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A Volunteer Gig...

I may have got myself—finally—a volunteer gig, and it will be fun and exciting. And it’s doing stuff I think I’m good at. The difference a month makes… When I went to the Bay City Arts Center’s board meeting in February, everybody was energetically and enthusiastically getting everything done—and then some—after the departure of their executive director. By last Monday night, they had all managed to get seriously burned out. But four people were there—three besides me—to tell them, “You
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A Couple Of Nice Things (But No Voice)...

Every now and then, you get a nice little “upper” that makes you feel like you’re doing something worthwhile I’d mentioned before that “When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies” was a hit with kids. I heard from one mom who said her 8-year-old is going to be in a talent show, and wants to perform “the cookie song.” Can he? Of course. I’m honored. I’ll record a non-vocal track so he can sing to it. Wish I could be there, but all this is going to take place somewhere in Texas. (His mom sa
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April 24 Benefit Concert...

The benefit concert for Val Folkema is set for SATURDAY, 24 APRIL, 7 P.M. at The Landing in Bay City. Two bands, roughly 1-1/2 to 2 hours apiece; we’ll be first. I’d like to tap both “Doc” Wagner and Mike Simpson to play lead again (and may not know for a while if we can get them). I presume since this is in a tavern, we’ll be wanting to do a lot of dance music. I don’t want to introduce a lot of new material (the more new material, the more practices we need—and everybody except me is
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The New Business Model?

If I count both “Last Song of the Highwayman” and “Up in Heaven, the Angels Play Music” as “keepers”—and I think I will—I am still on schedule writing an average of one good song a month. The former song is not precisely a medieval ballad, nor is the latter precisely a polka; “not precisely” seems to apply to a lot of my songs. Not having anything else in the mental pipeline right now, I’ll devote my attention to musicating a couple of lyrics penned by other folks that have been hanging fire, “
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Ash Wednesday...

HAPPY ASH WEDNESDAY… The new song, tentatively hight “Up in Heaven the Angels Play Music,” is in final form, I think, and recorded. Not really a religious song (except in the sense that “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” is a religious song). I will plan on performing it at the library next Saturday, and see what folks there call it—that’ll be its real title. (That’s if folks bother to request it again, of course; if they don’t, it won’t matter). Link is http://www.soundclick.com
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And On Friday, The Astoria Band Breaks Up...

First Wednesday afternoon at the Garibaldi Pub was good. Ultimately, there were six of us—four guitars, one vocalist, and one fiddle. Appreciative audience, too (someone even left a tip). We’ll do it again next Wednesday. It could become a regular thing. We did the Circle Thing—each person leads a song, and everybody else follows. I was trying to limit what I did to covers, assuming everybody knew those—the one Leon Payne song I can sing, the one Hank Williams song I can sing, one of a cou
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Thirsty Lion Post-Mortem...

The Thirsty Lion gig wasn’t a disappointment, because I didn’t intend it to be. No, no money, no CD sales, and no additions to the “joelist,” but the audience was pretty appreciative (if pretty small), and I got to play what I wanted, and it was fun. Host Eric John Kaiser did remember me (I thought he might). They got six songs: Take-Out Food (Stan Good) When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You Hey, Little Chicken The Abomination Two-Step Armadillo on the interstate Crosses
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Radio (&c.)...

So a writer in Florida posts on a Website out of Indiana that a radio station DJ in Manchester, England is looking for country music for his show, and the DJ gets submissions from folks in Oregon (me), California, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, and Nova Scotia (it’s in Canada, but it’s close). Is this a new thing? Not really; 30-plus years ago, myself and another guy would go on the road with a Dodson Drifters single for several weeks, hitting every rural radio station that played country music, a
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"the Tempest," Et Al...

Yes, I will be the bo’sun in TAPA’s production of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Crusty, crotchety old fellow with relatively few lines (mostly chewing out the Idjit Noblemen who keep getting in the way while the ship is sinking). Yes, I can do that. It’s almost type-casting. It would be possible—and I suggested it—to do “The Tempest” as Rock Opera, rather than using the conventional Elizabethan-music soundtrack; so many classic rock songs would be appropriate for this play (the authors
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The Thirsty Lion (Again)...

The gig at the Thirsty Lion is confirmed. TUESDAY, 9 FEBRUARY; show starts 8:30 p.m., and I’m on after host Eric John Kaiser—probably about 9:00. I’ll be playing solo, and I’ll have 25 minutes. Unpaid, of course (I’ll bring the Big Yellow “Tipping Is Not A City in China” Bucket, and see if I can at least recover gas money). Last time I did this—last June—that was enough time for seven songs; I’ll plan on seven this time. I usually introduce myself with the “describe what you do in one s
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--And St. Leif's Day Is Coming!

Sometimes it is just hard to write… I didn’t finish this week’s column for the paper until nearly 1 a.m. (about seven hours later than I like), and it was hard to get the two news articles for the paper done, too. They are done, though, along with yet another job application (which just might turn into an interview—they did call to talk after they got my stuff), and maybe the worst of the Dead Writing Spot is over. The Ballad is still waiting on a fifth and final verse—I would like to be d
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What About Dave?

Like Bilbo Baggins said, “I’m back.” Southern Oregon is always fun, and I always accomplish stuff. It’s what I miss about living there. Dave, the host at the Wild Goose’s open mike, approached me asking if he could cover any of my songs on his new album—to which the answer, of course, is “Of course.” All my material is up for grabs, and I told him so. Dave plays with a good band (which is getting gigs), and is a good guitarist himself. So I’ll send him a copy of the Songbook, which has
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Just An Idea...

An independent musician these days has to do everything. They write their own lyrics, and set them to music, and unless they’ve got a band to work with, they perform the songs on their own, too. They have to arrange their own gigs, and mostly do their own promotion. They have to either record their own stuff or find somebody to do it, and they have to either play all the instruments themselves or find somebody to do it (and in both cases, that “somebody to do it” probably has to get paid). T
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Album Thoughts (&c.)...

Saturday’s practice with the band in Astoria went good. Just three of us—myself, Joe the bass player, and Larry the drummer—but we went through a lot of material. Joe made CDs with the songs (good) and we played along with those as we tried to figure out the keys; I can play a lot of the stuff—the trick is going to be making the songs sound different, because so much old rock ‘n’ roll uses the same handful of progressions. I played the Strat, which is really better for this material than an a
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First Contest Of 2010...

A winnable contest, maybe—the Chris Austin Songwriting contest, put on by Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, N.C. as part of the annual MerleFest. (No, the “Merle” is not Merle Haggard. This Merle is kin to Doc Watson.) Three finalists get to perform their entries on stage at MerleFest, and that’s what is attractive as far as I’m concerned. I have always done best at competitions that entailed performing on stage—I don’t know why. If you get to be a finalist, they put you up for free i
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The Webcam & The Album...

A WEBCAM! Went through the owner’s manual for my daughter’s old digital camera (same make as mine, but a newer model), and it said the thing can function as a webcam. Apparently mine can, too—it’s got the same ports (no owner’s manual, though). It’s supposed to be hooked up to AC power when you’re webcamming, but that’s apparently not essential; the owner’s manual says that’s just to prevent the batteries wearing down. (It does go through batteries rather fast.) I do have an AC adapter with
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More Updates...

A nice compliment, that sort of indicates how the world is put together these days. I saw somebody complimenting a guy’s song, saying “that sounds like a Joe Wrabek tune”—as if everybody ought to know what that is. The guy who said it was in England, and the guy he was saying it about was in Canada. The world has become a very strange place… There’s tentative sentiment on the part of the band for including Tarra Young’s “You’ll Make a Real Good Angel” (lyrics by her, music by me) on the
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Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. Thoughts...

Sunday, Jan. 24, is the annual meeting of the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn., in Talent (appropriately), just south of Phoenix. I’d really like to go. It is going to have to depend on the weather, which is chancy this time of year—and I’m driving an old truck, with no snow tires (don’t need ‘em on the semi-tropical Oregon Coast), and driving at night—and I can’t get an online weather forecast longer than two weeks out. SOSA has some problems: a relatively static membership (not many
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The Kaddish For Dick Ackerman...

I wanted a kaddish in memory of Dick Ackerman, our blues harp player, who died December 29 (his 80th birthday). The kaddish is an old Jewish tradition that, while I’m not Jewish, I’ve always liked. It’s called the “song for the dead,” but it’s not FOR the dead, precisely—the dead are either in a better place or otherwise don’t care—but rather for the living, for those left behind. The idea, as I understand it, is that a person lives on in the ways they have touched other people’s lives, and t
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New Year's Eve...

Got to watch another band perform on New Year’s Eve. True, I’d rather have been playing on stage, but this was a good opportunity to observe the competition at work (over a decent shrimp dinner)—and these guys are getting paying gigs, and we’re not. I really should do more of this competition-assessing (though my fingers get itchy watching someone else play). 6-piece (I guess) band—lead and rhythm guitars, bass, drums, sound guy (I want one of those) and lighting guy. I don’t know if the
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New Year's Eve...

Got to watch another band perform on New Year’s Eve. True, I’d rather have been playing on stage, but this was a good opportunity to observe the competition at work (over a decent shrimp dinner)—and these guys are getting paying gigs, and we’re not. I really should do more of this competition-assessing (though my fingers get itchy watching someone else play). 6-piece (I guess) band—lead and rhythm guitars, bass, drums, sound guy (I want one of those) and lighting guy. I don’t know if the
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Schedule & Co-Writes...

One of the folks who’d reviewed this year’s Christmas song, “Song for Polly and Glyn (A Man for Christmas),” told me he’d listened, and re-listened, thinking “There has to be a dead reindeer in here somewhere.” I think I just got given the lead-in for next year’s Christmas song. Thank you. Spec’d out a recording schedule with John; tentatively, we’ll do the scratch tracks for the album Jan. 23 & 24, with me (guitar and vocal), him (bass), and Chris (drums). John says his portable rec
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Recording Thoughts...

As I understand it, the way John wants to record the songs on the album is to (1) record a “scratch track” of himself (bass), Chris (drums), and me (rhythm guitar and vocal), then (2) record on separate tracks each of us playing (and in my case, also singing) to the scratch track, then (3) add lead instruments, and (4) mix the tracks, using his fancy computer program—and eliminating the scratch track in the process. I don’t know for sure if this is how it’s done in commercial studios, but
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Update (And Video Thoughts)...

Christmas is over, and it was nice. Time to get back to normal—if I had any idea what “normal” is. (I probably have to take the Bill Clinton route, and define “normal.” What do I want it to be?) In two weeks—Friday, 8 January—is my appointment to meet the band in Astoria (60 miles away) I’d applied to play rhythm guitar with. New band, no gigs yet; from my end, it’s just an opportunity to do Something Completely Different. The bandleader wants to do covers, old rock ‘n’ roll with some
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The 2010 Worklist...

It was 20 December last year that I published the Worklist; here, a year later, I can say I have accomplished rather little. Except making lists, of course—I am good at lists. Here’s the 2010 Worklist: FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE A LIVING OFF THIS STUFF. Not just the music, but the related things I do or can do, too—writing, publishing, graphic design, &c. I’ve been told I’m already a household word in the area where I live—but I’m not one people spend money on yet. FINISH THE JOE A
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