Zac Brown Boat

I returned relatively unscathed from the Zac Brown Sailing Southern Ground cruise.  We left Tampa Thursday afternoon in a wash of free booze and loud country music bound for Grand Cayman, and floated back Monday morning, tired and ready to go home!

A recap of what I can remember:

Thursday:  we flew from Atlanta to Tampa, caught a cab to the port, and got on the boat.

Mark Cobb in flight.





















From there it was mostly hanging out and drinking.

As we pulled away from the dock, the Zac Brown Band played on the Lido Deck, while the artist VIP area was full of musicians sucking up the free alcohol.  Actually, they shut the bar down because we were going through it too fast!  It was cool to hang with friends old and new.

Here's Brandon Still (previous Yacht Rock keyboardist, now with Blackberry Smoke) and his girlfriend Tiffany Cosgrove.

Anyway...I drank.  I don't remember anything else happening.  I woke up in my clothes.

Friday:  we (Yacht Rock Revue) were supposed to perform at 1 PM on the Lido Deck, but it was moved so Zac Brown could give a cooking demonstration.  Our new time was 1 AM in the Candlelight Lounge. I got a little fidgety waiting all day, so I went and rescued my saxophones from the gear pile, took them to my room and practiced for a couple of hours (even found some good alto reeds!).  It was nice to have some normalcy in a weird situation.  Getting the horns in my face really helped get my head focused.  I played through scales and patterns on alto, tenor, and flute, and checked my EWI stuff to make sure everything was cool.  Everything was.

I heard the Wood Brothers play a set of amazing organic music.  If there was one thing I would download from all the bands on the cruise, it would be some of their stuff.  Amazing.  It sounded like jazz/blues guys playing a rootsy set--lots of interplay and listening.  You HAVE to check it out.

I heard Shawn Mullins play a set.  He's got some cool stuff, but the spoken verse, sung chorus formula has GOT TO GO!  He uses it too often.  Greg said, "but that's his thing!"  All the more reason to get away from it, I would say.

We hit the ballroom and did the fire drill half hour changeover.  When we finally got started, there was a huge wash of collective adrenaline from the entire band.  We're finally playing!  The crowd was there and we were there.  Perfect!  In our previous cruises this year (all on the same boat), we've never had a good set in this room, so we were pretty psyched to be playing well.  Everything was cool.  Mark Cobb was playing really hard--these high profile gigs always bring out the animal in him.  He was proving himself to anybody who would listen.

The soundman told me afterwards that my signal to the mixing board was super hot.  It turns out that in trying to reach back in the dark and turn up the volume on an unfamiliar amplifier, I'd instead been cranking the line out volume.  Oops.

Once we'd finished our set, we moved down the hallway to the Promenade stage and played a few tunes, including this new one.  Once that was over, I went to bed.

Saturday:  I woke up around noon and got off the boat in Grand Cayman along with 3Markable (Mark Dannells, Mark Cobb, and Mark Bencuya).  We had lunch on Seven Mile Beach and a quick swim in the ocean.

Mark Cobb!

Mark Bencuya!

Mark Dannells and Mark Bencuya.

I saw the Wood Brothers again.  Still killin' it.

Saturday night was our second set, once again in the Candlelight Lounge (11:30 PM).  We played well again.  Mentally, it took a while for me to get there, but we had no problems.  The gig went well.  Mark Cobb:  en fuego.

Afterwards, Brandon was extremely complimentary about what I have done as a keyboardist, which meant the world to me.  His opinion, along with Mark Bencuya's, are by far the most important on the subject.  I can't say enough about how awesome it was to hear what he had to say.

Sunday:  Sunday afternoon we played the Lido Deck at 2:30 PM.  This is the prime afternoon gig spot on the boat--the deck is full if the weather is nice.  We played well and everything was groovy.  At one point my laptop did crash, but what's a gig without an EWI disaster!  When we started Caribbean Queen, the sound was gurgly.  I hit the spacebar to clear up what I assumed was the processor getting maxed out by something.  The next time I looked at the computer, I noticed that Mainstage had closed/crashed!  Yikes!  I rebooted the computer and pulled up Mainstage again. Fortunately, the set list was such that I didn't use the EWI for several songs in a row and I could get it set back up.  It was a scary couple of minutes, though.

I can't say that I wasn't relieved to get off stage.  That kind of fried my nerves.  Other than that, though, I played well, got off some good solos, and didn't screw up my keyboard parts very much.

When we finished, I packed my stuff up and they put my horns, keyboard, and magic suitcase (full of sax stands, effects pedal, cables, keyboard pedals) in the hold.  I watched Blackberry Smoke play their set and ate.  Later on that night I watched Clay Cook play some really terrific solo stuff on the Serenity Deck.  People were hanging on every note;  they always do when it's Clay.

While watching, my one wish was this:  many people, particularly Clay, were huge fans of Y.O.U. and Nick Niespodziani, and Nick's stuff is just as good if not better than anybody else on the boat.  It would be cool if someone like Clay would be more of a champion of Nick's music.  He deserves to be heard just as much as these more celebrated singer/songwriters.

While I was listening to Clay and dreaming of Nick's success, someone reached around from behind me with a camera, showing me multiple pictures of people posing with my very relaxed body that first night of the cruise.  Oops.

We hung out the rest of the night.  I think I went to bed around 4:30 AM, and got up at 8:30 AM at the port of Tampa.  Hooray!  Home again!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Main Street Exiles

Tonight was the first night of the Main Street Exiles' residency at the 10 High.  We played the same set we played a few weeks earlier.

This is not a huge gig for me, playing-wise.  There are some horn parts--I guess you never really think about the Rolling Stones having horn parts, but Bobby Keys has been playing with them forever!  (the current band also has Andy Snitzer on saxophone).  There are some things to play.  That said, I probably have more responsibility as the percussionist.

Here's the solo on Miss You.  It's a typical chart for this gig--wait, wait, WAIT!!, eight measure solo, and you're done.

The crowd was horrible!  Or should I say, "What crowd?"  I don't think there were ever more than ten people in the audience.  Because of that, we played kind of a low energy/rehearsal kind of show.  It was sad.

I personally didn't have a bad night (none of us did), but I did step on the wrong pedal for Bitch, so all my stuff was a fifth apart instead of a fourth.  Oops.

I'm leaving this morning to go on the Zac Brown Sailing Southern Ground cruise, on our way to Grand Cayman. I'll have a blog update early next week.
davidfreemanmusic.net

ARB

In my continuing quest to find an alto mouthpiece that can get me closer to David Sanborn's sound, I have mingled with many hunks of metal, but today I think I found a winner!  The ARB metal (#6) fits the bill.

I have played approximately one dozen Dukoff 8s in the past two weeks.  None of them were great, but I did pick one that was pretty good and had Will Grizzle reface it (along with the D7* that I've been using since the Vegas trip).  The D8 has been on my desk, and I've been playing the D7*.  What I've noticed is that it starts out fine, but somewhere during the gig things change--I don't know if it's my reeds drying out or warping off the table, or if the mouthpiece is heating up and changing shape, but the thing never feels as good as it does for the first couple of notes I play.  Regardless of the reason, I've got to keep looking--I can't deal with a piece that is never the same thing twice!

Saxophonist fans of David Sanborn know that before the Dukoff, he played a Brilhart Level Aire--this is from the late sixties up until some time in 1975, when he made the switch.  I don't think he sounds that different, so I started investigating the Level Aire.  At some point, Arnold Brilhart was working for Beechler, and put out the ARB mouthpiece (his initials) for them--but it's really just the Brilhart Level Aire.    Ah ha!  I ordered one, and it plays great (I played along with Young Americans a few times), and it's made out of stainless steel so I know it's not going to morph the way the silverite Dukoff is.  I won't know for sure until I play it on a few gigs, but I played on it this afternoon and it did everything I wanted it to do.  I got the sound I was looking for, the range, the volume, and the articulation was good.  It's bright and edgy, but stable.

Is the mouthpiece search really over?  Maybe!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday Zzzzzz

Sunday was a killer.

I went to bed around 2 AM, got up at 6:45 AM, and got to my church gig at 8 AM.  Somewhere in the down time at that one I took a nap.  I played lots of clarinet on this one--we kind of slid from gospel/soul to more of a New Orleans/soul thing.  Maybe it was just me--I probably played pretty much the same thing I would have played, but on clarinet.  Anyway, they asked for clarinet, they got clarinet.

I took a nap as soon as I got home.  After I got up, I hung out with Jack for a while, practiced, and then rolled on to my second church gig.  I played mostly flute on this one.

I got home, ate, and fell asleep watching the football game.

davidfreemanmusic.net

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!

davidfreemanmusic.net

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.

davidbfreemanmusic.net

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.

davidfreemanmusic.net

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!

davidfreemanmusic.net

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.

davidfreemanmusic.net

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