Yacht Rock Christmas

Yacht Rock is doing another Christmas song, and last night was my turn to go in the studio and lay down a solo--this time on EWI. It took a while (with everybody sitting there waiting on me), but we finally got something useable out of it.

Nick and Pete went in afterwards and sang the hell out of it. It sounds really good.

Mark Dannells recorded his guitar tracks at home. The solo he came up with is AWESOME! It's perfect! I wish I could do something that good. It's so slick and it's so logical, but it still sounds like he's going for it. That's not an easy combination. He nailed it.

It's funny with these recordings...when we start, it's hard for me to hear if everything's going to work, and at some point I can finally hear enough of the finished product that it makes sense. We're taking a Christmas song and blending it with a well known Yacht Rock song, and I am impressed by the ability to forecast the final version.

We received pictures from the gig we played last Wednesday. Here's one. I'm going to add the others to my website. I sprinkled the three pictures in, but not on the gallery page. Hunt around at the bottom of the other pages to find them.

Thriller is making an encore appearance tonight at the 10 High. Come check it out if you missed it last weekend.

www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Halloween and Beyond

It's been a few days since I last checked in.

Yacht Rock made it through Thriller with no problems. Well...there were problems, but not of the band variety. Hosts of the party Spiral Entertainment oversold the venue by 1,200 people, and then tried to figure out how all those people would be able to hear us play Thriller, and then decided that it was not a concert and if everybody couldn't hear the band that was ok, which is funny because they had originally booked the event at Center Stage, a concert venue.
I didn't have much to do in Thriller, which was good because about halfway into the first song I noticed the red light flashing on my wireless MIDI transmitter. Miraculously, I was able to limp through the gig by turning it off every chance I got.
We ended up playing the album downstairs on the patio, and then we moved through the throng upstairs to the room upstairs to play two sets of Yacht Rock. It was a poor moment for me to lose my earplugs. I ended up stationed behind the bass amp, and I would crawl up onto the drum riser for solos. Bad luck would have it that I didn't have much to do in either of these sets--I played saxophone once in each set, plus flute on Lowdown. Other than that, it was mostly synth parts.

Sunday was a day of recovery. I played my church gig that night, and that was about it.

Yesterday (Monday), was back to normal teaching. Nothing much to say about that.

Check out this New York Times article about cool wedding bands.

The Blahs

I was really flat last night. Not flat pitch-wise, but just flat energy-wise. It was really hard to get in a groove last night.

Thriller is tonight. It's sold out (actually over-sold by the promoters). It should be fun. I'll be glad to finish it.
www.davidfreemanmusic.com

"It's all free throws"

One of our regular Yacht Rock fans was so pumped by our performance of a few Michael Jackson songs last night, he told us "it's all free throws now!" to which Nick replied, "What if we're Shaq?"

Last night was a strange one. We had two keyboardists on deck, so I was mostly just playing saxophone solos, as well as a handful of minor synth parts. I was also back in the corner of the stage, so most of what I heard was Mark Bencuya's keyboards, bass, and drums. It's a much different sound than the other side of the stage.
A couple of the guys had off nights, and it affected the vibe on stage more than just "oops." Also, Nick is worried that he might have picked up a cold. He had a doctor's appointment this morning to try and see if he could hold off the plague until Sunday!
Bencuya threw the synth solo for Love Will Keep Us Together at me. It's been a while since I've played that one. I did ok wandering through it, but I didn't get it note for note. Also, Bielenberg didn't know the string part for Don't Go Breakin' my Heart, so I got to go over there and play it on his keyboard (when he finally got out of the way at the end of the first verse!). He has a Roland Fantom. It's really nice! The keys have slightly more weight than my Triton. There's more of a solid feel to what I was playing. Bencuya has one too.
Not much else to report. I tried to study what Bencuya was playing. When I'm the other keyboardist, I need to be familiar with what he's doing, and I can't always hear him clearly. I learned some more stuff last night. He's still awesome, by the way.

I added a new page to my website: equipment! I even included a cell phone picture someone took of me last night.
www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Wednesday Yachting

Yacht Rock played a "blender" for Juice Studios Wednesday night at Magnolia Hall in Piedmont Park. It was a pretty low key affair--mostly people mingling and networking. We were the band on the other end of the room. It was a really easy gig. No problems (though I think we were all pretty underwhelmed by the sound company). I was standing next to the mains while soloing at the end of Reminiscing, and I checked after the song to see if my microphone was on. It was like that.
www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Backun Barrel

I upgraded my clarinet yesterday by buying a better barrel for it. It's a ringless Backun barrel. I wasn't looking to change my sound as much as I was trying to expand it, and the better barrel did just that.

I ordered four barrels to try--two by Clark Fobes and two by Backun. I tried the Fobes barrels first and then the Backuns. It was nice, nice, yeah, WOW! This one really seemed to make my clarinet go. I can get more air into it, and yet there's less back pressure. Just what I was looking for.

I'm off on a four day cruise (Yacht Rock).
www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Yacht Rock on Ice

Yacht Rock played an event for the University of Virginia alumni last night. Outside. In the cold. In a tent with almost no sides.

We thought we would die. We were sure we would freeze and be left to die in the cold at the horse farm in Buckhead.

But no! Although I did sit in my truck with the heat running for an hour before the gig started, we were ok once we got up and moving. The first couple of songs I was blowing on my hands, but beyond that we might as well have been indoors.

A couple of cold weather problems...both saxophones were pushed in about a quarter inch past usual. Other than that, they felt good. I had no trouble with reeds, and once I got the mouthpiece in the right place, the pitch across the horn was not as way out as I thought it would have been. Even the flute (pushed all the way in) felt normal.
The display on one of my keyboards was very slow in changing. The keyboard itself was fine, but the display lagged behind. Weird.

Kip Conner (soundman for Shawn Mullins) ran sound for us tonight. It was really nice. He did a great job of bumping solos up last night. It you were in Buckhead last night, you probably heard me. I was that loud. It was great.

Ganesh sang with us (Nick was out of town). He did a great job.

Mark Cobb played well. He used his small kit, and he played the hell out of it. I played keyboard facing him. It was fun to watch. I think he set a personal record for "Pat Boone Debbie Boone" on a gig.

Mark Bencuya quoted Rhapsody in Blue in Hey Nineteen, I quoted The Hustle in Lowdown and Baker Street in I Can't Go for That, and Mark Dannells quoted Black Dog in the second solo of Peg.

I played keyboards as well as my usual stuff. No problems to report, other than a wrong chord I played twice (geez! twice?!) in Reminscing. Should have been GMaj7, but I played Bb9 twice. Sorry.

Big week ahead. Thriller as well as some regular Yacht Rock gigs. It will be good, but I will be sleeping next Sunday.
www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Jazz and Toyotas

I had no gig tonight. No biggie. I played an early afternoon trio gig with Louis Heriveaux (keyboard) and Tommy Sauter (bass) at Stonecrest Toyota in Lithonia. I even drove a Toyota truck to the gig. Here's the audio if you want to check it out:

I clearly had some trouble with my reed in the first couple of songs (the first tune we attempted was I Mean You; the last was Cherokee). Where's the first note? On Turnaround, I will eventually get the end of the head right. I can do it in private, but not in public, evidently. Also, the head on Ladybird? What the hell? I don't know. I bailed on it pretty quick, that's for sure. On the way out I attempted to substitute Half Nelson, but I obviously haven't thought about that one in a while. No dice. While I'm criticizing myself, how about not playing so sharp, Freeman? Are ya deaf?

It is strange to me to hear this trio play. On the gig I want to scream sometimes because the time feels like it goes to hell about an hour into the gig. From there on out, we three do not agree, and it drives me crazy. When I hear the audio, it's never as bad as I remember. My anger is not justified.

T ball, Jack's birthday party, and a Yacht Rock gig await me tomorrow. Time for bed.
www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Yacht Rock

We cruised through Yacht Rock last night. I would say it sounded pretty good, but I'm biased.

I think I played the piano part to for I'd Really Love to See You Tonight about three and a half hours Thursday afternoon. My fingers were sore, but I got it right at the gig. That and All Out of Love were my two biggies that I needed to spend some time on. All Out of Love got cut, so you can assume I would have nailed it.

We played Thriller as a sneak peak of the Halloween show. It never fails to impress me how many people know all the words to every song. I'm getting to the point where I feels like I don't remember anything, but the people in front of me did everything but the frikin' dance!

The soundcheck for last night consisted of Human Nature and P.Y.T. I think we're in good shape. I don't have much on either one. The last song we need to work on is Lady in my Life. There's talk about tucking a saxophone solo in that one. Sweet! All play and no work for me on that!

We had an excellent night. The crowd was better than it's been in weeks, and we cashed in on the fact that we were a 7 piece (Bielenberg was on assignment). Strangely enough, there was an abundance of parking spaces, which made me think we'd be doomed. It was not true.

The sound man added his pitch shifter (and probably some other effects) to Mark Dannell's solo on Peg (might have been about the fourth song!), and really messed him up mentally. I think he thinks Hans (the sound man) is looking for an opportunity to destroy him. Dannell's was doing well up til then, and it seemed like after that he just wanted to get through it.

What else? We finally played I Keep Forgettin' again, and Nick and Pete (probably Nick) decided to insert Regulate into it. Boo. I hate it when we do that. I get to play the rhodes part (Bencuya on clav), and so I practiced it alot, and then I had to give it up half way through. I will point out that, once again, the crowd knew the words. These people are well rounded.

Oh yeah...did I mention that Dannells wrote a bridge for Happy Birthday? We played it TWICE for our buddy Jim Stapley, celebrating his twenty-fourth birthday last night. Keep up the good work, Jim.

The encore last night was Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. It got PAINFULLY loud. I could feel myself going deaf.
www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Thriller on my Mind

Thriller is killing me. I don't want to hear it anymore.

Yacht Rock had a rehearsal for Beat It and Billy Jean Monday night. We also checked a couple of the ones we'd previously worked on.

I spent tonight plowing through what seems like one million sounds looking for the right sound for a three measure solo in Human Nature. Fortunately (for my back and my sanity), I was able to find that obnoxious synth that I need for the chorus of P.Y.T. pretty quickly. I'm interested to hear what Bencuya came up with for the "Alvin" sounding vocoder thing at the end.

Tomorrow night we are doing Yacht Rock as a seven piece--Bielenberg has a gig somewhere else. I'm back on keyboards. I spent some time earlier today going over parts, and I'll do the same tomorrow. The only one I've never played before is the piano part on I'd Really Love to See You Tonight. I feel like I've got it, but I need to play it about 650 more times so I can feel confident about it. You only get one shot at the gig.
www.davidfreemanmusic.com

Victory!

What a weekend!

Thursday was our usual Yacht Rock gig. We added two more songs to our Thriller project, and I think they both went fairly well. It's always hard to tell. You figure out your part ahead of time, but you don't really know if it'll work until you hear in the context of everything else; at that point, you really know if you need to change your sound, volume, or scrap something in favor of another part. With Thriller, it seems like there are more things that two keyboardists and the EWI can physically perform, and so you have to make sure you're grabbing the parts that will be missed the most. That cool part that you had never heard until you really started analyzing the track probably won't be missed as much as the big synth pad.

Friday began waaaaaaaay too early (noon) with a studio call for Yacht Rock. We gathered at Open Sky Studios (in Avatar) to work on a Christmas tune--another mash-up of a Yacht Rock song with a Christmas tune. I don't think I'm at liberty to say what the two tunes are. Also, Dannells wrote a bridge to Happy Birthday. It's in four.
From Open Sky I headed on to Lake Oconee for a gig with Platnumb. A strange corporate gig in a conference room at the Ritz. A weird one for sure. Everyone in the audience was at least 50. We had barely started the first tune (Breezin') when they asked us to turn it down (as in, turn off the P.A.). Then they asked us to stop all together. We returned after they ate, and the gig turned into corporate cabaret. They just sat and stared at us as we paraded song after song before them. At some point in all this, somebody requested Brick House, so we jumped into that, and EVERYBODY got on the dance floor. It was really weird. But, that beat what we were doing, and they stayed out there for the rest of the set. When we came back from the break, there were fourteen people left in the room, and we played for them for another hour.

Saturday morning, Jack had a 10 AM t ball game. It was pretty cold.
When I got home from that, I worked on some stuff for my Yacht Rock gig that night (mostly the strings for All Out of Love by Air Supply). I also pounded on my synth solo for Lido Shuffle (and adjusted my sound for that).
We played in the back of Paris on Ponce in the room called Maison Rouge. It is an extremely neat place...it looks like a nightclub from the thirties. We played one and a half sets. It was super easy. The GREAT news is that I finally NAILED the Lido synth part. I was so pumped I wanted to stop the show and high five everybody in the room. It was so cool!
I think I may have finally won over Bencuya. He's been the main proponent of two keyboards for the gig, while I think everybody else is either on the fence or ok with me doing it. After the gig, Bencuya said he thought we sounded better/just as full as we did two nights earlier with two keyboards. How great is that! That really made my night. His opinion on this subject carries more weight than probably anybody else in the band, so I'm really excited to hear him say that.
Did I mention I nailed the synth solo?
Saxophone-wise, I could hear myself fairly well, and so I had a good night. Good reeds on both horns, though I realize that one of my alto reeds is probably dead. At least, it feels dead compared to the one I played last night.

Tonight is my church gig. I also have to check out some Thriller stuff. It turns out we're only adding two songs tomorrow night for the rehearsal--Beat It and Billy Jean. There probably won't be much for me in either of those.
www.davidfreemanmusic.com