David Freeman Music

It's felt like one long Yacht Rock gig… Thursday night, The Yacht Rock Revue and the Yacht Rock Schooner combined Thursday night to bring the smooth 70s sound to the 10 High.  It was Mark Bencuya (YRR), Tom Young (YRS), Daniel Morrison (YRS), Mark Dannells (YRR), me (both!), Greg Lee (YRR), and Kevin Spencer (YRS).  Two bass players, right?  Greg  sang on the front line and Tom played bass. It could have been a big mess--at the very least, is it a Revue gig or is a Schooner gig?  Sometimes we do different endings to the same song, and so there was a little confusion.  Even just knowing who we were on the microphone was subject to interpretation.  The gig turned out to be really cool, though.  It was a really good change of pace to have Greg up front, and Daniel really played great.  He's come a long way in getting comfortable with the music. For me, the gig was a little nerve wracking.  I was late due to some downed trees and a...

The Yacht Rock Revue played a benefit show in Kennesaw last night for Leland Erickson, a three year old with a acute myeloid leukemia.  He's currently in remission, but his family has incurred huge medical bills. Glad we could help! Here's his website if you would like to make a donation. davidfreemanmusic.net

Yacht Rock played a private party at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge at Lake Oconee Monday night.  The Georgia Chamber hired us.  I think it's safe to say they loved us--we were invited to the after-party for free drinks at the bar and received a heroes' welcome when we arrived. "OSHA approved bermuda grass dance floor" I've played the Ritz out there a bunch.  For a while, I was there a couple of  times a month, playing in the lobby in a band with Tyrone Jackson , Karin Williams, Moffett Morris, and Ben Taylor.  Great band and a great gig.  It eventually fell apart when the Ritz got funny with the money.  When Yacht Rock was checking in to our rooms, we saw a pretty bad one-man-band in there with tracks.  Things have changed for the worse. This gig was down by the lake on a stage that listed to starboard about ten degrees.  Not my favorite set up!  No cover when there was sun, and once the sun went down, we were inundated with bugs. ...

Sunday means church gigs! Church gig number one was kind of chaotic, but we came through just fine.  Here's an audio snapshot:   Sunday gospel by David B Freeman I'm going to try next week to use the headphones again.  I've just been playing off the drums and piano, but I feel like I'm missing too much (of the bass, for instance, and if there was any way to hear some of the vocals, that'd be swell, too). Church gig number two was fine once I got my flute face going…not sure what was up.  I couldn't get the angle of the air across the hole right for a couple of songs.  It was weird. davidfreemanmusic.net

Last night, Yacht Rock played the Police Ball 2011 at the Marriott downtown.  No actual police were involved, except for the cop who brought his motorcycle up the freight elevator with me. keyboards and cops This was definitely some sort of high dollar benefit.  Big room, big production.  You know the drill.  Over-rehearsed lukewarm speeches, touchy-feely video segments, local newscaster host.  Blah.  We did some video bombing right before the doors opened. The gig went well.  It was a good night for us, and for me personally.  The stage was really wide (but normal depth), so we were really spread out.  Thanks to monitors, it was cool.  Actually, I kind of dug it because we were far enough apart that I could hear myself well without having my amp really cranked up, and I could hear everybody else in my wedge and Dannells' wedge. I finally bought a Nord…I got an Electro 3 73 off eBay this week.  It's really nice.  Th...

Yacht Rock played our U2 show (Uno Dos Tres Catorce) at Andrews Upstairs/8 Traxx Disco last night.  It was a pretty good show, though the crowd never got swept up enough to make a monumental event.  Our friends the REMakes (REM tribute band) opened for us, and they were terrific, as always.  I played on a couple of songs ( Finest Worksong has a brass part and Can't Get There from Here has a sax part). The story of the night was Mark Cobb's awesome new set of Vistalites: Very, very, very cool.  Cobb's more of a small drum sizes kind of guy, so it was pretty wild to see him behind a monster kit.  It didn't really change much for me, though.  His "sound" (for me) is his snare drum (whichever one he chooses for the night)--the other drums just compliment the snare in different ways (though I am partial to the blue sparkle kick drum). Since I didn't have much to do on this gig, I spent a fair amount of time people watching and laughing to myself. ...

I played two Yacht Rock gigs yesterday, each very different from the other, unified by the fine plaid suit I wore to both. Gig Number One:  The Yacht Rock Revue played a lunchtime gig at the Galleria, in an outdoor courtyard between the office buildings.  We had to be  there at 8:30 AM…way early for any band.  The load in was down a ramp to the stage--couldn't have been easier, and a welcome change from some of our more recent Battan-Death-March type stuff.  We set up, soundchecked/pissed off people who were working, changed, and ate Williamson Brothers BBQ .  Hell yeah!  It was so good. The gig was really easy.  I mean, daylight and no alcohol on either side of the bandstand could have made for a really rough show, but to me everything was relaxed and very cool.  No hassles, no requests for Journey.  The weather was great, the sound was good, the band was happy.  Great gig! Gig Number Two:  I played with the Yacht...

Yacht Rock played an awesome gig last night in Scottsdale (Phoenix) Arizona at a place called Different Pointe of View .  The venue was a restaurant on the top of a hill overlooking the city.  It was an incredible view, and a really fun gig. Different Pointe of View the view We left Atlanta around 10 PM Monday night landed in Arizona at 2 AM (Atlanta time), tired and hungry.  No bags, no bags, no bags…baggage claim was a problem!--some sort of jam--that kept us standing there for forty-five minutes in the middle of the night.  From there, it was a twenty minute van ride to the Pointe Hilton where we stayed and performed. Most of the band opted to go find food in the middle of the night, so the "overnight guy" offered to drive us in the hotel van to civilization.  We ended up ordering from a Del Taco at something like 4:30 AM Atlanta time.  Ouch.  Spicy chicken burrito was ok, though!  Our driver must have had a bet with the front de...

Saturday night , Please PleaseRock Me had our monthly (really probably more like six weeks) show at Smith's Olde Bar.  Not much of a show for me;  most of my work comes in the week or so prior to the gig, writing charts and thinking about arrangement things that didn't work at the previous show.  Fortunately, we'd just played a Beatles show the week before , so there wasn't much prep work for this one. I have to get this out of the way:  I hate the sound man.  OK, hate's not the right word, but Saturday night's FoH sound guy is a frikin' douchebag.  As soon as I walked in the backdoor of Smith's and saw him, I was crushed…I knew right then that there would be an entire night of him being a pain in the ass and solving my problems that didn't need solving and offering suggestions when I wasn't asking for one, and eventually NOT HAVING MY CLARINET BE AUDIBLE FOR ANY OF WHEN I'M SIXTY-FOUR .  I won't even bother with the other particulars...

Yacht Rock played a private party last night at Star Provisions (Howell Mill and 14th).  Super easy gig.  It turned out to be a lot of fun. The load in sucked.  This one is like a "Hotel Intercontinental and Use the Freight Elevator" kind of sucks (different from a "Fox Theatre/Egyptian Ballroom Vertical Phonebooth for a Freight Elevator" kind of sucks).  You load in at the back corner of the building, go up the ramp, across the back of the building, in the back door, down one hall, then down another hall to the freight elevator.  The other option is to use the passenger elevators, but only one (the left) goes to the fourth floor;  the other only goes to three, so if you go up that one, you have to jump to the other elevator when it tops out. The room itself is pretty cool.  Great view.   I've been there before on a House Live gig . Catering for the event was by Taqueria del Sol.  Half the band tried to load in from there…on purpose,...