Sunday, July 9, 2017

Beatulz

The blog isn't dead...I just have no gigs...except for last night. We had a rare Please Pleaserock Me (Yacht Rock Revue plays the Beatles) gig at Venkman's, with a few subs--Ganesh on drums (filling in for Mark Cobb), Greg on bass (filling in for Pete), and local legend Tim Smith on second guitar and tambourine (filling in for Greg). Even the horn section was a little bit different--no Greg at all and Derrick White filling in for Richard Sherrington on trombone. Because of this (and maybe the fact that we haven't played a Beatles show since January's Variety Playhouse set), the set list was very straightforward.

There was nothing for the horns to do until the last ten songs of the night, beginning with Yellow Submarine. Here are the charts:




Unfortunately, we haven't played this song in several years, preceding the addition of iPads to our arsenal (and trombone to our horn section). So...in my preparation for this gig, I checked my iPad for a chart--no chart, no problem. I didn't give it a second thought. On the gig, however, we were called back from hiding in the green room to come play on this song, and right before the tune began, I remembered this little part, but none of us (especially Derrick) had a part to play, so...the little part came and went, and we had to stand there and take the kick in the nuts. It was...awkward...humiliating...not so great. How could two measures be so painful?

Then we skipped a couple of horn songs, I played another bullshit solo on Oh Darling! (complete with an "I meant to do that" tritone substitution on the second chord), and our night was over. At least the load out was quick (tenor, bari, one keyboard, so small percussion), and the horn hang during the first two thirds of the show was pleasant.

Moving on! Looks like I need to make a trombone part for Yellow Submarine (and not having a double bar before the second chorus on the alto part is really bugging me while I write this).

If you missed it, I spent some of the down time between gigs finally getting the rest of my transcription of Pete Christlieb's solos on FM onto the computer. The original handwritten transcription was lost (left on stage) in a massive wave of tequila in Cabo early on in Yacht Rock history, but I had a scan of it in a blog post.





In other news, we'll be in Kentucky this week, and maybe we'll get our gear back?

Manchester Music Hall (Thursday): https://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/1467736?utm_medium=bks

Forecastle (Friday): https://www1.ticketmaster.com/event/16005299E37BD263#efeat4212


Aaaaaaand...this came out...ironically filmed at a show in Birmingham, Alabama.