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The Rvtv Setlist...

The Rogue Valley Television (RVTV) taping on Saturday, 18 July will be two sets, half an hour each, before a live audience. Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. (SOSA) will be doing the taping. The shows will air separately on RVTV, the public-television station in Medford-Ashland, so each set (5 songs each) has got to hang together as a separate entity. I thought about doing one set with Darrin playing blues harp lead, and one with Dan doing mandolin, but really, everything I do sounds all righ
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Road Trip!

Haven’t done a Road Trip in a long time. It’s exciting. I’ll be in a motel Friday and Saturday nights (June 26-27) in Myrtle Point for Interview Days. I have a place to stay down south, got a couple Alan Dean Foster books to bring George that he hasn’t read, a couple of new songs to play at the Wild Goose Sunday night (I probably ought to limit it to a couple—I expect they’ll want to hear some old standards, too). I think I can take daughter Kimberly’s old laptop with me (it needs a powe
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And The Album...

I am really procrastinating, avoiding filling out yet another job application—this one, to go to work for the big (and financially troubled) state retirement system. I shouldn’t say that hiring me—in any position—would probably raise the general financial competence of the organization, so I won’t. I do have a job interview in two weeks, 250 miles away, and a lot of little things to do to get ready for it, but I don’t dare—and am not going to—wait to see what happens with it. I have been burn
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The More Things Change...

The more things change… well, the more they change, I think. I had an issue of the blog already written, and just the past 24 hours has rendered nearly all of it irrelevant. Instead, here’s what’s going on: I have a job interview (in Myrtle Point, in southern Oregon, to be their city manager) Saturday, 27 June. They want me all day, and maybe part of the day before. That’s the day of the Garibaldi Museum gig, so the gig is going to have to be postponed (my preference) or cancelled—I can
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Thirsty Lion Post-mortem...

Well, I won’t say the paranoia about the Thirsty Lion performance was unjustified—butterflies definitely make you perform better—but it did go okay. Big crowd—most seats in the place were filled, because there’d been a Lakers-vs.-Orlando basketball game and most of the crowd stuck around for the music afterwards. They listened (good), and some of them stopped me afterwards to tell me they’d liked the material (and nobody else got that that I could see). I was on first (of four acts, not count
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Of Lead Players And Chickens...

How do you find a lead player on short notice? Wayne’s not sure he can do it (I’m not sure whether that means he just doesn’t want to do it), and the gig—a paying gig—is only three weeks away. The rest of the band will be tight—John (bass) and Chris (drums) are good, and we’ve been practicing—but I can’t do both rhythm and lead, and sing. (I’m not sure I can do any of those things separately, much less together.) So I stopped by the local (Tillamook) music store en route to playing music
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Band Practice (and Recording)...

At band practice tonight, we recorded the base tracks (rhythm guitar, bass and drums) for the two Dylan contest songs, “No Good Songs About the War” and “For Their own Ends.” Both came out good. The war song was just about perfect; guitar, drums, bass, even the scratch vocal were all about as perfect as one could get—on just the second take, no less. All recorded live, using only two microphones: a carefully-positioned instrument mike picking up the guitar (amplified), bass (ditto), and
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Visiting The Thirsty Lion...

Well, the Thirsty Lion IS a big place—and a nice one. Big stage (emcee Eric said they have bands on the weekends), decent PA system (not much different from the one Sharma bought for the Portland band’s Red Room show). Stayed for three acts—Eric himself, and two others. There will be good competition for that paying gig. The guys and gals I heard are not amateurs. (Well, I guess they are amateurs by definition, but some of them have been around the block a few times, are comfortable in
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The "virtual Pc" Dies...

“Alice” the computer’s “virtual PC” program—which I dubbed “Old Alice” since it’s running Windows 98—is no longer working, and I don’t know why. I’d set it up over a year ago to do the conversions from PageMaker to Acrobat. (Almost everybody has the Acrobat Reader program, because it’s free, but nobody except professional graphic designers like me has or uses the several-hundred-dollar PageMaker program.) I have the Windows 98 version of both programs and have refused to upgrade; I can m
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Concert Season...

Thirsty Lion setlist looks like: Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (slow and sleazy) Bluebird on My Windshield (fast bluegrass) Can I Have your Car When the Rapture Comes? (slow Gospel) The Termite Song (fast bluegrass) Hey. Little Chicken (a osrt-of blues) I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas (mod. slow country) Just about exactly 25 minutes (I’ve practiced it four times now). Still waiting for confirmation that I can be on first (like, at 8:30) if I show up first; t
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Doing Dylan...

Finish one blog, start another. Sometimes life is like that. I’m waiting for an answer to a phone call (which I may not get), for calls for job interviews (which I’m sure I’m not going to get), avoiding cleaning house, and holding off on applying for another of those jobs I’m not qualified for. An exhaustive search for songwriting contests on line uncovered one potential gem—a competition in England, of all places, for original Dylan-type songs. They’re calling it “Doing Dylan.” They
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Contests...

It’s almost June—and almost time to take a mid-year look at those goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. It won’t be a pleasant look; I have, I think, accomplished virtually nothing on the list. It’s easy—too easy—to point to outside factors (no job, no money) as reasons for not getting anything done. They are really just excuses. The operative question (as Richard Nixon would say) is what I’m doing with what I have. I have a habit of freezing up when confronted with disap
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One Week Left...

ONE WEEK left of unemployment benefits, and then it’s all over. I can get a cheap job (if there are any to be had), see if I can squeeze out enough to pay for school… Yes, it’s time to go back to school. After 14 months out of work, I’m pretty unemployable as a city manager. I do have five applications still pending, but I’m not expecting anything out of them. My old job as city planner in Phoenix is being advertised again (after a 14-month hiatus), but they’re requiring a college degree in
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Getting Played (and Vice Versa)...

UPDATES, first: I sent a draft first column to the “American Blues” people, and am waiting to hear back from them. (It’s been a couple of days.) I’ve questioned their insistence on the correspondents having to come from Nashville, New York, L.A. and a couple of other big cities. These days, the Internet makes such distinctions meaningless—and I’d submit a place like Portland, 90 miles from me, with a fairly vibrant live music scene, probably has more and better blues being performed than, sa
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The Failed Economy Show Video...

Got the video of the Failed Economy Show, and alas, it’s probably not marketable. I don’t know if it was the microphones we recorded with or the awful acoustics of the hall, but the sound isn’t very good. The vocal is too faint, and so is the harmonica—sometimes the harmonica isn’t audible at all—or maybe it’s that the rhythm guitar (me) is too loud. I am not doing anything particularly interesting on the guitar, and it definitely shows. Some of the songs come off too slow, too—partly be
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Shoveling Dirt...

The Portland band is breaking up. The bass player is getting a divorce and moving to California (not necessarily in that order), the blues harp player got his job back, and I’ve already mentioned the lead guitarist going flaky. I hope both the bass player and harp player continue practicing their instruments, because they’re new at them (albeit good at them), and I hope the lead guitarist realizes he should be practicing, too. I’ve solicited a gig at a Portland coffeehouse (no word back yet,
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Museum Concert Setlist...

Having received three rejections in two days (one each by phone, e-mail, and letter), I had started writing a “discouraged” blog, but had to give up—I really can’t stay discouraged too long. I usually can find things to keep me busy, and happy if not satisfied. I’ve toyed with the idea of announcing to my colleagues in the city managers association that I’m going to award a prize for the best rejection letter—there are still a few cities I haven’theard from. Prize will be one of my CDs, of co
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A Blues Blog?

Tom Yeager, one of the songwriters at Just Plain Folks (http://www.jpfolks.com), is fond of passing on gig opportunities—usually in the Nashville area, where he lives. One recent one was a solicitation to write a blog. An “American Blues” Website wants six writers, each to write a weekly blog about the blues; one will be posted every day. I could do that. “The Writer’s Blog” has been a regular writing exercise for 2-1/2 years now—a little over a page in the word processor, at least onc
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The Failed Economy Show...

The Failed Economy show is done. Fingers are sore (and I broke the D string again), but I can still type. A quick post-mortem: The crowd wasn’t as big as I’d have liked, but they stuck around—danced, even—and were generous. The Food Bank was ecstatic, and the City got some cash in the toilet-shaped piggy bank for the Sewer Discount Program, too. The video lady didn’t show, but we got good video with Dick’s camera, I think, with sound fed from John’s new mixer (and that should be good).
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Red Room Post-mortem (&c.)...

Post-Red Room, pre-Failed Economy Show post. Will do another post-mortem after the Failed Economy Show. (The band will need to discuss how we did, I think.) Red Room gig went well. Don the blues harp player wasn’t there, but lead guitarist David was, and we were okay. Even lead guitarists have to practice, though; we (and he) could have been better. We had better control over the sound this time, and even though it was a Thursday night we had a good crowd. (And just like last time, the
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Of Lead Guitarists And First Lines...

What is it with lead guitarists? I have two–one in each band–that have gone flaky. Neither one’s been practicing (one maintains he doesn’t need to), and at this point I have worries whether either one is going to show up for the gigs–which are, at this point, just days away. I thought I’d gotten out of coddling people when I ceased being a city manager. (At least I got paid for doing it back then.) It’d be possible to get by with just a blues harp lead–but in both bands, the blues harp
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Failed Economy Show Setlist...

SETLIST for the Failed Economy Show looks like this: SET #1: 50 Ways to Cure the Depression (me) Glad That You’re Here (Stan Bolton) Worried Man Blues (Woody Guthrie) Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (me) Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt) Have a Good Day (Frank Papa) So 20th Century (Coleman & Lazzerini) Ain’t Got No Home in This World Any More (Woody Guthrie) For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish) WD-40 the Economy (Stan Good) Alabama Blues (Diane Ewin
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Still More Updates...

The trick to memorizing the Failed Economy songs is to RECORD THEM. I’ve done that for Zmulls & Tintner’s “The Emperor,” Coleman & Lazzerini’s “So 20th Century,” Woody Guthrie’s “Dance a Little Longer” and “Ain’t Got No Home,” Gem’s “Final Payment,” Frank Papa’s “Have a Good Day,” and Betty Holt’s “Our Own Little Stimulus Plan,” doing each in one to three takes, and by the end of the process–one to two hours apiece–I’ve got the song mostly down, and can play it without looking at notes.
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Garibaldi Days?

Someone actually requested “Hey, Little Chicken” at the Ghost Hole last night. Good night for tips, too—we’re starting to see some five-dollar bills along with the ones. Come Sunday, we actually might have the whole Coast band together for practice for the first time, and I want to make sure I’m ready. I still need to master the words for Zmulls’ & Tintner’s “The Emperor,” Frank Papa’s “Have A Good Day,” Gene Burnett’s “Things Are Getting Better,” Stan Good’s “WD-40 the Economy,” Cole
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A Setlist--but No Car...

Setlist for the Failed Economy Show is complete, I think. I needed one fast song and one slow song to finish things off, and that’ll be a bluegrass tune of mine, “I May Write You from Jupiter,” and a waltz by the late Jeff Tanzer, who was lead guitarist for the Dodson Drifters. Jeff’s “The Day the Earth Stood Still” hasn’t been performed since he died, almost ten years ago. That gives us 22 songs (two sets of 11 each), which ought to be two hours’ worth of material. A couple of the Woo
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