Here are a few videos from the Variety Playhouse show a few Fridays ago:
Here are a few videos of me from last night:
davidfreemanmusic.net
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
The Weekend That Was
I got so busy gigging and sleeping that I was unable to blog!
Early last week, I got the set lists for the weekend's gigs. After enduring a few weeks where I felt totally directionless on stage, I decided that I was going to be very prepared. I set out practicing everything--no surprises!
Thursday: A really good night at the 10 High. Nick picked a great set list, and we were on it. We had a good mix of oldies and new stuff, and the crowd was more responsive than any other Thursday in January.
Right before we started, the little voice in my head threw me a curve ball--what if I was so prepared to play the gig, I couldn't focus on playing, and instead spaced out? Hmm. Fortunately, it never happened. I felt really good about everything. Greatest American Hero was the second song in, and I nailed the synth thing in the bridge! Woo!
Friday: We returned to 8 Traxx Disco (Andrews Upstairs). Sold it out--six hundred forty people, I think? They pre-sell five hundred and then offer a hundred tickets at the door, and they went over that. It was nuts.
I altered my set up a little bit--I got my laptop and my speaker on my left like I do for every other gig. I liked this set up a lot more. It felt a little more normal, and on a crappy stage like that where everything feels like I'm all alone, familiar is good.
Of course, the Andrews gig is (for me), a two set exam with Mark Bencuya as the proctor. Normally we are on opposite sides of the stage, and if I flub a couple of notes, I might be able to get away with it. At Andrews, he's sitting right next to me, and I know he can hear me really well--too well? Anyway, it was the best I've ever played sitting next to him. I'd give myself an A! I can't think of anything I ruined, and lots of stuff where I came through--Greatest American Hero was good again, and I finally slayed the synth build up thing in Lido Shuffle! Woo!
Since it's Buckhead, there was weirdness, though. I packed all my stuff and stacked it at the front of the stage. Upon returning from taking a load of gear out, I discovered that someone had stolen the base of my laptop table. What the hell? Some drunk idiot made off with a chrome tripod? I don't get it. Maybe it will turn up, but I am not optimistic. The base of a folding music stand will do for now, but I'd really like to get that back. So weird.
Saturday: Yacht Rock went to the 40 Watt in Athens. Probably the best sound we ever have on a gig. The 40 Watt guys are on it! I ran my sax separate from the rest of my rig so the sound guys could have a little more control (and I could have it coming out of the monitor in front of me). When the sax is only in my little powered speaker, it's really hard to hear as I walk away from it. This solution is way better. Hopefully the front line guys will put a little sax in the monitor.
Great crowd in Athens. They were nuts from the beginning. It was really fun to play. We did two encores!
Our old second keyboardist Brandon Still was at the gig. I'm glad I didn't know ahead of time. It probably would've messed me up to know he was listening.
While setting up my stuff, I noticed that my EWI had something rattling around in it! Not good! It turns out that one of the octave key rollers had come loose. I taped it into place so it wouldn't touch the roller below it (or fall out completely). The thought occurred to me that I might be able to take the thing completely apart and fix it backstage, and then I had thoughts of NOT being able to get it back together. Taping the roller in position worked fine as a band aid.
Sunday: We got back to Atlanta at 4:15 AM. I was in bed at 5, and probably asleep twenty minutes after that. I was then back up again at 7 AM so I could leave at 7:30 for my church gig. Ouch! I slept in my clothes--including my jacket and shoes. Basically, I stood up, drank a cup of coffee, and left for the next gig!
Church gig number one was normal. I tried wearing headphones like the rest of the band, but the mix was really bad (and super loud), so I decided to just without. I can hear everything fine, anyway. I could use more bass (I'm only hearing the house), but the headphones sound horrible, so I'm going to deal with it.
I was asleep again by 11:30 AM!
I got up at 4:30 PM, took a shower, ate, and left for church gig number two.
The sound was back to normal--the old spot on the main fader was the right one again, after two weeks of it sounding like we were outside the church. What the hell? It sounded pretty good. I messed around with the EQ on the piano to try and get a little more clarity out of the left hand. That was about it.
I got home, ate again, and took my EWI apart. It turns out the top and bottom rollers were BOTH loose. Not good. Two nuts rolling around inside there. I turned the thing around like a piggy bank until both came out. Reinstalling them was pretty painless. It's all back together.
Easy week ahead.
davidfreemanmusic.net
Early last week, I got the set lists for the weekend's gigs. After enduring a few weeks where I felt totally directionless on stage, I decided that I was going to be very prepared. I set out practicing everything--no surprises!
Thursday: A really good night at the 10 High. Nick picked a great set list, and we were on it. We had a good mix of oldies and new stuff, and the crowd was more responsive than any other Thursday in January.
Right before we started, the little voice in my head threw me a curve ball--what if I was so prepared to play the gig, I couldn't focus on playing, and instead spaced out? Hmm. Fortunately, it never happened. I felt really good about everything. Greatest American Hero was the second song in, and I nailed the synth thing in the bridge! Woo!
Friday: We returned to 8 Traxx Disco (Andrews Upstairs). Sold it out--six hundred forty people, I think? They pre-sell five hundred and then offer a hundred tickets at the door, and they went over that. It was nuts.
I altered my set up a little bit--I got my laptop and my speaker on my left like I do for every other gig. I liked this set up a lot more. It felt a little more normal, and on a crappy stage like that where everything feels like I'm all alone, familiar is good.
Of course, the Andrews gig is (for me), a two set exam with Mark Bencuya as the proctor. Normally we are on opposite sides of the stage, and if I flub a couple of notes, I might be able to get away with it. At Andrews, he's sitting right next to me, and I know he can hear me really well--too well? Anyway, it was the best I've ever played sitting next to him. I'd give myself an A! I can't think of anything I ruined, and lots of stuff where I came through--Greatest American Hero was good again, and I finally slayed the synth build up thing in Lido Shuffle! Woo!
Since it's Buckhead, there was weirdness, though. I packed all my stuff and stacked it at the front of the stage. Upon returning from taking a load of gear out, I discovered that someone had stolen the base of my laptop table. What the hell? Some drunk idiot made off with a chrome tripod? I don't get it. Maybe it will turn up, but I am not optimistic. The base of a folding music stand will do for now, but I'd really like to get that back. So weird.
Saturday: Yacht Rock went to the 40 Watt in Athens. Probably the best sound we ever have on a gig. The 40 Watt guys are on it! I ran my sax separate from the rest of my rig so the sound guys could have a little more control (and I could have it coming out of the monitor in front of me). When the sax is only in my little powered speaker, it's really hard to hear as I walk away from it. This solution is way better. Hopefully the front line guys will put a little sax in the monitor.
Great crowd in Athens. They were nuts from the beginning. It was really fun to play. We did two encores!
Our old second keyboardist Brandon Still was at the gig. I'm glad I didn't know ahead of time. It probably would've messed me up to know he was listening.
While setting up my stuff, I noticed that my EWI had something rattling around in it! Not good! It turns out that one of the octave key rollers had come loose. I taped it into place so it wouldn't touch the roller below it (or fall out completely). The thought occurred to me that I might be able to take the thing completely apart and fix it backstage, and then I had thoughts of NOT being able to get it back together. Taping the roller in position worked fine as a band aid.
Sunday: We got back to Atlanta at 4:15 AM. I was in bed at 5, and probably asleep twenty minutes after that. I was then back up again at 7 AM so I could leave at 7:30 for my church gig. Ouch! I slept in my clothes--including my jacket and shoes. Basically, I stood up, drank a cup of coffee, and left for the next gig!
Church gig number one was normal. I tried wearing headphones like the rest of the band, but the mix was really bad (and super loud), so I decided to just without. I can hear everything fine, anyway. I could use more bass (I'm only hearing the house), but the headphones sound horrible, so I'm going to deal with it.
I was asleep again by 11:30 AM!
I got up at 4:30 PM, took a shower, ate, and left for church gig number two.
The sound was back to normal--the old spot on the main fader was the right one again, after two weeks of it sounding like we were outside the church. What the hell? It sounded pretty good. I messed around with the EQ on the piano to try and get a little more clarity out of the left hand. That was about it.
I got home, ate again, and took my EWI apart. It turns out the top and bottom rollers were BOTH loose. Not good. Two nuts rolling around inside there. I turned the thing around like a piggy bank until both came out. Reinstalling them was pretty painless. It's all back together.
Easy week ahead.
davidfreemanmusic.net
Monday, January 24, 2011
Big Weekend!
We were all pleasantly surprised to see a pretty full (700+) room on Friday night. All the work that had gone into learning that music deserved a good audience, and we got it. Very cool!
The efforts of Cobb, Bencuya, and Nick were amazing--the three of them played a TON of music. Not one of their heads exploded. Dannells carried a ton of (musical) weight in The Dark Side of the Moon, and was brilliant throughout (even if he's still pissed about the solo in Time). Every solo on that album is a classic (and David Gilmour's stuff is always so melodic that it sticks in your ear!), and Dannells' tone and technique were spot on. My hero!
For my part, I was mostly just reading charts and trying to stay in tune. I don't know if the charts are the problem or what, but for me the gig felt more like a sideman than a part of the band, and I couldn't get that into it. I think I played well and I was more than happy to help, but I felt that my contribution was miniscule, and that's really all I was doing--helping. This project like it was mine--I was just along for the ride.
Peter Stroud played in the XTC band Nigels With Attitude. What a neat guy! He plays great, he's super nice, he looks like a rock star. He's royalty around us. When Peter speaks, everybody listens to what he has to say. After the show, I he spent a couple of minutes praising my playing--really cool of him.
Saturday: Back to Yacht Rock.
We played a private party at the Westin Buckhead. It was a pretty bland event, and twenty-four hours after the Variety Playhouse, were came crashing back to earth--ignored by a couple of hundred people more interested in two minutes in the money cube.
I played well on this gig, though I had a lot of trouble finding the right volume level. Everything felt too quiet or two loud. At one point I turned my amp all the way down and tried to play off the room sound. Weird. I mentioned how I could hear my sound slapping off the opposite wall, and he said he couldn't hear me at all.
It was a super easy gig, though--three sets of the usual stuff. No equipment catastrophes, no drunk idiots, no cigarette smoke.
We had a lot of down time in between soundcheck and the gig.
Sunday: church gigs.
My first church gig of the day was strangely cohesive, considering how seat-of-the-pants it was. I think the band is getting better about reading the leader.
Where as last week I think I played almost exclusively soprano sax, this week was all flute and tenor. This week also had the children's choirs singing along to tracks and standing WAAAAAAY to close to my horns. With this I can never be happy.
The band played one of the leader's originals--some kind of frenetic samba--that I had to chart out because he didn't have any sort of lead sheet on it. The leader asked the organist to play on it as well (because church organ sounds really good on a samba), but the organist didn't have a chart, so he made a photocopy of the chart, so suddenly my chart has been donated to the church? Why'd I just let that happen?
In between church gigs we went to Cobb's house to celebrate Nick's birthday. That was really fun!
My second church gig was ok. Since the sound has been weird the past few weeks, I tried running mono instead of stereo. There's a mono out on the board, so we used that. First song was full of static. What the hell? I moved it to the "left" channel of the stereo out, and it sounded better in the room (cathedral) than it has in weeks. I cranked it up--it makes me think someone's messing with the amplifier settings. Anyway, I went out in the house to check the sound, and when I walked by, the drummer was playing with four fingers (two on each hand)--like drumming with your palms on a table. Check the technique! More what the hell!
Drummer tells the band leader to tell me (since he's wearing headphones of the main mix) that the overall mix is louder (duh--we went from 12 on the main volume fader to 5!), and the drum mic is too hot. I turned down the headphone output and cut the gain on the drum mic by twenty-five percent. It seemed like he was pouting after that. I don't know what to do with him. Perhaps he should do some reading.
davidfreemanmusic.net
Friday, January 21, 2011
My Mojo Returneth
I'm finally all the way back from the funk that has plagued me for the past few weeks! I felt good and confident about everything I played last night. It's about time.
We had a great gig last night at the 10 High. The crowd was pretty good--better than last week, but not overly enthusiastic about what we were doing. Maybe it was the number of people out there, but I thought the onstage sound was much better, and that made a difference for me--who wants to do anything but go home when it sounds like crap.
Remember how I was working on picking up the bass part on Steal Away? I listened to it this week--the piano/synth guy (my role on this song) doesn't do that at all! Instead, the piano kind of doubles what the synth does. Way easier. Stupid me.
Earlier in the day we had a final rehearsal for the big show tonight at the Variety Playhouse. This rehearsal concentrated on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. We're adding a trombonist (Jill Freeman) to make the horn section bigger and brassier (and more french hornier, but french hornists are hard to come by, so we're using a trombonist). All my charts were good except for one--she's doubling the alto part, and I forgot to transpose it from Eb to C:
Oops. It sounded super bad when she was playing a minor third away from the rest of us.
We also ran The Dark Side of the Moon one more time. Bencuya's got the synth solo in Any Colour You Like really happening.
It should be a great show tonight.
davidfreemanmusic.net
We had a great gig last night at the 10 High. The crowd was pretty good--better than last week, but not overly enthusiastic about what we were doing. Maybe it was the number of people out there, but I thought the onstage sound was much better, and that made a difference for me--who wants to do anything but go home when it sounds like crap.
Remember how I was working on picking up the bass part on Steal Away? I listened to it this week--the piano/synth guy (my role on this song) doesn't do that at all! Instead, the piano kind of doubles what the synth does. Way easier. Stupid me.
Earlier in the day we had a final rehearsal for the big show tonight at the Variety Playhouse. This rehearsal concentrated on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. We're adding a trombonist (Jill Freeman) to make the horn section bigger and brassier (and more french hornier, but french hornists are hard to come by, so we're using a trombonist). All my charts were good except for one--she's doubling the alto part, and I forgot to transpose it from Eb to C:
Oops. It sounded super bad when she was playing a minor third away from the rest of us.
We also ran The Dark Side of the Moon one more time. Bencuya's got the synth solo in Any Colour You Like really happening.
It should be a great show tonight.
davidfreemanmusic.net
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Rehearsal and the Radio
We (Yacht Rock) had a Tuesday morning rehearsal for this Friday's big gig at the Variety Playhouse. For this one, we focused on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. It sounded great. I don't remember what it sounded like the first time we played this album, but with the second guitar (Greg) and Nick playing more second keyboard, it's really happening.
Speaking of guitar--Mark Dannells was totally unprepared for rehearsal, and still pulled the entire album out of his butt. You can do that when you're awesome.
I got most of my stuff right. I screwed up a little on Money.
Wednesday morning we played on The Regular Guys show (Rock 100.5 FM). We did Time (off The Dark Side of the Moon). It sounded pretty good. Dannells was beyond awesome. Cobb's electronic drum pad took a shit in the corner. I played the three measures the female vocalist contributed. Here's my chart:
Pretty easy!
davidfreemanmusic.net
Monday, January 17, 2011
Sunday Sunday
Yesterday was Sunday, a day for performances in houses of worship.
The first gig was pretty cohesive. It's finally coming together--no big disasters or anything. They're limping towards everybody on in-ears, which would be cool. Right now it's one monitor mix and a six channel headphone amp! Not quite cool. Somehow they've not been able to find a headphone extension long enough to reach the eight feet over to my position, so I get nothing, which really hasn't been that bad. I'm playing acoustically against the piano and drums. I'm told that eventually they'll start using an Aviom system, which would be sweet.
Speaking of sound, I don't know what the hell's going on with the sound at church gig number two. The sound coming out of the board (listening with headphones) does not equal the sound coming out of the main speakers. They've changed something between the jacks on the floor where I plug in and the PA. My best guess is that the right channel has been turned off and it's mono, and I'm still trying to run stereo. After the mass, I took my mic and tried panning it hard left and then hard right, and I couldn't tell the difference. I'm not saying I'm a good sound man, but stacking everything in the band on a mono send (as opposed to spreading it out in a stereo mix) is not going to give better results. We'll see.
davidfreemanmusic.net
The first gig was pretty cohesive. It's finally coming together--no big disasters or anything. They're limping towards everybody on in-ears, which would be cool. Right now it's one monitor mix and a six channel headphone amp! Not quite cool. Somehow they've not been able to find a headphone extension long enough to reach the eight feet over to my position, so I get nothing, which really hasn't been that bad. I'm playing acoustically against the piano and drums. I'm told that eventually they'll start using an Aviom system, which would be sweet.
Speaking of sound, I don't know what the hell's going on with the sound at church gig number two. The sound coming out of the board (listening with headphones) does not equal the sound coming out of the main speakers. They've changed something between the jacks on the floor where I plug in and the PA. My best guess is that the right channel has been turned off and it's mono, and I'm still trying to run stereo. After the mass, I took my mic and tried panning it hard left and then hard right, and I couldn't tell the difference. I'm not saying I'm a good sound man, but stacking everything in the band on a mono send (as opposed to spreading it out in a stereo mix) is not going to give better results. We'll see.
davidfreemanmusic.net
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Zydeco-Birmingham
I played last night/this morning with Yacht Rock Schooner at Zydeco in Birmingham. It's the first time we've played there.
The room itself was pretty crappy. Low ceiling, hollow stage, plywood floor. The sound was vastly different depending on where you were on stage--where I was (downstage left) was pretty good, but the drums and the opposite of the stage were evidently PAINFULLY loud and washy. The hollow stage made for some weird low end harmonics. It was just flat hard to hear for most of the guys in the band. Actually, the dressing room behind the stage was probably the best place! I hung out there on the tunes I wasn't playing, and I could hear everybody well.
The total number of people was around one hundred fifty. I guess that's good for the first time--if they all tell two people, next time…they were pretty enthusiastic, though, which made up for it. A big burly guy in the audience passed Mike Bielenberg a note that said "I love you." The same guy later encouraged Mike to take his shirt off. Not a normal Yacht Rock audience! As soon as we finished, a couple of party girls burst into the dressing room and invited to a "party." No thanks.
I played pretty well--the usual batch of Schooner tunes, so I was comfortable. I probably could have used more monitor, but I could hear the main PA well enough that I just worked off that. The saxophone must've been louder in the middle of the stage, because I got some positive feedback from the main vocalists, though I couldn't hear myself that well at my position. Overall, the band sounded good in spite of the stage sound.
I used my hard cases and key clamps for this trip. Lately I've been concerned about the cold dry air, and coupling that with a bouncy ride to Alabama, I thought it best to try and stabilize my horns as best as I could. Plus, I've been kind of clumsy dealing with my horns when I'm wearing gloves. Hard cases protect me against my own stupidity!
We got back to Atlanta around 6 AM. I slept most of the way back in the van. Dozed? Probably more like it. I can sleep anywhere, but I woke up a lot trying to get comfortable. I was in bed at 7 AM.
I'm checking out the new album by Bob Reynolds called Live in New York. It's really good--sounds like much more accessible Chris Potter. Kenyon Carter better get busy transcribing!
davidfreemanmusic.net
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