Typical Thursday

Yacht Rock played our usual Thursday night at the 10 High.  I have nothing more to say...it was business as usual.  I had good reeds on both saxophones, and I integrated a better fingering for a piano part.  I wore one of my new shirts.
See--I told you I had nothing.
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The Lucky 38

We had 38 paid attendees at the Yacht Rock Roller Disco.  Ouch.  After my personal triumph the night before, I came crashing back to earth.

What else can I say...I drank multiple beers before we began, and so I assume that the sound was only weird to me.  Ganesh filled in for Mark Cobb (!) on drums, and it felt like the gig was him and me playing in the Bat Cave.  The sound didn't get any better as I gradually returned to sobriety, though, so I think that's just the way it is.

Let's talk equipment problems, shall we?

1.  My effects pedal for my saxophone croaked.  Really, it was only the power supply that died.  It's an easy fix, and I think I only played saxophone on three songs, so it was no biggie, but it does mean a trip to the music store.

2.  My brass sound in my EWI rig (computer!) has gotten all out of wack.  I'm not sure how, but it just sounded terrible and splatty and distorted.  Fortunately I am days away from having my "Mainstage" version up and running, but I did waste some valuable time screwing around with it (to no avail).  I wonder why one sound in my setup got so mangled, but everything else is fine.  I guess it's the final push to get me to finish building my new virtual rig.  I've been holding onto Logic 7 for too long!

38 people?  Are you serious?  I predict that rollerskating at the Masquerade is on the way out.
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Chris Burroughs Collective

I played a really cool with drummer Chris Burroughs at the only jazz club in Atlanta, Churchill Grounds.  I thought it was going to be a public gig, but it turns out it was a private event--somebody had rented out the room and hired us.


It's funny going into Churchill again.  Back when it started out, I used to go and sit in with a couple of friends (Dan Furman and Joseph Patrick Moore), back when the stage was in the front window.  Later on, I used to play at the jam session just about every week.  For a while, I was playing some gigs there as a leader.  At some point, I fell out of favor with management and they stopped hiring me.

Once they opened "The Whisper Room," I went to one last jam session there.  A few years after that, I stopped by one night and sat in with Joe Gransden.  Since then, I have not been in the room.

This being my third time, I would say it was charmed.  The gig also included Tyrone Jackson and Joel Powell (bass).  I had a wonderful time.  I was sort of worried about playing a jazz gig where I might have to think about lots of tunes--the jazz gigs I do are dominated by my own tunes.  No problems, though.  Everybody was cool and I could relax and play.

This gig felt huge to me.  I am always worried that I am busy off doing my own thing and nobody will remember me for jazz stuff.  I would do gigs like this for free!



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Peg in Charlotte

Here's an audience video of us playing Steely Dan's Peg in Charlotte last Thursday.



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Park Tavern

Yacht Rock played at the Park Tavern in midtown last night--part of the Summer Concert Series there.  This particular gig was our Reagan Rock show--all music of the early eighties.  We like to think of it as a continuation of the smooth seventies hits into the next decade.

This gig was insane.  It sold out--they were turning people away!  Very cool and very surreal.  Lots of people saw us for the first time.  More and more, I don't recognize hardly anyone in the audience.  The thing just continues to grow--business is improving!

Other than that, it was fairly uneventful.  There were a few rough spots, which was understandable considering we hadn't really played most of these songs since the Variety Playhouse gig.  I felt a little more mentally aware than I did in Charlotte--in other words, I didn't feel as crappy about my performance as the previous night!

We had a different sound guy than we usually see at the Park Tavern--last night was Kip Conner, who usually runs sound for Shawn Mullins.  I think the board was frustrating him (and us).  Things that he would turn down would get turned back up, and other things would disappear.  We made it through ok, but  he seemed pretty pissed about it afterwards, and I can understand why--he's a total pro sound guy, and the thing made him look bad.

It's becoming apparent to me as we play larger venues that my little powered speaker is not powerful enough to keep up with the stage volume--it's fine when I'm right on top of it, but even six feet away is getting too far.  Right now I'm using a Mackie SRM350, and I usually use it wide open.  I think I need to jump up to the SRM450 so I can have it loud enough without the sounds distorting.  I thought about buying a big keyboard amp (since that's mainly what's going through it), but a 450 is around the same price, and I could also use it as a main speaker on gigs where I have to supply a PA.

After the gig, I was explaining the EWI to a woman, and I explained that it was a synth, but instead of having piano keys to tell it what note to play, it has saxophone fingerings.  She said, "You play saxophone?"  Ouch.
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Alive After Five

The Yacht Rock Revue played Alive After Five in Charlotte last night.  It went pretty well.

We all met at the office around 10:30 AM, loaded up, and headed up I 85.  Along the way we had the usual stops for food and gas, and rolled in around 4 PM, I'd guess.  From there, we loaded in, set up (on a really nice outdoor stage), soundchecked and ate.

The gig was not too good for me.  I'm still trying to get used to the new keyboard;  the EWI had another moment of playing itself;  mostly I was mentally unavailable for the beginning of the gig!  I just couldn't get my mindset into what we were doing.  It was like I was spaced out, and I was trying to force myself to pay attention (with limited success).  While that was happening, I was thinking about things like "the split on this keyboard needs to be tweaked" and trying to play around that (and tripping all over myself).  The EWI started playing itself again--it was still registering breath pressure even though I wasn't playing it, which caused it to do some strange stuff for a second.  I'm not sure what that was--it was not terribly hot or humid--maybe barometric pressure?  Altitude?  I don't know.  It worked, and then somehow I sent MIDI information that muted everything...I don't know.  I turned the sensitivity down and everything was fine for the rest of the gig.

Anyway, if you were there (either on stage or out front), my apologies for not being on it.  I just didn't have it yesterday.  

We drove home after the gig (I slept a good bit of the way).  I got home around 4:30 AM, wide awake from having taken a three hour nap!  I was up for a while longer before I crashed again.

We're at the Park Tavern tonight.

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Let's Get Stoned

Tonight was the Rolling Stones tribute band, known as "Let's Get Stoned," at the 10 High.  For a first gig, it went very well.  We had some small errors, but we made it through the gig without any deaths, and we had lots of good moments.

For me, the gig was cool for two things.  First, (the awesome) Mark Cobb.  Tonight he was awesome because he was pushing and pulling on the beat in a couple of tunes, and I thought it was cool because he was doing it on purpose!, massaging the time ever so slightly back and forth but never losing control.  So impressive.  Mark Cobb is awesome.

I also really dug standing next to Fred McNeal, who really played the hell out of his guitars tonight.  He was so cool and so authentically rock and roll.  No crap from him--he knows the music so well, and his performance was right on target.  I started paying attention to him more last night at the rehearsal, and he really impressed me tonight.

Yacht Rock is in Charlotte, NC tomorrow night for a gig.  Hope to see you there.
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Trio gig

I was fortunate to play a trio gig last night with Tyrone Jackson and Kevin Smith.  It was supposed to be a four hour gig, but when we started at 6 PM, someone came rushing in from the other room and said that they were rehearsing for a big presentation and we would not be able to play until 7 PM.  No problem;  we can wait.  We played an hour, took a fifteen minute break, played an hour, and took a fifteen minute break. When we returned to play the last half hour (9:30-10 PM), the client said, "Great job.  You guys are finished."  Evidently, no one told us the event was ending at 9:30!  So...our gig ended up being only two and a half hours.

I tried to record again last night, but once again my recorder failed me.  It did not record the first set, and the second set was only half the stereo mix.  I think I've gotten my money's worth out of my old recorder.  Methinks it might be about time to upgrade.

Anyway, here's what I did get:


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Friday Night in Nashville

Friday night Yacht Rock played in Nashville at the Mercy Lounge, opening for Space Capone.  The show was sold out--we've come a long way from our first gig in that room, which had maybe a hundred people, most of whom seemed to confused by us.

The gig was good.  No disasters to report.  It was really hot with all those people in there, and super loud--my amp could not keep up with the volume.

We spent the night (as always) at the Best Western on Music Row.  Pick's (the dive bar next to the lobby) was quite a scene at 3 AM.

I have a busy week coming up.  See you on the other side.
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Thursday

Last night Yacht Rock played our usual gig at the 10 High.  Not much to report from a band perspective--it was business as usual, and business was good.  Ganesh played drums, but Mark Cobb sat in on most of the first set.

For me, last night was the debut of my new (used) keyboard, a Roland Fantom X6.  I had no problems, other than one of my sounds did not have much attack, so I changed it.  Ooo...I was showing Dannells all the splits I'd set up, and somehow I changed the tuning of the entire keyboard!  Yikes!  Right before we started, I turned if off and turned it on again and things were fine.

Even better than the new keyboard was the Marshall cabinet behind my gear.  Last night I put my amp up there, and it changed the gig!  All of the sudden, I could hear my saxophone on stage.  For previous gigs it was down on the floor in the corner, and when I went out to play a solo it was very quiet.  If I tried to turn it up, it would feed back when I got back to the keyboards.  Last night, I could hear my horns GREAT!  So awesome, and no feedback.  I'm looking forward to our next 10 High gig just so I can do that again.  I may have to invest in an amp stand.

We're off to Nashville.  Mercy Lounge, here we come!
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July 3 and 4

Saturday, July 3, I played a set with the Schooner in LaGrange, approximately seventy miles south of Atlanta.  From what I heard, we played for someone's twenty-fifth birthday.  All I know was that it was in somebody's backyard, and the house and yard were Southern Living immaculate.

We debuted two new songs--Diamond  Girl and Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do).  Both were a little shakey, but for a first attempt in public, they went fine.  I did my part, botching the solo on Arthur's.  As is usual with the Schooner, all my stuff was in the first set, so I got back home around the time they finished the gig.

I went to bed around 1-1:30 AM and got up at 5 AM.  We (Yacht Rock) had to be in Piedmont Park at 6 AM to load for the Peachtree Road Race.  We played as the crowds finished the race and the awards were finished, approximately 8:30 AM til 11 AM.

It was a terrific gig (other than the time frame!).  The sound was terrific;  the crew was pleasant;  the monitors were cool.  At 7:30 AM we did a soundcheck, and I played some nasty split-tone altissimo Bb's that were deafeningly loud through the PA.  That was awesome.

We loaded out across the park at the Park Tavern parking lot around noon.  We were not expected at Turner Field for the game until 1:30, so Bencuya, Dannells, and myself went to Dannells' house to change clothes and eat.  We ended up hitting the Felini's in Candler Park.  From there, we made our way to the Braves stadium for the biggest show of our lives.

Our first stop was the field to rehearse the National Anthem.  Crazy.  I was surprised that the grass is as short as it is.  The field is immaculate.  We sang a couple of times (through the mics--we were audible all the way over where the Olympic torch is on the other side of Fulton County Stadium!), and the fighter plane guys timed us for coordinating with the pilots for the flyover.

Here's video of the rehearsal:



We went and set up on the stage (on wheels) in the tunnel.  A quick soundcheck and we were done.

Up in the box we hung out for a bit, changed clothes, and ate before we headed down to a holding room before the Star Spangled Banner.  The escorted us onto the field, and here's how it went:



What a moment!  I wasn't nervous at all, but I was so totally focused on singing that I don't remember anything about being out there.  It was amazing, though.

Back to our box;  we watched the Braves lose to the Marlins 3-2.  Right at the end of the game I went back down to the tunnel, and once the gate opened in right field I rode the stage out onto the field.

Here are some videos from our performance:







What a night!
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