David Freeman Music

The Park Tavern series has begun for the Yacht Rock Revue, our monthly local gig that continues from now until the fall.  The first one up is a thing we call the Reagan Rock Prom, which concentrates our setlist on the 80s side of things.   A full crew for this one!  Kip on front of house (who mentioned to me afterwards that this was one of his best shows at this venue), Zac on monitors at the side of the stage (good for emergency adjustments), and Liz helping with set up and tear down.  They make it as painless as possible. Due to our scattered schedules, our only rehearsal for this gig was a week ago;  I think it showed in some places.  I practiced a lot for this one, but I could have used more time hearing my parts in the context of the group. No alto on this one, just tenor (on six in the first set), and I only played EWI on PYT and Africa .  The rest of it was keyboards.  Strange how that worked out--I could've packed those up ...

This is not a busy week by any means--it's spring break for the Atlanta area, and so things are empty for everybody.  It's a good thing, I guess, because I need the extra time to play dad!  Other than a little bit of light practicing, not much has been accomplished. Today's two big tasks:  1.  Create a horn arrangement for a Greg Lee original titled One Kind of Love.   I've played this one with him at Eddie's Attic, and my chart has the title and says "Clarence Clemmons."  My horn section is a little more complicated than that.  While on a run last night, I sang the song to myself and came up with my ideas for each section.  Today, I wrote them out on paper and recorded a version to submit to the Greg. In spite of all the technological stuff (notation software, MIDI, iPad, etc), I still prefer to write out what I want to do on paper--it's easier to create and edit parts.  However, I'd rather not try and read a chart like this on a gig. ...

Why is Charleston so weird for us?  It seems like every time the Yacht Rock Revue is in Charleston, things are weird.  Last Saturday's wedding reception was no exception. We left really really early (7 AM) from Nick's in order to be all set at the reception early--the ceremony was also in the same location.  I slept all the way there.  We stopped in North Charleston for lunch at some hipster restaurant called Sesame Burgers and Beer.  It was really good! From there, it was only about a twenty minute drive to reach our destination.  Load in was pretty easy--off the street and through an entrance into the courtyard of a historic house right on the main drag. After set up and soundcheck, we had several hours to kill in our green room.  No problem.  We watched most of American Gangster , a later, bits of the Final Four, and took turns stinking up the bathroom upstairs. The gig was an easy, laid back affair, and the people were easy to...

Long day...I was up early to demonstrate every woodwind I own as part of the Celebration of the Arts at a local elementary school.  I have no idea how it went over;  mentally, I didn't wake up until around halfway through. A few things... All clarinet demonstrations began with a discussion of Squidward (from Spongebob Squarepants ).  Likewise, I did my best to explain that Kelpy G on Spongebob  is a Kenny G joke.  Who is Kenny G? He owns part of Starbucks, he's a good golfer...I prefer to think of the soprano saxophone renaissance as coming from Branford Marsalis, another name that means nothing. I played Baker Street a couple of times, prefaced by saying "You may hear this in Publix." In speaking about tenor saxophone altissimo, I brought up Lenny Pickett from Saturday Night Live, only to realize that none of them are old enough to stay up and watch it, and if they could, they're probably not watching to see LP. No, I'm not rich. No, I don't ow...

Good news!  My microphone stand bag (and stands) has been located at the Ritz at Lake Oconee.  Supposedly they are being loaded onto a truck that runs between the Ritzes in Atlanta and the one out there, so once it makes it back to town, I'll just run down and pick them up.  Stay tuned. The Dave and Dave Duo landed back at JCT Kitchen, hoping to have a nice evening playing on the deck/patio for the hipsters.  Unfortunately, as soon as we finished setting up, the weather closed in on us, and we had to rush our gear inside to the bar (boo).  Ten minutes later it was pouring outside (for about ten minutes straight), so good thing we moved. The bar is an unfavorable situation.  We played fine, but the crowd is really loud and largely oblivious to the fact that we're tucked in the corner.  Not my favorite.  I didn't bother to record it because all you'd hear is crowd noise.  Good warm up for Friday night, I guess. In the mean time, nosh o...

Kevin Smith (bass), David Ellington (rhodes), and I played a corporate background music gig Monday night at the Ritz at Lake Oconee.  Good stuff!  It was a nice and easy hit, and the crowd never got loud enough that we couldn't hear ourselves.  All three of us played well.  You can hear it: Since we were in a large tent, it was requested that I provide a PA.  We never used it;  I set it up, but never turned it on.  I guess we were loud enough acoustically to cover the space.  The bad news is that my microphone stands and bag wandered off--when setting up, I took one stand out (for the sax microphone) and left the bag (with two other stands in it) on the floor while I built the PA.  When I was packing up after the gig, I realized it was missing--I'm guessing that someone moved it out of the way when the food/beverage and decor people were setting up, and then whoever moved it didn't bother to mention it to me or anyone (or didn't realize t...

Yacht Rock had a Sunday afternoon gig, a benefit for the Songs for Kids Foundation.  In the past, we've participated in a week long event at Smith's Olde Bar called 500 Songs for Kids--lots of local bands (famous or not) jump on stage and play a song they've been assigned.  It's pretty cool, though because of our size and need for accuracy, we end up dragging some gear up those back stairs to play one song.  I think our performance at this gig is a better option, and hopefully raised gobs of money! Front of House footwear You can see what they do in this video: So...the event was at Monday Night Brewing, which is more or less a warehouse, which is to say that it is not acoustically friendly!  Nonetheless, it was a very easy gig, with a pretty easy load in/out, and it was finished at 5 PM!  Can't beat it.  It even left me time to go play the ol' church gig.