1. The pen is mightier than the guitar pick.
2. If you don’t like the truth broadcast, maybe get a little more concerned about the truth.
First, I have to report I have a Friday gig this weekend, at least lined up, I mean. Jimbo’s is not that bad a joint, if you consider the amount of tips total available in some other places around this area, it compares quit well. It seems the waitress from Saturday last has secured more suitable employment. That puts me in the Friday slot I really wanted in the first place. I glad it was their idea.Dickens is on the way back, and I have a huge shipment of doggie wigs to inventory. The wig shop called today about developing a system of tracing the sales. I took the opportunity to point out that I had been earlier instructed not to be concerned with prices, so my database of quantities will have to do for now. Ahem. As usual, I don’t get the uninterrupted time needed to get things done at the Thrift. How I wish I could get a job writing, and I may be getting serious about that.
Cowboy Mike called. We just missed practice y’day and we will get together on Thursday. He still has the impression I can’t play Blues simply because I have never had much of it in my background. It will be heads-up on Thursday concerning who can play what. To that end, I would describe myself as an excellent rhythm boogie Blues bass player with an extraordinary sense of timing.
There is another issue, that of expired domain names. You must keep your domain name paid up (which they cutely call “registered”) or they remarket it. There is a grace period when your web page does not work, but the scam is they want $80 to “reactivate” your account during a dormant period while they make you sweat. I know of three people caught in this scam in the last week. The problem was never the money, but vaguely worded invoices from GoDaddy.com and Register.com. They arrive on-line and read like more advertising. These invoices never stated what was going on, as in “If you don’t pay your domain name bill, we will suspend your service and gouge you for $80.”
This morning, cancel two hours while I figured out that I again had that weird download format the is not recognized by anything except Windows Media Player. I want to hand out several copies of a popular item as promo at my gig tomorrow, but the damn thing will not cooperate. I either can’t load it, copy it or burn it because it is some strange Microsoft format. Typical.
Later. I came home to pat the cat, Pudding. What else is there to do in this town? A rhetorical question. It worked out okay for the cat. She has toned down the growling and stepped up the patrols of the perimeter. During the off moments at the Thrift I downloaded all the tunes I could find from Cowboy’s Mike’s list and gave them a listen. Yep, he needs lessons on burning CDs, or at least how to use that jack on recording equipment labeled “Line In”.
Cowboy Mike is quite interested in the drum box now that he’s heard it proper. I have not worked out the tracks. He seems to think all the Blues tunes have distinct beats and would like them “as close to the original as possible”. I don’t have the heart to tell him they are all the same basic two or three patterns. I’ll throw in an extra snare beat or something to keep ‘em happy. I’ve always maintained that Blues guitarists and singers do not pay enough attention to the background components, which I understand because nobody ever talks about any famous Blues drummers or bass players. Maybe I could change some of that?
What I’ve done for now is take several versions of most of the tunes, and these Blues numbers surely have a lot of versions. I take the best parts and amalgamate them, which I have to admit works very effectively with the Blues. Um, I did not say original because most of the stuff is boringly complex. The most used change is moving up to the IV chord in the second measure of the 12-bar framework. What I have now is a set of customized bass lines which, I feel, capture the essence of each tune. I did this a few times last week and Cowboy Mike kept saying, “Now you’re getting it.”
Okay.
