The Tressi Tour

Yacht Rock returned from another successful tour yesterday afternoon.  Miles were driven and notes were played.  I dealt with head cold for most of it.

Thursday:  Our first stop was Asbury Park, NJ's Wonder Bar.  Asbury Park has a mythical quality because of Bruce Springsteen--we were all pretty excited to be there.  What if he shows up?  He's been known to crash other people's gigs unannounced.

We pulled up to a foggy, desolate resort town in the wrong season.  Except for about fifty orthodox Jews, there didn't seem to anybody around. We loaded in and set up--tight stage!  The sound was pretty decent, all things considered, though when Greg would play a low G the whole place would vibrate.

After soundcheck, we wandered up and down the boardwalk.

It seemed, based on the fact that there were about a hundred people in the entire town that night, that we would be playing to nobody, but the promoters were able to find about fifty people to come see us.  A handful of those had either seen us before on a cruise ship or in New York.  Repeat customers!  One girl even showed me a picture of the two of us--"See?  You let me touch your mustache."  Weird.

Friday:  We made the short drive up from the Jersey shore to New York City for our gig at Brooklyn Bowl.  Coolness everywhere.  We'd walked in here on a previous trip, but this was our first show--we shared the bill with a heavy metal tribute to the Bee Gees called Tragedy.  

First off…we had some time to kill, so we commenced wandering around the Williamsburg neighborhood.  No one would allow us to use the restroom--Pete and I ended up doing a shot at a bar so we could go pee.

Cool stuff everywhere.  We ate at a Venezuelan restaurant.

Soundcheck was fine, though two sets of gear was a little cluttered.  

It is a fact that Brooklyn Bowl has the best fried chicken in the universe.  I ate seven pieces (four wings, three boobs).  

Opening the evening was Ali Spagnola, who sang sixty stupid one minute songs about drinking.  In between every song, everybody was supposed to do a shot of beer.  She even sells shot glasses (attached to a USB drive with her "album" on it).  "AwwwwwwwwwwSHOT!"  It was really bad, then so bad it was funny, then bad again.  Kind of shameful that this passes for entertainment, especially at a real music venue.

We then alternated sets with Tragedy.  You can find their stuff on YouTube, I bet.  Heavy metal Bee Gees is a joke that's amusing for about forty-five seconds, and then you have about forty-five minutes to endure until their set ends.  Half the guys on stage aren't doing anything--one of the guys sports a guitar that isn't plugged into anything and sings into a dead microphone.  Not my thing at all.

So, at the risk of bragging, I'll say we won.  My main evidence is the fact that after our second set (before Tragedy came back for their second set), the crowd requested an encore (we did not--that wouldn't be cool).  When we didn't come back to give them one more, three quarters of the audience left.

After the festivities had ended (and Tragedy had covered the stage in buckets of glitter that got all over everything), we loaded up and headed to our hotel in Jamaica, New York.  NOT GOOD!!!! At 3 or 4 in the morning, they only had rooms with one bed, so we had to spoon.  I slept with Dannells.  Our bed had crumbs in it.  I was still full from the fried chicken.

Saturday:  we headed up to Norwalk, Connecticut to play a wedding reception.  It was in a tent right on the beach.  Pete was able to back the trailer almost up to the tent, but we still had to carry gear across the sand to the stage.  Not the greatest load in.

This one was pretty uninspired, especially coming off the previous couple of nights.  It finished at 9:40, though, so yay.

We loaded back out and drove to Enfield, Connecticut (home of former Beth Freeman employer LEGO!) to spend the night.  Much better hotel.

Sunday:  we were up waaaaaaaay early to fly to Nashville for a talent buyers' showcase.  Strangely enough, we had a connecting flight in Atlanta!  Notice the emergency exit legroom that Greg Lee and I are enjoying.

The showcase was in the War Memorial Auditorium, an awesome looking venue…though not meant for a modern concert PA.  Looked cool, sounded bad.  We played five songs--7 PM to 7:20 PM!  Steel Magnolia followed us, and then Edwin McCain.  Following that were Bare Naked Ladies and the Spin Doctors.  Does this say more about the state of our career or the state of theirs?

After that, we went out to celebrate Mark Bencuya's birthday at Robert's Western World.  We got really drunk.  I was drunkest.  

Monday:  we rented cars and drove home.  Our van and our gear should be home by Tuesday morning.  It had better!  We've got rehearsal and gig that night.  

PS.  This is my 600th blog entry.  I dare you to read them all in one sitting.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Monday

Yacht Rock was up early (for us) on a Monday morning for an appearance on CBS Better Mornings (the local morning TV show).  The traffic was horrible because of the rain, but at least there was no loading in involved--we stood around in the shot while Nick and Pete did all the talking, promoting the Candler Park Fall Festival.  We'll be performing our Dazed and Confused stoner-rock set with special appearances by Rick Derringer and Derek St. Holmes.

There were a couple of awesome cars there--a Chevy Nova and a Plymouth Belvedere.

Monday night, I played a weird House Live gig at the World Congress Center.  The client was worried about the volume, I guess, so they wanted it to be acoustic.  That's not possible, however, when ONE THIRD OF THE TRIO IS A DJ!  Also, they wanted it to be futuristic, so they requested that I play EWI, which is once again NOT ACOUSTIC.  Duh…We ended up with a couple of monitors pointed back at us, but no microphones or effects.

More stupid stuff:  the client wanted me to play saxophone at the top of the escalator to "draw people down to the exhibit hall."  At 5:30, the guy told me to start.  After five seconds, the guy asked me to stop.  "They can hear you everywhere in the building!"  I thought that was the idea.  Eventually, this great idea was scrapped and I moved downstairs to the main gig.

Our set was uninspired.  People kept coming up to photograph us;  later on I realized they were taking pictures of the aerialists behind us.  Thank God this one didn't go three hours--I wouldn't have made it.

The entire exhibit hall was full of futuristic logistics solutions--mostly trucks and computers.  There was no one around at the end of the night to keep me from test driving some stuff.

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Thousands!

Yacht Rock sold out the Georgia Theatre in Athens Saturday night!  We were awarded gold medals for the achievement.  The Theatre had a banner day--they set all kinds of records for people coming through the doors (the broadcast of the UGA football game earlier in the day obviously helped), and they ran out of beer, ice, and Red Bull.  We're #1 for the time being.

The show was great.  It's such a cool room, and now that we're getting more comfortable on that size stage, it's better and better.  We had a great set list going:

Very sax heavy in the first set.  Good stuff.

Things are pretty awesome!

Here's my solo from Reminiscing:

 Reminiscing sax solo Sept 29, 2012 by David B Freeman

What an amazing weekend!  We played for about a thousand people Friday night at the Park Tavern and then another thousand Saturday.  Every show from now on should have a thousand person minimum.

So…we started at 10 PM, finished at 1 AM.  We were on the road back to Atlanta shortly after 2 AM.  I got home and repacked for Sunday, took a shower, and crawled into bed at 5 AM.  My alarm went off at 7 AM.  I was at my church gig at 8 AM.

My AM church gig was different--one of those weeks when the church decided to drag out every ensemble and make a big production.  Maybe it's fortunate for me--I ended up playing tenor saxophone in the orchestra (which is strings + volunteer concert band).  My part in the show was reading middle school level saxophone parts and trying to stay awake.  The orchestra actually sounded really good from where I was sitting.

There was some confusion, of course.  I walked in to find out I was supposed to play alto today…except that nobody told me that, so I brought soprano, tenor, clarinet, and flute.  They swapped out some charts and I played tenor.  I can't see what difference it made either way--they already had one alto player and one tenor player.  For one song, I played a second trumpet part down an octave.  Another song had divisi parts for the tenors, so I alternated playing the top part in one measure and the bottom part in the next.  Fun.

In addition to the band, they had a combined choir--the group which usually sings with us, another adult group, and the children's choir.  All fifty kids had on t shirts which said on the back, "its the place to be."  Really?  It made me wonder if anybody in the church was praying for fifty missing apostrophes.  How can a typo that egregious make it through? How can none of the fifty children's parents not take a Sharpie to the shirt?  Don't any of the teachers from the school run by this church attend services here?

Ugh.  We played both the 9:30 and 11 AM services, which gave me two chances to get angry about the shirts, and hell, if you're going to pay me to play half notes, let's do it twice!

As you might imagine, I slept all afternoon.

The PM church gig was not bad.  Cell phone service inside the church seems to be improving, which kept me up to date on the football games.

Happy birthday to my lovely wife!

davidfreemanmusic.net

End of Season

Yacht Rock closed out the season of Park Tavern shows last night with a very strong performance for about a thousand people.  Fun stuff, and we came out without any major disasters!

I can't help but think about how much better last night's show was compared to the last one of 2011.  You can recap that disaster HERE.  Peroni Night got the best of me.  Drunk blogging…not good.

We brought back a couple of songs that we haven't played in a while in preparation for the big show October 20 at the Variety Playhouse:  Purple Rain and Thriller (both albums played in their entirety).   Get your tickets now!

Late in the first set, we had three sax songs in a row in weird keys (for me):  LA Lindsay and Will it Go Round in Circles both in Ab concert (Bb on tenor), and She's Gone, which has the solo over the verse in B (Ab on alto) .  Why do those keys feel so awkward?  It's not like I never play those notes.

In the second set, we debuted the Isley Brothers version of Listen to the Music.  I played ten variations on the opening organ lick.  This one's fun to play.  I hope we keep it.

We're headed out to play the Georgia Theatre tonight--I'm pretty sure it's going to sell out again, so if you're reading this, you need to go get your tickets now.  See you there!

davidfreemanmusic.net

On a Parking Deck

Yacht Rock played one of our strangest gigs…we played some sort of tenant appreciation party for an office building in Buckhead.  9 AM load in.  Yuck.

The tent was supposed to be constructed at 7:30 AM, but as of 10 AM they were still trying to put it together.  It made for a throw-and-go.

We began at 11:30 AM…not much of a gig, but I can't imagine anyone getting too excited about eating BBQ on an incline of a parking garage, with seven polyester-clad guys playing seventies music at the top of the ramp.  Maybe that's how they imagined it.  If so, then it was a complete success.

belt loop

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Nancy Grace Loves Me

I played a trio gig at CNN Center in a room that shares a wall with Nancy Grace's studio.  I was told explicitly by some giggly girl to please turn my saxophone down (still looking for the volume knob), because if Nancy hears saxophone (why me?), she'll come out and shut down the whole party.  Yikes!  This led to endless jokes about my volume knob and Nancy's love of half diminished chords (she likes tension), and later on, our shared affinity for Joe Henderson tunes.

We survived without Nancy cutting us down;  I plugged up the bell of my horn.  Whatever gets the job done.  The crowd was a good bit louder than us through the entire night--it turned into one of those "take the money and run" gigs, where our collective interest in playing ebbed and flowed.  That said, I felt really good about what I played.  Check it out:

 David Freeman Trio - September 25, 2012 by David B Freeman

I'm trying to focus on playing more vertically within each chord.  It's pushing me into some different places.  I think I like it.  I'm not explicitly arpeggiating each chord, but I'm more conscious of playing from chord tone to chord tone.  It's tough to explain.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Support the Arts!

Sometimes, supporting the arts doesn't mean writing a check.

Yesterday, one of my friends gave me the most amazing gift.  His family's grand piano, which they are not using, came to live at our house.    How cool is that?!

This marvelous gift allowed us to give away our upright to a family with kindergarteners who had just begun piano lessons.  May we all become better pianists!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday

My AM church gig was going really well until we got to the big song with the choir and the band playing full blast.  We train wrecked it over and over again.  It was so bad, it was like the train wreck in Presumed Innocent (and I, afterwards, ran from the gig like Harrison Ford).  Every time we got to the refrain, what I was hearing and what I was seeing from the conductor would be at least an eighth note apart.  Bad, bad stuff, and it happened over and over again.  Verses were fine, refrains were embarrassing.

We got a standing ovation from the congregation.  It must've been an amazing mix by Matt!

I went home, switched out gear, and headed to a Yacht Rock gig in Smyrna.  Weird…it was a block/neighborhood party;  there was a stage under a tent in a cul-de-sac.  I'd be curious to have heard the proposal at the homeowner's meeting.  Anyway, it turned out to be a good event with perfect weather.  We played really well.  It was super fun.

A really funny dog named Jackson hung out by the front of the stage when he wasn't chasing tennis balls.

Mark Dannells' amp died, but he lived.

The cops showed up, but no arrests were made.

Takin' it to the Streets and Baker Street were both on the set list.  That was cool.

We finished right at sunset (after two encores).  Load out was quick, and I was home twenty minutes later.  Can't beat that!

davidfreemanmusic.net

¡Feliz cumpleaños!

I played a latin jazz/salsa gig with Jerry Fields last night at a mansion behind the governor's mansion.  Nice place!

The gig was super easy.  Lots of soloing over simple forms and standards.  I heard that the guy wanted Ricky Martin…I'm not sure if that meant Ricky Martin songs, or Ricky Martin the guy.

The gig had Jerry on congas, Nelson Vega on bongos on vocals, David Ellington on piano, and Chris Riggenbach (with whom I'd never played) on bass.   He was great!  We were also visited by about a dozen slugs during the first set, which descended from the vines above us.  They were everywhere--I accidentally stepped on a few;  Jerry squashed one on his phone.  By the end of the second set, they were gone.  I don't think we killed them all--they just went on their way.

Ellington and I joked around through the entire gig…just like we always do.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Coke Trio

I had a little trio gig at the World of Coke--background music for a corporate dinner thing.  They wanted to speak, too, so I brought my meager PA (two speakers, two sticks, and twenty-five feet of cable).

Upon arrival, I learned that it wouldn't just be remarks for the crowd--they were presenting awards, so the PA got really complicated really quickly.  We were in the atrium;  the band was situated on one landing, the podium on the other (stairs between us), and the audience down on the floor.  Yikes!  Forty-five minutes to come up with a solution, test it, and get set up to play music.  The distance between the speakers, plus the distance up to the landing were a major concern.  I finally got it sorted out by daisy-chaining my speakers.  Glad I brought a boom stand as a place to keep the microphone.  This was not was I was expecting.

OK, so that was settled…here's the audio from the gig.  It's Tyrone Jackson on keyboard and Kevin Smith on bass.  I felt really good about my playing tonight.

 David Freeman Trio-September 20, 2012 by David B Freeman

We played for an hour, and I finally declared a break--no one from the client's camp would give me any kind of timeline for the event.  The break worked out to be about right, though--they were ready to get started.  I got the important old white guys set up with the microphone…one of them actually asked me to turn down the echo!  I wanted to say, "Unfortunately, we are in a room of glass and tile, built like a four story bucket.  There's nothing to eat up the sound.  It's an acoustical problem I cannot solve for you.  Please forgive me, the World of Coke, and the city of Atlanta."  Instead I barked, "IT'S THE ROOM!!!" Oops.  At least I didn't cuss.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Organ Quartet!

I had the pleasure of playing the Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta awards dinner last night, as I have the past four of five years.  I'm getting the hang of it!  It's very cool for a corporate gig--the feed us, comp the parking, know their show, etc.

This year, I decided to change things up a little and do an organ quartet instead of piano, bass, drums, and saxophone.  The band for the evening consisted of Randy Honea on guitar, David Ellington on organ, and Marlon Patton (with a broken left leg!) on drums.  We'd never played in this combination before.

The quartet played a half hour for dinner, seven walk-ups for the big award winners, and one tune to send them away.  I didn't record the walk ups or the last tune, but here's the dinner part:

 David Freeman Quartet - September 19, 2012 by David B Freeman

Good stuff!  See y'all next year.

davidfreemanmusic.net