MILF City

Yacht Rock finished off the weekend with a slamming gig at the Atlanta Athletic Club last night.  I have no idea what we were celebrating, but it was a rocking party.

We played this gig last year--we drove straight there from Nashville and set up on a stage in their tennis stadium.  Due to the weather, this year's event was in their indoor tennis facility.  Way better to me--no pollen, no rain, no direct sunlight.

Awesome gig!  The sound guys were fantastic (Hi-Gain Audio), the crowd was into it from the first note, the load in/out was easy, and we played well.  Plus, we played I Keep Forgetting AND Whatever Gets You Through the Night!  Why can't they all be like this?

We'll be back!

Anchorman and U2

Yacht Rock played the Variety Playhouse last night.  Pretty good gig!

The Yacht Rock Schooner played the opening set, and sounded great.  They did some new tunes (You'll Never Find) and some oldies (Rosanna).  A problem with the front of house interrupted their set (FOH couldn't get the band in the PA).  Once they got it up and running, it sounded really good.

We played the Anchorman soundtrack again--previously, we'd learned it for a show at the Variety in January.  This time felt a little more uptight to me;  we might have played it better on this one, but I was kind of holding on like "I am NOT going to screw this up!" for the entire set.   It was good, but we were working at it.

I played about twenty bars of saxophone the entire night--the solo over the verse in She's Gone.  I think my mic was audible on stage, but I don't thing it was on in the house.  Hmm.  Maybe it was, but it didn't feel like it.

Monkey cussed A LOT during this set.

After the break, we came out and did our U2 set.  The people who dug it really dug it, but I'm not sure that the general Yacht Rock audience was into it.  As the set went on, people towards the back of the room started trickling out.  For whatever reason, the set never really caught fire--it didn't feel as 'epic' as it has on other occasions, so we had to kind of grind it out.  There were some cool moments--Beautiful Day was big, as was Where the Streets had no Name.  For the encore, we began with Vertigo.  Nick tossed handfuls of glow sticks into the audience--that looked neat.  He also worked a handheld par can light, circa Rattle and Hum.

Obviously, there's no saxophone in U2, and barely enough keyboard work to require two keyboardists.  I did, however, work the tambourine and shaker.

And away we go!  Next week's big shows--Georgia Theater in Athens on Friday, Nashville Yacht Rock Revival on Saturday!

May 3, Georgia Theatre (Athens)
May 4, Yacht Rock Revival (Nashville)
May 11, TPC Sawgrass (Jacksonville, FL)
May 17, Braves Game (Atlanta)
May 23, House of Blues (Chicago, IL)
May 24, Radio Radio (Indianapolis, IN)
May 31, Purple Rain at Park Tavern (Atlanta)
June 8, Park at City Center (Woodstock, GA)
June 13, Lincoln Theatre (Raleigh, NC)
June 14, NC Music Factory (Charlotte, NC)
June 15, Ziggy's (Winston-Salem, NC)
June 28, Park Tavern (Atlanta)
June 29, Yacht Rock Schooner Steely Dan Tribute @ The Strand (Marietta, GA)
July 8 Cape May Convention Hall (Cape May, NJ)
July 10 Brooklyn Bowl (New York City)
July 11 Mohegan Sun (Connecticut)
July 12, Power Plant Live! (Baltimore, MD)
July 13, XFinity Live!  Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA)
July 14, The Hamilton (Washington DC)
July 20, Yacht Rock Revival at Chastain! (Atlanta)
July 26, Orange Peel (Asheville, NC)
August 23, Park Tavern (Atlanta)
September 27, Park Tavern (Atlanta)
October 19, Thriller at Variety Playhouse (Atlanta)
November 1, Music Farm (Charleston, SC)

Convention Bureau Gig

Yacht Rock played a short gig last night at the World Congress Center for the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau.  Short and sweet!  We played one ninety minute set.  Home by midnight.

Things started early in the day with an extreme load in--we had been instructed to enter through the loading dock, up the freight elevator, and around the ballroom.  Easier said than done!  I luckily ran into a couple of event coordinators who helped move my gear.  I still had to find my way back down to the dock, then drive around the block to the red lot.  The World Congress Center is that big.

It seems like I knew everybody at this event.  My friend Jeff Burnisky was the DJ in the ballroom (on a plexiglass platform lowered from the ceiling!), the photographer was Ross from Northlight Photography, and the great Tony Winston Trio was playing before us.  Plus, Matt Sheren (from my morning church gig) was running sound.

Once we found the stage, set up and soundcheck were quick and painless.  Greg Lee showed off some moves with his new bass.

There was enough time for everybody to go home.  Fried chicken, Ritz crackers, and tea for me.

So…back to the gig!  Before I left home for the second time, I reprinted my parking pass, gave it to same lady at the red lot, and she let me in for free again.  Awesome.

The gig was easy and pretty casual, and the sparse crowd enjoyed it, but not in a Park Tavern riot kind of way.  No encore necessary.  Yay!

Burnisky!

I got the solo right on Get Out of My Dreams.  Better late than never.  On the whole, I played well, except for some gruesome chords in Lady and (of all things) the bridge of Power of Love.  Lowdown was back on the setlist after a prolonged absence--I love playing that one.

We loaded out through the B Building front doors onto International, saving us from a Bataan Death March of a load out.

Monkey kisses this pathetic PA goodbye

Big show tonight at the Variety Playhouse tonight!  Come see us play most of the Anchorman soundtrack and an entire set of U2!

Don't Drink the Grog!

Yacht Rock had a nice little show Monday night, doing our Beatles tribute (Please Pleaserock Me) for a foodie event at the Buckhead Theatre.  As I've said before, the PPRM gigs can be hit and miss with me because there's not always much to do, especially when things lean more towards the earlier stuff that doesn't involve horns.  I end up with tambourine, cowbell, and hand claps.  Gotta love the load in, though;  here's my gear for the night.

This one turned out to be fun;  I guess I was in the mood to play a gig where I had almost no responsibility.  We did play Whatever Gets You Through the Night (I was sure it was going to get cut, but no!).  Mostly I just hung out and watched the other guys.

Some guy afterwards tried to convince Nick and me that lead singers and sax players get all the women;  bass players and drummers are screwed, he said.  Riiiiiiiight.

Soprano Time

Ahh, Bryan Lopes,  I love you so.  Thanks for putting my soprano sax back together in time for me to play my church gigs today.  Both AM and PM gigs were heavy on the straight horn.  It would have been a drag dealing with my leaky horn for another week.

The AM service was good.  The church was struck by lightning Friday, and it blew out some of the audio systems in the sanctuary.  That meant no monitor for me, but the playing was good, so no biggie.  I did a couple of things on tenor, then soprano for a hymn, clarinet for a hymn, the soprano for the big song of the day, which was cool because there were some nice spots for me in the intro and the breakdown.

My PM service was fine, but nothing particularly exciting.  I played a lot of soprano on this one, too, but the band seems to be getting quieter every week, and it's harder and harder for me to hear the piano.  I could use a monitor, or else I may cut back to just flute.

Prom at Park Tavern

Yacht Rock began our summer concert series at Park Tavern last night with the Reagan Rock Prom.  Midtown was packed all afternoon (mostly because of the Dogwood Festival), but we still had a good turnout.  It didn't sell out, though that was probably good because the tent never got so packed that things got out of control.

We played I Keep Forgetting again.  That in itself made the evening.

Our second try at Kokomo got a better reaction than our first.  Here's my transcription of the solo.

My worst moment of the night was the Get Out of my Dreams solo.  This must be a comped solo--there's no place to breathe!  About halfway through, things got a little loose, and I kind of fumbled rest of it.  By the measure:  yep, yep, yep, oops, yep, fuck!, dammit!, ok.

We've got a busy week ahead:  Monday night at the Buckhead Theatre, a private event Thursday, Friday at the Variety Playhouse, and a private event Saturday.  Stay tuned!

Springtime at Summerour

Yacht Rock had a show at Summerour Studio--Springtime in the City, which is a benefit by Peachtree Presbyterian for the Adaptive Learning Center.  For us, it was also a good tune up for tomorrow's big show at the Park Tavern.  Nice, easy gig with a good crowd and easy load in.

Two great things about this gig:

1.  We got to play I Keep Forgetting.  I love to play that one--it's one of my favorites, but unfortunately it's a tough one to sing, so we play it three or four gigs a year.  Such a hip song.

2.  We are debuting a couple of new Reagan Rock tunes this week.  One is Get Out of My Dreams (Billy Ocean) which is passable, though at 1988, it's pretty late in the genre.  The other is the Beach Boys Kokomo.  It's a pretty crappy song.  Also a 1988'er.  The band is pretty divided about this one--I think we all agree that it's pretty bad, but split as to whether or not it's so bad that it's good (another way to think of it is:  yes, it's bad, but we're going to make it sound so good that the crowd will love it anyway).

Here are the songs in the second set.  Let the pictures speak for themselves!

Kokomo

Raspberry Beret

My Life

What a Fool Believes

Brandy

Grease

Lady

Get Out of my Dreams

Night Fever

I Wanna Be Your Lover

All Night Long

Call Me Al

Footloose

I Want to Dance with Somebody

So, maybe it doesn't prove anything--it WAS the first song in the set.  Still, I felt immense satisfaction.  I'll just leave it at that.

What else, what else…

An eighteen wheeler flipped on I-75 just south of Delk Road.  It took me an hour to make it to my gig.  The ride home took just over twenty minutes.

We had a stage at Summerour.  Usually, we're just on the floor.  Stages are better--it makes for a nice boundary between the crowd and the band.

Greg Lee showed up with a brand new bass rig!

That's a Traynor head and Bergantino cabinet.  Also check out the new bass synth pedal.  There was a new Sunburst P bass, too (not pictured).  Nifty!

Mark Cobb was particularly inventive tonight, which made for a fun night for me.  Good stuff.  I dug it.

See you tomorrow at Park Tavern for the Reagan Rock Prom!

Trio Stuff

I played a great trio gig last night with Kevin Smith (bass) and Kenny Banks Jr (keyboard) at the World of Coke.  It was some kind of corporate dinner, so we did about two hours, had an hour break during the awards ceremony, and then played thirty to forty minutes to get them all back out the door.  Easy stuff.

I felt good, playing-wise, and Kenny and Kevin sounded great.  Here's audio:



Usually I record with a stereo microphone on top of my music stand, but for this gig we went through a PA, so this is a board mix.  Hence the lack of background noise.

Super awesome gig.  Check out Kenny's solo on Guitar Song when you get a second.  Also, my apologies for having no recollection of the form for Red Clay.

My Soprano Sax is Being a Bitch

Church day!  I had two in at the AM and one at the PM.

My AM church gig was pretty good.  It ended up by sheer luck that I really didn't need to play any tenor.  I mostly played soprano, with one song on flute and one on clarinet.  I played the preservice music (for five minutes on tenor) before the first service, and that was the last time I picked up the horn.

My flute felt great, clarinet felt…like clarinet.  I worked on my soprano (tweaking the right hand adjustment screws with the help of my leak light), and I think I fixed my leak.  The horn is fine in that regard, but I had trouble playing in tune (the story of my life).  Left hand was flat, right hand was sharp.  It took me most of the service to find the magic spot on the neck where I could pull the low stuff up and push the sharp stuff down.

I played the 1-2-3-6-5 "I'm lovin' it" McDonalds riff all over the main song, much to Matt the sound man's enjoyment.  In the second service, I played it backwards 6-5-3-2-1.  It's lovin' me?  The beauty of the major pentatonic scale…it works both ways.  Anyway, my overuse of these five notes (over the one, the four, and the five) probably got me into the Methodist Book of World Records.  Maybe I should have a go-to minor key riff ready…



The PM gig was ok.  My soprano seemed even more out of tune with itself.  The flute was fine.

We had a sub pianist this week (our bandleader is out on maternity leave).  No problems!  Nice work!