Poster for the “Jedi Pigs of Oz†puppet show is (mostly) done—just need to add the date and time. Rather than trying photo manipulation on the ‘puter, with new software I hadn’t used before, I did it the old-fashioned way—cropping portions of appropriately-sized photos by hand, pasting them down and scanning the result. Exactly how they would have done it in the ‘30s (except they would have used one of those room-sized “process cameras†instead of a scanner—I had one of those when I was a newspaper advertising manager in the 1980s). Librarian’s got the poster, and we’ve tentatively settled on a price and a date—Wednesday July 18. Other libraries may be interested as well.

Audition/rehearsal/sound check Thursday night at The Mercantile in Beaver for Saturday night’s “Oops, I Forgot Your Valentine†show. Played them a couple of songs, and they kept asking for more; I’m now on their agenda for five songs (originally, it was going to be only two), and there might be more if one of their scheduled performers doesn’t show (I understand there’s one who has medical problems). All love songs—and they specifically want to hear “Earwigs in the Eggplant†and “Welcome to Hebo Waltz†(the latter isn’t a love song, but Fred, the co-proprietor of The Mercantile, has a song about Beaver that mentions Hebo).

I’ll have Jane with me on fiddle: what we’ll play is:

Earwigs in the Eggplant—Irish fiddle tune

Naked Space Hamsters in Love—fast bluegrass

Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy

Abomination Two-Step—fast bluegrass

Welcome to Hebo Waltz—fast waltz

Listened to The Mercantile’s “house†band, which includes both Fred and co-proprietor Jim Loughrie; they’re good—I especially liked their harmonies—but couldn’t help thinking they could really use a lead player. I didn’t want to suggest myself for that role (I’m really not that good and I’m not sure they’d want me anyway—and besides, they’re all from the immediate Beaver area and I live quite a ways north), but they could use a lead something.

Fred’s interested in having me do a show at The Mercantile, and also wants to carry my CDs (yay!). The Mercantile will be my first Retail Outlet in South County. I wonder if I’ve still got the “Deathgrass CDs Here!†poster around—it’d be nice if they had one in the window.

Latest e-mail from CDBaby is promoting the idea of fan-generated videos. However, they’re suggesting one should have a contest, and offer prizes for the best video—CDs and such. I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I enjoy seeing songs of mine turned into video by others; there have been two that I know of—a band in Canada was filmed performing “Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up†a couple years ago, and I believe The Fintons (in Colorado) did one of their rendition of “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?†Haven’t been any others that I know of.

As far as me stimulating videos of my stuff, I don’t know enough videographers—and I’m uncomfortable still about asking the ones I do know. Eventually, I will do so. A first step is probably to have more of my songs recorded in good enough quality to make it worthwhile having a video to promote them. Next Friday perhaps I’ll essay the trip to Hillsboro to see if the Influence Music Hall might be worth patronizing for recording.

Joe