easiest may be “The Dog’s Song”; I will want professionally-recorded music for that, but I can get it later. (One more song for Deathgrass to do in the studio.)
For the rest, I may need help. “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot” can be mostly be shot on a beach (with a little footage in front of a tavern), but it’d be nice to have a few cameo shots of me in it, lip-synching the words; it might be possible to set the camera up stationary on the tripod to do that, but it’d be easier if someone else were running the camera.
I did get invited back to Eric John Kaiser’s “Portland Songwriters’ Showcase” at the Thirsty Lion, Tuesday, 11 January; I’ll try, as usual, to give them songs they haven’t heard before (I have my previous Thirsty Lion setlists for reference). Prize—which, as usual, I don’t think I have a prayer of winning—is a session in a Portland recording studio. I’ll hope instead to sell enough CDs to pay for my gas there and back again. It’ll be an opportunity to contact the “joelist” and remind them I still exist, and am still playing music (even though most of them won’t be able to come to the gig).
And Oregon Coast magazine is sending a photographer to the Friday Night Group’s session in Garibaldi Jan. 7. I’m not sure how I ended up being the apparent Contact Person for this—especially being the one who’s been out of town for five months—but I’ll take advantage of it if (and to the extent) I can.
Joe
Discovered I’d archived this week’s blog onto a CD before I’d finished writing it. What with archiving the blogs, the old newspaper columns, and all the Acrobat conversions of my PageMaker files, I did manage to free up 2GB of space on Alice’s 40-GB hard drive, though—and I’ll need it for projects.
Just three working days left of the Lafayette gig; I’ll spend two days of that getting ready for the new city manager, and one day with him. 15 pages of notes, thus far, on stuff I’ve started that I’m leaving to him to finish (or not, as the case may be—it’ll be his show from now on). I will actually miss everybody, even the folks who were my loudest critics. I didn’t expect the job to be fun, but I think I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself. (I can’t fade off into the sunset, though, because the sun sets too early this time of year. As Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want.”)
There is a lot to do when I get back to Garibaldi. I have work to do on the house that got put on hold last summer when I got the job; a Deathgrass album to record; a Deathgrass benefit concert for the Food Pantry; a couple of solo gigs to line up—to list a few. I have a new Skip Johnson song to musicate, and a lead guitar track to record for one of my favorite Scott Garriott songs (as soon as he e-mails it to me). A pile of job applications I’m waiting on answers to, too.
There are at least a couple of the music videos I can do right away. “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” is easiest, because it can all be done with the computer and scanner, and the music is already professionally recorded (it was on the “Santa’s Fallen” CD). Next easiest may be “The Dog’s Song”; I will want professionally-recorded music for that, but I can get it later. (One more song for Deathgrass to do in the studio.)
For the rest, I may need help. “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot” can be mostly be shot on a beach (with a little footage in front of a tavern), but it’d be nice to have a few cameo shots of me in it, lip-synching the words; it might be possible to set the camera up stationary on the tripod to do that, but it’d be easier if someone else were running the camera.
I did get invited back to Eric John Kaiser’s “Portland Songwriters’ Showcase” at the Thirsty Lion, Tuesday, 11 January; I’ll try, as usual, to give them songs they haven’t heard before (I have my previous Thirsty Lion setlists for reference). Prize—which, as usual, I don’t think I have a prayer of winning—is a session in a Portland recording studio. I’ll hope instead to sell enough CDs to pay for my gas there and back again. It’ll be an opportunity to contact the “joelist” and remind them I still exist, and am still playing music (even though most of them won’t be able to come to the gig).
And Oregon Coast magazine is sending a photographer to the Friday Night Group’s session in Garibaldi Jan. 7. I’m not sure how I ended up being the apparent Contact Person for this—especially being the one who’s been out of town for five months—but I’ll take advantage of it if (and to the extent) I can.
Joe
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