Didn’t have Screamin’ Gulch for practice Wednesday night, but did have Wayne, and his recording equipment, and for part of the evening, had Mike the standup bass player, too. So we recorded a pile of songs

The Termite Song

(When I Jump Off the Cliff) I’ll Think of You

Free-Range Person

Armadillo on the Interstate

Naked Space Hamsters in Love

No Good Songs About the War

Milepost 43

Dirty Deeds We Done to Sheep

And now it’s in Wayne’s court. I encouraged him to not leave it me and acoustic guitar (emphasizing that me and solo guitar is not a marketable commodity), but to add bass, resonator, and whatever else he feels like. He might include an applause track, too, so it’ll feel like a live performance. (We did have an audience—a small one, but it kept growing.) Might have a product in a couple of weeks. (And Wayne is starting to think about doing this commercially. He should. He is good.)

UPCOMING: Both a Southern Oregon Songwriters’ “showcase” and the gig with Scott Garriott Saturday night (we’ll practice Thursday night). I’ve threatened to get a 30-gallon garbage can for Scott’s and my tips Saturday night, but it’ll have to be smaller—the Beanery isn’t that big. (I got a 2-gallon one and made a “Tipping Is Not a City in China” label for it.)

THE GIGS: Roscoe (Roscoe’s BBQ) still hasn’t listened to the CD yet; maybe it’s time to encourage some folks who eat there to tell him, “Y’know, you really ought to have Joe play here.” Patrick (Siskiyou Pub) said he’d thought I’d already left town; I told him ‘d still be around for a while, but he already has most of April booked. No word from Cassie (Wild Goose), and ‘ll have to call her. LESSON Always follow up, and frequently. There is always competition, and some of them are better at competing, and able to put more time into it.

AND THE FUTURE: I still don’t know what I want to do. It’d be great from a music standpoint to stick around this area—I’m beginning to get a lot of attention, and expect I can get more. The “buzz,” as they call it in the industry, is what’s important. If you’re going to make money as a writer, you have to show that people will come—pay money, even—to hear your material, even if (like Bob Dylan and John Prine) it’s you performing it. Then (in theory) other people will want to perform your material so they can draw crowds, too.

I think I’m maybe a year away from being able to support myself doing that. Thing is, I don’t have enough money saved up to carry me a year. I’ll have to have a job—and if it’s another city manager job, it’s guaranteed to be somewhere else, and I’ll have to move there. That, in a nutshell, is the dilemma. I have done it before—but I’ve gotten further here musically in a shorter period of time than I have anywhere else I’ve lived. And I hate having shallow roots. Like the song says (not one of mine, unfortunately), “I’d like to settle down, but they won’t let me.”

Joe