Another Weekend Came and Went

Thursday:  Yacht Rock Revue at the 10 High.  It was an ok night;  I can't remember anything specifically about the way we played at this point.  I mean, the set lists came out a few hours before the gig, so I didn't even do any preparation.  We played Lonely Boy.  I remember that.  Mark Cobb came by and sat in on Biggest Part of Me.

Thursday night was the last night in Atlanta for our merchandising genius, Gina Niespodziani.  She's taking her vast talents to New York City.  Someone as creative as her will do very well there, I think.  Great ideas are always pouring out of her.  You can check out some really hip examples of her work on her website and see some of the Yacht Rock stuff she made here.  We're gonna miss her.

Friday:  I traveled to Macon with the Yacht Rock Schooner for some kind of semi-private gig.  We played at the old Armory.  Neat building, neat room.  Acoustically unattractive.  Who am I to complain?  My only responsibility for the evening was saxophone (and flute), so it was an easy night.  The sound guys even gave me my own monitor (with JUST ME in it).  Sweet!  That never happens!  I had the thing loud, as it should be!  The band sounded really good.

Saturday:  I had two gigs.  The first was a semi-private gig at Sweetwater Brewery, providing entertainment for Revel for Families First.  This was a cool gig because it gave me the opportunity to play with Tyrone Jackson and Kevin Smith, two of my favorite people in the galaxy.  Awesome gig, as you might imagine.  I had a wonderful time!  Nick and his wife Elliott stopped by for a set--very cool to see them.  I guess Nick hung with it about as long as he could--not a jazz fan.

Before we even got started, we discovered five or six wasp nests in the roof of the bandstand.  One of the Sweetwater guys went and bought a can of hornet spray and hosed them down.  No wasps (for the most part), but the stage was littered with dead bugs.

Back to the music:  Tyrone and Kevin played some really terrific stuff. Tyrone was stunning, and Kevin played better than I think I've ever previously heard him.

Here's the audio:

Once the trio gig ended, I packed up, went home, swapped gear, and headed to the Dixie Tavern, where I met up with the Yacht Rock Schooner.  I played their second set with them.  Once again, a very relaxed setting for me to hang out and blow some sax and flute.  I got off a good solo on Takin' it to the Streets for a change.  The band continued their hot streak--sounded good.  I did my best (when not playing) to try and steal anything I could from Eric Frampton.

By the time I got home, put away the PA from the trio gig, hung up my clothes, packed for Sunday, and poked around on the internet, it was almost 4 AM.

Sunday:  officially began with my alarm clock at 7 AM.  Ouch!  Maybe three hours of sleep.  Not good.

Church gig number one felt like Church:  The Musical.  The usual leader was on vacation, so we had the organist leading us.  He's a little stiff.  The usual singers were not there, either, so we had one of the adult small vocal groups providing lyrics.  Thus, the three main charts in the book were each about sixteen pages (single sided photocopies, just to make the page turning more frantic).  Not much music can be made when you're turning pages every four measures!

I came home and prepared for a Monday morning Yacht Rock rehearsal.  Three songs.  No big deal.  After a quick shower, I was off to church gig number two.  It went fairly well.  The pianist made more mistakes than usual.  Weird stuff--like one hand would change chords, but the other would not, or one hand would play a wrong note, and the other hand would walk across the keyboard to go talk about it.

I had a tired flute face and a crummy soprano reed, but another pretty good mix happening-maybe that made up for my lack of musical prowess.

I made home and ate something before I fell asleep on the couch.  I woke up at 8:40 AM!  Just in time to drink a cup of coffee and head out the door to rehearsal.

Easy week this week…check in on my David Freeman Music Facebook page to see videos from these recent trio gigs, or check them out as I post them on my YouTube channel.

P.S.  The 'stache is gone.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Aquarium Gig!

I did a House Live gig at the Georgia Aquarium last night.  It's been a while…Wayne dubbed it our reunion tour!

As usual, it was a super easy gig.  We played in the Atrium overlooking…the atrium.  I don't know how else to say that.  Party Nation was in the ballroom (great to see my old friends in there:  Steve Cunningham, Maurice White, and Allen Cook).

The entire aquarium was open to the crowd.  It seemed like there were only about four hundred people there altogether, so we probably only played for a hundred and fifty people.  Very sparse.  Check out these pictures, taken DURING the gig!  Nobody out there!

They delayed our start by a half hour, so we wandered around for an hour an a half before doors opened.

When we left, the gate was up, so free parking to top it off!  Yay for that!

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Trio Gig

I (along with Louis Heriveaux and Kevin Smith) played a trio gig last night in the CNN atrium.  Some kind of corporate reception background music thing.  No sweat.  Actually, I did sweat quite a bit trying to get the PA and my stuff into the atrium.  I couldn't find the phantom CNN loading dock entrance and had to do some evasive driving in 5:30 downtown traffic.  No fun.  Eventually, I just gave up and turned my truck in at the valet at the CNN/Omni.  From there, eight steps led to lots of elevator rides to nowhere.  Needless to say, by the time I finally got to the atrium, I was not happy (and I still had to set everything up).

The gig itself was a really tedious.  The time between the three of us seemed (to me) to be all over the place.  Listening back, it doesn't seem as bad as it felt.  I was not happy--it felt like there was no groove and no energy.  It got better mid-gig, but then evaporated again at the end.  I was glad when the gig finally ended.  It felt too much like work.  I'm not sure if we were ever really playing together.  It was more like we were playing next to each other.

Anyway…here's the audio if you want to give it a listen.



In other news, here are two clips from the Yacht Rock gig in Nashville last Friday.





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Another Wild Weekend

loading the gear

Man!  What a good weekend!

Thursday, Yacht Rock played the 10 High.  Nick was sick so Kevin Spencer filled in for him;  Ganesh on drums.  Not too bad of a night!  We had a good crowd (we made good money).  I played well.  Reports from Pete (playing my keyboard on Silly Love Songs) were thus:  "Your sax sounds like shit!"  And thus, my time with the amazing TC Voicelive 2 has come to an end.  It looked cool, it could do lots of stuff, it was well made…but it didn't work well for me on stage.  The crappier Digitech pedal is not nearly as hip, but it works.  I spent most of the second set not thinking about what was happening on stage--I was focused on why I couldn't get what I wanted out of the TC pedal.  Boo.  I can't play gigs worried about my equipment (well, not necesarily true--I already do that;  I just want to keep it to a bare minimum).  TC out.  Purple pedal in.

the passion

pre-gig restaurant

Friday, Yacht Rock traveled up to the Mercy Lounge in Nashville.  SOLD OUT!!  Woo!  How cool is that!  It appears that we're finally getting over the hump up there and people are really locked into what we're doing.  Very cool.  500+ attendees.  Evidently, the owner was working the door and just kept selling tickets past what the fire codes would allow.  Record numbers at the bar.  We were heroes for the night!

with Walter Egan

Walter Egan (of Magnet and Steel fame) sat in with us for two songs:  Only the Lucky and Magnet and Steel.  He hung out with us backstage for about an hour before the show.  Very laid back.  Really cool.  He insinuated that he had slept with Stevie Nicks.  Evidently that's who Magnet and Steel is about.  Interesting.

After the glory had subsided, we loaded up the trailer and drove about an hour out of Nashville to spend the night in Cookeville.  A couple of hours later, we drove to Asheville, North Carolina to play a wedding.

legs

Claxton Farm, Asheville NC

Maybe the coolest wedding we've ever played.  It was in an event space in a pasture.  Neat people.  Really tall women.  Awesome '57 Chevy.  I sent my Dad pictures (it was his dream car).  He never responded.

pre-gig boredom

I think the highlight of the night was Cobb's decision to steer Escape (Pina Colada Song) into Wipeout.  Perfect segue.

The groom and a friend played Mustang Sally--I think the first official Yacht Rock attempt at it in the history of the band (I'm not counting the time we backed up Nick's Dad at Nick's wedding).  They were good!

Ganesh Giri Jaya filled in for Pete and didn't miss a beat.

For the second time in a week a stranger at a gig asked me for blow--this time, it was some guy who cornered me at a urinal and insisted that someone in the band must have some.

a rally of some sort

We packed up, raced to the hotel, and went to bed as quickly as possible.

The next morning, Nick took us to breakfast at some amazing restaurant, then we headed for home.

I took some pictures of Mark Dannells.

 

 

 

brunch

neighborhood garden

Bencuya dreaming about a well behaved Fantom

Sunday night I played my church gig.  I'm definitely getting better at mixing--I had it sounding good!  I played well, too, which was fun personally.  My flute face was really happening.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Tony Winston to the Rescue!

I had a crazy trio gig yesterday…how crazy can it get when you're in a hotel ballroom playing music while people eat and ignore you?

First, I had to stop and pick up speakers and speaker stands right as a monsoon was passing through town.

As I was pulling away, I got voicemail from Tyrone saying he was in big trouble!  A Clayton County sheriff had been shot and killed near his house, and the police had locked down his entire neighborhood while they searched for the suspect.  Holy cow!  He couldn't leave home.

Kevin and Cid (our handler) called everyone they could think of (I was off playing solo saxophone in the prefunction), and we finally got Tony Winston on the phone.  He came screaming downtown--missed three songs and he was in.  Nice!  He totally saved the day.  The clients were cool about it.

Here's the audio:



Whew!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Keepin' Busy

Let me fill you in on what's been happening…

Friday:  Another installment of Please Pleaserock Me at Smith's Olde Bar.  For this one, we went up against the Main Street Exiles (Rolling Stones tribute).  They were ok;  we were good.  I think we won!  It was (as usual) an easy night for me.  I probably spent as much time drinking beer and taking pictures as I did on stage.  Still fun, though!  Paul Poovey on trumpet with us.  He played very well, as did Dannell's brand new awesome guitar (P90s are sweet).

If you're lonely you can talk to Wheat.  Hell yeah.

Saturday:  Yacht Rock played a birthday party in Athens at the Hotel Indigo.  This one took a while to get going.  It seemed like there were probably only fifty people in attendance…kind of a strange gig for us.  Still, they were into it.  The stage was really small but acoustically very dead, so the sound was good, though Dannells' P90s were a bit noisy.  He's thinking about switching them out for some noiseless P90s.

Bencuya's Fantom is starting to do that same thing that mine does--loose knobs are making adjustments to the sound parameters on their own!  Not cool.  Roland needs to talk to us about it.  Mine has actually been behaving a bit better recently.  I would still like to have a technician go in there and make sure everything's cool, since my go-to repair is to press hard on the knobs.

I think I'm giving up on the synthetic reed idea.  I tried a still harder tenor reed, and it still didn't feel good.  I tried a harder alto reed, too, and though it didn't choke like the softer one, it felt weird, too.  There's something about the resistance and feedback that doesn't feel quite right.   I wonder if it's something I could get used to?  Dunno.  For now, I'm going to stick with cane.

We had some sort of wiring issue with the van--smoking wires in the left tail light.  Hmm.

Sunday:  We got back into town from Athens very early in the morning, unloaded the van, and went our separate ways.  By the time I had unpacked my gear at home and packed my gear for my church gig, it was 5 AM.  I was up at 7, and at my gig at 8.  We played two services.

I was asleep again at 1 PM and up at 5 PM--out the door at 6 PM to play my church gig.  It dawned on me that most of what I'd said to Jack in the past four days was "Goodbye.  I'm going to work again."

I got home from church gig number two, ate, hung out for a little bit, and then learned a couple of songs for a Monday morning rehearsal.

Monday:  Yacht Rock had a rehearsal this morning, checking out a couple of Walter Egan songs (he of Magnet and Steel fame).  He's going to sit in with us this coming weekend.  Pretty cool, huh?  We also checked out a song we need for a wedding this coming weekend and a Fleetwood Mac song.  No Bencuya on this rehearsal--cool for me because it gave me the opportunity to try and grab some of his parts.  It was a good challenge.  When we hit these on the gig I'll be back to one note string parts.

davidfreemanmusic.net