Monday-Sunday, Sept 12-18: Kennesaw, GA. I played another KSU musical, this time on piccolo, flute, alto flute, Eb clarinet, Bb clarinet, and alto saxophone. Quite a spread!
Here's a funny story about this show, especially in light of my previous post about joining the musician's union. I got a text one morning from a friend/union rep, saying "Hey, KSU is looking for musicians and the money is awful. Please consider not taking this gig! If we all say no, they'll pay us decent money."
Late that afternoon, whomever was doing the contracting finally worked their way down their list to me. The money had gone up, though!
Interesting...anyway. I checked my calendar, and I could do everything the week of the shows, so I accepted, and they were cool with me missing a couple of preliminary rehearsals because I was out of town.
A few thoughts about this messy moment in freelance music:
1. I wonder how many people said no before they got to me (I know of a couple), and amusing that even though I've worked for the production team now on several shows, I was not their first or second call.
2. I've never been one of those people for whom a gig has a set minimum price (i.e. "I won't leave the house for less than $X.00"). Obviously, the money is not good on this one, but I'm trying to get some opportunities in the theatre world, and these are the ones coming my way. Would I play this show for free? Of course not. Is this show going to pay $400 a service? Of course not. Do I want to play something besides Baker Street? Ah ha!
3. I was asked if I knew of other reed players to play the other books, and I recommended the same four or five people they'd probably called before me on the first round. Getting nowhere, the MD rewrote the other two reed books for keyboard/synths and got them covered by students. Sooo...did the union win this one?
4. Did the union call KSU and recommend a fee more in line with their guidelines? I feel like that's a better move than having a half dozen individuals turn the gig down without explanation. Maybe the theatre department doesn't know what a respectable fee should be (even if they have to shave it down because of its place in the hierarchy of national theatres?).
5. My friend/union rep who sent me the original "don't accept this" text when the show was $70 a pop subbed for me on SpongeBob in this theatre for...$70, just five months prior.
It's certainly not my intention to undercut the other guys whose main playing income is from pit work. I'd like to play more shows, but I surely won't jump straight to the big leagues like the Alliance Theatre here in Atlanta (where the money IS more correct, and also unionized!), so I'm going with what is offered me, hoping that maybe I'm making some connections with musicians and music directors on the way up, and gaining some experience along the way.
Anyway, it was weird, just like SpongeBob was, being in an orchestra with ten people who weren't even born when I started playing shows, and they're all goofy and do stupid college shit, but it came together ok.
Two good stories:
1. The four strings, the bassist, and the trombonist are all in orchestra--it's their class for the semester. The orchestra has a concert on Saturday, and they will all need subs. Trombonist is shocked to find out that he can't bail on the orchestra (it's for a grade, dude!). Violist never gets a sub, but maybe never mentions it to anybody, because the conductor wondered where the viola was that night. We play the show with an empty chair, no one notices. Ok!
2. Bass player gets a sub for the Friday and Saturday shows. The sub is awful, and the conductor begs him not to play many times during the performance. He's less awful Saturday after an emergency rehearsal, and the second act of the Saturday is passable. On Sunday (when the regular bassist returns), we find out that it's because he's...NOT A BASSIST AND CANNOT READ BASS CLEF! Holy moly.
Wednesday, September 21: Atlanta, GA. I played a duo gig at a rich person's house on the river. Maybe a birthday party? Unknown. Me and piano player. He was crazy for the whole two hours. Nobody seemed to mind.
The room where we played is not good for a band of this volume, and the rehearsal was super shaky. Basically, you could hear yourself and the guy next to you, but not the guy next to him. I was pretty sure we were going to crash and burn.
Somehow, we pulled it off, though, and I would even say that the sound improved for the concert. I think everybody played a little softer and listened a little harder. My alto playing received zero recognition from the rest of the sax section. I really thought that people would be blowing up my phone for some alto after this one.
I sat next to Neil Newcomb on this gig (he played second tenor), and he showed me his fancy new clarinet. It sounded really great, especially in contrast to mine. A good bit of that is the operator, though.
Saturday, September 24: Atlanta, GA. Yacht Rock played a wedding at the Atlanta History Center. This one was weird because our gear had left town to make it to tomorrow's show, so we cobbled together enough gear to get through the night. It seemed to sound ok even if it felt slightly foreign.
The catered food looked funky, so I was glad that I had enough time to go home, eat, and walk the dogs between soundcheck and the reception.
Sunday, September 25: Jacksonville, FL. Ugh. We had to get up really early to fly to Jacksonville to play some kind of taco and tequila festival. We were there around lunch and didn't play until maybe 5:30, so there was lots and lots of downtime and no good places to hang out (the provided RV-as-green-room was not nearly big enough to accommodate us all).
This one felt like it was going to be a major drag due to heat, humidity, lack of sleep, lack of enthusiasm, etc, but when we finally got on stage and got going, everybody was having a good time, and the gig turned out to be really fun.
Plus, it ended at 7:30! We packed up and made our way over to the hotel. The only food available as a Longhorn Steakhouse (actually, I think there was maybe a Zaxby's, too, and Kip ate there). The food and drinks took forever to make it to our table. Was it a staffing issue, or a training issue? Whatever it was, the situation was hopeless. I can't believe we didn't just bail and order pizzas. It would've been a good hang either way.
Thursday, September 29: New Haven, CT. Oof. Another early flight, this time to White Plains, NY. From there, we drove up I-95 to New Haven, Connecticut for a Yacht Rock show.
Scary gear moment here: I pulled the EWI out of the case, plugged the MIDI cable in, flipped the on switch...and nothing happened. Huh! Out of batteries? I swapped out the batteries, flipped the switch...nothing. I swapped the batteries again, and still nothing. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! I banged on the side of it, and it came back to life. I took the batteries out and put the first ones back in...nothing. Banged on it and and it came back on. I took backstage and took as much of it apart as I could to see if there was some kind of loose wiring, but I didn't see anything, and I could hear anything loose inside, so...huh. I put the batteries back in, banged on it, and it was fine for the gig. What's up with that?
Other than the EWI scare, this was a pretty fun gig! Obviously not a huge crowd--it's our first time here, and I think only our second public show ever in Connecticut, but it wasn't bad and they were into it, and it sounded good.
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| ROCK |
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| AND |
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| ROLL |
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| WOOOOOOO |
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| OOOOOOOOOO |
No problems with the EWI during the show.
Afterwards, we drove about an hour to Hartford to spend the night. That was kind of rough.
Friday, September 30: Boston, MA. This evening's show was a special performance of Purple Rain at The Royale in Boston.
This was a decent show, though I couldn't help but feel like I'm just never going to get Purple Rain perfect, and that kind of bummed me out. I'm not sure why I felt that on this night, but it kind of put a damper on it.
Kip sure makes us sound great, though.
The Royale is a weird room--as soon as you've finished playing, you have about 45 minutes to pack up everything and get out of the room because they set up a DJ to play for an entirely new room full of people. I guess it's kind of nice because the show has to end early, though.
We drove about almost an hour to Plymouth, Mass to spend the night (including a brief stop at the wrong hotel!).
Saturday, October 1: Nantucket, MA. I woke up in the middle of the night and didn't feel very good, and it persisted long enough that I got up, went in the bathroom, and threw up. A few hours later, I did the same thing. Greg got up and took a shower, and before he could escape, I was filling up a garbage can with more barf.
Our gig du jour was a wedding in Nantucket, and we had to stop on the way to the ferry so I could barf some more. Not a good start to the day.
Once we'd parked on the ferry, the band went up to the deck for the ride, but I stayed in the van and tried to sleep this off. When everybody came back (and I sat up), it was once again time to empty the contents of my stomach into a plastic bag. Come on! Leave me alone!
Our arrival on the island happened to coincide with the arrival of a massive storm, the remnants of Hurricane Ian, and the afternoon was a mess of heavy rain and powerful winds. After a stop for lunch (I had a plain bagel and a bottle of water to hopefully settle my stomach), we proceeded to the venue for the wedding. Here's the tent inside of the tent where the reception was to be held.
The rain and wind were blowing up under the sides of the tent, soaking the stage, so ultimately the decision was made to move us into an adjacent building. Much warmer and safer!
The puking was over at this point, but damn was I dehydrated. There was no water to be found in our green room or on stage, and by the end, I was in pretty rough shape. Good party, though, and the groom was a massive fan of mine, so I'm glad I was able to stand up and play for him.
Sunday, October 2: Nantucket Airport. We crawled back to our hotel rooms after the wedding reception to sleep for only a few hours before making our way to the airport. The early guys left at 5:30; my group (Monkeyboy and Mark Bencuya) were out the door at 6:30. The flight for the first group was cancelled, and we found them camped out in the restaurant eating breakfast. Our flight was still scheduled, so we checked in and got ready to board.
There were two flights--a very small plane from Nantucket to Boston, and then a regular jet from Boston to Atlanta. When we went outside to board the first flight, I thought, "What are we doing!!!"
Ten seats, including the pilot. Mark Bencuya is NOT the copilot!
Quite a ride! It was really bumpy and loud as we got airborne, but things settled down once we cleared the weather around the island.
Then we got into some clouds, and you couldn't see anything. And then I fell asleep.
Then it got bumpy again as we exited the clouds heading into Boston.
And we landed safely at Logan! What a ride!
From there, it was the usual airport stuff: got on the jet, passed out, woke up as we began the descent into Atlanta. I made it back home, ate lunch, went and played my church gig, went home, went to bed.
All better? Not quite! I guess I picked up a cold on the way home, because as my stomach returned to normal, my sinuses erupted. It was a week of extended recovery!
Thursday, October 6: Atlanta, GA. I teamed up with Nick and Pete to play an hour of yacht rock songs at an event for The Giving Kitchen here in Atlanta. It's always a fun time trying to rearrange these songs that we know so well into a smaller, more acoustic format!
In my previous post, I forgot to post this! Check out my little EWI duet. Hopefully my EWI will stay alive long enough for future duets.
