To Nashville and Back!

Yacht Rock was on the road this past weekend, heading up to Nashville for a Saturday night gig at the Cannery Ballroom, then back to Atlanta first thing the next morning to play the Sweetwater Brewery's Sixteenth Birthday party.  I was even able to squeeze my PM church gig in there before I finally ran out of gas.

So…we rolled up I-75 in the early afternoon to Nashville.  It was actually snowing at the top of Monteagle!  Wow!  Fortunately, we had one of Wisconsin's finest (Jason Nackers) at the wheel and none of it was sticking anyway.  Once we made it to the other side, we were safe.

We were back in the Cannery Ballroom instead of the Mercy Lounge this time.  More people--the room holds about a thousand people.  The final count on the door was 890.  Pretty close!  Make Me Smile, Nashville's authentic tribute to vintage Chicago, opened for us.  It sounded great--the band leader, Scott Sheriff, did a terrific job organizing the band and writing the charts.  Their horn section of Scott Kinney (trumpet), Jim Hoke (saxophone), and Chris Dunn (trombone) even sat in with us at the end of our set on a handful of tunes.  Do some investigating of these guys…badasses!

Our part of the show went well--catastrophe free!.  I made it through all my stuff just fine--I finally nailed a string run in She's Gone that I'd been practicing for a couple of weeks.  During the Maneater solo (if I'm remembering correctly), a couple of women got through the barrier in front of the stage and grabbed my leg.  That was kind of weird.  We stuck Rosanna in as a request (we get requests via Twitter these days, and occasionally we will honor them).  I was kind of ragged on my parts.  I played piccolo on You Can Call Me Al for the penny whistle solo--big hit with the audience.  Oh yeah, and my solo on Biggest Part of Me was a big stack of pentatonic bullshit.  Booooooooo.

We got to the hotel around 1:30 AM.  Lobby call was 7 AM.  We got back to Atlanta just after noon and began loading our gear onto the little outdoor stage at Sweetwater.  They had a tent that covered three sides of the patio and wrapped around the bandstand.  Not too bad, except the gap where the tent had to come up and over the fence--it let every frigid breeze get me!

We did two sets.  It was packed.  It was really really cold.  My fingertips and toes hurt, but the crowd was pretty slammin'.  The owner of Sweetwater was out-of-his-mind-happy about everything.  He gave some sort of a speech, then stayed on stage and danced for You Can Call Me Al.

We finished at 5:30.  I packed and stacked my gear, and then met up with my ride to my church gig.  Unfortunately, my church clothes and instruments didn't make it, so I grabbed my beater flute from my Yacht Rock gear and played my gig in the same clothes I wore Saturday night.  Lots of staring people down.  Yes, I'm wearing this.

Next week we're on the Rock Boat XIII, so some of my gear is leaving mid week to get down there.  I also have a couple of gigs at the end of this week.  Yacht Rock is in Rome, GA Friday night, so come see us if you can!

February 22, The Brewhouse (Rome, GA)
February 24-March 1, Rock Boat XIII (the ocean)
March 2, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
March 14, Wonder Bar (Asbury Park, NJ)
March 15, Theatre of the Living Arts (Philadelphia, PA)
March 16, Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY)
March 17, The Hamilton (Washington, DC)
April 20, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
April 26, (Atlanta, GA)
June 28, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
July 11, Mohegan Sun (Montville, CT)
July 20 (Atlanta, GA)
August 23, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
September 27, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
October 19 (Atlanta, GA)

Taste and See

Yacht Rock played the Taste of Dunwoody last night.  I think this is our third time playing it, and the third time it has sold out.  The Dunwoody Cougars are thriving just north of the Perimeter.

By the way…sign this petition:

The venue was the Westin over at the king/queen buildings this year--the previous location was a good bit smaller, but they've been able to expand and accommodate more people and vendors.  Great for us--the smaller rooms were so tight, you could've stepped off the stage onto the first vendor's table and walked all the way around the room without ever touching the floor.

So…better location, easy load in (no ancient freight elevator), good food (we get to sample everything), good crowd…great gig!  Yay!  Once we finished, they even inspired us to load out as quickly as humanly possible with an East Andrews flavored DJ.  Run for your life!  I don't need to hear Brick House, September, or that Pitbull song ever again.

Home before midnight!

Yacht Rock is at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville tonight, and the Sweetwater Brewery back in Atlanta tomorrow afternoon!  See y'all there.

Ash Wednesday

I played my PM church gig's Ash Wednesday service last night.   It was packed!  I was surprised that there were that many people.  I was there early, and there were two full masses going on before my own.  We were the overflow service for the main sanctuary, and our room was standing room only.

As usual, we were in the parish hall, which feels acoustically like the deadest room on the planet.  Yuck.  Since we were tucked in the corner away from the main speakers (and the music didn't call for it), I spent more time listening than playing.  No biggie.

In other news…

I've decided to let my website die.  This was based on a few things:

1.  Most people are headed to my blog anyway--a search for me on google brings up my blog first.

2.  Everything on my website has been added to my blog as a sidebar, so there's no new information there.

3.  My domain is going to expire, and Just Host has not been helpful at all in getting it (my domain) to point to my blog instead.  The hell with it it.

4.  I got an email from google saying that my site has been compromised by a hacker (a "cloaking" scheme).  Hacking seems really juvenile.  Leave me alone!

So…welcome to my new website!

Also….

I read plenty of griping about the Grammys, and it reminds me of this blog post by Seattle trumpeter Jason Parker, titled That's not MY Music Industry.  Perhaps it's apathetic of me, but I find the Grammys to be like several other things in life--I ask myself, "Do I have to care about this?  Do I have to have an opinion?"  No, I do not.  It doesn't affect me.  I then get on with my life.  Why waste any energy on it?

Upcoming Yacht Rock dates!

February 15, Taste of Dunwoody (Dunwoody, GA)
February 16, Cannery Ballroom (Nashville, TN)
February 24-March 1, Rock Boat XIII (the ocean)
March 2, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
March 14, Wonder Bar (Asbury Park, NJ)
March 15, Theatre of the Living Arts (Philadelphia, PA)
March 16, Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY)
March 17, The Hamilton (Washington, DC)
July 11, Mohegan Sun (Montville, CT)
July 20 (Atlanta, GA)
October 19 (Atlanta, GA)

Monday Night Corporate Party

Yacht Rock was back in action for a corporate party at the Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway.

I got things started by leaving fifteen minutes late--that ended up being about twenty minutes late because of the rain and traffic.  Embarrassing.

The Marriott is pretty nice.  I think it gets forgotten because of its location (next to the International Convention Center, which also gets forgotten).  It's nice and clean and moderately hip looking, and the load in is easy and clean and doesn't feel like the back door to a dungeon.

The crowd was costumed for the "rock and roll" theme of the party (I think).  We did three sets.  There were several other things competing for attention--green screen photo booth, pool tables, ping pong tables, and bean bag toss.  When we went on break, they played videos from pop music that was current ten to fifteen years ago.  The whole thing was kind of weird.  Not much dancing.  We were, for the most part, expensive background music.

At one point, we had the four guys from Kiss on the dance floor by themselves, getting down to Silly Love Songs.  Gene dropped his tongue on the floor a couple of times.  Yuck.

Done at 9:30.  Home around 11.  Nice!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday Gigs and Dave's New Faves

So…I was back at my normal church gigs.  I kind of miss it when they don't happen.  I like the routine.

My AM church gig had a sub sound guy.  We were going to do some kind of mammoth song with tracks, but the sound guy couldn't get it to work--he couldn't find the track on the mixing board, and then he did find the track (coming off a laptop on stage), but couldn't get the stereo split (click on the left, music on the right) to work, so we abandoned it.  It worked out fine, though--we couldn't get off from the click that way!  I must say that I played really well on this song.  Actually, the whole service was good in spite of the sound guy problems.

My PM church gig went pretty well, too.  I had a great mix going, though I didn't play anything memorable.  So it goes.

In other news…Mark Cobb hipped me to this record:  Locked Down by Dr. John.  Fantastic record, and it has some really great bari sax playing by Leon Michels.  Yeah!  Totally bad ass.



Also courtesy of Mark Cobb, this super cool song by Jim James off his latest record Regions of Light and Sound of God.  This was on Jimmy Fallon.  More awesome bari playing, this time with Martin Perna (also Groove Collective's Jay Rodriguez on flute!).  So cool.  You can fast forward to 3:48 if you need a quick fix.



Things are starting to heat up again!  Look for Yacht Rock this Friday night at the Taste of Dunwoody and Saturday night at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville.

davidfreemanmusic.net

A Building Downtown

Yacht Rock was at a building downtown last night.

davidfreemanmusic.net

A Week Off

I've had more or less the entire last week off.  Since playing the 40 Watt last Friday night, I've managed only my PM church gig (at that to a Super Bowl-shrunken congregation).

I'm not gonna lie…other than the fact that I made no money and we're living off savings this week (ouch), this has been a great week.  I got plenty of sleep, plenty of exercise, plenty of time with my family, and time to practice.  Ahhh!  It's been awesome!  During the day, I had to time to tinker with equipment, bang on the piano, watch YouTube videos.  It's kind of what I imagined my life would be like as a professional musician (except for the whole no gigs/no money thing)--that I would have time to practice (the kind where you work on universal things, not the "holy shit!  I have to play this Friday!" kinds of things), and still have time for my life outside of music.  This is it!  I'm lovin' it!

Next week is a lot more busy, with gigs Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and a rehearsal Thursday.  Feed me, Seymour!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Super Bowl Sunday

I slept in this morning because my AM church gig did not use me this morning.  Boo.  Last week, they did two services when I was out of town.  Boo.  Bad luck for Dave.

My PM church gig was sparsely attended, as it is every year.  I have not seen the first half of the super bowl in twelve years.  Good to have a gig, though, and I am not one to bail for something like a football game, or really anything short of death.

It's been a slow weekend with no Saturday night gig, either.  Last night I watched the new Dave Grohl documentary Sound City.  I highly recommend it.



Another slow week ahead, but things will be picking up soon.

February 15, Taste of Dunwoody (Dunwoody, GA)
February 16, Cannery Ballroom (Nashville, TN)
February 24-March 1, Rock Boat XIII (the ocean)
March 2, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
March 14, Wonder Bar (Asbury Park, NJ)
March 15, Theatre of the Living Arts (Philadelphia, PA)
March 16, Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY)
March 17, The Hamilton (Washington, DC)
July 11, Mohegan Sun (Montville, CT)
July 20 (Atlanta, GA)
October 19 (Atlanta, GA)

davidfreemanmusic.net

40 Watt

Yacht Rock made the trip out to Athens to play the 40 Watt--one of our favorite places to play.  All the usual stuff happened…sat in traffic on 316, loaded in, set up, sound checked.

In between soundcheck and the show, we wandered across the street to Ted's Most Best.  Good pizza.  Yacht Rock recommends it.  While we were there, the lady who books the 40 Watt informed us that our show had sold out.  Nice!

Our show went pretty well, I think.  We played two sets, the first one beginning with Baker Street.  I can't complain about that!  The first tune can be a little tough because in any room it takes a few songs to get comfortable.  Dannells wiped out on the intro to the guitar solo--the lights had gone out for a second, and he described it later as a Helen Keller moment:  he could neither see nor hear.  It was a little touch and go for all of us--I had to check a couple of times to make sure my sax microphone was working.  All of this, we later concluded, was the result of the packed room which ate up so much of the sound in the house.  We'd sound checked to an (obviously) empty room, and perhaps set our levels hearing the PA bouncing off the back wall.

Once we got going, things were fine.  I played well in the first set;  in the second, my mind wandered a little bit.  We had Daniel Morrison subbing for Mark Cobb--that changed the set list around a little and brought out some songs we haven't played in a while.  For instance, I couldn't tell you the last time we played Who Can it be Now?.  I pulled that solo out of my butt.

650+ was the overall attendance.  Thank you Athens!

In other news…videos from last Monday's trio gig with Tyrone Jackson and Kevin Smith:



davidfreemanmusic.net

Pleaserock Weddings

Yacht Rock's parent company Pleaserock has opened a new branch…Pleaserock Weddings.  It's geared towards couples who don't want a wedding with a typical Atlanta wedding band and grumpy old photographers and an anxious/bitchy wedding coordinator.  I mean, cool people get married, too.

Several Pleaserock affiliated bands played little twenty minute showcases in the acoustic nightmare that is the upstairs room at the Park Tavern.  We closed out the evening with a couple of songs.  It was a snoozer, but if it helps the keep the Pleaserock machine humming along, I'm all for it.

We're in Athens tonight at the 40 Watt!

Upcoming dates:

February 1, 40 Watt (Athens, GA)
February 15, Taste of Dunwoody (Dunwoody, GA)
February 16, Cannery Ballroom (Nashville, TN)
February 24-March 1, Rock Boat XIII (the ocean)
March 2, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
March 14, Wonder Bar (Asbury Park, NJ)
March 15, Theatre of the Living Arts (Philadelphia, PA)
March 16, Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY)
March 17, The Hamilton (Washington, DC)
July 11, Mohegan Sun (Montville, CT)
July 20 (Atlanta, GA)
October 19 (Atlanta, GA)

davidfreemanmusic.net

Tyrone's Return

I hadn't played a trio gig with Tyrone Jackson on keyboards since before Thanksgiving--his schedule had gotten out of control.  Currently, he's finishing up his masters degree in Georgia State (and doing the grad assistant B.S.);  at the same time, he's teaching classes at Kennesaw State.  The actual playing of music has been mostly limited to his Sunday morning church gig.

In spite of the noisy crowd, this gig was a treat!  It's pretty awesome to have my tunes interpreted by two musicians of the caliber of Tyrone and Kevin Smith.  Great stuff by fantastic people.

Here's the audio:



davidfreemanmusic.net