Rolling Stones and the Dark Side

I played with Main Street Exiles last night, continuing our month long residency at the 10 High in Atlanta.  It was fun, but damn was it loud!

We used a different (I guess they're now the regular guys!) drummer and keyboardist.  The drummer was Derek Murphy, who sounded terrific.  I think he holds his breath when he plays, though.  I'm not sure if that's a criticism (what difference does it make to me?), but watching from just offstage, that's the way it appeared.  Maybe he's not.  It's just something I noticed.  Some guys look like they're working harder than others.  He sounded great, though, and played on a really pretty vintage Gretch drum kit.

The keyboardist was some kid named Patrick who played air guitar on a cowboy boot and wore his tie around his head like it was a headband for the second set.  Not impressive!  His girlfriend had really nice legs, though, and he brought more people to the gig than I did.

I waited all night to play the solo on Miss You;  I was ready, I was practiced, I could do it at home;  got on the gig, got excited, and botched the end of it.  Same thing with Brown Sugar.  I was ready, but I couldn't stick to the recorded solo the whole way through.  Maybe next time!

A few more lovely shots:

Before I left, I had spent the afternoon working on The Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd), which we are playing next Wednesday night in its entirety (synched up to the Wizard of Oz for The Dark Side of the Rainbow).  This will be fun!  I've done this a couple of times, but I've always learned the basics of the sax solo and then done my own thing.  This time I transcribed the sax stuff--I'm going to be on it!

Here's where the solo on Money is at:



Here's where the solo on Us and Them is at:



We will not have a female vocalist that night, so I was also given the task of handling her improvisation on The Great Gig in the Sky.  I wrote out the whole thing (as close as I could).  Here's where I'm at with that.



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Saturday and Sunday

Yacht Rock played the Mercy Lounge in Nashville, TN, Saturday night--our first time on our own (not as an opening band for someone else).  It was a huge success!  Different numbers were tossed around, mostly hovering around 400 paid.  Great news!  Everyone played well.  I think we really rose up in the moment.

The van picked me up and most of us rode up together (Nick and Pete went up earlier in the day).  It was a fun trip.  We got up there, loaded in with great efficiency, and soundchecked in about forty-five minutes (were were about forty-five minutes late in arriving, so it all evened out!).  After a quick meal at some no name Mexican restaurant, we returned to change clothes and then hit it.

In the first set, Kenny Loggins' keyboardist Scott Sheriff sat in with us on two Steely Dan tunes.

He played and sang well, but the really AWESOME thing was that he played on Bencuya's keyboard, so Bencuya came over and played on my keyboards.  I honestly didn't pay much attention to Scott because I was busy trying to steal anything I could from Bencuya!  Wow!  Awesome stuff.

Our second set included Alyssa Olson singing a few songs with us (Don't Go Breakin' My Heart, Physical, and Love Will Keep Us Together).  I don't think we've done any of those songs in since the Variety Playhouse stuff in June, but everybody just fell right back into it.  It was an awesome moment and Alyssa sang really well, in spite of being seven or eight months pregnant!

I would like someone to give me an explanation as to why the question I am asked most often is "Are you really playing the saxophone?"  Two people asked me that Saturday night.

After the gig, we retired to the hotel for a few hours' sleep, and then went meandered back to Atlanta.

The view from our hotel room:

I played my usual Sunday night church gig.  We kind of had an "oh shit!" situation because all but one of our vocalists were out this week, so it was one vocal, piano, hand drum, and me.  The "soloist" did really well, all things considered.  I tried to reinforce what she was doing instead of filling in around her so much--some unisons and some harmonies.  It was ok.

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Park Tavern

Rumor has it 1,000 people came to the Park Tavern last night to see us play.  I'm not sure what 1,000 people looks like, so I assume it's true.  There were lots of people crammed into that tent to see us.

We did the Beatles tribute (Please Pleaserock Me) to kick things off.  It went pretty well.  Fortunately for us there were a fair number of people there at the start of the show;  hopefully that will translate into more of a crowd at the next show at Smith's Olde Bar.

After that we did a set of Yacht Rock.  No major problems (though I did have some moments of uncertainty).  My alto reed felt so good I wish I could have played that horn all night.  It was really rippin'.

The aftermath:

We're off to Nashville today.

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Roswell Mill

Yacht Rock played a private gig last night for Ogilvy at Roswell Mill.  Not a bad gig at all, and it kept us from playing the 10 High.  Plus, it was over right when the 10 High would have started, so we got out early.  PLUS it took me 10 minutes to get home.  Nice!  Gigs on my side of town are rare.

We set up and soundchecked.  Right from the start, my computer crashed (what's up with that?), and I had a bad cable on one of the keyboards (the sound would come and go).  I troubleshot that...no biggie.  The laptop...I don't know.

Everything else was cool and the sound was pretty good.  Nothing was really loud because we were outside, so I liked that.  Pete even had me in his monitor up front.  Did I win some sort of award or something?  Nick made the comment after the gig "your rig was really in the PA tonight."  I'm not sure what that means.  I kind of want to be pissed about it, but I'm not sure why I would be.

We went and killed off an hour in the "band room" (really the "bride's room", which meant that half of us sat in the bride's room and half of us in the bathroom).

When we went out to start, I had that thought (like I always do) that my reeds had probably dried out on the mouthpieces and now looked like potato chips.  Not this time, though, right?  Nope.  I spent the first tune (Reminiscing) trying to rehydrate my alto reed while I played a string part with the other hand.  I learned later on that the tenor reed was the same way.  Why is it that they dry out, but then once I get them flat again, they're good for the rest of the gig, even though I don't play much saxophone at all?

The gig was mostly standard fare, though late in the second set the client asked that we play more dance music (which left us pretty confused--why'd you hire us?).  They wanted us to switch to stuff like Celebration (I'm sure Brick House and Mustang Sally were not sure behind, and then maybe they'd cut the cake and toss the garter?).  We adapted as best we could.

I couldn't figure out why the chords I was playing in Ride Like the Wind wouldn't work.  I always play chords with the right hand and EWI with the left.  I kept getting a nasty clash, so every time we came to that chord, I would try and leave out a different note on the keyboard.  I figured out after the song that spit had run down the front of the EWI and was causing it to play Bb instead of B natural.

Towards the end of the night, I stood up to take an alto solo, and got almost no sound out of my alto mic.  Fortunately there was a vocal mic nearby, so I played into that.  When I sat down and looked at my wireless pack, it was off.  Dead battery?  I looked at my wireless receiver--still receiving signal.  I muted the channel because I thought I might be receiving some sort of interference.  Aha!  I'd left the pack on my tenor on (I have both packs on the same channel, so I only use one receiver).  I turned off the tenor and checked the alto again.  Now the alto said it had dead batteries.

We finished the gig, but the crowd wanted an encore so we played Takin' it to the Streets.  Another sax tune!  Cool.  We got to the solo and I stood up to let it rip, and got no sound out of my tenor mic.  Agh!  What the hell?  I played the solo in the vocal mic while mentally retracing my steps...I'd forgotten to unmute the channel on the mixer.  Way to go, dumb ass.  Technology wins again!

Tonight will be better!

davidfreemanmusic.com

Aquarium Gig!

Last night I did a House Live gig with Jeff and Wayne at the Georgia Aquarium.

The gig started with me playing solo saxophone for an hour in the main atrium.  About five minutes into the gig, they asked me to move one foot to my left--"closer to the table with the imaginary couple enjoying your music!" the guy said.

I answered "They'll soon be filling my imaginary tip jar, I hope."  No luck.  Our parking did get comped, though.

After that, I joined up with the other guys in the ballroom.  Not much to report;  it was kind of a dull, low volume gig.  I couldn't hear the track well enough to even know what key I was supposed to be in.  We had fun, though.

My soprano is officially in need of repair.  I was using one of my less favorite reeds, and it felt dull and resistant, so I carved on it with my pocketknife.  When that failed to do the trick, I tried a new reed.  Same results--dull and resistant.  So I tried my number one reed--same result!  Must be a leak.  My alto feels good, and my flute's happy.

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Sunday stuff

Yesterday was my usual pair of Sunday church gigs.  After a not too late Saturday night (asleep by 2:30 AM?), I was back up at 6:45 AM to get a move on.

The first gig is always a little "seat of the pants," but this time it bit the band in the butt.  We were supposed to allow the flags to process silently (in remembrance of September 11), and once they were in place, then begin the first song, but we forgot about the flags.  So in front of everybody, Rev. Randy whipped around and cut us off--like you'd yell at a dog or something.  Ouch!  Wake up!  The second song started, but the words did not come up on the screen, and Rev. Randy was hot under the collar again.  After that, there was a brief video to be shown.  One of the screens had only audio.  Rev. Randy was thoroughly pissed at that point (also because he was the star of the video?).  Anyway, that set the tone for the entire service--run away!!!!
Since this gig is a hard blowing situation, I used it to break in a few new tenor reeds.

As usual, I went home and slept.

My second gig was a little bit thin.  For some reason, most of the vocalists were missing, so it was just two girls, piano, hand drum, and me.  When we started, I had to dial in some of the stuff--I wasn't there last week (I was on the boat), and whoever had been running the sound board had been managing the volume by riding the gain instead of the volume fader.  The first song had some crazy loud drum and piano.  Once I got it under control, things were better.  The drum guy was actually putting out some sound (usually his mic picks up more of the piano than the drum), but when I soloed his channel in his headphones, he went back to playing like a pussy.  Such is life.
I haven't had much time to play flute this week, so I did lots of long tones during this mass to bring my face back to life.

It's not relevant to my music career, but Dallas needs a head coach who will bring discipline to the team.  They have great talent, but there were too many mistakes last night--not just on the final play.  I hope Jerry Jones made them walk home.

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Yacht Rock on the set of Die Hard

The Yacht Rock Revue played a benefit for the Mito Society.  The gig was on the eighteenth floor of the Terminus building in Buckhead.  Here are some pictures:

We played well.  I can't really think of anything horrible happening.  It was very nice to Mark Bencuya back on stage with us.  It's not the same without him!
The room, as you might imagine, was pretty horrible for listening.  Concrete and glass...hmmm...looked cool, sounded bad.
We debuted Reelin' in the Years last night.  It was a little rough;  maybe a little tense feeling.  We ran it at soundcheck and then played it during the gig.
My goal last night with the gig (other than to keep my mistakes to a minimum) was to try not to look at my hands when I was playing keyboard.  I've gotten much better about it, but I made a conscious effort to keep my head up and trust my hands.  For the most part, I was good.

We watched a really big thunderstorm roll through.

Here's the view over the back edge of the stage.  Right down to the disco Kroger parking lot!

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