TWO COMPUTERS running simultaneously! I feel positively 21st century… The laptop (which doesn’t have a name yet) now has the webcam installed, and it appears to be working; I need to do a test before taking it to band practice. I’ve had two computer experts (John here, and Al David in Chicago) tell me the video file from the laptop is transferrable to and useable by “Alice” the desktop. I’ll use the little flash drive for the transferring. The goal is to get some footage of the band—especially of Dick playing harmonica—that would be useable in a music video.

I have proposed to Life’s Subtle Tease (the burlesque troupe) using them as the cast for the music video of the Southern Pigfish song, “Bedpans for Brains,” and also raised with John using our band for the music. John’s okay with it. No word from the burlesquers—but I know some of them have been busy all week with a film project. (And they all have jobs. I don’t.) The burlesque troupe are supposed to do a short promotional performance a week from now, as a teaser for the Big Show on 26 September at the Hawthorne Theater—but I’m not clear yet what it is we’re going to perform. These guys and gals may be a lot more improvisational than I am; I don’t go on stage without knowing—and having rehearsed almost to death—exactly what I’m going to sing and to say.

“Love Trails of the Zombie Snails” did get performed in public, finally—with the Friday Night Group. It is hard to sing in the key I picked for this, and I might try a different one next time (if there is a next time)—but I need a key that’ll let me keep to a rock ‘n’ roll rhythm, rather than a country one. I don’t know if the song will get requested again—but people in the audience were dancing to it.

Fred, one of our Friday Night Group musicians, asked if he could start performing some of my songs—to which the answer is “Of course.” The more exposure the better—and Fred has a good singing voice. His harmonies on “Milepost 43” (the song about Al David’s missing underwear) were sweet.

Fred is another resource I could probably call on for the album. (It’d be nice to have some female backup singers, too.) Add him to “Chippewa Bob” on the saw, and Denise on the Jews’ harp, and Wayne on lead guitar. We have, too, one of the best fiddle players I’ve ever met—a retired concert violinist—who’s spending the summer here at the Coast. (She’s been coming to play every Friday night.) It’d be fun to use her, too (though I don’t know how long “summer” is going to last). I don’t want to overload John by maximizing resources—each additional instrument probably adds an hour or so to recording time, and I know he doesn’t have a whole lot of time.

I keep thinking of more fun things to do with the webcam—and I haven’t even tried recording anything with it yet. Having mated the webcam up with the laptop, I can take it anywhere. I could record the Friday Night Group doing one of my songs, for instance. I’d be dependent on whatever the webcam’s little microphone picked up (unless I hooked up a remote mike), but the Friday Night Group’s PA system is pretty good—there’d be pretty good sound to pick up. I could do the same with the Saturday afternoon performers at the Tillamook Library, when they start playing again in September. The library has an excellent sound system, with speakers in the ceiling.

I still don’t know what we’re going to do for a lead player for the concerts in October. We may have access to a piano/keyboard player (husband of John’s assistant at City Hall), but he lives an hour’s drive away from here. That could be a little problematic—but we can try him out playing lead on some of the tunes we want to record for the album, and see how it fits.

UPDATES: More rejection letters in the mail (I’ve stopped trying to file them—the stack is getting so tall it’s discouraging). No word from the last three jobs I was interviewed for. No word, either, from the Jade Lounge in Portland, where I’d applied (as with the Airway Café) to be solo entertainment; I have to assume they are simply not interested. Sometimes I wonder if there’s any point—and then I wonder if my lack of success is simply because I haven’t been pushing hard enough.

Joe