Holiday Party

Yacht Rock played a holiday party last night at Park Tavern.  We usually play outside on the patio, but the ice rink made that impossible.  Because of this, we were tucked in a corner of the downstairs room. It seemed like a pretty terrible situation (acoustically speaking), but in the end, I don't think it sounded bad at all.

This gig was a holiday party for a small company, with maybe a hundred people in attendance.  It never got rowdy, which was cool by me--there were a few people dancing and watching the show, but no drunk people screaming at us.

I felt good about my playing all around--I've had some good solos on Reminiscing lately, and liked my playing on Lowdown last night.  I've finally gotten over whatever I caught in California and my voice is back to normal, so I'm also feeling more confident about my singing.

We're headed out the door today to play in Nashville tonight at the Mercy Lounge.  It's in the 70s here in Atlanta and the 30s up there.  Yuck.

Easy Day

No Saturday night gig…the weekend immediately following Thanksgiving has pretty much always been dead for everybody, so I don't feel too bad about not working.  Sunday was a regular day, though, with services in the morning and evening.

My Sunday morning gig was uneventful.  I played some clarinet on the opening song (kind of Christian klezmer oom-pah thing).  The remainder of the service, I played soprano and tried to stay in the background as much as I could.  No big spots for me to fill, so I did my best to participate without being noticed.

The instrumentation was a little unusual--in addition to the usual drums, bass, piano, church organ, and me, we had Neil from the contemporary service joining us.  Neil plays B-3 organ, so he played some with us--dueling organs?  I always wonder what that sounds like out front.

We played two services this weekend, which was cool for the money.  I must admit that my clarinet felt so good that I was happy to play two.

My evening church gig was also mostly a non-event for me.  The music chosen for this weekend didn't leave me many opportunities to play, so I stayed out of the way as best I could.  One of the hymns was such a wandering subdominant nightmare that I gave after a few seconds of trying to weave something into it and put my soprano back on the stand.

Yacht Rock will be in Nashville at the Mercy Lounge this coming Friday night if you're around.

Turkey Eve

Yacht Rock played a sold out Thanksgiving Eve at the Egyptian Ballroom at The Fox Theatre last night--a major step up from last year's Turkey Eve at Smith's Olde Bar.  Way more people, way more fun, and I played much better than last year.

This was a great gig all around for us!  We debuted a few new tunes (I'm Alright, Two Tickets to Paradise) and brought back several that we haven't played in a while (Band on the Run, Sara Smile, She's Gone, Get Out of My Dreams, and Everything She Wants).  I'm pretty sure they all went over well, though with ear plugs jammed deep into my head, I didn't hear much of the crowd.  It's one of the louder stages we've played recently.

Sunday

My AM church gig had a couple of subs--John Hancotte subbed for Charley on bass and Keith played organ in place of the absent Dustin and church organist Ira.  An unusual line up.  Other than that, it was a typical show--a couple of hymns, the big production number, a little soft-shoe closer.  

My PM church gig had an excellent mix going, thank you very much.  They repaired whatever issue was happening with the main speakers, so I got everything going in stereo again (panning things out).  The band leader said it was loud;  maybe my ears are messed up because of this cold, but it didn't seem loud to me.  I like it loud anyway.

My soprano is feeling/sounding so good these days!  I bought a new mouthpiece (a CE Winds Silver Socka) and tweaked a few of the adjustment screws in order to close a couple of leaks, and now it's exactly what I was hoping this combination would be.  It makes me look forward  to my church gigs again.  

Short Skirt Night at the Ten High

Not really…the skirts were at an all time high, but we weren't at the 10 High.  We were at 103 West in Buckhead.

The event du jour was a private party.  I have no idea for whom we were playing or what they were celebrating.  The crowd was into it sometimes.

The food was good and the load in/out was easy.  Zach ran sound and brought a donkey named David;  Kip is somewhere out there holding Shawn Mullins together.  There's nothing else to report.

I'm still sick.

Friday Night

I recorded my horn parts for an original song Friday night at Madison Studios.  I think it turned out pretty well!  Hopefully, there will be more creative opportunities like this coming up.

West Coast Trip

Yacht Rock has just returned from a short trip to the west coast, with nice gigs in San Diego and Los Angeles.  In between was a wild night on the town.

Sunday:  we flew to San Diego.  No problems from Delta with our gear.  By the way, I have seen that it's now a law that the airlines cannot charge you for checked musical gear if it's under 165 pounds.  You can read about that HERE.  

So anyway, we landed in beautiful San Diego (even the airport is beautiful), picked up rental cars (with the planes flying over us).  We checked into our hotel (right next door to the venue), sound checked, ate…the usual stuff.  The San Diego House of Blues is nice.

My Nord case was the victim of a random peeing by my dog earlier in the week.  When I opened the case in San Diego, I was greeted by a plume of ammonia.  Gross.  I tried to clean it the night before we flew with pet carpet cleaner and Febreeze (and airing it out), but there's still some stink to it.  Since I couldn't put my keyboard back in the case with an open box of baking soda, I bought a box of dryer sheets and laid them out.  If nothing else, the fragrance will hopefully mask some of the pee.  Bad dog.

This gig was fun--the House of Blues gigs pretty much always are (I guess Anaheim's not the greatest), but we had a good showing for a Sunday night (approximately 170 people, two thirds of whom had paid to enter).  San Diego is nice, the House of Blues was groovy, the hotel was cool…I've got no complaints!

I played a pretty sloppy show.  Sorry!

Monday:  we got up late.  Most of us woke up kind of early, since our body clocks were three hours ahead.  I had four cups of coffee (even the hotel coffee was good).  Once everybody was rounded up, we ate lunch and headed up to Los Angeles.  We even let Monkey drive.

The drive north was beautiful.  San Diego and the area north are incredibly scenic.  As we got closer to LA, the landscape changed for the worse.  Downtown LA has a trash problem.  

We started the night at a foodie restaurant called Animal.  Totally not my thing and really expensive.

From there, Elliot Lurie recommended we go see a band called Bern (led by drummer Bernie Dresel) at Cafe Cordiale.  The band was three vocals, rhythm section, and a horn section.  Very cool!  They did some Tower of Power stuff, an Amy Winehouse tune, a Sting song, Fool in the Rain by Led Zeppelin, The End by the Beatles, etc.  It was really neat--a kick ass band in a small room.  I went and stood behind the horn section (Willie Murillo on trumpet, Brian Scanlon on tenor and alto sax, Brian Williams on bari sax, and Alan Kaplan on trombone).  I really dug this.  The horns were tight, and the charts were great.

After that, we closed out the night at the bar at Chateau Marmont.  It's a pretty legendary place.  The bar is hip and the Australian bartender was a babe.  Later in the night, Bencuya was cornered by some creepy lady from Slovenia who not only asked him if he thought she was attractive, but also asked him if he thought she was too wrinkly.  Honesty in a sixty year old hooker is commendable, I guess.  

We got away from her and made our way out onto Sunset just in time to see a van come peeling around the corner with the driver's side door open.  The guy stopped the van across the street, got out, and tried to beat up a parking meter.  At that point, he fell backwards into the landscaping.  As he was getting ready for round two, his friend came running up the street and their argument continued.  They eventually got in the van and drove away just in time for the LAPD to swoop in on them.  

Tuesday:  we had lunch at the Grand Central Market in downtown LA.  Pretty good.  I had chicken tacos.

Our show that night was a private party on the roof of the Grammy Museum for a eighty people (mostly dudes).  Nice, easy gig (two forty-five minute sets).  The backdrop on the hotel behind me was a mural for Anchorman 2.  

I was fighting some sort of illness that peaked in its intensity right around this gig, so I was very thankful that this show was short and sweet.  That said, it was a cool party and the mostly-dudes crowd really liked us (though nobody danced because it was mostly dudes).  

Wednesday:  we flew all afternoon back to Atlanta.  The flight left around 1 PM (local time), and we landed just after 7 PM.  Once again, no problems getting our gear checked.  Walter (who works the counter of Delta on the curbside check in) was fantastic--worth more than we could tip him.

I got home and my dog was so happy to see me that she peed on the floor.  Welcome home!

Hopefully I can get my jet lag sorted out by Sunday, when the ol' AM church gig slams me back into Eastern time.