The new computer (its name appears to be “Justin”) is up and running. Does Internet just fine, and I've recovered a few Website links—by no means all. Got a word processor (Open Office), Audacity (this time with the *.mp3 “exporter”), installed my old Acrobat, digital camera and Click 'n' Design programs and a replacement photo processor (my 1996-vintage Adobe PhotoDeluxe is too old to work); still need to do PageMaker, the business card program, and a couple others. I also have to switch sound cards, apparently—the one in “Justin” is garbage.
I have tons of files to transfer over, and it won't be that easy. ”Alice” has finally given up the ghost (her motherboard is completely dead), so I'll have to pull her hard drive, add it to a PC of equivalent vintage (I know where there is one), and dump the files to a couple of flash drives to transfer to “Justin.” Alas, change is never easy.
Computer designs changed drastically since “Alice” was built, so I can't just add her old hard drive to “Justin”—I have to re-install each and every program (and some, like my 1997 version of Lotus, won't work any more). It's why I'm not a great fan of progress. (And this version of Windows XP has something called “Windows Dancer.” When you click on it, a dancing girl appears in the corner of the screen, gyrating. Why was that necessary?)
I do want to try creating that fan-generated music video. I think I'll use “Blue Krishna” for the experiment: it's a draft recording, but a pretty good one, and the Hinduesque subject matter may encourage people to be creative. I think Michael and Sedona should have first crack at a camera, since the Krishna painting at their Rainbow Lotus tea house was the inspiration for the song, and then I'll randomly tap others. Everybody can have a CD of the song for reference as soon as I have “Justin” the new 'puter making CDs. If I use folks close to home for my videographers, I can deliver and pick up the cameras personally, making the process move a lot faster. (Still, it'd be fun to do one of these really long distance, and transfer the cameras around by mail. One could end up with some fascinating stuff.)
I can overlay credits during the instrumental break (like I've done in the last two music videos), and maybe overlay lyrics to the song, too, if the footage I get seems to lend itself to it. And I'll want to add a Rap at the beginning, explaining both the genesis of the song and the fan-generated video idea—and give credit to the videographers. (It'd be nice to do that—or part of it—live. I could do that on one of the Arts Center's Macs—but I wonder how my new 'puter would handle a Webcam? I do have one of those, a good one I think, that I never hooked up to either “Alice” or “StuartLittle.”)
And once the “Blue Krishna” video is done, then what? More such videos? A lot depends on how this one comes out. One way or another, every song of mine should be turned into video; not only is “video the new audio,” as DJ Len Amsterdam maintains, but being on video exposes the song to a whole different audience, that's not hearing the songs on CD.
Another performance opportunity: the music program at the 2nd Street Market is under new management (again), and they've asked me if I'm interested in a Friday night slot. Maybe. I appreciate the offer (and I'd said I wanted more exposure), but it'd sure be nice to have accompaniment for something like that. I think I get on people's nerves if I'm singing at them for more than an hour, and this is a 2-hour set.
Sound isn't a problem—I think I can borrow again the 4-channel amp I used for the Willamette Writers gig, and that'll work for the 2nd Street Market's stage. (And of course the gig is unpaid. The 2nd Street Market has a long way to go before they can afford to pay performers. We'd be splitting tips. I'm generally happy to play for free, but I'm uncomfortable asking anyone else to.) The Hoffman Center in Manzanita is doing another talent show (finally)--October 1, same day as the Train Set, but at a different time. Yes, I'm interested. (Have to audition first.) It's been suggested that this time they get “The Abomination Two-Step.”
Music Thursday night at the Tsunami in Wheeler, Friday night at City Hall in Garibaldi, and maybe Saturday afternoon at the Tillamook library (don't know about that one yet—it's Labor Day weekend). Perhaps Sunday night at the “Rapture Room” I can start the camera going around for the “Blue Krishna” video.
Joe
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
"BLUE KRISHNA"--AND MARKETING...
“Blue Krishna” is online: http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=10947098 With Sedona Marie (co-owner of the Rainbow Lotus) on flute, and “Rockin’ Dr. Tom” Tracy on sitar. Mixed in Audacity because poor about-to-be-replaced “Alice” the ‘puter couldn’t produce a decent CD to dump to the Tascam.
Fun song, and I am happy with the way it turned out. Commercial? I doubt there’s a market for that sort of thing; it’ll get played (and maybe requested) at the Rainbow Lotus, where it all started, and maybe a few other places, but it’s unlikely to be a regular inclusion on a setlist, much less ever make it to a record. The recording is an interesting experiment—yes, a sitar really can be a bluegrass instrument. (Of course, George Harrison showed it was a rock ‘n’ roll instrument, so no one should be surprised.)
That does beg the question how one does market stuff these days. Even the Nashville pundits agree the old models don’t work any more. (The big record labels appear to be the only ones still maintaining you can’t become a success without a contract from a big record label—but they’re reportedly in serious financial trouble themselves.)
There are a lot of success stories out there featuring folks who ignored or bypassed the “traditional” (record label) route, but the unanswered question in each case is “How did they get noticed?” There are a lot of good writers and musicians out there, and with times hard, more and more are performing in order to make ends meet (for some, it’s the only way they have to make ends meet).
So you do gigs (and maybe some of them will even be paying gigs), and you have music posted online, and videos on YouTube (et al.), and a commercially-recorded CD for sale online and through Retail Outlets and at gigs. None of that guarantees you success or even an income, though they’re important pieces of the “getting noticed” program. (A little like winning the lottery. Very few people win the lottery, but one thing they all have in common is they all bought tickets.)
I’m not after a guarantee, particularly (it’d be nice, of course), but I am a fan of targeted marketing—deliberately going after the people who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer. (That’s how I’ve done personnel recruitments as a city manager, and it’s worked out very well.) In this case, I’m not sure where or who the target is.
That shouldn’t stop me. One can broadcast—it’s inefficient, but one might see a target audience begin to be identifiable somewhere in the process. Internet “stations” abound; they can all get the CD. Venues can get cold calls with a CD (or, if I’m soliciting a solo gig, a DVD of me performing solo). Festivals can get a “You don’t know me, but…” letter—again, with a CD or DVD. And one can drop periodic (and hopefully not annoying) requests into Social Media telling them about these efforts and saying, “Hey, if you know any of these people, would you put in a good word for me?” And I can find these people the same way I find city manager jobs to apply for: keep my eyes and ears open, and when I hear a name dropped, go after it.
More videos to do; video is one place I can be really experimental, since I don’t know enough to have any preconceived notions. I saw an ad from one video production company saying that (for a price, of course) they’d send you a camera and you could shoot a bunch of footage that they’d proceed to turn into a music video. Novel idea, there. I have two old digital cameras that can “do” video. Could I tap some people I know and ask them to shoot some footage that they think would fit a particular song I gave ‘em (I wouldn’t care what it was—could be scenery, or even their band playing the song), and then mail me back the camera? If I could get several people to do this for the same song, I could blend the clips together, and it could be really interesting.
As with the “Blue Krishna” song, it might be nothing more than a Fun Thing. On the other hand, how many artists enlist their fans in making videos of their songs? Why not?
Joe
Fun song, and I am happy with the way it turned out. Commercial? I doubt there’s a market for that sort of thing; it’ll get played (and maybe requested) at the Rainbow Lotus, where it all started, and maybe a few other places, but it’s unlikely to be a regular inclusion on a setlist, much less ever make it to a record. The recording is an interesting experiment—yes, a sitar really can be a bluegrass instrument. (Of course, George Harrison showed it was a rock ‘n’ roll instrument, so no one should be surprised.)
That does beg the question how one does market stuff these days. Even the Nashville pundits agree the old models don’t work any more. (The big record labels appear to be the only ones still maintaining you can’t become a success without a contract from a big record label—but they’re reportedly in serious financial trouble themselves.)
There are a lot of success stories out there featuring folks who ignored or bypassed the “traditional” (record label) route, but the unanswered question in each case is “How did they get noticed?” There are a lot of good writers and musicians out there, and with times hard, more and more are performing in order to make ends meet (for some, it’s the only way they have to make ends meet).
So you do gigs (and maybe some of them will even be paying gigs), and you have music posted online, and videos on YouTube (et al.), and a commercially-recorded CD for sale online and through Retail Outlets and at gigs. None of that guarantees you success or even an income, though they’re important pieces of the “getting noticed” program. (A little like winning the lottery. Very few people win the lottery, but one thing they all have in common is they all bought tickets.)
I’m not after a guarantee, particularly (it’d be nice, of course), but I am a fan of targeted marketing—deliberately going after the people who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer. (That’s how I’ve done personnel recruitments as a city manager, and it’s worked out very well.) In this case, I’m not sure where or who the target is.
That shouldn’t stop me. One can broadcast—it’s inefficient, but one might see a target audience begin to be identifiable somewhere in the process. Internet “stations” abound; they can all get the CD. Venues can get cold calls with a CD (or, if I’m soliciting a solo gig, a DVD of me performing solo). Festivals can get a “You don’t know me, but…” letter—again, with a CD or DVD. And one can drop periodic (and hopefully not annoying) requests into Social Media telling them about these efforts and saying, “Hey, if you know any of these people, would you put in a good word for me?” And I can find these people the same way I find city manager jobs to apply for: keep my eyes and ears open, and when I hear a name dropped, go after it.
More videos to do; video is one place I can be really experimental, since I don’t know enough to have any preconceived notions. I saw an ad from one video production company saying that (for a price, of course) they’d send you a camera and you could shoot a bunch of footage that they’d proceed to turn into a music video. Novel idea, there. I have two old digital cameras that can “do” video. Could I tap some people I know and ask them to shoot some footage that they think would fit a particular song I gave ‘em (I wouldn’t care what it was—could be scenery, or even their band playing the song), and then mail me back the camera? If I could get several people to do this for the same song, I could blend the clips together, and it could be really interesting.
As with the “Blue Krishna” song, it might be nothing more than a Fun Thing. On the other hand, how many artists enlist their fans in making videos of their songs? Why not?
Joe
Sunday, August 28, 2011
SONG CONTEST(S)...
It is time, I think, to enter another song contest. I try to do a couple every year. This one is the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest, put on by a songwriters’ group in Washington, D.C. I really don’t know much about them—but it was comforting that their rules said they’d only accept professionally-produced demos. Most song contests (at least those with professional judges) are like that, but most don’t say so—they’ll say “submit anything,” and not tell you the judges are going to throw out anything that’s not “radio-ready.”
What to send? I’ve got two professionally-recorded albums to work from, Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up (2005) and the Deathgrass album, Dead Things in the Shower (2011), plus five demos done with Mike Dunbar and a gaggle of Nashville session musicians at the Pineyfest songwriters’ conference in 2007. Four of the Pineyfest demos and two of the Deathgrass songs are co-writes, but co-writes are okay, according to the contest rules. I think I’d pick “Tillamook Railroad Blues” from the Deathgrass CD, and (if I feel comfortable spending the money on a second entry) “Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up,” the title cut from the 2005 album.
The prizes are small, which is a hopeful sign—it indicates this contest is small, and I have a better shot at winning. I like to enter contests I think I can win. However, I think the primary thing one gets out of contests is exposure: people hear the song who otherwise wouldn’t know about it, and if they like it, they may check to see what else you’ve done. (And if the people listening and checking are Industry Professionals, there might be business out of it.) A lot of “ifs” there, obviously. And that’s why I hate to invest much money in these things.
I’ll wait to copy the CDs until I have the new (actually, “new”) computer set up and running. Yes, “Alice” is getting replaced. I found a good deal—local, even—and am taking advantage of it. It’s not that “Alice” isn’t good at what she does—after seven years, she should be; it’s that after seven years, her motherboard is going, and various other components (most recently, the CD-rewritable drive) are wearing out. I am neither really surprised or really upset—I know things wear out. However, I do still have Alice’s predecessor, “Wilma,” a 1991-vintage 486 running Windows 95 (built for me by a computer repair guy in Eastern Oregon) out in the garage, and everything on Wilma still works, after 20 years—reminding me they definitely don’t make ‘em like they used to.
There’s a contest coming up in September, too, that I want to make sure to enter; it’s being put on by Goodnight Kiss Music, a publishing company I’m on the mailing list of. They haven’t done a contest in a while, and I do want to make sure the publisher remembers me. (I’ll send something from the Deathgrass album—it’ll be an opportunity to show it off.)
Now that I have a little more free time (since people are not lining up to offer me jobs), I need to get out more. I’ve been primarily jamming at the “Rapture Room” in Nehalem on Sunday nights, the Tillamook Library on Saturday afternoons, and once again at Garibaldi City Hall on Friday nights. I’ve arranged to have next Thursday evening free from the Writers’ Guild, so I can go to the “country” jam at the Tsunami Grill in Wheeler, but I should do more. A few solo gigs, perhaps, or even duets (if I could arrange for a willing accompanist). An increasing number of venues—particularly north of here—seem to be having live music, and a lot of it is solo or duo acts. I’d like to insert myself into that trend. Not because I’m any great shakes as a performer (though I can act like I know what I’m doing), but because I want exposure for the material, and about the only way I can do that is to perform it myself.
Joe
What to send? I’ve got two professionally-recorded albums to work from, Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up (2005) and the Deathgrass album, Dead Things in the Shower (2011), plus five demos done with Mike Dunbar and a gaggle of Nashville session musicians at the Pineyfest songwriters’ conference in 2007. Four of the Pineyfest demos and two of the Deathgrass songs are co-writes, but co-writes are okay, according to the contest rules. I think I’d pick “Tillamook Railroad Blues” from the Deathgrass CD, and (if I feel comfortable spending the money on a second entry) “Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up,” the title cut from the 2005 album.
The prizes are small, which is a hopeful sign—it indicates this contest is small, and I have a better shot at winning. I like to enter contests I think I can win. However, I think the primary thing one gets out of contests is exposure: people hear the song who otherwise wouldn’t know about it, and if they like it, they may check to see what else you’ve done. (And if the people listening and checking are Industry Professionals, there might be business out of it.) A lot of “ifs” there, obviously. And that’s why I hate to invest much money in these things.
I’ll wait to copy the CDs until I have the new (actually, “new”) computer set up and running. Yes, “Alice” is getting replaced. I found a good deal—local, even—and am taking advantage of it. It’s not that “Alice” isn’t good at what she does—after seven years, she should be; it’s that after seven years, her motherboard is going, and various other components (most recently, the CD-rewritable drive) are wearing out. I am neither really surprised or really upset—I know things wear out. However, I do still have Alice’s predecessor, “Wilma,” a 1991-vintage 486 running Windows 95 (built for me by a computer repair guy in Eastern Oregon) out in the garage, and everything on Wilma still works, after 20 years—reminding me they definitely don’t make ‘em like they used to.
There’s a contest coming up in September, too, that I want to make sure to enter; it’s being put on by Goodnight Kiss Music, a publishing company I’m on the mailing list of. They haven’t done a contest in a while, and I do want to make sure the publisher remembers me. (I’ll send something from the Deathgrass album—it’ll be an opportunity to show it off.)
Now that I have a little more free time (since people are not lining up to offer me jobs), I need to get out more. I’ve been primarily jamming at the “Rapture Room” in Nehalem on Sunday nights, the Tillamook Library on Saturday afternoons, and once again at Garibaldi City Hall on Friday nights. I’ve arranged to have next Thursday evening free from the Writers’ Guild, so I can go to the “country” jam at the Tsunami Grill in Wheeler, but I should do more. A few solo gigs, perhaps, or even duets (if I could arrange for a willing accompanist). An increasing number of venues—particularly north of here—seem to be having live music, and a lot of it is solo or duo acts. I’d like to insert myself into that trend. Not because I’m any great shakes as a performer (though I can act like I know what I’m doing), but because I want exposure for the material, and about the only way I can do that is to perform it myself.
Joe
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
"SNOW PIGGY AND THE THE SEVEN JEDI"?
The by-now-infamous “Pig Wars” puppet troupe have done four plays now, dramatizing (in order) the legends of the three little pigs, the three billy goats gruff, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Lest they fade into obscurity, we should do another play. But which fairy tale to fracture this time?
Snow White? There is really not a lot of plot in the Snow White story, despite Disney making a full-length movie out of it in 1939. Evil step-parent (that’d have to be Darth) has it in for beautiful (compared to Darth, anyway) Princess Leah, who escapes (to a galaxy far, far away, of course) and hooks up with The Seven Jedi (of which we see only Yoda and Luke—the rest, we’re told, are at work saving the galaxy) and hides out at their secret military base. Darth finds the princess, brings her an evil-looking present (maybe the pumpkin from the last play), knocks her out with a brick (using the Dark Side of the Force, in other words), and the princess stays unconscious until discovered by the handsome prince (Hansolo, I guess).
Of course, we have to have the magic mirror (we used the mirror in “Cinderpiggy” so that Leah would have someone to talk to, but the Snow White legend is really where the mirror comes from). We need a part for Chewy, too. Maybe Chewy should be the one who always gets asked (and answers) the “Who’s the fairest?” question—the mirror could get really annoyed at that. And Chewy has to be the one who’s supposed to dump the girl’s body off in space, and ends up shipping her off to the galaxy far, far away instead—there’s no one else to play that role. Can Chewy pull it off with a one-word vocabulary?
We can’t do the Disney chase scene through the mountains with sock puppets—and we don’t want the evil step-parent getting killed off, anyway: this is a kids’ play. Disney could be violent (especially toward stepmothers), but we won’t. Could we maybe have Darth and Chewy live happily ever after, too (eating cookies, of course)—after giving Leah and Hansolo the annoying magic mirror as a wedding present? And this time, the mirror can join in the “moral of the story is…” discussion at the end. It just might work. We can call it “Snow Piggy and the Seven Jedi.”
I wonder what we’d do for a song? (The one verse, one chorus songs performed by the sock-puppet band have become a tradition now. Have to have one. The public expects it.) And what genre? We’ve done rock (in “Sleeping Piggy”), and country (in “Cinderpiggy”). Bluegrass, perhaps? (I know a fiddle player.) A polka?
I’ve threatened to do a sock-puppet play based on the legend of the Treasure of Neahkahnie Mountain (it was actually the subject of a movie), but I probably won’t—the fairy tales work better for our Star Wars troupe. People know how the fairy tales are supposed to go, because they grew up with them—and then we can twist the tales unmercifully (and humorously) in the course of fitting our “actors” into the roles. If people didn’t already know the story, it wouldn’t work as well.
Found a few more public-domain songs that might be suitable for the Train Set: “The Last Ride,” a dying-hobo tune that may date as far back as 1890 (Hank Snow did it with a real rockabilly beat, which I’d like to imitate), “Reuben’s Train,” which dates from the Civil War (and has a grisly murder in the last verse), and Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel No. 2 (T for Texas),” which was a Dodson Drifters standard—it plays good as rock ‘n’ roll, and there aren’t many rock ‘n’ roll train songs. Of the tunes I’ve been sent by songwriters, I think there are only three I have managed to be able to play and sing—but I’m not done yet. This week, I get to play music Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and maybe even Thursday night before the Writers’ Guild meeting—and there’s another job to apply for that I wouldn’t mind having. And is there a play to write, too?
Joe
Snow White? There is really not a lot of plot in the Snow White story, despite Disney making a full-length movie out of it in 1939. Evil step-parent (that’d have to be Darth) has it in for beautiful (compared to Darth, anyway) Princess Leah, who escapes (to a galaxy far, far away, of course) and hooks up with The Seven Jedi (of which we see only Yoda and Luke—the rest, we’re told, are at work saving the galaxy) and hides out at their secret military base. Darth finds the princess, brings her an evil-looking present (maybe the pumpkin from the last play), knocks her out with a brick (using the Dark Side of the Force, in other words), and the princess stays unconscious until discovered by the handsome prince (Hansolo, I guess).
Of course, we have to have the magic mirror (we used the mirror in “Cinderpiggy” so that Leah would have someone to talk to, but the Snow White legend is really where the mirror comes from). We need a part for Chewy, too. Maybe Chewy should be the one who always gets asked (and answers) the “Who’s the fairest?” question—the mirror could get really annoyed at that. And Chewy has to be the one who’s supposed to dump the girl’s body off in space, and ends up shipping her off to the galaxy far, far away instead—there’s no one else to play that role. Can Chewy pull it off with a one-word vocabulary?
We can’t do the Disney chase scene through the mountains with sock puppets—and we don’t want the evil step-parent getting killed off, anyway: this is a kids’ play. Disney could be violent (especially toward stepmothers), but we won’t. Could we maybe have Darth and Chewy live happily ever after, too (eating cookies, of course)—after giving Leah and Hansolo the annoying magic mirror as a wedding present? And this time, the mirror can join in the “moral of the story is…” discussion at the end. It just might work. We can call it “Snow Piggy and the Seven Jedi.”
I wonder what we’d do for a song? (The one verse, one chorus songs performed by the sock-puppet band have become a tradition now. Have to have one. The public expects it.) And what genre? We’ve done rock (in “Sleeping Piggy”), and country (in “Cinderpiggy”). Bluegrass, perhaps? (I know a fiddle player.) A polka?
I’ve threatened to do a sock-puppet play based on the legend of the Treasure of Neahkahnie Mountain (it was actually the subject of a movie), but I probably won’t—the fairy tales work better for our Star Wars troupe. People know how the fairy tales are supposed to go, because they grew up with them—and then we can twist the tales unmercifully (and humorously) in the course of fitting our “actors” into the roles. If people didn’t already know the story, it wouldn’t work as well.
Found a few more public-domain songs that might be suitable for the Train Set: “The Last Ride,” a dying-hobo tune that may date as far back as 1890 (Hank Snow did it with a real rockabilly beat, which I’d like to imitate), “Reuben’s Train,” which dates from the Civil War (and has a grisly murder in the last verse), and Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel No. 2 (T for Texas),” which was a Dodson Drifters standard—it plays good as rock ‘n’ roll, and there aren’t many rock ‘n’ roll train songs. Of the tunes I’ve been sent by songwriters, I think there are only three I have managed to be able to play and sing—but I’m not done yet. This week, I get to play music Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and maybe even Thursday night before the Writers’ Guild meeting—and there’s another job to apply for that I wouldn’t mind having. And is there a play to write, too?
Joe
Monday, August 22, 2011
WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT...
So what does one write about? I don’t usually have the “What do I write about?” problem; I’m either working on an “assignment” (from Coventry or the Writers’ Guild, say) or an idea somebody fed me just took form (or flight). I noticed the originals that the professional band performed Saturday night included a lot of love songs (their traditionals were a lot more diverse). Love, I suppose, is a safe thing to talk about: it’s pretty universal—since virtually everybody’s been there, or is there, you can talk about it and be pretty certain your audience will understand.
There may not be many other themes these days in commercial country music. There’s religion (following very conventional, Protestant forms and imagery, though), drinking, and how wonderful it is to live in the country (written and performed, one Nashville pundit noted, by people who have never been there). Maybe not much else. (I don’t listen to the radio much.) There are political songs—comedian Ray Stevens has done a bunch of them—but it’s hard to do political songs without sounding preachy (and even Ray sounds preachy in a lot of them).
And my own stuff? Well, “Earwigs in the Eggplant,” my most recent “keeper,” is a love song, but the love is more an afterthought; it’s an alphabetical (sort of) listing of plants and garden pests, twisted into a love song because it had to be about something. It was deliberately written so that 45 Degrees North would have something about vegetables for the Manzanita Farmer’s Market gig.
“Selling Off My Body Parts” is another hymn for the Failed Economy (and the idea originally came from daughter)—tongue planted firmly in cheek because I very much do not want to be preachy. “Pole Dancing for Jesus” is a religious song primarily in style—and happened because Gene Burnett passed on that clip from Fox News. And “Blue Krishna” is kind of unclassifiable; it’s really just one of those “wondering” things, answering the question (once I’d seen the Krishna painting in the Rainbow Lotus) “Why is Krishna blue?”
And then I’ve got what I think of as the Bad Guys Series, sensitive treatments of a mugger (“Last Song of the Highwayman”), a serial killer (“The Dead Sweethearts Polka”), a stalker (“In the Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You”), and a suicide (“Angel in Chains”). The last three of those resulted from challenges by the Coventry songwriters group over in England, and the first was a deliberate attempt to write a medieval ballad (though I ignored about half the rules for medieval ballad-writing in the process).
It almost follows the mantra I gave the Songstuff folks in my bio: “Happy, upbeat, uptempo songs about death, lost love, betrayal, religion, and dead animals.” Even my love song for my wife from last year, “Always Pet the Dogs,” still has a dead (actually, reincarnated) dog in it.
Two conclusions from the above: (1) I get nearly all my ideas from other people. And (2) I sure don’t follow the conventional pattern. I don’t know if the latter is a good thing; I suppose I could always say, “Well, there’s more to life than love.” (And religion, and drinking, and living in the country or wanting to.) Maybe the focus on love (et al.) in other people’s songs is the result of so much writing being done in a vacuum; when you have a limited frame of reference, perhaps you end up with a limited repertoire. I very much do not want that to happen to me (and I suppose I have to live with the consequences).
Final thought. If what I’m doing isn’t marketable, why do people keep requesting the songs?
Joe
There may not be many other themes these days in commercial country music. There’s religion (following very conventional, Protestant forms and imagery, though), drinking, and how wonderful it is to live in the country (written and performed, one Nashville pundit noted, by people who have never been there). Maybe not much else. (I don’t listen to the radio much.) There are political songs—comedian Ray Stevens has done a bunch of them—but it’s hard to do political songs without sounding preachy (and even Ray sounds preachy in a lot of them).
And my own stuff? Well, “Earwigs in the Eggplant,” my most recent “keeper,” is a love song, but the love is more an afterthought; it’s an alphabetical (sort of) listing of plants and garden pests, twisted into a love song because it had to be about something. It was deliberately written so that 45 Degrees North would have something about vegetables for the Manzanita Farmer’s Market gig.
“Selling Off My Body Parts” is another hymn for the Failed Economy (and the idea originally came from daughter)—tongue planted firmly in cheek because I very much do not want to be preachy. “Pole Dancing for Jesus” is a religious song primarily in style—and happened because Gene Burnett passed on that clip from Fox News. And “Blue Krishna” is kind of unclassifiable; it’s really just one of those “wondering” things, answering the question (once I’d seen the Krishna painting in the Rainbow Lotus) “Why is Krishna blue?”
And then I’ve got what I think of as the Bad Guys Series, sensitive treatments of a mugger (“Last Song of the Highwayman”), a serial killer (“The Dead Sweethearts Polka”), a stalker (“In the Shadows, I’ll Be Watching You”), and a suicide (“Angel in Chains”). The last three of those resulted from challenges by the Coventry songwriters group over in England, and the first was a deliberate attempt to write a medieval ballad (though I ignored about half the rules for medieval ballad-writing in the process).
It almost follows the mantra I gave the Songstuff folks in my bio: “Happy, upbeat, uptempo songs about death, lost love, betrayal, religion, and dead animals.” Even my love song for my wife from last year, “Always Pet the Dogs,” still has a dead (actually, reincarnated) dog in it.
Two conclusions from the above: (1) I get nearly all my ideas from other people. And (2) I sure don’t follow the conventional pattern. I don’t know if the latter is a good thing; I suppose I could always say, “Well, there’s more to life than love.” (And religion, and drinking, and living in the country or wanting to.) Maybe the focus on love (et al.) in other people’s songs is the result of so much writing being done in a vacuum; when you have a limited frame of reference, perhaps you end up with a limited repertoire. I very much do not want that to happen to me (and I suppose I have to live with the consequences).
Final thought. If what I’m doing isn’t marketable, why do people keep requesting the songs?
Joe
Sunday, August 21, 2011
"MOOKSTOCK"?
I was approached at the library by a fellow promoting a weekend of music to raise money for the music program in Tillamook schools. He’s calling it “Mookstock.” It is a good idea. That’s what the “Moograss” bluegrass festival did, in its run from 2001 to around 2005 or 2006, and it was quite successful.
Would Deathgrass like to play? Yes, but… The fellow was talking about having the thing Labor Day weekend, which is less than two weeks away (he said it had taken the Fair Board a long, long time to get around to signing a contract for use of the county fairgrounds, which doesn’t surprise me), and I told him we couldn’t do it on that short notice—we’re currently working on getting ready for the Rocktoberfest, which is Sept. 17, two whole weeks later than he was talking about. I urged him to postpone the date further (I don’t think he has any commitments yet)—say, to Sept. 24-25, a week after the Rocktoberfest. We could do that, I think. We’ll see.
Sold a CD at the library, too, but I gave one to the promoter dude, telling him he needed it; that was how the Rocktoberfest folks auditioned bands—by getting CDs. That weeds out the groups that aren’t far enough along to have CDs out.
My first reaction, on hearing that the Fair Board was going to charge for use of the fairgrounds, was “They said what?” Just my opinion, but if it’s a benefit for the kids’ music program, nobody should be charging for anything. If ‘twere me—and it is not me, of course—I would tell the Fair Board that if we didn’t get the place for free, we’d go somewhere that was free, and we’d talk about their unwillingness to help the kids.
Tillamook High School, for instance, has much the same infrastructure as the fairgrounds (not as good, true, but one takes what one can get)—there’s a football field, with bleachers, and you could pull one of those mobile stages out into the arena just like you could at the fairgrounds. (If the weather’s bad, you can play inside, too.) Lodging and food for the musicians coming from out of town would be more problematic, but emphasize “free” and “benefit for the kids” and you might get a lot of help.
And Tillamook isn’t the only school district where the music program is hurting. When money gets tight, music, art and drama are always the first things to get scrapped—as if civilizing kids isn’t a big priority. Not only is everybody’s budget slim these days, it’s going to stay that way for a while—or get worse. It’d be nice to do something similar for the schools to the north (Neah-Kah-Nie) and south (Nestucca), too. And in both those cases, the school itself might be the best place to do it. Our schools haven’t been involved near enough in the community, and this might be an opportunity to force them to “interface” a little.
Saturday night, I got to hear a professional band at the Museum (I like seeing—and critiquing—the competition). Three guitars (and a percussionist)—but one guitarist was playing lead, and one “emulating” bass, and two of the guitarists occasionally switched to blues harp (at different times, of course). Those two were also the singers, and they were both writers, so they harmonized on each other’s stuff. Not a bad arrangement. Almost all the material was original or traditional. (I’d had hopes 45 Degrees North could turn into something like this.) Nice to see someone being successful insisting on not doing covers. That’s what I want to do. I am not an entertainer except by default; I’m a writer, and what I want is the best possible exposure for the material I’ve written.
And these guys’ material wasn’t bad, either. One can’t help wondering, though, to what extent having good singing voices makes writers pay less attention to lyrics, and more to presentation. I can’t afford that luxury. Like Bob Dylan, John Prine, Leonard Cohen, Buck Owens, and the other writers I try to emulate, I don’t have a voice, and I don’t have the guitar chops; words is all I’ve got, and I have to make them as perfect as possible in order to get any attention. When (or if) those lyrics get mated up with a decent voice (think Peter, Paul and Mary doing Bob Dylan), you can really have something good.
Joe
Would Deathgrass like to play? Yes, but… The fellow was talking about having the thing Labor Day weekend, which is less than two weeks away (he said it had taken the Fair Board a long, long time to get around to signing a contract for use of the county fairgrounds, which doesn’t surprise me), and I told him we couldn’t do it on that short notice—we’re currently working on getting ready for the Rocktoberfest, which is Sept. 17, two whole weeks later than he was talking about. I urged him to postpone the date further (I don’t think he has any commitments yet)—say, to Sept. 24-25, a week after the Rocktoberfest. We could do that, I think. We’ll see.
Sold a CD at the library, too, but I gave one to the promoter dude, telling him he needed it; that was how the Rocktoberfest folks auditioned bands—by getting CDs. That weeds out the groups that aren’t far enough along to have CDs out.
My first reaction, on hearing that the Fair Board was going to charge for use of the fairgrounds, was “They said what?” Just my opinion, but if it’s a benefit for the kids’ music program, nobody should be charging for anything. If ‘twere me—and it is not me, of course—I would tell the Fair Board that if we didn’t get the place for free, we’d go somewhere that was free, and we’d talk about their unwillingness to help the kids.
Tillamook High School, for instance, has much the same infrastructure as the fairgrounds (not as good, true, but one takes what one can get)—there’s a football field, with bleachers, and you could pull one of those mobile stages out into the arena just like you could at the fairgrounds. (If the weather’s bad, you can play inside, too.) Lodging and food for the musicians coming from out of town would be more problematic, but emphasize “free” and “benefit for the kids” and you might get a lot of help.
And Tillamook isn’t the only school district where the music program is hurting. When money gets tight, music, art and drama are always the first things to get scrapped—as if civilizing kids isn’t a big priority. Not only is everybody’s budget slim these days, it’s going to stay that way for a while—or get worse. It’d be nice to do something similar for the schools to the north (Neah-Kah-Nie) and south (Nestucca), too. And in both those cases, the school itself might be the best place to do it. Our schools haven’t been involved near enough in the community, and this might be an opportunity to force them to “interface” a little.
Saturday night, I got to hear a professional band at the Museum (I like seeing—and critiquing—the competition). Three guitars (and a percussionist)—but one guitarist was playing lead, and one “emulating” bass, and two of the guitarists occasionally switched to blues harp (at different times, of course). Those two were also the singers, and they were both writers, so they harmonized on each other’s stuff. Not a bad arrangement. Almost all the material was original or traditional. (I’d had hopes 45 Degrees North could turn into something like this.) Nice to see someone being successful insisting on not doing covers. That’s what I want to do. I am not an entertainer except by default; I’m a writer, and what I want is the best possible exposure for the material I’ve written.
And these guys’ material wasn’t bad, either. One can’t help wondering, though, to what extent having good singing voices makes writers pay less attention to lyrics, and more to presentation. I can’t afford that luxury. Like Bob Dylan, John Prine, Leonard Cohen, Buck Owens, and the other writers I try to emulate, I don’t have a voice, and I don’t have the guitar chops; words is all I’ve got, and I have to make them as perfect as possible in order to get any attention. When (or if) those lyrics get mated up with a decent voice (think Peter, Paul and Mary doing Bob Dylan), you can really have something good.
Joe
Saturday, August 20, 2011
ROCKTOBERFEST SETLIST...
The Rocktoberfest setlist looks like this:
Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow Gospel
Test Tube Baby—Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll
Steamboat Bill (Shields & Leighton)—1910 rock ‘n’ roll
So 20th Century (Coleman & Lazzerini)—ragtime
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues
No Good Songs About the War—slow march
Simple Questions (O.N. Vindstad)—rockabilly
Angel in Chains—country death metal
Writer’s Block Blues—slow & sleazy
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Aginst the Law (Woody Guthrie)—slow blues
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass
Of 18 songs, only six are classifiable as some variety of country music. We’ve got six that are rock, folk-rock, or rockabilly, plus some blues (3), ragtime (1), and country death metal (1). The one bluegrass song doesn’t sound bluegrass at all when Larry plays it on saxophone (it didn’t sound bluegrass when the Grateful Dead did it, either). There’s a mix of tempos and keys, too.
Next step: CDs for the band—and lyric sheets for Larry and Charlie for the songs they haven’t played before. (I think “Pole Dancing for Jesus” is the only one that nobody’s played before. Deathgrass never played it because 45 Degrees North was playing it—but 45 Degrees North has broken up.) I can distribute the stuff tomorrow when I go to play music at the Tillamook Library.
Music with the Friday Night Group wasn’t bad; I concentrated on old, familiar tunes I was pretty sure everybody knew, and that Elsie could or would play accordion lead on. She (accordion) and I (guitar) were the only musicians there who could play lead, and I can’t do a lead while I’m singing. At least, with new strings on the guitar, I can pull off a mostly acceptable quasi-bass (no bass player there, either). Did have a good audience, though.
One new person (another poet) at the Writers’ Guild Thursday night In Jim’s absence, and with Vaughn moved, I seem to have ended up as Team Leader of this outfit, and I’m not sure what to do with it. I’ve been trying to steer everybody toward “oral tradition” poetry—the sort of stuff that’s recited, rather than read—because that kind of poetry is susceptible to musication, and as Leonard Cohen once said, that’s how a poet gets to make a living in the modern world. It would be neat if these poets could turn into polished lyricists, whose stuff could be set to music by people like me (and hopefully many more people than just me)—we’d have a miniature Tin Pan Alley song factory here on the Coast. I’m hoping my musication of Ahna’s “airship mechanic” song (which I do think will come out good) will show them the sort of thing that’s possible, and get them excited.
I have loaded all the “new” hardware into the “Hulk” computer, and it still can’t find either hard drive, or the CD drive. Makes one wonder if the motherboard’s bad. I have no way to test it, except by switching everything to another hulk (I have two more in reserve I can use). And “Alice” the ‘puter’s hard drive is still 99.9% full, making it difficult to do anything major. (Her motherboard’s going, too. She is over 7 years old, which is longer than most computers live—though “Ben,” the PC that I resurrected for the Arts Center, is 12 years old.) Got the old laptop to do a brain-wipe on, also.
Joe
Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step
Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues
For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock
Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow Gospel
Test Tube Baby—Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll
Steamboat Bill (Shields & Leighton)—1910 rock ‘n’ roll
So 20th Century (Coleman & Lazzerini)—ragtime
Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues
She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues
No Good Songs About the War—slow march
Simple Questions (O.N. Vindstad)—rockabilly
Angel in Chains—country death metal
Writer’s Block Blues—slow & sleazy
The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll
Aginst the Law (Woody Guthrie)—slow blues
Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly
Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—deliberate two-step
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass
Of 18 songs, only six are classifiable as some variety of country music. We’ve got six that are rock, folk-rock, or rockabilly, plus some blues (3), ragtime (1), and country death metal (1). The one bluegrass song doesn’t sound bluegrass at all when Larry plays it on saxophone (it didn’t sound bluegrass when the Grateful Dead did it, either). There’s a mix of tempos and keys, too.
Next step: CDs for the band—and lyric sheets for Larry and Charlie for the songs they haven’t played before. (I think “Pole Dancing for Jesus” is the only one that nobody’s played before. Deathgrass never played it because 45 Degrees North was playing it—but 45 Degrees North has broken up.) I can distribute the stuff tomorrow when I go to play music at the Tillamook Library.
Music with the Friday Night Group wasn’t bad; I concentrated on old, familiar tunes I was pretty sure everybody knew, and that Elsie could or would play accordion lead on. She (accordion) and I (guitar) were the only musicians there who could play lead, and I can’t do a lead while I’m singing. At least, with new strings on the guitar, I can pull off a mostly acceptable quasi-bass (no bass player there, either). Did have a good audience, though.
One new person (another poet) at the Writers’ Guild Thursday night In Jim’s absence, and with Vaughn moved, I seem to have ended up as Team Leader of this outfit, and I’m not sure what to do with it. I’ve been trying to steer everybody toward “oral tradition” poetry—the sort of stuff that’s recited, rather than read—because that kind of poetry is susceptible to musication, and as Leonard Cohen once said, that’s how a poet gets to make a living in the modern world. It would be neat if these poets could turn into polished lyricists, whose stuff could be set to music by people like me (and hopefully many more people than just me)—we’d have a miniature Tin Pan Alley song factory here on the Coast. I’m hoping my musication of Ahna’s “airship mechanic” song (which I do think will come out good) will show them the sort of thing that’s possible, and get them excited.
I have loaded all the “new” hardware into the “Hulk” computer, and it still can’t find either hard drive, or the CD drive. Makes one wonder if the motherboard’s bad. I have no way to test it, except by switching everything to another hulk (I have two more in reserve I can use). And “Alice” the ‘puter’s hard drive is still 99.9% full, making it difficult to do anything major. (Her motherboard’s going, too. She is over 7 years old, which is longer than most computers live—though “Ben,” the PC that I resurrected for the Arts Center, is 12 years old.) Got the old laptop to do a brain-wipe on, also.
Joe
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