roxhythe

Happy Easter, all of you within earshot (or eyeshot). A TV news report has advised there are more calories in the ears of a chocolate rabbit than most other parts. Obviously, that was essential information, or they wouldn’t have devoted time to it on the TV news with everything else that’s going on. As this is written, drummer Chris is still in intensive care, and I understand it’s been touch and go. He’s reportedly still not allowed visitors. Doug Rowland, the drummer from “Lannie and the Instigators,” the other band on the billing for the April 24 concert, volunteered to fill in for Chris (and I’ll make him an “I Am Not Chris” T-shirt for the occasion). He’s coming out from Portland to pick up setlists and CDs Monday, and we’ll plan on practicing this weekend. It may not be that much of a change. “Lannie and the Instigators” is (as I expected) a rock band, and Doug says he’s a perfectionist, too. I warned him that what I write is mostly country music, but it don’t sound like country music when the band gets done with it. I have a feeling that’ll still be the case. It is time—already—to start organizing Summer Concert Season. Nothing with the band will happen before mid-June, to give John time to finish the city budget. We wanted to do another “Failed Economy Show” benefit for the Food Pantry in June (that’d probably be the third Saturday—the square dance club already has the City Hall Dance Floor reserved for the second and fourth Saturdays), and I am assuming we’ll be on the agenda at Garibaldi Days the last weekend in July (I’m on the entertainment committee this year). Both those are freebies. I’d like us to be playing at the Bay City Centennial celebration Labor Day weekend (whether or not it’s a paying gig), and I’d like to do a Garibaldi Museum concert again—ideally, on a weekend when there’s less competition than we had last time. And there’s the Bay City Arts Center. I reviewed their draft 2010 budget, and it’s got a line item for another “Joe Wrabek concert”—as a semi-major fund-raiser, in fact. (We didn’t generate them near that much money last year. Do we have that big a reputation now?) Both the Museum and Arts Center would be paying gigs, which would be neat. That is rather more than the one gig a month we did in 2009. There’s the album to finish, too. I wonder for how much of that we’re going to need a substitute drummer. “Me gigs,” too. I need to fit into the schedule a Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. concert—either August 20 or 27 (the only two concert dates they’ve got this year). What I’ve done in the past is round up an impromptu band of people I know down in southern Oregon, who are familiar with the material, and practice beforehand if we can. I’d like to do that again. I do not know if the 2nd Street Market in Tillamook will be contacting me about playing there (the building’s supposed to be open for business by July); I do have my doubts. That’s one gig that would be fun to do with a partner. So would the Neskowin School Harvest Festival (in late September/early October); that was normally my last performance of Concert Season, but it didn’t happen last year because they never called. I could probably get myself or the band inserted into their schedule if I worked at it. I have had a couple of years where I was playing somewhere every single weekend during Concert Season, and it would be nice if 2010 were another one of those years. It is not like I’m doing anything else important. Joe

Heard this morning our drummer, Chris, is in ICU in a Portland hospital. I’ll go in to see him as soon as he’s out of intensive care, but I have a feeling he’s not going to be able to drum at the April 24 gig. We will have to find a substitute. (I can make said substitute an “I Am Not Chris” T-shirt for the occasion.) About the only good news this week is Roland, the new guitarist who’s been coming to our Wednesday acoustic jam sessions at the Garibaldi Pub, seems to be interested in doing some performing—with me. That’d be nice. Roland is a good guitarist, and if we were doing shows together, we could trade singing, and play lead on each other’s stuff. I’d much rather do that than play solo. He has my phone numbers; we’ll see what happens. I don’t think Roland has any PA equipment, and I don’t, either—my teeny amps are barely sufficient for playing guitar through at the Library. I could create a PA relatively easily, I think; Radio Shack still has the cheap little 4-channel mixers like the Dodson Drifters used 30 years ago, and all I’d need is a decent amp and speaker. I have the mikes, stands, and cords. I would have to do it for just about no money, because just about no money is what I have. I saw a great (and simple) music video by a British duo. Their song’s lyrics were all front-page headlines from the London Daily Mail, and the video consisted simply of one fellow playing guitar and singing while the other displayed and discarded the newspapers with the headlines. Very simple, and very well done. It is time to do more of my songs as video—like Lorelei Loveridge said, “Video is the new radio.” I see more new songs on YouTube than I hear as *.mp3 files. Not all my songs can—or should—be done simply as film of a live performance; a different treatment is in order, for variety if nothing else. However, it has to be simple and cheap—free, in fact. Absolutely nothing is what I can afford these days. The model, I think, needs to be the Porter Wagoner video of “Committed to Parkview,” which may have been the last song he wrote before he died. It’s about an asylum—but they didn’t film an asylum: they simply shot footage of him and the band playing in various places around an abandoned building that might have been a hospital, once. Very simple. I could do the same sort of thing. One song I could see this working well with is “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot,” the surprisingly popular Southern Pigfish talking blues. “Quoth” takes place partly on a beach, and partly in a tavern, and I happen to have both close by. (Could even do the tavern shots outside the tavern, and not have to worry about the lighting.) There’s a parrot in the song, of course, but he doesn’t have to appear in the video. I’d need some footage of both locations with no “actors” in it, “on location” footage of me singing (actually lip-synching along with the recorded track), and footage of the band “finger-synching” along with the music. And then I can put it all together. I have two cameras—I just need someone to run them. First step is to record the song. And that begs the question whether I should try to have a whole different crew of musicians “play” Southern Pigfish. I maybe could. Joe

A new song to musicate! It’s by Skip Johnson, who in real life is an Adventist minister in New England (and one of the better lyricists I know). Hight “I Wish You Were Here to Hate My Boyfriends.” Maybe the best broken-home song I’ve run into yet. Of course, it’ll be country music (a nice, bouncy two-step, I think)—country music, I maintain, is an overlooked vehicle for talking about social issues, and this is another opportunity to prove the point. It would be neat if Polly Hager could sing this—it really could use to be sung by a girl—but I’ll musicate and record it first. Poster for the April 24 gig is done. Still have the Rap to do. Might be able to fit in a practice Sunday, even though it’s Easter. (Resurrecting the band, as it were.) I actually had fans that showed up to Saturday’s music session at the Tillamook Library, people (including some from out of town) who have come to City Hall in Garibaldi in the past—but I wasn’t at City Hall Friday night, and won’t be for another two weeks because of play performances. Those folks have bought CDs. Could I sell them another CD if I had one? Yep. Time to produce one? Yep. As noted earlier, “product” in the Modern World is going to have to be delivered quicker, cheaper, and in small quantities. That’s something independent musicians can do and the Big Boys can’t. Thing is, it’s going to take a while before the “Deathgrass” CD is ready; John (who is recording engineer as well as the bass player) is frightfully busy through mid-June because of the city budget, which is essentially a second full-time job, and the process he wants to do—which is a good and professional one—is going to take time, just like it would if the Big Boys were doing it. Our September release date is probably realistic. My question is—has to be—whether there’s something additional I could do faster and sooner, without getting in the way of what John is doing. Two primary considerations are fast and cheap. (Make that three: fast and cheap AND perfect.) The easiest way I know to achieve that is to do the recording “Patsy Cline style”—the band walks into the studio and records everything live and in one or two takes, and everything is perfect because (1) the band are good, (2) they know the material, and (3) the sound engineer is good. That’s how we did the “Santa’s Fallen” album, and it really minimized production costs. (And the album continues to sell.) But that was in Eastern Oregon. I have the band here, but do I have similar studio resources available? The answer is a firm “maybe.” I have two friends and fellow musicians who are building a commercial-grade studio in one’s house; it’s intended for recording their stuff, but they could maybe be prevailed upon to do some outside work, perhaps in the guise of “experimentation.” They’re still working the bugs out of their system, and I’m not sure how long that will take. There’s Mike’s studio in Rockaway, too, but I haven’t visited and don’t know what he’s got there. I know not all studios have a big room where you could set up a band and have the members not interfere with each other; I ran into some studios in southern Oregon that because of their configuration could only do “layering,” one instrument at a time. That’s both more time-consuming and more expensive. There’s one other possibility. I’d mentioned before the minister with recording equipment who said his experience was in recording live Gospel shows. I don’t know if he’d be interested in “doing” a tavern, even though it is a benefit (some ministers are sensitive about that sort of thing), but I guess it’s worth a phone call. If he can’t do this one, I would very much like him to record our “Failed Economy Show” benefit concert for the Food Pantry in June. Joe

The band have what drummer Chris calls “our homework”—the setlists and CDs. We can practice after 1 April, when Doc and his dog get back from vacation. (We don’t need the dog—just Doc—but they’re traveling together.) I’ve been in touch with the lady who’s coordinating the event; they’re raffling off some fancy prizes, too—fishing trips, and the like—and I want to make sure to promote those during the Rap. (I got the name of the other band, too. They’re called “Lannie and the Instigators.” I assume they’re a rock band—but I wonder what music they play? I assume it’s all covers—almost nobody plays original music but us.) I’d like to have enough information together this week to do the poster. I’m not sure what to use for a graphic (must have a graphic—it’s what makes the posters interesting); I do have on file a Depression-vintage photo of an impromptu band performing at a barn dance that might work. The organizer lady tells me they’re going to have a Money Tree, and they’d like to use my Big Yellow Bucket (with the “Tipping is Not a City in China” sign on it). Maybe at this concert I can get somebody to snap a photo of the band; there aren’t any, and I could use one (or some) for the album, and for future concerts. I am about as ready for “The Tempest” as I’m going to be; my lines and movements are down (‘twas fairly easy—mine is just a bit part), and now I get to worry about everybody else (which is pointless—I have absolutely no control over anybody else). The actors are all very good, but some of them have a lot of lines to master, and Elizabethan English doesn’t trip that easily off the tongue. I’ve fantasized about directing one of these—I’d enjoy doing a Shakespeare play as Rock Opera—but I would probably drive everyone crazy (including myself). I’d want to know everything was note-perfect long before we ever went on stage, and I’d be doing dress rehearsals every night for probably the two weeks before Opening Night. The cast and crew would hate me. Photos of the cast are done; they’re a bit dark, but I couldn’t lighten them up too much without the actors’ skin turning orange because of the stage lighting. Only Caliban (the monster) can get away with looking like that; everybody else is (mostly) human. (And for some reason, the photos come out looking better on plain paper rather than photographic paper.) I’ll miss playing with the Friday Night Group the next three Fridays; there are performances of “The Tempest” those nights. I will still get to play music Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, though. And after April 1, I’ll have practice for the April 24 concert to fit into the schedule, too. Still have the poster and the Rap to do for the concert. Also still to do is the Southern Oregon Songwriters newsletter, for which I’ve received almost none of the material yet, though the deadline is upon us. And I received a surprise invitation from local historian Jack Graves to join a writers’ group he’s organizing. It’d be Wednesday afternoons, but before music, so I could do both. I know one other person involved, a writer from Bay City. I don’t know who else (if anyone) is going to be part of this, and I’m not sure what Jack has in mind. It does feel like playing with the grownups (both the other guys are quite a bit older than I am). I had originally thought “but I write different from those guys,” but I’m not sure I do—one thing all three of us have in common is we’ve all written the “Fencepost” column for the Tillamook paper. What I expect to get out of that, I think, is practice writing—and I could use as much of that as I can get. That’s the reason I write for the newspaper (it’s sure not for the little dribbles of cash for my articles and columns): if I want to do good at this, I need to get to the point where whatever I write is perfect the first time, and quick, and generated without agony. I have a way to go. Joe

A question from Lorelei Loveridge, founder and chief rabble-rouser of Performing Songwriters United Worldwide, about working conditions for performing artists in the music business, and what we’re doing (or can do) about it. Can one coax order out of chaos? The chaos itself has order, I think. One framework that seems to come close to defining the music industry today is the old Soviet Union Communist Party. There was—the Soviets often pointed it out—intense competition within the Party, but only, be it noted, within the Party; there was no chance of advancement outside the Party, and who got what inside the Party was rather firmly in the hands of a handful of people. It does sound a lot like Nashville today, doesn’t it? Officially classless, it’s a very stratified system, with folks at the top who control the Party and most of its functions, Party members benefiting from it, those in the Party but not benefiting from it, and those who are outside the Party altogether. I’m in the last group, and I don’t like it. On the other hand, I consider trying to become a Party member a waste of my time, because benefits—indeed, Party membership itself—are distributed if not arbitrarily, at least without reference to what one can do. I want to be invited to participate in a system that rewards talent, and I don’t think the music industry does either any more. So I deliberately work outside the system, at the same time that I complain about not being part of it. To be sure, there are cracks in the music industry’s Iron Curtain. The Internet, which nobody controls (and therefore the music industry does not control) offers an alternative distribution system and publicity system—if anyone can figure out how to take advantage of it effectively. At this point, a lot of people are trying to do so, and I watch them, trying to puzzle out what works. I think working conditions for performing artists—the ones not at the top of the food chain—are best described as “appalling.” Working bands are paid today the same as the Dodson Drifters made 30 years ago—only gas doesn’t cost a quarter a gallon any more, and cars aren’t under five grand, and medical insurance for a family isn’t $200 a month. The few people I know who are making a living as full-time musicians are working very hard, and living pretty close to the edge. These days, most performing artists need to have day jobs—and though it’s not much mentioned, their craft suffers because they don’t get to devote as much time to it. What does one do? I tend to default to old solutions: I perform a lot, not so much to make money at it (though that would be nice) as to showcase the material (from a craft standpoint, I need to know if my stuff is any good, too, and only playing it to a live audience and seeing how they react will tell me that). I play a lot for free, and on the Internet my songs are playable and downloadable for free, because I’m not a household word yet. I try at every opportunity to get other people playing my stuff, and I return the favor by playing other independent writers’ stuff—cloning myself (and them) on a small scale. The above is the business plan of the drug dealer—I will hook you with free samples, in the expectation of making money off you later. Yes, that entails a confidence in the product, but I expect I have that. The drug dealers were one of the few successful non-Party business groups in the old Soviet Union, so there’s an historical precedent, too. And when the Soviet Union finally collapsed (as I hope the music industry does also), the drug dealers had the first functioning business organization able to fill the breach. There is hope for the future, in other words. (I will need a day job first, however. I cannot make money off just being a musician.) In general, as a traditionalist in music style (if not content), I see no point in gimmicks. I will do music videos (cheaply, of course), because that takes advantage of the visual orientation of modern society, but some of those videos will simply be performance videos—not everything is subject to “enhancement.” In the same vein, I’ll sell the next album on CDBaby, too, because it’s an alternative distribution network not part of the “Party apparatus.” And of course, there’s a song in it. Besides the growing number of Failed Economy songs, I do have one about the music business—“Meet Me at the Stairs,” written back in 2001 as I was watching performers trying to peddle themselves and their wares at a bluegrass festival. Link is http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=4841699 . Music reflects life. I just sometimes wish it didn’t reflect it so darkly. Joe

Tentative setlist for the April 24 “Deathgrass” concert looks like: SET #1 (11 SONGS) Dead Things in the Shower (Bobbie Gallup)—mod. fast two-step Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy Things Are Getting Better Now That Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—fast two-step Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly Welcome to Hebo Waltz—fast waltz Ain’t Got No Home in This World Any More (Woody Guthrie)—mod. two-step Test Tube Baby—rock ‘n’ roll Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—mod. two-step SET #2 (9 SONGS) Duct Tape—mod. country Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country rock No Good Songs About the War—mod. slow two-step [NEW] Love Trails of the Zombie Snails (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock [NEW] She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself—mod. fast blues Free-Range Person—fast bluegrass Milepost 43—mod. two-step Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad (Woody Guthrie)—fast bluegrass A 55-minute set and a 50-minute set; that allows for a 15-minute break in the middle. Some rock, some blues, some country, and some bluegrass; one waltz. Mostly good dance numbers, I think, and includes the songs that we perform best. There are two songs on the list Doc and Mike haven’t played before, and two more that none of us have played together. The setlist has our standard opening and ending songs in their usual places (it’s almost a tradition now), but maybe enough variety and re-arranging so it sounds a little different. Next steps: re-record “Love Trails of the Zombie Snails” in a key in which I can sing it better, master and record the CDs for everybody, print lyric sheets for the songs they don’t know—and get copies to Doc before he and his dog leave on vacation. I have a Rap to work out, and I’ll need to talk to Chris so I can pepper it with appropriate pitches for donations and promos for the band that’ll be coming after us. Poster to design, too. I don’t think anybody else functions quite like we do, and I’m not sure why. It works, I think. The frontman (me) does not give the audience a chance to get bored; if you can’t jump right from one song to the next (and we’ve never tried that), there should be some sort of patter that prevents the silence. That’s a trick I picked up from the late Jeff Tanzer of the Dodson Drifters (and an entertainer par excellence). Giving everybody CDs with the songs in order, with cue sheets and (where needed) lyrics, was designed to assuage my need to be thoroughly organized in advance—but the band likes it, and it does minimize the need for practice. That we play almost all unheard-of original music (most of it mine) doesn’t seem to have stopped audiences from coming. Practice after April 1. Before then, there’s “The Tempest” to get through. I think I have my lines down now. Joe

Reviews and updates: The Monday Night Musical performance went well; Doc, Bill, JoAnn and I were easily more professional than the rest of the performers they had. I hope it turns into more business. I played “The Dead Sweethearts Polka” for both the Friday Night Group and our crew at the Tillamook Library, but I don’t think it’s concert material—at least, not yet; it is hard to sing in the key I recorded it in (it’s way at the bottom of my voice range), but the happy serial killer motif also disturbs people (I can’t complain—that was intentional). I do like the song, though. I guess the best one can say is it’s one of those songs that just can’t be played everywhere—like “Dirty Deeds We Done to Sheep.” I finally did hear from the 2nd Street Public Market’s director (had to call her, though); the opening of the building has been delayed again (I knew that from the newspaper), and while I’m “on her list,” she hadn’t contacted anybody. I did get an e-mail from her shortly after we talked on the phone—I presume it went to everybody else “on her list,” too—saying what was going on. That’s one to keep following up on; it’s paying business. Four songs on the ReverbNation Website now (which leaves—what? 70-plus to go?); it’s got a few features now that imitate some of the things Soundclick does, so it may be okay. It’s supposed to “link” with Facebook, but it doesn’t, of course, because Facebook keeps “fixing” things so they don’t work. I activated a long-dormant “LinkedIn” account, too, after a friend/fiddler/fellow square dancer/ex-teacher said she’d gotten some business out of contacts there. LinkedIn proceeded to go spam everybody in my e-mail address book (which is rather a lot of people), which was probably really annoying to a lot of folks. (I know I hate it when somebody does it to me.) LinkedIn is potentially a business-generating site—I can post my resume there, and maybe some graphic-design and writing samples. I just hope I haven’t driven away business by being inadvertently annoying. And a fellow songwriter says he’s starting up a new label, “Pop Can Records,” and asked me if I’d be interested in sending him some stuff; the answer is yes. What the fellow is creating is actually an OMD (Online Music Distributorship), like Soundclick, ReverbNation, et al., where he says the stuff I send him will be available and promoted. (He’s small, of course—but having somebody else promoting me, too, would be nice, even on a small scale.) All free—but the material I have on Soundclick, et al., is all listen-toable and downloadable for free, too. I think I’ve probably got a dozen good tunes I could send him. There’s a couple that were done by The Collaborators, the Internet band I worked with some years back (“The Cat with the Strat” and “She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself”), a few that were recorded and mixed by the incomparable Gem Watson (“Dirty Deeds We Done to Sheep,” “The Frog Next Door” and my St. Leif’s Day song, “The Six-Legged Polka”), and a couple I recorded with other people playing lead (“Hey, Little Chicken,” with Dan Doshier, and “Free-Range Person,” with both Dan and Darrin Wayne). And I think I’ve got a few home recordings with me playing all parts that came out decent, too. Not one evening at home this week; meetings Monday and Wednesday, Tempest rehearsals Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday (I think I have my lines down now), and music Friday (the days are full, too). Upcoming pretty quick, I have another SOSA newsletter to typeset (I’ve recommended the Bay City Arts Center do something similar—it’s really simple to do). Joe

“The Dead Sweethearts Polka” turned out surprisingly good. Link is http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=8862558. While I doubt it’s album material (or even performance material), much less “the best you’ve ever done” like some people said, it is fun to listen to. Some folks had suggestions for instruments that could be added—accordion, mandolin, Jews’ harp—and I do know people who play all those things, and play them rather well. It is possible. One addition I’d be tempted to try is “Chainsaw Bob” Lichner on the musical saw—with the right amount of reverb, it’d add an attractive spookiness (as if the serial-killer lyrics weren’t spooky enough). On the other hand, I have already accomplished my two major purposes for this song. I got Jon Harrington over in England a song for his “it’s about a river” challenge in timely fashion, and I got out of my head the somewhat sick notion of a happy song about a serial killer. Since I don’t expect to do anything with the song, I’m a little reluctant to sink more energy into what would be only for fun. I have passed on a copy of the recording to bass player John, and if he likes it, we might do it at the April 24 concert. It is a good dance number (and people in this area do like polkas), and I was trying to concentrate on danceable material for this gig. Looks like both Doc and Mike are in for lead players; I need the setlist organized and a copy on CD to Doc (Mike, too) before Doc and his hunting dog go on vacation the 18th. We can practice after Doc gets back 1 April. It appears our “Gang of Four” running the Arts Center will be a “Gang of Three” instead (one of the people dropped out, though she may be back); we have an Executive Director (Loni), Program Director (Karen), and Marketing Director (me), have set office hours (each of us doing two 4-hour shifts a week), business cards (by me), and we’ll get “@baycityartscenter.org” edresses as soon as Bruce tells Loni how to do it. We’ll go over the financials this week, and start putting them together a budget. I probably need to build them a computer for the office (they have a Mac, and all my graphic-design software is PC-based). If I’m doing this for no money, the computer will have Windows 98 for an operating system, because I have that available and free; all my graphic-design software works with Windows 98, because it (like me) is old. Upgrading the operating system would be nice, but it can wait until there’s money. (I have a 1997-vintage non-Microsoft word processing program they can have, too.) I was being impressed with myself for being able to write my weekly column for the newspaper basically in the time it takes to type it (that’s happened several weeks in a row, now), and wondering if I could apply whatever it is I’m doing to music. Maybe. What I have with the column is a regular circuit of people I can tap for material—plus enough people know now what I do, and can do, that people call, e-mail and stop me on the street with tidbits. Applying the same tactics to the music business means intensifying my self-promotion and exposure, and making it automatic to the extent possible. Presently, most of my recorded music is on my two Soundclick “pages,” with a handful on MySpace; I have a couple of tunes posted on SongRamp, and one on ReverbNation (and they have gotten a little attention). I should expand that. In the same vein, the free Internet “stations” might as well get my stuff, too. And I should be performing more, too, of course. Making the Bay City Arts Center’s open mike monthly—whatever day it ends up being on—is good. Once the run of “The Tempest” is over (mid-April), I can hit up some of the venue-runners I know in Portland, too. Yes, all free—the paying stuff comes later, I think (or hope); what I want to do here and now is make the free stuff as automatic and non-time-consuming as possible, so there’s time for other stuff later. Just like the newspaper column. Music only on Friday this week, I think; full run-through rehearsal for “The Tempest” on Saturday will probably obviate playing music at the library. More jobs to apply for (or is that more rejection letters?), and the FAFSA to do for student financial aid. Time to register for spring term college classes. Joe

I was asked by the fellow buying more of my CDs why I hadn’t been discovered yet. My stuff, he said, is better’n what’s on the radio or in the record stores. (Thanks.) There are two answers, a curmudgeonly one and a non-curmudgeonly one, and I’m not sure which is right. The non-curmudgeonly answer is that success in the music business as it’s configured today depends entirely on whom you know (or rather, who knows you) rather than what you can do, and not enough people know me. I keep playing every chance I get, everywhere I can, and get my records into as many hands as I can, and maybe the right people will notice me. In the meantime, there is a living to be made (I think) on the fringes of the music business, and I’m pursuing that. The curmudgeonly response (my usual answer) is that success in the music business as it’s configured today depends entirely on whom you know (or rather, who knows you) rather than what you can do, and not only do not enough people know me, they’re not really interested in knowing anybody new. I keep playing every chance I get, everywhere I can, and get my records into as many hands as I can, because it’s all I can do. There is a living to be made (I think) on the fringes of the music business, and I’m pursuing that. Note the two answers sound an awful lot alike. They also result in the same work plan, so which one is right doesn’t matter an awful lot. It’s tempting to follow that with “there’s a song in it,” but a lot of times, I’m not sure exactly where inspiration comes from. I only know that after I’ve written something, I feel better. The latest song was in response to a challenge from that British writers’ bunch assembled by Jon Harrington, that I’ve been sort of following. (“Sort of” because they get together in person, and I can’t afford monthly trips to England. Yet.) We (they?) were charged with writing a song about a river flowing to the sea. How—or why—mine turned into an anthem about a serial killer, I am not sure. (A river is a good place to dispose of bodies, of course.) So I have a bouncy, foot-stompin’ little number that might get people up dancing if they ignore what the song’s about. It even has an eye-catching title: “The Dead Sweethearts Polka.” (It doesn’t have to be a polka, of course—I can hear “Deathgrass” playing it as rock ‘n’ roll, and it sounding just fine, and every bit as danceable.) As this is written, the lyrics are getting peer review from the other writers at Just Plain Folks, and depending on what they have to say, it may be time to record it. In the same vein, it may be desirable to perform it with the Friday Night Group—I’ve confronted them with weird stuff before. I am bothered a bit by the song, because I’m not sure what prompted it; songs always reflect (sometimes very dimly) something going on in my life—but a happy song about a serial killer? What brought on that? At least I don’t have to worry about ruining my reputation—I don’t have one. One of the advantages of not being famous is I don’t have an image I have to protect. I can write anything. UPDATES: Not a word from the 2nd Street Public Market folks in Tillamook, who were soliciting performers on Craigslist; I’ll have to phone them and tell them I would really rather be rejected than just ignored. I did get a solicitation from one of our burlesque performers in Portland, inviting me to an open mike she was hosting—and I had to beg off, because I’ve got a meeting to cover for the paper that night. I do hope she does it again, and on a night I can go. I’d even make more thongs for that one. Music Wednesday, Friday and Saturday this week, and another “Gang of Four” meeting Wednesday morning at the Arts Center. (And I did sell two CDs at the open mike in Bay City Friday.) Joe

Despite its being a busy week, I have managed to get done all the stuff I planned to get done. It feels weird to actually have a night (well, part of a night) off. Bay City Arts Center business cards are designed for the Gang of Four; they lack only the e-mail addresses, which executive director Loni will work out with Bruce Deloria, whom I put her in touch with (another instance of “I can’t do this myself, but I know people”—a frequent mantra of mine in the city-manager business). Survey cards are done for the drawing, too, that’ll put names on the Arts Center mailing list. A flyer advertising the daffodil bulbs somebody donated ($2.50 a bundle—great deal). All simple, fast stuff that (of course) looks good. I love this kind of work. The weekly column’s done for the newspaper, too, along with a bigger article on next weekend’s Garibaldi Crab Races (thank you, editor LeeAnn). The article took a couple of hours (I’m always doing time-and-motion studies on myself), but the column was fast. I’d mentioned the Wednesday afternoon jam sessions at the Garibaldi Pub in last week’s column, and a couple of new audience people showed up this Wednesday, so I know somebody’s reading the column. (Only four musicians at the Pub this time, so I got to play lead guitar on everything—and I noticed the folks listened, and seemed to like it.) Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. newsletter’s done also, and I guess everybody liked it. Now that the template’s built, the next one will be easier (good, because I need to be producing one of these every month). I should see if the Bay City Arts Center needs a newsletter, too. It could follow much the same template. Might be better than the frequent e-mails advertising individual events. I added a treble guitar part to my no-vocal recording of “When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies” for the Texas kid’s talent show performance, and sent it off to the mom. (As recorded, the rhythm guitar was too bassy, but I had a spare track to work with.) And there was the rehearsal for “The Tempest.” My part is small, but as the first mate on a sinking ship, I’m supposed to own the stage in that first 4-minute scene. Slowly but surely, I’m learning my lines. I’ll have a slot at Friday night’s open mike in Bay City (as well as being one of the people running the thing)—probably 15 minutes, which means three songs. The folks in Bay City haven’t heard me in over a year, which means there’s over a dozen new songs they haven’t heard unless they attended one or more of the “Deathgrass” concerts. The easiest route to go is probably to simply play the three most recent songs—“Last Song of the Highwayman” (my medieval ballad), “Up in Heaven, the Angels Play Music” (which I probably don’t dare call “religious”), and Stan Good’s “Take-Out Food,” which I musicated (good old traditional roadkill). Two fairly slow numbers, bracketing a fairly manic polka (which will sound more like bluegrass because there’s no accordion). Phone call this evening from a family that’s coming to the Arts Center because they want to buy more of my CDs. (Yay!) The new 2nd Street Public Market in Tillamook—the people who hired somebody other than me to be their executive director—were advertising on craigslist for performers (I guess they’re finally going to be open), and I sent them an e-mail—which they haven’t answered. I guess it’s worth a “please tell me yes or no” phone call. I would like to think I have enough of a reputation in this area by now to be considered a viable draw, but I don’t really know. Joe

I may have got myself—finally—a volunteer gig, and it will be fun and exciting. And it’s doing stuff I think I’m good at. The difference a month makes… When I went to the Bay City Arts Center’s board meeting in February, everybody was energetically and enthusiastically getting everything done—and then some—after the departure of their executive director. By last Monday night, they had all managed to get seriously burned out. But four people were there—three besides me—to tell them, “You guys really need a full-time staff” and “Look, we can do this for free for a while and maybe bring you in some money.” One of the outgrowths of the Failed Economy is there are rather a lot of people with high-end professional skills who can’t get jobs because there aren’t any. So we asked the board to appoint the girl with the most grant-writing experience as executive director, and the rest of us as her deputies, all with fancy titles (I’ll be “Public Relations Manager”); we’ll divvy up the job of keeping the doors open, bills paid, and phones and e-mail answered—split four ways, it’s not a lot of work for any one person—and work on the organization’s visibility, programs, and bringing more money in. (All this may be premature speculation; as this is written, we’re still waiting on a formal decision by the Arts Center Board. I just have a feeling they’ll do it, because they do need the help and we can provide it.) I got the public-relations job because of my advertising and lobbying and graphic design background—all of the “Gang of Four” (my term) have experience like that. I’ve designed us business cards, and survey postcards we plan to hand out at Friday night’s open mike (offering a chance at a prize—free tickets to a concert a week from now—in exchange for getting on our mailing list). We’re doing the same thing I and several others did 25 years ago with Columbia Gorge United, the little non-profit that took on some of the biggest environmental lobbying groups in the country (and some of the highest-placed members of Congress) in the 9-year fight over turning the Gorge into a Federal park. We almost won (some would argue that we did win). We had a big staff (none of them paid), an office building (rent free), the best promotional materials (all donated), and could deliver a dozen trained lobbyists (all volunteer) to Washington, D.C. at the drop of a hat. If you’re playing with the Big Boys, and you’re acting like the Big Boys, nobody ever asks what you’re being paid. We will play the same game here. As “Brother Bill” Howell, lead singer for the Dodson Drifters (and an attorney) put it, “It’s all performance.” On other fronts: Blues harp player “Doc” Wagner is in, I think, for the April 24 benefit concert for Val Folkema; he’ll be available for practice after the beginning of April. I don’t have an answer yet from lead guitarist Mike Simpson. Our impromptu quartet—piano, guitar, blues harp and vocals—practiced March 2 for our Monday Night Musical performance March 8; we’ll do the best two of four songs, “Please Release Me” and “Today I Started Loving You Again,” both of which “Doc” and I have played a lot of times before. Practice took only about an hour, and was mostly a matter of getting everybody used to everybody else. And the open mike at the Arts Center is Friday night, not Saturday (so I’ll miss music at City Hall); the date was changed, but very few people know. That informational gap between decisions and events is one of the things the “Gang of Four” will be fixing. I still need a real job—rather desperately, in fact—but the odds are any real job is going to be relatively mindless grunt work, because I don’t have the armload of college degrees to “prove” I can do what I did for a living for 15 years. This volunteer gig at least will be challenging, and fun. Joe

Every now and then, you get a nice little “upper” that makes you feel like you’re doing something worthwhile I’d mentioned before that “When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies” was a hit with kids. I heard from one mom who said her 8-year-old is going to be in a talent show, and wants to perform “the cookie song.” Can he? Of course. I’m honored. I’ll record a non-vocal track so he can sing to it. Wish I could be there, but all this is going to take place somewhere in Texas. (His mom says she’s going to videotape it.) Mike Simpson wants to record me and him playing the “Tillamook Railroad Blues” and maybe also the “Welcome to Hebo Waltz,” my two local-color songs. (He wants to put together an album of songs about Tillamook County, I think.) This will be an opportunity to see what Mike’s got in his studio, and how he uses it. I don’t know if we could incorporate the whole band in this project—I’m sure they’d be willing, but I don’t know what the limitations of Mike’s setup are. The performance for the Monday Night Musical Club with Bill Briott (vocals), Joan Petty (piano), “Doc” Wagner (blues harp), and me (guitar) now has four songs—they’ve added “Sioux City Sue,” the Ray Freedman/Dick Thomas song which Willie Nelson and Leon Russell (and earlier, Bing Crosby) made famous. I downloaded the tablature (thank you, Internet); it’s pretty simple. Our 2-hour practice session is Tuesday afternoon, March 2. Show is the following Monday night, March 8. That means next week I have the Bay City Arts Center’s Board meeting Monday night (to make sure about the Jim Nelson open mike Saturday), practice with the quartet Tuesday, music at the Garibaldi Pub Wednesday, rehearsal for “The Tempest” Thursday, music at City Hall on Friday, and at the Library Saturday afternoon (and the open mike Saturday night). There’s a “job fair” I should go to that Saturday morning, too. The following week, rehearsals for “The Tempest” begin in earnest. That means I really need to have my voice back in order in the next few days (it left along with the cold I’m mostly over—happens every time). There are a few songs I can perform with a croak for a voice, and I did those Friday and Saturday, but my part in “The Tempest” requires me to shout my lines, and that’s not possible right now. One song I can croak that’s surprisingly popular is the Southern Pigfish talking blues, “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot”; it’s more musical than the average talking blues, because it’s really a two-step, but it doesn’t require any voice at all to perform it, since the lyrics are spoken. I expect people like the song because of its political message (understated, of course, in classic Southern Pigfish style)—there’s a lot of anti-government sentiment going around these days. Thought I’d try my hand at a “Deathgrass” logo—something simple, with a skull, cowboy hat, and (of course) grass; I decided rather than Photoshopping it (which would be time-consuming), if I could find the right pieces, I could just stage a photograph. At the local Wheeler Dealer store, which was having a 90%-off sale, I got a miniature skull, and a rumpled-shirt ceramic body it’ll fit; I have grass outside (which I’ve had to mow twice this month). I may have a hat to fit the skull in my leftover stuff from Union (my entry in the Great Interplanetary Duck Race there wore a cowboy hat); if not, I know where I got the hat—the craft department at Wal-Mart. Once I’ve taken the photograph, I can add special effects easily. (I also got a cute stuffed skull with dreadlocks that might make a good logo on its own. Failing that, it’s a neat thing to hang from a microphone stand.) Joe

It is a fun song, Lazz. (And definitely a religious song, 'cause it hit me when I walked into church. If that isn't Divine Inspiration...) Link is http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=2386715. Joe

The benefit concert for Val Folkema is set for SATURDAY, 24 APRIL, 7 P.M. at The Landing in Bay City. Two bands, roughly 1-1/2 to 2 hours apiece; we’ll be first. I’d like to tap both “Doc” Wagner and Mike Simpson to play lead again (and may not know for a while if we can get them). I presume since this is in a tavern, we’ll be wanting to do a lot of dance music. I don’t want to introduce a lot of new material (the more new material, the more practices we need—and everybody except me is busy), but I’d like us to have some new stuff, so we don’t sound the same every time we play. We have done five concerts now, and have a fair amount of material to pick from. Some tunes from the Failed Economy Show that had people up and dancing: Things Are Getting Better Now that Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—fast two-step For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—mod. two-step Hey, Little Chicken—mod. slow quasi-blues Our Own Little Stimulus Plan (Betty Holt)—Buddy Holly-style rockabilly Final Payment (Gem Watson)—mod. two-step, with Gospel beat Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues—slow & sleazy quasi-blues Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—country-rock We can add: Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues (and local color) Duct Tape—mod. fast country Test Tube Baby—Elvis-style rock ‘n’ roll Dead Things in the Shower—fast two-step (our usual opening song) Bluebird on My Windshield—fast bluegrass Ain’t Got No Home in This World Any More (Woody Guthrie)—mod. two-step The Frog Next Door—deliberate blues Valvoline—slow & sleazy [NEW] Love Trails of the Zombie Snails (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock [NEW] A couple of waltzes that we’ve done before: Welcome to Hebo Waltz—fast waltz (local color, again) The Day the Earth Stood Still (Jeff Tanzer)—not-quite-as-fast, with Gospel beat One more would make 20 songs—a solid 1-3/4 hours. Concentrating on danceability, I’d say it’s a choice between “Crosses By the Roadside,” “Armadillo on the Interstate” and “I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas.” Another possibility (though the band’s never played it) is the blues “She Ain’t Starvin’ Herself.” That gives us some two-steps of varying tempos, a couple waltzes, some blues, and some tunes the band is going to play as rock ‘n’ roll. It ought to be a fun show. Next steps: make sure we’ve got lead players (I’d really like to tap Doc and Mike again), figure out an order for the list (and make CDs for everybody), and see if our local pastor with the mobile recording equipment would be interested in recording a show that’s going to be in a tavern (if not, we’ll wait on the live recording till the Food Pantry benefit in June). Joe

If I count both “Last Song of the Highwayman” and “Up in Heaven, the Angels Play Music” as “keepers”—and I think I will—I am still on schedule writing an average of one good song a month. The former song is not precisely a medieval ballad, nor is the latter precisely a polka; “not precisely” seems to apply to a lot of my songs. Not having anything else in the mental pipeline right now, I’ll devote my attention to musicating a couple of lyrics penned by other folks that have been hanging fire, “He’s a Man—This is a Bar” and “The Cat Goddess Creeps.” (The latter also needs to be a music video. I do have fresh batteries in the camera.) I met Bill Briot, the vocalist I’ll be playing with (along with “Doc” Wagner and a piano teacher) at the Monday Night Musical March 8; he stopped in briefly at the Library Saturday (I expect in part to check out whether I really could play guitar well, which I think I was doing that day). Our performance has grown to three songs now; in addition to “All My Exes Live in Texas,” we’ll be doing “Release Me” and “Today I Started Loving You Again,” both of which Doc and I have played a lot before. We’ll get to practice just once before the performance, I think. This is a little like being invited into the second circle of Heaven; these guys are the real professionals, and I’ve never been invited to hang with them before. Thoughts on the New Business Model for the music industry. I’m not sure there is one. Strip the big record companies out of the picture, and what’s left looks an awful lot like the music business did in the 1920s, only with *.mp3s on the Internet replacing 78-rpm records on little radio stations (and both the records and the radio were themselves new technologies in the 1920s). Now as then, a plethora of artists and small, independent labels—and “stations.” Probably even more today, since the requisite technology has become so cheap and available. If the situation is much the same, shouldn’t the marketing strategy be also? What one wanted to do back in the 1920s is get one’s record played as often as possible on as many stations as possible. Not for money—one hoped to draw people to shows, or to buy records at the record store, the two cases where the artist made money. The writer made money when a record was pressed with the writer’s song on it—Federal law says so. If writer and artist were the same person, writer-artist made money both ways. I don’t think any of that has changed. I think that answers the question, “Should I have my music being played on internet ‘stations’?” The answer is yes. There is no money in it; there is only exposure—the same thing an artist got in the 1920s. “Butts in seats” (at concerts) and sales at the record store are still the only ways to make money. At least today, distribution is cheaper, because one doesn’t have to move as much physical product around. And thanks to the Internet’s distance-shortening capabilities, one needs fewer “stores.” I do need a Website. I also need more—and more frequent—“product.” It’s not so much that people’s attention spans have gotten shorter, but rather that I’m dealing with a more limited market. Unlike the big record companies, I don’t have a million people I can sell a CD to; I might have a thousand. But I could probably sell ‘em a CD a year if I had a CD a year to sell them. I have enough material for a CD every year—I’ve been pretty consistent about that. I just need to have one produced. And I do know how to get a CD produced cheap—an important consideration if one is doing short runs. Joe

HAPPY ASH WEDNESDAY… The new song, tentatively hight “Up in Heaven the Angels Play Music,” is in final form, I think, and recorded. Not really a religious song (except in the sense that “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” is a religious song). I will plan on performing it at the library next Saturday, and see what folks there call it—that’ll be its real title. (That’s if folks bother to request it again, of course; if they don’t, it won’t matter). Link is http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=8772093. The musicians at the library on Saturday and at City Hall on Friday were all trying to do love songs, in honor of Valentine’s Day, so I gave the library folks “When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You,” “Rotten Candy” (which was actually written on Valentine’s Day) and the Southern Pigfish anthem, “Love Trails of the Zombie Snails”; the folks at City Hall got to hear “Armadillo on the Interstate” and “Always Pet the Dogs.” Sold a CD Friday night, too. And on Saturday, I gave two CDs away. One went to Jane Scott, the video lady, who was filming Saturday morning’s visit by the local Congressman; Jane and I did the “Jeff Benson thing”—she apologized for never returning my phone calls, and I told her it was all right, and we both agreed we were both still interested in videotaping a “Deathgrass” concert to air on local cable TV (which covers two counties). She was excited about getting the CD, and with luck it will make her more interested in filming a concert. The other CD went to our local state representative, who had come to hear the Congressman (and apologized for not donating to the Food Pantry like she’d promised to); in her case, the CD may make her interested in coming to the next concert. Tentatively, we’ve got one concert around St. Leif’s Day (March 29), and one in June—another benefit for the Food Pantry. Music this week Wednesday and Saturday; I have City Council meetings to cover for the paper Tuesday and Thursday nights, a high school debate tournament to help judge Friday, and rehearsals for “The Tempest” Sunday (and next Tuesday, too), but it still feels like I’m not doing enough. The following week, I have Thursday nght free, and I think I’ll essay a trip into Portland for one of those open mikes. (There’s an open mike in Portland Friday night, too, that I might be able to get to after the speech tournament.) Open mikes may be the way to go to develop a bigger fan base, or a fan base in a new market (like Portland); I don’t have to generate an audience, because they’re already there. All I have to do is impress them. If I do it right, I may have people inviting me to do shows after a while, and people willing to attend them. I probably can devote one night a week long-term to this effort. I probably cannot afford to do more. I got word of somebody starting an open mike in Manzanita (20 miles or so north of here), and I offered myself; I think they really want bands, though—essentially auditioning talent they can hire to play weekends come summer—and I don’t think I can commit the band to an audition. I did tell the Manzanita folks the band was probably available come summer, but absent something they can listen to (CD) or watch (DVD), that may not matter much. I did see someone advertising on Portland Craigslist to record (for a fee, of course) live concerts—and it occurs to me I know somebody in this area who says he can do that, too: a local minister with some good recording equipment. I wonder if he’d be interested in recording the St. Leif’s concert? Joe

First Wednesday afternoon at the Garibaldi Pub was good. Ultimately, there were six of us—four guitars, one vocalist, and one fiddle. Appreciative audience, too (someone even left a tip). We’ll do it again next Wednesday. It could become a regular thing. We did the Circle Thing—each person leads a song, and everybody else follows. I was trying to limit what I did to covers, assuming everybody knew those—the one Leon Payne song I can sing, the one Hank Williams song I can sing, one of a couple Woody Guthrie songs I can sing, and so on—but somebody requested one of mine, and I not only had two people playing lead, I had people singing along on the chorus. I think I may have become an institution. Good to hear musician gossip, too. I heard that one duo that had been getting a number of gigs in this area had got caught up in the “we only pay for pay” routine, and abandoned most of their non-paying gigs, which are looking for replacements; they’ve also since lost a few of their paying gigs, and those need replacements, too. It’d be good to not have to do that solo; not only do I think I’m a better musician when I’m playing with somebody else, I think I’m a better salesman when I’m soliciting for somebody besides me, too. Feb. 11 came, without a demo finished of “Un-Easy Street”; I therefore sent “Duct Tape” to the MerleFest’s Chris Austin Songwriting Contest (deadline is Feb. 18). I used the commercially-done recording from the “Santa’s Fallen” album. I should be looking for another contest to enter; with the first “filter” of MerleFest entries being done by a pool of Nashville professionals, I may not stand much of a chance. I like contests I think I can win, and I’m not sure any more that I can win this one, even though I’ve entered. The band in Astoria is breaking up—has broken up, I guess; the lead player (who was very good) doesn’t want to do it any more, I think because it’s too far a drive for him (I understand—it’s a 2-hour drive for me). It allows me to feel regretful—I still haven’t played that Strat in public—but I’d been wondering myself if I was a good enough rock rhythm player to hang with these guys. I can do okay with country music, even playing lead, with occasional forays into bluegrass and blues, where I can kind of hold my own. At the risk of being typecast, maybe that’s what I should stick to. On the plus side, the band breakup has theoretically generated some free time (well, all my time is free, really—when one is unemployed, time has no value). I had committed myself to traveling out of town one night a week to practice with these guys. I could continue going out of town one night (or day) a week, just going somewhere else. (I even did that this past week, going into Portland to play at the Thirsty Lion.) Thursday nights are good for this (after next week); there’s Whitney Streed’s comedy open mike at the Mt. Tabor, and also a “writer’s night” at a place called Macadam’s, both in Portland. Cost to me is a tank of gas and a couple of overpriced soft drinks. There isn’t a time cost because (as noted above) my time has no value. I have harped on the need for exposure, and that one cannot get the exposure without performing out. If and as opportunities present themselves to perform more locally, I can substitute those for the trips out of town. And the new song? More like the New Song In Progress, but it’s progressing—the first verse finally fell into place this morning, so I now have first, third, and fifth verses, I think. Since there’s no chorus, just a refrain (yes, another one of those), it probably needs to have six or seven verses to hit the “magic length” of 3-1/2 minutes. It’s bluegrass music (though I put the death in the first verse, rather than the last, just to be perverse), so it’ll move pretty fast. Just a “there ain’t gonna be no good music in Heaven ‘cause there’s nothing to write about” song. I could hear Polly Hager’s band doing it, but they may not be interested: it’s definitely not rock ‘n’ roll. I don’t expect it’ll be finished and practiced enough to perform it at City Hall tonight; tomorrow at the library? Maybe. Joe

The Thirsty Lion gig wasn’t a disappointment, because I didn’t intend it to be. No, no money, no CD sales, and no additions to the “joelist,” but the audience was pretty appreciative (if pretty small), and I got to play what I wanted, and it was fun. Host Eric John Kaiser did remember me (I thought he might). They got six songs: Take-Out Food (Stan Good) When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You Hey, Little Chicken The Abomination Two-Step Armadillo on the interstate Crosses by the Roadside In order: death, lost love, betrayal, religion, and dead animals, plus one serious song. Alternating fast and slow songs as usual, so things don’t sound alike—but I think I perform the two-steps better. The audience liked “The Abomination Two-Step” a lot (most outrageous song on the list), and “Crosses by the Roadside” the best—but by the time we got to that one, I had their attention, so it was to be expected. The other musicians (well, two out of three) paid attention, too, and both approached me afterwards to tell me how much they liked what Eric John Kaiser called the “stories.” And those two guys were pretty good themselves. The black guy who spoke French (Haitian, maybe?) definitely had command of his instrument, and had really catchy rhythms and melodies; nothing really new in the subject matter, which was mostly love songs, but all that means is that nobody famous is going to be cutting his stuff. Definitely worth listening to. The other one, whom I thought of as “the kid” (he was obviously over 21—this was a bar), had singing and guitar playing reminiscent of Robbie Robertson of The Band, and had written some very good material. Probably as close to country music as one is going to get in Portland. (The third guy, who played what he called “acoustic pop rock,” probably doesn’t warrant mention; he may have been full of himself, but he wasn’t very good. I hope I don’t come across like him on stage.) I signed the usual release form allowing Portland Concert Coop to air a video of my performance (they never did air the last one, but Eric promised it’d air this time); Eric did the videotaping, and it streamed live on justintv. I assume there’s video footage archived somewhere, and I would like to see it. I would like to see how I come across in public. And I got—maybe—the beginnings of a new song on the way home. I do need to get out more. That’s where the inspiration is. The benefit concert for Val will be late March or early April, I’m told—close enough to give it a St. leif’s Day theme. (That probably means the band needs to learn “The Six-Legged Polka.”) We’ve got John (bass), Chris (drums) and me (rhythm guitar); we can’t have Doc—he’ll be out of town—but maybe we can enlist Mike to play lead guitar. The organizers were thinking about having two bands, and I recommended they have each band do an hour-and-a-half show—that’d allow folks to make an evening of it, and it wouldn’t be hard on the musicians. And I’ve been tapped (thanks to wife Sandee) to play guitar at a Tillamook Monday Night Musical performance. Just one song—Bill Brio’s singing “All My Exes Live in Texas,” accompanied by a music teacher who plays piano, Doc Wagner on the blues harp—and me. Just a fun thing—but this group are seriously professional (and classical) musicians. It’d be good to hook up with them. Joe

Good points, all. Sideline thought: "I love you, but your cousin makes me drool" sounds like a line that needs a song to go with it. Joe

So a writer in Florida posts on a Website out of Indiana that a radio station DJ in Manchester, England is looking for country music for his show, and the DJ gets submissions from folks in Oregon (me), California, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, and Nova Scotia (it’s in Canada, but it’s close). Is this a new thing? Not really; 30-plus years ago, myself and another guy would go on the road with a Dodson Drifters single for several weeks, hitting every rural radio station that played country music, and talk to the DJs and give them the record. If they liked it, they’d play it, and if people liked it, they’d request it. This isn’t any different. It feels different because it doesn’t happen very often. There are few radio stations with live DJs in control of their own playlists any more; where there are, you can still get airplay for good stuff. There’s the Internet now, too; it shortens distance—and that’s a good thing; that radio station is in England, and I couldn’t drive there. I don’t have to. I also know a few people in England (thanks again to the Internet), and if the DJ does agree to play my stuff, I’ll let those folks know, and maybe the DJ will get some calls from “fans.” That kind of deck-stacking wasn’t possible 30 years ago, either. Is there a lesson here? Maybe; it’s not about the value of the Internet as a marketing tool, though, but rather about the value of “networking,” as it’s called in the Modern Era—people staying in touch with each other, and helping each other out. The Internet, I think, simply allows one to be in touch with a larger number of people over a wider area. From my end, I need to find ways to become more efficient about it, else it will become way too time-consuming. I have not managed that yet. The Ballad—tentatively titled “Last Song of the Highwayman”—is finished, I think. Of course it’s not hit material; there hasn’t been a market for medieval folk ballads for decades, and even when there was, nobody wanted original ones—they wanted renditions of traditional ones out of the Child and suchlike catalogs. “Last Song of the Highwayman” is just an application of the “write in different genres” item on the 2010 Worklist. (And it’s not the only new genre I plan to write in.) I really don’t know what sort of venue (if any) it might be performable in. I ran into Jeff Benson in Tillamook; we hadn’t talked since he bailed out suddenly from the First Failed Economy Show, leaving us without a lead guitarist. We sorta made up, I think; he sort of apologized, and I sort of let him know there were no hard feelings. I reminded him there’s been no live music at the Ghost Hole in Garibaldi since he moved, and he and I stopped performing there, and maybe we’ll do it again. Good singing voice, decent lead guitarist, and he’s written a few tunes that are pretty good, and ought to get played more (one of the things I think playing with me did was encourage him to perform his own original material). The band “Deathgrass” is tentatively being tapped to play a benefit concert in March for our local Port Commission president, who just had a cancer operation; I’m game, and so is drummer Chris, but I don’t know about the rest. Blues harpist “Doc”’s availability gets a bit limited in March. In addition, Terry Kandle, our local fiddle player, wants to assemble a small group of acoustic musicians to jam at the Garibaldi Pub (next door to the Ghost Hole) Wednesday afternoons. Wednesday afternoons I can do—not being employed and all. Thirsty Lion gig Tuesday night, the jam Wednesday, practice with the band in Astoria on Friday, and music at the library on Saturday, plus a couple of city council meetings to cover for the paper and my column to write. Are we busy yet? Joe

Yes, I will be the bo’sun in TAPA’s production of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Crusty, crotchety old fellow with relatively few lines (mostly chewing out the Idjit Noblemen who keep getting in the way while the ship is sinking). Yes, I can do that. It’s almost type-casting. It would be possible—and I suggested it—to do “The Tempest” as Rock Opera, rather than using the conventional Elizabethan-music soundtrack; so many classic rock songs would be appropriate for this play (the authors of the songs may in fact have stolen some of their lines from ol’ Bill, who was dead and didn’t care)—in the chase scene, for instance, with the conjured-up wolves, why couldn’t one play “Who Let the Dogs Out?” as the evildoers flounder about on (and eventually off) stage? It would be fun. (It’s also unlikely to happen.) They may, however, take my suggestion of having the cast take their final bows to the strains of The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer”; it has that classic line (perfect for this play), “I thought love was only true in fairy tales…” Another call from the music publisher in California to her mailing list, this time for a “funny, funny” song; that one sounded like it was directed at me—most of my material is humorous. She only wanted one submission, though, and it was hard to choose, even given the parameters (radio-ready master available, and not published elsewhere)—9 of the 11 songs on the “Santa’s Fallen” CD would work, for instance, and I have more besides that. I ended up sending the classic: “I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas,” with Anna Snook on fiddle, Matt Snook on dobro, and Sharon Porter on standup bass. I expect (as usual) no miracles—but I do expect the publisher to know who I am. I talked to the Bay City Arts Center about being their executive director; their executive director is moving, but I also saw their financials—they don’t have the money to hire a replacement. They appear to be doing okay (thus far) without an executive director; it takes a lot of volunteer labor, but they’re managing, so I didn’t want to press too hard for a job that isn’t going to pay anything (because they no longer have any money). The BCAC did get a fair amount of grant money last year, and probably most of that is renewable if they want to press for it, and they may not need me to do that. I did point out to ‘em that the “Joe Wrabek concert” the band and I did for them last year generated enough money to warrant its own line item on their balance sheet. It would be fun to do that again. Jim Nelson, who has run the Arts Center’s infrequent open mikes, wants to do one every month now, but wants to clone himself—training other people to be hosts, like “Little Thom” did at the Wild Goose in Ashland. I volunteered to be one of Jim’s clone-trainees; I’ll learn how to run a sound system, and also a video camera (they’re going to videotape the open mikes, too). They’ll have a film class later in the spring which I’d like to take if it’s not too expensive. Sent “Take-Out Food” off to the MerleFest’s Chris Austin Songwriting Contest; I’ll send them “Un-Easy Street” if John can get the professional recording finished in time, but if not, I’ll send one that has been professionally recorded—either “Duct Tape” or “Bluebird on My Windshield,” I think. Both are off the last album, recorded at Listen Studios in La Grande. Like most songwriting contests, this one has rules that say any kind of recording is okay, but their first “filter” is a bunch of industry professionals in Nashville, and I expect they’ll pan anything that’s not professionally done. No matter what the rules say, presentation counts for a lot. Joe

The gig at the Thirsty Lion is confirmed. TUESDAY, 9 FEBRUARY; show starts 8:30 p.m., and I’m on after host Eric John Kaiser—probably about 9:00. I’ll be playing solo, and I’ll have 25 minutes. Unpaid, of course (I’ll bring the Big Yellow “Tipping Is Not A City in China” Bucket, and see if I can at least recover gas money). Last time I did this—last June—that was enough time for seven songs; I’ll plan on seven this time. I usually introduce myself with the “describe what you do in one sentence” tag I gave Songstuff, the British writers’ group—“Happy, upbeat, uptempo songs about death, lost love, betrayal, religion, and dead animals”—and that begs the question whether I can include all those things in a set. I can. I can even do ‘em in order: DEATH: Take-Out Food (Stan Good)—manic & sleazy LOST LOVE: When I Jump Off the Cliff I’ll Think of You—fast bluegrass BETRAYAL: Hey, Little Chicken—sleazy quasi-blues RELIGION: The Abomination Two-Step—fast bluegrass DEAD ANIMALS: Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy That’s five; need two more. How about: GLOBAL WARMING: The Termite Song—fast bluegrass ONE SERIOUS SONG: Crosses by the Roadside—mod. two-step I’m thoroughly comfortable with it this time around, I think; I’m not trying to impress anybody, and I have no expectations. Like last time, there’s going to be a prize awarded at the end of the month, but like last time, it’s going to go to the performer(s) that brought the largest cheering section, and that’s not me, because I’m not bringing one at all. Oh, I’ll send a notice to the “joelist,” and post an “event” on Facebook, and there are people in both places who live in Portland, but I’m not expecting them to come. The prize this time is a recording session at Portland’s 8 Ball Studios (which does have a good reputation, by the way), but as I told Eric, I don’t need it—we’re already recording the album. So I don’t care—and not caring is satisfyingly liberating. I intend simply to have fun. The Thirsty Lion is a nice place (a big one, too), and if there’s a ball game just before the music (there was last time), and I get to be on first (after host Eric), I get to inherit a good-sized and generally appreciative crowd. The setlist is just fun stuff, too—I’ll get to see how the crowd reacts without having to worry about it. Supposedly the performance will be videotaped by the Portland Concert Co-op, and streamed later from their Website; that was promised last time, too, but it never happened (even though I signed a release form). So again, I expect nothing. Poster’s mostly done, I think; I just had to change the date from last time (though I might want to put in a gratuitous plug for host Eric John Kaiser, just because). I still have the notice to do. It is shaping up to be a busy week. Besides calling in nightly to see if I’m on a jury (I’ll be doing that all of February), I have the audition for Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” Sunday night (rehearsals won’t start for another two weeks), the Bay City Arts Center Board meeting Monday night (I’m trying to talk them into hiring me as their executive director), music Friday night at City Hall and Saturday afternoon at the Tillamook Library, a birthday party to go to in Portland Saturday night, and the Thirsty Lion the following Tuesday. I have Glyn Duncan’s song to work on, The Ballad to finish, and I think I talked Wyman Lloyd into letting me musicate “The Cat Goddess Creeps.” I have the songs from the band in Astoria to work on, too. Maybe if I fill the schedule up really good, somebody will call me for a job interview. It usually works like that. Joe

Sometimes it is just hard to write… I didn’t finish this week’s column for the paper until nearly 1 a.m. (about seven hours later than I like), and it was hard to get the two news articles for the paper done, too. They are done, though, along with yet another job application (which just might turn into an interview—they did call to talk after they got my stuff), and maybe the worst of the Dead Writing Spot is over. The Ballad is still waiting on a fifth and final verse—I would like to be done with it before I work on anything else. There’s a new Wyman Lloyd song I’d really like to musicate (and I’ve never done any of his stuff), a dark, spooky thing hight “The Cat Goddess Creeps.” I hear it as a bluegrass waltz—of course—with cats as backup singers (I do have a number of cat voices recorded in the ‘puter, back from recording “The Cat with the Strat”). And it would make a great music video, too. (I probably want to do it as bluegrass music because our cats hate country music of all types.) It’s even been suggested that Polly Hager might sing it. Sent off ideas for the Southern Oregon Songwriters newsletter to new president John Cummings; I don’t know how interested he’ll be—or even if he wants me to do the newsletter (it wasn’t brought up at SOSA’s annual meeting, though they do know their current newsletter editor is leaving). SOSA will be doing a “recital” (better term than “open mike,” I think) at the Talent Community Center in mid-to-late February, and do want me to do the posters for that; I’d like to go, too—it’ll be the first time SOSA has done one of these outside of a bar, and it would be interesting to see first-hand how it goes, and what needs to be improved. Got invited to be in a play—our local little theater, the Tillamook Assn. for the Performing Arts (TAPA), is doing a production of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” The invite is through wife Sandee, who’s performed in a lot of TAPA productions and is on their Board; the director is apparently a high school speech coach who knows me. I ‘spect it’ll be fun; performance, as I’ve lectured a lot, is performance, no matter what form it takes, and I can act a 16th-century boatswain as easily as I can a reincarnation of Hank Williams with a roadkill fetish. Audition is Sunday evening. And I’m trying an old thing. Eric John Kaiser is still doing (or doing again) his “Portland Songwriters’ Showcase” Tuesday nights at the Thirsty Lion in Old Town Portland, only this time there’s no pretense that “winners” (those who bring the largest cheering section) will get paid gigs. Instead, he’s offering a prize of a recording session—which I really don’t need. I messaged him anyway; the Thirsty Lion is a nice place, with a relatively attentive audience on Tuesday nights (I played there once, about this time last year), and I would like to do it again. I guess I’ll get to see if he’s really as excited about my music as he acted last February. Two months (and one of them a short month) until St. Leif’s Day (March 29); since St. Leif is the patron saint of bagpipes (among other things), one should really be playing music somewhere. I wonder what I can arrange? Music Friday this week (along with jury duty), Friday and Saturday next week—plus banjo and dobro player Matt Snook is supposed to be visiting the area. My deadline for getting the song entries off to the Merlefest is Feb. 11, so there’s not a lot of time to work with. At this point, we still have only “base” tracks for “Take-Out Food” and “Un-Easy Street.” Joe

Like Bilbo Baggins said, “I’m back.” Southern Oregon is always fun, and I always accomplish stuff. It’s what I miss about living there. Dave, the host at the Wild Goose’s open mike, approached me asking if he could cover any of my songs on his new album—to which the answer, of course, is “Of course.” All my material is up for grabs, and I told him so. Dave plays with a good band (which is getting gigs), and is a good guitarist himself. So I’ll send him a copy of the Songbook, which has links to everything of mine that’s archived on line (there are just a handful of songs that aren’t), and have him tell me what he wants to use. I’ll send it by snail-mail rather than e-mail; the Acrobat (*.pdf) file e-mails well, but the physical package has the nice label and cover art—and he’s going to need that stuff done for the new album, isn’t he? Good idea to let him know (without being intrusive about it) that I do that stuff, too. I rather expect he hasn’t thought about copyright fees (most small-time musicians don’t), but I have; I’ll give him a signed waiver giving him permission to record the songs he specifies for this specific album (as soon as he tells me what those are) and not have to pay the fees, because I don’t care. (We’re not talking about a million-seller album here.) All I need is the statement on the album cover for each song, “©J. Wrabek [DATE] dba Outside Services Ltd. Used by permission.” My first application of the WMPPMS item on the 2010 Worklist: Want More People Playing My Stuff. This is, I think, my niche in the music business. I write songs that other people perform, and record, and make famous, and as a result, I get to write more songs for other people. This is what Bob Dylan did, and John Denver, Willie Nelson, Neil Sadaka, and a bunch of others. It is also cloning myself. Dave and his band are hitting a different (and maybe wider) market than I do, and this gets those people, whoever and however many of them there are, listening to my stuff, too. Note that this particular instance is not making money (though making money at this is another item on the 2010 Worklist). I think that part comes later. In addition, while Down South, I found a way to get copies of the DVDs from the two public-television shows made for a decent price. Package goes in the mail tomorrow. And the Wild Goose was fun—it always is. Over its (I think) 8-year run, the Goose’s open mike has become a haven for writers, to the point where it’s expected that you’re going to play original material. Some folks bring their bands, or pieces of them, and some of them are very professional (and getting paid for what they do). It’s nice to know I can go up against those folks and do okay. The Goose crowd, which included those writers plus an audience of which maybe half knew me and half didn’t, got “Take-Out Food” (which is definitely a hit), the Southern Pigfish talking blues “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot” (since there were so many political rants that night, I had to contribute my own two cents), and “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” (which had some people singing along). “Grendel,” one of the two computers I intend to get out of the four hulks in the garage, has an operating system problem; when Windows “repaired” itself, it corrupted the registry and now Windows XP has to be replaced. That entails buying a new copy of WinXP (since one didn’t come with the ‘puter)—if I can find one. Stores are no longer carrying it. Failing that, the 20MB hard drive is history and will have to be replaced. I do have a spare, but it’s a lot smaller and is running Windows 98. Before I left on the trip, Chris, John and I got “base” tracks recorded for “Un-Easy Street,” “Armadillo on the Interstate” and “Take-Out Food.” First two we were able to do in one take (these guys are good). Three songs at one time is about the limit of John’s portable unit, which is recording to a 128MB digital-camera chip. On the trip, I got four (of five) verses done for The Ballad, along with the chorus—long trips in the car are good for this. Music Friday and Saturday this week. Joe

An independent musician these days has to do everything. They write their own lyrics, and set them to music, and unless they’ve got a band to work with, they perform the songs on their own, too. They have to arrange their own gigs, and mostly do their own promotion. They have to either record their own stuff or find somebody to do it, and they have to either play all the instruments themselves or find somebody to do it (and in both cases, that “somebody to do it” probably has to get paid). They make their own records, and sell them themselves. And if they ever make any money at it (some do), they have to be their own business manager. Something is seriously wrong with that picture. It’s great to be a “renaissance man” (or woman), but we’re not all good at everything; each person is good at some things and not good at others. I want to write, and I’m good at graphic design, not much else. What’s the chance I could hook up with people who are weak where I’m strong (and vice versa), and we could help each other? It’s an application—taken a step further—of “The Collaborators” idea. The Collaborators were a bunch of writers (I was one) back in the early “aughts” who collectively recorded each others’ stuff, with ourselves as the band. The members of The Collaborators were from all over the world, but the idea would work in a smaller geographic area, too (I think—I’ve never convinced a group of musicians to try it)—a half-dozen writers, say, who put out an album with two each of their songs, performed by all of them collectively as the band. The collective I was envisioning would incorporate more talents than just musicianship. If you’re putting out a record, somebody’s doing the producing, the recording, the mastering; somebody’s designing the label and cover, and typesetting the liner notes; somebody’s making the copies, or getting them made, and somebody’s doing the legal paperwork and arranging for the online sales. That’s all potentially easy to arrange. I actually do know people who do all those things—including play the instruments very well; the way you’d arrange for payment, I think, would be for each to charge a nominal amount and be guaranteed a percentage of sales. The amount and the percentage are details that would have to be worked out. But production of a CD isn’t the goal; these days, the CD is “merch”—no different from the T-shirt or button. The musician (or the collective) is in the same position as a jeweler who has designed an absolutely beautiful piece of jewelry; yes, ‘tis tres cool—but the jeweler does not make money until he SELLS that piece of jewelry. Marketing is key—marketing that results in paying gigs for at least the “artist” types who will be performing the material. Gigs that get attention for the “merch,” and provide opportunities to sell it. How does the collective arrange that? And what resources are necessary to have in the collective to pull it off? Follow-up question: How much of the marketing resources have to be local? Used t’be, they all had to—but the Internet has connected distant people in ways that once weren’t possible. Could I have a concert in Portland (say) arranged by somebody in California (say), with the promotion coming from (say) England? It may be possible. It may be time to re-write “Getting Heard,” that 1970s how-to manual for working bands. UPDATES: Beyond half-baked plans for taking over the music industry, I haven’t done much. Scott Garriott (in Ashland) wants an electric banjo lead on one of his songs, and I should do that before going to southern Oregon; the “Deathgrass” recording session is Saturday, after which the guitar, the truck and I will head south. Chance to play at the Wild Goose Sunday night, after the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. annual meeting. Joe