Saturday: the Yacht Rock Revue played a benefit for the Children's Museum. It was our second year doing this gig. It was just about the same as the year before--crappy load in, weird room, trouble with the PA, crowd loved it.
I had a good time, and I played well. My flute solo on Lowdown was better than usual. I heard from Pete that my sax solo was breaking up in his monitor, but my friend who was at the gig didn't hear this. Hopefully it was just in the wedges. I had ear plugs in, so I couldn't hear the PA over the resonance in my head.
I found some good passing chords to play on the chorus of Go Your Own Way (I'm playing a wurly part that doesn't exist on the record). The basic chords are D minor, Bb, and C. So I'm adding A minor around the D minor, F around the Bb, and F and D minor around the C. I'm giving it my best Bencuya impression! I've been trying different stuff during the past couple of months, and this combination seemed to work the best of all. Fun for me!
My old friend Steve Florczykowski subbed in with us on bass and did a terrific job. I've known Steve back from when we played in Atlanta Beat together in the late 90s. The best compliment I can give is that I didn't even notice he was there! He fit right in. Awesome job!
Sunday morning: I showed up to church gig number one--another weird "play with the orchestra" gig where I played soprano sax/oboe. We played two songs--that's it! Fifteen minutes and we were done. Very nice.
Sunday evening: we were back in the main church, but somebody had messed with the amplifiers in the main church. Big, three story stone cathedrals do not need extra reverb! It sounded like we were in the back of a cave. Nothing I could do about it--I'm just there with a mixer and two lines plugged into the house patch. The bandleader went in the back and spoke to somebody about fixing it. I think it got better for a song or two, and then went back to reverb and more reverb. Madness!
I got a couple of good flute solos in tonight. It felt pretty good!
The past two nights have been a break from the Yacht Rock grind--we played Zeppelin and Pink Floyd Thursday night at the 40 Watt in Athens and the Beatles Friday night at Smith's Olde Bar in Atlanta.
Thursday: not much playing for me. I played tambourine on Rock and Roll and flute in the beginning of Stairway to Heaven. Dark Side of the Moon has a decent amount of saxophone stuff, but I'm just reading stuff off the page. Feels like I'm filling in the blanks.
We ended up with a hundred people in the crowd. In a room like that (especially when they're not right up against the front of the stage) in doesn't feel like there's anybody there. Everybody was sitting down watching the show, and though they liked it, they didn't give off much energy. It made the gig feel kind of flat to me. That said, it was a something different, and we weren't in a stinky basement, so it was worth it.
Friday: Please Pleaserock Me played Sgt. Pepper's and then an entire second set of Beatles stuff at Smith's. Fun show! This one was packed to the gills with an enthusiastic crowd, and we delivered it. It was loud on stage, but the sound was good…and no Dylan!
Here's some of Jealous Guy. Dig Cobb slipping in a little shuffle. Also, you can't tell it from the recording, but that snare drum sounded awesome.
I had an Ash Wednesday church gig tonight. It really sucked.
It was at church gig number two, in their parish hall. That room is no fun to play in because the speakers are in the ceiling and the band is in a little nook off to the side. The sound inside the nook is completely different from the rest of the room. To mix sound, one has to walk most of the way to the doors to room in order to hear the speakers.
Tonight, I couldn't get hardly any volume in the house without pushing the master fader almost completely up. When the band really got going, the mixer would hit the red and send a distorted signal to the house. At one point, the priest came over (after putting ashes on everybody) and said, "I think it's clipping." Ouch. Interesting that he wouldn't say "breaking up" or "distorting." I guess in a way that makes it worse; he might actually know something about what I was doing.
she's gonna blow!
My guess is that the amplifiers that power the speakers are set too low, so just when I start to get some volume out there, I'm waaaaaaaaaay into the yellow on the mixer. Then I hit the red, it distorts, and I look stupid. I wanted to get up on a chair and yell (can't use the PA!) "PEOPLE OF GOD! IT'S NOT MY FAULT! THE PEOPLE WHO INSTALLED THIS STATE OF THE ART SPEAKER SYSTEM ARE MORONS! THE AMPS ARE TOO LOW! IT'S NOT MY FAULT!" I can only hope that God was able to silently convey this message.
I never played a note. I stood there the entire night riding the master fader…push it up when the band is quiet, back it down as the get louder. Fun.
Church gig number one went pretty well. Maybe I was still riding some of the energy from last night, but I felt pretty plugged into what was going on. The rehearsal seemed kind of casual, and then suddenly we had to run upstairs to play without having gone through everything. I think we kind of winged it on some stuff--there was a lot of music in the book today.
In the second service, we accompanied the big choir for one song. When we went downstairs to rehearse it, I brought my clarinet. Mid song, the band leader called me over and said, "this should be sax, not clarinet!" I said, "I'll tell you about it later."
Upstairs, I told him that because the choir director hates my saxophone, I played clarinet for rehearsal so she wouldn't notice me. During the actual service (when she couldn't do anything about it), I let wail with the tenor. I'm pretty sure she thinks I cover up her highly polished singers; I'm pretty sure I add some soul to her square Methodist choir! She thinks I'm Albert Ayler.
Anyway…
Church gig number two was kind of blah. I played mostly flute…it was a pretty dull service as far as my input. There just wasn't much for me to do.
I played my final night of Ain't Misbehavin' with the Atlanta Lyric Theatre tonight. Great stuff!
Everything I'd messed up last night was right tonight. I had a great time and was able to enjoy the show instead of panicking about whatever was coming next. Too bad opening night had to be my rehearsal, but I was a thousand percent more comfortable on this one. I know I played WAAAAAAAY better than last night. It was suddenly an easy gig!
One of the most important changes I made between last night and tonight was to better situate my instruments. Rather than keep my sax stand off to my right, I put a clarinet peg between my feet and kept my alto in my lap. Much faster!
Here's how my opening (How Ya, Baby) sounded tonight. It seems like my iPhone doesn't like snare drum.
I had a wonderful time. After the gig, I was so excited, I probably would have done a victory lap around Marietta Square if it hadn't been raining. I was really pumped up.
I subbed in with the Atlanta Lyric Theatre last night, playing the show Ain't Misbehavin' at the Strand Theatre in Marietta. Super duper fun show!
The book is mostly clarinet, with occasional alto. I practiced the hell out of the book and played along with the cast recording--I felt good going into it, even though I wasn't fortunate enough to attend any rehearsals. The speed of the transitions was really tough, though. There's almost no dialogue between songs, so as soon as one ends, you have to be ready to go (sometimes grabbing the other horn). That part kicked my butt. In a couple of spots, I turned to pick up my saxophone, and when I looked back at the music, I'd lost my place, so a few things went flying past me.
It was a really fun show, though! I don't get calls for stuff like this…wish I did. I love it. To top it off, I got to see some really awesome old friends--Eric Alexander, Andrew Fazackerley, Jeff Macko, and the one and only Scott Glazer! Great playing by everybody…I'll try and keep up!
We're on stage, lined up across the back wall. Here's my view.
Yacht Rock played The Ivy in Buckhead again last night.
It felt like we were playing in a train station. It was crowded and noisy, and the people could not have cared less about what we were doing. Too bad, too, because if they'd paid any attention they would have noticed Mark Cobb empty his head of all the drum stuff that was building up. We witnessed the open handed high hat, the Ringo hit hat thing, playing on the bell of the hi hats, the Purdie fill in various permutations, a few moments with the beat turned around and then back, some crazy fills incorporating the stuff on his left, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember at the moment. He was even played one handed so he could pose for a picture.
Hopefully I can avoid getting sucked into watching Purdie videos for the rest of the day.
I played pretty well (except for the Little Jeanie, which I practiced and still screwed up). I had some keyboard trouble with my Fantom--it freaked out in a couple of spots. It dawned on me at the end of the first set that Cobb's "crash of doom" was smacking the bottom of the keyboard (that's how close we were on stage). I moved back a couple of inches and that fixed it.
We played Kiss You All Over for the first time in a long time--probably over a year. I know it's C, F, G, and A minor, but it's so fun to play. I hope we don't go a year before we see it again. I played the hell out of that one.
On the heels of the successful Yacht Rock tour, I dragged myself out of bed really early Sunday morning to make it to my church gigs.
Church gig number one was a bit odd. I received an email late in the week saying we were playing both services (double money!), but we had to be there a half hour early (boo!). I showed up with all my horns, only to find out that we were playing the entire service with the orchestra (a few strings added to a concert band). I ended up playing the oboe parts on soprano sax. Unfortunately, I was seated in the back next to the low brass, so the flutes and clarinets played the oboe cues on their parts; I assume they didn't hear me. No oboe, no problem.
This gig did offer me the opportunity to concentrate on tuning for my soprano--looking for the spot where the left hand can be in tune and I can lip down the right hand. Fun. At least that gave me something to do.
Just for the sake of bitching, let me also mention that we're still on the "all black" dress code, which I still don't get because the band leader doesn't follow this rule; the organist doesn't follow this rule; the vocalists don't follow this rule; the orchestra wears choir robes (as you can see in the picture). Uhh…so it's just four sleepy guys wearing all black. I think the goal was for us to look a little dressier, so why not say "no jeans?" I don't think you can make the argument that we were trying to look uniform.
I did talk to one of the members of the orchestra, who seemed surprised that I could read music (and that I was reading the oboe part up a whole step on the fly). I think there's the misconception that because I am an improvising musician, I must only play by ear. Ha! I have a classical performance degree in flute, clarinet, and saxophone.
Church gig number two was more of the same kind of stuff. The music didn't seem to need much in the way of solos or fills, so I focused on playing in tune. Cold churches are tough on wind instruments.
The Yacht Rock Revue returned from another successful northeastern tour Saturday night. Along the way, we played three successful shows in New York City and Washington DC, ate good food, and annoyed each other quite a bit.
We started out Tuesday morning, driving all day and into the night before finally stopping on the north side of Washington DC. We stopped to eat in Richmond.
Wednesday morning we drove from DC into New York City. Our first gig was at Dominion NYC, a really cool room on Lafayette. Great stage, great equipment, and a great sound man. They even helped us drag our gear in. Total pro situation.
After soundcheck, we ventured out in search of food. Gaia was closed, so we ate at Katz's Deli.
the table from When Harry Met Sally
This show was a Please Pleaserock Me (Beatles) show; we played all of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for the first set, and then a second set of more Beatles favorites. Big fun! Unfortunately, we had twenty people show up to witness our awesomeness. Too bad--we really played well. Some highlights were Peter's rendition of Getting Better and Greg Lee's version of Maybe I'm Amazed.
We hired a local trumpet player to fill out the horn section. Through blind luck, we ended up hiring Seneca Black, with whom I had played several Atlanta shows years ago. He played great, and was an extremely nice guy. Hopefully, we'll be able to do it again.
Post show, we stowed the van, checked into our hotel (Holiday Inn Soho), and wandered off into Chinatown in search of food and drink…at 2 AM. You'd think that something would be open, but we ended up at the Whiskey Tavern. No food and not much in the way of drinks, though our waitress was cute. We did a round of shots with pickle juice chasers. It seemed like a dare. It wasn't bad, but I like pickles.
I got up the next day and met my sister for lunch, and then went exploring.
I went and checked out the music stores on 48th like I usually do in NYC, but Manny's is gone, so now it's just a block of Sam Ash. Boo.
I went in Roberto's Woodwinds. It very cool (and very much just a sax shop). One time when I was there, they let me try a bunch of horns that I had no intention of buying. I brought my mouthpiece with me, but there was an awesome tenor player there practicing. I was too intimidated to do anything more than listen.
Onward!
looking down Broadway--this is the corner where the original Birdland was located
Rockefeller Center
Grand Central Station
guerilla marketing at the Apple Store in Grand Central!
the old Brecker Bros. club 7th Ave South
activate Mikhabrekah!
the new Freedom Tower in the middle of the picture
we met up for drinks at 5 PM and pizza from Lombardi's
After retrieving the van (and passing a doorstep with a giant shit on it), we loaded into our gig at the Canal Room. Easy load in right off West Broadway right onto the stage. This was a good size room, and we filled it with a good size crowd for a Yacht Rock show. The sound on stage was boomy and the power made our amps buzz, but the audio out front seems like it was pretty well balanced.
Unfortunately, I played a really poor show--I spared no song. I have no excuse; my brain just didn't show up for the gig. We recorded our performance, but I ruined it. Too bad, too, because Mark Dannells played great (one of his finest Peg solos ever) and Mark Cobb played great (terrific drum solo at the end of You Should be Dancing).
After spending the night in New Jersey, we got up Friday and headed down to Washington DC for a show at the State Theatre in Falls Church, VA. Another easy load in, and another good sized room.
This gig was a benefit for the National MS Society. We helped raise some money and played a great gig! Dannells was superb once again, particularly on Peg and Rosanna, and Cobb contributed another outstanding solo. I played better, too (I screwed up a lot less), but I was still kind of flat on my solos.
A few crowd videos…
We spent the night at a beautiful Marriott. Dannells wandered off into the night. Where he went we will probably never know, but we were genuinely worried about him until he returned.
Saturday was an all day drive back to Atlanta. We stopped for BBQ at Saucy's in Petersburg, Virginia. I had a half rack of ribs and then licked the aluminum foil clean.
We got back to Atlanta around 9:30 PM. Easily the coldest weather we'd seen all week!
