Our First/Last Gig at the Trolley Barn

The Yacht Rock Revue played a fundraiser event at the Trolley Barn last night.  Right off the bat, we were confronted with the "barn attendant" and his decibel meter-- 90 db is the limit in that room.  Go over 90 and the client pays a fine.  Check this out:  if you want to host your event there, you have to put a deposit down to cover the 90 db fine;  the dude checks the SPL during the event, and when you're over the limit, the Trolley Barn keeps your deposit.  Nice scheme.  So…no carpet (hardwood floor), high ceiling, windows, steel beams…great place for a band.  Before we started playing, the crowd was (according to my SPL app) at 75 db.

I think we ended up doing the best we could for as long as we could.  It was kind of amusing for a while because everything sounded silly, but we couldn't keep it there forever.  Late in the night, the volume went up a bit, but the dude seemed cool with it.  In fact, I never saw the dude or the decibel meter.

That said, the gig went by quickly and painlessly.  We played three sets, but it didn't feel like a marathon by any stretch.

Also, they had Fox Bros. BBQ.  I ate two plates of food.

Home by midnight!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Trio Gig!

I had a trio gig tonight with Louis Heriveaux (keyboard) and Kevin Smith (bass)--a quick two hour dinner and awards thing.  We were background noise.

It was great to have a jazz gig--a chance to to stretch out and really play.  That said, I never got in a groove--it's been a month since I played a jazz gig, and I'm way out of shape.  I tried;  I just couldn't get it going.

I guess my one victory was that I played reasonably in tune on soprano tonight.  Big surprise--I put my mouthpiece in the right spot (the place on the cork where I normally end up) and left it there, instead of not trusting myself and pushing the mouthpiece further and further down.  Way to go.

Here's the audio from the gig if you'd like to listen:

 David Freeman Trio-April 17, 2012 by David B Freeman

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday

Not much of a Sunday…once again, I was told not to show for the AM church gig (boooooo).  The PM church gig went pretty well, though I've had it with the sound of the piano in the PA.  It has a Barcus Berry pickup--sounds like crap!  I think it's time to experiment.  At the very least, I'm going to put a dynamic mic in one of the holes inside.  The pickup has no beef to it!  The church has a really great sounding grand piano, and the pickup makes it sound like it's mic'ed with a 57 on the ground 10 feet away.

As far as playing goes, I did kind of go nuts on one song last night.  The harmony made sense and I knew it was in three, but as soon as I started playing, I kind of lost my place, which I think worked out OK.  I got a little wild in kind of a Branford way, and once I was out there I just kept going.  Somehow, the vocals came back in, but I couldn't get out of what I was doing.  I just kept going over the top of them until the song tapered to the end.  Oops.

I kind of wish I'd recorded it because I fell into stream of consciousness playing so quickly that I really wasn't aware of what I was doing.  Maybe next time!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Suwanee

The Yacht Rock Revue played 106.7's birthday bash in Suwanee last night.  Great show!  Good for me that I sucked the least on the gig that mattered the most this weekend.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I played really well!

The Yacht Rock Schooner opened for us.  They sounded terrific.

Our two sets (played chronologically from 1978-1985 went really smoothly.  Everybody played great.  The sound on stage was good.

There was a dog named Honey backstage.  I took pictures to show to Reggie.  He didn't care at all.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Summerour

I never did figure out for whom we were playing last night.  The Yacht Rock Revue did some kind of auction/charity event thing last night at Summerour.

This gig went much better than the previous night's blanks.

All the excitement (for me) came in the second set, when the batteries in my EWI died in the first song.  I just swapped them out for what I thought were fresh ones, so I must have a bad one in there.  Anyway, pretty significant panic.  I was able to limp through the first tune (Africa) by turning everything off whenever I wasn't playing.  Once we got through that, I quickly stole the four batteries in my sax mic transmitters and put them in the EWI.  Whenever I needed to play saxophone in the second set, I would take the two batteries out of the wireless MIDI transmitter I have on the EWI and put them in the sax transmitter.  It wasn't too bad--I just had to plan a couple of songs ahead so I would be ready to do the battery Chinese fire drill in between songs.

I'm thinking about stashing a pack of AAs in Monkey's amp.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Spaced Out

The Yacht Rock Revue played our (somewhat) regular 10 High gig last night.  This gig isn't paying nearly what it used to produce, but it's still giving us a couple of extra rehearsals.  We have a pretty big show coming up a week from tonight (Friday), and the opportunity to screw these songs up in front of a smaller crowd is appreciated.

My amp died while I was soundchecking…scared me for a second, but it turned out it was a bad power cable.  I swapped it with the cord from my top keyboard, and it was steady, but then my Fantom would turn off randomly whenever someone came near.  So…bad cable.  I broke out my spare.  Problem solved.

We started out pretty well, in spite of the very thin crowd.  Somewhere towards the end of the first set, I started spacing out.  I was playing, but not paying too much attention.  I wandered around on break (went upstairs and watched baseball), and the first half of the second set, I was mentally NOT THERE AT ALL.  The strings on the chorus of I Want to be Your Lover?  Not in the first chorus--I just watched go by, and it kind of clicked--hey dumbass, it'd be great if you'd play.   Oops!  OK, I'm back…no I'm not.  I missed the flute entrance to Lowdown.  Same thing--I stood there thinking, why is everybody already playing? (it's stacked entrances--bass, guitar and rhodes, flute, then the first verse).  I totally missed it.  I will say that I played a pretty rippin' flute solo.

The rest of the gig floated by.  I don't think I screwed anything else up, but I wasn't paying attention.  Duuuuuhhhhh…

Exciting news…Hans confirmed my suspicion that Heart Attack and Mr. Heart Attack (center of the last picture above) are swingers.  Yuck!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Easter

I got shut out of my AM church gig yesterday…they were doing some kind of more traditional service with a chamber orchestra ($$$$!), so no Dave.  Boo.

My PM church gig went well, though my soprano reed did not rise from the dead.  It's done.

davidfreemanmusic.net