Thriller rehearsal

Yacht Rock is dusting off Michael Jackson's Thriller for a performance this Friday night at the Park Tavern.  Yesterday we wandered through a quick rehearsal of it.

We originally had learned the entire record for Halloween of last year (perhaps you will recall this).  We also played it on The Rock Boat this past January, and haven't thought about it since!

Video from the boat:



I'm pretty lukewarm about playing it.  I made charts of everything I have to play, so I just read it down.  I have no love for it.  I bet that I'll have more fun playing the clav part to Peg in the first set.

Anyway, rehearsal was fine.  Bencuya assigned me a few parts that I need to grab before tomorrow night, and I need to tweak a few of my laptop sounds that didn't do what I expected them to do.  I also discovered that my cable from my computer to my little mixer is going bad--I had some crunchy static that went away when I used my crappy emergency cable.  It's always something!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday

It's been a slow weekend.  I had no gigs at all last week or this weekend except for my Thursday night thing.  Even so, I've been busy with lots of stuff --teaching is coming back since school started, plus I have been cranking out charts trying to get ahead of the next couple of weeks' gigs.

Today (Sunday) was my bookend church gigs--one at 9:30 AM and one at 7 PM.  I was a little more awake than last week.  The morning gig went well--it was more of the regular service, so a bit less bombastic than last week's thing.  No choir and almost no pipe organ.  Same stuff for me, though--show and blow.  Afterwards the next service began frantically setting up, and they wheeled out tympani.  The big show must be at the 11 AM!

Sunday night's gig was the usual story--not much happening.  I dedicated my performance to adding the interval of a perfect fourth to the lines I was playing.  I fell asleep during the homily.  The hot (female) usher was there.  I started breaking in a new soprano sax reed.  The pianist played more wrong notes than usual.

Here's a picture from last Friday's Yacht Rock gig at Andrews Upstairs/8 Trax.  That's me up at the top of the picture.  You can get a pretty good idea of how tight the stage is.

I've got a busy week coming up.  Stay tuned.
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E.D.

I have not been that bored on a Yacht Rock gig in a long time.  I could tell early in the night that we were all pretty flat and there would be nothing that could pull us out of it.  At that point it became a dreadfully long march through almost two full sets of music.

Musically speaking, I was able to neither achieve nor maintain...!

Increasingly I find it difficult to play with musicians who aren't listening well.  I thought last night I would be able to push past it and focus on the people who were, but I couldn't get away from it.  There were multiple spots where the soloist would wrap up his solo and most of us could hear it, but we would keep playing.  The opposite happened to me, where I was just reaching the top gear on my solo, but the song ended.  Am I misreading the signals?  I don't know.  My feeling was that some of us were just going from point A to point B, and the hell with the in between.  

All I know is I can't play when I know it doesn't matter.

Oh well...we survived.  Here's hoping for better music next week.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday church gigs

Yesterday (Sunday), I did a couple of church gigs.  The first two were new gigs at a nearby church.  Pretty easy, straightforward stuff--I just showed up and blew over the top of what was going on around me.  For these particular services, around was a choir, four singers, two lead singers, piano, two guitars (acoustic and electric), bass, drums, and three piece horn section.  The only bummer was that I had to be there at 8 AM.  8 AM!  Geez.  I slept during the sermon on the second service.  I also slept at the pool after that.

Sunday night was my usual church gig.  Nothing great to report.  My face and hands were really tired.  I was glad to get home, where I immediately crashed on the couch.
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Saturday in the Park

Saturday night I played a really relaxed wedding gig with Constantly Awesome.  The four guys that comprise that band used to be a terrific original band called Y-O-U.  They are also the principal members of Yacht Rock.  I played melodica (theme to The Office), flute, alto and tenor saxophone, and keyboard.  It was fun and easy.  Why can't they all be like that?

Someone has posted a video from last night's gig.  You can hear me playing the synth and string parts that I worked on Thursday.  Weird...I didn't like the way the synth sound worked with the rest of the music when I was on stage, but now that I hear it on the video, it sounds right.  Maybe I need to live with it for a few gigs.

davidfreemanmusic.net 

Oh What a Night!

The Yacht Rock Revue played four sets at whatever they're calling Andrews Upstairs last night.  The first two sets were a private party for Groupon, and then they opened the place up to the public.  The Groupon people were pretty lame--they just sat there like it was a concert!--but we had 500 presales for the public part of the gig, so we nearly had a stampede when the doors opened.  Since there were only about 75-100 tickets left, I'm pretty sure it sold out before we started.

Mark Cobb returned to the band for this gig.  It's been a few weeks since we played with him since he no longer plays the 10 High gigs on Thursday nights.  I think we were both excited to play.  He was on fire, especially through the first three sets.  Awesome stuff!

Mark Bencuya is still my hero.  Sitting next to him is the best part of playing Andrews--I pick up so much from watching him play.  I feel bad that he has to listen to me!

By the time we reached the midpoint of the public gig, we could have made the crowd do anything we wanted.  They were loving everything we did.  It was insanity!  We were able to keep it going.  Nick did an amazing Bono impersonation during Don't You Forget About Me.  We probably would have caused a riot if we'd stopped right there.

The only bad part of the gig was that so many people stayed after we finished, loading gear out across the dance floor was a major pain.  Usually people clear out, but last night most people hung out for another hour.  We need roadies!
davidfreemanmusic.net 

An Awesome Thursday

We played a terrific gig Thursday night at the 10 High.  Everybody was in a good mood and everybody played well (with a few rough moments).  It was as much fun as I've had at the 10 High in weeks!

1.  Lonely Boy:  I nailed it.  The first song of the night rocked.

2.  What a Fool Believes:  All day I practiced the synth and string parts.  In particular, the second verse is difficult for me to coordinate.  I think I did pretty well on that.  There might have been a stray note in there, but one the whole I'd say my work paid off.

In addition to this, tonight was the first night that I used Mainstage (part of Logic Pro) with the EWI.  It was awesome!  The sounds were good and the program worked without any hiccups.  It makes me wish I'd changed my stuff over a couple of months ago.

A great gig!
davidfreemanmusic.net 

Helicopter Rides and Gigs

I had a House Live gig at Ventana's last night.  The people who hired us wouldn't pay for staff from the sound company;  wouldn't pay for a stage;  wouldn't pay for food.  We soon found out is because they'd spent all their money on HELICOPTER TOURS OF THE CITY!!!  For three hours we played and watched the helicopter come and go.  Wayne and I got close--we were in the line at the top of the stairs, ready to get on the next helicopter, but then some other people showed up and we thought we should let them go (and Wayne got a lil chicken--I think the danger that we would get busted, not the helicopter part).  Anyway, we did NOT get in the helicopter (though I added lyrics to lots of our improvisations that dealt with our misfortune).  Next time?

The actual helicopter in which we did not ride:

I've spent all day trying to get my hands to play both the synth part and the string part of What a Fool Believes.  I don't think I'm ready, but I'm going for it tonight.
davidfreemanmusic.net

Trio

I played a lot of bullshit tonight, but I looked damn good.

Tonight was a weird trio gig at the Marriott Marquis downtown.  It was supposed to be 6 to 9, but at some point I was informed it would begin at 6:30.  No big deal;  we hung out.

When we finally got started playing, I don't know if it was because Kevin was exhausted from a long weekend or we were in a dead spot in the room or what, but it felt like we were playing into deep space.  I mean, the room just ate our sound and took all the energy with it.  There seemed to be nothing I could do to kick us into gear.  Thus, I played a bunch of crap, trying to force some excitement.  Maybe when I go back and listen to it tomorrow, I'll think differently, but it felt like I wasn't making any sense.  My reeds felt stuffy and my hands wouldn't work.

My contract said dinner/awards, so we played about an hour and twenty minutes waiting for the awards ceremony that never came.  When people started leaving for the night, we took a break.  The second set made it about fifteen minutes--during the second tune, I had my eyes closed while I was playing, and I opened them to find my client two feet in front of me.  What the hell!

She told us we were finished (at 8:30 PM), but then asked if she could "borrow" Tyrone to play a song in the hospitality suite--they had a grand piano up there.  He returned after 9 PM.  It's always an adventure.


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More Newcastle!

Last night I began the Yacht Rock festivities by ordering a Newcastle and declaring the possibility that I might get rip-roarin' drunk (to which Nick replied, "Like last night?")  I'm really not that bad.  I in fact did not get drunk, but I was buzzed for the entire night.  It was that kind of night--I hate to say it, but I didn't care.

The crowd was good (and good lookin'--wow!), and pretty appreciative of what we were giving them.  I was surprised at the end of the night that the final count was so high--in front of me there were times when it was thin.  The room must have turned over more than usual.

I was on a pair of great reeds last night and I could hear my monitor really well, so I just went for it.  Things like Baker Street got a little extra sauce;  maybe it was the beer?  I just had to do it.  Kind of givin' it all the finger.

On the other hand, my laptop (the old one) gave me the finger a couple of times!  Something happened a few times--the EWI would transmit MIDI info (I guess?) that muted Logic on my laptop, and so I'd tried to play something and get NOTHING.  Very, very, very irritating.  Thank god I was in a "f**k it" kind of mood or I probably would have gotten very upset.  Instead I just banged on the space bar and/or enter until it was cleared up.  Here's to gear that doesn't do this!

That was the last straw.  I spent all of today getting my sounds together on Mainstage (on my Macbook Pro) and making sure it all worked.  Now that I'm up and running, I am wiping my old computer (the G4) clean.  There's no going back!

I really am pretty sick of dealing with the EWI.  I'm cool with using it as another "voice", say the way Bob Mintzer uses it in the Yellowjackets, but I'm sick of dealing with it as a MIDI controller.  I guess I should have taken piano lessons more seriously!
davidfreemanmusic.net

Newcastle

Last night was Please Pleaserock Me at Smith's Olde Bar.

It was a low energy kind of night.  We've got to figure out a way to get more people to come through the door, I guess.  The crowd last night was ok, but they didn't give us much--it was almost like they were stunned by what they were seeing.   At no point did it feel like they were all the way with us.  I wish there had been a little more unabashed enthusiasm.

The first set I was not busy, so I spent most of my time focused on the awesomeness of Mark Cobb (who is awesome).  He was killin' it.  I haven't seen much of him because he's been out of town and Yacht Rock has been kind of slow at the moment, but he really kicked ass.  

Paul Poovey played trumpet with us last night (Jason Pellett is on vacation).  Paul was outstanding!  He walked in and played the gig with no rehearsals or anything.  

Greg Lee played alto last night, and I think it made the tunes we did last night sound better.  Previously he had been playing bari, and a few times we ended up with a big gap between him and us.  Now he's right up in the middle of us--much better.

The second set featured Newcastle in the beer tub back stage.  I like Newcastle a lot.

When you listen to the recording from last night you'll probably hear me destroying She's Leaving Home--it's because I couldn't hear anything I was playing.  I will not blame that on Newcastle for that.  My hope is that nobody else could hear me either.
Newcastle is also not to blame for the end of Jet.  The jump from the bottom of the horn up to an altissimo B for the solo is hard to do.

I was much busier in the second set and could not get backstage to fetch another Newcastle.  That's the way the gig ended.

davidfreemanmusic.net