AND NOW, THE ECONOMY (SORT OF)...

One of the interesting facets of the Failed Economy is people have become more comfortable talking about their personal financial problems. That’s particularly evident here on the Coast, where folks have historically been very private about their personal lives. But it seems that personal financial troubles have passed from the realm of private embarrassments to that of shared experience. Rather like a freak snowstorm—everybody’s been hit by it (and everybody knows everybody’s been hit by it), so everybody’s got a story to tell and is comfortable telling it.

Perhaps in the back of people’s minds is a search for answers: Did somebody figure out a way of dealing with this that I can imitate? (Please don’t look in my direction. I don’t have the answer, or even an answer. I’m looking, too, just like everybody else.)

That breadth of shared experience does mean there’s a market for—what should we call them? Failed Economy Songs? You’d be tapping into something everybody can relate to in one way or another—almost as good as love songs, or lost-love songs. (In fact, there should be a connection between lost-love songs and Failed Economy songs. The process—and the results—are awfully similar.) They have to be upbeat, of course, or at least uptempo; no point in making people more depressed than they already are. One focuses instead on that classic definition of country music: “Pain You Can Dance To.”

I have one of those—“Free-Range Person,” about the joys of being homeless, is a fast-moving bluegrass number that crowds definitely like. Stan Good’s “Gimme Couple Billion of Them Bailout Bucks,” which I set to music, is in the same vein, and so, I think, is his “Death of the Middle Class,” which I still have to musicate. (I wanted that one to be Death Metal—of course—but with me playing it, it’s guaranteed to come out country. “Country death metal”:? Could we do that?)

Wherewith, an Idea. Maybe it’s time to assemble a setlist of Failed Economy Songs, and—resurrecting Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney—“put on a show.” Envision an evening of Depression music: mine, Stan’s, some old Woody Guthrie (he was the voice of the last Depression), wherever else I could obtain performable material that would fit. Make it a benefit for (say) the Food Bank, with a cover charge of (what else?) cans of food. Make it clear everything that evening, including people’s time, is being donated to The Cause.

Need three things to pull it off, I think: a band, a place, and material. I think our band, one way or another, would go for this—it’s attention and exposure, and if we could do it right on the heels of the Big Bay City Concert in March, we might generate a big crowd. Place? If we couldn’t do it at the Arts Center, there’s plenty of churches with sizable meeting halls. Odds are almost any organization would want to be associated with an effort like this.

And material? Well, I do know a lot of writers—all over the world, in fact. I could ask them if they’ve got, or could they write, and can we use, songs that would fit the program Upbeat and/or uptempo songs that are about, or relate to, the Failed Economy, that a small blues/bluegrass/country music combo is able to perform. If it’s just lyrics, that somebody’d have to set to music, well, maybe somebody (me) could do that. One could promise those writers exposure, but not much more. (On the other hand, having your name associated with a Good Cause is worth a lot of business down the road.)

And if it worked—i.e., if there was a big crowd, and it did generate a lot of donations—it’s something almost anybody could imitate almost anywhere else. The Failed Economy is a widespread shared experience, after all. Lots of people need help, and lots of people know it.

Joe

TEN DAYS TILL BAY CITY...

Bay City Arts Center says they won’t have their new sound board in time for the March 7 concert. I’m not sure (yet) how big a problem that is; they do (or did) have a soundboard, a 4-channel one, and I’m not sure why they were replacing it, and I have to find out. (They’re also fixing the building’s furnace, and I don’t know if that will be done in time for the concert.)

In the meantime, the band (bless ‘em) do have some resources that we can put together. I have an ancient Sony 6-channel mixer (it has real dials, and meters, and is lit by miniature incandescent bulbs, but it still works fine), lead guitarist Jeff has a 2-channel Marshall amp he’s been using at the Ghost Hole (I presume we can still use the Arts Center’s big hanging speakers, which are bigger than Jeff’s), and bass player John’s got a huge amp-and-speaker setup in his living room (it may take all four of us to carry it, and I’ll have to clean out the van before it’ll fit). We can use my singing mike (plus Jeff’s got one of his own we can use for the harmonica). We will, I think, be okay. Might need a few specialized cables from the local Radio Shack store to hook everything together.

One more practice before the Big Concert, and we’ll make that a dress rehearsal. The band are good—this is another instance of the whole being substantially more than the sum of its parts. Notices have gone out to the joelist, there are bulletins on MySpace and Facebook, and the postmistress is going to mention the concert in her weekly column for the paper. Music Wednesday and Friday—both opportunities to announce the concert—and CDs to package in between.

I’m not sure I like this business of being a front man. It’s a lot of work, and I’m not sure it’s worthwhile. It’s easier to just be part of a band, play my songs mixed in with everyone else’s like they were just part of the everyday hit parade (most of the people I play with have gotten used to my material by now) and leave no one the wiser. Two hours of all my stuff is a drain for me, and leaves me wondering if it’d be a drain on the aujdience, too—and if so, why anyone would want to listen to them.

I suppose Bob Dylan and John Prine had similar problems (and self-doubts) getting attention—and they were playing solo in coffeehouses to boot. Absent any support from the music industry—and I don’t see any forthcoming—I have a feeling there is no other way to make it than by assembling, one person at a time, a fan base that’s just too big for the industry to ignore. I wish it were easier.

Still waiting for the Red Room to respond to the proposal from the Portland band. Waiting on a lot of things, actually (again). I’m waiting on rejection notices for three of four manager jobs I’ve applied for (got one rejection letter today), and waiting for the tax refund (I get one this year). Waiting, too, for the music store to get in new strings for my guitar. Like somebody famous once said (in a song), “I got them weary blues from waitin’.”

One thing I will NOT be waiting for is an extension of unemployment benefits. There won’t be one. The famous Obama “stimulus package” will add $25 a week (taxable) to my final couple of unemployment checks, but when it’s over (in March), it’s over. I know the President said the opposite on TV, but state unemployment disasgrees with him, and I have my doubts whether the President actually read his own bill. One way to “improve the unemployment rate” is to reduce the number of people getting unemployment benefits. Gerald Ford’s people did that in 1976. This time around, I get to be one of the statistics.

Maybe there’s a song in it.

Joe

TGHE BAY CITY SETLIST...

Setlist for the Bay City concert looks like this:

Dead Things in the Shower (mod. fast country)
Armadillo on the Interstate (slow & sleazy)
Bluebird on My Windshield (fast bluegrass)
The Frog Next Door (deliberate blues)
The Termite Song (fast bluegrass)
Tillamook Railroad Blues (deliberate blues)
Prehistoric Roadkill (fast bluegrass)
Welcome to Hebo Waltz (fast waltz)
Free-Range Person (fast bluegrass)
Milepost 43 (mod. fast country)
Dead Fishes (fast bluegrass)
Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus (mod. fast Gospel)
[BREAK]
Duct Tape(mod. fast country)
Crosses by the Roadside (mod. slow, bluesy country)
Doing Battle with the Lawn (fast bluegrass)
Hey, Little Chicken (deliberate blues)
The World Enquirer (fast bluegrass)
No Good Songs About the War (mod. slow country)
Born Again Barbie (mod. fast Gospel)
Vampire Roumanian Babies (fast bluegrass)
When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies (mod. fast country)
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (slow & sleazy)
Rotten Candy (fast bluegrass)
I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas (slow & sleazy)

24 songs should be two hours’ worth, with Raps; break in the middle to allow the audience to stretch and get refreshments, and the band to rest (and me to sell CDs if I can). The two “halves” can be flipped, too; most of the new songs people haven’t heard are in Part 2, and it might be good to have ‘em up front.

The vast majority of the tunes are uptempo numbers; most of what I’ve written are uptempo numbers, I think. Even though I purposefully ignore the Powers That Be in Nashville, I did take to heart long ago their dictum that “Nashville wants uptempo songs.” Even when (maybe especially when) it’s about plague, famine, and weapons of mass destruction, it’s just got to sound happy.

We have time for two more practices before the Bay City gig. I’ve met with the Recreation District’s new manager, and suggested he might want to attend to see what we-the-band might be able to do for the District as a benefit; I still have the newspaper and radio station to visit.

The Portland band may be a go; I’ve been asked to try to get us another gig at the Red Room. David (lead guitarist) is interested if his other band can play the same night, and I’ll try to arrange that. The rest of them—Sharma (bass), Doug (drums), and Don (blues harp)—are in. And now that I’ve got a better idea of the group’s proclivities, I’ve got a few more songs for them to try. (And next time, I want to make sure to get us videotaped.)

UPDATES: I’ll be playing one of the Southern Oregon Songwriters summer concerts in Central Point, Sat. 22 August—once again, it’d be nice to have a band for that. And the paying gig at the Garibaldi Museum is Sat. 26 June. (I’ve been trying to schedule gigs for Saturdays because I don’t know what I’ll be doing. If by some wild stretch of the imagination I am working, odds are I won’t be working on Saturdays.) The big question is what I can arrange between now and June, both to bring in business and keep the band (or bands) busy—and playing.

Joe

PRACTICE WITH BAND NO. 2...

Practice with Band No. 2 (we have got to get them some names) went real well. Jeff (lead), John (bass) and Dick (harmonica) work really well together. It helped, I think, that I’d given all of them CDs with the songs (helped, too, that Jeff and I have played a lot of these in our Wednesday nights at the tavern). They’re excited, and so am I. I’m comfortable advertising the concert, now that I’m sure we’re going to be good. We’ll have time for a couple more practices before the Big Concert.

Yes, there are oodles of possibilities for this band. I’d probably best not think about them. I have a tendency to build up hopes to the point where they’re easily dashed. We will just see where it goes, and not think too much about it.

Poster distribution next couple of days. Every business in Garibaldi and Bay City, plus the city halls and libraries in both towns; the Chamber of Commerce, newspaper, city hall, courthouse, and businesses whose people I know in Tillamook (a surprising number, when I think about it); then, four more towns up north, plus another newspaper, the high school and the Recreation District. Two monthly newspapers out of the area that cover promotional, touristy-type things in this area will get e-mailed copies of the poster. I’ll do everything possible to blanket the area—and see if I can spot efficiencies that’ll make it easier to do next time around. Handled properly, there will be a next time—maybe a lot of next times.

Two folks who need to hear about the Bay City concert from a future-gigs standpoint are the new manager of the Recreation District and the fellow who does the booking for Neskowin Valley School’s Harvest Festival fundraiser. I want to hit both of them up for benefit concerts for their respective outfits.

In addition, I’ve got the few hundred people on the “joelist,” MySpace and now Facebook to notify (the concert is only 2-1/2 weeks away). Most (though not all) of those folks live out of the area, however. They may be voices of encouragement, but probably not bodies in the hall.

UPDATES: Designed a new poster, this one for the Wednesday nights at the tavern (Jeff suggested billing it as “Live Music/Open Mike/Jam Session,” to cover all possible bases); took less than half an hour to do it, so I haven’t lost my touch. I could charge the same price I did 15 years ago for this stuff, and still make money if I did enough of it. One of the businesses I asked to post the flyer is one I’d solicited some advertising work from, so this is a way to show them what I can do.

Sent “The Cat with the Strat” off to the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. for their 2009 “sampler” album. It’s never been on a record, and it’s almost impossible to perform in public because of all the sound effects.

There is one extra copy of the “Broken Record” CD (I must have miscounted), so I sent that to Just Plain Folks’ Brian Austin Whitney with a suggestion it be auctioned off as a fundraiser for the organization. All the participants in the project (except for Albert, who did the mastering) are JPF members, and JPF is reportedly losing a couple of big “sugar daddies” that are pulling out to save money

UPCOMING: I’ve got a Saturday slot at one of the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn.’s summer concerts (it’d be nice to put together a band for that), and that June 26 paying gig at the Garibaldi Museum. This week, there’s music Wednesday at the tavern, the Friday Night Group at City Hall, and Saturday at the Library. I just might manage to keep busy.

Joe

RED ROOM POST-MORTEM...

Well, I broke a string. It was partway through the last song, so I just played without it. Some folks said afterwards the guitar sounded a little distorted, and the broken string was part of that—other contributing factors were my using my old D’Armand pickup (which gives the acoustic guitar a very electric sound) and playing through a little amp instead of the Red Room’s sound system. All fixable.

It did go well. We had a big crowd—virtually every seat in the place filled—and since most of them left after we stopped playing, it was pretty obvious they were there to hear us. The Red Room management noticed that, too, and said they’d like to have us back. They said we were “different.” The band were very tight—all those practices helped—and Sharma (bass), David (lead guitar), Don (harmonica) and Doug (drums) were all very good. It was Don’s first time on stage, and Sharma’s first in maybe 20 years, and they did fine.

The material? “Dirty Deeds We Done to Sheep” was a big hit, of course; so was “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” and “I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas.” The latter two people came up afterwards to mention—that’s how I tell what stuck in people’s minds. (I noticed everybody listened raptly to everything, though, and there was much feet tapping and heads banging.) We did give ‘em quite a variety of styles, from bluegrass to blues to “straight” country to rock ‘n’ roll. Pretty versatile crew, this band.

I did propose afterwards that we keep doing this, and we’ll see what everybody thinks. David, who’s playing professionally, and Doug, who’s in another band (that I don’t think has any gigs yet), are the ones with the most limited schedules. But I think if we go after more gigs right after this one, we’ll get ‘em.

Don, Sharma and I hung around and observed the “acts” that were on after us. The next act played solo (I am glad I didn’t do that), and while he had half a dozen fans there, his stuff was just not very good (and not at all memorable). Last was a rock trio of older guys (one bald, one with grey hair, and one losing his grey hair) who were surprisingly good; some of their stuff was very melodic, and the guitarist and bass player did very nice harmonies. They could have used a lead something: guitar, harmonica, even keyboard. I didn’t tell them that—but I did compliment them afterwards. (And they complimented us—from on stage. That was nice.) Of the three acts, we were definitely the best. And most importantly, the venue noticed it, too.

There are things I’d want to do different next time. We need phantom power for those expensive mikes Sharma has (the Red Room’s soundboard didn’t have phantom power, though they’d said twice it did, and we ended up using their mikes, which were old, cheap, and not good at all). An adapter so we can hook a ¼-inch to XLR cable up backwards when we need to.

But basically, I’d just make sure to bring Sharma’s mixing board and amp, and tell the venue, “We’ve got our own, and we’re only going to use your stuff if it’s better.” And have everything labeled and pre-set so it just has to be plugged together. (The Dodson Drifters used to do that. We had a truck full of stuff, but we could be set up in minutes. And we had no roadies.)

And of course, if we’re going to keep doing this, we will need more material—a couple hours’ worth, I think. (Right now, we’ve got 45 minutes.) Just a couple of “straight” country songs, with really strong bass lines (“Duct Tape,” “Rotten Candy”); blues, definitely (and I have a number of good blues or quasi-blues tunes), and some bluegrass songs I know from experience are easily adaptable to other genres (like “Bluebird on My Windshield” and “When I Jump off the Cliff I’ll Think of You”). And I do have one rock ‘n’ roll number that hasn’t been played in public since the Dodson Drifters broke up over 25 years ago—“Test Tube Baby.” I wonder how the band would do with that?

And in addition to the Red Room last night, I played at the Library this afternoon and the Ghost Hole tonight—and my fingers no longer hurt. Practice Monday for the Bay City Arts Center gig—the next big thing.

Joe

PRE-GIG PROMOTIONAL THOUGHTS...

UPDATES: There are a few people who appear determined to reimburse me for the “Broken Record” CD, and since I have no job and no money, I guess I will not stand in their way. I have one extra copy of the CD, and I’ve sent it to Brian, head of the Just Plain Folks organization, suggesting that he auction it off as a fund-raiser.

Poster’s done for the Bay City gig, and it’s getting its first little distribution; the Arts Center has it, and so does the Tillamook Library (and I’ve gotten the okay to distribute it to the rest of the libraries in the county). I’ll print up a bunch more posters, and hit the businesses in town with ‘em—most of them know me.

Then the other towns, where I don’t know as many people, but do know some folks in potentially strategic locations. (I can drop off some at the North County Rec District, for instance, where I was rejected for the manager job—and emphasize I’m still interested in doing them a benefit concert, and this’d be a chance for them to see what it would be like. That’s a lesson from the days I had the grahic-design business—every job I did, I tried to use as a springboard to get more business from other people.)

I’ll feel less paranoid about this promotional activity once the band has gotten together and practiced (we won’t be doing our first practice until Monday)—though they all are quite confident we’ll do good, and that attitude is infectious.

It occurs to me I actually know quite a few people in strategic locations, including nearly every public official in the county, and I should take a couple of days and just go visit all of them personally. (It’d have to be personally. This is the country, and even though everybody’s got Internet, business is always done face to face.) Then, we visit the press and radio. The Arts Center can maybe hold 250 people (though I don’t think they have chairs for that many). Might we actually pack the place? That would open some eyes…

And we definitely want to film the performance. (The Red Room gig is being videotaped, too.) I haven’t heard from the guy who videoed the last Bay City open mike (lesson there—always get people’s business cards), but I’ll want to make sure he’s at the Arts Center concert, and that we get a tape. Len Amsterdam (Whitby Shores TV & Radio) wants a copy, and I’ll post it on YouTube, of course—but this is also a chance to put into practice the idea of DVDs for band promotion and getting gigs. Nobody I know is doing this, and I think somebody should.

If the promotional thing actually does work, the follow-up question is whether I could do it for somebody else. Maybe—one of the things I’m relying on to help me is that a fair number of people in this area do know me, and know the weird kind of stuff I write, and that reputation is part of what’s going to drag the audience in. I guess the question I’d have to ask anybody else is “Who knows you?” I can provide gravy, as it were, because I know how to reach people, but you have to have your own meat and potatoes.

That said, Outside Services Ltd. could end up being a rather full-service house for those that need it. (This is definitely way premature thinking.) Nope, I can’t get you gigs—but I can promote you: do the posters, and press releases, and get ‘em into the right hands. I can produce you a record to sell (I know people who can do all phases of that, and they’re good), including cover art and liner notes (I can do that, and I’m good). And yes, I know enough to be able to publish you, too. One of the things I’m told publishers do is handle that [expletive deleted] paperwork so the musician can just go off and play music. Me, I’m a paperwork artist—I love that stuff.

So I’m now playing—I think—with two bands, and it’s very likely they’ll want to continue playing. At some point, they’re going to need names. (“Southern Pigfish” comes immediately to mind.) We’ll see how tonight’s gig goes. Today was the deadline for three (or was it four?) of the city-manager jobs I’ve applied for, and I am expecting rejection letters from all of them. I might as well be playing music.

Joe

AN IDEA--CUSTOM CDS?

Here’s an idea. (Not mine. I collect ideas.)

Pretend you’re a consumer. (A lot of us used to be consumers, back when we had jobs and money.) You’ve got some extra bucks, and you’re going to buy A RECORD. Not Top 40 stuff, of course—that stuff is mostly tasteless pap these days, and overpriced to boot. You’ve got your eye (or ear) on an independent person—not in thrall to the big record companies, in other words—that you think writes pretty good stuff.

Thing is, you really only want a couple of the person’s songs that are on that latest album. Yeah, you’d probably buy the whole album just to get those songs—but wait. It gets worse. The guy’s got a couple of other songs you’d really like to have, only they’re on a different album. Supporting your local songwriter is one thing, but buying two CDs just to get a handful of songs you want may be stretching it. There is a recession on, after all.

Oh, you can download individual tunes from a variety of Websites—but those are *.mp3 files, y’know, and nowhere near as high quality as you could get on a bought CD. Besides, if you wanted *.mp3’s, you could probably get ‘em for free if you looked hard enough.

Here’s where the idea comes in. (It is being tried by a guy in Chicago.) We’ve all got Websites, right? (Okay, I’m working on mine, but it’ll be done soon—I promise.) And songs—or at least links to songs—are archived there, right? Why not let the CUSTOMER pick out the dozen or so songs that he or she would like to have on an album, pay for it (PayPal or credit card), and then you-the-author burn a CD with precisely those songs on it, package it, and mail it off? A custom-created CD, in other words?

Could take it one step further. We’ve got little photos or clip art next to each of those songs, don’t we—because we’ve become such a visual society, and people expect it. Why not, then, let the customer pick which one of those avatars he or she would like for the CD LABEL/ALBUM COVER? The only rule would be that the “cover art” would have to be the avatar from one of the songs picked for the album.

I could do this. It’d be a snap (well, except for the Website part that I haven’t gotten together yet). For me, the graphics templates all exist because I built them when I was putting together the “Broken Record” CD. I could maybe have your custom artwork printed in about the same time it took to burn your custom CD. And you would really have something special, that you wouldn’t be able to get in a record store. In fact, the big record companies with all their resources would be hard-pressed to be able to deliver anything like it.

This mechanism would work really well for me. I have two albums out; I don’t mention the first one much, because it was just me and solo guitar, and I just gave copies away to relatives and friends—but I have had some of them say they like some of the songs on the first album better than the second, and play ‘em more often. And now I’ve got about five hours’ worth of decent, performable material—but haven’t been able to afford to produce an album in over two years.

And maybe I shouldn’t bother. Instead, I could just record professionally, one way or another, every single one of those songs that doesn’t have a professional recording, and post them (or links to them) all on the Website, and let people assemble their own albums one by one.

Of course, I would still need CDs to sell at gigs. Those would essentially be “samplers” I’d assemble myself—my idea of what ought to be on an album, rather than the customer’s—and I’d burn short runs of them at home instead of sending them out to a duplication service. And I’d just tell people at gigs, “Y’know, you could go to the Website and create your own CD out of the five hours’ worth of music you’re going to find there.”

Could anybody do this? Yes. In fact, I know a few songwriters who are in the same boat I am, with a lot of material and not enough albums, and they might well be able to benefit from doing precisely the same thing. I may be a little faster at the graphic stuff, because it used to be my business, but tools are tools—they can be used by anybody. And the whole idea strikes me as (as my daughter would say) “very 21st century.”

Joe