Thursday: 10 High. It was an ok night all the way around. The crowd was thin and ambivalent; not the inspiring throng we seem to need these days to really put on a killer show. Things were fine, but nothing important springs to mind.
Friday: Park Tavern. Sold out show--Christmas in July/80s night! This was a good show. It was obviously packed, and that made it fun. It's kind of crazy how excited people get about seeing us perform at this point. You'd think that the majority of people who come to our shows have seen us and like us and they enjoy it, but these people get kind of weird about how MUCH they dig it. People standing at the front of the stage appeared to be on the verge of insanity.
It Christmas, so we did a few Christmas tunes. That was fine. I failed (for the however many time in a row) to pick up my saxophone before we started Dick in a Box, which left me desperately looking for a chance through most of the song. Stoooopid.
I've been trying out Fibracell Premier reeds on alto and tenor--I'm looking for a good synthetic reed for playing this gig, since I'm only playing saxophone a couple of times in each set. It's never fun to try and play on a reed that looks like a Ruffles potato chip! The alto reed I've got is pretty good; I'm going to try and go up one strength to see if I can keep it from choking when I overblow (I could just NOT overblow, too, but that's easier said that done). The tenor reed I tried didn't work well--it was a little too soft, and all the altissimo went all over the place on it. I was fighting it by the end of the first set. I'm also going up on that one. I usually use Javas, and I think the comparative Fibracells are probably a whole number softer (so my #3 Java needs a #4 Fibracell). We'll see. Part of my suckitude on Biggest Part of Me was the aforementioned crappy tenor reed. The rest was me.
What else, what else…my effects pedal is still in need of tweaking. We played Heart of Rock and Roll, and the harmony parts got weird on me. I think the harmony voices were routed through the slap delay (well, I know they were…I think that might be why it sounded weird). Gotta fix that. The thing sounds great by itself so I feel like it's going to work, but the added wrinkle of the stage volume changes things up.
Saturday: wedding in Davidson, North Carolina. This was a real snoozer! Ever play a wedding where it was half old people and half people the age of the bride and groom, and neither is happy with the other's music choices? It was that kind of thing. Eventually the old people left and the party got rolling, but it was a tough sell.
I had some suckiness on Steal Away…my new version of the piano part bit me in the butt repeatedly. My solo on Biggest Part of Me was not good either (and I couldn't blame the reed). The piano playing was better, though!
Sunday: we drove home from Davidson. I drove; the band slept; Nick iPadded.
Sunday night, I had a flute and guitar duo with Dan Baraszu. Dan and I played a duo gig at Ventanas. It was sold as "classical flute and guitar." I brought my flute and my duet music. Dan determined that sight reading a bunch of classical stuff would not do it for him, so we kind of "classicalized" jazz tunes. Nobody could tell the difference. It was fun! I've been playing stuff with Dan for about fifteen years. He still kicks my butt. I should be ready for it by now.
Some audio:
Monday: rehearsal for this coming weekend. Yacht Rock has a Beatles show this Friday night at Smith's Olde Bar, so we went over a few new tunes. My personal favorite is Whatever Gets You Through the Night. Not a great song, but it does have that great 70s NYC vibe to it--sounds like old Saturday Night Live stuff to me (the video helps reinforce this).
Something makes me think this could be a big one for us. It just feels so good, and it felt really good when we played it at rehearsal. I bet if the crowd gets us going, this one could explode. Mark Cobb can really make it go. I love this song right now.
We're also working on writing some originals. I've never done any kind of collective writing thing. It's very weird. I take it this is how bands generally write material. For my stuff, I can hear the song in my head, so I go and find it, write it down, and then turn it over to the band to interpret/fix it. Having a room full of guys just kind of chew on an idea seems foreign. Trying stuff and screwing around start to feel like the same thing. I guess things are progressing, though little is written down or recorded, so I wonder how much we are starting over from week to week. Everybody else seems pretty satisfied, so I guess I'm doing ok at it.
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