Midwest Tour

Yacht Rock just returned last night from a triumphant tour of the Midwest!  Ok, really it was just a couple of public shows and a corporate event, but we played to a full room in Chicago--good enough for me!

taste the rainbow in Kentucky

Wednesday:  much driving.  Las Chalupas (Elizabethtown, KY) is not good.  Avoid it, lest your face look like this.

We got as far as the north side of Indianapolis.  On this trip, we were able to stay with the Cobb and Olson families around Indy, so we saved a ton of money on hotel rooms.  I snagged a very nice couch.

Thursday:  we slept late, and after a painfully long lunch, headed north.  In spite of the fact that it's almost June, northern Indiana was cold, overcast, and windy.  My wardrobe of shorts, t shirts, and sandals was…a poor choice.  Oops.

wind farm, northern Indiana

Gary, IN

Gary, IN

Anyway…Chicago!

I need a Kamera

Marina City--the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot buildings

Our first gig was the House of Blues.  Totally awesome experience.  There was a whole crew who took our gear from the underground tunnel up to the stage (and back again at the end of the night).  We got in a good soundcheck (we've added Daft Punk's Get Lucky to the setlist--it sounded great at rehearsal).

The show was really fun and the crowd loved us.  There were seven or eight hundred people there!  Wow!  The combined Chicago friends, friends from The Rock Boat, family, and the free ticket give aways made for a full house.  Super cool.

The band really rose to the occasion.  Great gig all the way around.  I wanna go back and keep playing there.  Even the after party was cool (though I was blinded by tequila).  We spent the night at the hotel across the street--the appropriately named Hotel Sax.  The lobby, the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot buildings, and the House of Blues all share the same space on the Chicago River.  Totally awesome.

Friday:  I got up and walked across the river to State Street in the clothes I'd worn on stage the night before.  It was the warmest thing I had.  After coffee, I bought a pair of jeans and a long sleeve thermal.

I am trying to break your heart

Back to Indy!  Our second gig was at Radio Radio, located in the Fountain Square area of Indianapolis.  A much smaller room with many more friends and family, this one sold out before we got into town (three hundred people).  Still, very cool to be so warmly received.  The food across the street at Revolucion was fantastic.  So was Mark Cobb.

After the show, I had a chance to meet one of my heroes from college, Josh Silbert.  Josh was an upperclassman when I began at I.U.  In addition to holding down the bari chair in the top jazz band, Josh played in Johnny Socko, a very popular funk/horn band.  So cool.  What a treat to finally speak to him after all these years!  I think I talked his ear off about gear.  Oops.

Saturday:  we played a private event for Firestone at the Marriott in Indianapolis.  Due to the scheduling of the event, we had a ton of down time.  We walked around the city, eventually landing at the zoo.  Very nice.

Cartoon Butterfly

yep

The event was the usual corporate gig.  Those who stayed loved us.

Sunday:  more coolness!  We attended the Indy 500 as guests of Firestone.  How cool is that?  Very cool.  It's a pretty amazing experience--the sound is indescribable (especially in the tunnels under the track when the cars are overhead).  The people watching was also something to behold.  Quite a slice of America.

fried chicken and a vodka soda for breakfast

nice pants

We ended the trip with a cookout at the Cobb compound.

Monday:  we drove back from Indy.  A long day of nothing.  Here's Louisville.

Special thanks to Mark Cobb for the retro picture inspiration.


Come see us this Friday in Piedmont Park at the Legacy Fountain, performing all of Purple Rain (plus a set of Yacht Rock).  Tickets are going quickly!  Get yours here:  https://www.xorbia.com/e/yachtrock/purple-rain

Sazerac Session, Day 1

I had a great time recording horns tonight at Madison Studios, adding horns to a New Orleans inspired project called Sazerac.  Led by Greg Lee, the rest of the band is Mark Cobb (drums), Mark Dannells (guitar), and Mark Bencuya (keyboards).  Great stuff!

A few of the tunes had horns on the original recordings, but mostly these are my horn arrangements.

For this session, I played alto, tenor, and baritone sax, and a little bit of clarinet.  Everything sounded and felt good horn-wise (clarinet felt ok--does it ever feel really good?).  Good reeds are everything.

Four tunes in four hours is pretty good.  In a couple of weeks we'll go back in and record the four other, plus any solo stuff.

I was working up my arrangements last week at home.  Here's a little practice solo:

Sundazed

The Marriott Marquis atrium

After the late night at the Marriott Marquis and then Smith's Olde Bar, I went to bed around 3 AM.  Four and a half hours later, I was headed out the door again, this time off to my AM church gig.  Ugh.

The gig turned out to be pretty good.  For one thing, they've scrapped the V-drums and returned to an acoustic kit.  I don't think anyone was on in ears, either.  Whatever the sum of all those little things was resulted in the band digging in a little more and playing more cohesively, and the results were much more satisfying.  I played saxophone on two songs (both with some solo room) and one on unamplified/inaudible flute (not Matt's fault).  I also played clarinet on the closer.

We did two services…extra money!  though it did delay my nap.

Sunday night, I was back at the Marriott Marquis in the same room in the same spot (probably on the same stage) for a House Live gig.  The one on Monday was pretty fun, but this one was rough.  The main problem was that there was no monitor, so I heard nothing that was going through the PA except for the reflection off the wall across from us, and that was pretty quiet.  Mostly it was me noodling against two drummer/percussionists who were also noodling.  Boring as hell.  Paid well, though.

Strange to be on a four man (DJ, 2 percussionists, me) with TWO lighting guys.  The funny thing was that the client vetoed any light changes or movement, so both those guys set their lights and then sat there for three hours.

More Gigs

The gig train just keeps rolling.  Yacht Rock was at a corporate function last night.  Typical stuff--we've played this same gig two years previously, so I guess we were undeterred by the absence of any crowd response whatsoever until the last hour.  At the end, they were really into it.  And the mayor gave us a shout out, which is usually probably hopefully cool.

A couple of other things…

Jovita Moore is even better looking in person.  Wow.

We loaded in at 4 (all seven us with all our gear), and were set on the stage by 4:40.  Then we waited as the sound guys did their stuff (miking things and running lines).  Waited…waited…waited…at 6:40 we finally had to bail on the first ten minutes of our soundcheck so we could eat and change and start playing at 7 PM.  Not cool.  Not impressive.

Moontower!

From this gig, we ran over to Smith's Olde Bar to close out Five Hundred Songs for Kids, performing James Brown's Sex Machine.  I think we nailed it!  Unfortunately, there were probably fifty people in the room.  Ouch!  Hopefully they made some money.  We played I Wanna Be Your Lover as an encore;  the gig ended with a whimper.  At least it wasn't crowded backstage.

Almost Famous

Yacht Rock played Turner Field last night.  It's always a cool gig playing in the plaza--a quick fifty minute set and then you get to pack up and watch the game in a suite.  Nice!

Friday night games have fireworks, and we were also invited to play a short three or four song set on the field on a little stage.  We opted for songs that didn't require me to play keyboard (due to the space constraints), so all the songs turned out to be sax features.  Unfortunately for me, the rains came, so we ended up not playing.   I was almost famous.

Oh well, still fun and easy, and the Braves won.  Cool gig!

All of that was awesome.  You know what wasn't awesome?  Trying to drive away from the stadium.  Buullllllllshiiiiiiiiit.  You can't make me believe there is any kind of plan for funneling traffic away from Turner Field.  All the stop lights are turned off, random streets are blocked off, and cops are standing around in the street waving their flashlights at the ground (which I think means "My toes are right here. Please don't drive over them.")  It took forty-five minutes, several apoplectic fits, and multiple figure-eights around The Ted and the capital before I finally found away to head north.

How long have the Braves played here?  And it's still a mess?  Has anyone ever proposed that instead of trying to manage the situation, we just let traffic operate normally?  Let the stop lights do their job, let the streets go in both directions, just like a regular day.  Maybe I won't have to make a u-turn at Fulton and Capital.  Maybe I won't have to merge around a random police car stopped in the middle of the street.  Maybe y'all are doing more harm than good?  The outcome couldn't be worse than what I saw last night.

Anyway…

Tonight we will be at 500 Songs for Kids (at Smith's Olde Bar) following a private gig.  Next week we'll be on the road:  House of Blues in Chicago on Thursday and Radio Radio in Indianapolis on Friday (then a private gig Saturday and the Indy 500 on Sunday!).

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)