Steve Gadd! (and Some Other Stuff)

...and just like that, we're back on the road! As noted in the previous post, we flew home from Houston Sunday morning, and we were back at the airport Monday evening, this time headed to California. 

I tried to watch Green Book, but after about an hour, it felt so predictable that I had to give up on it.

Tulsa, Oklahoma

The next movie I tried was The Thin Red Line, which I was forced to watch for an hour because my screen froze and I couldn't turn it off. I didn't make it through more than forty-five minutes of this one.

Several hours later, we landed in Sacramento.

Tuesday: Our man Hans, who drove the gear from Colorado to California, flew back to Atlanta.

shitty hotel coffee in the parking lot

After a good night's sleep, we had much of Tuesday to kill before the show, so I went for a run around town. Sacramento has a nice path along the river, which is sadly also a campground for the local homeless.

Old Sacramento displays its railroad roots.

After my run, there was the inevitable walk to the Indian restaurant.

...and then the walk back to the hotel. This part of Sacramento feels like an archetypal small town. I really dig it.

Finally, to the gig! The Great Bencuya and I took advantage of the excellent weather and walked instead of riding in the van. The Ace of Spades is a pretty nice looking room in a cool neighborhood.

We ate dinner at Mendocino Farms. Hooray for vegan options! I had a vegan chili and some kind of tasty salad. Not enough food to keep me from eating all the chips and salsa later, but at least it was a healthy start.

The gig: pretty good! Tuesday night in a new city for us, so very low expectations. The crowd was only a couple of hundred, but they were really excited to see us, and I met some fanatical dudes who can't wait for us to come back. It was also nice to see some a couple of familiar faces (Liesl and Adam) in the front row. Bencuya played some terrific stuff on his Hey Nineteen solos.

Wednesday: A travel day, but we were only headed to San Francisco, so I squeezed in another run before we left town.

California state capital

 ...and also squeezed in one more trip to the Indian restaurant.

The area outside of Sacramento is pancake flat, and mostly agricultural.

Closer to San Fran, though, the hills begin to rise up.

As we zoomed across the Bay Bridge, we caught a glimpse of downtown San Francisco.

We checked into our rooms in South San Francisco, and then...there was nothing to do. I found an empty conference room and practiced for a couple of hours. Eventually, someone from the front desk came and very awkwardly kicked me out (her: "Can I help you?" me: "Umm, what?").

So anyway, we piled in a couple of cars and headed into town for dinner and drinks. Most of us ended up at a Thai place.

Then we were headed up the street to a tiki bar called Smuggler's Cove, where I had a virgin pina colada. Twas a good hang! Also, yay for paper straws instead of plastic!

Thursday: Another day to kill, and unfortunately it was raining, so I spent some time on the treadmill before heading to lunch in South San Fran. The Indian restaurant was CLOSED!, so I had pho at the Vietnamese place instead.

Yesterday's practice room was deadbolt-locked-shut, so I politely went to the front desk and asked if they had an empty room in which I could warm up for an hour. They handed me a business card and said that I could rent one (a.k.a. "fuck you"). So I played in our room instead, and hoped that I was bugging somebody, while also trying to play softly enough that I wouldn't bug anybody.

The view from our hotel room. What had been rainy and windy turned into a very pretty afternoon. San Francisco is just on the other side of those hills.

city hall

Our first public show in San Fran: August Hall. Pretty cool place. Don't step in the poop in the middle of the street! It confused me that there were supposed to be two guys loading our gear in, but one guy didn't show up, and the staff just kind of hung out and watched the other guy (and Zach and me) do all the work.

Anyway, pretty nice place. Beautiful green rooms.

This one was pretty good. Things sounded a little boomy--probably because we only had about two hundred fifty people in the room. I'll take it, though. San Fran is a cool place to visit. Once again, Bencuya was tearing it up over there.

We played Lights by Journey as an encore, and a friend told me that the song was actually written about Los Angeles instead of San Francisco:

When the lights go down in the city
And the sun shines on LA

Friday: Speaking of LA, our gear drove south for our next show, and we hopped on a quick flight to LAX. Once there, we encountered some difficulty arranging for a car to drive us to Hollywood. I think the three of us stood here for a half hour before our pick up.

It took an hour to get to our hotel. Part of the problem was LA traffic on a Friday, but the dude didn't help things at all by repeatedly ignoring the directions his GPS was giving him. I thought we were going to be forever twenty-one minutes from our destination.

So...hotel, a quick sandwich at the Subway just down the street, and a few miles of running.

Once again, we were close enough to walk to the gig, so I did.

We loaded in, set up, and sound checked very efficiently, leaving me ample time to warm up. I even had time to...walk to an Indian restaurant for takeout!

(not the Indian restaurant)

LA is a weird place, and this was kind of a weird gig. I guess our expectations are really high about who might hear us (which is funny, because it's a very LA thing for your friends to be "unfortunately unable to attend your show"). We never really settled into this one. Nerves, or whatever. My solo on Biggest Part of Me was a big pile of poop.

Anyway, we didn't quite sell out. Nine hundred plus in attendance, which looked great, and the crowd was boisterous and energetic. I wish we could've nailed it for them. It was close, though!

Butch Walker sat in with us on Rich Girl, and Sanford and Townsend (of Smoke from a Distant Fire fame) were in the audience for at least part of the show.

this dude, trying hard to mess up the guitar amp after the show

I didn't stick around for the post-show hang, so I walked down Hollywood Blvd back to the hotel after the gig. Could've been doing this...

Saturday: On to San Diego, but first, lots of hotel lobby coffee!

future Batman

 ...and I squeezed in a run, as well. Hooray for late checkout.

I even had time to shower, walk to the Indian restaurant, walk back to the hotel, grab my goddamn wallet, walk back to the Indian restaurant again, and hit the buffet.

And then we were off to the San Diego House of Blues. A little set up, sound check, and warm up before dinner.

San Diego was great! Another full house, and a much more connected performance by the band. The Great Bencuya shone again.

After the show, we drove east, landing in La Mesa for the night.

Sunday: With a full day of travel ahead of us, I squeezed in one last run for the week. La Mesa was deserted this morning.

Coffee! We passed on Starbucks in favor of this place, which was really hip.

More driving, more flat farmland.

Lunch was at Duron's in Yuma, Arizona. A big hit!

The last show of this run was at the Van Buren in Phoenix, Arizona, which is now one of the two or three best places we've ever played. Wow! What a room! What hospitality! Free socks for everybody!

Multiple green rooms...

A great sounding stage...

'Marty'

And HO LEE SHIT! STEVE GADD CAME TO OUR SHOW! 

So, the story here is that Bencuya's high school friend lives in Phoenix, and his next door neighbor is legendary drummer ("Steve Godd") Steve Gadd. My favorite drummer. Ever. Holy shit. He's enjoying a few weeks of down time in between playing with James Taylor and Eric Clapton.

Never heard of Steve Gadd? Ever heard 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover or Late in the Evening by Paul Simon? Ever heard Chuck E.'s in Love by Rickie Lee Jones? Ever heard Just the Two of Us? How about that drum solo on Steely Dan's Aja?  For me, there's also some Brecker Brothers stuff, the first incarnation of the band Steps, and some Chick Corea albums (most notably Three Quartets). Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude. Steve Gadd defined drumming in the 70s and 80s. His discography is insane.

I still can't believe this happened.
















I think it took us all collectively about an hour to calm down after meeting Steve. This might've been our best gig of the run--the combination of the meeting him, going home the next day, and this exceptional venue. Plus, we had a terrific crowd of something like five hundred people! Wow! I'm looking forward to coming back here.

Steve Gadd stayed for the whole gig (including the encores), danced the whole night, and had a great time.

 I met Steve Gadd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Waaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!

Monday: the long flight home from Phoenix. I sat between a big, squishy ball of a man and the window, and tried not to think about peeing.

I tried to watch The Secret Life of Pets. Couldn't do it, so I re-watched Free Solo. Excellent.

STEVE GADD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Colorado Interrupted

This week, the Yacht Rock tour headed through Colorado. Originally, the plan was Boulder-Denver-Aspen, but a private gig in Houston won out, sooooo...here's three days.

Thursday: Headed to Boulder (via Denver) on a middle of the day flight, which actually proved to be quite comfortable. We left Atlanta at 1:30 PM, and with the time change, we landed in Denver and made it to the Boulder Theatre in good time.

I finished up Can You Ever Forgive Me? (see the previous blogs if you don't know what I'm talking about). There was nothing else I wanted to see, so I tried out the documentary on Ruth Bader Ginsberg, titled RBG. Hot damn. It's really good.

Anyway. The weather for Boulder was supposed to be snow/rain, high of 38. Nooooooo! Not in May! Fortunately, there was no snow, and other than a few sprinkles, no rain.

After soundcheck, I squeezed in a short run (including picking up my order at the closest Indian restaurant). This Aloo Saag, which is a spinach and potato dish, served over rice. Looks like cat vomit (according to cat owners), but tasted great. It also stunk up all of the downstairs dressing rooms.

Boulder Theatre was terrific. Not quite sold out, but very full, and the audience was excellent (and there was plenty to look at). The stage sounded good, and we all played well, too. It was a nice, relaxed start to this little run of shows.

Friday: We spent both nights at the same hotel in downtown Denver, and as a bonus, we each had our own rooms. I woke up at 6 AM, went back to sleep until 10, went downstairs for coffee, and then headed out for a run. The weather was gorgeous.

didn't go in, just ran past it

Near the end of my run, I circled around to...ta da!...another Indian restaurant. Hello lunch buffet. Plate #1: the sign said that this was Aloo Paneer, but I think it's the same thing that I had the night before in Boulder. Note the similar cat-vomit-like color and texture. It had a good kick to it.

All you can eat, so plate #2! This was Aloo Gobi, which is mainly cauliflower and potatoes. Honestly, this one didn't really taste like anything. I still ate it, though.

I managed to run back to the hotel without throwing up, and after a shower, stretching, and a failed attempt to nap, I walked the .75 miles to the Ogden Theatre for load in.

This is another nice looking, nice sounding room, and sold out always makes for a good gig. After soundcheck, most of the band wandered down the street to feast on ramen (yes, I checked, and there are no Indian restaurants within walking distance--there is a vegan place a block away, but it's a lot of quinoa and raw stuff, and ramen sounded like a better option, and everybody else wanted to go there and it wasn't busy). This was good, even though I had to fish out the half of a hard boiled egg (yuck!).

So...jeez! Denver was sold out. This was a really fun night. We had a good laugh talking about the couple in the front row who looked so miserable for most of the gig--it turned out she was Nick's cousin and her husband!

you can count 'em if you don't believe me, but that's 1,600 people

Back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep, and then it was time to head to the airport.

Saturday: 7:15 AM lobby call, headed to Houston for a private gig. It was our first time flying United--kind of interesting to deal with another airline after so many rides with Delta. Right before I passed out, I wondered if we were on one of those Boeing 737 Max planes. No? Great. I woke up somewhere over Texas as we bounced around the edges of a thunderstorm.

This was a 70s themed party for a corporate client. The doofuses that provided the backline were all over the place with the gear, and it took a while to get everything in the right place. The major bummer of this one (especially considering the difficult acoustics of the room) was that the backline guys forgot to provide the in ear monitoring system, so we had to use wedges. Needless to say, the stage sound was not what we were used to.

I guess we were at the end of a long party, because we had around five hours to kill after soundcheck. I went for a run, and we still had time to watch Pulp Fiction and Coco.

So, yeah, this was not the most inspired evening of our lives. There was some really good stuff to look at, but we were tired, we had to wait around all afternoon in,  the room didn't sound good, and those two nights in Colorado set the bar really high.

Oh well. Back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep, and then we were off to the airport again, this time for a flight back to Atlanta. Once again, I was able to sleep the whole way. Home, lunch, church gig, laundry. We're off again tomorrow!

Two More

This busy week continues! Thursday night, I had the good fortune of playing lead tenor in the Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra. It's always a challenge--sometimes I'm on bari, sometimes second tenor, sometimes lead tenor--and the setlist changes just as frequently. It's super fun, though, plus it's good to hang out with a bunch of guys I don't see every week. And I didn't totally suck! Great gig.

Here's the video from Venkman's, in case you missed the gig.

Friday night was the Yacht Rock Revue's annual performance of Purple Rain. This year, we were lucky to avoid dragging all of our stuff out to a tent deep in Piedmont Park, instead performing at The Roxy (fifteen minutes from home!). I'm not sure if it sold out, but it was definitely packed.

This was another really fun show, and it felt like we zipped through it. We've played this album enough times that the performance is really relaxed. I'm as cool with column two as I am with column one!

Extra kudos to Ganesh Giri Jaya for learning all the drum parts on short notice!

Airports and Jazz!

More airplane hangers! This time, though, we were in Atlanta at the Delta Flight Museum for a little jazz trio gig, playing background music for a small group checking out the planes and eating dinner.

I still can't decide if it was just a super easy-no pressure gig, or they forgot that they hired us. We got there, set up, and hung around for about an hour. No word from the client. Finally, I called and said "We're here! Just checking in." They were like, "Cool, it'll be great," but no directions or timeline or anything. Do your thing! Use excellent corporate jazz judgement!

People started to trickle in, so we played for about forty-five minutes. Just super casual--calling standards out of a fake book. I once had a handler/agent tell me that any longer than ten seconds between songs was too long. This was not one of those gigs!

At that point, the group meandered into the other room. Soooooo...now what? I tracked down the contact--"Where do we go?" She was fine with resetting the band wherever, so I picked an outlet on the wall in the other hanger and we brought our instruments in. After about forty-five minutes of tunes, we were passed the end time, so we stopped playing and hit the buffet, and everybody was cool, and then they had a Q and A while we munched in the corner. Easy gig!

The trio was Scott Glazer on bass, Nick Rosen on keyboard, and myself. As we were loading out, Nick mentioned that he was going to hit the jam session at Venkman's on the way home. I wanted to go, but I was also anxious about it--I thought I did a good job playing host Joe Gransden's big band a few weeks ago, and I didn't want to spoil my impression by stinking it up at the jam session.

But I went, and Joe saw me and called me up, and I played on a blues (Sandu), and actually played really well! Success! Huh! Maybe I can do this after all!

Then Joe called Nick and I up to play a tune together, and I called Invitation, and then played a good amount of bullshit, and I was not feeling so good about going to the session! I should've gone home after my gig! I have stuff to do at home!

I went to the back of the room to kind of hide and possibly sneak out, but I got called up to play on Caravan, and I felt like I mostly redeemed myself. Two out of three ain't bad?

So anyway, now I kind of feel like a goober for avoiding this jam session for so long. Joe does a tremendous job of making everybody feel welcome, and I was comfortable with the vibe and everything. Guess I'll have to make a point of coming through here a little more often.

More Airports!

Last weekend: relatively easier in comparison to the previous weeks' travels.

Friday: We played some sort of hospital fundraiser at the community airport in Covington--the usual "stage in an aircraft hanger" situation. Right? One would think this would be a boomy sounding mess, but it was a surprisingly good stage sound.

In typical corporate fashion, the first several songs were played to an empty dance floor, but after about thirty minutes, we broke through, and the dancers were plentiful.

Very easy gig. Really, the only tough thing was sitting in traffic on a Friday afternoon to get out to Covington. 

Saturday: Noon flight to Connecticut. 

someone left their breakfast in the Park and Fly

This gig...maybe some kind of fundraiser in Darien? I guess I wasn't paying attention--I have no idea. Anyway, we flew up there, set up, sound checked, and still had four hours to kill. I went for a run around town.

This gig (I mean the room) sounded terrible, but it didn't matter because there was A LOT to look at. Money and good genes everywhere you looked. Good lord. Thanks for that.

Sunday: We (most of us) were on a lunch time flight back to Atlanta, so I did a loop around White Plains, NY before we caught the hotel shuttle.

I'm trying to watch the movie Can You Ever Forgive Me? but between the two flights (and two naps) I still have about ten minutes left. I'm not wishing to get on another airplane, but I would like to see how it ends.