David Freeman Music

Dave and Dave Duo made our triumphant return to Venkman's Saturday afternoon.  I kind of wondered if we'd been blacklisted or something, as we'd played there twice in November, and then...nothing.  All the brunch dates in December and January filled up without so much as an inquiry, so I finally spoke up about it.  Anyway, we're back, and I believe we'll do one a month for the next few months. So...Dave (Ellington) and I tried a few of his newer tunes culled from a recent quartet gig, plus a handful of our old reliables.  Fun stuff!  I felt really good on this one.  I'm going to blame my mistake coming back in at the end of Cold Duck Time  on the crowd noise (the sold out puppet show that proceeded us was packed), and my starting Crawdaddy  a whole step too high was because I was accustomed to reading concert pitch charts.  Damn. If you like what you hear, you can come see the David Ellington Quartet (with me) January 30 at Venkman's fo...

Yacht Rock played another Thursday night at Venkman's.  Since Mark Cobb was unavailable, it was decided that we play without drums, hence the "Unplugged."  Not entirely true;  the show was acoustic guitar oriented, but I still played a keyboard, as did Bencuya. looking cool and probably playing something dumb (photo cred:  Jim Ramsdell) Beyond that, this was another fun Thursday night.  Since the idea was to pare things down, it was fun to renegotiate our way through these songs in a slightly different format, so I played more hand percussion, played some string parts on organ, and played the Africa solo on flute. Other random things... 1.  Monkeyboy didn't realize that we were going drummer-less until two songs into soundcheck. 2.  We added Gerry Rafferty's Right Down the Line.   I think it's a keeper!  Then again, I say that about every song we add. 3.  We played David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World , learning it ...

The Yacht Rock Revue began a string of Thursdays at Venkman's last week, vaguely (super vaguely) reminiscent of our old Thursday night gig at the 10 High...except the load in wasn't disgusting, and ceiling didn't leak, and it didn't stink of cigarette smoke, and the PA worked, and at the end of the night my ears didn't feel like they'd been hollowed out with a screwdriver.  It was on Thursday night, though, and there were some familiar 10 High faces there checking us out. At set up, I found out that another keyboard stand of mine had died, once again at the same knob--the threads on the screw were stripped.  Fortunately, Nick had to swing by his house for some other stuff, and he grabbed one of the spares from the rehearsal room.  I called the manufacturer after soundcheck, and when I asked for replacement parts for this particular stand, he knew exactly what I was talking about.  "I have nightmares about this particular knob."  OK...sympathetic cust...

I was barely able to pull myself together Sunday morning to head back to Venkman's for a brunch gig, this time in a quartet led by David Ellington.  Filling out the band was Mike Beshara on bass and Ben Williams on drums. I think it went pretty well.  My sides were sore, making good breathing difficult, and I was pretty tired, but I hung with it as best I could.  Dave threw several originals at us, plus a variety of odd meter tunes (I'm getting the hang them), and the Chick Corea classic You're Everything  (my worst solo ever in a long time!). We finished up at 3 PM.  I went home and crashed for a couple of hours, staggering back out the door in time to make my church gig.  By the time I'd returned home, I almost felt like me again.

...and just like that, 2016 began with a gig!  Yacht Rock plays the Beatles (formerly known as Please Pleaserock Me) performed two sets at Venkman's.   It seemed like pretty much everybody who didn't want to deal with drunk people the night before instead chose this show.  Nice move. Our horn section for the evening was Paul Poovey on trumpet and Tom Gibson on trombone.  Both played very well.  Also playing well on the gig was The Great Bencuya, whose fantastic chops shown through in my in-ear mix--probably because it wasn't clouded with my own attempted keyboarding.  The entire second set was one of those times I wish I could've just watched over his shoulder.  It was particularly awesome. Not particularly awesome was my sax solo on Oh Darling! The first part was fine, but I remember thinking How does this end?  right before I screwed up the end. Post show hijinks at Monkeyboy's expense (hiding a guitar case) and then at my ow...

New Year's Eve 2015.  Yacht Rock played at Park Tavern in Atlanta again, a gig we've played for most of the past few years.  The gig is on the ice skating rink, so it's a bit chilly, but the noise ordinance fortunately sets the ending time of the gig right around 12:15 AM.  I can recall some crappy country club New Year's Eve parties I played in the past where the last set would begin  at midnight, finishing around 1 or 1:30 AM.  No thanks.  People are a mess by that point. The Schooner guys opened the evening with a fine set of their own.  We jumped up right after that and played maybe 75 minutes.  Not a bad gig!  Home by 2 AM.

It's a rare treat these days when I get a call for a non-Yacht Rock related gig.  I'm not sure if I've fallen off everybody's radar, or there just aren't as many random gigs to go around, but as another year closes, it feels that I am even more separated from the local music scene.  Then again, maybe I'm pining for a scene that's been dying off for the last ten years--those gigs just aren't there anymore. So...whatever.  I played with Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo last night at Blind Willie's. Before that...washing machine repair!  I noticed that our washing machine was leaking a significant amount of water--maybe a quart?  After troubleshooting it, I discovered that the water pump was the culprit.  With the help of the internet, I was able to fix it myself.  Woohoo!  It cost me about $65 for a new pump. The finished project. Back to Scott's thing:  it's a six piece band reading his arrangements from his massive library of cha...

Friday:  the second Yacht Rock Revue Holiday Show at Venkman's also coincided with the release of the next Star Wars movie, so we wore Stormtrooper costumes for the first set. Kip wore the Darth Vader outfit. This turned out to be a really good gig with a very enthusiastic audience!  There was also plenty of weirdness going on--especially the skinny girl who was fawning over Pete for the entire show, to the point where he couldn't look down for fear of making eye contact.  All the puppy dog eyes and hair flipping...weird shit, people.  Knock it off, especially when your husband is standing behind you. Actually, keep it up.  It's entertainment for me.  I enjoyed the performance. Saturday:  most of my week was spent doing prep for a Greg Lee gig.  The line up was everybody except Nick and Pete from Yacht Rock, plus Ben Holst on bass.  Occasionally, Greg would swap his guitar for Ben's bass. This gig was at l...

Another gigging weekend!  Check out the short version: Friday:  the Yacht Rock Holiday Show #1 at Venkman's.  Not too bad!  I never quite conquer the holiday songs, but I'm getting closer every year.  I only needed a chart for one song, so that's progress. The only other thing of interest was a new tune-- Boogie on Reggae Woman  from Stevie Wonder's Fulfillingess' First Finale .  Is it Yacht Rock?  No, but...I don't know.  I guess it doesn't matter anymore. We also brought back Never Been Any Reason  for an encore, but I don't do anything on that. Saturday:  we played a corporate holiday party at the Delta Flight Museum.  I've been looking forward to this one for a while--I was desperate to check out the 757 that is the centerpiece of the museum.  Super cool.  It's difficult to judge the size of a jet airliner from proximity of the gate.  Walking around underneath (and inside) was really awesome. ...

Yacht Rock played a random, weird gig Wednesday morning.  We were set up in the middle of the room at an exhibit hall to play two songs for some kind of sales conference.  Probably as close as I'll ever come to being on VH1 Storytellers. Pre-show, Bencuya spilled his coffee and ruined everything. So...we walked in, sat down, played Power of Love , played Don't Stop Believin' , and then scrambled all of our gear out under cover of darkness (during a video) in less than three minutes.  All in a day's work.

Yacht Rock played a show in Indianapolis Friday night.  It was unusual in that it wasn't connected to any other midwestern dates--we flew up for the single gig at The Vogue in Broad Ripple, and then got up the next morning and flew home.   Friday:  This trip felt like a series of naps.  I basically napped for a few hours the night before we left;  I slept on the plane;  we set up and played;  we crashed in our hotel rooms for a few hours;  I slept on the plane.  I even fell asleep in between sets at the gig. A small bus picked us up at the Indy airport and drove us to The Vogue.  Almost enough room! One major disadvantage to not having all of our own gear was that we did not use in ear monitors.  Instead, we had monitor wedges for everybody.  It was LOUD.  I'd forgotten how much more difficult it is to hear everybody on stage.  We also played on rented equipment, which for the most part, was pretty go...