Last night, Yacht Rock played a private party in Druid Hills--fourth year we've played the same party. It's an easy event for us because the people are cool, the house is nice (we play in a tent in the back yard), and the food is great. In particular, the dessert is sugar coated bacon--they order something like fifty pounds of it. I think I could eat all of it.
Kip Conner on sound. Wish we'd had him Thursday night!
We tried out two new songs: Raspberry Beret and Hip to Be Square. In spite of my preparations, I still fumbled through both songs. I think I need to live with them a little longer before I've got it--it doesn't seem that I'm hearing my part in my head quite yet.
Mark Cobb brought his electronic drum pad to the gig, and ended up playing some cool stuff, particularly on You Should be Dancing, where he played a conga part alongside the drum part. Nice.
Right at 11:30 PM, the police showed up and shut down the party. First time we've ever had that happen!
Yacht Rock played a private party for Yahoo last night at Andrews Upstairs in Buckhead. What used to be a cool room to play has morphed through the years into a pretty horrible sounding space. The stage at one point was kind of a cool thing with lots of different levels and spaces…now it's a triangle in the corner, and the low end mush is deafening. It's a tough room for even the best (Kip Conner) sound guys; we showed up to two people setting up who admitted they'd never run sound for a band before. The front-of-house person works in the office for the company! Wow. Here's a twenty-something inputs…mix it! Who sends two rookies out to mix a seven piece band for a private event in a club with a questionable PA?
As you expect, we had a difficult night. The set up/soundcheck took over three hours (when we set up and run our own sound with the band's PA, it takes an hour and a half). They had to hold the opening of the doors while we continued dealing with feedback. Bad channels on the mixer, bad channels on the snake, bad cables…ouch! We probably would have never played the gig if it hadn't been for Greg Lee and Ganesh Giri Jaya taking over and plugging everything in for them.
The weird thing was that a third sound guy (who seemed to know something about what he was doing) did finally show up and help solve things, but as soon as the party got up and running, he left (or fled). Any issues that came up after the first twenty minutes were basically left unfixed.
So anyway, that was weird. I don't know who was to blame for that, but it made things difficult/slightly embarrassing.
The smoke machine worked really well. We were totally fogged in at one point.
As far as our performance, I can't really say. The stage sound was a mess--there was a big low mids roar--it sounded like we were playing next to a giant dishwasher. On top of that, the monitor mixes were forever changing--in the first set, Bencuya's keyboards got louder and louder on stage. In the second set, vocals would completely vanish from the monitors mid-song. I wonder what it was like out front?
I guess things were OK. The party attendees seemed pretty happy right from the first note; they even demanded an encore. Yahoo!
Yacht Rock just returned from the KISS Kruise, which sailed from Miami to Cozumel on Halloween and returned November 4. It was a surprisingly good time, with great weather and smooth seas!
I was fortunate to be able to bring my wife on this trip.
The port of Miami…I must point out that this is the spot from which my professional career began. My first job after college was a cruise ship gig, which I boarded right where the barge in this picture is.
Our first night at sea was calm--we were asleep pretty early after a full day of traveling.
One of the highlights of our second day on the boat was a photo with KISS. They were very tall.
Day two was our first show. We were on the pool stage, playing 11:30 PM-1 AM. Good show! We didn't have a huge crowd, but the passengers on the ship were interested in almost nothing outside of KISS. The people who did hear us were enthusiastic, though.
The next day we were in port in Cozumel. Once again, great weather! It's pretty amazing to see a ship of that size back into a spot on the pier. On this day, we parked next to the Norwegian Star, the ship from the Jillian Michaels Wellness Cruise.
We saw these guys playing a marimba…really neat!
That evening, we played on the atrium stage (indoors) from 6-7 PM, doing our Beatles show (Please Pleaserock Me). Once again, we had a small crowd, but we played well.
I didn't have much to do on this show, but I did get a sax solo on Jealous Guy. It got a little off the rails at the end.
We were without Peter Olson on this trip (maternity leave), so the other guys did a fantastic job of picking up his instrumental and vocal responsibilities. Nice work!
That evening, we went and watched part of the KISS show. I'm not a fan, but their show was AWESOME! Great songs with great hooks and sing-along lyrics. Very cool! Glad I went.
Saturday morning, we hosted a bingo tournament. Someone ordered KISS pajamas for us. This was probably our biggest crowd of the trip.
We ate at the Japanese steakhouse on board that night. We were at one table. KISS and their crew were at the other. Pretty cool. We weren't allowed to take pictures, though.
Would you believe that the boat has a bowling alley?
Our third show was our Dazed and Confused set. We played again in the atrium from midnight to 1:30 AM. Once again, I got off pretty easy, and the other five guys crushed it. It was fun to watch.
Congratulations and thanks to Sixthman, KISS, and the sound crews at both stages for their hard work. They made it easy for us.
That was it! We flew home Sunday afternoon. I made it home early enough to go play my PM church gig. Not too bad! My playing was surprisingly coherent.
Yacht Rock had an unusual gig Monday morning…we were paid by a company to rerecorded the theme to Gilligan's Island with different words relevant to their business. Pretty funny, considering that we're getting on a cruise ship Wednesday!
photo cred: Mark Cobb
It's a pretty simple song. I think the rhythm section guys took the second take. A couple of the guys had vocals stacked in a half hour. My part was fun…I recorded a piccolo track, four flute tracks, a clarinet track, and four saxophone tracks. Maybe I was nailing it…almost all were first takes. I tend to think it was also just "good enough" for a quick recording. The whole thing sounded really good together! It was fun (for me) to do something different.
My AM gig featured Indra Thomas, an operatic soprano. She did a few with her accompanist and a few with the band/choir. Big voice, but I couldn't understand a single word she sang. It was all vowels and vibrato.
My PM gig was pretty good. We've finally located a guitarist; he played on two songs with us. Other than that, I spent most of the gig trying soprano reeds and watching the Giants/Cowboys game on my phone. The five hour House Live gig the night before did wonders for my flute face.
I got a call to play a House Live gig for a private party at a home in Buckhead. It was a Peter Pan themed party, and Jeff, Wayne, and I were dressed as Indians and situated on the back steps of the house/mansion next to a teepee. I guess that was better than the two girls who spent the evening in the pool pretending to be mermaids.
see the DJ set up on the left? I was behind the tree next to those windows
A beautiful house! We weren't actually allowed in the house (except that the only way to my position on the steps was through the kitchen, but I promised to keep my eyes closed). I even got yelled at by the caterer/party planner for daring to take a picture of the pool house. He then yelled at his assistant and instructed her to yell at the band about it.
the pool house
I just want to point out that one of my favorite aspects of playing in Yacht Rock is that we are seldom treated as anything less than honored guests--it's not uncommon for the bride and groom to ask us at their wedding reception if there's anything we need. I hope I never have to go back to regular gigging situations where I'm treated like a dog.
Anyway…other than that, the gig was five hours of music outside. It got cold. At 8:30 it was already down to 55 degrees. My hands were stiff and my feet were numb, and I had my mouthpiece and flute headjoint pushed on as far as they'd go. I was really hoping the noise ordinance in Atlanta (11 PM) would save us, but when the cops came at 10 to turn it down, the caterer bribed them with free food, and the police agreed to ignore the noise until the neighbors complained (which I guess they did not). Damn!
I played a weird trio gig tonight with David Ellington (keyboard) and Nadav Spiegelman (bass). We had a lot of trouble finding a groove.
This gig was weird before we ever got there. The contract I signed a few weeks ago said the gig was 7:30-10:30 PM. Last week it became 6-9, with the first half hour solo sax. As of yesterday afternoon, this was still the case. This morning, it became 6-9 PM for the trio, no solo sax. At 4:15, I got a phone call (still at home) asking if we could start at 5:15 and play til 9. Jump in the truck and away I go! Ellington and I were set at 5:15 with Nadav a few minutes later than that. The client pushed the gig back to 5:30-8:30. 5:30 passed…5:35…5:40…5:45…5:50…5:55…6 PM!…6:05…finally at 6:10, one guy came in and ordered a beer, and the client gave us the signal to begin.
So, there was that. They also tried to stick us with a closet to store dead cases on the fourth floor (we were out on the Grand Terrace on the seventh floor). The ever resourceful Ellington found an empty closet ten feet from where we were set up.
Later on we were given the slash-across-the-neck-signal (illegal in the NFL) mid tune by the head waiter so he could saber a champagne bottle. He finally got it on the third try.
All that was pretty comical.
The playing part just never clicked. I don't think we could ever hear each other well enough. I could hear myself and Nadav, but Ellington was faint…he said the same about Nadav. The time was all over the place, and it just made every note tricky.
On top of that, my hands just weren't working well. I'm pretty out of shape for a gig like this.
House Live did a gig last night for the well fed people of H & R Block. This one was a little different--two drummers, a DJ, and me. Steven Walker played drum set and Wayne Viar played congas and other hand drums.
Easy gig! Steven even let me play his drums for a while. It was fun, even though I'm not good at it.
So…Sunday morning, there I was, bright and early at my AM church gig. I got a message earlier in the week that I would be playing only alto, so I knew it was a concert band situation. It turned out to be a great change of pace…I played in the "orchestra" (a combo wind ensemble/strings/rhythm section), covering the sax part by myself. Easy stuff. Easy load out!
I got home in time for brunch with my in-laws, and then it was off to another Yacht Rock gig! Jeez!
We played a Stewart Cink charity event (the Cink it Challenge) in Suwanee at some super swanky golf club. Nice place. Is it weird that we now hang out with Stewart Cink? That he recognizes us by sight? That he and I have conversations about sunburn on our heads?
This one could have gone poorly, but everybody was relaxed after last week, and we had Kip Conner running sound for us, so everything sounded fantastic. We played great! Fun gig.
