roxhythe

I wanted a kaddish in memory of Dick Ackerman, our blues harp player, who died December 29 (his 80th birthday). The kaddish is an old Jewish tradition that, while I’m not Jewish, I’ve always liked. It’s called the “song for the dead,” but it’s not FOR the dead, precisely—the dead are either in a better place or otherwise don’t care—but rather for the living, for those left behind. The idea, as I understand it, is that a person lives on in the ways they have touched other people’s lives, and the kaddish sort of expresses that; it says why that person was important. I have previously written two kaddishes (kaddishi? I’m not sure what the technical plural is). The passing of Corky “Dawg” Bernard, my first mentor as I explored songwriting online, prompted “Requiem for a Grey Dog,” written for his wife Bobbie. “Crosses by the Roadside” was originally going to be for Carol Ackerman—at the time, Dick was undergoing surgery and chemotherapy for cancer (I guess they didn’t get it all)—but after Dick’s health improved, I dedicated the song instead to fellow songwriter Sharma Kay, who was killed in a car accident this year (and “Crosses” is describing an auto accident, after all). I don’t know if anyone but Bobbie ever heard “Requiem for a Grey Dog”; I know a lot of people have heard “Crosses by the Roadside,” because it’s been performed a lot. And the kaddish for Carol? I just might have one already. A few years ago—back before “Alice” the ‘puter got the Windows XP upgrade that erased all her document files—I’d worked with a “Christian country” lyricist, Tarra Young, on something she’d written for a friend who was dying of cancer. I musicated it (tweaking the lyrics a bit, as usual), recorded it, and sent it to Tarra—and never heard anything. I found out a little while ago she had a Soundclick page, and the song was on it. (I guess she liked it.) The link, by the way, is http:www.soundclick.com/share?songid=5361727. I think—tentatively—this is the kaddish for Carol. It’s a bit upbeat (Carol being a good religious person, and knowing Dick has gone to a Better Place); expresses the sadness of missing him while at the same time being happy to have known him; and has that lovely line in the chorus, “You’ll make a real good angel.” And of course, the sentiments are a lot closer to home now than they were then. It’s not Jewish music, of course—none of my kaddishes (kaddishi?) are. I haven’t written any Jewish music. (I should. One of the items on the 2010 Worklist is to write in different genres.) “Requiem” was bluegrass, and the other two are two-steps. (Yes, you can dance to this.) My guitar playing on the recording on Tarra’s Soundclick page is a bit hesitant; I would not be hesitant now. (I guess that means I have gotten better since whenever-that-was.) I’ve been practicing singing it; I still can’t get through the song without my voice breaking, but it’s getting better—the trick is to stuff all the emotion into the singing, while remaining unemotional yourself. That’s just hard to do when something hits very close to home. I want to play this the next time I get together with the Friday Night Group (which won’t be for almost two weeks), because all of them knew Dick; it’d be neat if we could all play it for Carol when she gets back. In the same vein, I wonder if the band would be interested in recording it. I’m not sure it should go on the album; if it did, I’d want to dedicate the album to Dick, but that wouldn’t be a bad thing to do. At very least, I’d like to give Carol a copy of the song done by the band he helped make famous. Music this week Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and maybe Sunday. It’s been a long hiatus. Joe

Got to watch another band perform on New Year’s Eve. True, I’d rather have been playing on stage, but this was a good opportunity to observe the competition at work (over a decent shrimp dinner)—and these guys are getting paying gigs, and we’re not. I really should do more of this competition-assessing (though my fingers get itchy watching someone else play). 6-piece (I guess) band—lead and rhythm guitars, bass, drums, sound guy (I want one of those) and lighting guy. I don’t know if the lighting guy was being paid as an equal member of the band, but the sound guy should have been—he did a lot of work. One of the guitarists did a set as an Elvis impersonator, and was really good. They started off really poor, but did get better after Elvis arrived. I think starting off with something slow and jazzy, and following it with more slow and jazzy, was a bad move; long pauses between songs isn’t good, either. A sure signal they’d misjudged the crowd: the first song that got almost everybody out on the dance floor was a Buck Owens tune. (And these guys don’t play country music.) Could our band have done better? Mostly, yes. “Deathgrass” shows always start out with a good, upbeat dance tune (and it should be recognizable by now), and the Rap between songs ensures the audience never has a chance to get bored (and the band still get to catch its collective breath). We have the crowd’s attention constantly. Songs do not sound alike. A lot of what we play is country music—which apparently appeals to audiences around here. Since we’ve been playing to mostly the same kind of audience, I haven’t worried much about tailoring setlists, though I have done that for solo gigs, and with other bands; one reason for visiting the venue ahead of time is to talk to people there about what the crowd is like and what kind of music they like to hear, so you don’t have to guess (and risk guessing wrong). And I’m always doing post-mortems, reviewing what worked best, what didn’t, and what could be done differently (and better). So we’re doing a lot of this stuff right, I think. We don’t do covers (at least, not covers of anything famous). That New Year’s Eve band did all covers, of course; I think most bands do. I still don’t consider it necessary (and hope I’m right). At this point, people around here would be surprised if I performed anything that wasn’t original—but that’s because they’ve gotten used to me. (And maybe it’s improved people’s perceptions a little. I think most folks shy away from original music because they assume somebody who isn’t already famous, and on records and on the radio, can’t be any good. I hope in this little, local area, I’m proving that wrong. I am (or hope to be) proof that you can play your own stuff, and people will come to listen to it even knowing it’s your stuff, and they’ll dance to it, and even leave money behind. But it has taken a few years to get to that point.) Friday, I go north to Astoria, for the first get-together of the “infant” band Joe Sims has been trying to assemble up there (I talked them into considering me as their rhythm guitarist). All covers, of course—but I don’t mind: I don’t have to sing ‘em. I’ll pass on my Performance Points as best I can: Start off with a bang. Don’t give the audience a chance to get bored. Vary your tempo. And make sure you’re playing what the audience wants. As I’m looking through the list of 50 songs Joe sent—all rock ‘n’ roll and Modern Country (which is much the same), and no “traditional” country at all among them—I have to ask the question, “How well have you gauged our market? Are we playing these songs just because you want to sing them, or have you figured out these are what people want to hear? And if so, how did you decide that?” Oh, and it is January First, isn’t it? Happy New Year, everybody. May your Twenty-Ten be better than your Twenty-Nine. On my end, I sure will be working at it. Joe

Got to watch another band perform on New Year’s Eve. True, I’d rather have been playing on stage, but this was a good opportunity to observe the competition at work (over a decent shrimp dinner)—and these guys are getting paying gigs, and we’re not. I really should do more of this competition-assessing (though my fingers get itchy watching someone else play). 6-piece (I guess) band—lead and rhythm guitars, bass, drums, sound guy (I want one of those) and lighting guy. I don’t know if the lighting guy was being paid as an equal member of the band, but the sound guy should have been—he did a lot of work. One of the guitarists did a set as an Elvis impersonator, and was really good. They started off really poor, but did get better after Elvis arrived. I think starting off with something slow and jazzy, and following it with more slow and jazzy, was a bad move; long pauses between songs isn’t good, either. A sure signal they’d misjudged the crowd: the first song that got almost everybody out on the dance floor was a Buck Owens tune. (And these guys don’t play country music.) Could our band have done better? Mostly, yes. “Deathgrass” shows always start out with a good, upbeat dance tune (and it should be recognizable by now), and the Rap between songs ensures the audience never has a chance to get bored (and the band still get to catch its collective breath). We have the crowd’s attention constantly. Songs do not sound alike. A lot of what we play is country music—which apparently appeals to audiences around here. Since we’ve been playing to mostly the same kind of audience, I haven’t worried much about tailoring setlists, though I have done that for solo gigs, and with other bands; one reason for visiting the venue ahead of time is to talk to people there about what the crowd is like and what kind of music they like to hear, so you don’t have to guess (and risk guessing wrong). And I’m always doing post-mortems, reviewing what worked best, what didn’t, and what could be done differently (and better). So we’re doing a lot of this stuff right, I think. We don’t do covers (at least, not covers of anything famous). That New Year’s Eve band did all covers, of course; I think most bands do. I still don’t consider it necessary (and hope I’m right). At this point, people around here would be surprised if I performed anything that wasn’t original—but that’s because they’ve gotten used to me. (And maybe it’s improved people’s perceptions a little. I think most folks shy away from original music because they assume somebody who isn’t already famous, and on records and on the radio, can’t be any good. I hope in this little, local area, I’m proving that wrong. I am (or hope to be) proof that you can play your own stuff, and people will come to listen to it even knowing it’s your stuff, and they’ll dance to it, and even leave money behind. But it has taken a few years to get to that point.) Friday, I go north to Astoria, for the first get-together of the “infant” band Joe Sims has been trying to assemble up there (I talked them into considering me as their rhythm guitarist). All covers, of course—but I don’t mind: I don’t have to sing ‘em. I’ll pass on my Performance Points as best I can: Start off with a bang. Don’t give the audience a chance to get bored. Vary your tempo. And make sure you’re playing what the audience wants. As I’m looking through the list of 50 songs Joe sent—all rock ‘n’ roll and Modern Country (which is much the same), and no “traditional” country at all among them—I have to ask the question, “How well have you gauged our market? Are we playing these songs just because you want to sing them, or have you figured out these are what people want to hear? And if so, how did you decide that?” Oh, and it is January First, isn’t it? Happy New Year, everybody. May your Twenty-Ten be better than your Twenty-Nine. On my end, I sure will be working at it. Joe

Got to watch another band perform on New Year’s Eve. True, I’d rather have been playing on stage, but this was a good opportunity to observe the competition at work (over a decent shrimp dinner)—and these guys are getting paying gigs, and we’re not. I really should do more of this competition-assessing (though my fingers get itchy watching someone else play). 6-piece (I guess) band—lead and rhythm guitars, bass, drums, sound guy (I want one of those) and lighting guy. I don’t know if the lighting guy was being paid as an equal member of the band, but the sound guy should have been—he did a lot of work. One of the guitarists did a set as an Elvis impersonator, and was really good. They started off really poor, but did get better after Elvis arrived. I think starting off with something slow and jazzy, and following it with more slow and jazzy, was a bad move; long pauses between songs isn’t good, either. A sure signal they’d misjudged the crowd: the first song that got almost everybody out on the dance floor was a Buck Owens tune. (And these guys don’t play country music.) Could our band have done better? Mostly, yes. “Deathgrass” shows always start out with a good, upbeat dance tune (and it should be recognizable by now), and the Rap between songs ensures the audience never has a chance to get bored (and the band still get to catch its collective breath). We have the crowd’s attention constantly. Songs do not sound alike. A lot of what we play is country music—which apparently appeals to audiences around here. Since we’ve been playing to mostly the same kind of audience, I haven’t worried much about tailoring setlists, though I have done that for solo gigs, and with other bands; one reason for visiting the venue ahead of time is to talk to people there about what the crowd is like and what kind of music they like to hear, so you don’t have to guess (and risk guessing wrong). And I’m always doing post-mortems, reviewing what worked best, what didn’t, and what could be done differently (and better). So we’re doing a lot of this stuff right, I think. We don’t do covers (at least, not covers of anything famous). That New Year’s Eve band did all covers, of course; I think most bands do. I still don’t consider it necessary (and hope I’m right). At this point, people around here would be surprised if I performed anything that wasn’t original—but that’s because they’ve gotten used to me. (And maybe it’s improved people’s perceptions a little. I think most folks shy away from original music because they assume somebody who isn’t already famous, and on records and on the radio, can’t be any good. I hope in this little, local area, I’m proving that wrong. I am (or hope to be) proof that you can play your own stuff, and people will come to listen to it even knowing it’s your stuff, and they’ll dance to it, and even leave money behind. But it has taken a few years to get to that point.) Friday, I go north to Astoria, for the first get-together of the “infant” band Joe Sims has been trying to assemble up there (I talked them into considering me as their rhythm guitarist). All covers, of course—but I don’t mind: I don’t have to sing ‘em. I’ll pass on my Performance Points as best I can: Start off with a bang. Don’t give the audience a chance to get bored. Vary your tempo. And make sure you’re playing what the audience wants. As I’m looking through the list of 50 songs Joe sent—all rock ‘n’ roll and Modern Country (which is much the same), and no “traditional” country at all among them—I have to ask the question, “How well have you gauged our market? Are we playing these songs just because you want to sing them, or have you figured out these are what people want to hear? And if so, how did you decide that?” Oh, and it is January First, isn’t it? Happy New Year, everybody. May your Twenty-Ten be better than your Twenty-Nine. On my end, I sure will be working at it. Joe