The End of September

Monday-Sunday, Sept 12-18: Kennesaw, GA. I played another KSU musical, this time on piccolo, flute, alto flute, Eb clarinet, Bb clarinet, and alto saxophone. Quite a spread!

Here's a funny story about this show, especially in light of my previous post about joining the musician's union. I got a text one morning from a friend/union rep, saying "Hey, KSU is looking for musicians and the money is awful. Please consider not taking this gig! If we all say no, they'll pay us decent money."

Late that afternoon, whomever was doing the contracting finally worked their way down their list to me. The money had gone up, though!

Interesting...anyway. I checked my calendar, and I could do everything the week of the shows, so I accepted, and they were cool with me missing a couple of preliminary rehearsals because I was out of town. 

A few thoughts about this messy moment in freelance music:

1. I wonder how many people said no before they got to me (I know of a couple), and amusing that even though I've worked for the production team now on several shows, I was not their first or second call.

2. I've never been one of those people for whom a gig has a set minimum price (i.e. "I won't leave the house for less than $X.00"). Obviously, the money is not good on this one, but I'm trying to get some opportunities in the theatre world, and these are the ones coming my way. Would I play this show for free? Of course not. Is this show going to pay $400 a service? Of course not. Do I want to play something besides Baker Street? Ah ha!

3. I was asked if I knew of other reed players to play the other books, and I recommended the same four or five people they'd probably called before me on the first round. Getting nowhere, the MD rewrote the other two reed books for keyboard/synths and got them covered by students. Sooo...did the union win this one? 

4. Did the union call KSU and recommend a fee more in line with their guidelines? I feel like that's a better move than having a half dozen individuals turn the gig down without explanation. Maybe the theatre department doesn't know what a respectable fee should be (even if they have to shave it down because of its place in the hierarchy of national theatres?).

5. My friend/union rep who sent me the original "don't accept this" text when the show was $70 a pop subbed for me on SpongeBob in this theatre for...$70, just five months prior.

It's certainly not my intention to undercut the other guys whose main playing income is from pit work. I'd like to play more shows, but I surely won't jump straight to the big leagues like the Alliance Theatre here in Atlanta (where the money IS more correct, and also unionized!), so I'm going with what is offered me, hoping that maybe I'm making some connections with musicians and music directors on the way up, and gaining some experience along the way.

Anyway, it was weird, just like SpongeBob was, being in an orchestra with ten people who weren't even born when I started playing shows, and they're all goofy and do stupid college shit, but it came together ok. 

Two good stories:

1. The four strings, the bassist, and the trombonist are all in orchestra--it's their class for the semester. The orchestra has a concert on Saturday, and they will all need subs. Trombonist is shocked to find out that he can't bail on the orchestra (it's for a grade, dude!). Violist never gets a sub, but maybe never mentions it to anybody, because the conductor wondered where the viola was that night. We play the show with an empty chair, no one notices. Ok!

2. Bass player gets a sub for the Friday and Saturday shows. The sub is awful, and the conductor begs him not to play many times during the performance. He's less awful Saturday after an emergency rehearsal, and the second act of the Saturday is passable. On Sunday (when the regular bassist returns), we find out that it's because he's...NOT A BASSIST AND CANNOT READ BASS CLEF! Holy moly. 

Wednesday, September 21: Atlanta, GA. I played a duo gig at a rich person's house on the river. Maybe a birthday party? Unknown. Me and piano player. He was crazy for the whole two hours. Nobody seemed to mind.

Thursday, September 22: Kennesaw, GA. Back at Kennesaw State, this time for a latin big band gig to help commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month. I played bari in the big band, but had doubles for clarinet and...alto sax? Ok! That's different. 

The room where we played is not good for a band of this volume, and the rehearsal was super shaky. Basically, you could hear yourself and the guy next to you, but not the guy next to him. I was pretty sure we were going to crash and burn.

Somehow, we pulled it off, though, and I would even say that the sound improved for the concert. I think everybody played a little softer and listened a little harder. My alto playing received zero recognition from the rest of the sax section. I really thought that people would be blowing up my phone for some alto after this one. 

I sat next to Neil Newcomb on this gig (he played second tenor), and he showed me his fancy new clarinet. It sounded really great, especially in contrast to mine. A good bit of that is the operator, though.

Saturday, September 24: Atlanta, GA. Yacht Rock played a wedding at the Atlanta History Center. This one was weird because our gear had left town to make it to tomorrow's show, so we cobbled together enough gear to get through the night. It seemed to sound ok even if it felt slightly foreign.

The catered food looked funky, so I was glad that I had enough time to go home, eat, and walk the dogs between soundcheck and the reception.

Sunday, September 25: Jacksonville, FL. Ugh. We had to get up really early to fly to Jacksonville to play some kind of taco and tequila festival. We were there around lunch and didn't play until maybe 5:30, so there was lots and lots of downtime and no good places to hang out (the provided RV-as-green-room was not nearly big enough to accommodate us all).

This one felt like it was going to be a major drag due to heat, humidity, lack of sleep, lack of enthusiasm, etc, but when we finally got on stage and got going, everybody was having a good time, and the gig turned out to be really fun.

Plus, it ended at 7:30! We packed up and made our way over to the hotel. The only food available as a Longhorn Steakhouse (actually, I think there was maybe a Zaxby's, too, and Kip ate there). The food and drinks took forever to make it to our table. Was it a staffing issue, or a training issue? Whatever it was, the situation was hopeless. I can't believe we didn't just bail and order pizzas. It would've been a good hang either way.

Thursday, September 29: New Haven, CT. Oof. Another early flight, this time to White Plains, NY. From there, we drove up I-95 to New Haven, Connecticut for a Yacht Rock show.

Scary gear moment here: I pulled the EWI out of the case, plugged the MIDI cable in, flipped the on switch...and nothing happened. Huh! Out of batteries? I swapped out the batteries, flipped the switch...nothing. I swapped the batteries again, and still nothing. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! I banged on the side of it, and it came back to life. I took the batteries out and put the first ones back in...nothing. Banged on it and and it came back on. I took backstage and took as much of it apart as I could to see if there was some kind of loose wiring, but I didn't see anything, and I could hear anything loose inside, so...huh. I put the batteries back in, banged on it, and it was fine for the gig. What's up with that?

Other than the EWI scare, this was a pretty fun gig! Obviously not a huge crowd--it's our first time here, and I think only our second public show ever in Connecticut, but it wasn't bad and they were into it, and it sounded good.

ROCK

AND

ROLL

WOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOOOO

No problems with the EWI during the show.

Afterwards, we drove about an hour to Hartford to spend the night. That was kind of rough.

Friday, September 30: Boston, MA. This evening's show was a special performance of Purple Rain at The Royale in Boston. 

This was a decent show, though I couldn't help but feel like I'm just never going to get Purple Rain perfect, and that kind of bummed me out. I'm not sure why I felt that on this night, but it kind of put a damper on it. 

Kip sure makes us sound great, though.

The Royale is a weird room--as soon as you've finished playing, you have about 45 minutes to pack up everything and get out of the room because they set up a DJ to play for an entirely new room full of people. I guess it's kind of nice because the show has to end early, though.

We drove about almost an hour to Plymouth, Mass to spend the night (including a brief stop at the wrong hotel!).

Saturday, October 1: Nantucket, MA. I woke up in the middle of the night and didn't feel very good, and it persisted long enough that I got up, went in the bathroom, and threw up. A few hours later, I did the same thing. Greg got up and took a shower, and before he could escape, I was filling up a garbage can with more barf. 

Our gig du jour was a wedding in Nantucket, and we had to stop on the way to the ferry so I could barf some more. Not a good start to the day.

Once we'd parked on the ferry, the band went up to the deck for the ride, but I stayed in the van and tried to sleep this off. When everybody came back (and I sat up), it was once again time to empty the contents of my stomach into a plastic bag. Come on! Leave me alone!

Our arrival on the island happened to coincide with the arrival of a massive storm, the remnants of Hurricane Ian, and the afternoon was a mess of heavy rain and powerful winds. After a stop for lunch (I had a plain bagel and a bottle of water to hopefully settle my stomach), we proceeded to the venue for the wedding. Here's the tent inside of the tent where the reception was to be held.

The rain and wind were blowing up under the sides of the tent, soaking the stage, so ultimately the decision was made to move us into an adjacent building. Much warmer and safer!

The puking was over at this point, but damn was I dehydrated. There was no water to be found in our green room or on stage, and by the end, I was in pretty rough shape. Good party, though, and the groom was a massive fan of mine, so I'm glad I was able to stand up and play for him.

Sunday, October 2: Nantucket Airport. We crawled back to our hotel rooms after the wedding reception to sleep for only a few hours before making our way to the airport. The early guys left at 5:30; my group (Monkeyboy and Mark Bencuya) were out the door at 6:30. The flight for the first group was cancelled, and we found them camped out in the restaurant eating breakfast. Our flight was still scheduled, so we checked in and got ready to board.

There were two flights--a very small plane from Nantucket to Boston, and then a regular jet from Boston to Atlanta. When we went outside to board the first flight, I thought, "What are we doing!!!"

Ten seats, including the pilot. Mark Bencuya is NOT the copilot!

Quite a ride! It was really bumpy and loud as we got airborne, but things settled down once we cleared the weather around the island.

Then we got into some clouds, and you couldn't see anything. And then I fell asleep.

Then it got bumpy again as we exited the clouds heading into Boston.

And we landed safely at Logan! What a ride!

From there, it was the usual airport stuff: got on the jet, passed out, woke up as we began the descent into Atlanta. I made it back home, ate lunch, went and played my church gig, went home, went to bed.

All better? Not quite! I guess I picked up a cold on the way home, because as my stomach returned to normal, my sinuses erupted. It was a week of extended recovery!

Thursday, October 6: Atlanta, GA. I teamed up with Nick and Pete to play an hour of yacht rock songs at an event for The Giving Kitchen here in Atlanta. It's always a fun time trying to rearrange these songs that we know so well into a smaller, more acoustic format!

In my previous post, I forgot to post this! Check out my little EWI duet. Hopefully my EWI will stay alive long enough for future duets.

The Rest of the Tour

Here comes a long post! The back half of the Yacht Rock tour was relentless, and there was never any time to stop and figure out what just happened. We had days off and days at home, but it was really only enough time to grab some clean underwear and print more setlists. 

Thursday, July 28: Lexington, KY. We've played here maybe twice before, and I don't know how anyone here knows about us, but we sold this show out, and they gave us several bottles of bourbon. 

Small stage, small backstage. Sounds fine, though.

Our hotel rooms had big, weird jacuzzi tubs. Here's mine with a size 11 shoe in the middle for scale. Also, it was pretty deep, so getting in and out was not the easiest! Who needs this in a basic hotel like the one we were in?

Friday, July 29: Chattanooga, TN. Five or six hours in the van. I ate a can of chili beans, cold, out of a can at a rest stop in order to win $5 from Zach.

This place has a much more comfortable backstage/green room situation. 

Big stage, big room, big crowd. Chattanooga is a good gig. However, Monkeyboy was apoplectic about the security guard posted at the corner of the stage, who he claims was blowing incredibly stinky farts at him all night. Not me, I swear! The can of beans had no effect.

Saturday, July 30: Atlanta, GA. We drove home, ate lunch and set up for a birthday party for a friend of the band. 

a guitar shaped birthday cake!!!

Easy gig, and something different. Plus...we got to go home at the end!

At the end of the night, a massive thunderstorm passed over the venue, and we had to sit around for about thirty minutes before we could push the gear out to the trailer. Kind of a bummer, but...we got to go home at the end of the night!!!

Wednesday, August 3: Denver, CO. We flew to Denver to begin one of our long stretches of shows. Denver is far enough (and enough time zones away) that we flew out the afternoon before to get a little better acclimated. 

It was an easy afternoon. I went for a run, went to dinner, hung out with an old college friend all night.

Thursday, August 4: Aspen, CO. We drove to the Belly Up in Aspen, a place we were sure we'd never play again, and yet, here we are.

backstage

The stage is small and very cold at soundcheck, but once they pack it out, it's pretty good (temperature-wise). 

I guess people really live here year round--I would've thought a place like Aspen only had a population when the ski slopes were open.

The next morning, I hiked up the mountain at Snowmass for a little trail running before we left.

Friday, August 5: Denver, CO. Back to Denver we went. Colorado sure is picturesque.

We played Fiddler's Green in Denver today. Big venue! Pretty cool.

Denver is always a good gig. In case you were wondering, the altitude in Denver is not a big deal for me. I can feel it in Aspen, but I didn't have any trouble with the oxygen here.

(photo by Mikey Mo)

After loading out, we drove around an hour to Colorado Springs to get a jump on the next day's travel. 

Saturday, August 6: Albuquerque, NM. This damn hotel has no free coffee in the lobby, so I had to make my own in the hotel room. Annoying.

My hotel room air conditioner doesn't like summer, and even though I had it as low as it would go, the night was kind of warm and humid. Good effort, though!

Hans drove us all day. We stopped in a little town in the middle of nowhere for pizza at Sexy Pizza in Trinidad, Colorado. Check out what they've made of the old train station!

More driving. The rain in the distance was beautiful.

So...Albuquerque was a weird one! It was a summer concert thing with multiple bands on one stage throughout the evening. We got there late and a salsa band had set up and was sound checking, and then we set up some stuff around them, but then their gig started and we had to split to the hotel. While we were gone, a rockabilly band played, and then a massive wedding band kind of thing with a big horn section (with questionable choices by the lead trumpet player) played run-of-the-mill stuff like "Get Down Tonight," "Brick House," and "September." They finally cleared out, we shifted our gear into place, and then it was time to go.

I had wireless microphone problems in this place. Very annoying. Zach thought it was because we were in the plaza where all the city government buildings were, and maybe they had a lot of radio frequencies in play. That was a bummer.

Also, this massive beetle monster (this sucker was an inch wide and two inches long) showed up on my gear early in the show, and I spent the next couple of ours trying to make sure he stayed away. In between songs, I would flick him off my cables or kick him away, and he would slowly plod back to me. Go away! I really thought I was going to pick up a saxophone and we'd be nose to nose. 

Sunday, August 7: Phoenix, AZ. We got up and headed to the airport. The vans headed to Phoenix. Our flight would've been short if we'd been able to fly direct, but unfortunately, we had to connect in Salt Lake City! Thank you, Delta Air Lines. Anyway, Skymiles, right?

We got to the Van Buren in Phoenix with several hours to kill before the gear arrived, so I played flute in the lobby for a couple of hours.

I also did a load of laundry.

These green rooms are sublime. No Steve Gadd this time (remember that? check it out here).

A little warming up in the alley in the hundred degree heat.

Maaan, this place is pretty great. Good room, great crowd. Dig it.

Post show: the load out

After the show, it was too hot and dangerous to run, so I ran inside on a very cranky hotel treadmill.

Just before falling asleep, it sounded like there were multiple gunshots outside. I was not the only band member to hear it. Yikes.

It was still hot the next morning in Arizona.

Monday, August 7: travel day. 

Two flights later, we landed in San Jose, California, where the temperatures we much nicer!

We had a family dinner at the teppanyaki place a couple of blocks from our hotel. Good fun!

Tuesday, August 9: day off. I planned to live primarily off bananas for the next few days, but I accidentally froze my supply in the hotel refrigerator and had to throw them all away.

I went for a run through town. It's nice, but it's also kind of deserted.

Also, I ran accidentally ran into a tree with my head.

In the evening, several of us went to eat at a Chinese restaurant inside a casino. 

We then headed to another part of town to explore a tiki bar. Drinks were had! 

Wednesday, August 10: Saratoga, CA.  Back to work! We played at the Paul Masson Winery. Such a cool venue!

Thursday, August 11: travel day. We flew from San Jose to San Diego.

the view from my hotel room

Our hotel was right on the edge of San Diego's Little Italy, so after a run around the bay, I found a seat at a restaurant where I could replenish my carbohydrates.

We tried to go to a nearby tiki bar, but the line was too long, so we settled on some hotel balcony drinking instead, talking shit and watching the planes land. Someone has a video of Monkeyboy and me stuffed into the shelves of an armoire. 

Friday, August 12: San Diego, CA. More of the same; went for run, ate some awesome Italian food.

marinara sauce recipe!

Our gig was at Humphrey's, a legendary venue. Could there be a more perfect setting for us?

we mustered for a quick photo shoot

Saturday, August 13: Los Angeles, CA. Onward we travel. A trip that, on paper, should only take two and a half hours always manages to be more like four and a half.

Zach and I had Thai food in San Clemente

We played the Wiltern in LA. It's huge! Probably a little too big for us, but it's fun to hang out in a place like that.

Sunday, August 14: Las Vegas, NV. Another day of riding in the van, watching the scenery go by.

Vegas is a weird one--it feels like nobody who lives here would ever want to go see a show, as they probably work in the service or entertainment industries. We've had some weird ones here in the past, so I don't think anybody was particularly optimistic about it.

This time, we were at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay. The crowd was probably random people from the strip, free ticket giveaways, and stuff like that. It was a decently full, room, regardless!

This was a really good show, and it felt like we were ending this trip on a high note. I would definitely play here again in the future!

Post show, I did a short run around the strip to remind myself of what a drag it is to try and run on the stip.

Side benefit of playing the House of Blues in Vegas: we spent the night in Mandalay Bay.

Monday, August 15: travel day. Ouch! We were at the airport reeeeeaaaaaaaally early to fly home.

Thursday, August 18: Ft. Wayne, IN. 

This cool truck in the Ft. Wayne airport is just that.

The is a musical instrument company in Ft. Wayne called Sweetwater, and they have a massive venue in the corner of their parking lot. It's kind of a random place to play, I guess, but it sounds ok. One of those places where people show up for whoever is playing, and not necessarily because they are fans of a particular group.

Friday, August 19: Indianapolis, IN. Ahh yeah, back in the motherland. Indy loves us.

The Amphitheater at White River is a pretty amazing venue, and I love just about everything about it (I do not love the local crew/loaders, who were major doofuses, however).

There were about a million people at the show. It was incredible. Couldn't have been better.

Saturday, August 20: Cincinnati, OH. Back at Bogart's. Another good show, and a packed room in spite of the rain that came through just as the door opened.

Sunday, August 21: Detroit, MI. This one was going to be outside, and thankfully, there was enough rain to push it indoors. This was a pretty cool, old theater that sounded good, but the crowd was small and seated, and so there wasn't much vibe to it.

I also remember that the local crew was once again pretty worthless (they brought the gear from the trailer to just inside the stage door, but didn't move it the rest of the way to the stage because they "didn't know where things were supposed to go"), and I was hot and kind of dehydrated and didn't want to be there.

My banana collection at this point.

Friday, August 26: Atlanta, GA. Night one at Chastain was Purple Rain and some other stuff. It was good to be home, but having to pull a set list worth of extra stuff back into my brain was pretty stressful, particularly the Guns N Roses song  November Rain, which we played once maybe ten years ago. There were two rehearsals between Detroit and this show, too, so...man, I was a little fried.

To top it off, Mark Bencuya's synth went haywire about an hour before the show, and there was a mad dash to find a spare one we could rent, and also to try and figure out what was wrong with it. He thinks that maybe there was a bad sample saved, and it had corrupted the sounds for all the Purple Rain stuff? The keyboard was blank for a while, and then they were finally able to get it to reboot correctly. Scary stuff. He wanted to barf.

Anyway, we made it! Pretty epic night. 

Saturday, August 27: Atlanta, GA. Night two at Chastain--the usual setlist that we'd been playing all summer, so this one was much more relaxed. Also, it was sold out--holy moly, we sold out Chastain!

Thursday, September 1: Chicago, IL. It was pretty hard to get going again after the triumph of Chastain. No sleep, early flight, ugh. Plus, we were at the venue from lunch on, so by the time we got to the gig, I was kind of over it.

lotsa pickles

lots of garlic

 I mean, Ravinia is really cool and legendary, but I'd gone for a run and played a bunch before we got on stage, and I just wasn't really in the mood anymore. Plus, all the people were just sitting there looking at us--it was kind of a boring night.

Friday, September 2: Nashville, TN. Our next gig was in a galaxy far, far away, so the gear drove and we flew to Tennessee, with a stop in Detroit. 

We got in to town early enough to go and eat lunch before the gear arrived.

This show was much better. Nashville was a fun gig.

Saturday, September 3: Columbus, IN. We were driving from Nashville to southern Indiana today for our show when we got the call that it was cancelled because the weather was not going to cooperate. Fortunately, we were just passing the Louisville airport, the whole band was able to change flights and flight home a few hours later. Yay! It was kind of a bummer that we wouldn't get to play, but everybody was really excited about the drastic change in plans. Let's go home right now!

Monday, September 5: Atlanta, GA. Back in Atlanta for Labor Day, and I picked up a big band gig put on by the local musicians' union. I hadn't been a member of the union in twenty-five years, but you had to be in the union to do the gig. It paid $450 and it cost me $165 to rejoin the union, so...laborers unite!

Such a strange gig. I guess the union has some kind of trust fund that can pay for this kind of thing, so we played this event in an arts space in Avondale Estates, and it ended up feeling like somebody's grad recital where the audience was ninety-five percent people who were performing. It was full when we started, but people would get up, play the song on two that they were involved in, and then leave, so by the time the big band played at the end, there were only about five or six people watching, and it dwindled from there! 

On top of that, the whole thing was live-streamed on the internet, but they couldn't get the livestream to work at first, so they called the union office...and it was closed because it's Labor Day! Eventually, the thing got up and running, but of the ten people in the audience, there always seemed to be somebody who wanted to sit directly in front of the camera for a song or two, so I can't imagine there was anybody on the other end watching us.

Wednesday, September 7: Marietta, GA. I did some at home recording. I'm so glad I'm able to do stuff like this at home instead of having to commute to some hole-in-the-wall studio. It's much easier to just send stuff and let them edit it.

Thursday, September 8: Dallas, TX. Here we go for the end of the tour!

Our first show was in The Colony, which is a suburb north of the city of Dallas, at a place called Lava Cantina. It's hard to know what to make of this place--I guess it's as good (or bad!) as any other place we've played in Dallas. It's kind of far from the center of town, and it's more of a "restaurant with an outdoor stage" instead of a music venue, and the stage is about six feet high so you look down on the tops of peoples' heads, the load in involves dragging the gear about a city block to a little rinky-dink elevator to lift it up to the stage--I don't know. At least the weather was decent--we've played here when it was scorching hot, and we've played here when it was cold and sleeting outside. 

Also, I don't think this is very safe. Might be time for some repairs to the venue's power? Is this safe? The whole twenty foot cable looked like this, which makes me wonder how much worse it has to get before 1. Someone gets zapped; 2. Someone's gear gets fried; 3. Someone's show gets ruined when the power goes out.

All that being said...good show! The weather was good, the sound was good, we played well, all that stuff. It was fun! And nothing got electrocuted!

Friday, September 9, Houston, TX. Another strange venue; this time on the second floor of an office building, maybe? The first van was just barely able to push the trailer up a ramp to a place where it could be unloaded. The second van was not, and after several spin outs, we had to open it at the bottom and drag all the gear up.

The room was not acoustically friendly, let's just say.

I'm not sure what he's doing

Houston's a pretty good crowd--we just haven't found a better venue than the House of Blues. 

They drank a lot, though...

The room was so loud after the show that I thought about putting in ear plugs while packing up my gear--just deafening (and blasting things like Piano Man and Who's Crying Now). The loaders decided not to take the gear down the ramp, so load out took an eternity as they brought everything back to the street via a passenger elevator in the middle of the building.

Saturday, September 10: Austin, TX. Last show of the tour! We stopped for pizza in LaGrange. Not much was happening.

It was nice to finally play a normal room! 

Good crowd tonight. 

Annnnnnnnnnd we're done! It's over! But not really. There are some private and public shows in the southeast this fall, a few days in Florida, and a couple of trips to the northeast. Plus, some non-Yacht Rock stuff in town. Stay tuned!