Northeast Tour/The Unhappy Van/Snow Going

Yacht Rock returned to Atlanta after a tour up to the northeast.  Along the way we dealt with technical difficulties, tension conventions, and the silliness of being in a van all day.

Wednesday:  we met up at the office, loaded the van and headed to North Carolina.  Our first gig was in Greensboro (or as we came to find out, Greensboring) at the Blind Tiger.  The room looked great;  I think the capacity was something like four hundred.  The PA was bigger than the Variety Playhouse's (capacity of 1,100).  The stage was a good size.

So…guess how many people showed up?  Maybe twenty over the course of the entire evening.  Actually, make that nineteen plus a dog.  Ouch!

the last cigarette machine in the universe

From what I understood, the Blind Tiger used to be located in the midst of a bar scene with lots of foot traffic, but they moved to this bigger/better location.  Plus, it was Wednesday night…anyway, not the most exciting gig of our lives (though everybody held it together and played well when we could have blown it off).

Thursday:  we got up and drove to Washington DC to play at the Mason Inn.

Just south of Richmond (in Petersburg), we stopped at a BBQ joint called Saucy's that had been constructed out of a steel shipping container.  It was crazy good (just for the record:  me=Memphis guy, so pork or chicken please, and none of that North Carolina vinegar BS).  I had a third of a rack of ribs.  Dannells did too.  It turns out that the guys who run/own it are musicians too, so we hung out for a minute and traded stories.  The ribs were so good, I licked the sauce out of the aluminum foil when I was finished.

We were supposed to play here last time (when it was called the Gin and Tonic), but they were renovating so we were moved to Saloun (you can read about that here).  Just like last time, we snagged a parking spot right outside the front door.  Nice.

That was the last sane thing that happened.

We walked in, and immediately noticed that they'd just painted the stage, maybe the night before, and it was still a bit sticky (and wet in some places!).  Hmm.  We let it dry for another hour, then came back and loaded in.  Still sticky.

I was not able to set up much because the guy with the PA (we'll call him Vincent) showed up with his PA to set up.  Vincent set up gear like the gig was happening in twelve hours instead of three.  I'm not sure if he was trying to be thorough, or maybe he'd only set it up once before, but he was not swift.  Mentally, I murdered him at a much quicker pace.

Vincent, steadily impeding progress

my gear, not on the stage

hurry up Vincent!

So, the gig was supposed to start at 9:30 PM.  Vincent started loading in at 6…at 9 he still hadn't run microphone lines.  At 9:40 we were crammed on stage (Cobb in the corner, Greg in front of him, Bencuya next to me, Dannells in front of us--facing me--and Nick and Ganesh back to back with him).  Nick finally flipped out on Vincent at 9:55.  Ten minutes later (after Nick had pushed Vincent out of the way and taken over the line check/level set) we were up and running.

This gig went great.  It was super loud and the set up was totally weird, but people loved it and we played well.  The capacity of the room was somewhere above two hundred, but the door guys (we'll call them security) kept sending people in.  They admitted later that there were over four hundred people in there.  Some of them were insanely hot women.

Cool!  Awesome gig!  We loaded out like there was some kind of time limit, with cases on the sidewalk and gear coming out one piece at a time.  At one point I was loading the back of the van while a drunk guy was peeing on the street-side front corner of the trailer.  I'll leave that to your imagination--no photos.

We drove off into Maryland to spend the night and nearly hit a deer that was standing in the middle of the highway.

Friday:  we piled into the van and drove to New York City for a gig at Brooklyn's Knitting Factory.  Kind of a big deal…we got to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn early in the afternoon, parked the van under the BQE in an unattended lot, and wandered off to find pizza (Dannells' choice).  We ended up at some hipster pizza place.  The pizza was ok.  It did get great reviews on Yelp!

After a quick check on the van, we did another loop through the neighborhood.  It was a hipster paradise.

We loaded in, set up, soundchecked.  Every club should be like this!  They had a direct hallway from the room to the street, so no dragging gear through the crowd.  Nice.  The whole place was like a nicer, slightly larger version of Smith's Olde Bar (without the stairs).

After some food, we got dressed and played.  I think this might have been one of our best gigs ever.  Everybody played well.  Everything sounded good.  We were something like eleven people shy of selling out the club.  Hell yeah!

Nick on bass!

Here's a taste (sax solos at 2:36 and 3:23):

 I Can't Go for That by David B Freeman

We finished right at 11:30 PM.  The room was cleared, we loaded out (again in record time), and the DJ began (and presumably the room filled again, but we were long gone).  We got a spot on the street right in front, so we loaded the everything in the trailer and walked across the street to the Fat Sow to celebrate.  We drank, we ate (more insanely good BBQ).  Dannells got crazy.

ordering whiskey 

the execution

Back to the van!  We grabbed our suitcases (Dear van, please be here tomorrow with all of your doors and windows intact, and a trailer still attached to your hitch) and headed to our hotel across Brooklyn.

Saturday:  we woke up around noon to heavy, wet snow falling.  Uh oh.  As quickly as we could, we cabbed/car'ed it back to the van to begin making our way to Massachusetts for the big private gig that was supposed to fund the bulk of this tour.

Video!

We got in the van and headed north out of the city.  At our first pit stop for gas, urine, and coffee, the van would not restart.  Uh oh.  We sat there for about ten minutes, and then it started.  Back in business!

The snow got heavier and the roads got worse.  In the NYC suburbs, Nick made the call to the client to inform him that we would not be able to make it.  We got off the interstate at Bedford, NY.  The van got stuck in the snow.  We got unstuck, tried to get up the entrance ramp southbound, and got stuck.  We backed up and headed off on a secondary road, where we once again got stuck.  We backed down to a gas station and waited it out for a few hours (the whole time with the engine running out of fear that it might never start again).

At dusk, the decision was made to try it again.  We headed off on the same road and made it over the first hump.  About a mile down the road, we got stuck on an incline in a curve.  Traffic at this spot (probably a little two lane country road in real life) was crazy--some people blew past us with no problems;  some got stuck and then got unstuck.  Some nearly slid into us;  some slid into the ditch.  We tried to pay off private snowplowers with cash, but nobody would do much to help us.  Eventually we got unstuck; made it down the street a little bit and got stuck again.  Firetrucks blew past us.  Ambulances streaked by.  We got unstuck again.  We made it another mile or two, then got stuck.  We got unstuck and trudged on, only to take a wrong turn!  Uh oh.  Finally, the interstate!  Yay!  I think it took us about six hours to go five miles.

The main roads weren't too bad, so we made our way back to Manhattan and unloaded Mark Cobb, Nick, and his wife, Elliott in Tribeca.

The remaining five of us slept in Secaucus, NJ.  None slept harder than our heroic driver Greg Lee.

Sunday:  we woke to clear skies and melting snow.  The van would not start--it appeared that we might have run out of gas (perhaps the gauge wasn't working?).  Ganesh and I walked to a gas station and purchased a can and three gallons worth of fuel.  We got back, started the van, and away we went!

First order of business:  get Mark Dannells to the Newark airport.  Done.  The remaining four of us (Mark Bencuya, Greg Lee, Ganesh, and myself drove to Charlotte (with a lunch/fuel stop south of Baltimore).  The van began behaving normally.  We even shut it off!  How about that!

By Sunday night we were going insane.  At one point Greg was expounding on the virtues of trail mix ("M & Ms…peanuts…raisins…genius!").

Monday:  we did the four hour trip to Atlanta without any problems.  A quick stop at the office to unload gear, and we went our separate ways.

davidfreemanmusic.net

King of Pops

Please Pleaserock Me (the Yacht Rock guys playing the Beatles) played a set of music at the King of Pops Field Day.  I guess it was a show of appreciation for KoP fans.  The event was in the backyard of the Masquerade (who knew there was such a thing?).

The venue was kind of cool…easy load in right off the street, big stage, room for lots of people.

Our set was really flat.  It surely didn't help that it was Sunday night right after the sun had gone down, or the massive amount of dead air in between us and the band before (the Mike Geier/Monkey Zuma thing was a bust).  We'd also spent all of our energy the previous two nights.  Fortunately, it was only a forty-five minute set, most of which I spent taking pictures and playing percussion.  No big deal.  I was home and asleep on the couch at the usual time!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sellouts

Friday, Yacht Rock traveled to Nashville to play the Mercy Lounge.  This has become somewhat of a regular gig for us.  It's nicely predictable--we know how to get there, where to eat, what the sound will be like.  The sound guys no longer treat us like we're morons--they actually seem happy to see us!

The Mercy Lounge gig sold out.  Yay!  Second time we've done that.  They really pack 'em in there, too, so it feels like a lot of people (even though it's just a couple of hundred).

I sat down to play the first song of the night (Greatest American Hero), and had no sound coming out of my rig.  SHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!  Multiple small heart attacks.  I tried to be systematic in my thinking.  Keyboards have power, speaker has power, rack has power…what the hell?  Then I noticed that my mixer had no power.  Great…no mixer and we'd have to stop and run separate lines and DIs for each keyboard and the EWI, and then send it through the monitor. I checked the connection on the back of the mixer, and it was good.  When I smacked the transformer in my rack, I bumped the plug and the power came back.  It turns out that the plug had worked its way ever so slightly out of the power strip.  I plugged it back in and away we went.

The adrenaline and all that meant that I did not play particularly well for the first few songs.  My head was a little messed up for a while.  I finally settled down and things were fine.

The Mercy is LOUD.  Brutally loud.  I wore ear plugs--I didn't enjoy the gig as much, but my ears were better for it.  There's something about that stage (resonating low end notes, it seems to me), that makes the stage sound really loud.

Before we hit the stage, we went and checked out a studio in Nashville where we might do some recording of our originals.  Really cool old-school equipment:  Chet Atkins' personal mixing console from the 70s, a big 24 track 2 inch tape machine, massive clear Vistalite drum kit, B 3, nice Wurly, a 50s Les Paul that Dannells drooled on.  It could be cool.  The guy (Dave Cobb) talked to us…lots of recording stuff that was over my head.

Saturday, we rolled back into Atlanta early in the afternoon and went to the Variety Playhouse for the big Thriller/Purple Rain show.  This show also sold out.  Holy cow!  We sold out the Variety!

I did pretty well on this stuff.  It really was our first attempt to play Purple Rain (the album) all the way through without stopping.  We made it with a few small hiccups.  My only cuss-out-loud disaster was that I forgot to play a double chorus in Baby I'm a Star.  Other than that, I was pretty solid.

We came back out and played Thriller in storm trooper costumes.  I mean, why not?

Thriller was a little rougher for me.  Maybe it was because I devoted so much time and energy to Purple Rain;  maybe I just couldn't concentrate for that long.  I had some flubs along the way.  The only real thing that I bit the dust on was Lady in My Life.  Bencuya and I realized that we'd left a pretty essential synth part out.  I tried to learn it after soundcheck.  When we got to that song, I played the part I'd learned pretty well (I got most of it), but the pads that I was supposed to play along with it?  No way.  I couldn't get my hands to do it.  Dropped the pad, played the synth line.  Next year, we probably need to restructure that tune between me and Bencuya so that we handle it better.

Since it is Yacht Rock, we had to put a sax solo in there…I walked out front, big adrenaline rush, and I proceed to play massive amounts of bullshit (with delay).  Bad, bad, bad.  Not wrong notes, bad, but I couldn't connect any ideas…it was diarrhea of the horn.

So…that sucked.  The rest of the gig was fine.  Our encore was Man in the Mirror…just me and Nick on the intro.  I wondered a few weeks ago if I would choke the way I did on Sailing a few years back (that was a fine blog entry).  No problems this year.

One cool thing we had this year was a twenty-four person choir.  It ended up that they were right next to me, but I honestly never knew they were there.  The sound was such (and I was so glued to to what was happening instrumentally) that I never gave them a thought.  I bet it sounded good, though.

Bencuya and I were set up in the middle of the stage--the choir outside of me, Mark Cobb outside of him.  I was really looking forward to this set up because we'd be able to hear each other well, and honestly I wanted to prove to him that I could play this stuff!  I think I hung in there really well.

Putting Cobb in the corner (nobody puts Cobb in a corner!) made it hard to hear him clearly, and I couldn't make any eye contact with him at all.  Sometimes when the songs were just loops and a little drums, I really had to hang onto every little thing to make sure I was in time.

Anyway…great gig!  I'm getting the hang of it!

Special thanks to Nick, Pete, Esther, and Kristen for putting this show together--it made it really easy for the rest of us to just show up and play.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Thriller/Purple Rain Preparations

It's been a rough month…lots of gigs and lots of rehearsals, all culminating in this weekend's big Thriller/Purple Rain show at the Variety Playhouse.  This week began with rehearsals Monday morning and Tuesday night.  Since then I have been working on my parts and tweaking sounds to the point of insanity, sleeping in my clothes and trying to work the knot out of my shoulder.  After this, I don't want to hear any synthesizers for a while.

I think we're ready, though!  I'm certainly sick of practicing--let's play the thing!

Thursday night was the 10 High.  It was a really dragging gig.  Maybe it was the setlist, or maybe it was the fact that our minds have been elsewhere, but we weren't particularly into it, and the whole thing kind of wandered around until we finished the last song.  The crowd seemed really ambivalent too, but there were enough people to make it a good night money-wise.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday/Monday

I rolled into my church gig this morning.  After the usual rehearsal, they started passing out music for the concert tonight.  Huh?  The band leader had mentioned a few MONTHS ago playing on some Sunday night show…I guess tonight's the night!  The only problem was that I had a gig already scheduled for that night.  There'd never been a single email with a date, a time…nothing.  I guess that started talking about it last Sunday when I wasn't there and never got around to saying anything to me about it.  Nice.

Anyway…I got a sub to cover it.  Before I left, I took a quick glance through the book and noticed that all the charts were for alto, not tenor.  Good thing I'd looked--they never have me play alto at this gig.  I would have sent a tenor sub.

What a mess!

My gig was a little jazz trio thing--me, Tyrone Jackson, and Kevin Smith.  We were supposed to be down at the Omni at 4:30 for a 5:30 start.  Unfortunately, the Falcons game let out after 4…traffic was insanely bad.  Kevin and I finally got in the room around 5:15.  We still managed to be ready for the opening of the doors, but we were both pretty fried from the stress of the gridlock.

The gig was two hours.  The first set ended up being a handful of Monk tunes and a few other standards.  The second set was originals.  I think we all played really well;  listening to it today, I'm pleased with my performance.

Here's the audio:



Monday morning was a rehearsal for the big show coming up at the end of the week.  Yacht Rock played through all of Purple Rain.  I was pumped, feeling really good about it.  We then played Thriller, and I sucked real bad.  More practice needed!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Jazzoo 2011

Yacht Rock played at Jazzoo last night.  We were at the zoo.  I walked around before we started.  It appeared to be jazz free.

Actually, that's not true.  I heard a really bad trio parked right at the front entrance, and I ran into Randy Hunter who had been there playing with Kayla Taylor earlier in the evening, and Grant Green Jr was there.

I don't have any good stories about this gig, so how about this:  I played about twenty gigs with Kayla Taylor a few years ago, and she used to get on me for playing too many notes in my solos.  "I bet you fuck like that, too.  Just like a jackhammer" she once said to me.

Back to Yacht Rock…we played two sets, 9-11 PM.  While we were searching for the jazz in the zoo, we sampled lots and lots of good (free) food.  Yeah!  It sure beat the Boston Market stuff that was in our dressing room.

Our gig was incredibly loud…just insanely loud, and it seemed like it got louder later in the evening.

I played sax on one song in the first set and two in the second.  The other twenty songs were keyboard and EWI.

We started the last song of the night and the cops came to shut us down (noise ordinance).  They shut off the main speakers and left the monitors on for us to finish, and nobody on stage could tell the difference.  It was that loud.  It hurt.

Load out was easy and I was home at midnight.  Can't beat that!

davidfreemanmusic.net