David Freeman Music

Wednesday: Yacht Rock had a corporate gig in Utah Thursday, and we were fortunately able to fly out Wednesday night. As I've gotten older, it's a lot more difficult to fly across the country and play a gig that night--my brain invariably starts to misfire at some point during the show. It's worth the extra time away from home to not feel miserable on stage. I picked up Bencuya at his house and we headed to downtown at 4:45. Fighting traffic and weather, it took us over an hour to reach the airport. The plane was also a little late, and we were slightly delayed while the previous flight emptied. We boarded and then sat at the gate, waiting some weather to pass. We finally made it out to the runway, only to abort the takeoff because of wind sheer (that was nuts!--full throttle, then the engines pulled back, then full again, then we basically rolled to a stop). Once we finally got airborne, it was a smooth flight, and skies were clear across the country. Memp...

The last time I wrote something in my blog, I probably mentioned that rehearsals for the musical  Footloose were just underway. This week, we finished up rehearsals and performed the show three times, all three without any heart stopping disasters. In the middle of all of that, I also played as loud as I could for a few hours. Dig it: Tuesday: Afternoon/evening rehearsal. The band was still a bit clunky, but already we were fitting our parts together much better as we learned the music and the flow of the show, as well as the way things sounded in the room. Speaking of sounds: the audio guys in the theater decided to rectify the amplification problem (2 keyboards, 2 guitars, and bass all coming out of one or two floor monitors) by giving four of us (guitar 1, guitar 2, bass, and me) a headphone amp and four sets of headphones...and one mix to listen to. I was not in the mix, so I pretty much immediately took the headphones off and listened to the keyboards (still coming throug...

This week in Dave History: Tuesday: Did I mention that Yacht Rock is recording some original material for an album? I can't remember, and frankly, I don't feel like looking. Anyway, rhythm section (bass, drums, guitar, keyboards) stuff was recorded over the last two weeks, and then I wrote horn parts based on that. My usual plan was to record demo versions at home and submit them to the people in charge. Monday night, I finally got some specific feedback from the people in charge, and so Tuesday was a very long day of writing more and editing things, finishing just after 3 AM with multiple parts for the three horn songs printed, taped together, and ready to go. Wednesday: Up at 8 AM to get caffeinated and head to the studio. Rob Opitz (trumpet), Richard Sherrington (trombone), and I recorded three songs, and then I went back and overdubbed more sax parts, and then I put solos on a few songs, sax parts on a song, flute parts on a song, and then another sax solo on anothe...

Woo! I'd kind of given up on the idea that there'd be a bunch of gigs around the Super Bowl--things just aren't like they were twenty years ago in Atlanta, but maybe it's quality over quantity this time? Nah. Wednesday: I played with Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo alongside Mace Hibbard (tenor), Dave Yoke (guitar), Dan Lawrence (piano), and Will Groth (drums) at Blind Willie's in Virginia Highland. Blind Willie's is an Atlanta institution of sorts, so I thought that maybe there'd be some Super Bowl traffic, but it was just another Wednesday night there. Sal Paolantonio (of ESPN fame) did walk in early in the gig and requested some Allman Bros (we sightread Southbound  for him). He left before we finished the first set. Other than that!...nice hang. Mace killed me on a night when I just couldn't come up with anything to play. Late in the gig, I had one good solo on Hummingbird , but the rest of the night, I was pretty lame. Sunday: Yacht Rock was in...

Yacht Rock played the Sundance Film Festival in Utah last Saturday. It was a loooooooong day, faaaaaaaaar away, and I was tiiiiiiiiiiiiired when it finally ended. Got on a plane in Atlanta around noon... Watched all of Mission Impossible: Fallout  and half of Gone Girl.   Mission Impossible  was pretty good. Gone Girl was kind of slow at the beginning. Nice views.  Landed in Salt Lake City three and a half hours later. Got in a van and rode forty-five minutes out of town with our driver dude, who talked to Zach for the whole ride about things like "totally shredding the gnar." We might have egged the conversation on a little, too (brah). Got to Park City, dumped our bags, and hung out around all of these people who were working/networking/being seen/hanging out. We also ate a bunch of food, and then they brought us the food we had ordered, and we were too full to eat that too.  More hanging out. Someone brought a dog (Eckie) to t...

This week was our first intense week of gigs for 2019. Monday was the first day of recording some originals, Tuesday was a gig in Indianapolis, Wednesday was another studio day, Thursday was a gig in Florida, and Friday and Saturday were both back in Atlanta at Venkman's. Monday: We have begun a new project, recording an album's worth of original songs. Day one of recording involved a lot of checking to make sure everything was making sound, balancing mixes, and later in the day, some recording. I haven't been involved in any of this; I spent the day as a spectator. The song that the guys recorded today will eventually have string and horn parts, which I have mostly written. Once my arrangements are finalized, they'll be added as overdubs. Tuesday: The whole TSA/government shutdown thing cost me some extra sleep, as we decided to play it safe and get to the airport extra early for our flight to Indiana. The traffic on the interstate ended up being more of an ...

Yacht Rock played the Georgia Theatre in Athens last Saturday night, a sold out show without the drunken football madness. We managed to sell it out for either the third or fourth time. It was good to get back on the horse, gig-wise. My brain didn't start to crumble until the last four or five songs--all of the sudden, I was missing parts and playing string lines that were a fourth away from where they were supposed to be in All Night Long . Raspberry Beret  was ok, but then I crashed through most of I'm So Excited , and then snapped back to normal. In other news, I almost got I Just Wanna Stop  completely right. That string part is tough.