FINALLY...

Good stuff… I have a job interview (first in a long time); Jane and I (and maybe Ken) are on the North Coast Recreation District’s comedy showcase (because both the person who asked and the person who told them to ask have heard my stuff); I’m getting responses back, slowly but surely, to the “Modest Proposal” letter soliciting performers for the three summer concerts; and my “guinea pig” square dancers claim I’m getting better (and I had ten of them come Wednesday night, two more than I needed). And I am almost over my cold. (Good thing. Denise and I perform at the Thirsty Lion Tuesday night.)

A couple of blasts from the past… I heard from Gary Harmer; he was the “mandolin man” in “Ballad of the Dodson Drifters,” and the one responsible for originally introducing us all to each other. Retired now (but still alive), still living in Eugene, and still playing guitar. Yes, I’ll have to visit. And I also heard from Ji Tanzer, son of the late Jeff Tanzer, the Dodson Drifters’ lead guitarist and other songwriter; turns out he’s recorded some of his dad’s songs that I’d thought were lost forever when Jeff died.

What prompted the contacts, in both cases, was old songs of mine—somebody’d given Gary the lyrics to “Randy MacDougall’s Saloon,” my song about the now-long-gone Coopey Falls Tavern in also-long-gone Bridal Veil, Oregon, and Ji had recorded “Ballad of the Dodson Drifters,” and wondered if it was a song Jeff and I wrote together. (It wasn’t. Jeff and I usually wrote in competition with each other, like Lennon and McCartney—and also like Lennon and McCartney, we didn’t often say who wrote what. We often played each other’s songs. And “Ballad of the Dodson Drifters” was one of mine that Jeff played a lot.)

It is starting to get a little busy. Denise’s and my practice today was the only one we’ll get before we go on stage next week; Jane and I should practice, too—she’s played “When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies” before, but not “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot”—and our performance at the comedy show is a week from Saturday. Practiced “Quoth” Friday night at the jam in Tillamook; Sunday night (at the Rapture Room) may be the only other opportunity we have.

Poster is done for the Thirsty Lion; I got individual mug shots of Denise and myself, and it didn’t come out bad. (The photo of Denise is especially good. Yes, I can do promotional photos of these performer people.) Need new ink cartridges for the printer before I can print and convert the PageMaker file to send out with the notices.

Jim (co-owner of the music store) was expressing frustration about attracting musicians to his Friday night jam session at Corky’s Tavern in Tillamook (it’s been going on for five weeks now, I think). How does one find out who the local musicians are, and get them to come? I have no idea, and wish I did. The musicians are out there—I’ve met some of them—but getting them out of the woodwork is a challenge (and one I haven’t really been successful at myself). As a newspaperman I’m tempted to use the paper, but really it’s all media—one needs to become a standard part of everyone’s consciousness, and you don’t know for sure what gets people’s attention, so you need to use everything.

And finally, I found the little Hong Kong video camera while assembling stuff from the garage for the square dancers’ rummage sale. I’ve also got Sandee’s little video camera, which has a miniature tripod. I think we can Skype now.

Joe

A PHOTO IDEA FOR THE SONGBOOK...

68 lyrics typeset for the New Joe Songbook. 64 of them were on the three Soundclick “pages”; I found I had the lyrics to four more songs on ReverbNation, including “Leavin’ It to Beaver,” probably the longest song I ever wrote. (I’m glad I didn’t have to re-type that one.) There are nine songs I spotted where I’ll have to re-type the lyrics (I’ve already done that for a tenth):

Born Again Barbie (2006)
50 Ways to Cure the Depression (2009)
Last Song of the Highwayman (2010)
Rotten Candy (2006)
Tillamook Railroad Blues (2002)
Twenty-Four Seven (2004)
Valvoline (1980)
Welcome to Hebo Waltz (2003)
The World Enquirer (1978)

It appears I will have the text typeset way in advance of having the photos for the Songbook; the elimination of seven years’ worth of photographs (including photos from two trips to Nashville, in 2005 and 2007) on old “Alice” the ‘puter’s dead hard drive is a big loss. An idea, though: would it be possible to put out a call to the “joelist,” and ask them if they had any photographs of their own they thought might be good illustrations for any of the songs? I could happily give them credit (and include mug shots of the donors if they were willing to provide those).

Additional thought: A number of the people on that list are quite good artists, working in a variety of media. If they wanted to photograph one of their artworks that they thought might illustrate a song, I could include that—and maybe a link to their or someone’s Website where people could see more of the work. I do enjoy opportunities to be collaborative.

When? It’s tempting to wait until I have the last of the songs typeset, but I really could send out this request anytime; it’ll take people a bit to get photos to me anyway. I should include links to the songs just in case people haven’t heard them—but I expect a number of folks already have particular favorites they’re familiar with. I seem to hear regularly from people saying, “Y’know, I really like that [INSERT NAME] song”—and it’s often a different one for each person. (On one hand, that makes it hard to assemble a “Greatest Hits” album. On the other, it indicates I’m appealing to a really broad—if thin—spectrum of people.)

There will be a couple of performances I can announce the Photo Search at, too: the Thirsty Lion (where Denise and I are scheduled to play Tues., March 27), and the North Coast Recreation District’s comedy show (where Jane and I will play Sat., March 31). Just need to make sure I have business cards with me.

And the format for the New Joe Songbook? I think this one, like the last one, will be a simple Acrobat (*.pdf) file, issued on CD (if you want the beautiful professionally designed cover and label) or just e-mailed (if you don’t). It’ll be downloadable from the Website as soon as I have one (you might not want to be holding your breath on that one). I’ve considered creating a “Kindle-friendly” version, but I’m not sure there’s a point; it’s a lot of work for the author and the product, near as I can tell, is not appreciably better. It would be fun to make a more 21st-century edition, that included videos and concert footage, recordings that played, and the like; I know the technology to do that exists, but using it is presently beyond me. Maybe later.

Joe

THINGS WE MIGHT BE DOING RIGHT...

I’m getting slowly but surely the opportunity to see in action some of the bands and musicians I’ve solicited for the summer festivals. And—of course—I can’t resist comparing Deathgrass to those other guys. This isn’t meant to be critical of the other guys—but here’s some things I think we’re doing right:

NO PROPS. No music stands, no music books. I’ll have a list, on a little scrap of corkboard propped unobtrusively against a mike stand, but that’s it. Nothing comes between us and the audience.

WE’RE ORGANIZED. We know what we’re going to play, and how we’re going to play it. Everybody got the setlists and CDs and we’ve practiced everything at least once, to the point where everybody’s comfortable with it. We don’t need to talk about this on stage, because we know exactly what we’re doing.

NO DEAD SPACE. I refuse to give the audience an opportunity to be bored by silence. There’ll be a Rap between songs—scripted out in advance, just like the setlist. It also allows one to insert announcements of future gigs and appeals to buy the CD and sign up for the “joelist” without being obvious about it. It’s not the only way to do it—but it’s one that works.

WE KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING. Perhaps more important, we come across like we know what we’re doing. We don’t have to look at each other; we start and finish precisely on time. Everybody in the band knows what everybody else is going to do because it’s all been worked out ahead of time. And we don’t deviate from it.

And one I debated including, because nobody pays attention to it and it may not be important to anybody but me: NO COVERS. Writers are supposed to get paid when you’re being paid to play their stuff. All the material we perform is either original or public domain or (in a couple of instances) where the writers have given permission. I’ve never seen any point in contributing to the famosity of already-famous people anyway. I realize nobody cares. But I still think we’re doing it right.

Took some promotional photos of the Ocean Bottom Blues Band last night; I think, though, I figured out how to do it better. They’ll be playing the 2nd Street Market again on March 30 and I’ll try to go and take more photos. I took some video footage, too, with Sara’s iPhone (and hopefully some of the 42 minutes’ worth of footage comes out usable). I should plan on doing this with all of the artists and groups I’m soliciting for the summer festivals. This way, if they didn’t have live concert footage and a promotional photo as part of their marketing package, they will have ones they can use from me.

Got to participate in Jim Loughrie’s jam session at Corky’s Friday night, too (after watching other people play music for two hours, I had really itchy fingers). Turned out I knew just about all the musicians—this may be a real small fraternity in Tillamook County—and I got to be the lead guitarist, too (by default—they didn’t have anyone else, and I couldn’t sing anything because I had a cold). My little amp has lost its “clean” circuit, so everything comes out fuzzy—not bad for rock ‘n’ roll lead but a little limiting for other stuff. I do not want to buy another amp. I wonder if I can fix it.

And upcoming? Marimba practice Sunday; practice with Denise Monday afternoon with the new band Monday night; caller class Tuesday; square dance meeting and caller practice Wednesday night. Music hopefully Sunday, Thursday and Friday nights.

Joe

CALLER PRACTICE WITHN THE GUINEA PIGS...

First caller practice last night with my “troupe” of live dancers. I thought they did well (and they thought I did well). We’ll do it again next Wednesday—it’s probably possible to do it three times a month, if everybody’s available and willing.

The little PA system does exactly what I want it to: I can play a track off the laptop and sing (or talk) on top of it, and control the two volumes separately. Still haven’t retrieved my Professional Square Dance Caller’s Microphone Holder, with its built-in on/off switch and volume control, so I’ve got my singing mike in a mike stand—I’m more comfortable with it that way, anyway. And I’m using a music stand to hold my notes. Ultimately I won’t need those props (and technically I’m not supposed to be using them).

Had to adjust two of my singing calls (I didn’t try the third) to reduce the number of movements. One of the things I was hoping to get out of my practice “troupe” was an opportunity to see how long it actually took actual dancers to work through these “figures,” and I got that. One of the things I’ve learned in caller class is “equivalent modules,” which will put your dancers in the same place (position is important) but take either more or less moves to do it (in my case I’m after the “less”). I can adjust tempo, too, with my recording software, and I talked to the “troupe” about doing that with the Hee-Haw theme, “Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me”—it’s pretty fast. Slowed it by 10% and we’ll see how well that works.

I haven’t practiced the other use for the little PA system—musical performance (specifically, performance by the band—I know it’ll work for a solo performance just fine). PA-ing the band entails using my ancient 6-channel mixer (5 of the 6 channels work); I think it’s possible to use the amp’s two inputs as well as the five from the mixer. That’d be seven—exactly what I need (four instrument inputs—two guitars, fiddle and standup bass—and three microphone inputs for me, Ken, and Clint).

I have acquired The Cold Everybody Else Got (by wandering around in the snow in sandals Monday night), so I’m going nowhere—I’ll stay home today, read a lot (if I have the energy) and sneeze a lot. I’d like to have the cold burned out by tomorrow, because there are some things I’d like to do: practice with Denise for the Thirsty Lion show, see the Ocean Bottom Blues Band perform at the 2nd Street Market, and play at the jam session in downtown Tillamook (assuming it’s happening). Got invited to be part of a comedy show at the North Coast Recreation District; they want two songs—“family-friendly,” they said—and I can probably deliver.

And while I’m struggling with my zero-energy illness I at least get to work on the New Joe Songbook. 42 songs done now (and we’re up through “O”). And I have found five more songs where I didn’t have lyrics posted, and will have to re-type them.

And I got to finish re-reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged—all 1,082 fine-print pages of it. Rand’s characterizations are rather cartoonish, but she is consistent—her good guys are totally good, and her bad guys totally evil. The view of government as a gaggle of predators whose sole purpose is to take things from people and give them to “favorites” is particularly poignant these days. In fact, a recent survey suggested the main difference between today’s Depression and the one in the 1930s is back then government was considered part of the solution to the economic problems while today there’s a widespread perception that government is part of the problem.

Joe

SUCCESS TIPS?

Every now and then I run across tips on how to be successful in the music business. Latest ones were on the USA Songwriting Contest Website, and were from one of the guys who runs SongU, which teaches classes in songwriting. The question I always have is how well (or if) I measure up. (Them, too.) Here’s the tips:

Good songs. Other experts insist on this, too; you’d think it’d go without saying, but the quality of so much commercial music is so poor people may wonder whether it matters any more. One should not only pursue perfection for its own sake, one needs to remember that those commercial folks are already famous, and if I want to be heard over them my stuff has to be better. Lots better. I don’t take classes in songwriting but I do hang out with other writers, in person and online.

Feedback. Part of the “good songs” mantra above, in my opinion. I don’t operate in a vacuum—I don’t want to be the person deciding whether my stuff is good. I have on occasion used professional critiquers, like the authors suggest, but I prefer peer review by other writers whose judgment I trust. (They’re free, too.) I also insist on testing each song out on a live audience (and have a few audiences that are willing to be my guinea pigs).

Co-write. Other experts say you have to do this, too—but I’m not sure how co-writing makes you be successful. Nashville is a hotbed of co-writing—but you don’t get to “write with” somebody famous unless you’re already famous yourself. I co-write to prove I can do it, to get exposure to different styles, and also because I’ve discovered it’s an outlet: I don’t need to write serious songs, because other people do, and I can get the seriousness out of my system by helping them.

Good demos. I agree (surprise!). You don’t have to have full-band instrumentation on demos, though I often do, just to show people without imagination what’s possible. Quality is the important consideration; a lot of the outfits that license music that aren’t record companies aren’t going to re-record your stuff. What I offer them has to be “radio-ready.” (Anything sent to a song contest has to be “radio-ready,” too, or it won’t get considered.) About a quarter of my songs have been professionally recorded. I still need to do the rest.

Be digital. But everyone is these days, aren’t they? I’d rather say “be fast” instead: one advantage independents have over the dinosaurs in the Music Industry is we can get product to market quickly. A corollary is you have to know what you’re doing, and get it right the first time. Do I? I keep working at it.

Look beyond the obvious when you’re pitching. There is, in other words, little point in pursuing cuts from the big record companies; they are not interested in any outsiders and may never be. There are other outlets for music; two I wasn’t aware of are the companies that sell background music for graduation and wedding videos. The folks who do movie and TV “placements” don’t use the big record companies, either (and I know one publisher who does this stuff). And one can bypass the record companies by selling CDs through CDBaby and a bunch of others. Yes, I knew some of that.

Expose yourself. Those who aren’t affiliated with the Big Boys have to do it on their own with fewer resources. Be everywhere; try everything. I’d add Madonna’s advice: Perform. The way you get your material in front of the public when you don’t have what Joni Mitchell called “the Star-Maker Machinery” is to perform it, and perform it yourself unless and until you get other people performing it for you. About the only item on the list I’m not doing is the Website, and I do really need to do that. A caveat, though: a Website alone does nothing for exposure. I still have to bring people in.

So… Good songs. (Duh.) Good demos. Know what you’re doing and be right the first time. Look beyond the obvious. Expose yourself (and perform). Keep n mind, though, that I’ve been doing that stuff for a while and success in the music business still looks awfully far away. Do I need to add “Be patient” to the list?

Joe

PRACTICE (&C.)...

Band practice Saturday night. Of mine, we did “Duct Tape,” “Cuddle in the Darkness,” “The Abomination Two-Step,” Odd Vindstad’s “Simple Questions” and “Pole Dancing for Jesus.” A set of three jigs from Jane, plus a pair of Irish tunes she and Ken are used to doing together, plus everybody’s favorite, “The Swallowtail Jig.” Bass player Clint wants to do “Muskrat Ramble,” an old jazz tune, and he can do a decent job on the old traditional “Long Black Veil.” Ken’s got at least “Dream” (the old jazz number) and David Wilcox’s “Rusty Old American Dream.”

We do sound good together. I was told I could tell the 2nd Street Market we’d be ready about five weeks from now. We’ll need 20 songs to fill a 2-hour set.

The suggestion was made that Ken, who has a tremendous singing voice, should sing some of my “sweeter” songs. I’d love it if he would. I don’t know if he’s interested, and I’ll let others press; I’m not going to. I’ve generally preferred authors’ renditions of their own songs, even where they’ve been covered by more famous people—I think the author brings something undefined but special to the performance that the “coverer” can’t—but I’d happily not apply the rule to myself; with my limited voice range, I’m not bringing much to the table. (Bob Dylan was in much the same boat. Almost anybody could sing a Dylan song better than Dylan could.)

Setlist assemblage is easier if there are more lead vocalists, and in this case we’ve got four (counting Jane’s fiddle as a “voice”). When I’m doing setlists for a solo concert, I concentrate mostly on alternating fast and slow songs; the goal is to have every song sound different from the one before it. Here, I’ve got multiple ways for us to sound different—we’ve got different keys, different genres and different singers, as well as different speeds.

The Modest Proposal soliciting entertainers for Garibaldi Days, the Rocktoberfest, and Relay for Life went out to Roger MacDonald, Michael and Sedona, the LaTorres Jim Loughrie, Skip Farmer, and Loren and Judy (the Crazed Weasels) in addition to those who’d already got one. We’ll see.

Heard the best rendition ever of “Invitation to St. Patrick” at the Rapture Room. Fiddle, trumpet and Cajun squeezebox leads (among others) and Michael and Sedona in the background chanting “St. Paddy! Go, St. Paddy!” in a Beach Boys-style counterpoint. Wish it could have been recorded. Only a couple more opportunities to play the song this year—St. Patrick’s Day is Saturday. I will get to play it at the Tsunami in Wheeler Thursday night, and hopefully at Jim’s jam session in Tillamook Friday night. And it’s on the setlist for the Thirsty Lion March 27.

Does beg the question what I should be releasing for the initial offering of the Song-a-Month Experiment. I don’t have anything yet, really. I’m not happy enough with the Influence Music Hall solo recordings, and I don’t want to use any of my Tascam recordings—I want this to be professional stuff.

Perhaps the 2007 recording of “Oil in the Cornfield, a 1976-vintage song I entered in the Woody Guthrie Song Contest that year (last year they ever had the contest, I think). It didn’t win any of the top three slots (so I didn’t get to go to Moore, Oklahoma, Woody’s hometown, and perform it on stage), but it did get honorable mention—and I got the impression it was the first time anybody not from Oklahoma ever got an award in the contest. Vic “Mississippi Spud” Bonner did the recording, with him playing lead and bass, and Vikki Flawith doing piano and backup vocals. I could use that one. It’d be timel, after a fashion—Woody Guthrie would have been celebrating his birthday this month, if he were still alive. April 1 release date? I will need another professional-quality recording one month later.

Joe

ATTENDING SOMEONE ELSE'S SHOW...

26 songs done now for the New Joe Songbook—and I found another one where I’d never posted lyrics: “50 Ways to Cure the Depression.” I’ll have to re-type the lyrics. (Of course I remember them.) Got confirmation from Denise she’d like to do the Thirsty Lion on March 27. Next step: a setlist CD (easy) and find an opportunity to practice (not so easy).

Next Friday, instead of going to City Hall, I’ll go see the Ocean Bottom Blues Band (Sara, Wayne and Dale) play the 2nd Street Market. They’re one of the groups I’m considering hiring (using the term loosely) for one or more of the summer gigs (Relay for Life, Garibaldi Days, and the Rocktoberfest), and I want to see them in action. I want to do this with all the bands under consideration. I want to see how they work a crowd, and how the crowd reacts to what they play.. That’s more important than anything they could put on a CD.

I’m not sure of the value of CDs, either, though I’ve asked everybody for one. A CD used to indicate that a band had progressed far enough, and maybe made enough money, to “do time” in a studio, but the proliferation of cheap, quality home recording equipment has lowered that bar a lot. You can make a radio-quality recording these days with nothing more than a decent computer, a good set of ears and a good sense of arrangements.

What you hear on a CD is not necessarily what you’re going to get, either: one of the groups that applied for the Rocktoberfest last year was a duo, but their CD had full instrumentation—five or more instruments—on their songs, and you knew those two musicians weren’t going to be playing all five instruments simultaneously on stage. I guess the main value of the CD these days is it allows the tone-deaf concert promoter (me) to easily share what he finds with his “crew.” We don’t all have to go attend somebody’s performance.

There are other ways around it, though. I’ve arranged to record part of the Ocean Bottom Blues Band’s performance Friday with a borrowed iPhone—I know they don’t have a CD out. That’s why my Modest Proposal offers everybody alternatives, and says, “If you don’t have this, let’s talk.”

Following the 2nd Street Market performance, I’ll attend the jam session at a Tillamook tavern that’s reportedly been happening Friday nights for a couple of weeks now. Hosted by Jim, one of the co-owners of the music store (and partner in The Mercantile in Beaver). Want to see what that’s like. It might be a good alternative to Garibaldi when the group at City Hall gets boring.

I’ve got three or four more groups and a couple solo musicians to send the Modest Proposal to, encouraging them to be part of one or more of the summer gigs.

Applied for another job—another non-city manager one. After you’ve done city manager work for nearly 20 years, it is hard to convince people to hire you to do something else, even when you can show them how your skills and experience translate to their job. Occasionally, I feel like Woody, the cowboy in Toy Story: “You’re a cowboy and there’s no jobs for cowboys. We want spacemen—and even if you dress up like a spaceman and act like a spaceman, we’ll know you’re really a cowboy.”

Joe