David Freeman Music

Last night of the big revival… I heard a few giggles about me and a chair from the night before.  The soloist for the revival used tracks Monday night for part of the performance.  When the first track began, I thought to walk off stage, but nobody else in the band moved, so I just stood there, clarinet in hand, staring at my shoes.  I thought, "One song and then I can go."  That song ended and I started to walk, and then a second tune began.  Agh!  Stuck for two songs of shoe gazing!  Halfway through the second song, someone came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder:  the pastor brought me a folding chair.  The second song ended and I looked for a sign that we'd all be leaving, but a third song began.  At least I had a place to sit for that one. So…evidently I looked kind of uncomfortable.  It even came up in the sermon that the chair offered to me was an act of compassion.  Jeez. Our last night was similar to S...

Day 2 of the AM church gig's revival was a different combination--no horn section and no choir, but a mandolinist and banjoist were added in.  Things kind of leaned more in a country direction and I had no idea what instrument to choose;  I ended up playing lots of clarinet.  Hopefully Matt turned my microphone off. We only played a couple of songs.  The guest soloist sang three songs with tracks, so everyone was spared more of my bullshit. One more night!  The horns are back, so I'll be playing saxophone, much to everyone's relief.

I had no Saturday night gig, which was a bummer. Sunday morning I was back at the ol' AM church gig.  Nothing too exciting…just filling in the holes around the vocals. Instead of heading to my PM church gig in the evening, I instead went back to the AM church gig for the first night of their revival.  Sunday night was a big production:  choir, usual band (church organ, piano, drums, bass, acoustic guitar, me), horn section (Paul Garret on trumpet and Gil Estes on trombone), B3 organ, and two vocal soloists.  Loudness!  Lots of organ was available at my spot on stage.  Wow.  Good thing our ace sound engineer Matt Sheren put a very nice AKG 414 in front of me.    I want one.

Yacht Rock played a crazy country club party last night.  It's the inter-club mixer between several high dollar Atlanta clubs.  Uber-expensive cougars and the men who pay for them. The usual stuff for us, which was good because we were all brain dead from Thursday's all-nighter (more about that later).  While we were eating, a party organizer came in with a contract saying he thought we would be playing 8:30-12:30 (instead of 9-12), and Nick gave him the "these are not the droids you are looking for."  We played 9-12. Adam J filled in for Pete.  I wish I could think of more to say, but nothing's coming to me.

Yacht Rock managed to scoop up a last minute gig in Helen, Georgia, so we never even took our gear out of the trailer when we got back to Atlanta Monday night.  Tuesday afternoon we off again. I'd never been to Helen.  It looks like a little Octoberfest German town, which matches the only reason most Atlantans ever go up there. The room was small, but the crowd was smaller--around twenty people!  Our smallest crowd ever. Bencuya couldn't make it, so Eric Frampton subbed for him.  It was quite a beating/lesson for me.  I had to play a couple of Bencuya parts, and I did OK, but I'm still miles and miles and miles from providing the kind of playing that the rest of the band is used to hearing.  Ugh.  I played some wrong chords in Reminiscing .   Hey Nineteen went pretty well (I think I only played one bad chord), but I have no chops for soloing.  I began Doctor, My Eyes wrong, but once we got going, I did fine.   Somebody's Baby ...

Yacht Rock spent the past six days doing a run of shows up the eastern seaboard.  Not exactly a life on the road, but that's ok because I had limited underwear. Wednesday:  travel day.  We drove from Atlanta to Washington DC and spent the night.  I can't think of anything significant other than a really good pizza I ate that night somewhere in Virginia. Thursday:  we made the rest of the trip to Asbury Park, NJ, for our first date--Wonder Bar!  Asbury Park is still feeling the effects of Hurricane Sandy.  You can't even make it onto the boardwalk. The Wonder Bar is cool because it's pretty legendary even though it's kind of a small room with a small stage.  We had a decent crowd--maybe a couple of hundred people?  It was sort of 10 High-ish.  I think we had a pretty good show, and it was good to warm up for the bigger stages later on.  There were some problems with the up front monitors, but the back line guys were genera...

I've been too lazy/asleep to catch up on my blog. Thursday , several of us from Yacht Rock met up at Turner Field to check out some possibly quicker ways to get live music happening after the game.  The proposed solution was that we would jump on the dugout roof and go in four minutes or less.  It was Mark Cobb on electronic drum pad, Nick on acoustic guitar, Pete on bongos, and me on saxophone (everybody else was unavailable).  I'm not sure if we proved it was possible or not--that configuration is not exactly our usual set up. Anyway, I hope that they go back to the plan of pulling a preset stage out from the tunnel, plugging it in, and turning us loose.  Much better for us.  I think the compromise there would be monitors on the stage, but we would plug into the stadium PA--the other times that we've done the on field concert, they've had the main speakers out there with us, too.  Sounds good to me. Nick asked what I wanted to sound check, so ...

Yacht Rock was back in action yesterday at the Park Tavern as part of the Shamrock Fest. It was a long, cold day.  We loaded in at 2, and played 6:30-9:30.  In between, we hid out at the midtown Mellow Mushroom. Our part of the show was the U2 set and then a set of Yacht Rock.  I'm not even sure if the U2 thing ever even happened.  Due to the run of show, we jumped on stage after the opener (Moontower), lined checked, and went for it.  Unfortunately, we were dealing with a substitute sound guy at Park Tavern, and about 1,000 people in the room with us.  The line check took an eternally long time while he chased a bunch of gremlins (a board that even frustrates the great Kip Conner). U2 finally started, but I couldn't tell you anything about how we played.  I remember Monkey turning around and saying "THIS IS TERRIBLE!" but I don't know why.  I have no reading on how we did or how the crowd liked it. After a costume change, we were back ...

Yacht Rock is back in Atlanta tonight after a week spent on the high seas, trolling the Bahamas aboard the Rock Boat XIII.  I dare say we are getting good at this! Sunday:  I met up (after my AM church gig) with the rest of the band at the airport, and we flew straight to Miami.  By the time we made it to the port, just about everybody else was already on board, so we walked on with no delays.  We'd even timed it so we missed the muster station b.s.  Aha! I was slated to room with Mark Dannells .  One nice bonus of this cruise was rooms with balconies!  Cool! Our first show of the trip was in the main theatre.  Very cool!  This is the room where the headliner plays--we've never had a slot on the big stage before.  It was pretty neat.  The sound was good.  I think I played pretty well. Peter Beckett from Player and Elliot Lurie from Looking Glass were our special guests, so we featured them each on a...