David Freeman Music

What a crazy weekend! Yacht Rock played a private gig at the Children's Museum Saturday night.  Easy stuff…we've played this same event once or twice before.  Before that, though, I played a quick House Live gig one block away at the Aquarium. The House Live gig was 5:30-7.  Piece of cake!  They bussed in a thousand or so people to eat in the Atrium and tour the exhibits.  We were amazingly loud.  The SPL app on my phone maxed out.  It was brutal.  My left ear is ruined. Wayne and Nico on percussion.  Two cajons, two shakers, four congas. At 7, I ran out the door and down the street to the Children's Museum, changed clothes, and walked on stage (I preset my gear earlier in the afternoon) and started playing at 7:25.  Whew! This gig was also fun and easy.  Nick and Mark Cobb were out, so Greg moved from bass to lead vocal.  Rob Henson subbed on bass and Ganesh Giri Jaya subbed on drums.  I was trying to expl...

Yacht Rock played a gig at the Brewhouse Music and Grill in Rome, GA last night.  Easy gig, and a good review of a couple of things we are playing on the Rock Boat next week. The Brewhouse has good sound and an easy load in.  I think we had a hundred and fifty people there, but they were really into it--somebody drove in from Alabama just to hear sound check ! Here's my solo from Good Thing last night. Our CD (with this song on it) is officially on sale next week! In other news, Battle Cases has added me to their artists page.  I use their big saxophone case ( BCS 200 ) when we travel.  Expensive, but well worth it.  Mine is in a truck on the way to Miami right now!

Kevin Smith, Kenny Banks Jr, and I played a nice little trio gig last night at Magnolia Hall in Piedmont Park.  It's a really beautiful venue, and now that the parking deck has been constructed nearby, it's a really sweet spot for an event. Crazy easy gig.  The people were brought in (via two buses) for dinner;  they were a half hour late, and left fifty minutes early.  Our three hour gig lasted an hour and forty minutes.  Yes! Here's the audio.  I didn't play nearly as poorly as I thought I had.

Yacht Rock was on the road this past weekend, heading up to Nashville for a Saturday night gig at the Cannery Ballroom, then back to Atlanta first thing the next morning to play the Sweetwater Brewery's Sixteenth Birthday party.  I was even able to squeeze my PM church gig in there before I finally ran out of gas. So…we rolled up I-75 in the early afternoon to Nashville.  It was actually snowing at the top of Monteagle!  Wow!  Fortunately, we had one of Wisconsin's finest (Jason Nackers) at the wheel and none of it was sticking anyway.  Once we made it to the other side, we were safe. We were back in the Cannery Ballroom instead of the Mercy Lounge this time.  More people--the room holds about a thousand people.  The final count on the door was 890.  Pretty close!  Make Me Smile, Nashville's authentic tribute to vintage Chicago, opened for us.  It sounded great--the band leader, Scott Sheriff, did a terrific job organizing the band a...

Yacht Rock played the Taste of Dunwoody last night.  I think this is our third time playing it, and the third time it has sold out.  The Dunwoody Cougars are thriving just north of the Perimeter. By the way…sign this petition: The venue was the Westin over at the king/queen buildings this year--the previous location was a good bit smaller, but they've been able to expand and accommodate more people and vendors.  Great for us--the smaller rooms were so tight, you could've stepped off the stage onto the first vendor's table and walked all the way around the room without ever touching the floor. So…better location, easy load in (no ancient freight elevator), good food (we get to sample everything), good crowd…great gig!  Yay!  Once we finished, they even inspired us to load out as quickly as humanly possible with an East Andrews flavored DJ.  Run for your life!  I don't need to hear Brick House , September , or that Pitbull song ever again. ...

I played my PM church gig's Ash Wednesday service last night.   It was packed!  I was surprised that there were that many people.  I was there early, and there were two full masses going on before my own.  We were the overflow service for the main sanctuary, and our room was standing room only. As usual, we were in the parish hall, which feels acoustically like the deadest room on the planet.  Yuck.  Since we were tucked in the corner away from the main speakers (and the music didn't call for it), I spent more time listening than playing.  No biggie. In other news… I've decided to let my website die.  This was based on a few things: 1.  Most people are headed to my blog anyway--a search for me on google brings up my blog first. 2.  Everything on my website has been added to my blog as a sidebar, so there's no new information there. 3.  My domain is going to expire, and Just Host has not been helpful at all in getting it ...

Yacht Rock was back in action for a corporate party at the Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway. I got things started by leaving fifteen minutes late--that ended up being about twenty minutes late because of the rain and traffic.  Embarrassing. The Marriott is pretty nice.  I think it gets forgotten because of its location (next to the International Convention Center, which also gets forgotten).  It's nice and clean and moderately hip looking, and the load in is easy and clean and doesn't feel like the back door to a dungeon. The crowd was costumed for the "rock and roll" theme of the party (I think).  We did three sets.  There were several other things competing for attention--green screen photo booth, pool tables, ping pong tables, and bean bag toss.  When we went on break, they played videos from pop music that was current ten to fifteen years ago.  The whole thing was kind of weird.  Not much dancing.  We were, for the most part, ex...

So…I was back at my normal church gigs.  I kind of miss it when they don't happen.  I like the routine. My AM church gig had a sub sound guy.  We were going to do some kind of mammoth song with tracks, but the sound guy couldn't get it to work--he couldn't find the track on the mixing board, and then he did find the track (coming off a laptop on stage), but couldn't get the stereo split (click on the left, music on the right) to work, so we abandoned it.  It worked out fine, though--we couldn't get off from the click that way!  I must say that I played really well on this song.  Actually, the whole service was good in spite of the sound guy problems. My PM church gig went pretty well, too.  I had a great mix going, though I didn't play anything memorable.  So it goes. In other news… Mark Cobb hipped me to this record:   Locked Down by Dr. John .  Fantastic record, and it has some really great bari sax playing by Leon Michels. ...

Yacht Rock was at a building downtown last night. davidfreemanmusic.net

I've had more or less the entire last week off.  Since playing the 40 Watt last Friday night , I've managed only my PM church gig (at that to a Super Bowl-shrunken congregation). I'm not gonna lie…other than the fact that I made no money and we're living off savings this week (ouch), this has been a great week.  I got plenty of sleep, plenty of exercise, plenty of time with my family, and time to practice.  Ahhh!  It's been awesome!  During the day, I had to time to tinker with equipment, bang on the piano, watch YouTube videos.  It's kind of what I imagined my life would be like as a professional musician (except for the whole no gigs/no money thing)--that I would have time to practice (the kind where you work on universal things, not the "holy shit!  I have to play this Friday!" kinds of things), and still have time for my life outside of music.  This is it!  I'm lovin' it! Next week is a lot more busy, with gigs Monday, Wednesday, Fri...

I slept in this morning because my AM church gig did not use me this morning.  Boo.  Last week, they did two services when I was out of town.  Boo.  Bad luck for Dave. My PM church gig was sparsely attended, as it is every year.  I have not seen the first half of the super bowl in twelve years.  Good to have a gig, though, and I am not one to bail for something like a football game, or really anything short of death. It's been a slow weekend with no Saturday night gig, either.  Last night I watched the new Dave Grohl documentary Sound City .  I highly recommend it. Another slow week ahead, but things will be picking up soon. February 15, Taste of Dunwoody (Dunwoody, GA) February 16, Cannery Ballroom (Nashville, TN) February 24-March 1, Rock Boat XIII (the ocean) March 2, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA) March 14, Wonder Bar (Asbury Park, NJ) March 15, Theatre of the Living Arts (Philadelphia, PA) March 16, Gramercy Theatre (New York, N...

Yacht Rock made the trip out to Athens to play the 40 Watt --one of our favorite places to play.  All the usual stuff happened…sat in traffic on 316, loaded in, set up, sound checked. In between soundcheck and the show, we wandered across the street to Ted's Most Best .  Good pizza.  Yacht Rock recommends it.  While we were there, the lady who books the 40 Watt informed us that our show had sold out.  Nice! Our show went pretty well, I think.  We played two sets, the first one beginning with Baker Street .  I can't complain about that!  The first tune can be a little tough because in any room it takes a few songs to get comfortable.   Dannells wiped out on the intro to the guitar solo--the lights had gone out for a second, and he described it later as a Helen Keller moment:  he could neither see nor hear.  It was a little touch and go for all of us--I had to check a couple of times to make sure my sax microphone was working...

Yacht Rock 's parent company Pleaserock has opened a new branch… Pleaserock Weddings .  It's geared towards couples who don't want a wedding with a typical Atlanta wedding band and grumpy old photographers and an anxious/bitchy wedding coordinator.  I mean, cool people get married, too. Several Pleaserock affiliated bands played little twenty minute showcases in the acoustic nightmare that is the upstairs room at the Park Tavern.  We closed out the evening with a couple of songs.  It was a snoozer, but if it helps the keep the Pleaserock machine humming along, I'm all for it. We're in Athens tonight at the 40 Watt ! Upcoming dates: February 1, 40 Watt (Athens, GA) February 15, Taste of Dunwoody (Dunwoody, GA) February 16, Cannery Ballroom (Nashville, TN) February 24-March 1, Rock Boat XIII (the ocean) March 2, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA) March 14, Wonder Bar (Asbury Park, NJ) March 15, Theatre of the Living Arts (Philadelphia, PA) March 16, Gramercy ...