The same group of us (plus Ben Holst) who played last Saturday night in somebody's backyard in Alpharetta/Crabapple played our second gig Friday night at a backyard in Cumming. Frankly, I'm not sure how we got the gig--maybe Greg knew the guy? Anyway, there was an open space in the stand of trees between his house and his neighbor's that he seeded with grass. Pretty sweet.
The hauling of gear from the street to the stage (there was an actual stage with power and a small PA) was grueling, but the gig itself was pretty cool. Nice stage (the host owned a roofing company, so it was really solidly built). Good sound, all things considered. This time, knowing what to expect of the gig, I was better prepared and more comfortable. I even had a couple of decent organ solos! Playing keyboard on a gig like this is definitely more fun than playing saxophone.
They had a frozen margarita machine (I had two), and barbecue. I would probably die from the food if we had regular gigs like this. I considered drinking myself into oblivion just for the hell of it, but no one else in the band was going for it, so I gave up before I began to get giggly.
We finished after 10 PM, and I was home by midnight. Not too bad!
Yacht Rock had a ticketed event on Memorial Day, a fundraiser at a Buckhead church. We played this gig last year, too. It's a too small tent over a too small stage in the church parking lot. Last year it rained pretty hard, but we ended up getting through it.
This year we also had the same too small tent/too small stage combination, the same two hundred yards of extension cord to the nearest electrical outlet, and the same weather conditions. We played five songs before the front left quadrant of the stage had standing water and the sky began to flash with lightning. No good. I'm glad I'd brought my tarp to put over my gear. After consulting the radar (and singing Rain by The Beatles, Who'll Stop the Rain by CCR, and almost It's Raining Men), the gig officially ended.
It's unfortunate not only because we were unable to continue the performance, but also because this was the gig where the entire band moved over to in ear monitors. We had a really long soundcheck and got each person's mix roughly dialed in, but having an entire gig to fine tune everything and get comfortable with the sound of everything would have been a huge bonus. My mix was probably 85 percent solved at this point, and already way better than it was at the Purple Rain show--I'm digging it. I think we're really going to love these things!
Oh well...any outdoor gig in Atlanta during the summer is a crapshoot. With no rain contingency, what can we do? At least the early release from the gig left those of us who needed it more time to dry our equipment out once we were home. Fun.
In other news, here's a video of me playing with Greg Lee at Eddie's Attic last week.
I don't write about my church gig on Sunday nights anymore; usually there's nothing worth writing about. However, last night gave me a story to tell.
In the past six to nine months, the vocalists in the group have decided that they don't like the sound; specifically, they don't like the way that I run the P.A. Even though I'm listening to what it sounds like in the cathedral (I've been doing this gig now for fifteen years--I know what the room sounds like), and listening on headphones, the singers will complain about what they hear (there are no monitors, just singers with handheld microphones standing around the piano), or roll their eyes, or decide on their own that their microphones aren't working and will pass to each other the microphone with the gain turned highest (set for a weaker singer), at which point they will turn to me wanting like they're proving a point (I guess that would be if I set all the microphones right at the point where they will begin to distort, they'd all be really loud, and then they'd be satisfied, and who cares if you can't hear any of the instruments halfway back in the church).
Our set up is a twenty-four channel analog mixer plugged into the amps that drive the speakers. No monitors, no compression. I have control over the gain, the EQ, and level.
A month ago, I'd finally had enough of the vocalists and informed the music director that either that bullshit with the vocalists must stop, or I would quit. That put an end to it.
Last night, I was getting everything dialed in on headphones when the singers swapped microphones mid-song, causing me to flip out, throw my headphones, and cuss out the music director, only to figure out minutes later that the routing of one microphone channel was incorrect--the reason why I could see it on the meter and hear it in my headphones, but it was not making it to the speakers in the church.
Nice going. I wanted to crawl in the piano and die. Apologies all around after mass. Damn.
No Yacht Rock gigs this past weekend, but Mark Bencuya put together a gig for most of us at a friend's house--a birthday party and graduation party rolled into one.
Greg organized the tunes, and all of his picks looked great until we each realized we'd be learning somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty songs for the gig. Ouch! I'm guessing that Greg probably knew a lot of them, though, and Bencuya probably knew most of them. Monkeyboy, Cobb, and I had a lot of charts to write!
I supplied the PA, so I got there kind of early.
Soundcheck:
It turned out to be a very casual evening, and we played very well considering that there was no rehearsal or communication about any of the songs (except for a little bit of "Which keyboard part do you want?"). We laughed a lot. It was fun.
This was a party with local musicians in attendance, so several people sat in. Heaven Davis sang a few with us (including the evening's finale, where we played a Pat Metheny-ish version of The Star Spangled Banner while fireworks were shot off in the cul-de-sac.
I always get a kick out of seeing Heaven Davis because even though I played on her album Steamy, she has absolutely NO IDEA who I am. I even played her CD release party at 800 East, where I was first introduced to Mark Cobb by Clay Cook.
So...we finished shortly after 10 PM; I was on the road by 11 PM. Not a bad night!
We're doing it again (different backyard) next Friday, so stay tuned.
I played at Eddie's Attic last night on a few tunes with Greg Lee.
The opener was Peter Searcy (with Greg Lee). Pretty cool, as Greg has told many, many Searcy stories, and I'd never heard him. He and Greg have a great vocal blend, and Searcy's stuff has a lot of passion to it.
Next up was Indianapolis Jones, Nick and Mark Cobb's original project with Tim Smith (of Noel Gallagher's Highflying Birds) and Jason Nackers. Outstanding! Probably the best band in Atlanta right now, playing some of the best songs of this century. They never fail to impress.
The Greg Lee Show rounded out the evening. An excellent performance by everybody on stage (mostly Yacht Rock, plus Ben Holst on bass), though I really sucked bad on the piano part to Bencuya's Cartoon Butterfly, and played a gruesome wrong note in the first chorus of One Kind of Love. I want to jump off a bridge; then again, that's how I feel about pretty much everything right now.
Saturday night was the annual Purple Rain show at the Legacy Fountain in Piedmont Park. This year we added two partners in crime (from the Vegas Home Depot gig earlier this year): Keisha Jackson and Slick Barnes. They nailed it! Their backing vocals added a lot to our efforts.
I think this was one of our best Purple Rain performances. I felt really solid on everything (except for the beginning of Baby I'm a Star, where I'd managed to accidentally shift the keyboard up and octave and turn on the tremolo--I played half the verse staring at my keyboard---"What the hell is happening?"). Our only trouble was at the end of Baby I'm a Star. I finished on time, but there were a couple of random notes sprinkled in among the rest of my bandmates!
The second set was all yacht rock stuff. Really mediocre saxophone solos on this gig. Booooo.
Other big news on this gig...in ear monitors! I used my new IEMs for the first time on this gig (Mark Cobb used his as well). They're really nice and comfortable and sound fantastic! I think, though, that I need to start from scratch on my mix--Zach (our monitor guy) gave me a mix as a starting place, but I tweaked it until everything sounded weird (the vocals were nothing but reverb), and my keyboards hit the limiter repeatedly (the limiter keeps the volume from spiking and blowing my eardrums, but if your instrument keeps hitting it, you have no dynamics). I remember now from my previous experience of using in ears that I should set my stuff up so it can be plenty loud without maxing out, and then build the other instruments around it. It's going to take some time, but I'm really looking forward to it. I can already see that once we get the mixes dialed in, it will be hard to play without them.
One other thing...boxed water! Someone brought us a box of boxed water, under the guise of a birthday present for Pete. Sneaky.
Yacht Rock played a Friday night gig at the College Football Hall of Fame downtown for a bunch of architects. Nice place!
The crowd wasn't that into us in the first set, but the second set was a different story. Alcohol, perhaps? Whatever it was, it made for a pretty good gig. The only highlight I can think of was Nick's super long harmonica solo on Heart of Rock and Roll. Excellent.
David Ellington and I played another event for Porsche last night--a repeat of Monday night's drinks and dinner gig. Different crowd, same basic result, though we got several compliments and a few guys checking us out, so maybe they were listening after all. This one ended about twenty minutes early, which felt about right. Nice little gig!
So...I did my first House Live gig in a long time. In case you, loyal reader, don't remember, that's where there's a DJ playing "house" music, and a percussionist and yours truly play over the top of it. We used to do a lot of this variety of gigs, and then the popularity faded and I got busy with other stuff. It's a nice paycheck, but musically, it's bullshit. I spend my time practicing over deep four on the floor beats, and watching the clock.
Wayne Viar was the percussionist on this gig (equally bored with the concept). I worked on playing rhythm changes on alto, jazz articulation (lightly tonguing the offbeats) on flute, and generally trying to play fast lines on both instruments. I also photobombed a couple of shots, but if you're going to pose in front of the band like you're at the zoo, I'm gonna be the animal.
Later in the evening, I think I recognized a local musician (well...jazz vocalist), and it made me regret everything I'd played for the previous ninety minutes. I tried to a few Charlie Parker tunes and stay in the same key as the DJ.
The best part of the night was watching the aerialists dangle high above the marble floor. I bet the bartenders were really excited about the possibility of being killed by a falling body. How do they do that?
How has this not been Porsche's entire advertising campaign for the last ten years? I can't believe that this nugget of 80s nostalgia hasn't been mined.
David Ellington and I brought our duo to the Porsche headquarters down by the airport. It's a beautiful place; it looks (not surprisingly) like a modern European office building dropped on the southside of Atlanta. We played a dinner/reception for a bunch of high end customers. They talked a lot. They listened not at all. We were strictly background noise. Easy gig, though. Dave and I were both pretty fried from stuff earlier in the day--he from recording and me from a rehearsal.
I took a night off from Yacht Rock Saturday night to play at the Shaky Knees Festival, performing in a local horn section with Rob Opitz (trumpet) and Richard Sherrington (trombone) backing Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds. Interesting gig!
For whatever reason, I was curious as to how different things would be from the gigs that I do. Lots of familiarity--the same kinds of gear, microphones, amps, power strips, and cables across the stage. I'm not sure why I thought there would be anything different--no bluetooth guitars or anything. Just like all of my gigs, it's just regular gear on a stage that we play.
What was different was the crew--a handful of techs for the musicians who set up and tuned all the gear, plus sound guys (out front and monitors), tour manager, and probably a personal assistant in there. All British guys, and each had a different British accent. We had Richard (our Brit) translate.
The most difficult part of this evening's adventure was parking. Like many other events around Atlanta, the police are never on the same page with the festival. The tour manager emailed me a map, so I thought we were in good shape. Ha! Not so fast.
I carpooled down there with Rob, and on the map it looked like there was parking on Pine Street right next to our stage. Perfect! We drove to Parkway Drive and Pine, but there were barricades. We pulled in to ask a cop on the next available road, and he had no idea how we could get to the parking; in fact, he had no idea that parking was available. He maybe thought we could ask the police at Pine Street, so Rob went around the block and I went to investigate on foot.
At Pine, the police said no way, and beyond the barricades there were gates--this definitely wasn't the place. One officer suggested we go around to North Ave to "where there are cones and barricades--that's where the tour buses went in." Rob texted that he was coming around to get me. A black Honda turned in front of me and pulled over to the curb and opened the door to get in, only to scare the living hell out of some random guy who was NOT picking me up, but somebody else! Oops.
So...back in Rob's car. We went around to North Ave to the cones and barricades. I jumped out to ask the cop, and of course he had no idea what we were talking about. He suggested we go to Pine Street because we we definitely weren't entering at his street. In lieu of that, he thought there might be an entrance further down North Ave.
We found a side street where the production people were, so we pulled in there. This must be the place! The runner at the street even let us in, so we were on the right track. The second guy we encountered said no, though, and got a girl to come from the production office. She said no, you cannot park here, but you should go around to Pine Street and they'll let you in. Uhh...no. Rob and I vetoed that. She then produced a sheet with directions. Magic! Using a diagonal street (Felton Drive), we were able to bypass the Pine Street cops and reach parking. Hooray! We parked directly behind the stage.
After a quick rehearsal, we had a few minutes to kill. We met Noel Gallagher (who was actually very polite to us, in spite of his reputation). We set up our station at stage right, laughing that they'd set out three of those $15 wire music stands for us! We used our iPads for charts instead. The monitor guy passed out in ear monitors and packs for us, telling us that we'd begin with the previous horn section's mixes. Mine was crazy loud saxophone, audible horns, and some drums. I asked the guy to give me a blend of everybody with the sax just a little louder, but it never happened, so I played with only one ear in. The stage sound was pretty good, anyway. With no soundcheck, that worked just fine.
The gig was a piece of cake. I'd spent a good bit of time practicing the charts, and I think the horn section was pretty flawless. We only played on five songs, so the rest of the time we were offstage. The charts were easy, though I had a couple that took a little bit of interpretation. Both were handwritten charts that had been scanned and put on an iPad, and then somebody had taken a screen shot and sent that! One of those had notes written in, and a full chordal voicing for each note. I checked the trombone part, and he had the same sounding pitch as the trumpet. So...I play the fifth? They're power chords with me in the middle?
It turned out to be the same chart that the trumpet had, but all the videos I'd watched had bari sax. Eventually I figured out that those notes were the bari notes (if you transpose the trumpet chart--Bb on trumpet is concert Ab, which F on bari sax). Therefore, we are not playing power chords, we're in octaves. Get it?
I was surprised that all of the charts weren't immaculate, considering that there would be almost no chance to try anything before going on stage. Anyway...no big deal. Working with the charts and comparing the studio recording and YouTube clips from earlier in the year, I was able to figure it all out. We only played on five songs; the rest of the time, we had prime seats to watch the show!
Seventy-five minutes after we first walked on stage, it was over. As Noel passed us leaving the stage, he stopped to shake each of our hands and thank us for playing. Pretty cool.
Eight minutes after that, Rob and I were driving away. Nice.
Videos:
This one opens with a obnoxious tenor solo:
This one has a couple of bari solos:
An Oasis song with lots of horns:
To top it all off, I got a mention from the Atlanta Journal Constitution! You can see the entire thing here: http://music.blog.ajc.com/2015/05/10/shaky-knees-music-festival-2015-day-2-wilco-noel-gallagher-social-distortion/
The Yacht Rock van left Jacksonville pretty early on Friday morning--as uncomfortable as it was (7:30 AM), it was good because I had to be home and then get out to Decatur for a duo gig with David Ellington.
We tried another new odd meter tune on Ellington's suggestion, called And Then Some. Five I can kind of feel; this one was in seven, and I don't know what to do with it. Right now I'm just guessing where the downbeats are.
Other than that, it was a good gig! Slow in the restaurant, but we (as always) had a good time. Have a listen.
I've got a little backlog of blogging, so I'll be catching up in pieces...
Thursday: Yacht Rock has played a party connected to the PGA tournament in Jacksonville the previous two years. We weren't available for this year's party, so we were hired for an event there earlier in the weekend. Same ride, same tent, same people.
Unfortunately, Jacksonville is kind of far away, and we had to load in pretty early in the afternoon, so we left Atlanta at 7 AM. Boo. Somewhere in south Georgia, our van began to vibrate more than usual and we were forced to purchase two new tires. I woke up in the back seat to this.
Behind these tires I set free my morning coffee.
The tire stop cut into our lunch break, so we ate at Wendy's. No surprise that I ordered what I always order.
We showed up around a half hour late for load in, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Since the golf tournament was in progress, we really couldn't do any kind of soundcheck anyway. It just left us with a lot of down time.
One of the more exciting events of the afternoon was when the stand of bamboo in the corner behind my gear blew over in the breeze and landed on my stuff. Thankfully nothing was damaged. Kip forbid the lady from setting it back up. Only Bencuya's bamboo remained.
We also had an interview with a lady from the PGA. She was pretty. It made me goofy. Here's a picture of me trying not to say anything (else) stupid.
Other than that, it was a pretty average gig. One ninety minute set with Matt Lipkins (of Shadowboxes fame) subbing for Nick. Afterwards we all stood around while all of the female audience had their pictures taken with Pete.
