Saturday’s practice with the band in Astoria went good. Just three of us—myself, Joe the bass player, and Larry the drummer—but we went through a lot of material. Joe made CDs with the songs (good) and we played along with those as we tried to figure out the keys; I can play a lot of the stuff—the trick is going to be making the songs sound different, because so much old rock ‘n’ roll uses the same handful of progressions. I played the Strat, which is really better for this material than an acoustic guitar. (The Strat really needs new strings, though.) Next time we practice isn’t until Feb. 12, so I’ve plenty of time to work with this stuff.

It looks like the trip to southern Oregon for the Jan. 24 SOSA annual meeting is doable. The windstorms are supposed to be over, and the weather will continue to be unseasonably warm (for January). It is supposed to get below freezing in Medford Saturday night, which might behoove my traveling Saturday night rather than Sunday morning. Either way, a good half the trip is in the dark, but if I leave Saturday right after our recording session in Garibaldi, the roads in Medford may not have frozen by the time I get there. (This is important because the truck does not have snow tires or studs.) While down there, I’ll get to play at the Wild Goose Sunday night, but I’m not sure what else.

Still not sure what to do for the 12th song on the “Deathgrass” album. It needs to be a fast number, not a two-step; it doesn’t have to be bluegrass—it could be in a different style, and/or in a different key. And it ideally should be one of mine—there’s already four co-writes on the album. Best contenders I’ve got right now are “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” (my preference), “The Termite Song” and “When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You,” all bluegrass tunes. That’d make the setlist look like:

Dead Things in the Shower (with Bobbie Gallup)—fast two-step

Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy

Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass

Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues

Take-Out Food (Stan Good)—sleazy & manic (or is that manic & sleazy?)

No Good Songs About the War—mod. slow two-step

Naked Space Hamsters in Love—fast bluegrass

Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues

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

Rotten Candy—fast bluegrass with a Gospel beat

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

You’ll Make a Real Good Angel (Tarra Young)—mod. slow Gospel

Three two-steps of varying speeds, three fast bluegrass (one with a Gospel bass), one Gospel, one blues, one rock, and a couple that are unclassifiable but definitely country. Subject matter from sleazy to Heavenly. And three songs with dead animals (four if you count the chicken, whose fate is clear). If we can get Mike Simpson on lead guitar and “Doc” Wagner on blues harp, this will be something to listen to (and hopefully worth buying). I’ll include on a separate CD the Southern Pigfish songs. There’s just 6 of them, thus far—but John really wants to do “Love Trails of the Zombie Snails,” and the recording of “For Their Own Ends” can do double duty; we can use Doc’s harmonica on the Southern Pigfish cut, and Dick’s on the Deathgrass one.

And even though nobody took me up on my “write a traditional ballad” suggestion, I nonetheless have a traditional ballad of my own taking shape. Three verses thus far (out of maybe five or six), plus a tentative chorus (with a refrain in it, so everyone can recognize its Traditional Balladness). Being awake in the dark, with the power out and the wind and rain pounding the house, is almost as good a writing opportunity as a long drive in the car. It’s not like one can do anything else.

Joe