Practice Saturday with the Portland band and Sunday with the Coast band (we have got to get them some names). Coast band now has a drummer, a versatile one--Chris Miller, who also lives in Garibaldi. (The idea that we can assemble a whole band of good musicians living in a single town of 900 people is mind-boggling. Shades of the Dodson Drifters…)
On SUNDAY, John, Chris and I worked on the following, which are all definitely inclusions in the Failed Economy Show setlist:
50 Ways to Cure the Depression (me), in C
Free-Range Person (me), in C
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (me), in C
Oil in the Cornfield (me), in C
When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You (me), in C
Our Own Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt), in D
WD-40 the Economy (Stan Good), in C
Things Are Getting Better Now That Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett), in C
Glad That You’re Here (Stan Bolton), in A
They want to try Zmulls’ “The Emperor” (probably in C) and Coleman/Lazzerini’s “So 20th Century” (and I’m not sure what key, but we’ll try to simplify it to eliminate a lot of the fruity chords). Both are pretty complicated pieces of music, but intriguing—probably because of their complexity. I don’t have to do a whole lot in either one except remember the words; it’s John (on bass) and Chris (on drums) who have to do the fancy stuff.
Also in by popular demand, though we haven’t practiced them yet, are the Southern Pigfish song “For Their Own Ends” and Frank Papa’s “Have A Good Day.” Don’t know about the rest yet. Practice again next Sunday—and I’ve promised everybody another CD with another dozen songs to think about. John, Jeff and I will run through some of them, no doubt, when we play at the Ghost Hole Wednesday night.
I’d really like Jeff to sing some of the songs if he’d be willing. He has a much better voice than I (and if he sings, I can play lead guitar). Some of the songs written by other folks are a real stretch for my voice, which doesn’t have as wide a range as most people’s. Trying to sing over amplified instruments is a strain, too—next practice, I’ll plan on using the vocal mike. I don’t have a good boom mike stand, but may be able to assemble one that’d work out of pieces of two older mike stands I have. I don’t want to buy anything right now.
John got to go through the big box of audio equipment I’d earlier been given, and said the microphones are good instrument mikes, the headphones are professional grade, and some of the fittings and adapters are hard to find. Good stuff, in other words. (Thanks, Bodie.) John has ordered his new mixer, plus we have permission to use the Friday Night Group’s soundboard (an 8-channel). We should be able to record, and amplify ourselves, and run the video cameras, all at the same time.
On SATURDAY, we didn’t have the whole band together in Portland either, but Sharma (bass), Doug (drums) and I practiced in the early afternoon and then, Sharma, David (lead) and I in the late afternoon. We’ll practice again in two weeks (on Saturday again, I think)—we’re hoping three practices will be enough, since we’re basically dealing with only four new songs. (That does up the band’s repertoire to 13. We are making progress.) Everybody’s got setlists with lyrics, and CDs with recordings of the songs. The Red Room updated their Website (finally), confirming that we’re on for 30 APRIL at 9 P.M.
TO DO: Still need the Lions Club’s okay on the 2 MAY date for the Failed Economy Show (they’re the sponsors)—then we can start the “buzz.” Some of the newspapers I want to contact are monthlies, and they’ll be going to press soon. “Joelist” to notify of both concerts, plus bulletins on MySpace and Facebook. Two CDs to donate to my daughter’s old high school—they want to auction them off at the Speech Team’s annual Dessert Gala. One of the fun things about living in this area is being sorta famous…
Joe
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
FAILED ECONOMY UPDATES...
And we occasionally do the unnecessary… Musicated a Betty Holt song, “Our Own Stimulus Plan, “ a good uptempo, between-the-sheets tune; she’d contacted me earlier about using the song in the Failed Economy Show, but said she may actually have someone else doing music for it. It got music anyway because I had to get it out of my head. (Indicates it’s a good song.) I can go back to doing necessary things now.
Stan Good’s “WD-40 the Economy” has a revised soundtrack, with the changes Stan wanted, and is waiting on his okay. One more Stan song to do—“The Big Obscene Green Money Machine.” Those two, plus “Death of the Middle Class,” are all candidates for the Failed Economy Show. Stan has a gift for poignant (and hilarious) social commentary.
If this were the ‘60s, his stuff would be on the radio—no doubt with music by someone more competent than I am. Since it’s (as one Brit I know put it) the “Noughts,” with the airwaves controlled by a handful of Big Players, it’s not—virtually no independent music is. One goal of the Failed Economy Show is to get a little exposure for some of the good writers out there. It won’t be much exposure: a heavily-attended concert in a small town (with maybe more to come), a TV show broadcast in two counties (lightly-populated counties, be it noted), maybe the song on a limited-edition record that people might buy because it’s for a good cause. One does what one can.
Tentative date and time for the Failed Economy Show is SATURDAY, 2 MAY, 7 P.M. on the Dance Floor at Garibaldi City Hall. We’ll have the facility for the whole day, so we can play with the sound. (The Dance Floor has rotten acoustics, because of the low, acoustic-tile false ceiling, but it’s a big hall, able to hold 500 people.) John is trying to get a new mixer (a 12-channel), and I bought an old tripod today for the video camera at the “We Are Not A Pawn Shop” store in Tillamook. We’ll have a month to practice, Sundays at John’s house (with Chris the drummer) and Wednesday nights at the tavern (just Jeff, John, and me).
I’ve stopped trying to find downloadable-for-free music for the five Woody Guthrie songs I want us to do, and started looking for tablature instead. We-the-band are going to have to perform these things, and I might as well re-record them in a key I can sing in. All of the five I want to use are simple music; one Woody Guthrie proverb I ran across on my search was “If you use more than two chords, you’re showing off.” (Most of Woody’s songs have three to five chords, however. Guess he was showing off.)
Simultaneously with this, I’ve got the Portland band to practice with, too (we have got to get these outfits some names). The “Red Room Two” gig is THURSDAY, 30 APRIL, 9 P.M., and again, we’ve got a month to practice. (We will probably be practicing on Saturdays, like we did before.) I think I have less worries about those guys. Just four new songs for them to get familiar with, out of a setlist of nine, and they’re all simple, uptempo tunes. Our main challenge will be making sure the sound system works without a hitch; we’ll be following another band this time, and we’ll have only minutes to set up, not the hour we did last time. And this time, we will get videoed.
Music/practice (I’m not sure what to call it) tonight at the tavern; the Friday Night Group on Friday (of course); no music at the library the next two Saturdays, but I’ll be practicing in Portland anyway. Sunday (March 29) is St. Leif’s Day, and one should be playing music on St. Leif’s Day, he being the patron saint of bagpipes and all. And I will be.
Joe
Stan Good’s “WD-40 the Economy” has a revised soundtrack, with the changes Stan wanted, and is waiting on his okay. One more Stan song to do—“The Big Obscene Green Money Machine.” Those two, plus “Death of the Middle Class,” are all candidates for the Failed Economy Show. Stan has a gift for poignant (and hilarious) social commentary.
If this were the ‘60s, his stuff would be on the radio—no doubt with music by someone more competent than I am. Since it’s (as one Brit I know put it) the “Noughts,” with the airwaves controlled by a handful of Big Players, it’s not—virtually no independent music is. One goal of the Failed Economy Show is to get a little exposure for some of the good writers out there. It won’t be much exposure: a heavily-attended concert in a small town (with maybe more to come), a TV show broadcast in two counties (lightly-populated counties, be it noted), maybe the song on a limited-edition record that people might buy because it’s for a good cause. One does what one can.
Tentative date and time for the Failed Economy Show is SATURDAY, 2 MAY, 7 P.M. on the Dance Floor at Garibaldi City Hall. We’ll have the facility for the whole day, so we can play with the sound. (The Dance Floor has rotten acoustics, because of the low, acoustic-tile false ceiling, but it’s a big hall, able to hold 500 people.) John is trying to get a new mixer (a 12-channel), and I bought an old tripod today for the video camera at the “We Are Not A Pawn Shop” store in Tillamook. We’ll have a month to practice, Sundays at John’s house (with Chris the drummer) and Wednesday nights at the tavern (just Jeff, John, and me).
I’ve stopped trying to find downloadable-for-free music for the five Woody Guthrie songs I want us to do, and started looking for tablature instead. We-the-band are going to have to perform these things, and I might as well re-record them in a key I can sing in. All of the five I want to use are simple music; one Woody Guthrie proverb I ran across on my search was “If you use more than two chords, you’re showing off.” (Most of Woody’s songs have three to five chords, however. Guess he was showing off.)
Simultaneously with this, I’ve got the Portland band to practice with, too (we have got to get these outfits some names). The “Red Room Two” gig is THURSDAY, 30 APRIL, 9 P.M., and again, we’ve got a month to practice. (We will probably be practicing on Saturdays, like we did before.) I think I have less worries about those guys. Just four new songs for them to get familiar with, out of a setlist of nine, and they’re all simple, uptempo tunes. Our main challenge will be making sure the sound system works without a hitch; we’ll be following another band this time, and we’ll have only minutes to set up, not the hour we did last time. And this time, we will get videoed.
Music/practice (I’m not sure what to call it) tonight at the tavern; the Friday Night Group on Friday (of course); no music at the library the next two Saturdays, but I’ll be practicing in Portland anyway. Sunday (March 29) is St. Leif’s Day, and one should be playing music on St. Leif’s Day, he being the patron saint of bagpipes and all. And I will be.
Joe
Monday, March 23, 2009
PRODUCING THE FAILED ECONOMY RECORD...
Well, the plumbing emergency is over. (Most folks probably weren’t aware there was one.) What it took to fix it is a deterrmined application of the proper tool in the right place—and persistence. Winston Churchill’s answer to how to win World War II: “Never, never, never, NEVER give up.” Not bad rules to apply to everything, really.
FAILED ECONOMY SHOW has gotten some nice submissions, and more keep coming in. I’ve made copies of an hour’s worth for the band; we’ll pick through those, decide which we want to do, and then do it again with another hour’s worth. I think it may be best to keep everything simple—we’ll only have about a month in which to learn all of these, and get ‘em performance-ready. And once again, it may be me singing them.
As many as six of my songs, as many as five from Woody Guthrie (Voice of the Last Depression), as many as three from Stan Good (I’ve musicated two, and still have a third to do), and a bunch of “other.” I want a broad mix of styles, and all upbeat, uptempo, or both.
Simultaneous with practice, there’s PROMOTION. The local media, of course; this time, the concert will be a news story, and we should break into local radio the same way. Posters county-wide (and suggestions to the other area food banks that we could maybe do the same for them, too). We’ll have it filmed for cable TV; since the conglomerate that owns the cable TV system here can’t just run something locally, it’ll have to be broadcast everywhere in two counties (it’s hard to feel bad about that)—so we can run contact information for all the food banks in those two counties along with the broadcast.
And then, there’s the RECORD. We will attempt to make an audio record of the performance; John’s recorder can handle it (it’ll take two CDs), and my 6-channel mixer says it can record at the same time it’s feeding an amplifier—the only one way to tell for sure is to do it. We’ll take the best dozen songs from the concert—re-recording them if we have to—and put them on a CD. The CD itself will be a benefit for local food banks—any one that sells it. Sell for $10, food bank keeps $5. The $5 to us should just pay for production costs, based on my experience with the Broken Record project.
Since at least half the songs on the CD will not be ones I wrote, copyright royalties will have to be paid to the authors; I asked a music publisher I know (the only one I’ve dealt with on other than a rejection-letter basis) how to proceed with that, and got this advice:
Outside-Services-the-Record Company can pay royalties directly to the authors. I do not have to become a publisher, or deal with one. I simply draft up a contract (there are apparently no good templates) with each author, saying this is a nonexclusive deal in which Author allows Record Company to use their song, [insert name] on this here album [insert name] for the purpose of this here charity (i.e., the food bank). Since there is no publisher involved, the authors retain the publishing rights (4.55 cents per song per record manufactured—not sold—the same amount the author gets. The publisher suggested sweetening the deal for the food bank by asking the authors to also donate their publishing royalties for (say) the first 1,000 copies to the food bank as well.
And that’s it. Since there is no publisher involved in the arrangement, it’s my job as The Record Company to pay the authors their 4.55 cents per (plus their 4.55 cents per in publishing rights, if they’re retaining those, too) when the CDs are manufactured (probably when they’re delivered to me by the company that does that). If the album gets sold digitally on CDBaby (and why not?), CDBaby will send The Record Company (me) small amounts of money to distribute to the authors. The same will happen if the song is downloaded from something like iTunes.
There are a few other considerations for the authors. These are not essential to the record deal, but they might amount to a few more pennies for the authors down the road. The authors should register as writers with either ASCAP or BMI if they haven’t yet, and say they are self-published; they should make sure the song of theirs that’s going to be on the record is “registered” with whichever PRO they sign up with. That way, if the song is ever played on a radio station that ASCAP or BMI ever monitors (one should not hold one’s breath), the author could end up getting a few more pennies. Those pennies would be distributed by ASCAP or BMI, not me.
Joe
FAILED ECONOMY SHOW has gotten some nice submissions, and more keep coming in. I’ve made copies of an hour’s worth for the band; we’ll pick through those, decide which we want to do, and then do it again with another hour’s worth. I think it may be best to keep everything simple—we’ll only have about a month in which to learn all of these, and get ‘em performance-ready. And once again, it may be me singing them.
As many as six of my songs, as many as five from Woody Guthrie (Voice of the Last Depression), as many as three from Stan Good (I’ve musicated two, and still have a third to do), and a bunch of “other.” I want a broad mix of styles, and all upbeat, uptempo, or both.
Simultaneous with practice, there’s PROMOTION. The local media, of course; this time, the concert will be a news story, and we should break into local radio the same way. Posters county-wide (and suggestions to the other area food banks that we could maybe do the same for them, too). We’ll have it filmed for cable TV; since the conglomerate that owns the cable TV system here can’t just run something locally, it’ll have to be broadcast everywhere in two counties (it’s hard to feel bad about that)—so we can run contact information for all the food banks in those two counties along with the broadcast.
And then, there’s the RECORD. We will attempt to make an audio record of the performance; John’s recorder can handle it (it’ll take two CDs), and my 6-channel mixer says it can record at the same time it’s feeding an amplifier—the only one way to tell for sure is to do it. We’ll take the best dozen songs from the concert—re-recording them if we have to—and put them on a CD. The CD itself will be a benefit for local food banks—any one that sells it. Sell for $10, food bank keeps $5. The $5 to us should just pay for production costs, based on my experience with the Broken Record project.
Since at least half the songs on the CD will not be ones I wrote, copyright royalties will have to be paid to the authors; I asked a music publisher I know (the only one I’ve dealt with on other than a rejection-letter basis) how to proceed with that, and got this advice:
Outside-Services-the-Record Company can pay royalties directly to the authors. I do not have to become a publisher, or deal with one. I simply draft up a contract (there are apparently no good templates) with each author, saying this is a nonexclusive deal in which Author allows Record Company to use their song, [insert name] on this here album [insert name] for the purpose of this here charity (i.e., the food bank). Since there is no publisher involved, the authors retain the publishing rights (4.55 cents per song per record manufactured—not sold—the same amount the author gets. The publisher suggested sweetening the deal for the food bank by asking the authors to also donate their publishing royalties for (say) the first 1,000 copies to the food bank as well.
And that’s it. Since there is no publisher involved in the arrangement, it’s my job as The Record Company to pay the authors their 4.55 cents per (plus their 4.55 cents per in publishing rights, if they’re retaining those, too) when the CDs are manufactured (probably when they’re delivered to me by the company that does that). If the album gets sold digitally on CDBaby (and why not?), CDBaby will send The Record Company (me) small amounts of money to distribute to the authors. The same will happen if the song is downloaded from something like iTunes.
There are a few other considerations for the authors. These are not essential to the record deal, but they might amount to a few more pennies for the authors down the road. The authors should register as writers with either ASCAP or BMI if they haven’t yet, and say they are self-published; they should make sure the song of theirs that’s going to be on the record is “registered” with whichever PRO they sign up with. That way, if the song is ever played on a radio station that ASCAP or BMI ever monitors (one should not hold one’s breath), the author could end up getting a few more pennies. Those pennies would be distributed by ASCAP or BMI, not me.
Joe
Friday, March 20, 2009
RED ROOM NUMBER TWO...
RED ROOM #2 will be THURSDAY, 30 APRIL, 9 P.M. Poster’s done. First practice will be Saturday, 28 April (St. leif’s Eve, by the way). Sharma’s setting up times (I’m flexible, being unemployed and all). Setlist will be:
Bluebird on My Windshield (fast trucker rhythm)
Hey, Little Chicken (country blues)
Naked Space Hamsters in love (fast bluegrass)
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (slow & sleazy)
Dirty Deeds We Done to Sheep (rock ‘n’ roll, Johnny Cash style)
50 Ways to Cure the Depression (mod. fast Gospel)
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself (mod. fast traditional blues)
Rotten Candy (fast bluegrass)
I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas (slow & sleazy)
And this time, the Portland musicians are getting CDs with recordings of the songs, like I did for our band on the Coast. Definitely a good practice tool.
The setlist includes five songs that we did well last time, and four new ones. All the new ones are uptempo songs—the band likes and does those better. “Bluebird” is a bluegrass song that’s been done real well by rock bands; “Starvin’” is a fast-paced, easy to follow blues with room for a lot of lead breaks (which I now am sure these guys can do); “50 Ways” has a pounding Gospel-style bass line, as does “Rotten Candy.” It’d be neat if Sharma the bass player could sing “Rotten Candy.” The song could really benefit from a good female voice.
I was asked why I want to do this—we know from experience that the Red Room gig isn’t going to amount to any money. The answer is that this will turn into more business down the road—business that does pay better. This time, we will get a video that can be used for promotional, gig-getting purposes, too. Besides, I have an album to record (once I can afford it) and I think I would like these guys to do it.
FAILED ECONOMY SHOW got over two hours’ worth of submissions, which will allow the band to pick and choose what they want to do. The submissions include some country, some blues, some bluegrass, one jazz, and one R&B; we’ll listen to a round dozen or the songs over the weekend, and talk Monday at practice what we want to do.
I’m assuming my songs are a given for inclusion (there are advantages to being The Writer). There will be three of those: “Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues,” “Free-Range Person,” and “50 Ways to Cure the Depression.” I have two Stan Good songs “musicated”—“WD-40 the Economy” has the electric banjo playing a sort of lead, and “Death of the Middle Class” I did as very electric (and angry) Death Metal. (Considering that it’s me doing it, it’s probably Country Death Metal.) I still have two more songs to musicate, and two that need to be re-recorded.
Not all the submissions are about the Depression per se. Everett Adams’ “I Will Survive” and Glynda Duncan’s “I’m Not as Stupid as You Wish I Was” are actually lost-love songs with sentiments appropriate to today’s hard times, for instance.
UPDATES: I sent a link to “The 30-Second Resume” video along with my last city-manager job application—to Wrangell, Alaska, the little town that’s accessible only by plane or boat. I’m still not sure whether it was a good idea, but it’s done. They’ll either hire me or not (and odds were on the “not” to begin with).
Joe
Bluebird on My Windshield (fast trucker rhythm)
Hey, Little Chicken (country blues)
Naked Space Hamsters in love (fast bluegrass)
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (slow & sleazy)
Dirty Deeds We Done to Sheep (rock ‘n’ roll, Johnny Cash style)
50 Ways to Cure the Depression (mod. fast Gospel)
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself (mod. fast traditional blues)
Rotten Candy (fast bluegrass)
I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas (slow & sleazy)
And this time, the Portland musicians are getting CDs with recordings of the songs, like I did for our band on the Coast. Definitely a good practice tool.
The setlist includes five songs that we did well last time, and four new ones. All the new ones are uptempo songs—the band likes and does those better. “Bluebird” is a bluegrass song that’s been done real well by rock bands; “Starvin’” is a fast-paced, easy to follow blues with room for a lot of lead breaks (which I now am sure these guys can do); “50 Ways” has a pounding Gospel-style bass line, as does “Rotten Candy.” It’d be neat if Sharma the bass player could sing “Rotten Candy.” The song could really benefit from a good female voice.
I was asked why I want to do this—we know from experience that the Red Room gig isn’t going to amount to any money. The answer is that this will turn into more business down the road—business that does pay better. This time, we will get a video that can be used for promotional, gig-getting purposes, too. Besides, I have an album to record (once I can afford it) and I think I would like these guys to do it.
FAILED ECONOMY SHOW got over two hours’ worth of submissions, which will allow the band to pick and choose what they want to do. The submissions include some country, some blues, some bluegrass, one jazz, and one R&B; we’ll listen to a round dozen or the songs over the weekend, and talk Monday at practice what we want to do.
I’m assuming my songs are a given for inclusion (there are advantages to being The Writer). There will be three of those: “Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues,” “Free-Range Person,” and “50 Ways to Cure the Depression.” I have two Stan Good songs “musicated”—“WD-40 the Economy” has the electric banjo playing a sort of lead, and “Death of the Middle Class” I did as very electric (and angry) Death Metal. (Considering that it’s me doing it, it’s probably Country Death Metal.) I still have two more songs to musicate, and two that need to be re-recorded.
Not all the submissions are about the Depression per se. Everett Adams’ “I Will Survive” and Glynda Duncan’s “I’m Not as Stupid as You Wish I Was” are actually lost-love songs with sentiments appropriate to today’s hard times, for instance.
UPDATES: I sent a link to “The 30-Second Resume” video along with my last city-manager job application—to Wrangell, Alaska, the little town that’s accessible only by plane or boat. I’m still not sure whether it was a good idea, but it’s done. They’ll either hire me or not (and odds were on the “not” to begin with).
Joe
Monday, March 16, 2009
MORE VIDEO THOUGHTS...
About the time I finish and post one “issue” of the blog, I start another one. I’m not sure whether that means a lot is happening, or I just have too much time on my hands. Probably the latter. Why else would I spend time on Facebook’s “Which Disney Princess Are You?” quiz? (I’m Cinderella, in case you hadn’t guessed.)
Some things are going okay. I have two bands I’m playing with, and we have a fan base; the ability to get gigs may be limited mostly by reluctance to ask for them. There are a few things I could do that would make the process easier, and I should simply do them. The Coast Band can record a few songs during our six weeks “off” before the Failed Economy Show, and maybe do a video if someone can be tapped to film us somewhere; the Portland Band will get videoed at our Red Room performance, but we’ll know exactly how to do it going in, in part because of my experiences on the Coast.
And I am still writing. “50 Ways to Cure the Depression” was the first song in a long time, but there will be more—I feel like a logjam broke. It’s nice to hear people say it’s the best I’ve ever done; I know it’s not, but the sentiments are encouraging. And it is timely. Lengthy to-do list of songs to musicate for the Failed Economy Show, and I’m comfortable—again—that I can do most of them in one or two takes.
The problem, of course, is that I don’t make a living at that stuff. If I pushed real hard, could I? I don’t know. I’ve said before I thought it’d take a year of hard work before I got to the point where music was providing even half my income, and I haven’t pushed hard at this. I have confirmed thus far what I suspected, namely that there is a market for the stuff I do, and it might be a big one, despite whatever The Industry says. (It isn’t the first time I’ve been right and they’ve been wrong. I should just stop paying attention to them.)
An idea. There was, once upon a time, a lady who videotaped a lot of city council and county commissioners’ meetings, and had them aired on cable TV. Could that be done with the Failed Economy Show? It is a benefit, after all, for the local Food Bank, and everybody knows the food banks everywhere are in trouble. If the concert footage were run on TV, with contact information for all the local food banks, it’d be great publicity for the band. I don’t know who the lady is, but I know some government folks who do. If the lady’s no longer around, could the cable TV company itself be prevailed upon to air our videotape? (They’re a big conglomerate—but I do know their vice-president for public affairs in New York City. That could be fun…)
CDs, too. Select the best of the performance cuts—or re-do them in the studio if we have to—and assemble a CD with about an hour’s worth of music. Could the CD itself be a benefit for the food bank? Maybe; there’s not a lot of profit in a $10 CD, and if one gave half that to the food bank, there wouldn’t be much left to distribute after production costs. On the other hand, the publicity could be really worthwhile, and could maybe sell other CDs, and get the band more gigs. Might be well worth a try.
For that one, we (or I) would get to pay copyright royalties to the authors, which would be fun for them, even if inadequate recompense for their work. They’d at least be able to tell publishers, record companies, &c., “Yes, one of my songs was covered by a relatively famous performing band, and it is on a record, and the record is selling. Now, what are you going to do for me?” And to do that, I have to become a music publisher. Things keep nudging me in that direction.
Joe
Some things are going okay. I have two bands I’m playing with, and we have a fan base; the ability to get gigs may be limited mostly by reluctance to ask for them. There are a few things I could do that would make the process easier, and I should simply do them. The Coast Band can record a few songs during our six weeks “off” before the Failed Economy Show, and maybe do a video if someone can be tapped to film us somewhere; the Portland Band will get videoed at our Red Room performance, but we’ll know exactly how to do it going in, in part because of my experiences on the Coast.
And I am still writing. “50 Ways to Cure the Depression” was the first song in a long time, but there will be more—I feel like a logjam broke. It’s nice to hear people say it’s the best I’ve ever done; I know it’s not, but the sentiments are encouraging. And it is timely. Lengthy to-do list of songs to musicate for the Failed Economy Show, and I’m comfortable—again—that I can do most of them in one or two takes.
The problem, of course, is that I don’t make a living at that stuff. If I pushed real hard, could I? I don’t know. I’ve said before I thought it’d take a year of hard work before I got to the point where music was providing even half my income, and I haven’t pushed hard at this. I have confirmed thus far what I suspected, namely that there is a market for the stuff I do, and it might be a big one, despite whatever The Industry says. (It isn’t the first time I’ve been right and they’ve been wrong. I should just stop paying attention to them.)
An idea. There was, once upon a time, a lady who videotaped a lot of city council and county commissioners’ meetings, and had them aired on cable TV. Could that be done with the Failed Economy Show? It is a benefit, after all, for the local Food Bank, and everybody knows the food banks everywhere are in trouble. If the concert footage were run on TV, with contact information for all the local food banks, it’d be great publicity for the band. I don’t know who the lady is, but I know some government folks who do. If the lady’s no longer around, could the cable TV company itself be prevailed upon to air our videotape? (They’re a big conglomerate—but I do know their vice-president for public affairs in New York City. That could be fun…)
CDs, too. Select the best of the performance cuts—or re-do them in the studio if we have to—and assemble a CD with about an hour’s worth of music. Could the CD itself be a benefit for the food bank? Maybe; there’s not a lot of profit in a $10 CD, and if one gave half that to the food bank, there wouldn’t be much left to distribute after production costs. On the other hand, the publicity could be really worthwhile, and could maybe sell other CDs, and get the band more gigs. Might be well worth a try.
For that one, we (or I) would get to pay copyright royalties to the authors, which would be fun for them, even if inadequate recompense for their work. They’d at least be able to tell publishers, record companies, &c., “Yes, one of my songs was covered by a relatively famous performing band, and it is on a record, and the record is selling. Now, what are you going to do for me?” And to do that, I have to become a music publisher. Things keep nudging me in that direction.
Joe
Saturday, March 14, 2009
VIDEO THOUGHTS (MOSTLY)...
I have seen both of the Bay City videos—the one taken by John with his digital camera (it had enough memory for two songs), and the one taken by Dick’s wife Carol (which caught nearly all of the 2-hour show). John’s is not bad visually, but the audio is awful. I assume that’s the result of the camera’s limitations (those built-in mikes are cheap), and that we really didn’t sound that bad.
Dick’s has better sound (more expensive camera, better microphone), but It’s still not great; the bass can’t be heard well at all, because the bass amp wasn’t pointing directly at the camera, and my guitar sounds tinny (of course, maybe my guitar does sound tinny). The band doesn’t all fit in the frame of the camera most of the time, either. Neither tape, I think, is marketable because of the sound, but I’ll install “Alice” her DVD-rewritable drive (and extra RAM) and see what I can do with it. I think, though, we will probably have to do better.
Next time, we should bypass the camera’s mike, and pipe the sound in direct from the soundboard (if everyone’s plugged into the board) or from an omnidirectional mike set up in the audience, in front of the band. Using the soundboard instead of separate amps for the lead guitar and bass would provide better control of the sound.
Two cameras would help, too. I’d mount the second one off to the side, so it could pick up the vocalist’s face without the mike getting in the way (one has to get very close to my singing mike)—and also easily pan to the audience.
One of those two cameras could be mine. My old video camera works now—I stopped by the Radio Shack store, and the techie (who happens to be the owner) made me a power adapter for the thing while I waited. So I bought a tape from him at the same time. All the camera needs now is a tripod, which I’m determined not to buy new. I have everything necessary, I think, to hook the camera up to either a sound board (my 6-channel mixer) or a remote mike.
RED ROOM CONCERT #2 will be in APRIL, not March—maybe the last Saturday in April. That would give us some time to practice. Our Coast band will be out of action most of April, too, because blues harpist Dick Ackerman is having an operation; the rest of us will practice, but the band won’t be playing any gigs.
“50 WAYS TO CURE THE DEPRESSION” got tested out on a live audience at the Tillamook Library. Yes, it’s a keeper. The recording actually came in under 4-1/2 minutes, even with a lead break, so there’s really plenty of room to add more “ways” (only 17 are listed in the song). One could carry the song out for a long time—just like “Big Bob” Provus did with “50 Ways to kill Your Lover” (which actually had 50 ways). Might do that when we play it in concert.
(This song might make a good music video, too. All of the imagery is quite photogenic—banks, trucks, and so on. One could do still photos—rotating pretty fast—for the “ways,” and then footage of the band during the verses.)
KGW-TV in Portland did air the “30-Second Resume” music video, on their “Live at 7” show Friday night; their producer e-mailed me to tell me he liked it. No job offers yet, but I did get a lead on a city-manager job—in Alaska.
Joe
Dick’s has better sound (more expensive camera, better microphone), but It’s still not great; the bass can’t be heard well at all, because the bass amp wasn’t pointing directly at the camera, and my guitar sounds tinny (of course, maybe my guitar does sound tinny). The band doesn’t all fit in the frame of the camera most of the time, either. Neither tape, I think, is marketable because of the sound, but I’ll install “Alice” her DVD-rewritable drive (and extra RAM) and see what I can do with it. I think, though, we will probably have to do better.
Next time, we should bypass the camera’s mike, and pipe the sound in direct from the soundboard (if everyone’s plugged into the board) or from an omnidirectional mike set up in the audience, in front of the band. Using the soundboard instead of separate amps for the lead guitar and bass would provide better control of the sound.
Two cameras would help, too. I’d mount the second one off to the side, so it could pick up the vocalist’s face without the mike getting in the way (one has to get very close to my singing mike)—and also easily pan to the audience.
One of those two cameras could be mine. My old video camera works now—I stopped by the Radio Shack store, and the techie (who happens to be the owner) made me a power adapter for the thing while I waited. So I bought a tape from him at the same time. All the camera needs now is a tripod, which I’m determined not to buy new. I have everything necessary, I think, to hook the camera up to either a sound board (my 6-channel mixer) or a remote mike.
RED ROOM CONCERT #2 will be in APRIL, not March—maybe the last Saturday in April. That would give us some time to practice. Our Coast band will be out of action most of April, too, because blues harpist Dick Ackerman is having an operation; the rest of us will practice, but the band won’t be playing any gigs.
“50 WAYS TO CURE THE DEPRESSION” got tested out on a live audience at the Tillamook Library. Yes, it’s a keeper. The recording actually came in under 4-1/2 minutes, even with a lead break, so there’s really plenty of room to add more “ways” (only 17 are listed in the song). One could carry the song out for a long time—just like “Big Bob” Provus did with “50 Ways to kill Your Lover” (which actually had 50 ways). Might do that when we play it in concert.
(This song might make a good music video, too. All of the imagery is quite photogenic—banks, trucks, and so on. One could do still photos—rotating pretty fast—for the “ways,” and then footage of the band during the verses.)
KGW-TV in Portland did air the “30-Second Resume” music video, on their “Live at 7” show Friday night; their producer e-mailed me to tell me he liked it. No job offers yet, but I did get a lead on a city-manager job—in Alaska.
Joe
Thursday, March 12, 2009
I'M IN TWO BANDS NOW?
A couple of “uppers” (that’s good—helps offset the two job rejection letters I got in the mail). I got hit up on the street by a fan asking when the band were going to do our next concert (I think it will be the Failed Economy Show, and probably the beginning of May). I’ve heard already from a number of folks who didn’t make it to the Bay City concert but say they are determined to come to the next one—and I’ve encouraged them, emphasizing what a good time they missed.
The director of the Arts Center said she was hit up by “a tall guy” (I think I know who he was) wanting to get in touch with our manager (he thought she was it). We don’t have one, of course—we’re not ready yet—but it’s nice somebody thought we were professional enough (at our first gig, no less) to be being professionally managed. And the band themselves have started asking me when our next gig is.
All the band are gung-ho for the Failed Economy Show. The song lineup—still not complete—includes at this point blues, jazz, bluegrass, Gospel, “straight” country, and an R&B tune, plus three songs from me (one blues, one bluegrass, and one Gospel) and two from Woody Guthrie. An impressive lineup—and it would really establish our reputation if we could pull all those different styles off. We do have maybe five weeks to practice in. Chris, the drummer John knows, is also interested—and he, too, lives and works in Garibaldi.
John brought his bass down to the Ghost Hole tonight; he, Jeff and I are going to treat Wednesday nights as an opportunity to practice from now on, I think. That provides another important component of the Performing Band picture—a home base where you’re playing regularly, that lets you tell people (for instance) “Yeah, we play there every Wednesday night—come down and you can hear what we sound like.” Having a Regular Gig raises you a bunch of notches in the eyes of those who might hire you; it says somebody likes you enough to have you playing regularly, that audiences like what you’re doing, and also that you-the-band are serious about what you do. (It is not necessary to tell anybody how much you’re getting paid.)
TWO BANDS? On the Portland front, Sharma has a go-ahead from the Red Room for a return gig—both for the Portland Band (David, Don, Doug, Sharma, and me) and for lead guitarist David’s other band (a prerequisite for his playing with us was getting that other band a gig, too, on the same night). The Red Room is apparently amenable—they’re offering Saturday nights, which I think means they really want us back. SATURDAY, 28 MARCH looks like the date—which will give us time probably for only one practice before Gig Night. (That’s St. Leif’s Eve—probably as close as I’m going to get to playing music on St. Leif’s Day this year.)
I think we’ll do mostly the same material as last time (we didn’t have time to perform all of it last time), plus one or two new songs. I’d like to see them tackle “Rotten Candy,” with Sharma the bass player doing lead vocal. The song really would benefit from a female voice. The other one we could do is “Bluebird on My Windshield,” which is a simple 1-4-5 progression—and its “trucker rhythm” works as well with rock ‘n’ roll as bluegrass. Both are pretty fast-moving songs—and I have noticed those guys (and gal) do better on fast-paced material.
We’ll videotape the Portland gig, too—using (if I can manage it) the two-camera approach, one camera doing static footage of the band (with audio feed from the soundboard, so there’s good sound) and the other “roaming,” doing closeups from different angles of people playing and shots of the audience. And then hopefully I can splice them together on the computer. It is probably time to visit the Radio Shack store (the Tillamook store has a pretty good resident techie) with the old Fisher video camera in hand, and see if the guy can’t make me an adapter to bypass the $60 battery pack I don’t have and don’t want to buy.
TO DO: Five songs, I think, to musicate, and “50 Ways to Cure the Depression” to finish recording; then I can assemble CDs for the band to start listening to. I’d like to do all that in one day (plus finish and send off another job application)—I’ve been asked to judge a debate tournament at my daughter’s old high school on Friday, and that’s another thing I’d like to keep my hand in.
Joe
The director of the Arts Center said she was hit up by “a tall guy” (I think I know who he was) wanting to get in touch with our manager (he thought she was it). We don’t have one, of course—we’re not ready yet—but it’s nice somebody thought we were professional enough (at our first gig, no less) to be being professionally managed. And the band themselves have started asking me when our next gig is.
All the band are gung-ho for the Failed Economy Show. The song lineup—still not complete—includes at this point blues, jazz, bluegrass, Gospel, “straight” country, and an R&B tune, plus three songs from me (one blues, one bluegrass, and one Gospel) and two from Woody Guthrie. An impressive lineup—and it would really establish our reputation if we could pull all those different styles off. We do have maybe five weeks to practice in. Chris, the drummer John knows, is also interested—and he, too, lives and works in Garibaldi.
John brought his bass down to the Ghost Hole tonight; he, Jeff and I are going to treat Wednesday nights as an opportunity to practice from now on, I think. That provides another important component of the Performing Band picture—a home base where you’re playing regularly, that lets you tell people (for instance) “Yeah, we play there every Wednesday night—come down and you can hear what we sound like.” Having a Regular Gig raises you a bunch of notches in the eyes of those who might hire you; it says somebody likes you enough to have you playing regularly, that audiences like what you’re doing, and also that you-the-band are serious about what you do. (It is not necessary to tell anybody how much you’re getting paid.)
TWO BANDS? On the Portland front, Sharma has a go-ahead from the Red Room for a return gig—both for the Portland Band (David, Don, Doug, Sharma, and me) and for lead guitarist David’s other band (a prerequisite for his playing with us was getting that other band a gig, too, on the same night). The Red Room is apparently amenable—they’re offering Saturday nights, which I think means they really want us back. SATURDAY, 28 MARCH looks like the date—which will give us time probably for only one practice before Gig Night. (That’s St. Leif’s Eve—probably as close as I’m going to get to playing music on St. Leif’s Day this year.)
I think we’ll do mostly the same material as last time (we didn’t have time to perform all of it last time), plus one or two new songs. I’d like to see them tackle “Rotten Candy,” with Sharma the bass player doing lead vocal. The song really would benefit from a female voice. The other one we could do is “Bluebird on My Windshield,” which is a simple 1-4-5 progression—and its “trucker rhythm” works as well with rock ‘n’ roll as bluegrass. Both are pretty fast-moving songs—and I have noticed those guys (and gal) do better on fast-paced material.
We’ll videotape the Portland gig, too—using (if I can manage it) the two-camera approach, one camera doing static footage of the band (with audio feed from the soundboard, so there’s good sound) and the other “roaming,” doing closeups from different angles of people playing and shots of the audience. And then hopefully I can splice them together on the computer. It is probably time to visit the Radio Shack store (the Tillamook store has a pretty good resident techie) with the old Fisher video camera in hand, and see if the guy can’t make me an adapter to bypass the $60 battery pack I don’t have and don’t want to buy.
TO DO: Five songs, I think, to musicate, and “50 Ways to Cure the Depression” to finish recording; then I can assemble CDs for the band to start listening to. I’d like to do all that in one day (plus finish and send off another job application)—I’ve been asked to judge a debate tournament at my daughter’s old high school on Friday, and that’s another thing I’d like to keep my hand in.
Joe
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