Yacht Rock article

Here's an article from the AJC about Yacht Rock. My mom says we're famous.

Last night's Yacht Rock gig was pretty smooth. There were no flame-outs or catastrophes. A couple of old friends from college came by to check us out. Other than that, it was business as usual. My laptop started acting funny at the end of the night. I think it was the heat...the thermostat on the wall behind me never got below 79 degrees. Too hot for polyester!

Hittin' it Hard

After several days of messing around with my website (davidfreemanmusic.net or davidfreemanmusic.com), I've finally got the horns back in my face for some good practicing. I'm preparing for a big wedding this weekend in North Carolina, in addition to my in town stuff (practicing for certain lessons and keeping the Yacht Rock stuff under my fingers). Things are in good shape, I think.

It's the last few days of the school year, which means many of my students will be taking some time off. My gig calendar looks pretty good through the summer, so I think things are going to be ok. I've also got multiple things that I'd like to achieve by August, so here's hoping that everything lines up.

Itchy

Another wild weekend!  

Thursday was a two gig night.  I first played for the opening of the Hotel Palomar in midtown--me and a DJ and a percussionist (and later on we were joined by the duo Days Ahead).  After that I bolted over to the 10 High for Yacht Rock.  We had a strange cruise.  The crowd had very few familiar faces, and at some point that night a few people turned on us.  The night ended with someone throwing a cup at the stage.  Not cool at all.

Friday was a period of recovery and working on my website, davidfreemanmusic.net, a little more.  I also mowed the yard and attempted to control some of the brush in our backyard.  I was probably exposed to poison ivy.  It happens every year...you'd think I'd be able to identify it at this point, but no.  My shins are starting to itch, so I think my fate is sealed!

Jack had his final T-ball game Saturday morning.  From there I raced (in the rain!) to the Yacht Rock gig at the Dunwoody Beer Festival.  The Tupperware Party played a set at the end of the rain, and then it cleared off enough that we could get set sail in Dunwoody.  I think we made a ton of new fans.  We sold out of captain's hats in about 2 minutes.  

Sunday I played my church gigs.  In between, Jack and I attended Ingrid Bencuya's 6th birthday party.  Happy birthday Ingrid!  Mark Bencuya loaned me a couple of videos.  I checked out Weather Report at Montreux 1976 and the story of Stax Records.  The Stax thing just about killed me!  What a story!  You gotta see that one.

This week should be pretty low key, which is a good thing because we're gearing up for Nick and Elliott's wedding.

Peter Olson

Happy Birthday to Peter Olson, the smoothest, most unflappable person I have ever met. You're a good man.

Wednesday

It's already Wednesday...this week is flying by! My website, davidfreemanmusic.net, is up and running. I've spent the past couple of days consumed by one thousand adjustments, mostly adding pictures and sounds, as well as a heavy dose of do-it-yourself search engine optimization. I'm worn out. If you haven't been, please come check it out. I threw a couple of more pictures on there, and I finally added a few live tracks from gigs with my quartet and quintet.

In other news, I participated in a recording session for Rebecca Loebe. It was a horn section with Karl Liberatore, Marcus Henderson (pictured here) and myself on tenor and bari sax. We did it at Will Robertson's place. Without a doubt, one of the easiest sessions ever--the guy had charts! It also helped immensely that from the first note, the three of were pretty tight. Like we'd played in tune before or something. It was cool. We did multiple passes on a couple of tunes and were done in under an hour.

Another busy day is already up and running, so I'd better get a horn in my face.

Is it really Sunday?

My new favorite kid show is "Penguins of Madagascar."  It's on Nick.  You've got to try it.

Last night I played a wedding reception until 11:30 at the History Center (and nearly strangled myself out of boredom), and then joined the last night of 500 Songs for Kids at Smith's.  Lots of standing around, punctuated by brief periods of deafeningly loud monitors.  It was fun, though, and a pretty good hang.  Mark Cobb and I hung out of a little bit afterwards, and I ended up walking out the back door at 3:45 AM.  Ouch!  

I'll be headed to bed early tonight.  

Practice and Performance

When it comes to performing, I am of the belief that you prepare (practice), and then you go out there and go for it.  If it works, great;  if you crash, hopefully you recovered.  Either way, you accept it as was you've got at that moment, and when the moment's over, it's time to start thinking about the next one.  I play around town quite a bit, and adopting this philosophy has really helped me to avoid spending useless time analyzing what when wrong on any particular gig.  

I play a steady gig with several volunteer musicians, and as soon as the last song has finished, everyone is chirping about who screwed up and why.  It seems very amateurish to do that.

Last night Yacht Rock had alot of finger pointing after the show at the 10 High.  Things got a little tense.  Let it go.