Kanye, Taylor, football, Oprah. Sports, US Men’s Open, VMA, virus.

According to Google, these are the top search topics on the web right now, on September 14, 2009. Of the top ten topics, four are sports-related, two are music-related, two are Oprah-related and two are “unrelated.”

These are the things America is searching for: sports, music, Oprah.

If I were to write a song today about a singing football player who appears on Oprah, would people search for it? Would I be giving America what it wants?

Today, if you want your music to be heard or seen, it’s gotta be on the Internet. If you can be Googled, you’ve got a chance.

I searched for Google hit statistics on “Paul McCartney.” As you might expect, hit results were astronomical. I was surprised to learn that Canadians searched for Paul more than Americans, followed by Mexicans and Argentineans. The Brits were somewhere behind Argentina. People are nuts for his lyrics, which they look for more often than info on his tours, which came in second.

I then entered Texas-bred band Bowling for Soup. I love Bowling for Soup! We cover one of their most popular songs, “1985.” It is just too perfect for our band of five women. I learned they are bigger in the U.K. than they are in their home country. What is it about hometown folks not being number one fans??

I then entered Merry and the Mood Swings. The message came up: “Not enough search volume to show graphs.” If this had been revealed at a cocktail party, my eyes would have gotten momentarily big and I would have flushed red. How embarrassing! Here we have a wonderful home website and a presence on myspace, Facebook and now ReverbNation. I know we are searched for because ReverbNation can show me examples of where we have appeared on the web, and Google sends Mary H. updates when we appear on the web.

So I’m experimenting. If I salt hot topic terms into my blog posts and the band websites, will they eventually come up on Google searches? If they do and people click through, will I write a hit song titled “Oprah’s Football Music?” Maybe an entire CD, “The Battle of Jon and Kate,” “Taylor’s Swift Kick to Kanye,” “Facebook Virus Blues,” etc.?

Will I?

Search me.

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I am unemployed.

A couple years ago that would have been a hard thing to admit. This year, not so much. There are too many people with faces just like mine: eyes wide, sweeping the perimeter, ready to pounce at the first sign of a good job.

I’ve attended the job search seminars. Signed up for unemployment benefits. Played music. Tweaked my résumé. Wrote a new song. Checked careerbuilder. Worked on the new song again. What if the chorus shifted from C to G? Updated LinkedIn. It’d sound better in G. Hey! We got the Tour de NeighborsGo gig! We can debut “Chickenheaded Thing” and “Father Time.” Email the band. Email the Tour promoter. Send publicity photos, update copy…oh, wait, look for a job.

This is a terrible and tantalizing position we Unemployed are in -- vacillating between finding a job (responsibility) and pursuing true passions (joy!). The obvious answer is to find a job that involves your passion. That is one of those sentences the Employed say to the Unemployed that is far easier to say than actually do.

In an attempt to rise above the hundreds of applications pouring in to HR offices, I’ve written letters directly to CEOs I’ve never met. These CEOs were carefully selected based on their personal love of music. One CEO actually offers free guitar lessons to every employee in his Fortune 500 company – probably to offset the soul-numbing day-to-day work they do in a highly controlled engineering industry. I thought my letter would stand out by its heartfelt, down-to-earth approach and its forthrightness, backed by several solid years of communications experience – who could resist?

Apparently, all of them. The lack of any kind of response said loudly, get back in the HR line.

I think the blessing and the curse of being unemployed is the sweetness of devoting time to music. It fuels the soul, makes the days burn brighter, makes life…fun again, like it was when we were kids. It’s as if a clear voice inside your head is saying, THIS is the way life is supposed to be lived. The thought of getting back into the yoke of regular employment causes the heart to slow a bit, the eyes to look sideways, the shoulders to drop. “Grow up,” says another voice. “You’ve got bills to pay. Come on now, get going.”

So I’m both joyous and pragmatic at this current state of unemployment. I know once I am employed again, creating and playing music will return to being a furtive thing, caught in the precious evening hours between dinner and bedtime, or on the weekends between errands.

But for now, as I navigate between pursuing passion and responsibility, music is a joyous thing.

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Hey the Mood Swings have just been invited to play the NeighborsGo "Tour de NeighborsGo" family bike & trike event at the Village Shops at Castle Hills, in Lewisville. Saturday, Sept. 12, trike event 9:30, "Big Bike" ride 10 a.m., Mood Swings 11-noon. Vendors, families, live music & fun -- hope to see you there. Free! Look for details in NeighborsGo around the first week of September.
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Previously, on Mood Swings:

The big eye of TV winked as we played at Opening Bell Southside. Friends filled the seats, buddy/soundman/musician Doug Potts crammed the mixer board onto a table in the middle of the room, and Dan and Ryan from Texas Country Reporter moved around without notice, except for the fact that everyone of course knew exactly where they were at all times and pretended they didn’t see them, which of course they did, clearly, with both eyes, because Dan and Ryan were holding large TV cameras, one of which could look your way at any moment. It was a marvelous example of the the magic of television: even after being around for 80 years, TV still thrills. People still get excited about the thought that they, through the magic of television, can be transported into millions of glowing boxes in people’s living rooms, where, for a few pinnacle moments, they will be the captivating center of attention, the fleeting electronic gestalt of countless strangers’ existences, with the side benefit of writing home to mom to say, hey, I was on TV last night, didja see me.

Gets ‘em every time.

And so this pixie-dust made for an animated crowd, and the ‘Swings fed on the buzz. It was such a boost to look out into the room at all those smiling faces, those dancing feet—it’s a wonderful way to play music, a happy thing indeed, and we cavorted through “Trailer Park Living,” “Reach Out,” “Match Not Made in Heaven” and a few covers, including “Dream On,” with cellphones waving in the air like so many handheld Tinkerbells.

At the end of the night, as Ryan and Dan were packing up their things and the ‘Swings continued to play, Mary H. picked Ryan to be that night’s “Metrosexual.” For those who’ve not yet heard it, “Metrosexual” is a song Mary H. wrote about the kind of hunky guy who dresses so well he could be a magazine model: “He’s a metro, metrosexual, he looks better than me… he’s a metro, metrosexual, oh what a man is he. . .” It’s a lot of fun for the audience, and usually fun for the pick of the night, unless the pick is terribly shy and mortified by five women singing about how gorgeous he is in front of a bunch of people, but Ryan had a trick up his sleeve – actually, a trick up both sleeves: at the end of the song he tore open his shirt and what was underneath but a Mood Swings T-shirt!!

It was a Superman kind of moment.

After that night’s shoot was done, I thought we were finished taping, but I was wrong. I’m telling you, when Texas Country Reporter does a story, they really go after it. Not only did they tape the rehearsal and the gig, they taped four more interviews with various Mood Swings at their places of work or home, AND came back to shoot even more footage at the Deep Ellum Arts Fest. Unbelieveable!

Ooh! Ooh! Remember the big fat hint I gave Bob Phillips at the rehearsal taping, about heyyy, wouldn’t it be great if the ‘Swings could play at the annual Bob Phillips Texas Country Reporter Festival in Waxahachie in October? Well guess who’s playing at the Bob Phillips Texas Country Reporter Festival in October! Shazam!! We’ll be there on Saturday, October 24!! Do you know they actually shut down downtown Waxahachie so that 50,000 people can converge for the Festival? It’s a full day of seeing everyone you’ve seen on the show that year, only in person and in festival style. I can’t wait! We'll post details on the website as soon as we get them: www.merryandthemoodswings.com.

Two of the Mood Swings (Mary H & Mary G) play on May 9 at a fundraiser for septecimia patient Delia King at Opening Bell Southside (see http://openingbellcoffee.com/calendar1 for details about the benefit or www.deliaking.org for more information about Delia King).

Then the ‘Swings open for Once in a Blue Moon at Poor David’s Pub on Saturday, May 30 – if you’ve been jonesing for a Hendrix/SR Vaughan-league guitar player (no joke), don’t miss Once in a Blue Moon – OMG. And bring your dancin’ shoes (and cellphones)!
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Got a call the other day from Dan Stricklin of the Texas Country Reporter TV show (on air all over Texas for 27 years – GREAT show) and they want to do a segment about the Mood Swings. Hey! Cool! I LOVE Texas Country Reporter! I’ve always had a fondness for feature stories, and these guys are really, really good at it. So hey!

Here is the first of three installments about what it’s like when Texas Country Reporter comes calling. Today, a list about taping at the house; next, a piece about shooting at the “faux gig” set up just for them and third…well, I haven’t figured that out yet; we’re not quite done taping. But in the meanwhile, let’s dish!:

1. Home from work, they’ll be here at 7:

• put dog in back bedroom, close door
• clean toilet, they might want to use the restroom
• vacuum living room – does the rug still smell funny from when the dog threw up?
• open windows
• what if they wander down the hall & peek in the kid’s bedrooms? Close doors.
• make black bean salad, set out on Texas-shaped cutting board
• go over set list at the kitchen table with the ‘Swings
• act nonchalant when the doorbell rings
• nab escaped dog and haul back to bedroom while another ‘Swing opens the door

2. The shoot at house is really fun, but we’re nervous at first. At first they stand out in the front yard and shoot through the front windows. I feel the neighbor-vibes creeping across the lawns: “What now?”

3. When they come inside the house, we’re running through “Busy Body.” Talk about a close-up: Dan’s camera lens is two inches from Mary H.’s face the whole time. If she turned her head she’d hit the lens with her nose. Mary’s good, though, she’s channeling her inner theater major.

4. Now Ryan (producer-camerman guy) is doing closeups of Lucy, our “shy” ‘Swing who usually pulls in like a turtle when TV is around. She seems to be weathering this pretty well though, and she looks rela---heyy there’s a smile! These guys are good. Yeah, Lucy jus’ hangin’ out….

5. Martha is smooth on the drums during her closeups, keeps her sticks cool; Diane absolutely smokes on the sax & flute. Atta girls. When the camera turns to me I bang my teeth into the microphone and hope for merciful editing.

6. Time for the interview. They have Mary H. sit on the ottoman, the rest of us on the edge of the couch, scrunched closer than we would ever sit in real life – ewww we’re TOUCHing…camera’s rolling, act like this is the way we sit together all the time.

7. Host Bob Phillips is a pro*, he warms us up with “where are you from” throwaway lines, and then we’re off and gabbing. I wonder what parts they’ll use? When asked what our original songs were about, we should have had sparkling answers ready instead of everyone just kinda sitting there for a few….long…seconds… trying to explain, um, what, in fact, we sing about.

8. All the cool answers come to me later, about ten o’clock, long after they’re gone.

9. Bob & crew tape “Sarah,” “Busy Body,” and “Instructional World.” Do they really like our music, or were they just being polite? What is this going to look like when it’s all cut together? I know we’re in excellent hands – ALL their work is absolutely top-notch. But what will it turn out to be for the ‘Swings??

10. I drop big, clattering hints for an invitation to play at the next Texas Country Reporter Festival in Waxahachie in October – MEGA gig, they shut down downtown Waxahachie for 50,000 people, LOADS of fun – I hope we get invited. How cool would that be?!

11. Pack up, do gear count, big “faux” gig tomorrow night at Opening Bell Southside where they’ll record while we perform in front of an audience. We’ve invited some friends & family to be the audience – and we are going to PARRRR-TAY! Well, as much as one can par-tay between 7-8 p.m. on a Wednesday night – we’ve all got to get up & go to work the next day.

12. Let dog out of bedroom, set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. Tomorrow’s gonna be a big day.

* I want his job. He has the PERFECT job: Figure out what interests you, then go do a story about it, and get paid for it. Years ago I did magazine-style stories for radio and absolutely loved it and have always daydreamed about returning to those roots somehow, someday. Maybe after I win the Lotto.


Next: Texas Country Reporter, Part Two

Band website: www.merryandthemoodswings.com
Hear the Mood Swings: www.myspace.com/merrythemoodswings

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