David Freeman Music

Yacht Rock had our big rehearsal with all the guys for tomorrow's Greatest Yacht Rock Revival in the Universe . First up, Elliot Lurie from Looking Glass .  We went through Brandy and Jimmy Loves Mary Ann .  We tried to convince him that our ending for the former would work, but…no. After Elliot, we ran through Baby Come Back and This Time I'm in it for Love with Peter Beckett . The guys from Starbuck came in next and ran their songs while we ate lunch.  Their marimbist, Bo Wagner, totally stole the show.  He's still a pretty captivating soloist.  Afterwards, we talked for a couple of minutes (he's going to email me transcriptions of his solos on Moonlight Feels Right and I've Got to Know )--he's a really nice guy.  I showed him my EWI set up and how I deal with the marimba solo ("play as fast as you can in E minor!"). I ate lunch with Walter Egan .  I get the impression that I weird him out. Walter was up next.  No ...

I was fortunate that we were able to come home instead of spending the night in Kiawah Island--I was able to make my AM church gig.  I had lined up a sub at the beginning of last week, but they said they would rather not have saxophone if I couldn't make it (I'm not sure if they're being nice or lazy).  Anyway, I showed up and played and things were fine. Things were once again pretty thrown together--we rehearsed for all of fifteen minutes.  One singer and a couple of single page hymns.  Easy stuff.  We spent more time on break than on the gig. My PM service was more organized, but just as easy.  Nothing to talk about.  I played fine.  The mixer came unplugged right before the last song, but that was an easy fix. This is a big week!  Time for Yacht Rock 's Greatest Revival in the Universe ! davidfreemanmusic.net

Yacht Rock was supposed to play a show on Kiawah Island during the PGA Championship there last night.  When we arrived, we found the stage off in a field next to a small shopping village.  Unfortunately, we had driven through some bad weather to get to the island, and the weather was headed that way. We never even got our equipment out of the van.  We sat in our green room and ate sandwiches, and at a certain point (after it'd rained for a half hour), they called the event off.  We got back in the van and headed back to Atlanta. davidfreemanmusic.net

Yacht Rock played a semi-private show at the Georgia Theatre in Athens last night--a cancer benefit put on by the Athens Area Cancer Auxiliary , but I think anybody could purchase a ticket.  We played two sets beginning at 9:30 PM. I walked out right before we began to wet my reeds, only to find that my laptop had died.  Holy shit!  My power supply must have died and left my laptop to slowly run the battery out.  Quickly, Kevin Spencer ran upstairs and got his power supply, and after a couple of minutes, Peter was able to get my laptop to wake up and return to normal.  Wow. That's how the gig began…a (temporarily) dead component of my rig and a big adrenaline rush.  For the first couple of tunes, I was playing my parts and trying to diagnose what happened.  Once I'd calmed down, I could pay attention to what was happening on stage.  That was right around the time ( Saturday in the Park ) that the batteries in my EWI went down, and I had t...

No AM church gig.  The church is getting new carpet, so they combined our band with another service's band, and I was left out. While we were setting up for my PM church gig, Eric Alexander walked up.  He was passing through Buckhead, so he came by for church.  Yay!  Eric's one of my favorite people, a terrific friend, and a great mentor.  Having him in the congregation definitely kicked my playing up a notch.  I maybe played a little louder and a couple of more notes, and maybe I was messing around with a polyrhythm during the communion song.  Whatever.  Eric was there.   Maybe I was showing off a little. davidfreemanmusic.net

Yacht Rock rolled back into town last night after two theatre shows. Thursday:   Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, NC.  We'd never played here before, and our first impression was that it was a skinny version of the State Theatre in Virginia. Easy load in and fairly easy soundcheck…there was some sort of problem with one of the monitor mixes, but they swapped it out (it died in the middle of the show and they had to switch it back).  Other than that, the on stage sound was pretty good. This show was fun.  We had a decent crowd (over one hundred) for our first attempt at Raleigh, and they were very enthusiastic.  Hopefully we'll be back! here's Ethan the Monitor Guy, who burned a bag of popcorn and ate it throughout the second set I continued my trend of screwing up the solo in Africa .  I'm messing up one measure of a six measure solo.  It really sucks--it's some kind of mental hang up.  I play it over and over before the gig,...

Yacht Rock played a gig Tuesday evening at the Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina.  It was definitely one of our weirdest gigs ever.  We played for the US Kids Golf World Championship.  Someone who had seen us perform in Atlanta hired us as evening entertainment. There we were in a ballroom with a couple of hundred kids (10 years old would be my guess) and their parents.  We played two sets with iPod in the middle.  It was kind of a mitzvah situation.  Everybody was sober. The gig had a strange vibe, but everything else was pretty awesome.  Easy load in and load out.  We ordered food--on someone else's tab--(I had caesar salad, filet mignon, and key lime pie) before the gig.  Open bar after the gig. I spent the night in a room to myself.  The next morning, I had a forty dollar breakfast (again on someone else's bill).  Extremely nice people working there.  The size and age of the place reminded me of The Greenbrier i...

So yeah…I dragged ass out of bed and went to my AM church gig.  More of the same kind of vibe (or more correctly, lack of vibe).  We kind of threw together some hymns and worked through a sixteen page chart, and then one after that that was probably around ten pages. The performance was OK.   Tommy Dodd (of pedal steel fame) was there again, so he and I were sharing "fill" space, and the music didn't have that much space to begin with.  I felt really disconnected from what we were doing.  We did one song with a percussion loop.  The vocalists sang to the slap they were hearing off the back wall and the rhythm section played to a click (all on headphones).  I was in the middle, I guess. We finished the service, and everybody in the band EXCEPT me was invited to play the second service (a repeat of what we'd just done).  One of the other guys asked if I got the email about staying and I said no, but then I had to ask the band leader, who shot m...

Yacht Rock was back in Athens for two sets at the Melting Point --part of an 80s prom event.  We played forty-five minute sets beginning at 10 and midnight, alternating with a DJ.  Easy stuff! The Melting Point is not the easiest room in which to play.  The stage is small, and the room is very wide but shallow--you could throw a tennis ball from the stage and hit the back wall.  It has a balcony, concrete floors, and glass windows.  The sound on stage is loud! The crowd was really into it, which made it really fun.  Big cheers for everything we did…or maybe they were screaming in pain because of the volume.  I know that when I took a sax solo, the sound man would bump me up and it was probably the loudest thing in Athens at that time. I played much better.  No boneheaded stuff like the previous night.  I think I'm getting over my fear of the Africa solo.  We played True for the first time in months, and I still have that s...

Since I mentioned it a few posts ago, I will begin with one of my signature moments of last night's Yacht Rock :  I forgot to turn my sax microphone on, just like the guy from Huey Lewis and the News.  And I felt just as stupid. Yacht Rock played our monthly show at the Park Tavern to a whole lot of people (last month was over 2,000, but they vowed to cap it because the June show was more people than the bars or restrooms could accommodate).  I made lots of stupid mistakes like the microphone thing;  played things in the wrong octave (talking about the bridge of Baby Come Back and the chorus of Good Thing  AND the synth hook on My Life ).  I sucked real bad because I was very, very stupid. The second set was much better for me.  I didn't screw up the solo to Africa , though I was holding on for dear life. My new alto mouthpiece is awesome. davidfreemanmusic.net

Yacht Rock played a benefit last night at Tongue and Groove .  Three quick sets--it went by fairly quickly, and we were finished at 9 PM. The break:  Tongue.  And Hooves. The world's worst DJ hastened our fastest load out ever!  In forty-four minutes, we had all our gear (including the PA) out the door and in our vehicles.  It was like packing up in the rain. davidfreemanmusic.net