Newcastle

Last night was Please Pleaserock Me at Smith's Olde Bar.

It was a low energy kind of night.  We've got to figure out a way to get more people to come through the door, I guess.  The crowd last night was ok, but they didn't give us much--it was almost like they were stunned by what they were seeing.   At no point did it feel like they were all the way with us.  I wish there had been a little more unabashed enthusiasm.

The first set I was not busy, so I spent most of my time focused on the awesomeness of Mark Cobb (who is awesome).  He was killin' it.  I haven't seen much of him because he's been out of town and Yacht Rock has been kind of slow at the moment, but he really kicked ass.  

Paul Poovey played trumpet with us last night (Jason Pellett is on vacation).  Paul was outstanding!  He walked in and played the gig with no rehearsals or anything.  

Greg Lee played alto last night, and I think it made the tunes we did last night sound better.  Previously he had been playing bari, and a few times we ended up with a big gap between him and us.  Now he's right up in the middle of us--much better.

The second set featured Newcastle in the beer tub back stage.  I like Newcastle a lot.

When you listen to the recording from last night you'll probably hear me destroying She's Leaving Home--it's because I couldn't hear anything I was playing.  I will not blame that on Newcastle for that.  My hope is that nobody else could hear me either.
Newcastle is also not to blame for the end of Jet.  The jump from the bottom of the horn up to an altissimo B for the solo is hard to do.

I was much busier in the second set and could not get backstage to fetch another Newcastle.  That's the way the gig ended.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Chattanooga

I played a really easy solo sax/quartet gig in Chattanooga last night--a private party for a couple of hundred lawyers at the Hunter Museum.

The gig included Trey Wright (guitar), Louis Heriveaux (piano), and Kevin Smith (bass).  Dan Baraszu was originally on the gig, but he ended up playing with Will Scruggs for a CC Booker III gig (cool organ/sax stuff with David Ellington and Marlon Patton).

So the gig...I played solo saxophone for an hour in one part of the museum and the trio played in another.  After a break, we played the remainder of the time as a quartet.

These people were LOUD.  While the four of us were eating, the question was posed--why hire us?  I mean, these people didn't need background music.  They couldn't have cared less!  All we did was contribute to the volume.  I don't get it.  Anyway, we had fun in spite of them.  At the end of the night, one of the bartenders came up to sing "If I Ain't Got You" by Alicia Keys, so I ran like hell to get out of there.  I bet I was on the road before she finished!

I hadn't played with Louis in a while, and I'd never played with Trey.  Both play really well.  We got along great and everybody's styles meshed well.

Here are mp3s of the quartet for your enjoyment:



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Typical Thursday

Yacht Rock played our usual Thursday night at the 10 High.  I have nothing more to say...it was business as usual.  I had good reeds on both saxophones, and I integrated a better fingering for a piano part.  I wore one of my new shirts.
See--I told you I had nothing.
davidfreemanmusic.net

The Lucky 38

We had 38 paid attendees at the Yacht Rock Roller Disco.  Ouch.  After my personal triumph the night before, I came crashing back to earth.

What else can I say...I drank multiple beers before we began, and so I assume that the sound was only weird to me.  Ganesh filled in for Mark Cobb (!) on drums, and it felt like the gig was him and me playing in the Bat Cave.  The sound didn't get any better as I gradually returned to sobriety, though, so I think that's just the way it is.

Let's talk equipment problems, shall we?

1.  My effects pedal for my saxophone croaked.  Really, it was only the power supply that died.  It's an easy fix, and I think I only played saxophone on three songs, so it was no biggie, but it does mean a trip to the music store.

2.  My brass sound in my EWI rig (computer!) has gotten all out of wack.  I'm not sure how, but it just sounded terrible and splatty and distorted.  Fortunately I am days away from having my "Mainstage" version up and running, but I did waste some valuable time screwing around with it (to no avail).  I wonder why one sound in my setup got so mangled, but everything else is fine.  I guess it's the final push to get me to finish building my new virtual rig.  I've been holding onto Logic 7 for too long!

38 people?  Are you serious?  I predict that rollerskating at the Masquerade is on the way out.
davidfreemanmusic.net

Chris Burroughs Collective

I played a really cool with drummer Chris Burroughs at the only jazz club in Atlanta, Churchill Grounds.  I thought it was going to be a public gig, but it turns out it was a private event--somebody had rented out the room and hired us.


It's funny going into Churchill again.  Back when it started out, I used to go and sit in with a couple of friends (Dan Furman and Joseph Patrick Moore), back when the stage was in the front window.  Later on, I used to play at the jam session just about every week.  For a while, I was playing some gigs there as a leader.  At some point, I fell out of favor with management and they stopped hiring me.

Once they opened "The Whisper Room," I went to one last jam session there.  A few years after that, I stopped by one night and sat in with Joe Gransden.  Since then, I have not been in the room.

This being my third time, I would say it was charmed.  The gig also included Tyrone Jackson and Joel Powell (bass).  I had a wonderful time.  I was sort of worried about playing a jazz gig where I might have to think about lots of tunes--the jazz gigs I do are dominated by my own tunes.  No problems, though.  Everybody was cool and I could relax and play.

This gig felt huge to me.  I am always worried that I am busy off doing my own thing and nobody will remember me for jazz stuff.  I would do gigs like this for free!



davidfreemanmusic.net

Peg in Charlotte

Here's an audience video of us playing Steely Dan's Peg in Charlotte last Thursday.



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Park Tavern

Yacht Rock played at the Park Tavern in midtown last night--part of the Summer Concert Series there.  This particular gig was our Reagan Rock show--all music of the early eighties.  We like to think of it as a continuation of the smooth seventies hits into the next decade.

This gig was insane.  It sold out--they were turning people away!  Very cool and very surreal.  Lots of people saw us for the first time.  More and more, I don't recognize hardly anyone in the audience.  The thing just continues to grow--business is improving!

Other than that, it was fairly uneventful.  There were a few rough spots, which was understandable considering we hadn't really played most of these songs since the Variety Playhouse gig.  I felt a little more mentally aware than I did in Charlotte--in other words, I didn't feel as crappy about my performance as the previous night!

We had a different sound guy than we usually see at the Park Tavern--last night was Kip Conner, who usually runs sound for Shawn Mullins.  I think the board was frustrating him (and us).  Things that he would turn down would get turned back up, and other things would disappear.  We made it through ok, but  he seemed pretty pissed about it afterwards, and I can understand why--he's a total pro sound guy, and the thing made him look bad.

It's becoming apparent to me as we play larger venues that my little powered speaker is not powerful enough to keep up with the stage volume--it's fine when I'm right on top of it, but even six feet away is getting too far.  Right now I'm using a Mackie SRM350, and I usually use it wide open.  I think I need to jump up to the SRM450 so I can have it loud enough without the sounds distorting.  I thought about buying a big keyboard amp (since that's mainly what's going through it), but a 450 is around the same price, and I could also use it as a main speaker on gigs where I have to supply a PA.

After the gig, I was explaining the EWI to a woman, and I explained that it was a synth, but instead of having piano keys to tell it what note to play, it has saxophone fingerings.  She said, "You play saxophone?"  Ouch.
davidfreemanmusic.net