Four More Days To Get This Shit Together

Four More Days To Get This Shit Together

"Splendid isolation, I don't need no one." - Warren Zevon

My first solo gig in six and a half years is Friday night. I had a dream last night that I was compiling the set list, and I realized just how much I knew was left off that list, meaning that the challenge for four hours won't be having enough material, but getting through without my throat going to hell. I'm giving myself some opportunities to ease that worry by extending a few guitar moments, not to mention the ambient shit I'm working on.

Running a bass through an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man delay unit is one thing. This is a pedal once described by Guitar Player magazine as capable of sounding like (I'm paraphrasing) "a giant squid munching on potato chips at depths of thousands of feet underwater."

But then I'll run it through a Digitech Whammy Pedal and a DOD delay/sampler that will allow me to record four -second loops. If the store up there will allow me one (mine are long since sold off or in need of repair, or stolen by some sack of shit from my car last fall) I'll also use distortion, hopefully a really evil Fripp-ish fuzz. I'll also be using the volume knob quite a lot. (My Morley volume pedal kinda sucks, so I doubt I'll use it.)

I'll probably do at least two or three improvisations with this setup, and if the guy with the trombone shows up...oooh...the possibilities for audio carnage...

I'm gonna open with an improv, finally settling on a quiet loop to let go for a while, over which I'll read a passage (not sure which one yet) from Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas.

Then I'll switch to acoustic guitar and get folky for the entire rest of the first set.

Here's my current (though quite likely to be modified) first set:


Opening Improv/A Reading From The Book Of Hunter

Splendid Isolation (Warren Zevon)

What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love & Understanding (Elvis Costello)

Bang A Gong (T. Rex)

Drive (Incubus)

Searching For A Heart (Warren Zevon)

Ankle Bracelet (Mike Keneally)

Octopus (Syd Barrett)

Diamonds & Dominoes (D.B.)

The Mayor Of Simpleton (XTC)

James K. Polk (They Might Be Giants)

Never Enough (Adrian Belew)

It Won't Hurt (Dwight Yoakam)


Diamonds & Dominoes is a song I wrote last July 11th, the day I heard about the death of Syd Barrett. The only recording I have at the moment is shit, but I hope to lay down something better to put up here sometime soon so y'all can hear it. Octopus will be recieving at least a somewhat extended guitar section, since I like fucking about with chordal ideas in E for a while on that one.

Throughout the rest of the night, I intend to also sprinkle in a few bass pieces I've written over the years (Including Requiem For A Head Laying In A Field In Butler, which many of you have heard, and which I butchered a few weeks back when I went in there late one night for a brief open-mic after one too many shitty beers and the sting of D standing me up - don't worry, the alcohol will stay unopened this Friday night until the last set) and some spoken word stuff. Possibly other people's, possibly some of my own.

I'm also hoping to find the one recording I have of a song I wrote years ago called The Next Thing. I've got the words, but I can't remember how to PLAY the fucking thing. I used to do it when I did these kind of gigs in coffeeshops back in 1999/2000. It's kind of a Kevin Gilbert-ish thing.

I'm also going to make up two CDs. One will be for breaks, just general stuff to fuck with people while I go for a piss (I might have to put some John Zorn sax-mangling on there...) and the other will be full of edited snippets of various Bill Hicks and Doug Stanhope rants, which I intend to play during the bass/electronic impovs. I WON'T be doing any long political tirades, but I do have a short-yet-direct plug for Stanhope's campaign ready to go. I want to make that shit concise and get back to making noise, but I have no qualms whatsoever about getting a point across.

Now I've gotta go work on constructing set two.

Love,
Dougie

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Current contender for Set Two:

Improv/Devour (D.B.)

Pigs On The Wing/Pigs (Three Different Ones)/Pigs On The Wing (Pink Floyd)

King Of The Road (Roger Miller)

Werewolves Of London (Warren Zevon)

What's He Building?/Heartattack & Vine (Tom Waits)

When You Dance I Can Really Love/The Loner/Mr. Soul (Neil Young)

Requiem For A Head Laying In A Field In Butler (D.B.) 

What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?/Zoot Allures (Frank Zappa)

Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix)

Karma Police (Radiohead) 

Rockin' In The Free World (Neil Young) 

Devour is a short poem (I want a garden!) I wrote a while back. King Of The Road and Werewolves Of London will feature a couple members of my band as guests if they show up. If not, I might drop both out and do some other shit.