Wednesday

Once again, Scott Glazer asked me to join him at Blind Willie's for his monthly gig there. This time, we were joined by Mace Hibbard (sax), Nick Johnson (guitar), Geoff Hayden (keyboard), and Justin Chesarek (drums).

The band was in a good mood, and though I didn't feel like I played anything great, it was still fun. Mace's style is very different from mine, and I loved standing next to him while he unloaded long, creative lines. Great stuff!

Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a crowd there to see us (though there never seems to be). We had an audience of maybe four when we began, and it grew to maybe ten at the most. Blame it on the rain, or blame it on Wednesday night.

Atlanta Magazine

No gigs to speak of this weekend, but check out the big article about the Yacht Rock Revue in this month's issue of Atlanta Magazine!

http://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/confessions-cover-band-yacht-rock-revue/

10,530

Yacht Rock put up big audience numbers this past weekend, with a sellout in Nashville (600 people), and two nights at Conner Prairie in Indianapolis (4,350 and 5,580). Impressive, no?

Thursday: We're still looking for the right room in Nashville. This room sounds great, but it's kind of small--we need a thousand seater with a good vibe. In the mean time, we play here--Top Golf in Nashville (they call the music room The Cowan). Load in, soundcheck, and then we hit some balls and hung out with our Nashville buddy, Jerry Roe.

We'd been off for almost two weeks, so things were a little rusty. I definitely had a few spots where I hoped that muscle memory would save me. For the most part, it was a pretty solid show, though.

The crowd was so-so. The people across the front line were, by and large, unenthusiastic, which didn't help us with the energy. Maybe 'cause it was a Thursday? Lots of blank stares. Not sure what was up with that.

Apparently, we broadcast on Facebook.

Friday: Road trip from Nashville to Indy. The midwest is alive with corn and soybeans all the way up I-65.

Conner Prairie is a giant outdoor concert venue in Fishers, Indiana, on the northeast side of Indianapolis. There's a very large covered stage at the bottom of a smoothly rising hill, creating a natural bowl for the audience. Night one was exceptional--one of my favorite gigs we've ever played. Everybody played up to this mega-gig, and the crowd was with us from the first note.

Saturday: We each had our own hotel rooms, so I slept for as long and as hard as I could.

Next on the agenda: a run. A couple of sights from East 96th Street.

Followed by lunch at my favorite Indy restaurant, Yat's, which now has vegetarian and vegan options! Woo!

spinach and mushroom étouffée

vegan white chili

Day two at Conner Prairie. I almost didn't want to play this gig because the previous night had been so magical. What if I couldn't get the mojo happening, and then I tried too hard, and then really sucked?

Lots of video from this gig. Dig it.




























We added a local horn section for is show, and I am happy to report that my horn charts had no errors!

Here's a better than usual outro solo on Taking it to the Streets:



And then it was over! We're off again for about two weeks, and then the regular gigging (and blogging) will resume. Stay tuned.

Something Different

Three gigs this past weekend.

Thursday: I had the opportunity to once again play with the Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra (under the leadership of Rob Opitz) at Venkman's. This month, I was back in the bari sax/bass clarinet chair. How many gigs have I played in this band? Eight? Ten? This one was, by far, the most comfortable. I've now played the charts enough that it only took a couple of times to bring each tune up to speed. On the bandstand, I felt very confident, and while my playing wasn't quite flawless, I was  really pleased with my performance.

Friday: Beatles gig! A few years ago, Yacht Rock was playing a Beatles show around once a month; these days, it's two or three times a year. This evening's show was all of Abbey Road, plus seven or eight other Beatle songs. Things were a little loose, a little rusty maybe, but we had a good time.

Video of the show:



Saturday: Back to Yacht Rock. We had a show at a casino in Lake Charles, LA, so we flew to Lafayette in the early afternoon and then took a limo van to the gig.

The travel was the toughest part about it. The rented gear was exceptional, the stage sounded great, and we were only contracted to play from 8:15-9:15 PM! Easy!

nice backdrop!

The crowd was predictably subdued (old, seated, polite, unsure of exactly what they were looking at), but by all accounts, everybody liked us, so it ended up feeling like a corporate show in a hotel ballroom.

Ganesh subbed for Mark Cobb and Scott Sheriff subbed for Mark Bencuya. Both were excellent!

Sunday: The travel home was a pain in the ass. The Lafayette, LA airport is terrible--it's DIY air travel. Do your best to avoid it.

Easy

Easiest gig I've had in a while: Yacht Rock played a Sunday evening hour-long set at Ventana's, fulfilling a raffle prize for The Giving Kitchen. I brought one saxophone, flute, piccolo, and some hand percussion, and we did the gig "unplugged" style. Piece of cake!

EWI Cherries

Five gigs in a row! Yacht Rock played a stretch of five shows that ran from Friday of last week through Tuesday of this week--very different for us in that we rarely play public shows on Sunday night, and never on Monday. Nevertheless, every show was very well attended, which maybe signals that runs longer than our usual Thursday-Saturday plans are now possible. 

New fans (Myrtle Beach, Sea Island), and old fans who hadn't seen us in many moons (Raleigh, Charleston). Lots of people who'd never seen an EWI before. 

Friday: Park Tavern in Atlanta. As I've said before, it's nice to play a big gig at home. This one was 1,200 people, and they were moderately rabid. I had a pretty good show except for Arthur's Theme, which I completely ruined--for some reason, I started the string part on F major instead of D minor, played two more wrong chords, and threw up. Actually, I didn't want to throw up, but I just couldn't figure out why what I was playing didn't work, but didn't sound completely wrong (should've been D minor instead of F major, so the F and the A were right...). I had to give up on it for a second and wait for muscle memory to get me back on track. Anyway, I sucked real bad for that song, but the rest of the gig was solid.

Saturday: Raleigh. The ride from Atlanta felt like it took all day--around seven hours with the lunch stop and gas stops.

We hadn't played the Lincoln Theatre in several years. I remember it being small and kind of crummy, and it's still that way (in spite of the hip mural on the side of the building. 

So...something like 650 people showed up! (800 capacity). Woah! Last time there was 100+, so this was an excellent surprise. We had a very good, entertaining show, too; I felt really connected to what was going on, so maybe I'm getting over some burnout from the past month or so. The stage is nice and dead sounding, too, which makes the in ear mixes sound great.

I'd guess we'll be passing through here a bit more regularly now, maybe connected to Asheville,Charlotte, and South Carolina?

Sunday: On to the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach. Another one to check off the list!

Houses of Blueses we have now played: New Orleans, Chicago, Myrtle Beach, Orlando, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, and Anaheim.

Houses of Blueses we have not yet played: Las Vegas, Cleveland, and Boston.

another HoB, another fake water tower

These Houses of the Blueses are all kind of the same, but I like them--plenty of room on stage and plenty of green room space. We had a good gig here, especially considering it was a Sunday night. The room was pretty full, but we suspect there were a fair number of ticket giveaways, mostly based on the blank looks by some in the audience.

Speaking of blank looks: if you're bored with what's happening on stage, please take your fat ass and move away from the front row. For a while, the "What the hell am I looking at?" expressions were kind of funny, but after twenty minutes or so of people leaning on the barricade, acting like this was the most miserable night of their lives, I was starting to get a bit annoyed. Go back to the fucking Olive Garden if that's what makes you happy.

We debut two new songs (for us, obviously) tonight:  Lady by Little River Band, and I Love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt. We wobbled a little bit on Lady, but I Love a Rainy Night was solid. Both are really good adds.

The encore was Hold the Line and Taking it to the Streets. I had one of my better, more coherent solos on the latter. Sometimes I feel like I'm just standing there throwing up on myself until the band shuts it down.

Monday: Woah! Public show on a Monday night, and another place we haven't played in many years! We rolled into Charleston for a gig at Music Farm. Everything was way ahead of schedule until we found out we had the times wrong, and then everybody was crunched to eat and change before showtime. I managed to squeeze in about an hour of warm up and dinner at the Thai place around the corner.

Once again, the attendance was way beyond expectations, with 625 in a room that holds 800--on a Monday! It felt plenty full, and all of those people soaked up some of the sound in a very boomy room.

We broadcast the show on Facebook Live. Both of the new songs were much improved (and very well received!), and I had a good solo on Biggest Part of Me (around 51:32).



Tuesday: One more gig! We were hired to play a concert at the Sea Island Beach Club. The stage was set up in between the back lawn and the dunes. Scenic, but very windy.

All of the gear was unloaded from the trailer to a box truck, driven to the beach, and unloaded onto the stage.

This gig started slow, but after about an hour, people finally started moving closer to the stage, and the night ended with an extra long and pretty aggressive photo/selfie session. No big solos to speak of on this one, which was a good thing because I was fried by the time we finished.

Once they let us go, we cased everything back up. From there, back on the box truck, driven back to the front of the building, and Kip and Zach repacked the trailer. We then drove a little of an hour back to Savannah to spend the night. It was a long day.

No gigs to speak of this week, but Friday, July 13, we'll be playing Abbey Road and more Beatles at Venkman's in Atlanta. It should be a really good change of pace for us. I'm looking forward to it.

Blind Willie's

Scott Glazer asked me to play on his Wednesday night gig at Blind Willie's, in a stellar band that included Akeem Marable on saxophone, Nick Johnson on guitar, Nick Rosen on keyboard, and Justin Chesarek on drums.

In spite of the rain, we had one of the best crowds we've ever had on a Wednesday night (maybe 25 people?), and they were into it, cheering with enthusiasm after solos and songs. This rhythm section was slammin'--blow-you-away moments from Nick, Nick, and Justin, all night long. I did my best to keep up.

Outdoorsmen

Last Friday, I was invited to participate in a local podcast titled The Drummers Weekly Groovecast, hosted by Phil Smith, a friend of mine for over twenty years. The topic of the show? Outdoor gigs! Tis the season...there will be heat and humidity, but there may also be blazing sun, ferocious thunderstorms, and swarms of bugs. Nothing too profound was mentioned, but here it is anyway...




So...ugh. I hate the sound of my voice.

Saturday: Boom! Outdoor gig! I played with Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo at a place in Alpharetta called Matilda's. I've seen pictures of other people playing this venue, and it looked pretty cool--the band sets up on the porch of a small house and plays to people sitting in the yard. It's kind of a backyard concert sort of thing. Could be cool.

Unfortunately, Matilda's is moving from the old location to a new location, and in the mean time, their setup is in a lot behind an old barn. It's in pretty bad condition. That's a tarp bungeed over some cables, and old painter's scaffolding for a (bouncy) stage. The PA is sounds really beat up, and there are a few lights right at eye level aimed at the band. Also, the power is coming from a generator, and it may or may not have fried both the bass and guitar amps.

don't drop anything!

In spite of all this, we had a decent turnout, and the people were nice and liked the music, and I like the relaxed vibe of it. When they move to the new place, it's going to be cool, but this spot is not.

The Mojo Dojo gig is pretty loose, so there was no pressure, and we didn't crash and burn on anything, but we tried a couple of times.

Sunday: Yacht Rock was back in action, this time outside at a festival in Charlotte, NC. 95 degrees at load in.

There was a threat of a thunderstorm, so we put a giant tarp over our gear, causing the rain to immediately dissipate.

And then after a long afternoon of sitting around (I did squeeze in a run on a treadmill where we were hanging out), we finally hit the stage around 8 PM. Pretty good gig! I felt pretty connected to what was going on on stage (not always the case lately), so maybe I've turned some sort of corner.

The temperature mercifully leveled off once the sun went down, and the crowd of maybe 1,200 was very calm for all the beer and sun they'd had that day.

One more thing--there was a large drain right in front of the stage that was connected to a very foul sewer line, and every time the wind would blow towards us, it was like somebody had knocked over a porta-potty. How all those people withstood the smell, I'll never know.

Somebody recorded several songs. Check 'em out.




















Onward! Gigs this weekend:

1. Friday: Park Tavern in Atlanta
2. Saturday: Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, NC
3. Sunday: House of Blues in Myrtle Beach, SC
4. Monday: Music Farm in Charleston, SC
5. Tuesday: some kind of private thing in Sea Island, GA

European Vacation

Cool gig of the year for Yacht Rock: we were invited to play a birthday party for about a hundred people at a house (manor?) in Windsor, GB, just outside of London. Built into that was a couple of days to overcome the jet lag/hang out in London. Vacation time! I was able to bring my family to experience the trip.

Wednesday: we took an evening flight directly from Atlanta to Heathrow. No changing planes (some of the guys took a flight that had a connection in JFK and were delayed for hours).

I watched two movies: The Post and Hostiles. Both were excellent.

Thursday: We landed in England on an hour or two of sleep, took an expensive cab ride to our hotel, and then headed off exploring.

the British Museum

the Rosetta Stone

Piccadilly Circus

Buckingham Palace

Thursday evening, the entire band took a field trip to Royal Albert Hall for a special concert--the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and the English Chamber Choir performed the score to Close Encounters of the Third Kind as the movie played on the big screen. The room was breathtaking. The sound was beautiful. While watching the movie, it was easy to forget that the orchestra was performing as well--everything was completely balanced and in sync.

We walked to the train station after the concert.

Harrod's is just down the street

Friday: Another band field trip--the London Eye!

From there, we headed across the river to Westminster.

After lunch in a pub, we made our way along the river (via the Underground) to Tower Hill.

Tower of London

From there, we crossed the river, via the Tower Bridge.

We staggered back to the hotel after this, destroyed by the jet lag.

Saturday: Gig day! The band Ubered to Windsor. Our driver drove us to the address, and upon arrival said, "I don't know where we are, but you are here!" Quite a home.

the backyard

the front yard, with horses grazing

the house!

This gig was pretty great--I have zero complaints! The gear worked, the people were cool...yeah! Piece of cake. It always helps when people are dancing from the first song, as was the case on this night. I think we made a lot of new fans from all around the globe--we'll see where this gig takes us next!

Andy Warhol kept an eye on me

Sunday: The band headed home; my family headed to Stonehenge.

boom

The nearby town of Salisbury is beautiful, and we had a few hours to eat lunch and check out the town before heading back to London.

Salisbury Cathedral

Back in London, we headed out for dinner and some more exploring.

St. Paul's Cathedral

the Globe Theatre 

St. Paul's Cathedral, from the Millennium Bridge

Monday: Off to Paris!

King's Cross Church outside the train station

We took the Eurostar train that runs under the English Channel from London to Paris at 180 mph. Amazing.

lunch in Paris

Arc de Triomphe

Place de la Concorde

Jardin des Tuileries

the Louvre

Got it! Then, off to the Eiffel Tower! We took the stairs as far as we could, and then the elevator to the tip top. Incredible!

Friday: Our first mission was to head to Notre Dame.

Saint-Jacques Tower

the River Siene from Pont Notre-Dame

inside Notre Dame

outside Notre Dame

From there, we headed South through the city.

macaroons!

Pantheon

Val-de-Grace Hospital

We tried to go to the Catacombs, but the line was two hours long, so...to the subway!

Our next destination: Montmartre.

Sacre Coeur Cathredal

the view from the front door of Sacre Coeur

inside Sacre Coeur

And with that, it was time to head back, collect our suitcase, and make our way to the train station for the ride back to London.

zoom zoom

Wednesday: Another expensive cab to the Heathrow, boarded the plane, and sat there for 8 hours. Fun! I watched three movies (Battle of the Sexes, Deadpool, and The Reverant). Dead pool was ok, but the other two were really good.

Customs was hellish--a miserable hour long grind at the end of a long week.