Making it thrugh another year, '24-'25

[Old Greenhorn]

_{That tune (the live version) is in with the regular rotation of about 400 tracks in my truck. Great, so now when it comes around I'll be thinking of the bunch here instead of the shirt-kicking crowd I was hanging out with when that song was released.}

[doc henderson]

The Oasis bar was in the basement of an old Motel in my hometown of Concordia, Ks.  Garths guitar player, Jim Garver, added the name to the song.  we went to HS together. He was a few years older than me.  he was a drummer in Band but played fiddle and guitar in a family band.  his younger sister was in my class, and was gorgeous, but died of ovarian cancer in her 40s.

Jim Garver - Wikipedia

I am practically famous.  

[Old Greenhorn]

I had to go check the writer. I have an acquaintance who has written several of Garth's tunes (The River and other), but this wasn't one of his.  Good tune that.

[doc henderson]

I think it was a group compilation, and Jim added the old bars name to the song as they were trying to make things work with the lyrics.  "I think", I was not there.

[Old Greenhorn]

Stuff like that happens all the time. I was sitting in on a session while 2 friends were trying to write the music for the lyrics they had. My job was to drink the beer and once in a while decide which sounded better when they couldn't agree. Eventually they got to the point where they were playing it out and because they had not yet memorized the lyrics so they asked me to read/sing the lyrics as they worked through it so they could keep their place. You go over, it, make and change and go over it again, over and over and over trying out the options. We did this maybe 20 times and eventually it started to roll into something and at one point, just to break my own boredom I threw in a fill riff and they both stopped playing and said "THATS IT!" we need that, do it again. Next thing you know 3 months late I am in the studio with them. Weird things happen.

 I have a raw cut that another friend wrote and was working through, he thought he had a good song and sent me the cut. I liked it a lot and it wound up in my truck rotation. Well it was a good song and wound up with a full arrangement on the next album a year later, which is now about 3 years ago. I was talking to him the other night and the tune came up and I told him I was still running the raw cut in my truck and now when they perform it, I sing the wrong words in a few places because he made changes as they produced it. He laughed and said 'Hey, if you get a chance, send me that cut back, I'd like to hear it again. I forgot about it. I was sick as a dog when I wrote that and barely had a voice to sing it. I recorded it on my phone while in bed."
 Weird things happen in the life of a song.

[aigheadish]

You should be getting royalties, Tom! 

[Resonator]

One of the best things ever invented for aspiring musicians were phones with built in sound recording. Anytime you have an idea, you can quick record it on a file. And if you're practicing, you can prop up your phone and put down what you're playing. And then go back and review it (good or bad).
Not uncommon for the pro's to do this, and pitch songs to band members or producers just off a rough demo. And sometimes the "rough demo" track is the one they actually use.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yes, it's quite common. But those things usually do not get circulated until they work into some sort of fuller version. But I have been lucky to get a few of them while in development and it's fun to compare them to the finished and polished album a couple of years later.
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Austin, in order to get royalties you need to have sales.

[Resonator]

Yup, I'm still at the poor boy stage, hope to put together a home recording studio someday. Amazing what can be done with sound tools and digital editing to produce a "fuller version".
Best story I recall a few years ago Ricky Skaggs put out an album of some of his favorite songs. He tracked every song himself in his own studio. He did all the vocals himself, and every instrument he played including a little piano. He said it was nice for once not to have to pay other musicians to record.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, what Skaggs did was not new, lots do that as part of the growth stage.
 I have a friend Gordon Titcomb (you can easily look him up), lives in CT now and retired. He liv3ed in Woodstock for a while in the 70's while learning the business. He played with a bunch of the locals and is on at least one of Bill Keith's albums as well as one of the Woodstock Mountain Review albums, the first one I think. Anyway, Gordon left music for a while and became a commercial pilot flying for one of the major airlines to get his kids through college. Then he went back into muic playing in Arlo Gutherie's band for over 20 years on the road (you can look Arlo up too). When he finally retired from that, he sat down and arranged all the tunes he had written while on the road and played all the instruments and recorded and album called "The Last Train'. It is a beautiful work and I treasure the copy that he gave me. Hard to believe it's all him and just one guest female vocalist here and there.

 Talking about 'low end recording'. There is a David Grissman album called 'Early Dawg'. Bill clued me into and you can still find it, but only on CD. I see there is now a deluxe edition which I will add to my list. Anyway, the original recordings were done in the early 60's (before '63) and it was done in David's Mother's apartment, a 6th floor walkup with DC electricity. The living room had no room for anyone to sit, they all stood and crammed around the mic's and recorded on a 6 track tape recorder. It was not released until David found the recordings around 1980. Now apparently he has found more recordings and added to the album with a new release and about 32 tracks. This is a hidden treasure and any newgrass student should internalize the entire album. Just the list of the players on all those tracks is a "who's who" in music. Last time I saw David he signed it for me.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well after yesterday I decided not to even try going back to the mill today until it warms a little. A man has to know his limitations.  So I committed to the shop for the day. First time since the open house almost a month ago. My wife has started working on a batch of those log carriers because I was down to one of them. SO I need to make handles for them, just 1" dowels by 18" long, but I make my own form mill stock. I found some 1x4's and skip planed them then cut 18" chunks and ripped them into 1" squares, then ran them through the table router to round them up and make a pseudo dowel, good enough.  I sat by the wood stove and hand sanded them. After lunch I put on a coat of wipe on poly. I'll do another tomorrow.

 I piddled around with a little toy I am thinking of making, brought in another load of wood into the shop, and did some shop chores and a town run. But I spent the day out there and started working on 'stuff'.  I guess I am back in the saddle again.

 But this winter will be different. I am not sure exactly how, but I have been studying my performance and more importantly income from this past year and thinking about it a lot. Maybe too much, I'm not sure. Right now my trailer is pretty full of inventory. I could maybe use a few cheaper rustic benches as backup, but not too much else. I think I will focus this winter on small knick knacks, gizmos and trinkets. Small stuff in the $5 to $50 range. Stuff that I can put a bunch in a box and spread out on a table and maybe sell a dozen or so. I am also re-thinking this show thing entirely. I again looked over my show performance last night and weighed the effort against the return and realized I have to do just a few shows very carefully chosen, like holiday weekends and such. I know this past year was down because of the election year, but I can't keep putting that effort in for no real return. So this year, once again, I will try new stuff. Mainly I will try to find a way to get folks to come to me. Sounds simple, but it's not and I have a 'sort of ' plan and some test marketing to do, but we'll see how it goes and what I learn.
 I keep thinking there HAS to be a formula that can work for me and I just need to keep trying things until I find it. In the meantime, mushroom logging starts just about anytime now, so I will work on drumming that business up because that is good ca$h, just very hard work. Hopefully I can do 1,000 logs as I have been pulling the last 3 years now. I just hope I have the back for it. I am feeling older this year for sure.

[Old Greenhorn]

I am still trying to latch onto a project in the shop so I am piddling with little stuff here and there and jus trying o spend a full day in the shop doing 'something' because it all needs to get done, whether it's sharpening tools, cleaning up, or fixing stuff, it all takes time. So I stay busy without trying. 

 About a month ago I was stuffing the stove and found a piece of maple in my hands that has remarkable spalting and no rot at all. Really solid wood. In fact I had 2 pieces like that, so I put them on the side in case it came up during the open shop weekend I could show something. Anyway, I have been staring at those pieces for several weeks now thinking it would be a shame to waste that nice wood.

 In keeping with my bendable plan of trying some new stuff this winter and inspired by Austin's woodcarving skills and persistence I decided to take a block of that chunk of firewood and try to make a spoon. I split off a piece about the size of a 2x4, brought in a block to work on and traced out a basic shape. Then I sharpened up a small camp ax and had at it. It's hard and very dry maple so ity took a while, but I got the shape done and I have a nice pile of spatted chips.



The heavy black lines are my outline for the shape, the other lines are 'natural'. Since I took that photo I have gotten some more more done on it. I have no curved knife so I have to figure out how to do the bowl, but I am getting there. I'll just work on this as I have time and am in the right frame of mind. I probably should have taught myself this process on a piece of pine. This stuff is pretty hard.

 I don't think this will turn into anything pretty or usable, but it is nice wood. I'll give it a try. I need to get some new sanding belts for my big belt sander and I am looking for a curved knife, but that may have to wait a while until cash flow improves. Right now I am just trying to learn all the things I should not do.

 Tomorrow is another day.

[Resonator]

Spoon reminds me of what Dick Proenneke would make... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3NRdZ8J24Q

Starting around 30 seconds in, he shapes it using mostly an ax, then a gouge, rasp, sandpaper, and a bow saw. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, looks like he used softwood and it was semi-green at least. Probably a better idea. I wish I had a gouge like that. Another thing to put on the list. I have a small (tiny) one that my dad used for tweaking gunstocks when he was bedding actions. It's just too small. But I can't imagine selling spoons or anything at a rate that would really add to the bottom line. I have little hope of becoming 'a carver' especially since there is a guy 'over the hill' who is really good and has been doing it for 40+ years. I neither want to compete with him, nor can I. He has the tools, the skills, the eye, the charisma, and most important, the clientele. I'm not gonna put a dog in that fight.
 But it's fun and nice to build new skills.

[doc henderson]

I would be using a bandsaw and a router.  

[SwampDonkey]

Here I made a template of the profile for cabinet legs and traced it on a piece of square stock.



Cutting it with bandsaw



Rough cut on the right, finished piece for comparison on left.




Rounded the feet on the lathe.



Ran a centreline down the middle with pencil (both faces), the edges will be sanded round on a table belt sander and that centreline is the thickest part of the leg.



some sanding



Finished product, two shown to demonstrate that it can be duplicated with decent accuracy.

[aigheadish]

Looks like a good start Tom, that wood is going to be tough move out! I can't imagine you don't have some scrap metal in the shop that could be converted into a round knife or gouge or something. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah Doc, I suppose I should get my bandsaw back together, but I have no idea how you would work a router into that sort of job. Scares me to think about it.

Nice work there SD! that's way over my head, at least for the foreseeable future. Again, that bandsaw would make things a lot easier. No lathe here that is usable either.

Austin it is hard wood, but a little at a time helps. It is very time intensive. I started on the bowl after that photo and I am about half way down, maybe less, so far. Making a knife would be more work than I have time for, fining material, annealing it, then shaping it and hardening is something else I really don't have all the tools for here. Curved blades are a special challenge.

I mentioned the carver over the hill in my prior post. Lately he has taken to making these FB live things where he sits in his TiPi or by his woodstove and works while chatting about this and that. They run for a while. So last night I spent an hour watching him carve a spoon out of dried walnut. It kind of got me in the right frame of mind. Patiently watching someone else work can provide a lot of education.

[aigheadish]

They make really inexpensive cut-resistant gloves nowadays Tom. Be safe!

[Old Greenhorn]

What are you implying?

[SawyerTed]

A small carving set is handy to have around.

Harbor Freight has an 11 piece set for $14.99 and a 5 piece set for $11.99.  Both include round chisels/gouges.

Not a bank breaker to piddle around with a few projects.  They are good for those little fine adjustments when working other projects.  

[Old Greenhorn]

Ted, I actually made good progress today on that bowl. I found a curved gouge in a box of old tools that gave me a pretty good jump. But I am at the point of letting it sit for a bit while I think on it some more. There was a crack in the bowl lip that popped out and I have to rethink what o do about it or throw it in the stove and but wood is too nice for that.
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Speaking of stoves, I am about as depressed and disgusted as I have been in a very long time and I am thinking of chucking the whole business plan and re-thinking entirely what I do and how, as well as when I do it. Refer back to post 502 for the background on this, but my neighbor was back again this evening asking if I had done anything about my woodstove. Well, this pithed me off right away. I 'informed him' that I have bent over backwards to be a good neighbor after his last 'request', I don't start my stove until after 9am each morning by which time he SHOULD be off to work (which he isn't) and his kids should be in school. It smokes for about 15 minutes until it is rolling and then the chimney burns clean. I get a little more smoke here and there when I refill it. I keep a close eye on it and the wind direction He says he has noticed less smoke, but he can still smell it and it smells like the chimney isn't clean. Now I'm mad. I ask if he expects me to 'make it stop smelling like wood is burning' and does he realize where he is? This is 'the country' and people burn wood, you can smell it everywhere and people mostly like that smell. I burn clean dry wood, no rot, no junk. He says well your house stove, when you run it, is just fine, even smells good. I point out that the house stove runs 24/7 and burns the same wood as the shop, in fact I have been bringing my shop wood over to burn in the house for 3 weeks now. One of the things he said that really upset me was that 'he noticed that sometimes the stove was running and I am not even in the shop'. Really!? He is watching me and deciding when I am there and whether I should have the stove running? I am wondering what he is thinking here. I tried explaining that I have to keep the building thermal mass up, but realized there is something else going on in his tiny brain.
 He asks if "I can do better,' and I ask what he expects me to do?

 I have about had it. 35 years we've lived here and get along with all the neighbors past and present(except one who is long time gone). This guy moves in and he finds lots of complaints about most folks, meanwhile he is running a mini-dump and is an obnoxious neighbor as perceived by anyone I've discussed it with. I've had it. I don't have the energy for a pithing contest, but if he wants one, he will loose. I just don't need this crap. All my wife and I want is to be able to live out the few years we have left in peace. So either I join the fight and spend months working through the process with this idiot and losing sleep the whole time, or I just give up and re-think my life. I just hate to roll over, I worked my whole life to get these few years of enjoyment before some sickness or whatever takes me down and this idiot 30 something has to pith on my parade. I am pretty ticked off.

[Otis1]

I say burn more wood if you can afford to. Then tell him next time he comes on your property that you will have him "trespassed". I've always believed that good fences make good neighbors.

[doc henderson]

You try to be nice, and some people then respect you less.  the problem with stupid people is they are not very smart.  He will start a pissing match and when you turn on him, he will be whining about why you have to be so mean.  I love the smell of wood burning and at low concentration should not affect any asthmatic.  You walk over there with about 8 neighbors and tell him he needs to get all the junk out of site from all of you in all direction and the road.  Maybe he will realize he should live and let live.

[aigheadish]

In a somewhat friendly/joking tone "get the eff outta here..." then in a clearly not friendly/joking tone "No, really, GET THE EFF out of here! You and your trash pile can eat a d while I burn as much wood as I want."

That's probably not the right response but as a sometimes patient-to-a-fault person I'd be real close to saying that.