Time to plan for the Wheeler Summerfest. Both the bands I’m in are on the agenda—and on the same day. 1-1/2 hour sets each. Main concern I need to have is both bands are performing some of my material, and in no case should they be playing the same song. So it’s necessary to do a “who plays which” shuffling. DEATHGRASS is easier to script for, because we only need to worry about one singer—me. Not in order, I think we could do:

Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step

Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues

Things Are Getting Better Now That Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—fast two-step

For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock

Crosses By the Roadside—slow two-step

Rotten Candy—fast bluegrass

Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues

Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock

No Good Songs About the War—slow march

Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass

She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—fast blues

Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly

50 Ways to Cure the Depression—folk-rock

Distraction (Diane Ewing)—slow two-step

The Dog’s Song—rock ‘n’ roll

Duct Tape—mod. tempo country

Selling Off My Body Parts—fast bluegrass [NEW]

Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—mod. two-step

Only one of those is new. 10 of the 18 songs are off the album (45 Degrees North will do “Armadfillo”); four are staples of the Failed Economy shows, and one—“Distraction”—we did at daughter’s wedding. One Woody Guthrie tune; might want to close with another—“Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad,” which is a real uptempo rocker—if so, I should take out one of the two-steps.

And for 45 DEGREES NORTH—my part, anyway—we can do:

Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy

Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow two-step

Hey, Little Chicken—quasi-blues

Welcome to Hebo Waltz—fast waltz

All of those we’ve practiced (and “Armadillo,” with the Heavenly Chorus, is one of the group’s favorites). Need to include one more—to be fair, each of us should have five songs—but I’m not sure what (yet); it should be an uptempo number—the band does enough slow stuff, and I don’t need to add to it further. The others will need to decide what they want to perform—I don’t want to make that decision (though I’ll happily mix it up into a workable arrangement, and script out the Rap). To the extent uptempo numbers are needed, I can always substitute uptempo-er ones of mine for slower ones of mine on the list.

45 Degrees North plays the Pine Grove potluck tomorrow (Tuesday) night—unplugged. Two cities are reportedly thinking of me as their interim city manager, and I might hear from one or the other (or both) in the next couple of days. And Thursday is the first get-together of the “writers’ guild” at the Bay City Arts Center. I don’t want to miss that.

Joe