David Freeman Music

Last night was supposed to be the final tune up for the Second Annual Yacht Rock Holiday Special, but Nick felt himself getting sick and decided to take the night off (turns out Cobb had diarrhea and projectile vomit happening last night, too), so it ended up being just another night at the 10 High.  K Spence in on lead vocals and Ganesh on drums. Is there such a thing?  This one was really good, especially in the first set.  We were really going for it.  I was having a great time, playing well.  Everybody was playing well.  All my stuff sounded good and felt good.  I got through Lonely Boy with no issues (mental or otherwise).   Even Dannells seemed satisfied with himself. Dannells is awesome. Just like last week, the cold arctic air coming down the stairwell made my horns unhappy.  Both instruments had potato chipped reeds when I picked them up, and I had to quickly rehydrate them to return them to normal. ...

I've spent the past few days preparing for the Second Annual Yacht Rock Holiday Special  coming up this Friday at the Park Tavern (tickets still available for the early show, but the late show is sold out!).  We learned some holiday songs and some new Yacht Rock songs.  It's gonna be good. We did a rehearsal Tuesday night.  What a difference a year makes!  Last year, I was struggling in my attempts to do anything useful on the keyboard--very much gritting my teeth and holding on for dear life.  This time, I am a much more comfortable. I practiced the new stuff a ton--I pretty much had it all memorized going into the Tuesday rehearsal, so I had no problems.  Things went so well, in fact, that I impressed Bencuya with one of my synth parts!  I was showing Cobb two missing measures, and I ripped off the bridge for him, and Bencuya said something like, "Holy shit!  That sounded REALLY good!"  How 'bout that!  I feel like I never ha...

I played another Yacht Rock Schooner gig last night--a holiday party at a country club.  Hans on sound!  Not much I can say about it.  This one was three sets of music, so the sax stuff was really spread out.  I think I only played two tunes in the last set.  It was super duper easy.  In a way it was kind of boring, but it was nice to take it easy. I had lots of people asking me why I wasn't playing.  "Putting out the vibe." Earlier in the day I played my morning church gig, which seems to have kind of calmed down from the chaos of a few weeks ago.  We were spread out along one edge of the stage due to an orchestra concert that night, so I was very far from the piano.  It was me and drums, as far as I could tell.  At least I finally found a place to sit down! davidfreemanmusic.net

I played a gig last night with the Yacht Rock Schooner --just saxes and flute--for a holiday party at the Cobb Energy Center .  It was really sweet being that close to home.  20 miles round trip! It was pretty easy, but as always, it's really weird to not play the other parts of the song the way I'm used to doing in the Revue .  I spent about half the gig sitting off to the side of the stage, playing games on my phone. The band sounded pretty good, though the mix could have been better.  You'd think (if you were a sound guy) that a band with two keyboards must have a significan amount of keyboard stuff going on in the music, and maybe you'd want to hear that in the mix?  The times that I was out front (when not playing games on my phone), it was all drums and bass. Other than my lack of faith in the sound production, it was good.  I played pretty well, and I was home before midnight. I took my attire inspiration from this v...

Usual Thursday...I redeemed myself on Lonely Boy .  I experimented with the difference between vibrato  and leslie on my organ stuff.  Not too much else happened--my awe inspiring setlist (complete with clip art) was about all I had.  It was a weird night where it seemed like I couldn't get my levels set quite right--too much of this, too little of that.  I'm trying not to set my stuff up wide open, but when I stand up (to play saxophone, for instance), and I don't get the feeling that I've got any kind of volume happening.  Even Nick asked me if my sax mic was on.  Hmm. I will say this...my reeds are old and soft, and I played Baker Street sooooo flat.  I would've needed a hacksaw to get up to pitch.  Soft reed, and then all the cold air blowing down the stairs hit my horns.  Boo.  Time to start breaking in a new batch! So much for that.  In the mean time, check this out (with fellow IU alum Sara Caswell on violin): d...

We played a AWESOME gig last night.  The Main Street Exiles were rockin'--best gig I've ever played with that band.   Please Pleaserock Me then took the stage, and played the best gig we've played in a long time!  Great stuff, great set list.  Even the crowd was great.  I had a wonderful time. davidfreemanmusic.net

I had a rehearsal yesterday for the upcoming Yacht Rock Holiday Special  (Friday, December 10).  We also went over the Beatles stuff for the Please Pleaserock Me show (tonight at Smith's). I used my bari sax at rehearsal...I opened the case for the first time in probably six weeks, put the thing together, and got ready to wail.  As I drew my breath for the first note, I was nearly killed by the smell of...puke?  I don't know.  My horn smelled like somebody/something had thrown up in it, and then baked it.  I nearly died. When I got home, I washed the mouthpiece, the neck, the mouthpiece cap, my hands.  Total sterilization.  I squirted some mouthpiece disinfectant into the neck and left it there.  But where was the smell coming from?  It turns out my new Pro Tec baritione saxophone case  is glued together with barf.  I Febrezed it and dumped an entire box of baking soda in it, and it's currently outsi...

I got home from the trip to Athens at something like 4 AM, unloaded the truck, and went to bed around 4:30 AM.  Ouch.  I was up three hours later to chug some coffee and head out to church gig number one. Church gig number one was the typical circus that I've described in the past few weeks. The service began a half hour later (10 AM), and last week I asked if rehearsal would be a half hour later.  Yes was the answer I got.  Of course, I showed up at 8:30 this week and they were knee deep in the music, making me look late. Other than that, it was the typical one song of this, one song of that, one song with a choir I'd never seen before, one song with handbells.  I didn't get any preparation emails earlier in the week this time, so there was nothing I could have done differently. I've been wearing my glasses to this first gig so that I don't have to force my contacts into my face so early in the morning, and once again I noticed how much I need my periph...

Yacht Rock played in Athens at The Melting Point last night.  A great gig!  The sound was wonderful and the room was really cool. We met up at the office and headed out of town, stopping along the way at our favorite gas station. The stage was kind of small, but we were able to make it work.  The sound was great!  It was a really good volume on stage, and I really dug that I didn't have to turn up that much because I could hear myself in the house.  Yeah!  The sound guy--Mike--was very good and paid attention to us.  All the solos got a good bump in volume. I got kind of worried when I set up and we tried my line and got nothing--same thing as at Andrews!  Mike fixed it, though.  It was a problem on his end. Ganesh played drums with us.  Danni covered for Greg Lee. My only major flub of last night was the breakdown on Lonely Boy .  It was a reverse brain fart!  I was going along and not r...

Main Street Exiles played a gig last night at the Star Bar, opening for Nine Inch Neils .  The opened for us. NIN were really good.  Much like Yacht Rock , they are able to use the kitsch factor to win the crowd over.  I mean, they got the whole Star Bar to sing along to Sweet Caroline , I Am I Said , and Song Sung Blue . Our set was kind of rough.  We jumped up on stage, line checked, and started playing.  No monitors or anything.  Tony decided to leave the bass cabinet on the opposite side of the stage from where he usually is, so I flipped and stood next to Freddy.  We used a different drummer ( Donovan Babb , who played very well).  Cox's microphone kept coming unplugged. Chris Cox Here's the problem with all that--the songs are really loose to begin with, and Cox needs everyone to be in the right spot so he can be loose, and we need to be able to hear Cox clearly in order to know wher...

Yacht Rock played Turkey Eve at Andrews Upstairs/8 Traxx Disco Wednesday night.  Sold out!  Very cool. The sound continues to be a problem in that room.  When I arrived, the stage looked like a tornado had just passed through.  Cords were everywhere and a monitor was face down.  The sound guy was kind of putting it all back together. I was not a fan of the sound guy.  Right from the start, I made a recommendation about where to put one of the monitors (in front of Greg and Bencuya), and he continued moving it further to the side (right where I set up my keyboards).  When I said something like, "That's not going to work," his response was "That's the way it's going to be."  I bit my lip and helped Ganesh load in gear. Once I started dealing with my own equipment again, I set my keyboard stand behind the monitor in question, and the sound guy moved it, insisting to me that we keep an open path across the stage.  Moments later I saw hi...