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  • john

    Songstuff Writer and Artist Development Challenges

    By john

    Independent writers and artists face several large disadvantages when they are compared to signed, mainstream writers and artists.  Disadvantages that add up to making it a competition that indies can’t win. Hell they can’t even compete.   Lack of budget and poor contacts are fairly obvious disadvantages. Lack of experience and a lack of knowledge restricts songwriters and artists alike. Lack of an overall strategy, and a limited set of incomplete tactics, makes for a critical problem
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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
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Another Idea...

An idea, to start with: the Women’s Resource Center is having a “Walk in Their Shoes” contest, to call attention to abuse; artists are supposed to decorate shoes (either their own, or ones provided by WRC—WRC has decorating materials, too) illustrating the problem in some way, and they’ll go on display at the Bay City Arts Center. The “Walk in Their Shoes” project will be the Artist of the Month exhibit at the Arts Center for October. I would like to do this. I would want to do it differe
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Fpor The Railroad Centennial...

Figured out, I think, how to do a music video of “Tillamook Railroad Blues,” using available technology and (mostly) available personnel. Biggest plus: we have the soundtrack. The song, professionally recorded in a commercial studio,. Is on the Deathgrass album. All we have to worry about is matching video up to it. For the choruses (there are four), I’d like to use the “lip-dub” technique I saw in that Grand Rapids city music video: you have a crowd of people, all lip-synching to the ch
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More Video Thoughts...

When I played “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot” at the Rapture Room Sunday night (I’d been asked if I knew any political songs), it was remarked that this would make a good music video. Yes, it would. It is one of the easiest of my songs to convert to video, I think. Most, if not all, of it could be shot on a beach (got several of those nearby), with driftwood, maybe (got some of that, too). Very minimalist—recalling Porter Wagoner’s “Committed to Parkview,” which is about an asylum bu
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My Journey To A Greater Voice

Hey everyone, For some time now, I have been trying to improve on my singing and practice till it's easier for me to get up to the whistle register (like without having to climb up, if you know what I mean). So, I've learned this thing about singing to songs that you think you would like to sing like the person that sung them. I hope that made sense lol. So...I have been listening to Christina Aguilera. I love her voice, but I must add, I don't like all her songs. I can sing, but I'm s
SammySingally

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Jews Harp Festival (And Video)...

Yes, the Jews Harp Festival was good, too. (Is this one of those “everything is good” years? Or am I finally learning how to do what I’m doing?) When they sorted out the impromptu combos for the Band Scramble, I ended up being front man for ours (rest of the “band” was three Jews harps and a harmonica, so I had to be the one to sing), so we did “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?”, “Wreck of the Old 97” (traditional), and Leon Payne’s “Lost Highway” (which everybody knows—they just d
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Farmers Market Post-Mortem...

I think we did good at the Manzanita Farmers Market. We had a pretty attentive audience (we tested—with a few of my songs, and one collaboration—the claim we’d heard that nobody really listens to the music, and indeed, they do listen), and an appreciative one, too. I’m sure it was a factor that Jane, Kathryn and Candice are all well-known in the community (I don’t know how much that was true of the other groups that have played there)—but we were good, too. The mix of four completely differen
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Friday Show; Rocktoberfest Setlist...

It’d be nice if 45 Degrees North got to practice a little bit tonight. We won’t have Jane—she’s manning a booth at the county fair (like half the people in the county, I think)—but what I’m after is just some basic refresher on some of the material, before we go on stage Friday. One of the frustrating things about not having any recordings of the group is I can’t just boot up an *.mp3 file if I encounter one of those “Wait—I don’t remember how this goes” moments. (I do have one, though—there’
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Just A Wild Idea...

More innovation… There’s a trio of folks in Portland who have created a mobile recording studio, with which they’re going to travel the country for a year or so, recording completely unknown independent writer-musicians and submitting the results to the Library of Congress. The goal of this “American Music Preservation Project,” I understand, is to give these writers something that’ll live on after they’re gone. So many never get that. When Jeff Tanzer, lead guitarist for the Dodson Drifters
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Songstuff Stuff Feedburner

The Songstuff Stuff - Songwriting and Music Community Blog has moved over to using Google Feedburner for blog syndication. Subscribe to Songstuff Stuff - Google Feedburner Not only does that make the RSS feed readable but also more widely accessible. If you subscribe to the Songstuff Stuff blog now it will by default be the Feedburner feed that you subscribe to. We hop you like it as much as we do! Please subscribe now to ensure you are kept up to date!
Songstuff

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Sosa Summer Concert Post-Mortem...

It was good. Dan on standup bass, Jef (one “f”) on mandolin, and myself. We played: Pole Dancing for Jesus Selling Off My Body Parts Crosses by the Roadside Free-Range Person Writer’s Block Blues The Termite Song Two new songs, two songs off the album, two older ones; some of the audience had heard “Termite” and “Free-Range Person” before, but nobody’d ever heard the others. Small crowd, but a bunch of unfamiliar faces (the concert had been announced in the Medford paper);
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Discussing Songwriting

Discussing songwriting is something that some songwriters question the need to do. Songwriting can often feel like a very isolated experience. From our imaginations spring ideas that we shape into finished pieces of music, so what is the benefit of discussing that process with other songwriters or lyricists? Music should be naturally expressed for it to be a pure distillation of my imagination, won't talking about how I write contaminate my writing? Songwriting Songwriting, like any a
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More For The Train Set...

16 suggestions for the Deathgrass Train Set (actually, 13 received, and three more on the way—one being written for the occasion). Some statistics: The songs came from as close as Nehalem (15 miles away) and as far away as Rumania. Eight were from writers I know at Just Plain Folks, four from Facebook or people connected to Facebook (three from the Actors & Musicians group), three from the Seniors Group at Soundclick, and one from the Coventry songwriters over in England. I have only ever
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More Train Songs...

More potential material for the Train Set: A Dodson Drifters hit that might be fun to do is “The Lightning Express,” by J. Fred Helt and E.P. Moran (1898). It’s supposed to be a waltz, but the Dodson Drifters never played it as a waltz—we always did it in 4/4 time, starting slow and gradually speeding up (just like a train). Happiest song about death I know (and I’ve written a few). There was a real “Lightning Express,” I found (the Internet is a wonderful place)—a promotional train run in 1
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Willamette Writers Post-Mortem (&c.)...

Had some folks ask me today, as I was making my rounds, how the Willamette Writers gig went. They knew I’d been excited about breaking into a new area. I was going to wait to post a post-mortem, but here ‘tis. The gig went good, I think. It was outside, and beastly hot—a bottle of lemonade got too hot to drink before I finished drinking it—but the Arts Center’s amp worked well (I guess—people said they could hear me, though I couldn’t hear myself well), and they did like the stuff. I di
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Buh-Bye, Friday Night Group?

Getting ready to leave for the Willamette Writers gig in Portland; got the Arts Center’s 4-channel amp, my mike and stand; taking guitar, “joelist” notebook—and I better print out some business cards while I’m at it. These people don’t know me. Hopefully, they’ll want to when it’s all over. One change in the setlist: I’m not going to play “Earwigs in the Eggplant,” because I haven’t practiced it on the guitar. I’ll substitute “Blue Krishna” instead. It, too, is about writing on demand,
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Preparing For Southern Oregon...

I think I’ve been writing an issue of the blog just about every day lately. To those who have been reading it, in Latvia and elsewhere: don’t worry—it’s just a temporary thing. I have been frightfully busy, and I have to write things down or I will forget them. I regularly refer to back issues of the blog to remind myself of what I was supposed to be doing. I was worrying about what to play in the Southern Oregon Songwriters concert Aug. 6—just a week and a half away—and realized I don’t
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New Article - Amphitheatres

High Pass Filters Are amphitheatres the original high pass filters? Graeme Young takes a look at ampitheatres, psychoacoustics and digital signal processing to complete the link from ancient Greek amphitheatres thrrough to modern day recording and live performance. Ampitheaters Graeme's Site Crew Profile Graeme's Community Profile
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Rocktoberfest, Cds And The Blog (Oh, My)...

Looked up the blog statistics again (have to check the market occasionally). Of the 3,000 or so people who have read the thing, well over half are from the United States (of course)—but 239 are from Russia? And 61 are from Latvia? (That’s up from 29 Latvians last time, I think.) Google will tell you where people found the blog. The bulk of my readers followed the link from Vikki Flawith’s “Shy Singer-Songwriter Blog.” She has a link to my blog on her site. (Thank you, Vikki.) Most
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Everythingsgreat

I don't know what to do. But I know this, I'm tired of pretending. That every things great, every things good, and every things fine. Because its not. It's awful, it's horrible, it's empty. And I go through it time and time again. Give me freedom, please give me some faith. I'm only here because you have been through way too much. But how am I suppose to believe, Anything you say to me? So far it's mostly lies, That only make you cry. And I stay strong And hard as a sto
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"rapture Room" Post-Mortem (Sort Of)...

I like the “Rapture Room.” That’s the big performance space in downtown Nehalem, next door to (and upstairs from) the Rainbow Lotus. (Its real name is the Nehalem Center for the Creative Arts.) It has great acoustics—we amplified only voices for the 45 Degrees North concert, and left everything else unplugged—and the living-room-cum-kitchen in the next room emphasizes the intimacy. Audience was small—which begs the question, “How do you market something like this?” Every way (and any way) y
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2Nd Street Post-Mortem...

I think we were good (mostly) at the 2nd Street Market. (The only person who screwed up was me, on “Queenie” the fiddle tune and on “Manzanita Moon.”) Problems with the sound, though. If you got it loud enough so people could hear us, it distorted. The building itself has pretty good acoustics, though, with those brick walls. Jim from the music store said it’s our PA not being powerful enough; it is only 40 watts, but I wonder. The Dodson Drifters had the late-‘70s model of that same PA
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Looking For Interviewees For Danny (&c.)...

Having suggested a revival of the “Danny the Dog Innerviews,” I find myself on the lookout for people doing innovative things. One was mentioned at the Writers’ Guild meeting last night. There’s a fellow hight Kray Van Kirk in Alaska who is refusing to sell CDs; all his music is downloadable for free from his Website, www.krayvankirk.com, on a “donate what you want” basis. He does have a family—single parent with kids, he is. Where does he make his money? Concerts—not just in Alaska, but as
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