Saturday

I had two gigs today.

The first was a Yacht Rock gig.  We played a wedding (ceremony and reception) at the Aquarium.  Mark Dannells and I played the ceremony--flute and acoustic guitar.  It was never clearly stated to any of us, but it turns out we played the gig for free.  Booooo.  It was all connected to some sort of radio program--I guess the bride and groom won a free wedding on the radio, and all the vendors (band, photographers) traded their services for promotion from the radio and the Aquarium.  We'll see.  I think we got screwed.

Saturday night was a smooth jazz gig at Londzell's with Madoca and Company.  It wasn't too bad, though I did have the thought at one point that it was two and a half hours of watching "your local weather."  It was difficult reading, though!  Here's what the charts looked like:

The solos were always wide open--one or two chords.

Whew!

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Schooner

I played at the Wild Wing in Suwanee with the Schooner last night, with Greg Lee subbing for Ganesh Giri Jaya, and Dustin subbing for Mike Bielenberg.  They were a bit flat compared to last night, I thought.

The monitor that I shared was a bit grumpy.  During soundcheck it was fine because I wasn't quite standing on top of it.  Once we started playing the gig, however, my microphone began feeding back--a low end thing that kept cycling until it would roar.  The soundman fixed it pretty quickly by removing me from the monitor completely!  No more feedback.  No more audible saxophone on stage, either.  Thanks, dude.  A bit drastic, I would say.

I got bored pretty quickly and ended up overplaying--lots of saxophone in spots (intros, bridges) where it didn't belong.

My horns are getting a bit leaky.  I can always tell when my tenor needs to be looked at because the altissimo A and Bb become much easier to miss.  Last night the Bb was going low--I had to kick it to make it come out.  I switched over to my backup for today's events.

I'm off to an early Yacht Rock wedding--8 AM load in at the Aquarium!  Ouch.

Here are two extra cool pictures from this past Tuesday's Greater Vavoom gig.

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I Cannot Afford to Suck!

Tonight the members of the Yacht Rock Revue had the band version of an office party.  We gave up our usual 10 High gig to the Schooner so we could attend the "Dukes of September" concert--Boz Scaggs, Michael McDonald, and Donald Fagen--at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre.

The concert was pretty good.  With those three guys, you'd think you'd hear more of classic songs.  Instead, it was about half covers--maybe more than half.  For instance, the only Steely Dan song Fagen did was Reelin' in the Years.  Michael McDonald did I Keep Forgetting, What a Fool Believes, and Takin' it to the Streets (and on that one he only sang the first verse and chorus before turning it over to a background singer).  Boz Scaggs did Lowdown;  maybe he did one other that I can't think of right now.  The rest were covers.  It was cool hearing Walt Weiskopf again.  He's awesome.

Immediately following the concert, somebody had the terrific idea that we would go crash the 10 High, presumably to show up the B band.  I drove like a wild man back to my house to get my saxophones and flute, and then flew down to Virginia Highland.  When we got there, the Schooner was playing and sounding great.  We got up there on their break and tried to play What a Fool Believes, I Want a New Drug, and Lido Shuffle.  It was not pretty.

I played my keyboard parts on What a Fool Believes that I've been working on.  Disaster.  I couldn't hear very well what I was doing, and I wasn't comfortable with the setup of the keyboards.  I could go on with an excuse for every wrong note I played.  I Want a New Drug was fine because it was my usual sax part.  Lido Shuffle was really bad--I usually play the brass part on EWI, so I f...fumbled it.  Over and over, I might add.  Even worse, with the usual keyboard wizard, Eric Frampton, close enough that he could spit on me in disgust.  Mercifully, we finished with that one and I could leave.

I drove home as fast as I drove down there, furious and embarrassed.  I know it's my fault--if I was better and more consistent in my keyboard playing, I wouldn't have made such a fool of myself.  I really looked like an amateur in front of a room full of people, and with the entire band and the Schooner watching.   This cannot happen ever again, but I'm sure it will.

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Please Pleaserock Me at Smith's

Please Pleaserock Me, our Beatles tribute, stormed Smith's Olde Bar again last night.  I think the show went really well, even though there were hardly any people there.  I guess the Juliette Lewis crowd wasn't interested.

(Just as a side note, I want to mention that the dressing room that Dearly Beloved used twenty-four hours previously still smelled atrociously bad.  It was all armpits and litterboxes.  They admitted/apologized to some of us that they hadn't bathed in a while.  No shit!  I think their previous encounter with soap must have been back in Canada.)

The big tune of the night was When I'm Sixty-Four.  It went pretty well.  I'm flat (of all things--after years of being twenty cents sharp, I'm finally going flat!) and the other two horns are wild with the tuning as well.  I 'm guessing that when I'm playing straight clarinet, my throat and embouchure aren't as wide open as they are when I've been playing saxophone full blast for an hour.  Thus, I'm a little low.  The clarinet wins again!

I recorded it:



Other than that, it was our usual stuff.  Jason Pellett nailed Penny Lane.  The sound was really good, particularly for the horn monitor.  I think that it helped that Greg was not there when we set the monitor mix--Jason and I want us and probably nothing else, and Greg wants everything else and us!

We always laugh that the Please Pleaserock Me gig always looks like a music store...three keyboards, a Wurly, drums, hand percussion, six or seven guitars, five amplifiers, omnichord, laptop, plus the horns--me or soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone sax, piccolo, flute, clarinet, and kazoo, Jason on piccolo trumpet, Bb trumpet, flugelhorn, and trombone, and Greg on alto sax!  We use all thirty-two channels at Smith's, and we could use more if they had them.

On the break, I stuffed the request box with Young Americans--Bowie quotes A Day in the Life, so I think it's legit.

It's a drag that Youtube took down the video of Bowie (with Sanborn) playing Young Americans live on the Dick Cavett show.  One of my favorites.  I did find it here.

Speaking of David Sanborn, I got my Dukoffs back from Will Grizzle already.  He put them back together for me.  Yay!  I played my normal one last night--it's a 7* that Mojobari opened up to .85, so it's really a D8 now.  It felt great.  I had been using a Dukoff vibracom D8 (my backup mouthpiece).  The silverite one has more bite and balls.  I love it.

Mark Cobb is the man!

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The Greater Vavoom vs. Juliette Lewis

Last night was the Greater Vavoom gig at Smith's Olde Bar, opening for Juliette Lewis.  I think we played OK;  it's difficult to say.  I was worried about the stage volume, so I wore earplugs, but that left me with the same problem I always have--I feel so disconnected from everything else around me, I have a hard time feeling like I'm there.  It was like I was watching through the window.

We came off stage and immediately began asking/telling each other "That was a good show, right?"  I think that's kind of telling--maybe we all felt disconnected (even though we individually felt fine).  I, for one, am still not sure what I'm supposed to do with the Vavoom.  I guess it will take a few more rehearsals and gigs before I hear myself inside the sound of the band.

Dearly Beloved followed us on stage.  They were ok.  Evidently, I've never felt the emotions they feel.  Maybe I'm not saying that correctly;  all of their stuff had punk/hard rock energy and manic lyrics.  Even if I've felt that way, it's never come through me like I've needed to jump around in a mosh pit to express it.  Anyway, that style of music does nothing for me.  Let's just leave it at that.

A couple of other comments...the body language of the stage right guitarist just killed me.  He never faced the band, never made eye contact.  He would face straight ahead, and if he took a step, it turned his shoulders out--not in.  So weird!  

The band also had some chick singer--the girl with the inaudible tambourine.  I spent some time and energy trying to decide exactly what she was doing there.  She didn't really contribute anything other than some snarls and attitude.  It makes me wonder if she used to do more, and they've scaled back her role, or if she's convinced them that her presence is worth it, or what.  All I know is that if she hadn't been there, I wouldn't have noticed.

On to my rant about Juliette Lewis...

The Juliette Lewis show felt like a sham.  I assume she's fully committed to the music and really believes in it, but from where I was standing the whole thing looked like it was put together by a friend of hers who happens to work in the marketing department of a fairly big record label.  

Juliette seemed to be playing a role--a cross between Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, and Janis Joplin.  All that crap she said in between songs was carefully scripted.  The songs were lame punk/hard rock.  I couldn't make my brain believe that any of it was more than her self-indulgent BS until her agent calls with the next movie role.

Her band was made up of a punk rock drummer with a big 'fro (I think DW drums are a sign that I should leave immediately), an Asian girl playing bass (whose on stage demeanor made me thing she would look more appropriate as the greater at a trendy midtown restaurant);  two guitarists--one with Nine Inch Nails hair who floppped around onstage a lot, and another guy who was constantly reminding himself to be more animated, though his tendency was to stand there and play his guitar solos.  Once again--no eye contact between band members--no smiling, no laughing--no "We're playing together."  I would say not a band at all--four guys who learned their parts and fill their roles backing up some chick singer on her "project."  The only place any of their eyes went was towards Juliette Lewis--making sure that she saw them doing their thing so they could keep their gig a little longer.  They might as well be playing covers at a wedding.  What a bunch of "manufactured in L.A." crap!

The fact that the room was rather full and the crowd cheered for crap like that makes me feel like the music industry deserves to die.  In between songs there was so much chatter at the bar, there's no way those people were really there to hear the music.  They were there to take part in the celebrity (right down to the people waiting in the alley behind Smith's).  We were all playing our roles, for better or worse.

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Sunday and Monday

So...I vacated Ansley Golf Club around 1:15 AM, came home, unpacked all my stuff from the gig, hung up my suit, packed my stuff for my church gig back into my truck, sniffed around on the internet, and went to bed at 3:30 AM.  At 6:30 AM, I was up again, drinking coffee and eating breakfast.  I was at my church gig before 8 AM.

Not too much to report.  I was fortunate to have the monitor wedge right next to me (YESSSSSS!) but unfortunate to have everything but me in it (NOOOOOO!).  After a song or two, I grabbed it and slid it past me so the bass and drums could hear it.  It was not helping me at all.

At some point during the service, we were playing a song in A major, and I managed to fit Michael Brecker's entire solo on Still Crazy After All these Years into the church song THREE TIMES.  By the  third time through the solo my eyes were watering because I was laughing at myself.  They probably thought I was really feeling the spirit.

Am I going to hell for that?

It's still one of my favorite songs (and favorite solos).

Nobody called me out about the solo--they even gave me a check!  So I went home and immediately fell asleep for a few hours.

I woke up a few hours later and drove to Peachtree City to celebrate my niece's birthday.  Due to bad traffic, I was only able to stay for twenty-five minutes before I had to drive back to Atlanta and play my second church gig.

Not much happened at the second church gig.  Hot usher again.  Yeah.

I ran out of church at 8 PM and went straight to a rehearsal for The Greater Vavoom.  The elected to go with no EWI, just saxophone.  It sounded much better, and there were no EWI disasters either.

I got home after 11 PM and probably passed out on the couch soon after that.

Monday started with a trip to the eye doctor to get a new prescription for glasses.  I then did some exciting things around the house like change sheets before Jack came home.  Reggie needed a bath worse than anything else on Earth, so I took care of that too.  He left some funk in my truck, so I took care of that too.

Monday afternoon I spent several hours trying to approximate the clarinet trio that plays on When I'm Sixty-Four.  I need it for the Please Pleaserock Me show this Wednesday.  What does one do when one hears three clarinets, but one's horn section only has one clarinetist?  Second clarinet=alto and bass clarinet=trombone.  Voila!  Here's my arrangement:

It's probably a shock to think that I could do something with MIDI without a whole bunch of cussing.

Monday evening was another run through of the Greater Vavoom stuff.  It was super loud.  I looked in my case for my earplugs, but I had left them in a suit pocket.  Not doing me much good there...

All my tenor reeds died.  Number two warped last night at rehearsal so I pitched it.  Number three was warped, so I pitched it.  Number four was dead.  Number one was dead, but it was the last reed I had in my case, so I played it through the rest of rehearsal and then broke it in half (to show it who was boss).  I started breaking in some new reeds on Friday;  I now pronounce them fit for action.  Your training is over, soldier!

I came home and knocked out another couple of charts for Beatles rehearsal tomorrow morning (It Don't Come Easy and Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite).  Nothing terribly difficult.  Not like the clarinet thing.

davidfreemanmusic.net

One for the Boobies

The Yacht Rock Revue played a breast cancer benefit at Ansley Golf Club in midtown.  It was a pretty easy gig, though the time frame was very long--6:30 to midnight.  Other than that, it was no big deal.  Straight Yacht Rock stuff.  After the previous night's humid show, it was great to be in air conditioning, too!

We set up and soundchecked (with a monster PA!  I've played gigs in the same room with NO PA!).  I guess we got a little carried away going over tunes, because the coordinator came in and asked if we were finished because they wanted to open the doors.  Oops.  We changed really fast and played a hour set.

Included in the first set was Sailing by Christopher Cross.  Dedicated readers will recall my death at the Variety Playhouse a few months back.  This time, I nailed it.  No problems.  It was good to put that one to bed--I don't have to carry around the self doubt (or as much self doubt).  I've been looking for another opportunity.

Also included in the set was Little Jeannie.  I worked on it some more before the gig and I think it paid off. I was twice as good as the night before.  Hopefully we'll keep that one in the set list--it's fun to play.

We then took a break...for something like two hours!  We sat in a the massage room and drank scotch.  Scotch is gross.  I'm not a very experienced drinker, but geez.  No thanks.

We came back around 10 PM and played two sets.  The crowd was WASTED.  Holy cow could those people drink.  Included in the second set was What a Fool Believes.   I think I've found my sound.  I'm going to sit on this one for a while and see if I get comfortable with it.

Maybe I've said this before, but it's funny to me that I really don't play much saxophone on the gig, and yet people constantly praise me for my sax playing.  We played around thirty-five songs;  maybe nine or ten had saxophone parts--not necessarily solos.  People eat it up.  What can I say?

No blog post would be complete without an EWI disaster, right?  Here you go:  the plug separated from the power supply on my laptop and fell on the floor, but I didn't notice.  In the middle of the final set, I suddenly noticed that my laptop would not wake up.  Why?  No more power.  I'd drained the battery.  The cable was still attached to the laptop and the prongs were still in the power strip, but the brick of the power supply was on the floor.  Great!  I plugged it back in and turned the laptop back on.  Mainstage came back and everything looked good.

I should mention that I was doing all of this while we were playing.  It's like trying to dismantle a bomb before the song ends.  YOU NOW HAVE THREE AND A HALF MINUTES TO TROUBLESHOOT THIS VERY BAD PROBLEM!

The problem was that thus:  the program came back on, but the the MIDI convertor was not receiving MIDI information.  I closed down Mainstage and restarted it.  No luck.  I rebooted the computer.  No luck.  I rebooted Mainstage again.  No luck.  We'd moved into another song so I was now trying to play a keyboard part and fix my laptop.  At one point while I was bent over frantically doing triage, Mark Cobb reached over and played part of his drum groove on the top my head.   The eventual solution was to unplug the USB cable and then plug it back in.  That fixed it.  Damnit!

Also during this set, we were given a round of tequila.  Great.  Just as nasty as scotch.

The set ended and we were invited to an afterparty (no thank you).  More and more drunk people and they all dug us.  That's cool, but they probably won't help load out gear!

davidfreemanmusic.net