West Coast!

Yacht Rock returned last night from a fantastic trip to Los Angeles, California.  I'd never been to LA;  in my mind it was Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Fletch, Training Day, and L.A. Law, plus some OJ.  It pretty much lived up to that.

P.S.  David Sanborn played sax on the L.A. Law theme song.

P.S.S.  Was Susan Dey hot?

Wednesday:  we flew nonstop Atlanta to LAX.  I slept for all but about twenty minutes of the flight--asleep by the end of the safety video, awake to buy a sandwich somewhere over Oklahoma, and then woke up as we made the initial approach.

First stop:  In and Out Burger.  Having now eaten one, I'm not sure what the big deal is.

LA Weekly was advertising our show, but unfortunately misspelled our name.

Next up, we hit the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, which is stacked full of celebrities, and they're all jammed in this little lot behind a couple of office buildings.  You may read a list of the dead people here.  If you don't care to, just know that this is the cemetery where Marilyn Monroe is buried.

Wednesday night, several of us went to the Dresden Lounge, which is a legendary dive bar.  Marty and Elayne have been the house band for the past thirty years.  Check it out.



Jon Hamm sat down in the booth next to us.

I should mention that before that, we ate at Il Capriccio.  My dinner was excellent, but Dannells wished that they had beaten his chicken flat and not cooked it until it was so dry.  Foodie.

Thursday:  we were up early to play Good Day LA…fortunately, our bodies were still on Atlanta time, so the 6 AM lobby call felt like 9.  It was easy--we played two minutes of You Make My Dreams.

Here's the video (do yourself a favor and skip ahead to the four minute mark--don't sit through the bullshit).



Once again, trouble with the name:  the blurb on Good Day LA accompanying this video mentions us (sometimes) as the Yacht Club Revue.

Nice cameo of the van in there at the beginning.

After that, a couple of us made a quick pilgrimage to Sunset Blvd.

That afternoon, we jumped in the van and took a field trip to Gary Wright's house.  How cool is that?  A couple of nice looking Rhodes suitcase pianos, pictures with George Harrison, a cool studio with Moogs, and awesome stories.  Did we really just do that?

We got back to the hotel, regrouped, and made the eight mile, hour and forty-five minute journey to The Satellite where we were playing that night.

Great gig!  We had Elliot Lurie from Looking Glass sing Brandy and Dancing in the Moonlight, and Bo Wagner rocked the mallet solos on Starbuck's Moonlight Feels Right and I Got to Know.  James Gadson stopped by to watch us.  Mark Dannells played some great stuff on My Old School, and Mark Bencuya's organ solo at the end of Biggest Part of Me was fantastic.  Around 150 people showed up to see us.  Very cool for our first time out to California.

with Elliot Lurie

with Bo Wagner

Friday:  everybody slept late--we went to bed at five-something, Atlanta time.  Just before noon, we got a message about going to Eric Gardner's horse farm out in Thousand Oaks (out in the desert).  Cool!  I didn't know who the guy was either…read his resume here.  Wow!  We walked through his office, which had seventy-something gold and platinum records on the walls, and out onto his back porch, where we ate lunch with Elliot Lurie and Peter Beckett and Ron Moss of Player.  Eric has casual pictures with each of the Beatles.

On the way home, we stopped in Venice Beach to score some weed.  No luck.  It was ok, though, because we were already high.

High there

Friday night, we went to see Jon Brion play at Largo.  Can you say self indulgent?  Thanks for the $25 nap.  The five of us who went walked out in the middle of the show.

From there, we met up with Nick and Pete (who attended the Lakers game--Kareem bobblehead night!) and went to the Rainbow Bar and Grill on Sunset Blvd, where it's still 1989, judging by the dress code.  We had pizza.  Ron Jeremy walked by.

Saturday:  wedding day!  We played a reception at the Bel Air Beach Club.  Old school.  The wedding party=awesome;  the Bel Air staff=crappy.  The staff was evidently used to pushing bands around.  We don't put up with that.  There was friction ASAP.

Anyway, the attendees and the bride and groom were enthusiastic from the first note, which made the gig pretty easy in spite of the conditions.

Sunday:  we flew out of LAX around 1 and landed in ATL around 8:30.  Football and naps.

Special thanks to our soundman Hans, who drove all of our gear out there, ran sound for us, and is currently driving it all back.

davidfreemanmusic.net

More Trio Stuff

cake!

I lucked into playing a corporate brunch gig today in Buckhead at a place called Estate (kind of back behind Buckhead Diner and Fogo de Chao if you are familiar with Atlanta).  The building is an old house that has been converted into an event space.  I think it was a restaurant previously.  This was their grand opening as Estate.

Anyway, we played in a nice ballroom space with hardwood floors and and high ceilings and glass windows.  Not exactly the best acoustics, though it does give the recordings some natural reverb.  It also made the crowd super loud in the middle of the gig.  We, on the other hand, were under strict orders to play softly--I had my sax neck pouch in the bell of my tenor to cut down on the volume.

Louis Heriveaux played keyboard and Kevin Smith (in his magnificent new suit) played bass.  We debuted a new tune (currently untitled) that I finished last night--after several weeks, I finally heard it clearly enough in my head that I could write it down.  I like it!  Number 4 on the player below.

 David Freeman Trio - November 13, 2012 by David B Freeman

davidfreemanmusic.net

Irish Wedding

Constantly Awesome (Yacht Rock) played a wedding reception for the owner of Limerick Junction last night at Paris on Ponce.

Paris on Ponce used to be a really cool place to play.  It's kind of funky, and the load in was right next to the stage.  Since the installation of the Belt Line, there's no more bringing in equipment through the back.  Boo.  The only way to do it is to snake through the entire store.  Not cool!  They did finally move the grand piano off stage, which is a plus.  Now if they could figure out how to get some light on stage...

Check out the cake.  Awesome!

This gig ended up with a lot of Beatles tunes and not much yacht rock, so I didn't have much to do.  I played a good solo on Use Me, and that was about it.  We didn't play either of the new tunes--Raspberry Beret or Hip to be Square.  It probably wasn't the right crowd for those.  Very easy, low key gig.  Shitty tenor reed.

We loaded all of our gear into the trailer and sent it off to L.A.  See you in California!

davidfreemanmusic.net

The Bacon Gig

Last night, Yacht Rock played a private party in Druid Hills--fourth year we've played the same party.  It's an easy event for us because the people are cool, the house is nice (we play in a tent in the back yard), and the food is great.  In particular, the dessert is sugar coated bacon--they order something like fifty pounds of it.  I think I could eat all of it.

Kip Conner on sound.  Wish we'd had him Thursday night!

We tried out two new songs:  Raspberry Beret and Hip to Be Square.  In spite of my preparations, I still fumbled through both songs.  I think I need to live with them a little longer before I've got it--it doesn't seem that I'm hearing my part in my head quite yet.

Mark Cobb brought his electronic drum pad to the gig, and ended up playing some cool stuff, particularly on You Should be Dancing, where he played a conga part alongside the drum part.  Nice.

Right at 11:30 PM, the police showed up and shut down the party.  First time we've ever had that happen!

davidfreemanmusic.net

The Rookies

Yacht Rock played a private party for Yahoo last night at Andrews Upstairs in Buckhead.  What used to be a cool room to play has morphed through the years into a pretty horrible sounding space.  The stage at one point was kind of a cool thing with lots of different levels and spaces…now it's a triangle in the corner, and the low end mush is deafening.  It's a tough room for even the best (Kip Conner) sound guys;  we showed up to two people setting up who admitted they'd never run sound for a band before.  The front-of-house person works in the office for the company!  Wow.  Here's a twenty-something inputs…mix it!  Who sends two rookies out to mix a seven piece band for a private event in a club with a questionable PA?

As you expect, we had a difficult night.  The set up/soundcheck took over three hours (when we set up and run our own sound with the band's PA, it takes an hour and a half).  They had to hold the opening of the doors while we continued dealing with feedback.  Bad channels on the mixer, bad channels on the snake, bad cables…ouch!  We probably would have never played the gig if it hadn't been for Greg Lee and Ganesh Giri Jaya taking over and plugging everything in for them.

The weird thing was that a third sound guy (who seemed to know something about what he was doing) did finally show up and help solve things, but as soon as the party got up and running, he left (or fled).  Any issues that came up after the first twenty minutes were basically left unfixed.

So anyway, that was weird.  I don't know who was to blame for that, but it made things difficult/slightly embarrassing.

Mark Dannells at sound check...

The smoke machine worked really well.  We were totally fogged in at one point.

As far as our performance, I can't really say.  The stage sound was a mess--there was a big low mids roar--it sounded like we were playing next to a giant dishwasher.  On top of that, the monitor mixes were forever changing--in the first set, Bencuya's keyboards got louder and louder on stage.  In the second set, vocals would completely vanish from the monitors mid-song.  I wonder what it was like out front?

I guess things were OK.  The party attendees seemed pretty happy right from the first note;  they even demanded an encore.  Yahoo!

May we never play this room again…

davidfreemanmusic.net

Kiss Kruise

Yacht Rock just returned from the KISS Kruise, which sailed from Miami to Cozumel on Halloween and returned November 4.  It was a surprisingly good time, with great weather and smooth seas!

I was fortunate to be able to bring my wife on this trip.

The port of Miami…I must point out that this is the spot from which my professional career began.  My first job after college was a cruise ship gig, which I boarded right where the barge in this picture is.

Our first night at sea was calm--we were asleep pretty early after a full day of traveling.

One of the highlights of our second day on the boat was a photo with KISS.  They were very tall.

Day two was our first show.  We were on the pool stage, playing 11:30 PM-1 AM.  Good show! We didn't have a huge crowd, but the passengers on the ship were interested in almost nothing outside of KISS.  The people who did hear us were enthusiastic, though.

The next day we were in port in Cozumel.  Once again, great weather!  It's pretty amazing to see a ship of that size back into a spot on the pier.  On this day, we parked next to the Norwegian Star, the ship from the Jillian Michaels Wellness Cruise.

We saw these guys playing a marimba…really neat!

That evening, we played on the atrium stage (indoors) from 6-7 PM, doing our Beatles show (Please Pleaserock Me).  Once again, we had a small crowd, but we played well.

I didn't have much to do on this show, but I did get a sax solo on Jealous Guy.  It got a little off the rails at the end.

 Jealous Guy (sax solo) by David B Freeman

We were without Peter Olson on this trip (maternity leave), so the other guys did a fantastic job of picking up his instrumental and vocal responsibilities.  Nice work!

That evening, we went and watched part of the KISS show.  I'm not a fan, but their show was AWESOME!  Great songs with great hooks and sing-along lyrics.  Very cool!  Glad I went.

Saturday morning, we hosted a bingo tournament.  Someone ordered KISS pajamas for us.  This was probably our biggest crowd of the trip.

We ate at the Japanese steakhouse on board that night.  We were at one table.  KISS and their crew were at the other.  Pretty cool.  We weren't allowed to take pictures, though.

Would you believe that the boat has a bowling alley?

Our third show was our Dazed and Confused set.  We played again in the atrium from midnight to 1:30 AM.  Once again, I got off pretty easy, and the other five guys crushed it.  It was fun to watch.

Congratulations and thanks to Sixthman, KISS, and the sound crews at both stages for their hard work.  They made it easy for us.

That was it!  We flew home Sunday afternoon.  I made it home early enough to go play my PM church gig.  Not too bad!  My playing was surprisingly coherent.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Gilligan

Yacht Rock had an unusual gig Monday morning…we were paid by a company to rerecorded the theme to Gilligan's Island with different words relevant to their business.  Pretty funny, considering that we're getting on a cruise ship Wednesday!

photo cred:  Mark Cobb

It's a pretty simple song.  I think the rhythm section guys took the second take.  A couple of the guys had vocals stacked in a half hour.  My part was fun…I recorded a piccolo track, four flute tracks, a clarinet track, and four saxophone tracks.  Maybe I was nailing it…almost all were first takes.  I tend to think it was also just "good enough" for a quick recording.  The whole thing sounded really good together!  It was fun (for me) to do something different.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday

Church gig day!

My AM gig featured Indra Thomas, an operatic soprano.  She did a few with her accompanist and a few with the band/choir.  Big voice, but I couldn't understand a single word she sang.  It was all vowels and vibrato.

My PM gig was pretty good.  We've finally located a guitarist;  he played on two songs with us.  Other than that, I spent most of the gig trying soprano reeds and watching the Giants/Cowboys game on my phone.  The five hour House Live gig the night before did wonders for my flute face.

davidfreemanmusic.net