David Freeman Music

More stuff!   Yacht Rock had a Friday morning (noon) rehearsal with Rick Derringer in final preparations for the Candler Park Fall Fest Saturday evening. So…Rick Derringer.  The man, the myth, the legend, the Sloopy.  I have no opinion of his playing--I just can't tell which rock guys sound good.  Maybe it's because I have no feeling for what it takes to play the instrument, but I also think that the tone of the rock guitar disguises lots of elementary technical stuff. From rehearsal, we loaded into the Grand Hyatt for a private event for the Primrose School.  Rumor has it they were going to try that "curtain falls/instant band" thing like we had Tuesday night, but it never materialized.  Thankfully… These people were a bit stiff--it felt very suburban and upper middle class.  There was a great disparity between the talent and the, shall we say, well fed.  They were generally polite, with the exception of the woman who poked...

Yacht Rock zipped up to Nashville yesterday afternoon to play a forty-five minute set at Scream on the Green , the last installment of their downtown concert series Live on the Green .  The opener was The Delta Saints , and Here Come the Mummies followed us as the headliner. Any gig that begins with a crew loading our gear from the trailer to the stage is a good one.  They also ferried it back after we finished.  Very cool, though I have enough personal stuff (saxophones, EWI, computer) that I get nervous when the guys want to grab stuff and walk offstage with it. We played for a bunch of people.  10,000?  I'm not sure.  A few weeks prior they'd had 15,000 for Alabama Shakes .  It wasn't totally full like the crew had described, so I'll guess 10. Great sound on stage and out front (at least it sounded great for The Delta Saints). Once we finished, we packed up and headed back to Atlanta.  Ouch! davidfreemanmusic.net

I had a terrific quartet gig at the Georgia Aquarium Wednesday night.  The band was Tyrone Jackson (keyboard), Kevin Smith (bass), and Marlon Patton (drums).  We played for the International Titanium Association--I did not make that up. This was my first time recording the band by taking the signal from my mixer--usually, I hang my recorder on the music stand in front of me.  It took a little while to get the balance right--I think it's better from Nothing Personal on down. I'm still better than last night's sound man.   David Freeman Quartet - October 10, 2012 by David B Freeman davidfreemanmusic.net

Yacht Rock began yesterday with a rehearsal for two upcoming shows:   Candler Park Fall Fest and Thriller/Purple Rain at the Variety Playhouse .  Good soundman Hans showed up with our gear after driving it back from Connecticut for us.  We loaded in and rehearsed.  I sucked real bad on the Thriller/Purple Rain stuff.  It was painful and embarrassing.  I will hopefully get some time to work on it early next week. Later that afternoon we loaded into the Hotel Intercontinental for a corporate gig that night.  We were set on stage behind a curtain;  at some point in the evening, magic words would be spoken, the curtain would fall, and we would be playing--instant insane party. As you can imagine, it never actually works.  The curtain will fall and they'll pull it off to the left, they said.  It fell and they pulled it off to the right, except for the end, which was still hanging up there at the end of the gig. Because there would...

Yacht Rock returned from another successful tour yesterday afternoon.  Miles were driven and notes were played.  I dealt with head cold for most of it. Thursday:  Our first stop was Asbury Park, NJ's Wonder Bar .  Asbury Park has a mythical quality because of Bruce Springsteen--we were all pretty excited to be there.  What if he shows up?  He's been known to crash other people's gigs unannounced. We pulled up to a foggy, desolate resort town in the wrong season.  Except for about fifty orthodox Jews, there didn't seem to anybody around. We loaded in and set up--tight stage!  The sound was pretty decent, all things considered, though when Greg would play a low G the whole place would vibrate. After soundcheck, we wandered up and down the boardwalk. It seemed, based on the fact that there were about a hundred people in the entire town that night, that we would be playing to nobody, but the pr...