Trio Gig

I played a really good trio gig with Tyrone Jackson (piano) and Kevin Smith (bass) tonight.  A little one hour reception.  We have a quartet gig tomorrow night (adding Marlon Patton on drums), so this was a good little tune up.

The audio!



P.S. If you'd like to check out my YouTube videos of last week's trio gig, you can find them HERE.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Bar Gigs, Church Gigs

Mila

I played two bar gigs on Saturday.  The first was with Uno Dos Tres Catorce (Yacht Rock playing a set of U2) at Meehan's in Sandy Springs, opening for the REMakes.  We loaded into the tent just in time for the sky to explode.  The band was trapped with just a few six packs of beer to ride out the storm.  We made the best of it…Mark Cobb bought a drum set (60s Slingerlands!  Nice!), and Bencuya told us about all the Yacht Rock live recordings he's been editing.

Because of the rain, we started a half hour late, but we blazed through our set and finished in an hour.  I think things were pretty good.

Check out how the sound man rolled his rack/mixer out front so he could mix accurately.  Impressive!  I've never seen a guy do that.

My second gig was playing saxophone and flute with the Yacht Rock Schooner at Dixie Tavern.  Another pretty good gig, though the crowd wasn't as good as the last time I played there.  Zac Brown never showed up, but Wheat Williams did.  The band sounded good!  That was a fun gig.

soundcheck

dig the polkadots

On to Sunday…

Church gig number one was fairly easy.  The guy who was supposed to get his raise only got half of what he was expecting.  He emailed the leader and got no response.  Big surprise, since he can check his email on his new iPad!

The church is investing a couple of thousand dollars on a V drum kit.  That's good to know.  I was worried they had no money.

Church gig number two was ok.  Nothing to report.

Busy week coming up…

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Thursday at the Ol' 10 High

Usual Thursday night 10 High gig.  It was really fun, but geez…I sucked really bad.  It was like I haven't thought about any of these songs in a month.  Some particular low points were the little synth break in Heart of Rock and Roll (which I practiced and played well in Nashville last week, but haven't thought about since), and All Night Long (which completely bit me in the ass).

My last big equipment upgrade of the year was a new effects pedal for my sax stuff.  I bought a TC Helicon Voicelive 2.  Super fancy and very state of the art.  It seems to be infinitely programmable.  I have the first preset built as my basic thing--just reverb.  Then, I can turn on (or turn off) chorus, slap reverb, and doubling within that preset by stepping on the different buttons.  Crazy.  Before, I would have to have a preset for each one.  Then I have a big stack as another preset (like three or four octaves wide) for Silly Love Songs.  For Heart of Rock and Roll, I have the solo sound, then one harmony set for the little back and forth thing, and then another harmony set where me and another voice move in thirds, and there's a note on top of us that stays the same.  Is that crazy or what?  I also have a thirds thing for Kodachrome and a couple of settings for I Want a New Drug.  Wow.  Cool.

It's XLR in and out, and also does fantom power, so I can use my Shure clip on mic without having to power it separately.  Plus, the noise floor on it is way lower than that cheapo Digitech pedal, and the effects are much better sounding.

Last night was its maiden voyage.  First set, I had some feedback issues because the gate wasn't really doing its job.  Boo.  I managed my way through by keeping my body between my monitor and the mic.  On the break, I jacked up the gate.  Unfortunately, I just guessed, and I guessed poorly!  I had it at -15 db, so it would only open when I was playing full blast;  it kept opening and shutting mid phrase on Silly Love Songs.  Oops.  Fix it next time?

Bjorn Borg on drums!

Anyway, it was a good gig and everybody else played well, but I was not good.  We all had a very good time and the room was moderately crowded, so everybody went home happy!  Yay!

Today I had a pianist come over to take a lesson with me on improvisation…like I know what the hell I'm doing!  I did my best to interpret my own stream of consciousness stuff.  I guess it's kind of good to stop and think about my playing--a lesson for both of us.  Since I don't have any kind of "system," I suggested we get together and play, and he could stop us and ask questions.  Here are a couple of tunes we played.  My time is not too good on either.

 Oleo by David B Freeman

 How Insensitive by David B Freeman

My rhodes sounds good!  It's like my afternoon with Chick Corea!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Indiana Homecoming

So…yeah, the gig at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville was a high point for Yacht Rock.  We kicked ass, and the crowd (great numbers, too!  something like 320 people all together) loved every note of it.  The sound was good (super loud, but what else is new), the vibe was great.  When we came off stage after the second set, the crowd was screaming for an encore.  Bencuya declared "We're killin' it!"

Once we finished and celebrated and pack up, we drove to Bowling Green, Kentucky in the middle of the night to get away from the Bonnaroo traffic.  We arrived at something like 4:30 AM, crashed for a few hours, and drove to Carmel, Indiana (on the north side of Indianapolis).  There we set up and played a pretty cool outdoor show for Rock the District 2011.  The weather was perfect;  low eighties and slightly breezy.  We were in a parking lot, but the crowd got thicker as the gig went on, and by the end, people were into it, dancing on rooftops and such.

I was kind of weirded out by the gig.  Being back in Indiana--just the smell of Indiana!--was enough to bring back all the stress and tension of being at I.U.  I swear I could feel a wave of guilt pushing me to go practice instead of wandering around town for a half hour.  It kind of freaked me out.

When we started the show, Nick let the crowd know that five of the seven of us are Indiana University School of Music graduates, and the crowd went wild.

Our three native Indianans (Indians?), Mark Cobb (Carmel), Nick, and Pete (both from Columbus) received a hero's welcome, and all three had large numbers of family in attendance.  The big midwestern hug from the crowd made the whole gig feel really good.

We got in the van at 10:30 AM Sunday morning and drove all the way back to Atlanta.  I think it was about ten hours by the time we unpacked the trailer.

Speaking of which, this was the first big test for all my cases.  I added foam to a couple of cases (one for my speaker and one for miscellaneous crap).  A nice job if I do say so myself, and way cheaper than buying them with the foam already inside.  Way to go, Dave.

I cut some more foam away from the knobs on my Fantom and had no issues all weekend.  I guess that really was the problem.  Now I know.  Somewhere between here and Indianapolis, I researched the loose knob thing, and it according to the internet, there knobs are all held to the circuit board by solder, so I will probably need to get in there and tighten them up at some point.

We've got a really light week.  Don't expect too much from here.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Mercy Lounge-Nashville

Wow!  One of our best gigs EVER!

davidfreemanmusic.net

As Mark Cobb Goes, So Goes the Band

Wow!  Great gig last night at the 10 High.  The band was really happening.

It looked for a minute like we wouldn't even have a gig.  Fifteen minutes before we were scheduled to begin, there was one guy in the room (other than the band).

People came downstairs right as we began.  Just in time!

Back to the show…we played great!  Mark Cobb was on fire.  I think it was the best that he's played (on an entire gig) in a couple of months.  He had a great groove and just the right amount of aggression, and the rest of the band fell in behind him.  The whole night was like that.  Every song felt great.  Plus, Vistalites in the 10 High!  Hell yeah!

I played pretty well.  I played a wrong chord in the intro to Lonely Boy.  Damnit!  I was thinking about where to play octaves in my left hand in the prechorus, and I forgot to change chords in the intro.  Oops. I hate that I messed that up--we play it so rarely, it'll be months before I have another opportunity.  Plus, it was just a dumb mistake--not something that I can't play.

After a couple of weeks, I finally got a good solo on Taking it to the Streets.  More logic, less BS.

We bailed on Kiss You All Over.  Booooooo.

All in all, a really fun night.  I hope the whole weekend goes like this.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Faking it

Other possible titles:  Paid in Toothpaste; Greetings from the Land of Poor Fitting Khakis; Let's Get Excited about Shelf Space; My First and Last Day of Business School.

I participated in a really strange gig this morning (and also Tuesday night).  The guys who make up Yacht Rock were hired to be the house band (kind of like the Letterman band) for a private event for Proctor and Gamble.  It was not, however, a Yacht Rock event--we dressed "like rock stars" (I wore a t shirt and jeans with a leather blazer) and played a much wider variety of music--mostly in the classic rock vein.  I had almost nothing to do, so I ended up turning the volume off on my keyboard and faking it for most of the show.

Tuesday night we loaded in to the Marriott downtown.  At that time, the song selections were still up in the air, so I brought my full rig:  2 keyboards, EWI setup, amplifier, and a saxophone.  Once they settled on songs, it turned out I would only need one keyboard--everything else could go home!

The production team provided in-ear monitors for us, but then they blew threw the soundcheck so quickly we never got good mixes set up.  Too bad--we missed an opportunity to really enjoy the benefits.  If we could have taken the time to get each guy's ears dialed in, I bet it would have sounded great.  Instead, it was pretty bland.  I think a couple of the guys ended up not evening wearing them because they could hear the stage sounds better (and the vocals in the house).

We rehearsed the presentation a couple of times.  Four upper management P and G guys tried their best to deliver the Steve Jobs-esque presentation.  A bit stiff.  Do they sell a product to fix that?  The entire thing was scripted, rolling along on giant teleprompter screens hung in the back of the room.  Easy for us--even the band cues were written in.  I drank beer onstage.

Wednesday morning came way too early--had to be there at 7 AM.  Ouch!  Not fun.  We did the show three times.  Each show was approximately forty-five minutes long.  Lots of business-speak:  leveraging assets, SKUs, shelf space, NOS, and some other acronyms that meant nothing to me.  Is it a shelf or a display?  I dunno.  I went numb pretty fast.  By the time we were hearing it for the third time, it was almost impossible to pay attention.

I guess it was because there was nothing else for me to do, but I ended up drinking five cups of coffee.  When we began the first show of the morning, I was rocking out on tambourine (um, yeah), and I thought I was going to fall off the back of the stage!  My head was spinning.  Somehow I avoided falling over on my keyboard.  By the middle of that presentation, the coffee was burning a hole in my stomach, and I started making plans for my emergency exit from mid stage (how in the hell I ended up sitting in the middle of the stage with the least to do out of anybody is beyond me!).  I decided that when the time came I would step off the back of the stage, climb underneath, and puke--there was no other out-of-sight place for me to throw up.  I thought if I could get far enough under the stage I wouldn't get it on any of the cables or lights, and it might not smell so bad on stage.

The feeling passed.  I went to the restroom many times to set my coffee free.

I spent almost all of second show contemplating how the four guys could all be wearing khakis, and they were all radically different cuts, and yet none of them fit them well, particularly from behind.  I wrote an entire presentation in my mind about their pants.

I became fixated with the teleprompter during the third show.  Sometimes the presenter was right on it, and sometimes he was all over the place, and I got frustrated when the guy and the operator couldn't get it together.  The screen would scroll in reverse trying to pick up the rambling man.  Then I started reading along and totally missed the beginning of Beautiful Day.

Songs from the show:

Rock and Roll:  tambourine
Let's Go Crazy:  synth
Black Dog:  nothing
Beautiful Day:  synth
Who Are You:  nothing
Imagine:  strings
Help from my Friends:  nothing (actually, I did play wurly on this)
Join Together:  nothing
Back in Black:  nothing
Pump it Up:  nothing
Vertigo:  tambourine

The third show ended with a fifth executive reading his heartfelt thanks to the "team" off the teleprompter.  Very moving.  They'd brought a bunch of people out of the crowd and up on stage for Back in Black, and they all stood up there and read it along with him.

We finished around 12:30.  They fed us a big mediocre lunch, and we loaded out.

I got home, slept for 10 minutes, got up and taught a clarinet lesson, and went back to sleep for a couple of hours.  I'm feeling almost normal again.

davidfreemanmusic.net