Cruising: The Final Frontier

So...how about a cruise in January? What if it's a Star Trek themed cruise? 

Tuesday: Though the cruise began Monday in Miami, we were scheduled to board the ship in Cozumel on Wednesday. This necessitated our flying to Mexico Tuesday. It appeared that we flew over Cancun to get to Cozumel.

yes, please

We were fortunate to spend the night in a fancy resort. Check out this room.

You can see the ocean from the toilet. It's inspiring.

the view from my balcony

First order of business: the telescoping handle on my suitcase broke when we got to the Atlanta airport this morning, and somehow survived the trip without being ripped off. However, I needed to figure out what was happening, so I took it apart. One of the wings on the button (they push down rods in the arms to release the lock) broke.

The only thing I could find in my room was a pair of coffee stirrers, so I tried to use them as a splint to help push the wing down.

Looks great, but it didn't work.

This is the taxi that took us to the restaurant where I got drunk.

the band serenaded us with Oye Como Va

After annoying everyone I came in contact with, I retired to my room, where I watched Dora the Explorer in Spanish. I was that drunk.

Wednesday: Our lobby call was 11:45 AM, allowing me sufficient time to lay in bed and do nothing. Good preparation for most of what I did on the cruise.

The cab dropped us off at a gate on the main drag, where we stood and waited to be processed before boarding the ship.

The long walk out to meet our old boat, the Norwegian Pearl.

My cabin...same as all the others (though no balcony this time).

No balcony, but check out the view...of a lifeboat. Great.

Our first performance was to be on the pool deck stage. We set up and sound checked, all the while battered by strong winds which threatened to blow all of our gear over. After we'd got everything ready, the show was moved indoors! Our gear was shuffled into a a full room during a question and answer session where we set up and hit, hoping that everything worked.

One peculiarity of this show: no saxophone! The sax songs all ended up being cut from the set list.

Thursday: Our day off (from what?). I slept late, drank coffee, read my book...

Watched a movie...

It's a tradition that we always eat at the teppanyaki restaurant on our night off, so...

After that, we did a lap around the boat to see what was happening. The atrium was hosting karaoke (and air drumming if you're the guy in the green shirt). Mark Dannells and I closed out the night with his personalized version of Unskinny Bop by Poison (I was only a dancer). The green shirt guy did NOT like our performance.

Thursday night towel animal

 Friday: More killing time. Here's the stupid lifeboat hanging outside my cabin window.

Today was supposed to be a port day at Norwegian's private island in the Bahamas, but the weather was such that we stayed out at sea, circling in smoother waters.

Friday night towel animal

Friday's show was successfully outside, to a pretty good crowd! I think the captain slowed the boat way down and angled it so that we didn't get blown away. At one point, we had Joe Piscopo checking us out. Pretty cool.

Saturday: We woke up in Nassau, Bahamas. The area around the port is pretty touristy, so I just went for a walk around town and then got back on the boat for lunch (and a nap, and some movie watching, and some book reading).

Then the weather moved in...

The time slot for our final performance was 10:30-midnight, which was probably not ideal--most of the passengers were packing their suitcases and heading to bed early. Even so, our small but vocal crowd was pretty good, and we had Joe Piscopo sit in with us on Pink Cadillac (which I somehow managed to download with the last seconds of my prepaid internet) and Twist and Shout. He really brought the fire. Nice work.

photo cred: Zach 

Sunday: Ouch. Finished at midnight, and the boat specified that we had to meet at 6 AM to get off the boat. I went to bed around 2 something and got up at 5:30 AM. The whole 6 AM thing turned out to be bullshit, and we sat there until 7.

After passing off the boat and through customs (which took all of thirty seconds, since we were the first off), we boarded a bus to the airport. But wait! The nine of us sat on the bus for another hour while we waited for twenty more people (less well known actors from the Star Trek series) to get up, have breakfast, and make their way off the boat. Big fun. We finally pulled away from the dock some time around 8:30 AM.

From there, we walked the length of the Miami airport to the correct concourse, and then sat at the gate for a couple of hours until our lunchtime flight home. I slept on the plane. It sucked.

Georgia Theatre

The forecast for Friday's trip to Athens for our show at the Georgia Theatre was grim--from the looks of it, we could possibly tiptoe out there in freezing rain, play to almost no one, and then creep home in a snowy apocalypse. Fortunately, none of that was the case!

We left Atlanta around 4:15 PM, and once outside the city, didn't encounter too much traffic. Load in was fairly painless, and we were set and ready on time, leaving us plenty of time to ponder how many would show up to witness the event.

I was really shocked when we walked out on stage--over 900 people were in attendance! We had a really relaxed, easy show, even faced with reworking the setlist because Nick was sick. We also had Ganesh Giri Jaya subbing on drums. 100 or so minutes later, we finished with a two song encore, and it was over.

It was raining as we loaded out, but I guess we were far enough west that it wasn't freezing, and we made it back to Atlanta in good time. There was ice on the trees in the city (a few of the guys had to pick up a big tree limb off Mark Bencuya's car so he could get out), and my truck frozen shut. We divided the gear and went our separate ways, and I didn't encounter any sleet until I was almost home. However, when I pulled into my garage and began to grab my gear, my cases had frozen in place in the bed of my truck, and I had to break them free so that I could get them inside!

NYE 2016

We made it through another year! Once more, Yacht Rock played New Year's Eve on a stage built over the ice rink at Park Tavern in Atlanta. The event had 2,000 people show up--it had sold out earlier in the day! We loaded in around 6 PM, and even without the audience, it was already pretty warm under the tent. By the time the crowd had arrived, it was as warm as a summer show.

This gig had Ganesh Giri Jaya on percussion and vocals. An excellent addition!

All in all, I had a very good show--no great disasters or mental lapses to speak of. I had a good solo on Waterloo, and I made it through Careless Whisper (quick story on that--it was recorded on tenor, but at a slower speed, so now it's in an awkward place on the horn). Everything else was cool until midnight--we played Auld Lang Syne in F, and instead of playing C to F as the first notes of the melody ("Should auld"), I played C to F# and then slid down to F, like a nice big grace note. Ouch! Happy new year? We finally stopped playing (thanks to the noise ordinance) around 12:15 AM.

It seems particular to Park Tavern that as we put away gear, dressed in our regular street clothes, we have to stop and deal with questions about when the next set will commence. I'm not sure how it could be more obvious that we are finished for the night.

The rain that had begun to fall around 8 was still coming down after midnight, but fortunately had scheduled loaders to assist in dragging gear up the hill. Home by 1:45 AM. Boom.

Mojo Workin' and Sittin' In

Wednesday: I was invited to play with Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo, a monthly gig at Blind Willie's celebrating Scott's love of soul and blues. The band members rotate--this month, it was Micah Cadwell on guitar, Randy Hoexter on keyboard, Justin Chesarek on drums, and Will Scruggs on bari sax (I played tenor). The two saxes thing worked incredibly well with the songs Scott chose, giving it that buzzy old school sax thing without getting in the way of the vocals.

Every time I play this gig, I'm anxious on the way there. To some extent, I worry about sight reading charts in front of other people. My greater fear is the soloing situation--every solo spot is high volume and high energy, and after three or four songs, I've got nothing new to bring to the table! For whatever reason, this particular gig flowed really well, never got too loud, and every instrument didn't solo on every song. Way better!

We were fortunate to have warm weather and a nice full room, too. Great gig.

Thursday: Nick asked me to swing by Venkman's and add a little saxophone to his duo with Tim Smith. They mostly play Beatles stuff, but on this show, they dipped into a little David Bowie. I sauntered out of the green room and straight to the microphone to play on the end of Changes, then stuck around to play on Young American and the Beatles Oh Darling!

I'd never played Changes before, but (like probably everybody else in the western world) I'd heard it a million times! David Bowie is the only listed saxophonist on the album, so I'm assuming that's him. It might explain why it kind of stutters.

Christmas Bonus Show

Yacht Rock played a local Atlanta show this past Friday at Venkman's, this time with Peter Stroud subbing on guitar. It was a pretty loose night, carrying on just a touch of the old 10 High silliness, and Stroud did a great job learning the material.

I'm trying to remember anything else...we got new in ear monitors, but my right ear doesn't seem to seal very well...my sax solos felt kind of lame...

Set 1:




Set 2:

ALJO at Venkman's

I got to play with the Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra last night at Venkman's. It was a huge gig for me because of all the really heavy players in the band--guys I admire from afar (the internet!) were all packed on the stage. Even hanging in the green room was kind of intimidating! They're all out of my league.

Cool tunes, too! I was glad I'd practiced the charts ahead of time, because I'm not a very good sight-reader and some of the music was really difficult.

A few moments from the week of prep:

1. As is the case with most horn parts in Latin music, there's lots of very pointed articulation. My tongue bled a little...

One night I was practicing, and in between songs, the Bb key fell of my horn. Woah! I soon discovered that the post had come unsoldered, and several of the side keys were barely hanging on.

I made it through the night with a new rubber bands, one holding the post flat to the body, and the other pushing up so that the rods would still rotate. My repair guy put it all back together the next day.

 Anyway, the gig went great and I'd love to do it again.

Here's some Facebook Live video in case you missed our show!

The Last Trip

One last trip out of town for Yacht Rock--a couple of days in Indianapolis and then a quick return to Atlanta. Behold!

Thursday: We flew to Indiana for two shows, one public and one private. The first was an evening at The Vogue, our midwestern home away from home. 

It was a bit on the cold side when we arrived.

I don't miss icy sidewalks.

The Vogue show was pretty great. We came within a hundred people from selling it out (on a Thursday night with tough weather!). A week later, I can't recall any specific moments of greatness--just good vibes all around, on and off the stage.

A few of my favorite post-gig tweets...

Friday: After sleeping late, we took a field trip to the movies for a midday showing of Rogue One, the new Star Wars movie. Good stuff! I was glad to see fewer of the already established characters--bringing in Han and Leia on The Force Awakens felt a little like they were sucking up to the audience.

Anyway...back to work! Friday afternoon, we loaded into a restaurant for a holiday party in Carmel.

Our exciting green room situation.

Zaaaaach

This party was about what you'd expect--nothing too exciting, though the drunk people lingering at the end of the night were pretty annoying.

While we were playing, Indianapolis had been covered in a sheet of ice. Not good for load out, not good for drunk people. The interstates were closed, meaning we had to crawl back to the hotel on smaller roads. The van and trailer left that night for the next gig (south of Atlanta!), and they had to wander south until almost Columbus, Indiana, where the roads were finally clear enough to resume highway travel.

Best of luck to the guys laying tile at the hotel. When we arrived Thursday afternoon, they were installing new tile in the lobby. Friday morning, they tore it all out (and jackhammered the grout off to get back to the concrete slab), and put more tile down Friday afternoon. Saturday morning, they probably (hopefully) couldn't get there to mess with it.

Saturday: We went to bed late and got up early for a flight back to Atlanta. The ice made things exceptionally difficult--our plan of taking taxis or uber to the airport took an extra half hour just to get a vehicle to the hotel, and then (because the roads were still icy), the travel to the airport took nearly an hour.

We eventually made it, with only minutes to check our bags in before the cutoff. To the gate! Unfortunately, one of the two security checkpoints for the airport was closed, and everybody was funneled through the open one. I didn't make it through the metal detector and had to go through the hands-up screener thing, but they had to recalibrate it first. After clearing that, I had to wait for the TSA guy to go through my backpack (the bananas were suspicious?). Finally, I ran back to the other terminal. We were the last guys to get on the plane. I was really glad I wasn't trying to fly with saxophones--that would have been a nightmare.

We returned to Atlanta around lunch time, giving everybody an hour or two to regroup before we headed south to Lagrange, GA for a wedding. Easy stuff--the second worst of it was hanging out in the green room for a few hours before we finally went to work.

Ganesh subbed on drums

The worst of it was after our performance when the DJ kicked in, which inspired a pretty frantic load out. I drove Nick (who spent the entire weekend in some sort of gastric distress), so we ran like hell to get out of there.

The cake was great, though, and the room/barn was beautiful. Yay gig! Home by 12:30 AM.

Holiday Special + Tampa

A couple of shows last weekend...the annual Yacht Rock holiday show and an out of state wedding. Let's begin again...

Friday: The big show, the Yacht Rock holiday spectacular. We played to a packed room (within a hundred or so of selling out!) at the Variety Playhouse. I had a pretty good show with the exception of a couple of sloppy moments (i.e. trying to dance, play bari sax, and read a chart on an iPad proved more difficult than it was at home). We used a horn section on about half the songs (Rob Opitz, trumpet; Bryan Lopes, tenor sax; Richard Sherrington, trombone).

Things started in a panic when I walked out on stage and found that the receiver for my wireless microphones was receiving signal. I checked all three horns--none of them were on! Quickly I moved to another frequency and synced all three of my mics.

A few songs later, Lopes' music stand came crashing down off the riser and in between my horns, throwing his music everywhere! Once again, I had to call time out and get things reset.

A little video of the evening...




Yay! The gig's over! I packed up, went home, unpacked, repacked, and went to bed.

Saturday: Up and off to the airport, headed to Tampa, Florida for a wedding. Not too shabby. The weather was mid 70s during the day (we were outside next to the water).

Overall, it was a pretty painless gig. Before the second set, however, Bencuya's Nord developed some sort of problem--no sound from the outputs! I gave him mine and we made it through to the end. All kinds of fun. I skipped the afterparty in room 907. She was too crazy.

Sunday: Fly home. I watched the end of a movie I'd started on a flight last month.

A few more public gigs before the end of the year:

Thursday, Dec 15: Yacht Rock Revue at The Vogue (Indianapolis)
Thursday, Dec 22: Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra at Venkman's (Atlanta)
Friday, Dec 23: Yacht Rock Revue at Venkman's (Atlanta)
Wednesday, Dec 28: Scott Glazer's MOJO DOJO at Blind Willie's (Atlanta)
Saturday, Dec 31: Yacht Rock Revue at Park Tavern (Atlanta)

Beatles Sandwich

The flurry of gigs continues...this past weekend, Yacht Rock played a Beatles show Friday, a private Yacht Rock gig Saturday, and a private Beatles show Sunday, which meant overlapping gear, charts, and people. So...

Friday:  We haven't played a Beatles gig in a while, but there wasn't anything new, so it was a little rusty, but not too bad. At any rate, my parts are really easy, so half the challenge is in paying attention to which songs require my presence, and which do not. I play lots of tambourine (which broke not once, but twice!).

It appears that Facebook Live is something we're going to take advantage of from time to time. Here's our show:



Saturday: Yacht Rock at the Georgia Theatre in Athens for a private gig! The sound in my in ears was exquisite. I almost wanted to kiss our monitor guy. Not really (sorry Zach), but the everything was dialed in to perfection, and I had a good night because of it. Even the drive home in the rain was no big deal.

(the green rooms are five flights above the stage level)

just in case

Sunday: Birthday party Beatles show at Venkman's. Almost the same as Friday night, though the crowd was significantly older. They liked it, though!

photo by Mrs. KDC!

There's a big show coming up this weekend--our annual holiday show at the Variety Playhouse. You can check out a little of our rehearsal from earlier today (Tuesday), also on Facebook Live!