Four in Twenty-Six!

I played four gigs in twenty-six hours.  The first two were really good, and the second two were pretty foggy.  I wish I could have worked sleep in a little better.

Gig One:  the Yacht Rock Revue played the Taste of Chamblee.  When I pulled up to the gig, I had my doubts--it looked like we were going to play a bland gig in direct sunlight.  By the time we went on, though, the crowd had grown and the sun had gone down enough to get behind the trees.  It turned out to be a picture perfect outdoor gig.

We were fortunate to be able to pull up right behind the stage to load gear (and leave our vehicles there).  Sweet!  The band before us was the Heaven Davis Blues Implosion.  I knew everybody in that band except the keyboard player, and not one of them recognized me.  I probably should have networked better--a little "Hey asshole, remember me?" to jog their memories, but I didn't.  I guess there's a chance this will bite me in the butt later in life.  My lack of enthusiasm for networking will eventually lead to my employment at some place like Office Max.

Heaven Davis (vocals)--played on her CD and the subsequent CD release party at 800 East (incidentally I was introduced to Mark Cobb by Clay Cook at this gig).

George Price (guitar)--used to teach guitar in the studio next to me at Ken Stanton Music.  We jammed one time out in front of the store on Blue Bossa and a blues.  How could he NOT remember me?

Steve Mays (bass)--subbed on some of my church gigs at St. Ann.  I bet he would recognize the back of my head better than the front.

Reese Harris (drums)--played a few latin jazz gigs in a band called Wild Rice.  I must not have played anything memorable.  He has also seen me with the Schooner.

The band sounded really good--the blues stuff is not my thing, but they were solid.  No self-indulgent half hour guitar solos or anything.

They came off the stage and we went on.  They "had heard a lot about us" and we "couldn't wait to hear us."  We played one song and then they "got in their cars and left."

Our sets were good.  It was the regular band minus Mark Dannells, who was on vacation.  Shannon Pengelly subbed for him.  We had a good time, everything felt good, and the sound was good.  Cobb had on a new suit.  Nice.

We finished right around 8 PM.  I loaded up and drove to the Dixie Tavern.

Gig Two:  I played with the Yacht Rock Schooner at the Dixie Tavern.  I'd been looking forward to this gig for a couple of weeks because I got to play keyboard on the gig, too.  Big deal, you say?  Yeah, because it was a chance to play some of the other (Bencuya) keyboard parts, like rhodes on Peg and Hey Nineteen.  Fun!  We did this a year ago (me and Frampton), and I like the challenge.

I was super pumped.  It was really exciting for me, even though there were only a handful of big parts (Hey Nineteen, Peg, Doctor My Eyes, and Lido Shuffle).  I even took a solo (yikes!) on the end of Hey Nineteen--nothing chopsy at all, but correct notes played in time.  Heck yeah!  I had so much adrenaline going by the end of it, I could have picked up a car.

 Hey Nineteen solo by David B Freeman

It's probably good that Ganesh didn't let me go any longer.

After we played Lido, some guy told me my playing was fascinating to watch.

Frampton!

T.Y.

The Schooner sounded great.  Everything felt great.  It was a ton of fun!  I really like doing the sax/keyboard thing with them--it's harder to get into it when it's just saxophone.  I was sandwiched between Daniel Morrison and Delicious Tom Young--the groove was really solid.

The Dixie Tavern let us stop at 2 AM.  I was in bed by 4.  Owww.

Gig Three:  also known as church gig number one.  Not much of a gig for me--I played a little bit of saxophone, but mostly flute doubling the melody.  I messed around with using headphones again, but the mix is not good to me.  The bassist is the guy who's most interested in what's in it, so it's really bass and piano heavy.  I'm better off hearing everything (except the damn V drums) acoustically.

The organist made some Kenny G crack at rehearsal which I ignored.  You shouldn't curse on a church gig.

I was home by 11 AM, and asleep shortly thereafter.

I woke up around 5:30 and got dressed.

Gig Four:  church gig number two.  This one sounded pretty good!  No guitar and no drums, so the mix was pretty easy.

Funny thing about this gig--the last note hasn't finished ringing in the cathedral before the vocalists and the pianist/leader are telling each other what they did wrong.  This week they were all ganging up on one person--lots of on the spot analysis about why she was dragging.  Mildly amusing stuff.

Yay for football.  I fell asleep on the couch.

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