Ah, things begin to move… I got myself invited back to the THIRSTY LION PUB in downtown Portland, TUESDAY, 29 JUNE. I’ll be part of their “Portland Songwriter Showcase,” which will have three other performers besides me and host Kory Quinn (who’s pinch-hitting for regular host Eric John Kaiser). The host usually kicks it off at 8:30 p.m., with the other performers starting at 9 p.m. I don’t know if I’ll be on first—I have been the last two times, because Eric knows I’ve come from furthest away—but the other performers are usually quite good, too. This will be a solo performance, and unpaid (as usual—but I’ll have the last few of my CDs with me, and maybe can recover enough money to pay for the gas).

They’re still doing their “vote for your favorite performer” thing (so performers will induce their friends, families and fans to come, buy the $2 drinks and eat the cheap food)—the top vote-getters from each week from May and June will be “finalists” playing Tuesday, July 6 to win either a day in a Portland recording studio or a music video. I could use both, but I never did have more than a handful of fans in Portland, and I don’t think any ever have come to the Thirsty Lion either time I’ve played there, so I’ve never been one of their “finalists.” I’m not expecting miracles this time around, either. The Thirsty Lion is simply a nice place to play, with a generally attentive (and sometimes large) audience.

The performances are all videotaped, but the folks doing it never have aired a video of me—and I’m not expecting them to this time, either. (The only extant videos of me performing are still just the two shows Darrin Wayne and I did for Southern Oregon Songwriters on Ashland public television last year.)

What to play? 25 minutes is six songs—and it’s a tavern, so the audience are all adults. I like to have a theme connecting all the songs together, and what I’ve normally delivered the audience at the Thirsty Lion, since they’re not familiar with me, is the list I gave the Songstuff writers’ group when I signed up: “death, lost love, betrayal, religion, and dead animals.” How about:

Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?—slow & sleazy

The Termite Song—fast bluegrass

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

The Dead Sweethearts Polka—faster’n bluegrass

Take-Out Food (by Stan Good)—slow & sleazy

Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope)—fast bluegrass

Of those, two are new, two are off the last album (a possible incentive for people to purchase it), and three of ‘em are candidates for the “12 Reasons Why Joe Is Going to Hell” album. The set starts off with a slow, sleazy tune—the best way to get a tavern audience’s attention. And only one of the songs, I think, has ever been performed at the Thirsty Lion before.

I did hear back from the Willamette Writers group, regarding their paying gig solicitation on Craigslist; the actual decision will be made by a committee (and you know how committees are)—but the girl who reviewed my stuff liked it, and will encourage the committee to hire me, I think. That one’s FRIDAY, 6 AUGUST, at the Portland Airport Sheraton, somewhere between 5 and 7 p.m. (They have 2 hours, and I am hoping there will be someone else on the bill besides me. I think I’m a bit hard to take as a soloist after more than an hour.)

No music at the Tillamook Library until July 10—they’ve got other things using the conference room where we usually play. There will still be music at City Hall on Friday nights, and at the Garibaldi Pub Wednesday afternoons—and there’s a Garibaldi Days concert to get ready for, too, at the end of July. This Saturday is the sock-puppet performance at the Arts Center—“Pig Wars,” the legend of the three little pigs performed by the cast of Star Wars.

Joe