I Cannot Afford to Suck!

Tonight the members of the Yacht Rock Revue had the band version of an office party.  We gave up our usual 10 High gig to the Schooner so we could attend the "Dukes of September" concert--Boz Scaggs, Michael McDonald, and Donald Fagen--at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre.

The concert was pretty good.  With those three guys, you'd think you'd hear more of classic songs.  Instead, it was about half covers--maybe more than half.  For instance, the only Steely Dan song Fagen did was Reelin' in the Years.  Michael McDonald did I Keep Forgetting, What a Fool Believes, and Takin' it to the Streets (and on that one he only sang the first verse and chorus before turning it over to a background singer).  Boz Scaggs did Lowdown;  maybe he did one other that I can't think of right now.  The rest were covers.  It was cool hearing Walt Weiskopf again.  He's awesome.

Immediately following the concert, somebody had the terrific idea that we would go crash the 10 High, presumably to show up the B band.  I drove like a wild man back to my house to get my saxophones and flute, and then flew down to Virginia Highland.  When we got there, the Schooner was playing and sounding great.  We got up there on their break and tried to play What a Fool Believes, I Want a New Drug, and Lido Shuffle.  It was not pretty.

I played my keyboard parts on What a Fool Believes that I've been working on.  Disaster.  I couldn't hear very well what I was doing, and I wasn't comfortable with the setup of the keyboards.  I could go on with an excuse for every wrong note I played.  I Want a New Drug was fine because it was my usual sax part.  Lido Shuffle was really bad--I usually play the brass part on EWI, so I f...fumbled it.  Over and over, I might add.  Even worse, with the usual keyboard wizard, Eric Frampton, close enough that he could spit on me in disgust.  Mercifully, we finished with that one and I could leave.

I drove home as fast as I drove down there, furious and embarrassed.  I know it's my fault--if I was better and more consistent in my keyboard playing, I wouldn't have made such a fool of myself.  I really looked like an amateur in front of a room full of people, and with the entire band and the Schooner watching.   This cannot happen ever again, but I'm sure it will.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Please Pleaserock Me at Smith's

Please Pleaserock Me, our Beatles tribute, stormed Smith's Olde Bar again last night.  I think the show went really well, even though there were hardly any people there.  I guess the Juliette Lewis crowd wasn't interested.

(Just as a side note, I want to mention that the dressing room that Dearly Beloved used twenty-four hours previously still smelled atrociously bad.  It was all armpits and litterboxes.  They admitted/apologized to some of us that they hadn't bathed in a while.  No shit!  I think their previous encounter with soap must have been back in Canada.)

The big tune of the night was When I'm Sixty-Four.  It went pretty well.  I'm flat (of all things--after years of being twenty cents sharp, I'm finally going flat!) and the other two horns are wild with the tuning as well.  I 'm guessing that when I'm playing straight clarinet, my throat and embouchure aren't as wide open as they are when I've been playing saxophone full blast for an hour.  Thus, I'm a little low.  The clarinet wins again!

I recorded it:



Other than that, it was our usual stuff.  Jason Pellett nailed Penny Lane.  The sound was really good, particularly for the horn monitor.  I think that it helped that Greg was not there when we set the monitor mix--Jason and I want us and probably nothing else, and Greg wants everything else and us!

We always laugh that the Please Pleaserock Me gig always looks like a music store...three keyboards, a Wurly, drums, hand percussion, six or seven guitars, five amplifiers, omnichord, laptop, plus the horns--me or soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone sax, piccolo, flute, clarinet, and kazoo, Jason on piccolo trumpet, Bb trumpet, flugelhorn, and trombone, and Greg on alto sax!  We use all thirty-two channels at Smith's, and we could use more if they had them.

On the break, I stuffed the request box with Young Americans--Bowie quotes A Day in the Life, so I think it's legit.

It's a drag that Youtube took down the video of Bowie (with Sanborn) playing Young Americans live on the Dick Cavett show.  One of my favorites.  I did find it here.

Speaking of David Sanborn, I got my Dukoffs back from Will Grizzle already.  He put them back together for me.  Yay!  I played my normal one last night--it's a 7* that Mojobari opened up to .85, so it's really a D8 now.  It felt great.  I had been using a Dukoff vibracom D8 (my backup mouthpiece).  The silverite one has more bite and balls.  I love it.

Mark Cobb is the man!

davidfreemanmusic.net

The Greater Vavoom vs. Juliette Lewis

Last night was the Greater Vavoom gig at Smith's Olde Bar, opening for Juliette Lewis.  I think we played OK;  it's difficult to say.  I was worried about the stage volume, so I wore earplugs, but that left me with the same problem I always have--I feel so disconnected from everything else around me, I have a hard time feeling like I'm there.  It was like I was watching through the window.

We came off stage and immediately began asking/telling each other "That was a good show, right?"  I think that's kind of telling--maybe we all felt disconnected (even though we individually felt fine).  I, for one, am still not sure what I'm supposed to do with the Vavoom.  I guess it will take a few more rehearsals and gigs before I hear myself inside the sound of the band.

Dearly Beloved followed us on stage.  They were ok.  Evidently, I've never felt the emotions they feel.  Maybe I'm not saying that correctly;  all of their stuff had punk/hard rock energy and manic lyrics.  Even if I've felt that way, it's never come through me like I've needed to jump around in a mosh pit to express it.  Anyway, that style of music does nothing for me.  Let's just leave it at that.

A couple of other comments...the body language of the stage right guitarist just killed me.  He never faced the band, never made eye contact.  He would face straight ahead, and if he took a step, it turned his shoulders out--not in.  So weird!  

The band also had some chick singer--the girl with the inaudible tambourine.  I spent some time and energy trying to decide exactly what she was doing there.  She didn't really contribute anything other than some snarls and attitude.  It makes me wonder if she used to do more, and they've scaled back her role, or if she's convinced them that her presence is worth it, or what.  All I know is that if she hadn't been there, I wouldn't have noticed.

On to my rant about Juliette Lewis...

The Juliette Lewis show felt like a sham.  I assume she's fully committed to the music and really believes in it, but from where I was standing the whole thing looked like it was put together by a friend of hers who happens to work in the marketing department of a fairly big record label.  

Juliette seemed to be playing a role--a cross between Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, and Janis Joplin.  All that crap she said in between songs was carefully scripted.  The songs were lame punk/hard rock.  I couldn't make my brain believe that any of it was more than her self-indulgent BS until her agent calls with the next movie role.

Her band was made up of a punk rock drummer with a big 'fro (I think DW drums are a sign that I should leave immediately), an Asian girl playing bass (whose on stage demeanor made me thing she would look more appropriate as the greater at a trendy midtown restaurant);  two guitarists--one with Nine Inch Nails hair who floppped around onstage a lot, and another guy who was constantly reminding himself to be more animated, though his tendency was to stand there and play his guitar solos.  Once again--no eye contact between band members--no smiling, no laughing--no "We're playing together."  I would say not a band at all--four guys who learned their parts and fill their roles backing up some chick singer on her "project."  The only place any of their eyes went was towards Juliette Lewis--making sure that she saw them doing their thing so they could keep their gig a little longer.  They might as well be playing covers at a wedding.  What a bunch of "manufactured in L.A." crap!

The fact that the room was rather full and the crowd cheered for crap like that makes me feel like the music industry deserves to die.  In between songs there was so much chatter at the bar, there's no way those people were really there to hear the music.  They were there to take part in the celebrity (right down to the people waiting in the alley behind Smith's).  We were all playing our roles, for better or worse.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday and Monday

So...I vacated Ansley Golf Club around 1:15 AM, came home, unpacked all my stuff from the gig, hung up my suit, packed my stuff for my church gig back into my truck, sniffed around on the internet, and went to bed at 3:30 AM.  At 6:30 AM, I was up again, drinking coffee and eating breakfast.  I was at my church gig before 8 AM.

Not too much to report.  I was fortunate to have the monitor wedge right next to me (YESSSSSS!) but unfortunate to have everything but me in it (NOOOOOO!).  After a song or two, I grabbed it and slid it past me so the bass and drums could hear it.  It was not helping me at all.

At some point during the service, we were playing a song in A major, and I managed to fit Michael Brecker's entire solo on Still Crazy After All these Years into the church song THREE TIMES.  By the  third time through the solo my eyes were watering because I was laughing at myself.  They probably thought I was really feeling the spirit.

Am I going to hell for that?

It's still one of my favorite songs (and favorite solos).

Nobody called me out about the solo--they even gave me a check!  So I went home and immediately fell asleep for a few hours.

I woke up a few hours later and drove to Peachtree City to celebrate my niece's birthday.  Due to bad traffic, I was only able to stay for twenty-five minutes before I had to drive back to Atlanta and play my second church gig.

Not much happened at the second church gig.  Hot usher again.  Yeah.

I ran out of church at 8 PM and went straight to a rehearsal for The Greater Vavoom.  The elected to go with no EWI, just saxophone.  It sounded much better, and there were no EWI disasters either.

I got home after 11 PM and probably passed out on the couch soon after that.

Monday started with a trip to the eye doctor to get a new prescription for glasses.  I then did some exciting things around the house like change sheets before Jack came home.  Reggie needed a bath worse than anything else on Earth, so I took care of that too.  He left some funk in my truck, so I took care of that too.

Monday afternoon I spent several hours trying to approximate the clarinet trio that plays on When I'm Sixty-Four.  I need it for the Please Pleaserock Me show this Wednesday.  What does one do when one hears three clarinets, but one's horn section only has one clarinetist?  Second clarinet=alto and bass clarinet=trombone.  Voila!  Here's my arrangement:

It's probably a shock to think that I could do something with MIDI without a whole bunch of cussing.

Monday evening was another run through of the Greater Vavoom stuff.  It was super loud.  I looked in my case for my earplugs, but I had left them in a suit pocket.  Not doing me much good there...

All my tenor reeds died.  Number two warped last night at rehearsal so I pitched it.  Number three was warped, so I pitched it.  Number four was dead.  Number one was dead, but it was the last reed I had in my case, so I played it through the rest of rehearsal and then broke it in half (to show it who was boss).  I started breaking in some new reeds on Friday;  I now pronounce them fit for action.  Your training is over, soldier!

I came home and knocked out another couple of charts for Beatles rehearsal tomorrow morning (It Don't Come Easy and Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite).  Nothing terribly difficult.  Not like the clarinet thing.

davidfreemanmusic.net

One for the Boobies

The Yacht Rock Revue played a breast cancer benefit at Ansley Golf Club in midtown.  It was a pretty easy gig, though the time frame was very long--6:30 to midnight.  Other than that, it was no big deal.  Straight Yacht Rock stuff.  After the previous night's humid show, it was great to be in air conditioning, too!

We set up and soundchecked (with a monster PA!  I've played gigs in the same room with NO PA!).  I guess we got a little carried away going over tunes, because the coordinator came in and asked if we were finished because they wanted to open the doors.  Oops.  We changed really fast and played a hour set.

Included in the first set was Sailing by Christopher Cross.  Dedicated readers will recall my death at the Variety Playhouse a few months back.  This time, I nailed it.  No problems.  It was good to put that one to bed--I don't have to carry around the self doubt (or as much self doubt).  I've been looking for another opportunity.

Also included in the set was Little Jeannie.  I worked on it some more before the gig and I think it paid off. I was twice as good as the night before.  Hopefully we'll keep that one in the set list--it's fun to play.

We then took a break...for something like two hours!  We sat in a the massage room and drank scotch.  Scotch is gross.  I'm not a very experienced drinker, but geez.  No thanks.

We came back around 10 PM and played two sets.  The crowd was WASTED.  Holy cow could those people drink.  Included in the second set was What a Fool Believes.   I think I've found my sound.  I'm going to sit on this one for a while and see if I get comfortable with it.

Maybe I've said this before, but it's funny to me that I really don't play much saxophone on the gig, and yet people constantly praise me for my sax playing.  We played around thirty-five songs;  maybe nine or ten had saxophone parts--not necessarily solos.  People eat it up.  What can I say?

No blog post would be complete without an EWI disaster, right?  Here you go:  the plug separated from the power supply on my laptop and fell on the floor, but I didn't notice.  In the middle of the final set, I suddenly noticed that my laptop would not wake up.  Why?  No more power.  I'd drained the battery.  The cable was still attached to the laptop and the prongs were still in the power strip, but the brick of the power supply was on the floor.  Great!  I plugged it back in and turned the laptop back on.  Mainstage came back and everything looked good.

I should mention that I was doing all of this while we were playing.  It's like trying to dismantle a bomb before the song ends.  YOU NOW HAVE THREE AND A HALF MINUTES TO TROUBLESHOOT THIS VERY BAD PROBLEM!

The problem was that thus:  the program came back on, but the the MIDI convertor was not receiving MIDI information.  I closed down Mainstage and restarted it.  No luck.  I rebooted the computer.  No luck.  I rebooted Mainstage again.  No luck.  We'd moved into another song so I was now trying to play a keyboard part and fix my laptop.  At one point while I was bent over frantically doing triage, Mark Cobb reached over and played part of his drum groove on the top my head.   The eventual solution was to unplug the USB cable and then plug it back in.  That fixed it.  Damnit!

Also during this set, we were given a round of tequila.  Great.  Just as nasty as scotch.

The set ended and we were invited to an afterparty (no thank you).  More and more drunk people and they all dug us.  That's cool, but they probably won't help load out gear!

davidfreemanmusic.net 

Thrilled in the Rain

Last night the Yacht Rock Revue played a sold out show at the Park Tavern.  When I parked the attendant asked if I had tickets "to the concert"--I guess they were turning people away before they blew money on a parking spot.  I said, "I'm playing the concert."  Way to be a dick, Freeman.

Atlanta got a good bit of rain yesterday, so it was 200% humidity.  Charts and set lists were damp before we'd played the gig, and you can probably imagine how my reeds felt (and how my fussy EWI liked it).  It remained hot and humid for the entire show, and at various times I noticed it pouring outside the tent.  Other than one of my cases getting a little wet, my gear was fine.

The first set was all regular Yacht Rock stuff (70s stuff).  No problems.  All my sounds worked, though I was constantly paging through my sounds on my laptop to make sure everything was still there.  It's going to take a few gigs to get my confidence back on that.  I thought I had all that EWI stuff sorted out!

Playing saxophone in that tent is like playing into a pillow.  I'm mic'ed, so I know it's going into the sound system, but it still never feels like I'm there.  I know part of it is the distance from my monitor (which is the only thing putting my sound out on stage), but it's hard to tell if I'm even in the mains.  I guess you have to play and trust that someone will come tell you if they can't hear you.

This was my first gig playing Little Jeannie on the keyboard.  I had always played the horn part and left the synth part out, but I think I can get both going now.  I worked on it in between soundcheck and the gig, and I got about seventy percent of it correct.  I guess that's embarrassing...I mean, if I played a recital and got seventy percent of it, I'd probably quit.  Maybe it was more like eighty percent.  It wasn't terrible, I just simplified some stuff for the moment.  I worked on it a little more today, so in another few gigs it'll start to be comfortable.

We played Baker Street pretty early in the night, and the crowd really dug it.  It's funny--I have the hook of the song, and people cheer like I'm playing something amazing.  Last night was particularly that way--I mean, I took a curtain call during the second verse!

What a Fool Believes is still not right for me.  I changed synth sounds again to try and get something that sounded right but still had a little grit to it.  Last night's problem was a balance between the strings in my left hand and the synth in my right.  I couldn't hear the synth at all--I have it turned down because two sounds ago it was sticking out too much.  Geeze!  I can't believe I can't get it together...actually, I can.  I'll try it again tonight.

So...on to Thriller.

After all my moaning and groaning about not really being that interested in playing the album, it was a lot of fun.  I spent yesterday right up to when I left trying to incorporate some parts that Mark Bencuya asked me to pick up (a string part and a synth part).  I also redid my stuff for The Girl is Mine.  That was the one that was making my amp distort.  I moved it all to the keyboard and it sounded better (and did not distort--I switched from a flute sample to a flutey synth).

I had charts for all my stuff, so I just followed my charts...except that I could barely see them.  All the lights were over the crowd, pointed at us, so when the guitar player would move around, it would block my light...and I had sunglasses on.  No biggie.  I did fine.

I would have turned in a pretty good performance except for the frickin' bridge to Lady in my Life, where I sucked real bad.  This was a Bencuya request--the synth part on the bridge has GOT TO BE THERE.  I said I could do it.  I worked on it.  I was ready for it.  We played the tune, and the bridge snuck up on me.  Agh!  The bridge!  I looked down at my chart, and (of course), I couldn't see it.  Then I found it, but I was kind of frazzled and didn't have my hand in the right spot on the keyboard.  Disaster.  I played something synthy...it'd be like if you cut the paper up and threw it on the floor--it sounded like that.  I played the right notes with the right sound, but in the wrong order and wrong rhythm.

Everything else came off without incident.  We played a few Yacht Rock songs to fill out the night until the 11 PM curfew--Africa, I Want a New Drug, and Easy Lover.  I was pretty pleased with my performance--except for that damn bridge!  I want a do-over!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Thursday stuff

Yesterday (Thursday) was WAAAAY better than the previous week.

I began the day by running a slew of errands.  First, I took a few mouthpieces and put them in the mail--some to be returned, and some to be refaced.

A few weeks ago I replaced my old beat up Vandoren 5RV clarinet mouthpiece with a new 5RVlyre Series 13 mouthpiece (which plays much more in tune for me--I have always been sharp, even with a longer barrel).  Anyway, I ordered three mouthpieces to try, picked one, and sent the other two back.  A few days later, I got a call saying that they'd accidentally refunded me the money for all three, and so they needed my credit card to charge me for the one I kept.  Fine.  A week later, the two mouthpieces I rejected showed up in the mail again, along with a bill for them.  So...I called, they straightened it out (I hope), and I sent them on their way yet again.

While at the post office, I also sent out two Dukoff alto mouthpieces to Will Grizzle for refacing.  One was a new guy, and one was an old guy that I messed up by tinkering with it.  Oops.  Will can straighten it out (I hope).  I've never kept a single mouthpiece that I've had Will reface, but I keep hoping that it's me and not him.  Since his claim to fame is working on David Sanborn's Dukoff, I thought I'd take another chance on him.

I also picked up this beautiful wig for the show tonight:

Oh yeah.

I got home and tried to troubleshoot what I thought was a cable problem, but what I now think is a buzzy tweeter in my powered speaker.  It only buzzes when I use the EWI to play flute, and only on a certain note in a certain volume range.  I think I've figured out something that will work--turning it down and then playing louder to get past that "spot" of distortion.

Somewhere in all of that, I was forced by Mark Bencuya to start thinking about next week's Beatles show.  He was calling to check the key of When I'm 64...in C#.  I agree.  It got me wondering how I can arrange that little clarinet choir for one clarinet, one alto, and one trombone (or trumpet).  We'll see.  I'm thinking trombone will cover the bass clarinet part, and the alto will hopefully stay beneath me on the other clarinet part.

The gig last night...(finally!)...much better than last week.  I really wanted to have a good time and kick butt, so I tried to force some enthusiasm at the beginning of the gig.  That worked.  I was having fun and playing well (cue the music!)...until...I had AN EWI PROBLEM!!!!!!!  I know--who'd have guessed that the EWI would trip me up?!    Here's how it all went down:  we were playing great until we got to Peg.  I play the intro thing (Tom Scott on lyricon, I believe):

When I cued up that sound, I got nothing, and the tunes was blowing by, so I used another sound until I could get to the verse and have a look.  I looked at the screen and it was lighting up like it does when the thing is receiving MIDI info, so I was really confused...and here came the second verse thing, so I had to play something for that, even though it was the wrong sound...and then back to the computer.  It turns out that the sound source (in this case it was the EXS 24 sampler) was missing from the channel strip.  Hence, no sound.  That sucked really bad.  Peg was a disaster.  When we got past the synth part, I didn't have the phasey clav thing set up on my keyboard, so I had to stop and do that, and then my head was splattered all over the wall and I kept playing wrong notes.  It was not a pretty moment (and I'd been kicking ass up to that point!).

On set break I learned that the 10 High is now carrying Newcastle in bottles, so I had a big ol' bottle and felt much better about myself.  No one even mentioned my disaster--evidently the bass rig was malfunctioning at exactly the same time my EWI stuff was taking a dive.

The second set featured Mark Cobb sitting in for My Love is Alive.  That was cool--we rocked it.  I luuuuuuuuv me some Mark Cobb, though Ganesh held his own.  He even got 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover right after weeks of pysching himself out about it.

We skipped Lonely Boy.  I'm just going on record to say that I disapprove.  I guess the trade off was Mark Cobb on My Love is Alive.  I can live with that, I think.

It took me forever to load out last night.  I don't know why.  I was dragging.

I will now madly cram for Thriller.  Wish me luck!

davidfreemanmusic.net

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.
davidfreemanmusic.net

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.
davidfreemanmusic.net