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Let’s assume for a moment that I know what I’m doing. I can write stuff—I have written stuff. I have other musicians who want to play with me. There are venues (a few, anyway) that want me to play there—presumably, they think I’ll bring in customers. I can put on a show of at least 2 hours tailored for just about any kind of audience. And I’ve sold out five pressings of my CD. (Yes, all the pressings were small, but it’s the principle of the thing.) Sounds like we’re ready to Take It To The Next Level, doesn’t it? So what IS the next level, and how do we get there? Back in the days of the Dodson Drifters, 30 years ago, we would be cutting a new record and takin g it around personally to the DJs at radio stations. If they thought it was good, they’d play it, and promote it—and we’d get people at gigs, and they’d be buying the record. We’d also at this point have a booking agent arranging the gigs (actually, with the Dodson Drifters, it was the booking agent who contacted us, not vice versa). The second part of that strategy may still work, but the first part?. There are very few radio stations these days with DJs; most stations these days do not control their own playlists, and nothing new or independent gets played. On the other hand, people don’t seem to listen to the radio like they did 30 years ago (boring may have something to do with it). These days, it’s the Internet that’s ubiquitous. The Internet does have the advantage of not being controlled by anybody. It has the disadvantage of not having any filters. Nobody’s performing the function of those old radio station DJs, identifying and promoting talent. Or is there? Those who get their music off the Internet are not searching blindly; there is at least the beginnings of a filtration system. Some of the players are big, like Rhapsody and iTunes, and some are small, like those little podcasters that seem to be cropping up in all sorts of places. It is those folks, big and small, I should treat like the old radio station DJs, making sure they know who I am, and making sure they get copies of everything I professionally produce. There are a lot more of them, and the little guys and gals especially “cover” much smaller markets—but on the other hand, it’s cheaper to reach them. Back in the ‘70s, getting records in the hands of DJs meant a couple of us going on the road for a couple of months, staying in cheap motels and personally delivering 45s to the DJs. (We would often get interviewed, too—a big plus. Wonder if one could start that trend again?) These days, “Alice” the ‘puter can do it from the inexpensive comfort of my home; all I have to do is set up the mailing list—a clone of the “joelist,” really. The process is a lot like the old radio distribution, too, in that it’s all promotion, not sales. The Dodson Drifters never made a dime off radio; the records we gave away to radio stations were just CODB—Cost Of Doing Business. Where we made money, as a performing band, was getting gigs. Promorion, I think, is the highest and best use of the Internet, too, in its present anarchic state. Perhaps the best one can shoot for is being able to direct listeners to points-of-sale like CDBaby where they can buy a CD—but the money is still going to be in the gigs, just as it was 30 years ago. And just like 30 years ago, I’ll want a professional product to send the podcast folks. That’ll be the New Album (still planned for just before Christmas). In the meantime, what I can do is identify and contact the podcasters, find out how best to get material to them, and give them the last (“Santa’s Fallen”) album as a “here’s what it sounds like” tool. Sound like a good work program? UPCOMING: Garibaldi Days starts today. The Friday Night Group plays tonight, the “Garibaldi’s Got Talent!” Show is tomorrow, and so is the band concert in the park. A week from Saturday is the Garibaldi Museum show, and then we’ve got to send the Dylan-wannabe recording to England, with its entry fee in British pounds. SOSA concert in Central Point is 22 August. Wonder if I’ll have any more job interviews? Joe

Three days till Garibaldi Days… The DVDs of last Saturday’s Ashland public television shows are done—I should have them in a week, and will get to see how they came out. I know that what Darrin and I, and emcee T-Poe, did in the studio was good; what I don’t know is how it came out on “tape.” The Tillamook County Library System are the latest folks to request copies. The Garibaldi Days program is printed, and looks okay. (Next time, though, I’ll make sure to use a front-page photo that doesn’t go all pixelly when blown up.) People are making copies of pieces of it and posting them around town, and I hope that means they liked the job, too. It was fun—but I have told everybody in creation that if I do this again, we are starting earlier and we will have a firm (and early) deadline. Another job application sent off—this one to be city manager in the little city of Gold Hill, 16 miles up-freeway from Phoenix, where I used to work, and just outside the burgeoning Medford metro area. Three state jobs, too. Still to apply for: a financial-guru job at the local cheese factory, and two more public-sector ones—a city planner position and a city recorder one, both out of town. I am turning over every rock possible to see if there’s a paycheck hiding under it. One of the Nashville music publishers I’m now on the mailing list for sent out a call for material for a new Darius Rucker album, so I spent a little time listening to Rucker’s stuff, most of which he apparently writes himself. It’s “modern country,” I guess—stuff that would have been considered rock music 30 years or so ago—but I did run across one song that had a bluegrassy feel to it (even had a banjo playing in the background). So the publisher got sent “Rotten Candy,” the [drum roll] Song That Was Rejected By American Idol in 2007. It is probably my most commercially viable song; it was written, after all, deliberately to comply with every single one of Nashville’s songwriting rules as I knew them—including the ones that didn’t make any sense. And it’s definitely bluegrassy. All I could send the publisher, though, was a draft recording (the industry would call it a “mixtape”) done on the Tascam. The vocals and guitars (rhythm and lead) are okay, but it’s not the “full band treatment” one is supposed to send folks like this, and I don’t know how it’ll be received. When the band practices the song for our Garibaldi Days concert (it’s on the setlist) we should record it at the same time. I can add the lead guitar—maybe even Electric Banjo—later, and then we’ll have a Real Demo. Suitable for the album, in fact (“Rotten Candy” is one of the songs on that list, too). The lesson (there are always lessons): I should “demoify” every song that’s got the potential to get recorded or performed by somebody else. You never know when you’re going to need it. The Garibaldi Days Rap doesn’t need to be written; it’s already done (I apparently did it before I went on Road Trip #2, and then forgot I’d done so). All I have to do is memorize and rehearse it. The band will practice Wednesday afternoon and evening, and Friday afternoon. We’re allocating enough time to go through the 2-hour setlist at least twice each session. Dick has heard all the songs, John all but one, and Chris about half of them, and all three are very good at what they do. I am not anticipating we’ll have to spend a lot of time on the material. Still to do: Posters for the band’s Garibaldi Days concert. Programs for the next SOSA concert (it’s two weeks away, but I promised I’d have them done early). And another column for the newspaper (my third). And the demo to finish for the Dylan-song contest in England. The base track (rhythm guitar, vocal, bass and drums) is done, I think; just need to add lead guitar and blues harp. That one’s destined for the album, too, so the recording can do double duty. Joe

Road Trip #2 was okay. Job interview went well; Gold Beach is a really nice place, and I think I’d enjoy living and working there. I’ll find out if I’m the Chosen One in a week or so. And the public television taping was lots of fun. I’m in the burlesque show, too. (From public television to burlesque in one day. I think that suggests versatility. Doesn’t it?) On the Bad News front, the only rejection letter I got while I was gone was a music one, from the West Linn Library, saying they’re not interested in having me as a performer. They didn’t say it was because they didn’t like my stuff—just that there were too many applicants. (Nonetheless, the fact they picked other people instead of me means they liked those folks’ stuff better.) And Rowan (Banjo Girl) can’t play the banjo for a while—she got tendonitis. I offered to try to contact her again in a month and see if things are better. So the banjo got to make a thousand-mile trip in the van and is still with me. TV is a fascinating medium. It’s all illusion: the studio is a cavernous concrete-block space with multitudinous lights hanging from a ceiling two stories above; there are three cameras, all manned, and a sound room four times the size the Dodson Drifters had, crammed with equipment and manned by two more people. The stage is actually a very small platform in the middle of the room, and the space for the studio audience is small, too (which was good—we had only a small audience), but you’d never know it when you see it on TV. The Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. tapes two shows a month here, except in August and September.(when everybody in SOSA is busy with the summer concerts). The “serious issues” RVTV show came in at 29 minutes 33 seconds (out of 30 minutes), and we didn’t have to change a thing. In the “not serious” show, we cut the lead break out of the last song and the show came in at 29 minutes 44 seconds. Near perfect timing, in other words. Darrin and I had practiced the two previous nights, and had everything note-perfect for the show. Since I can’t receive Ashland public television in Garibaldi (just Portland public television), I ordered DVDs of the show (they want $10 apiece for those). I’ll have to find out if it’s legal to make copies. A number of people have asked for DVDs of the shows. I do have one follow-up I can do after the RVTV shows air. I had contacted Ariella St. Clair, a concert promoter in Ashland, last year, and been told by her she wasn’t interested in me because I wasn’t famous enough. I asked what would make me famous enough, and was told, “I only do people who’ve been on public television.” Now I can find out if she was serious, or if that was just an excuse. I will have been on public television. While in southern Oregon, I got to see Darrin’s band (hight The Hired Guns) perform Friday night (impressive show). The Hired Guns will also be the backup band for songwriter Larry West (their lead guitarist) when he plays Central Point 22 August—the same day I do. I also delivered both Darrin and Dan CDs with the setlist for our 22 August concert in Central Point. That show’s an hour 15 minutes long (last year’s shows were only half an hour). Got to meet the organizers of the burlesque show in Portland, and talk with them a bit about what they had in mind. I only played them two songs, “The Taboo Song” (which they hadn’t heard) and “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” (which they had). I got the impression they’d made up their mind they wanted me in the show before I got there. Their next step is a general meeting, sometime in August, of all the performers they’ve selected. First show is planned for late September at the Hawthorne Theater, which I’ve been told is a nice—and big—performance space with a good sound system. Now that I’m back, I have half a dozen more jobs to apply for (including the City of Gold Hill, also in southern Oregon, which is hiring their first-ever city manager), and practice for the Garibaldi Days concert—which is this coming Saturday. Still need to write the script for that, too. Joe

The Garibaldi Days program is done. I can’t say “finally,” because a lot of the delay is my own fault—I waited until the last minute to do anything. Of course, I didn’t get the last ads until 11 p.m. yesterday, and had to design one from scratch today from an e-mail, but it was fun nonetheless. I stayed up until 3 a.m. working on it, and was up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7, anxious to finish the job. I do love this kind of work. It goes to the printer—that part is not my job—tonight. Even though it felt like it took a long time, it really didn’t. Had I been charging for my time (which I was not), the bill, even at the high prices I used to charge, would have been only a few hundred bucks. And the product is—even if I do say so myself—pretty good. I hope the Lions Club and the advertisers like it. (I suppose a copy should go in the Joe Portfolio so I can use it to impress people.) One of the ads I got for the Garibaldi Days program was from [drum roll] a recording studio. Girl who was selling the ads is married to a rock guitarist whose band is playing at Garibaldi Days, and he uses ‘em. I don’t know if they’re any good—I haven’t heard any of his records—but it’s nice to know the business exists. “Always Pet the Dogs” is recorded. Just a simple couple-of-takes rendition on the Tascam, but it should be sufficient show-and-tell for the band down in southern Oregon. I’ve included it on the setlist for the August 22 concert in Central Point. I won’t include it in the RVTV taping this Saturday (7/18), or the Garibaldi Days concert next Saturday (7/25)—those sets are, well, set, and I won’t change them at the last minute. I don’t know if I’d include the song in the Museum gig the following week (8/1); I’ll ask the band. It is a fairly simple tune, but the band is not getting a lot of time to practice, and I’ve been trying to stick to familiar material. On the other hand, audiences do half-expect me to keep coming up with new stuff (me being a writer, and all); the song could get a pretty good hearing, even on a “we’re playing this in public for the first time” basis. Other songs have. I was excited about “Always Pet the Dogs,” because I thought it was pretty good, but looking at it realistically (which one has to do eventually), I don’t have a lot of places I can go with it. I don’t control “Star-Maker machinery” that can get my material a lot of exposure; all I can do is perform it, and put it on the next album, and neither of those is really big-time stuff. I do know a number of music publishers (the number is three), but—no offense to the publishers, if they’re reading this—that may not count for a lot. Publishers these days are in exactly the same position real estate agents are, trying to peddle an increasing volume of material to a shrinking number of mostly disinterested buyers. It’s probably worth an e-mail—not sending the song (most publishers flat refuse any unsolicited material), but just asking if they’d be interested in listening. The key to getting attention for a good song—and that’s not just this song, but ANY good song—is getting it performed by more people, people who hopefully reach larger audiences than I can myself. That was the principle put into practice in the Failed Economy Show, where we performed a lot of good songs by writers every bit as unknown as I am. (And the ones that got people dancing we want to keep playing, as a regular part of our repertoire.) I’d like to see other people performing my stuff—some do already, just not on the scale I’d wish. Royalty-free, of course; I’m not interested in revenue so much as I am exposure. When I get the phone call that says, “Y’know, we’d really like to include this song on our next album,” that’s the point where we can talk about those little copyright fees. Otherwise, I’d be happy if people just played the song, and mentioned my name. Another outlet—one that’s not dependent on other people—is that Great Lakes Song Contest I keep hearing about. Their spam messages are pretty annoying—to the point where I was going to refuse to enter their contest—but I could send them “Always Pet the Dogs.” Worth the entry fee? Probably. The band will need to record base tracks, and then Dick and I can overlay harmonica and guitar leads, respectively. John (bass player/sound engineer) is pretty busy with his new city-manager job, but we could maybe do this in conjunction with practice. Leaving tomorrow for the job interview, et al. I have not packed. And I still have stuff to do. Joe

I have tried a couple of times to devote an issue of the blog to exploring what I think is the changing relationship between fans and performers—something Lorelei Loveridge, founder of Performing Songwriters (United Worldwide) devoted a legal paper to recently. The legal paper, though, raised questions, and I want answers. And I thought of some. But I haven’t been able thus far to express them in the space I allot myself for issues of the blog. I treat these “bloggies” like songs—I have an arbitrary length I do not want to go over, and if I can’t express a complete thought in that space, I won’t. I will try again. It’s training in being economical with words, that is going to carry over into (among other places) songwriting. The argument I was trying to make is that while the relations between the Big Boys and their fans can be expressed in contractual terms—the parties being remote from and isolated from each other, and their “interfaces” consisting of transactions involving the exchange of money—mine aren’t like that. My relations with my fans are a lot more personal; our communication is a lot more two-way—I listen as well as speak, and they know I do (I think)—and our transactions often do not involve money. I think a lot of (maybe most) small-timers are in similar boats. I think that’s an opportunity for me (us). I (we) are delivering something the market (if we can apply such a crass term to a bunch of individual people) wants. In an increasingly encapsulated world, folks crave personal contact, and they also need to feel they’re important to somebody besides that small circle of family and friends they hang with. Point Two: I (we) can deliver that, and the Big Boys can’t. And every thing that I (we) can do that they can’t do needs to be looked at real carefully, because it’s an opportunity to level the playing field. Now, I don’t have too much trouble satisfying the fans right now. The numbers are pretty small, as are the venues I play at, and while I don’t have money to let me travel around a lot, I sure do have time. But what if—by some wild stretch of the imagination—things get better? I’ve said repeatedly that in five years, I want to be making half my income off music. That means—since I do not and will not have access to what Joni Mitchell called “the Star-Maker machinery”—I’ll be playing more gigs, to bigger crowds, and staying in touch with a much larger number of people. And therein lies a big challenge. I have to be able to hang onto those two important aspects of the relationship—(1) those folks feel I know them, and (2) those folks feel they’re important because I know them—and I accordingly can’t let myself get sucked into “the Star-Maker machinery” even if the chance happens because it will “remotify” me from my people, transforming our relationship from a personal into a contractual one, and I don’t want that. I would be jettisoning the very thing that enabled me to be successful in the first place. Instead, while I’m small-time, I need to figure out ways to be more efficient at the same time I’m continuing to be effective. (That is a lot easier to say than do.) UPDATES: The music store in Tillamook got my last 5 CDs—and a poster to hang in the window. A bunch of people have asked for DVDs of the RVTV shows, and I’ll try to accommodate them (I need a DVD myself—I can’t receive Ashland public television here on the Coast). While I’m down in southern Oregon, there will NOT be a SOSA showcase at Johnny B.’s in Medford—it’s been postponed, to a date when I can’t be there. I “MySpaced” Johnny, asking if he needed an opening act for the band he’s got coming in, but I’ll probably have to call him—he’s usually too busy to answer messages. And the reason I’m anxious is I’m looking for opportunities to perform the new song. “Always Pet the Dogs” got the nicest comments from fellow songwriters that I’ve seen in a long time, and it makes me wonder whether I might have something good there. The setlists for the next 3 shows are set, though; I’m not going to change them. But I do want to see how live audiences react to the song. I have a feeling I want it on the next album. And it just occurred to me—I’ve been so busy I haven’t had a chance to obsess about the job interview next week. That is cool. Joe

Dick, Carol and I will be in the talent show (tentatively dubbed “Garibldi’s Got Talent!”)—I really hadn’t expected otherwise, but today’s audition made it official. The music store in Tillamook called; they want to sell my CDs ($15 per, of which I get $10)—I may need to get more pressed. (Handing the things out like business cards does help. That’s how the music store got one.) Rowan (the Craigslist banjo player) is interested in the banjo—we’ll try to connect while I’m in Portland. Sent the Garibaldi Museum owners the poster for the 1 August concert. And my audition for the burlesque show is confirmed, too—6 p.m. Sunday 7/19, in Portland. Means I’ll need to leave southern Oregon by around 10 a.m. The burlesque show will get 6 songs, I think: Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes? (slow & sleazy Gospel) Naked Space Hamsters in Love (fast bluegrass) Sam & Melinda (slow traditional folk) Dirty Deeds We Done to Sheep (Johnny Cash-style rock ‘n’ roll) The Cat with the Strat (talking blues) The Taboo Song (mod. slow two-step) That’s under half an hour, because all the songs will be shorter when there’s no lead breaks. Enough shorter so I could fit in a seventh song? Maybe. My best candidate may be “The Termite Song”—it’s pretty short, too—inserted in between Sam & Melinda and the sheep. It’s not as suggestive as the rest of the setlist, but it does get people’s attention—and global warming is such a (shall we say) hot topic these days. Script is done for the 7/18 RVTV shows, and e-mailed to host T-Poe and producer Sheral; I found “flex points” where I can reduce the length of my performance slightly to accommodate lengthier interviewing by T-Poe if necessary. Two of the songs in the “Serious Issues” set have extra choruses that can be eliminated, and two of the songs in the “Not Serious At All” set have lead breaks than can be cut back. Just need to know ahead of time that we need to do that. At the Southern Oregon Songwriters showcase in Medford Sat. 7/18, I’ll do my three newest: “The Taboo Song,” “Me and Rufus, and Burnin’ Down the House,” and the finally-finished reincarnation song, “Always Pet the Dogs.” Yes, it’s done, I think (lyrics are getting peer review at Just Plain Folks, but I haven’t seen any nits yet). It’s just three verses (2 verses, chorus, last verse, chorus), but I really couldn’t think of anything that needed to be added. Some songs are just like that. Maybe I can record it this weekend. On the not-good-news front, I did not get the city-manager job in Myrtle Point; I got the formal rejection letter in the mail (they even said which of the whippersnappers they hired, but I can’t remember which of the kids was which). I’ll send them a nice letter back, wishing ‘em the best of luck (they are nice people), but I still do have other fish to fry. No point in being discouraged about it. (And that’s the only bad news—today, anyway? That’s not too bad.) Tasks for the weekend are to mow the lawn, finish the Garibaldi Days program, design and typeset the program for the 17 July SOSA concert in Central Point, script out the Garibaldi Days and Museum sets, apply for half a dozen more jobs, and pack for Road Trip #2. Music Friday night at City Hall and Saturday at the Tillamook Library. Joe

I think it just got busy. I was going to devote a blog to how I could get more gigs, and am going to be listing a schedule of gigs instead. Most of those happened all at once. This THURSDAY, 9 JULY is the auditions for the Garibaldi Days Talent Show (we figured we’d have one, since the county fair won’t be—the Fair Board claimed there was no point, since there is no local talent, and we are of course going to prove them wrong). I’ll play ‘em my two “local color” songs, with Dick backing me up on blues harp, and Dick, his wife Carol (she of the beautiful voice) and I will do ‘em some Gospel songs (last time we did that was years ago). Some combination of us will be on stage at the Talent Show July 25. SAT. 18 JULY is the RVTV television taping in Ashland (day) and a Southern Oregon Songwriters “showcase” at Johnny B.’s in Medford (evening). The two half-hour TV shows will air at different times, and I’ve scripted two different setlists, one tackling social issues and one, well, not. For the Johnny B.’s showcase, I’ll give the crowd my newest material. There is plenty they haven’t heard—I’ve been away for a while. SUN. 19 JULY is my half-hour audition for the “Life’s Subtle Tease” burlesque show in Portland. I’ve asked for a late-afternoon/evening slot, so I can get back from southern Oregon (300 miles) without having to get up too early in the morning. For that one, I’ll give ‘em 6 or 7 of the songs that have been most popular at the Wild Goose. The actual burlesque show will take place in August (don’t know the date yet), and the organizers say they’ll be doing one a month. (And I don’t know if they’ll want me. All I have here is the chance to audition.) SAT. 25 JULY, the band plays at Garibaldi Days, plus Dick, Carol and I will be in the Garibaldi Days Talent Show (both are in the afternoon, back to back). I’ve scripted out the 2-hour setlist for the band, and distributed CDs, and Dick, Carol and I picked out our material for the Talent Show today. The Friday Night Group is also on the Garibaldi Days schedule, FRI. 24 JULY, because I’m typesetting the schedule and I put them there (they’d be playing Friday night anyway). SAT. 1 AUGUST is the new date for the Garibaldi Museum concert. 7 p.m., $3 cover. The band gets paid for this one. We’ll be on for an hour. Setlist is already done for this, and it should be easy to pull off—we’ll have played every one of the songs on stage at Garibaldi Days. SAT. 22 AUGUST is the all-day SOSA concert in Central Point. I’m on at 11 a.m., playing (hopefully) with Dan Doshier’s band. I could use the same setlist as for the Museum concert—this show is an hour, too—just substituting something else for the two “local color” songs we’ll do at the Museum. It’s not a bad schedule thus far. Sometime in September or October (don’t know the date for sure) will be the Neskowin Harvest Festival, the fundraiser for the little Neskowin Valley School that I’ve played at 3 of the last 4 years. This time, I’d like to do it with the band, if they’re willing, and do enough advance publicity so we draw a really good crowd. Did I mention I don’t think I got the job in Myrtle Point? I didn’t get The Phone Call, and I think that means they hired one of the two younger guys. (Yes, I’ve been whippersnappered.) It’s all right. I have another interview in just one week, and more applications in the pipeline. And I obviously do not lack for things to do. Joe

As this is written, the Myrtle Point City Council is meeting to decide which of three city manager wannabes to hire. If it’s me, I’ll hear about it tomorrow. I shouldn’t be anxious—I have been disappointed an awful lot—but it was so exciting to be wanted by somebody that I hate to be dismissive of the idea. Some good and some bad news on the music front. The guitar teacher from the music store isn’t interested in playing with the band—he wants to be paid. So the band still doesn’t have a lead guitarist (bad.) The “Portland Concert Coop” is finally going to do their podcast of my Thirsty Lion performance (good), and they sent me a nice, professional release form (which suggests they know what they’re doing). I got a phone call from a fellow wanting to know the Garibaldi Days schedule—he said he read about it in my blog (surprise) and wants to make sure he gets to hear the band (also good). I told Sara the librarian if she could get me about five minutes of film of Rufus doing bulldog things, I’d make her a music video of “Me and Rufus, and Burnin’ Down the House,” and she thinks she can do that (good). Still working on a Garibaldi Days setlist. Because of the shortage of time—just a little over two weeks until the gig—we will need to concentrate as much as possible on tunes we’re familiar with. For Chris the drummer, that means songs from the Failed Economy Show—only seven of which were mine. (John the bass player also did the Bay City concert, which was all my material, and Dick (blues harp) and I have played together for so many years he probably knows almost everything I’ve written.) Played “The Taboo Song” for the Friday Night Group, but Sara the librarian was the only one who liked it, I think. Nonetheless, the song continues to get a favorable response from people on line, and from (shall we say) less sedate audiences. This may be one of those songs that’s just not playable everywhere. That means it can’t be album material—but there’s definitely a performance niche that it just fits. Like “Sam and Melinda,” my 1920s-style tale of VD, auto accidents, and killing your lover, and “Electronic Love,” the look at the brighter side of Internet porn. I just have to make sure I don’t play it outside that niche. And I still want to make the music video. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the stage where I have enough material for a plain-brown-wrapper album (and I’m not sure I want to)—but I did see, and answered, an ad (Craigslist, again) soliciting entertainment for a burlesque show in Portland, and I could see me doing that. (I am good at fantasizing myself in performance situations. It helps me script out what I’m going to say and do, and pacifies the butterflies that always seem to attack in crowd situations. I do the same with jobs, and job interviews. They, too, are performances.) What I’d envision is no fancy costume, no dancing, just Me The Deadpan Writer, solo on an otherwise empty stage, with Those Lyrics. It could be a potentially entertaining contrast to everything else likely to be in the show. The organizers say they want half an hour’s worth of material, and I definitely have that. Second and final day of auditions for the thing is Sunday, 19 July, the day I’d be heading back from the TV taping in Ashland. I could just make it. I asked them to listen to “Electronic Love,” “Naked Space Hamsters in Love,” “Dirty Deeds We Done to Sheep,” and “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” and let me know what they think. Music this week Friday and Saturday. And maybe the band will finally get to practice, too. Joe

Independence Day. Being unemployed and penniless, I don’t feel particularly independent, but it’s the principle of the thing, I guess. Here in Garibaldi, Oregon, we are also celebrating Giuseppe Garibaldi’s birthday (he was born on July 4); there won’t be fireworks—we save that for Garibaldi Days, late in July (I started that, while I was city manager here)—but we will be going to a goat roast, and there will be music. There has been, or is, or will be music all of this three-day weekend (which is a holiday weekend for those folks who still have jobs). Dick Ackerman and I performed at the City of Rockaway Beach’s 100th birthday celebration Friday, and went from there to play two hours more music with the Friday Night Group. Today, several folks from the Friday Night Group have been tapped to play at an afternoon something at the Old Mill, plus there will be musicians at the goat roast. And Sunday is the monthly bluegrass jam at the Forestry Center. I responded to an ad on Portland Craigslist (I still watch Craigslist, despite a poor track record of people responding to my e-mails) from a restaurant-bar in Portland looking for live, original music and offering to pay $100 a night. It’d be solo for that kind of price (and they said the place was small, anyway). I gave Eric from the Portland Songwriters Showcase as a reference; he hasn’t responded to me, but he may them. I think he liked my stuff—and I did play to a sizable crowd at the Thirsty Lion Pub, even if they weren’t there precisely to see me (they’d been there to watch the LA-Orlando playoff game on big-screen TV, and I was the first act on after they put the big TV away). Reviewing the e-mail I sent these “Jade Lounge” people, I do come across as mildly impressive. I told them I couldn’t do a gig on July 18 because I was taping a couple of public television shows of my material, couldn’t do July 25 because me and the band were performing at Garibaldi Days, and couldn’t do August 22 because I was performing in Central Point. I warned them that some of the material on Soundclick and MySpace was off the album (thereby letting them know I have an album out). Dang, I look good. So when (or if) they hire me, I can stand up in front of a crowd (probably a small one), not one of whom I know—because very few people on the “joelist” are actually in the Portland area. Reminds me of a comment I heard azbout someone in Texas: “Big hat. No cattle.” Yes, but is it possible the hat will enable you to get some cattle? We may find out. I keep tweaking setlists, and wonder whether there’s any point in doing so. I have a 2-hour family show (from the Bay City concert), and a couple one-hour shows (the one I’d spec’d out for the Museum, and the one Dick and I did in Rockaway), and some half-hour shows, too (the RVTV shows, and the Thirsty Lion); is that enough? I could probably treat them as set pieces if they work—I just don’t want to repeat myself in front of an audience that’s already heard the stuff before. I need to take a 1-hour setlist with me (printed out, and on CD) when I go down to southern Oregon in mid-July, to give to Dan Doshier for the band for the 22 August concert in Central Point. It does look like the southern Oregon trip will be a busy one. Interview in Gold Beach on the 16th (Thursday), I’ll help put together (since I’ll be there) the Southern Oregon Songwriters concert that’ll be on the 17th (Friday), I have the RVTV taping on the 18th (Saturday), plus there’s a SOSA event at Johnny B.’s in Medford Saturday night. Thursday night (the 16th) is probably the only chance to practice in advance of the TV taping. Should I happen by some wild chance to have been offered the city-manager job in Myrtle Point, I’ll be lining myself up an apartment there on my trip, getting utilities connected, &c. There are a lot of things that are uncertain. I have not heard a word from Eric about whether I might get picked for a paying gig at the Thirsty Lion. I have not heard a word from the West Linn Library or the Airway Café in Portland (in both cases, that probably means no). I have a pile of jobs, too, that I’ve applied for that I haven’t received rejection letters from yet. I have nonetheless managed to make myself very busy. There is room for employment in the schedule (thankfully), but it means I will once again be going on automatic pilot—I won’t have time to think about things, only to do them. I nonetheless think I’d enjoy that. Joe

Interesting thread. For me: WRITERS: Steve Goodman, Bob Dylan, and John Prine at the top, followed by a bunch of 'em--Leonard Cohen, Buck Owens, Avril Lavigne, Dottie West, and more. Mostly people who couldn't sing or play guitar very well, but who could write, and had to depend on their words alone to get attention. I figure I'm in the same boat. GUITARISTS: Keith Richards and John Lennon. Richards was the master of the musical hook--simple, recurring riffs you just can't get out of your head. Lennon was a competent rhythm guitarist who could sometimes play lead, and who could write. I'd like to be like that. SINGERS: Frank Sinatra, Avril Lavigne, Ernest Tubbs. Sinatra, as he got older, had to work hard at being able to sing his earlier stuff. Lavigne sings at the very bottom end of her voice range. And Tubbs is just living proof you can make it in country music without being able to sing at all. PERFORMERS: Bill Monroe. His Bluegrass Boys were the most professional bunch of performers I have ever run into, and I've picked up a lot of their tricks. All good folks to emulate. joe

It’s July—six months since we set those 2009 goals. How are we doing? At the beginning of the year, I said 2009 would be the Year of Exposure. By the beginning of 2010, I wanted to (1) be better known, (2) be a music publisher with somebody besides myself as a client, (3) have another CD out, for sale in stores and on.line, (4) have played some writers’ nights in Nashville, (5) have more sophisticated recording equipment, and (6) be doing video. And I had a work list intended to achieve those goals. In addition to writing an average of one good song a month, and having a round dozen of other people’s songs musicated, too. Am I getting better known (1)? I noticed I wasn’t forgotten in southern Oregon when I visited last week, and I’m definitely not forgotten on the Coast—I’m playing somewhere at least twice a week. I’ve had some gigs in Portland, too (and one still coming up), and some of them have been paid (they just haven’t paid much). I’ve put together two bands, and the one on the Coast is going to make it, I think; we’ve done two shows, got two more coming up, and I want to use them for the album. The “joelist,” which keeps growing (slowly), is a big help; so has been the strategic and timely placement of posters. I haven’t pushed the publishing company (2), after getting advice from a music publisher I know how to pay co-writers and such without having to have a publishing company. As long as I’m penniless, I’ll avoid the expense. I did register as a writer with BMI—that was free. And Outside Services Ltd. will take out a local business license, as soon as I figure out where “local” is going to be. I have made some progress on the CD (3). What I’ve done is mostly setup work; I have the band, I have the studio, and I have picked out the songs. There is no recording studio here on the Coast, so it’s been necessary to create our own. I will have it professionally mastered, and this time around I’ll invest in shrink-wrapping and barcoding so the CD can be sold through CDBaby. The intent is to have it done in time for Christmas. I keep getting asked about the Southern Pigfish album, too—which is kind of a surprise. (Those guys are popular? How’d THAT happen?) I know how and where I could get a Pigfish CD done, I think; I just need to let a few more people in on the secret. It would be a hoot if the thing sold. My album first, though. A trip to Nashville (4) is out this year because of money. Even if I were to be offered a job right away, it’d still be this time next year before I could take the vacation time to go. Money, or the shortage thereof, is also why I’ve done almost nothing about upgrading recording equipment (5). I have acquired a few additional things—a couple of decent instrument mikes, for instance—but it’s all been free or cheap. I do have a wish list of things I’d like, but I’m using what I’ve got as long as it keeps working. Video (6) was kind of a surprise. I did do a music video—“The 30-Second Resume,” in response to a solicitation by a Portland TV station. I don’t have video equipment; I gave daughter Kimberly my cheap little Webcam over a year ago, and while I’ve bought a tripod and power adapter for the big Fisher camcorder, I still haven’t managed to make it work. I did “The 30-Second Resume” in what I think of as “French style” (because French teenagers do it), as a fast-moving slide show with soundtrack and printed comments on screen. It didn’t come out bad—and the TV station in Portland did air it. I have another one to do now, for that Performing Songwriters (United Worldwide) organization Lorelei Loveridge formed, and I’ll do that video the same way. I’ll use “The Taboo Song” for the soundtrack, and I’ve scripted out some printed comments on the present and future of the music industry (which is what Lorelei wanted the video to be about). I just need to find—or take—more photos. On the WRITING front, I have not managed that song-a-month quota I set for myself; I’ve had only three new songs since the beginning of the year (the two oldest have been played in public, and are definitely “keepers,” and I think the third will be, too). I have done a lot of musicating of other people’s stuff, though—one by Beth Williams, one by Betty Holt, three by Stan Good, plus I had to figure out music for two obscure Woody Guthrie songs we wanted to do in the Failed Economy Show. Maybe it evens out. Better than last year this time? Maybe. I don’t have time to worry about it—next gig (Rockaway Beach’s 100th anniversary celebration—Dick and I will do it as a duo) is tomorrow. Joe

The Southern Oregon Road Trip was a good adventure—the job interview went well (I think—I’ll find out for sure in a week), I got to see a lot of the people I know, both in city government and in music, got to play music, and got a good new set of strings for the guitar (finally). Even the bartender at the Wild Goose in Ashland remembered me, after my whole year’s absence (and apparently there had been rumors circulating that I’d be coming by). The Wild Goose crowd got 4 songs—“The Taboo Song,” “50 Ways to Cure the Depression,” Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street,” and for an encore, “Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues.” (Nice to get an encore.) “The Taboo Song” did go over well, but it’s hard to tell whether that means it’s a “keeper” or not. The crowd at the Wild Goose—it being a songwriters’ bar, and all—tend to appreciate the sleazier stuff. At the risk of damaging what reputation I may have left, I could try it out on the Friday Night Group and see how they react. The other fun thing I got to do “down South” is record a lead guitar track on one of Scott Garriott’s songs. He’s recording an album (yay), and says it’s going to be a country album (also yay), and asked me to play lead guitar on it (really yay). The one song I got to work on, “Merrilee,” is classic Scott—compelling melody with very strange lyrics—but it has a great beat. Very danceable two-step. I asked him to e-mail me “base” tracks for the songs, and I can record lead parts at my leisure on the Tascam, and send them back. My little Tascam allows my acoustic guitar to “emulate” 40 different electric guitars, something a lot of professional studio equipment doesn’t seem able to do. Might try an electric banjo lead on “Merrilee,” too, and see how that sounds. I got back to Garibaldi to find another call for a job interview waiting for me, this one from the City of Gold Beach, also in southern Oregon. I scheduled that one for July 16, so I could do the interview and the RVTV television taping in the same trip. Some setlists to organize, now; me and The Band have two hours’ worth to play at Garibaldi Days (twice as long as we were going to be playing at the Museum), and I have another 60 to 75 minutes of my songs to organize for the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. concert in Central Point August 22. Both those will be family crowds, so I need to concentrate on things little kids will appreciate—cannibalism, missing underwear, and lots of dead animals. With luck, I can enlist Dan Doshier and his band to help in Central Point, like I did last year. We will need to do mostly familiar stuff, but I have plenty of that. I’ll repeat the tactic—it’s worked out well—of giving everybody a CD with draft recordings of the songs ahead of time. I can do that when I go down for the RVTV taping in July. It is shaping up to be a potentially busy Concert Season. Besides Garibaldi Days, the RVTV taping, and the Central Point concert, there’s three I haven’t heard from yet; the Museum wants to re-schedule but hasn’t said when (I’ll find out the new date after the middle of July), and no word yet from either the West Linn Library or the Thirsty Lion Pub in Portland. All three, if they happen, will be paying gigs. I got most of a song out of the trip, too (I’d been hoping that would happen). The reincarnation song—tentatively titled “Always Pet the Dogs”—has three verses now, to go with the chorus I had over a year ago; it could probably use one more, for length’s sake (it just feels short), but the three verses I have just might say everything that needs to be said, and I might leave it at that. Same pattern as the missing-underwear song, “Milepost 43,” which is a fairly short song, too—2 verses, chorus, break, last verse, last chorus. One could of course keep repeating the chorus ad infinitum, if people are dancing. It does have a catchy melody. And I have another job to apply for. There’s a Chamber of Commerce hereabouts—within commuting distance—looking for an executive director, and I want to tell them it should be me. Joe

Like Joni Mitchell once said (in a song), “All my bags are packed, and I’m ready to go.” Only item not packed and waiting by the door is the Tascam; first thing tomorrow, I pick up the CD with the Failed Economy Show songs from John, listen to them, pick one and copy it to the Tascam to take to southern Oregon. I have, I think, everything else. Cell phone’s on the charger; cookies are baked and cooling. Even the alarm clock is packed. En route, I’ll stop by a computer repair place I’d phoned and get to pick up (I hope) a power cable for daughter Kimberly’s old laptop, which will be making the trip with me. At Myrtle Point City hall, I’ll pick up a copy of their budget, ordinance book, and comprehensive plan—light reading before bed. Saturday I get to spend the whole day in a suit, being interviewed and inspected for the city manager job. I’ll spend Friday and Saturday nights in a motel in Myrtle Point, then Sunday and Monday nights with George in Central Point, I get to play music at the Wild Goose Sunday night, practice with Darrin (harmonica) on Sunday and Dan (mandolin) on Monday, and also on Sunday, record guitar tracks for Scott Garriott’s album. It’ll be a full trip, both from the job end and the music end. And a long trip in the car—first one in months. Is that a chance to finish a song? I do get my best writing work done on long trips. Another gig (unpaid, of course): got called by the lady doing booking for nearby Rockaway Beach’s 100th anniversary celebration; she said she’d been told, “You have GOT to get these guys” (meaning our band), and you can’t refuse an invitation like that. Dick and I will do it; Rockaway’s new City Hall is a nice place, but small—ideal for an acoustic duo. An hour, nearly all of it my stuff: Duct Tape (mod. fast country) Tillamook Railroad Blues (deliberate blues, D) Bluebird on My Windshield (fast bluegrass) Armadillo on the Interstate (slow & sleazy) Hey, Little Chicken (mod. fast sorta blues) I May Write You from Jupiter (fast bluegrass) Ain’t Got No Home (mod. slow country) Welcome to Hebo Waltz (mod. fast waltz) Doing Battle with the Lawn (fast bluegrass) Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (slow & sleazy) Milepost 43 (mod. fast country) I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas (mod. slow country) 11 by me, one by Woody Guthrie. (I want to be able to say “This goes out to all the homeless people out there.” Never had the chance to say that in public.) I might substitute “Leavin’ It to Beaver” (an old song, off the first album) for “Doing Battle with the Lawn.” A nostalgic song would be appropriate for a centennial celebration, and “Beaver” would work well. The song has an awful lot of words, and moves very fast—I’ll have to practice my breathing to make sure I can do it. It’s also a long song (over 6 minutes), so we could end up running a little overtime. And then also in July, I’ve got the RVTV taping in Ashland Saturday, 18 July, and Garibaldi Days on 25 July. Auditions for the Talent Show at Garibaldi Days will be Thursday, 9 July, and I want to be in that, too. I am glad I got so much sleep when I had the time… Joe

TWO DAYS till the trip to Myrtle Point. My bag is packed, but everything doesn’t fit; some of it’s going to have to go in another container. I’m packing for five days; I don’t know if I’ll get to stay that long. The job front actually looks hopeful for a change (it’s probably illusory, but I’ll ride the hope as long as I can). Not only is Myrtle Point interviewing me, but I found out Gold Beach, where I’d also applied to be city manager, is checking my background—and one usually doesn’t do that unless one is seriously considering hiring the person. (And Gold Beach is also in southern Oregon.) And a little water district here on the North Coast has started looking for a new manager—not, for a change, because of financial problems, but simply because the current manager is retiring. I’ll apply. It’d be a great gig; I could commute from Garibaldi, and for a change not have the expense of keeping up two houses. “The Taboo Song” (tentative title) is done. I managed to include 15 things you’re not supposed to write songs about: (1) dental hygeine, (2) liposuction, (3) pederasty, (4) breast reduction, (5) babies, (6) libraries, (7) deformed puppies, ( aborton, (9) narcolepsy, (10) litter boxes, (11) Star Trek conventions, (12) football, (13) necrophilia, (14) war, and (15) imaginary women. Compressed as tight as I think I can, it still comes in at just under 2 minutes—20 seconds too long for Lorelei’s 100-second video. I may do it anyway. I did script out a commentary to run onscreen while the song is playing and the slides are “rolling,” and the commentary does talk—briefly—about my hopes for the future of the music business. I’d hate to not use it. On the other hand, it’s a not-bad little song. I did another recording, with a Rap on the front end, and a lead break and final chorus on the rear—and slowed down just a hair, to make it more danceable—and it came in a little over 4 minutes, which is just about ideal. Not album material by any means, but they may like it at the Wild Goose. And it does feel good to have accomplished something start to finish in a short period of time. URL is http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songi...;songID=7750801. It’s on the “Works in Progress” page. I figured out who I was emulating when I wrote this—it was Scott Garriott, a songwriter I know in Ashland who writes some of the most disturbing folk music I have ever laid ears on. Very traditional formats, with compelling melodies and very, very strange lyrics. I’ll be seeing Scott while I’m down south; he asked if I could record some guitar tracks for an upcoming album—and I’d like to. Scott is the second (of two) non-famous writers I’ve ended up “channeling” in a song (the other is Lou Quarmwater, who lives in Canada). Still to do for the trip: I’ve got RVTV setlists to dump onto CD for Darrin (harmonica) and Dan (mandolin), whom I want to enlist as leads for the TV show next month. I should have Failed Economy Show songs from John Thursday morning; from that three or four, I’ll pick one to take to southern Oregon on the Tascam to get other people’s lead parts. I’ll have three tracks to play with, so I can do three different leads (more if I want to be creative). THREE WEEKS to the Garibaldi Days gig—and I know we’re on the schedule, because I’m typesetting the schedule. We will have two hours. We HAVE to practice. That’s twice as long a time frame as we had for the aborted Museum gig, and while I can include a lot of material from the Failed Economy Show, I don’t want to use all of it. I only want to use the Other People’s Songs we did that came out good (and ideally, that had people dancing). There is a difference between playing a benefit concert for a Cause, and playing a gig for entertainment, and I want to make it clear that we understand the distinction. Fun songs, not message ones, in other words. Joe

The live recording of “Me and Rufus, and Burnin’ Down the House” at the Tillamook Library didn’t come out too bad; I posted it unedited online on the “Wrabek’s Works in Progress” page (http://soundclick.com/bands/page_songinfo.cfm?bandID=681142&songID=7735760). It’ll do until I have something better (which I may never—that’s happened a lot). I had to use my singing mike for the recording (the instrument mike I’d brought had stopped working), so I had to position it pretty close to me to pick things up. Even with the volumes turned way, way up on the Tascam, my rhythm guitar tended to dominate, though the vocal was okay. Caught the bass, too, though Wayne’s lead guitar is a bit faint, and Dick’s harmonica didn’t come through at all. Next time—I do want to do this again, with a different song—I think I’ll use the old 6-channel mixer, and three mikes, the singing mike for my voice and two instrument mikes trained on the harmonica and the amp of the lead guitar. Have to use the mixer for this because the Tascam only has one mike input (though you can dump it to two tracks). If I had someone operating the mixer (and that might be possible), they could boost the volume of the appropriate channels during the lead breaks. And we could get a pretty good product, I think. I like to involve people who have good ears in this process, because they can hear things I can’t. Another new song—a throwaway, I think (though you never know). I got alerted to an article in a British paper that had a list of things you’re not supposed to write popular songs about: war, newborn babies, football, and the like. Some writers from Just Plain Folks added more. And the question had to be asked (by me)—why NOT write about those things? And (for good measure) could they maybe all go in the same song? After all, some of them do rhyme—“liposuction” and “breast reduction,” for instance. The song got mostly written in the shower (and I take short showers). Just two verses, each with a chorus, then maybe a break and a final chorus. A love song, of course (yes, I really can use liposuction, dental hygeine, litter boxes, and breast reduction in a love song)—and definitely country music. Delivered in what some folks have called my “hangdog” country voice, it could actually sound sweet. The sort of thing people would be embarrassed to dance to, but would want to dance to anyway. Though a song about the things you’re not supposed to write songs about is potentially a candidate for that 100-second Performing Songwriter video—it is, after all, a commentary on the state of the music business today—it’s probably too much of a conceptual leap. It was just fun. I do have a place where I could perform it, I think; I’m planning on playing at the Wild Goose in Ashland while I’m down in southern Oregon, and those folks have been most appreciative of my sleaziest songs. This one is probably something they’d expect of me. I also sent off another song to the music publisher in California. She was asking the mailing list for Hallowe’en songs, and I just happen to have one—“Vampire Roumanian Babies.” It’s for a film, I think; if used, the song would be playing on a radio as background music at some point in the movie. I don’t have any illusions about it being precisely what the publisher’s looking for, but you never can tell. The lesson? Always have stuff reasonably professionally recorded you can send off at a moment’s notice. Just because opportunity doesn’t knock often doesn’t mean you shouldn’t always be prepared to answer. I still need to collect a “base track” to take to southern Oregon on the Road Trip—the band won’t have the opportunity to record any more before I leave, because John’s too busy for a while with his new duties as the new Garibaldi city manager, but he’s got four tracks from the Failed Economy Show that he says came out decent, and I’ll pick from those. Joe

Is writing things down an excuse for doing them? Sometimes I think so (like now). Lots of things to do before the Road Trip: get haircut, shine shoes, assemble books (I will visit one of my favorite bookstores while in Medford), pack (I’ll do it early, so I have plenty of time to worry about what I’m forgetting), get the van tuned up, apply for more jobs. I ran across an article about some city-manager jobs in Midwestern states going vacant for over a year, because nobody’s applying (the economy is rottener in some places than here, apparently). I found a town in northern Minnesota that looked attractive, and I’ll offer them me and see what happens. The worst they can say is no (and that’s what everyone else is saying, so it ought to be familiar by now). Might do it a few times, even—all it takes is paper, printer ink, and stamps, and I have all those. A few projects to get done during Countdown Period, too. I have the Garibaldi Days program to design and typeset (a big job, and completely unpaid, but important for re-establishing my reputation as a graphic designer), and a video to do for Lorelei Loveridge, the Canadian-British songwriter who’s reincarnated Performing Songwriter magazine as an online (and interactive) “club” on Facebook. 100 seconds, in which I have to both tell about myself and offer some perspective on the state (and future) of the music industry. Doable? Of course—I love new projects. I’ll do it like I did “The 30-Second Resume,” with a soundtrack, slide show, and printed comments flashing on screen as the photos go by. 100 seconds is too short to use any existing song, so I’ll have to write one to fit; it probably can’t be any more than two verses. I can play around with speed and musical padding to make it fit. Probably a two-step, since I write country music. The phrase that keeps recurring when I think about it (and which I’d like to use somehow) is: I’ve learned to lie, and cheat, and sin, Signed up for Hell and can’t get in— Another lonely singer at the gates of Babylon. I think of the slide show tactic as “French video,” since I’ve seen it used most effectively on YouTube by French kids; I don’t know if it’s because they don’t have the technology available, but that’s certainly my problem—the technology exists, but I can’t afford it. However, I have always been good at getting maximum mileage out of what I have, and I have picked up some tricks from watching those French kids’ “videos.” The ability to run printed comments at the same time the other stuff is going on—and to control the timing separately—is a Godsend for me, because I always have too much to say. I can put some of it there. If I have three things (which don’t have to be exactly related) going on at the same time, the “video” becomes not-boring. Also on the “getting maximum mileage out of what I have” front, I’ll record the musicians at the Tillamook Library performing the latest song, the one I wrote for Sara the librarian about her house fire. Tentatively titled “Me and Rufus, and Burnin’ Down the House.” (Rufus is her English bulldog, who was with her when the fire happened—they’re inseparable.) I can do (sorta) the trick John did when he recorded the band—set one instrument mike (one is all the Tascam can handle without help) out in the audience, trained roughly on my guitar but able to pick up everything in the room that’s amplified, and dump it to 2 tracks on the Tascam. I played the song for the Friday Night Group, with Sara there, and she (and they) liked it. (Sara probably laughed more than everyone else.) So now they’re familiar (sort of) with it, and hopefully can follow. (Rufus, for his part, didn’t hear the song. He was asleep.) Joe

The Rogue Valley Television (RVTV) taping on Saturday, 18 July will be two sets, half an hour each, before a live audience. Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. (SOSA) will be doing the taping. The shows will air separately on RVTV, the public-television station in Medford-Ashland, so each set (5 songs each) has got to hang together as a separate entity. I thought about doing one set with Darrin playing blues harp lead, and one with Dan doing mandolin, but really, everything I do sounds all right either way—and SOSA said I could have both of ‘em on stage if I wanted, so why not? So I spec’d out the shows by subject matter instead (roughly)—one show dealing with serious social issues (not necessarily seriously, of course), and one show not: THE SERIOUS-ISSUES SHOW: Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (slow & sleazy) Dead Fishes (Elizabethan bluegrass) No Good Songs About the War (mod. slow two-step) Free-Range Person (fast bluegrass) Un-Easy Street (mod. slow but bouncy two-step) AND THE NOT-SERIOUS SHOW: Dead Things in the Shower (mod. fast two-step) Armadillo on the Interstate (slow & sleazy) Doing Battle with the Lawn (fast bluegrass) Hey, Little Chicken (mod. slow almost blues) Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up (fast bluegrass) I’ve avoided anything socially unacceptable—no songs about bestiality, cannibalism, anorexia, murdering one’s husband, or Internet porn. (Scary to think I actually have written songs about all those things.) No religion, either. I didn’t even include “The Termite Song” because I wasn’t sure whether you could say “fart” on the air. (It’s not one of George Carlin’s famous “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television,” but this is Public Broadcasting—you never know.) I still have plenty to pick from—I have enough material to play a two-hour show for just about any kind of audience, I think. It should be entertaining anyway. The “Serious Issues” setlist includes songs about pollution and the war, and three upbeat down-and-out songs, and the “Not Serious” list has three classics (one recorded in Nashville, and one that appeared on the Philippine Christmas album)—plus I get to mention Gene Burnett’s name on TV (since I wrote the chicken song for his album), and he’ll like that. Two co-writes among the ten. And all but two of the songs are ones either Darrin, or Dan, or both, have played before. T-Poe, who has become southern Oregon’s poet laureate, I think (and is one of the best poets I know), will be emceeing the shows, and interviewing me in between songs. I need to find out not so much what his questions will consist of as how much time it will take; the shows are 28 minutes long, precisely (TV is a very unforgiving medium), and I want to have this thing scripted out right to the second if I can. I think I’ll send T-Poe a setlist (after I time the songs); he knows I like to do a Rap introducing songs, and we wouldn’t want his questions to duplicate what I’d normally say anyway. There are a couple of songs where the Rap is essential, and a couple where it could be left out entirely with no ill effects. At the Wild Goose, I think I’ll play “50 Ways to Cure the Depression” (they ought to like the Paul Simon reference), and Stan Good’s “Un-Easy Street,” and one or two old standards, depending on what I’ve got available in the audience for co-musicians. It’d be nice to be able to stick around for the Northwest Pasta & Pizza open mike on Tuesday (hosted by Delonde Bell since Chris Parreira went off to the big time in Austin, Texas). But that Sunday I can play with Darrin, and Monday with Dan—I succeeded in reaching both of them. Joe

Haven’t done a Road Trip in a long time. It’s exciting. I’ll be in a motel Friday and Saturday nights (June 26-27) in Myrtle Point for Interview Days. I have a place to stay down south, got a couple Alan Dean Foster books to bring George that he hasn’t read, a couple of new songs to play at the Wild Goose Sunday night (I probably ought to limit it to a couple—I expect they’ll want to hear some old standards, too). I think I can take daughter Kimberly’s old laptop with me (it needs a power cord, but I think I know where to get one); it’d be neat if I could configure the thing to recognize the Tascam, but I don’t know if that’s possible—the laptop is running (curses!) Windows Vista. Among the to-do-before-I-leave items is to get the “base” track (rhythm guitar, bass, drums, and vocal) recorded to at least one song to take with me to get Southern Oregon leads on. The Tascam can hold three lead tracks (the “base” recording will be on one track, for reference), and we’ll see what I can round up. I want to have the musicians all primed in advance—I won’t have a lot of time to work with. I do get to go back to Southern Oregon a second time, for taping July 18 of a TV show on the Medford-Ashland public television station. It’s something the Southern Oregon Songwriters set up a year ago, that involved getting some of the members trained in television production. I have seen some of the product, and it’s really well done. Now it’s my turn to be one of the ones on stage—and on the air. (I’d like to do that one with a band, too, if I could—I know whom I’d like to enlist). And when I go back down there July 18, it’d be nice to take another song with me and get “Southern Oregon leads” recorded to that. I get to be Elder Statesman again (maybe it’s more like Songwriter Yoda) tomorrow; I’m meeting a younger guy who ran an ad on Craigslist saying he was a singer-songwriter. (I’d responded to his ad, and he telephoned me back right away—very odd behavior for Craigslist.) We’ll see what he’s got; if he fancies himself a writer, wherever he is on the scale, I want to encourage it. He said he was looking for a band, and I do have one of those—and we are looking for a lead guitarist, in fact. I guess it’s me that has to do the first cut, so to speak, and try to guess whether the guy would make a good fit with everybody else, based on what I know or can guess about everybody’s respective personalities. Sara the librarian had a fire in her house a week ago (didn’t burn it down—just a lot of smoke damage)—and of course, there was a song in it. (Told her so.) She and her bulldog, Rufus, weren’t there when it happened; they were playing music with the Friday Night Group. (Actually, only she was. Rufus was just hanging out.) Sara herself gave me the trigger by telling me jokingly, “Well, Rufus wasn’t cooking.” There are in fact a number of things a bulldog would not be doing that wouldn’t cause a fire, and maybe—hopefully—it’s therapeutic to list them. At this point, I have three verses, one of which I’m happy with (the other two still need work), and a chorus I’m real happy with. It’d be nice to have it in playable form in time for the next music session at the Tillamook Library—which might be as early as this Saturday. (The group took some time off to let Sara recover from her fire.) Sara is working on a song herself (she’s one of the songwriters who’s finally germinated in this once-sterile soil of the North Coast)—a Gospel tune, she said, about “burning down the house for Jesus.” I do worry sometimes what kind of writers I’ve encouraged… Joe

I am really procrastinating, avoiding filling out yet another job application—this one, to go to work for the big (and financially troubled) state retirement system. I shouldn’t say that hiring me—in any position—would probably raise the general financial competence of the organization, so I won’t. I do have a job interview in two weeks, 250 miles away, and a lot of little things to do to get ready for it, but I don’t dare—and am not going to—wait to see what happens with it. I have been burned way too many times. If they hire me, great. After 14 months out of work, it’ll be a real surprise. I have contacted a couple of folks down in southern Oregon, letting them know I’m going to be in the area, but I haven’t heard anything back. I probably need to contact more people I know—I know rather a lot of people down there. I’d like to spend a couple of days, play a lot of music, record “ancillary” lead tracks by three people to one song for the album, and maybe find out (since I’ll be down there) what, if anything, is going to happen to my application to be city planner in Phoenix, where I used to work. Broke the bad news about the Garibaldi Museum gig to the Museum owners back East, and also to the band; I can’t do both the gig and the job interview at the same time (I have not mastered the knack of being in two places at once, though I keep trying), and the job’s got to take precedence—everybody understands that. We will re-schedule; the Museum Board meets in mid-July, and will decide when at that time. I’ve emphasized simply that it needs to be a Saturday, on the offchance I have a job out of town, and it can’t be during Garibaldi Days, because the band already has a gig. In the meantime, there’s the album. The list of songs looks like this: Dead Things in the Shower (mod. fast two-step) Armadillo on the Interstate (slow & sleazy) The Termite Song (fast bluegrass) Tillamook Railroad Blues (slow, deliberate blues) Free-Range Person (fast bluegrass) No Good Songs About the War (mod. slow two-step) Rotten Candy (fast bluegrass, with a Gospel beat) Hey, Little Chicken (mod. slow almost blues) Doing Battle with the Lawn (fast bluegrass) Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (slow & sleazy) Un-Easy Street (mod. slow two-step) Naked Space Hamsters in Love (fast bluegrass) Two songs co-written with others (so Outside Services the Record Company will have to do the paying-royalties thing); two serious songs, too—twice as many as I’ve done on an album in the past. About half fast and half slow, the way I’d usually organize a concert setlist. (List above isn’t necessarily in order, though.) The setlist is dictated at least in part by what the band know how to play; John (bass) and Dick (blues harp) have played all of them, and Chris (drummer) about half of them. John and chris come from heavy-metal backgrounds, and will inevitably put a rock ‘n’ roll spin on the bluegrass songs—and it works real well. For some of the songs, I can do an acceptable lead guitar, and we’ll overlay it; I want Wayne’s barroom-country guitar lead on some of the songs if I can get it. And one of the songs (either “Free-Range Person” or “Naked Space Hamsters in Love,” I think) I’d like to take down to southern Oregon with me, on the Tascam, and get some leads recorded by people I know there. Plenty to do, even though there’s music only Friday night this week. Maybe we can get some recording in. Joe

The more things change… well, the more they change, I think. I had an issue of the blog already written, and just the past 24 hours has rendered nearly all of it irrelevant. Instead, here’s what’s going on: I have a job interview (in Myrtle Point, in southern Oregon, to be their city manager) Saturday, 27 June. They want me all day, and maybe part of the day before. That’s the day of the Garibaldi Museum gig, so the gig is going to have to be postponed (my preference) or cancelled—I can’t let it get in the way of a job. That the band doesn’t have a lead player for that date may accordingly be okay. Maybe another date will work better. I still have to call the owners of the Museum and break the news to them; they’re back East, so I’ve got a 3-hour time difference to contend with. I do want to take the opportunity to visit friends in Central Point, Phoenix and Ashland while I’m that close (it looks from the map like it might be a couple hours’ drive away), and I’ve contacted them about a visit. There’d be a chance to play music at the Wild Goose in Ashland that Sunday night—I don’t know if there’s anything happening Saturday night (yet—I’ve asked). And then, I’ve got lots to do here in Garibaldi. On the offchance I might actually be offered a job out of town (I refuse to get my hopes up—it’s been way too long), I would like to get the base tracks (rhythm guitar, bass, drums, and vocal) done for the 12 songs I’ve picked out; I would especially like to be able to take the Tascam to southern Oregon with one of the songs in its little camera-chip brain and get some lead tracks recorded by people down there. The band here can record those base tracks in the course of practicing the material—we recorded two of the last three songs we practiced, and one of the recordings was real good—record-quality stuff. Even without a Museum gig, we still have Garibaldi Days to work on—that’s the end of July. There are “ancillary” lead tracks I can record for the album here in town, too. It occurred to me at the Friday Night Group’s get-together that one thing that would sound real good on “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” is a musical saw—it lends a very other-worldly tone to the music—and I happen to know someone who plays saw (what would you call him?—a sawyer?). I’ll give him a draft recording (just me and guitar) to practice with—he’d like that—and then just take the Tascam over to his house to record the saw part when the time comes. I don’t know if there are any other “ancillary” parts I’d want to put on any other songs, but if I do, I have a way to do it easily, that I’m sure will work. More opportunities, maybe: I ran into a guitar/banjo player I know (he was at the unemployment office, too) who said he’s playing roughly five nights a week, mostly in south Tillamook County, but was complaining his partner, who plays guitar, wasn’t interested in that full a schedule because he still had a job to go to. He said most of his gigs are unpaid, but the crowds are getting bigger (a symptom of the Failed Economy I mentioned before) and tips are real good. We traded phone numbers. And I got banned from Whitby Shores, too—don’t know why. It’s tempting to assume it was something I did (I usually blame myself for problems), but in this case, I don’t think I actually did anything. It’s Len Amsterdam’s Website—he created it, and he runs it, and he can have or not have around anybody he wants to. I do have ways of staying in touch with most of the people I met there; I will have to find another OMD to archive my music at (I do not want to be dependent on Soundclick, with their software problems), but that’s doable, too. I have an account at ReverbNation I’ve never used, and maybe it’s time I did. Joe

Well, I won’t say the paranoia about the Thirsty Lion performance was unjustified—butterflies definitely make you perform better—but it did go okay. Big crowd—most seats in the place were filled, because there’d been a Lakers-vs.-Orlando basketball game and most of the crowd stuck around for the music afterwards. They listened (good), and some of them stopped me afterwards to tell me they’d liked the material (and nobody else got that that I could see). I was on first (of four acts, not counting Eric the host), and that was good, too, because the audience did start drifting off after a while. Sold one CD, got a few more names on the “joelist” (including one of the other songwriters who was there). My new, cheap soundhole pickup wasn’t working (thank you, Guitar Center), so I plugged back in my ancient D’Armand, which does work (despite sounding electric). It’s roughly 30 years old (I got it when I played with the Dodson Drifters); new ones, according to the music store owner in Forest Grove, cost nearly $300 today. I can see why. That thing may last longer than I do. The competition? Well, I felt I could give them all pointers about writing. Makes me feel like some sort of Elder Statesman—have I really been around the block that many times?—but I guess my insistence on getting feedback for almost everything I do, and on hanging out with other writers and musicians to pick up things from them, has paid off to an extent. I think I can spot at least the obvious what-works-and-what-doesn’t things. I think the other players (one girl, one guy, and one duo—and the guy’s been performing professionally for a long time) have been operating in a vacuum. And we all know what vacuums do. It would be tempting (and probably beneficial) to sit ‘em all down together and say “Let’s talk about what we’ve written, and poke holes in it.” There’s a songwriters’ group in Eugene (OR) that does that; they’re the only one I’ve found (and I haven’t made it to any of their sessions—they are 200 miles away, after all). The Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. never did that, but they do something else that’s important: they had tons of opportunities for their members to perform in public, before live audiences consisting mostly of other writers, and you could see what other people did that worked with those audiences, and that, too, helped a lot. (And the Eugene group, for its part, doesn’t appear to do any performance opportunities.) It’d be fantastic to be able to do both. Everybody in the bar was given little “ballots” with the names of the performers to check off and deposit in a bucket on the bar. To the extent people actually voted (and I don’t know if they did), I probably got the bulk of the votes, even though some of the other performers had fans there and I didn’t. (Most of the people who told me they were going to come never did. I suppose I should expect that by now.) Eric said he’d tally all the votes from all the Tuesday night performances in June, and whoever gets the most votes is going to get the weekend gig. I obviously have no control over what happens those other nights; I know that last Tuesday (when I came in to check out the hall), the crowd was pretty small—because there was no big ball game on. So that enters into the calculations, too, and it’s something none of the writers have any control over. If I did get that weekend gig at the Thirsty Lion, I would want accompaniment if I could get it. My ideal choice would be Don Johnson, the blues harp player from our defunct Portland band; he’s a novice at the harmonica, but he is good, and he might be free on the weekend. I know I can do okay playing solo (the Thirsty Lion performance was a good reinforcement), but I still think me and solo guitar for an hour or two is a little hard to take. We’ll see if I get the chance to worry about it. And the job interview Tuesday afternoon? That went well, too—a little short, which worries me, but I’ll find out Friday if I made it to the “next level.” In the meantime, I’ve got more jobs to apply for, and band practice tonight. Never, never, never stop selling. Joe

Though I've had no formal training myself, I do recommend it. (I always figured it was pointless for me. Why should a tone-deaf person study music?) One caveat, though. I can usually spot a musician who's had formal training--because they're dependent on sheet music. And (my opinion) it looks really bad when you're performing if you need props. Like the old commercial says, don't let that happen to you. Underscores, I guess, Chet Atkins' advice on how much music theory someone ought to know. "Enough to know what you're doing," he said, "and not so much that it gets in the way of your doing it." joe

Thanks for bringing that up, John. I'd forgotten I said that. I think I still agree with me, though. joe

Good stuff. Thanks. joe

(I was about to run out of space. Sorry.) Accordingly, I think there's still a role--maybe an important one--for the publisher, and it may be the same one as 25 years ago. The Internet warrior needs *marketing* more than anything, and that (besides handling the nasty paperwork) is one of the main things publishers do. No, virtually nobody's doing it, because most of the publishers who are left are being barnacles on the Industry, and maybe what's needed is something completely different. *I* think one can safely bypass the Industry, but how to make money doing so is (as Richard Nixon used to say) the Operative Question. I don't have a good answer myself. I perform (and I can get paid for performing, though not enough to live on exclusively); I have a CD out, and it sells (but ditto). I haven't tried to sell anything on line--keeping in mind that "free music on the Internet" thing. I do have some of my stuff archived on a couple of OMDs and use that for promotional purposes, and I guess that's working a little. But I'm after answers, too. I'd love to read your thing when you've got it finished. I do think you're asking your questions in one of the right places. Lots of luck. joe