David Freeman Music

That's Arizona, Atlanta, and Austin--a crazy weekend of travel and gigs. Thursday: Head west! We flew to Tucson, a three hour and forty-five minute ride. Long enough that I could sleep for a few hours and still wake up and watch a movie. On this trip, I watched Darkest Hour , chronicling Winston Churchill's rise to prime minister at the dawn of the second World War. We landed, grabbed our bags, and boarded a spacious limo bus to Marana, AZ, on the north side of Tucson. Unfortunately, that wasn't our bus! We had to get off, grab our bags, and walk to our much smaller van parked in the next ring of parking. First thing first, we checked into our rooms...at the frickin' Ritz Carlton! Sweeeeeeeeet. With a few hours to kill before soundcheck, I went for a run on the nearby Wild Burro Trail, which ran through a canyon directly behind the hotel! (not part of the trail--the cart path behind the hotel!) T...

I was trying to think of a clever title for this blog post--something about how we didn't really travel in the sense that there was an airport or a long day in the van. This past weekend we hit Athens, Chattanooga, and Atlanta. Not local, but regional? Short trip? Athchattatl? So...not quite local. I woke up in my own bed every day, but I also saw some monotonous interstate. Here we go: Athens: Weren't we just here? Yes, but it was Stop Making Sense . This was a regular Yacht Rock show, and it sold out weeks ago, which is fun because the vibe at the Georgia Theatre is really hip. We played well, too (though goddamn I Just Wanna Stop  is still kicking my ass). I had a good alto solo on  Reminiscing,  a song which has come back into our sets very recently, and a good flute solo on Lowdown . After however many years, my body has stopped trying to solo on flute like it's a saxophone--my embouchure would kind of fall apart during improvisations. Set One: Set Two: ...

I played at Blind Willie's in Virginia-Highland last night with Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo, alongside John Sandfort, Nick Johnson, Jez Graham, and Adam Goodhue. A great hang, but it was sooo loud, sooo loud. I'm deaf. Everybody on this gig is good, but I must mention how great it was to stand next to John Sandfort all night, with his huge sound, great time, and killer ideas. Just...wow. Love his playing. Scott has some crazy stories, and last night he introduced Sam and Dave's Broke Down Piece of Man  by saying that Sam had sung at Col. Bruce's 70th Birthday Party at The Fox here in Atlanta, and he went through the whole thing about Bruce collapsing onstage and ultimately dying at the end of the night, and how he'd afterwards talked to one of the musicians who was  on stage at the time--he just got completely off track from Sam and Dave for several minutes in describing Col. Bruce's night, and at the end of the story he turned around to Nick and said, ...

Our tour of Texas--before it gets too hot. Actually, it got really cold there for a day! Check it out: Thursday: Houston House of Blues. We flew to Houston early enough to take a long lunch before load in. Around 4:30, the gear started coming up from the street.  I'm trying to think of the last House of Blues we were in that didn't sound that great...maybe New Orleans? This stage is really nice. There was still time to kill after soundcheck, so I went for a short run around the city. The weather was overcast and low 70s, which felt pretty good. So, on to the gig...which was just really sloppy. We were tripping over each other all night. It was not good. I couldn't wait to get off stage. Friday: We had a private event scheduled in Stafford, TX tonight as the monetary anchor of the trip. Stafford is right outside of Houston, so we had most of the day to kill. I did some more exploring on foot. The fundraiser was at a place called t...