Back and Forth to Florida

The last few weeks have had a good amount of variety, which is how I prefer it! Here's what happened:

Saturday, March 5, I played a duo gig in Waleska, GA with Bill Graham. Waleska is about an hour and a half north of Atlanta, up in the mountains (up 575, if you're local to the area). This was a New Orleans/Mardi Gras gig at a country club, even though it was four days after Mardi Gras, but whatever. We played jazz tunes for three hours, and it was great fun!

Bad GPS almost killed me, though, as this county club was in the back of a gated community, and the directions on my phone stopped about a half mile short of where they should've taken me. I turned around, drove back almost to the entrance, put in the address again, drove to the "wrong" spot again, drove back, got directions, went to a different place, tried GPS again, turned around again, asked somebody else again, got sent to a different place, got directions from someone else, finally got in touch with Bill (who was having similar issues but had finally figured it out), and finally landed in the parking lot right as the gig was supposed to begin. Damn! All good after about ten minutes, though.

They fed us after the gig (an enormous veggie burger and fries for me), which was a major bonus.

Two days later, Yacht Rock traveled to Orlando for a corporate gig.

Been here before...(you can reminisce here--this place was night 2 in that blog post).

Dinner was pretty excellent.

Dessert, also excellent.

This sucker was supposed to be outside, but Florida weather got us--the rain came right around when we were starting. Fortunately, the event had already been moved indoors to an enormous ballroom, so we were spared the hassle of packing up under duress. It was a really easy, gig, though. I think we played ninety minutes, if that. No big deal.

Speaking of packing up--holy hell--the loaders/local crew on the gig were WORTHLESS!

The view from my room after the gig. It did, indeed rain.

The following Friday, March 11, I played tenor with Bumpin' the Mango in Buford. I hadn't seen these guys in a couple of years, so it was great to reconnect with them. This was my first gig using a big iPad for charts, and it worked just fine (other than trying to wrestle my iPad clamp into a good position on the mic stand). Technology for the win!

We played at a place called Tannery Row in Buford, a big high ceiling, concrete floor kind of room next the railroad tracks. It felt pretty new, and sounded ok. Anyway, it's better than crowding onto a Wild Wing stage or something.

And I played great! I happened to be having a really good night (my chops are finally coming back together)--it felt like I rose to the occasion for this one.

Friday, March 18, Yacht Rock headed back to Florida, this time to Boca Raton. Our 11 AM flight out of Atlanta was delayed nearly an hour, though as a strong storm crossed through town right then. I, of course, slept through the whole rain delay and all the bumpy awfulness of the first hour of the flight. Basically, I zonked out pretty much as soon as they closed the door, and woke up on our initial descent into Ft. Lauderdale.

And I woke up to see that I had been seated next to a MADMAN who flew the whole way (I presume) with the window shade up! What kind of country is this! Come on, man! It's Florida! There's nothing to look at!

Our show was another corporate thing. Nice rooms here at The Boca Raton.

Nice spot for a gig. The weather at this time of year was perfect.

Another easy corporate thing. At first, it looked like we were going to be completely ignored the whole night, but in the last hour of the night, people finally began to congregate closer to us. And the crazy dancing drunk guy found his way to the front of the stage, which we all enjoyed immensely.

After the gig, I did my best to sleep, because I had to get back to Atlanta early the next day to squeeze in a rehearsal before our gig. Sooooo, up at 5:30 AM, in a Lyft at 5:45 AM, 30 minute car ride back to the Ft. Lauderdale airport, 25 minutes in line for a big ol' cup of coffee from Starbucks, got on the plane, passed out immediately, woke up on our initial descent into Atlanta, jumped off the plane, nobody on the plane train...

...nobody on the park and fly shuttle...

...went home, grabbed my flute, clarinet, alto, and iPad, drove to Kennessaw, did a 4 hour rehearsal for an upcoming musical (SpongeBob the Musical), drove back home, grabbed my Yacht Rock gear, drove to Venkman's, set up, went for a little run, changed clothes, and played the gig there.

Whew!

I thought I played really poorly on this show, but now that I look at the setlist, maybe not...maybe my brain was just fried at the end of a very long day, because other than the first song (our debut performance of Cool Change, which felt a little shaky on my end), and skipping over a song on the setlist, I can't really remember any really bad moments (except, maybe for some careless bongo playing in Two Tickets to Paradise). I had some good sax solos, so I suppose it was better than I thought.

I'm still loving the new the setup at Venkman's. We'll be back in April to do another night (maybe two?).

And the next day, I took part in a 5K (came in 3rd overall), and played another 4 hour SpongeBob rehearsal, so I was kind of wiped out by Sunday night.

In other news, Rob's got a new project out--The Peter Gabriel Tribute--and I played on Sledgehammer. Check it out!

Also, I made a couple of more little videos of my own.

Wazzup

After the big Jamaica trip, we resumed activity the following week at the Miami Boat Show in Miami Beach. It was great to see all of our gear again!

The weather was definitely going to be tricky--there were lots of little pop up showers blowing in off the ocean. It wasn't rain so much as mist, and it came and went quickly (we were starting to put away gear as the rain intensified, the DJ behind me looked out and said, "Don't bother. It's almost over"). They decided to tarp the stage after soundcheck just in case.

I went for a run. Wednesday afternoon at the beach is pretty quiet.

It occurred to me while running back towards the stage that Miami Beach is what the rest of the county thinks is Miami. Past and present residents know it's more like US-1, strip shopping malls, and endless canals as far as the eye can see!

The Art Deco thing is still really cool, though.

Back to the stage, hanging around, waiting for the gig to start. We were going to play 7:30-9:30, then it became 7-8, and then 7-8:30.

We got started for a small crowd, and then it started to spit rain a little bit, and everybody moved under the cover to our left, and over the course of about six songs, they dispersed, leaving us to play for four or five people! We stayed on stage for about fifty minutes before the gig was called.

In other news, my friend Steve Augeri released a new song, If You Want, that we recorded about a year ago. I recorded my part at home and emailed it, and we talked on the phone to make some adjustments. Why doesn't it happen this way more often? Anyway, the song turned out great. Enjoy!

Church gigs are back! The cathedral in Atlanta where I have been playing off and on for over twenty years finally allowed wind players back. Yay for that! My regular service with this group ended March 15, 2020, in the beginning of the Covid pandemic. 

This gig is a great way to keep my flute chops in shape. I was actually kind of nervous at the beginning--the style is somewhere between folk and classical, and so I fret much more about intonation and phrase endings and stuff that doesn't bother me when Yacht Rock plays Lowdown.

Also happening right now, I've been writing horn parts for a friend's Christmas album. The rhythm section parts are recorded and then sent to me, and I've been stacking lots of saxophones! Here's a bit of one of them, called Snowfall.

More of these to come as I crank them out!

In the world of Yacht Rock, things are slow for the next couple of weeks--just fine with us, as Nick is out with a ruptured Achilles tendon. In a couple of weeks we hit the road again, with subs, until he's able to hobble out and sit on a stool. It may be until the end of the summer before he's sidestepping again.

Jamaica and Jazz

If you missed Yacht Rock's Steal Away trip to Jamaica, you really missed a good time. The weather was wonderful, the scenery was sublime, the gigs were good...and my wife was happy. What more could you want?

Ok, so getting there was a little bit tough--for some reason, Delta didn't give us our usual medallion status perks (multiple free checked bags, in this case), so all the gear had to be shuffled around between people so that we didn't have to pay a fortune (my three music cases plus a suitcase would've cost $390 because the cost per bag raises exponentially). 

Also, the customs process for bringing in a bunch of musical equipment was also a major hassle--basically, each of us had to show the customs officer each item we had listed on a manifest. I had a page of stuff all by myself, so you can imagine how fun it was when we got down to her asking me to show her saxophone reeds.

But we made it! Several naps later, we reached the resort, ate something, and explored the premises. Friday afternoon looked like this:

Our room for the duration...

I also went for a run, which was basically me running along a two lane highway, stopping periodically to love on (adopt/steal) all dogs that I encountered. This guy was just one of four I talked to on this night.

The sunset from our room...

The next day, we set up for our first show. Epic views! The gear was pretty ragged though. Obviously, the rental company is not sending their finest stuff to live in a tent on a Caribbean beach for two months! We made do, though. I had a Nord Electro 2 (remember when everybody thought those sounded great? Ouch!) and a Fantom that I thought had some sort of computer failure--it would randomly sustain notes. At first I though it was a bad sustain pedal, but I tried several pedals (all with the same problem), and then it still sustained with no pedal at all.  Hmmm. Interesting.

I guess I thought there'd be more people, but then I heard from Pete that there were only something like 180 rooms and we'd sold maybe 150 of them, so this thing was going to max out around 350 people. In my mind, I imagined us playing to 2,000 people on the beach. So anyway, our numbers were good!

Pretty solid first gig! The sustain thing only happened once, and I was able to kill the sustain by immediately changing sounds. Otherwise, we were all maybe a bit disoriented by the on stage sound (especially Monkeyboy, who had a miserable time trying to get his monitor mix set to his liking), but everybody rolled with it.

Day three! The morning view from our balcony. Nothing but sharks.

Behind the stage was a building housing the spa and the gym, and also a secure (24 hr guards!) air conditioned office where we could leave our personal equipment. I used it as a practice room for a few hours every day (sorry Beth!). Here's the view from my practice room!

Gig number two of the trip was all 80s stuff--another easy night of work. The lighting guy really blasted the stage with haze, though.

Day four--I guess it's Monday. More dogs. Hello fren. 

No gig today, but tomorrow's setlist was all request, so I had to set up a keyboard and go over a few songs that I haven't thought about in a few years (mainly You Are by Lionel Richie). Outside, Ambrosia played their entire set at soundcheck, just like they always do.

In an exciting practice room development, I solved the sustain issue! The stage, the keyboard stand, and the keyboard were vibrating a lot while we were playing, and the release knob was moving! I usually put all of these knobs as counterclockwise as they'll go, but I figured out that if I put the release as clockwise as it could go, it couldn't "open" anymore when it vibrated. Salvation! Jah will provide!

Release, by the way, is a synth term which is basically how much of a tail is on a note. If you play a note and let go and it goes "Ah" and it abruptly ends, that's no release, if on the other hand, you play a note and let go of it and it goes "Ahhhhhhhhhhh," that's a long release. So the problem I had was that the knob would make sounds have an infinitely long release, as in "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh." Not what I want.

When I first got my Fantom, the "RESO" (resonance) knob would randomly do this, and so I'd be playing, and all of the sudden it would sound like Star Wars blasters. Very embarrassing. The long term fix is to replace the circuit board on this part of the keyboard. You can buy it for $75 here: https://www.keyboardkountry.com/roland-fantom-x6-7-8-left-panel-board/. You're welcome. No soldering. Easy installation.

Anyway, after dinner, Beth and I watched Nick's solo show (with guest Elliot Lurie!). Excellent setlist and performance.

And then we watched Ambrosia (with Greg Lee on bass and Mark Bencuya on organ). Kip had a wonderfully clear mix, and it sounded really good where we were standing.

On our last full day, I went for one last run (no dogs would pose for photographs, though), passed a COVID test (so we could go home!), ate a bunch, paddle boarded, kayaked, and it rained, and I spent some time in the practice room. Here's the view after the rain.

My flute pretty much fell apart during this session--I thought it was a pad that maybe got wet with all the humidity and condensation, but it turned out that a screw had worked its way loose, and several keys became misaligned. Damn! I guess, though, that I am somewhat relieved to find out that my embouchure wasn't going to hell over the course of an hour and a half. All of this travel is tough on my instruments.

This was the picture on the door to our room by the way. Is it a joke, or stupidity? That's the guys from the Yacht Rock Schooner. Close, but no cigar.

So...the last night. Maybe our best show of this trip? It was a fun time for sure, and the all request aspect gave us some different songs to think about. I only played flute on four measures of Afternoon Delight, so that wasn't really an issue. I got You Are mostly right.

Thursday morning, we got up and ate at the buffet one more time before making our way to the airport. We ate almost every meal here. It was loud, and ordering food was difficult with plexiglass shields and masks and Jamaican accents. I could (eventually) get enough fruit and salad and rice and beans and potatoes to satisfy me, though.

At the airport, those of us with the piles of gear (guitars, pedalboards, saxophones, etc) dealt with the customs lady again (making sure we didn't sell of it on the black market while we were here "on vacation"). 

We stood next to the bus for a while and waited for customs...

...and then walked to the customs office, where they counted our gear back in. The officer then escorted us to the terminal and stood by while we checked in...slowly. The whole process took over an hour, and cost plenty of money because Delta didn't give us any love. Shouldn't it be like this? We're all Platinum Medallion people. I don't get it.

When it was time to board the plane, I was one of the people randomly selected for extra screening (they said it was TSA, but we were in Jamaica, so...how does that work?). I had to take everything out of my backpack, lay it on the table, and they checked it for explosives. They also checked my shoes and socks. The lady also yelled at me for taking this picture, so I blamed my wife.

Then we sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half before taking off because of some kind of maintenance log thing that Delta needed to sign off on, but whatever--I was already asleep by then, and I continued sleeping like a dead guy for the first two hours of the flight.

Look! Atlanta traffic!

We landed, made it through US Customs (the officer was very nice--sometimes they can seem a bit intimidating), collected all my gear, bungee corded it all together, took the shuttle back to the parking deck, wheeled it out to our car...and the key fob was dead! Holy shit! Now what? I thought we'd have to haul everything back to the terminal and hope that a shop would have one of those strange little batteries, or sit and wait for someone to drive our spare car keys down to the airport, but Beth did an internet search and found out that inside the key fob was a small key so that we could open the car. A second internet search said that if you hold the dead fob next to the power button on the dash board, the car will read it and you can start the car. Who'd a thunk it!

That was Thursday...on Saturday, I had a little jazz quintet (sax, keyboard, bass, drums, and a vocalist) at a birthday party. This Civil War era house was in a rough part of town on the south side of Atlanta, but check out how super cool the interior is!

You can see more about it on the house's website here:  https://www.the1043.com

This gig, though...all these jazz gigs are just casuals, and you never know who you're playing with until you get the email with the details. In this case, I knew the bass player and the drummer from other jazz gigs around town, but I was not familiar with the vocalist and keyboardist (who are husband and wife). The keyboardist was not at all a jazz guy--not only was he not familiar with the material, but we didn't really have a leader, so he would just start playing the next song on the setlist his wife created without any kind of plan about how to arrange the performance--like, "hey, let's play the last eight measures as an introduction before the vocals," or "let's vamp in G until she starts singing."

And then the tunes, the chords...oof. It'd be like dropping your neighborhood piano teacher into a jazz gig. It was just too much, so we had to very aggressively ignore whatever he was doing. In all fairness, I think he was a last second sub for somebody who backed out of the gig, but it was ROUGH. He was in waaaaaay over his head. And on the inside, I was just howling with laughter because I love gigs like this were things go totally berserk and it doesn't matter (and it's not my fault or responsibility). To make matters worse, I was playing like "I might not play another jazz gig for the rest of the year, so I'd better make the most of it by playing a million notes and playing as fast and as complicated as I can while also trying to clearly outline every chord and also constantly suggesting the melody so that the three of us who know this song can keep our place" on every song.

The people at the party thought we were great anyway. No harm, no foul, I guess. And I had a great time--I mean, jazz gig! I'm on it! Here comes all the notes! Here's everything I've been practicing!

Also--this might be my favorite story from the gig--the keyboardist read on the email with the details that he needed to bring his own keyboard, so he did--but no amp! And the vocalist--brought a microphone, brought a microphone stand--but nothing to plug it into! Holy cow! Fortunately the bass player lived close enough that he could race home and grab a powered speaker so that we could all hear them. 

Quick load out, though. One saxophone. Didn't have to go through US Customs on the front porch or anything, and I was sitting on the couch in my pajamas eating crap forty-five minutes later. Gotta love that! And my car started!