First Two-fer of the Year!

I played two gigs yesterday.  Yay!

Gig number one was a trio thing at Lenox Square Mall--Kevin Smith (bass), Tyrone Jackson (keyboard), and me.  We were background music at a private event at Neiman Marcus.

Fun stuff…we hadn't played at trio gig since last November, so I was a bit apprehensive about whether or not I'd be able to keep up, play swing eighth notes, remember any tunes, etc.  I think things turned out fine--I felt pretty good until late in the gig when my hands got cold.  The air conditioner also made me kind of pitchy.

Here's the audio:



Not my best move to break in a new tenor reed on the gig.

Soprano reed…brightest reed ever?  Jan Garbarek?

Gig number two was the regular Yacht Rock gig at the 10 High.  This one was pretty good;  the regular band was there except for Mark Cobb.  We played a few that we haven't hit in a while--Kiss You All Over, My Love is Alive, Thunder Island, Baker Street, and Reelin' in the Years. I had fun.

are those P-90s?

The crowd was ok.  It wasn't very packed and they were kind of ambivalent overall, but the 10 High's been pretty hit and miss for a while.

We have a new bartender!  Caloo?  Kaloo?  Tattoo?  She's good lookin'.  Also present were Megan (woo!) and Jessica's boobies.  Yippie!

photo courtesy of Jim Ramsdell

photo courtesy of Jim Ramsdell

I switched my Nord around so the sustain pedal turns the Leslie on and off.  Every time I hit it, though, my brain treated it like a sustain pedal and I would release the piano keys.  Big dummy.  It's going to take a few gigs to get it sorted out mentally.

Today I was up early to unpack my truck and set out across town for a recording session at Peter Stroud's house.  We recorded a couple of sax parts/solos for the upcoming Yacht Rock originals.  It went really well--I was actually kind of relaxed, and I think for the most part I played good stuff.

Wish I could afford a 414.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Different Stuff

Back to the usual church gigs this week.

Church gig number one was different--we used a horn section this time to fill out specific arrangement.  In rehearsal, it went pretty well,  but on stage, the time got kind of loose--we were strung in a line away from the piano, and the other instruments on stage (V-drums, electric bass, acoustic guitar) were inaudible except for a little bit of it slapping around the house.  Yikes!  I wonder how the whole thing sounded out front.

Church gig number two was normal except that I had Jack with me--I was running sound, playing, and trying to keep my seven year old still.  No easy task.  He got bored really quickly.  Air guitar is not cool in church.

davidfreemanmusic.net

House Live

I did my first House Live gig in a while last night at St. Ives Country Club.  Easy stuff.  Two hours.  They fed us.  Everything was cool.

The House Live gig can be nice because you can practice stream of consciousness playing.  Here's some video (flute, alto, and soprano).  The DJ's stuff doesn't show up on the video that well, but that's the foundation over which the drums (Wayne Viar!) and I are playing.



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Moontower CD release party

I had the pleasure of playing Moontower's CD release party at Eddie's Attic last night.  Fun jammy southern stuff!  The place was packed with fans and family.  Great night!

I played on 2 songs on their new record.  Here's one:

 Every Time by Moontower

This record was recorded at Wonder Dog Studios with Benji Shanks producing.  Benji's so cool…great slide player and a really sweet guy all around.  He played the gig too--he stayed on stage for the whole thing and kept the rest of the band from veering off into the ditch a couple of times (it got a little loose in the second set).  Nice work!  Four guitars, piano, organ, and drums.  Lots of equipment on the Eddie's stage.

Meanwhile, I was cornered at the bar by a short round woman who was so drunk she'd lost the ability to speak English.  We did multiple fist bumps before she went on her way.

Congratulations to Moontower on their first CD!  You can buy it on iTunes here.

Happy birthday Chadwick!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Return to the 10 High

photo courtesy of Jim Ramsdell

The Yacht Rock Revue (with some help from the Yacht Rock Schooner) returned to the glorious filth of the 10 High last night.  Same as we left it!

The gig went ok.  I was into in the first set, and played well.  I got a good solo off on Reminiscing, and we got to play Lonely Boy, which went well.  In the second set, I got really really really really bored and started playing Christmas carols and Smoke on the Water in between songs.  My distorted organ was quite powerful.  

photo courtesy of Jim Ramsdell

davidfreemanmusic.net

Shamrocks and Church Gigs

Saturday:  Yacht Rock played our first Park Tavern gig of the year, a long three sets celebrating Ireland and alcohol. This gig was big enough to call for an opening band, which I guess needed its own opening band.  Anyway…three bands.  First two…hmm.  No thanks.

Our first set was all U2-we were Uno, Dos, Tres, Catorce.  As I mentioned the other night, I don't have much to do except worry about my timekeeping on tambourine and shaker.  I drank a lot of beer.  Not sure in hindsight if I should have challenged myself in this way.

If I may so, I thought we were pretty slammin' on the U2 stuff.  The band sounded really good.

After a costume change, we returned as ourselves for two sets of 70s.  More good stuff--in spite of the long day, we hung in there really well.  Steve subbed again on bass.  He kind of bit it on a few tunes in the second set, but we made it fine.  It's easy to forget how many times we've screwed up these tunes in the past three years--now it's automatic for us.  We had a couple of good laughs at his expense!

The crowd was good the entire day--very little of the annoying idiot drunk types.  They even cleared out pretty quickly after we stopped playing, which made load out a little easier.

Sunday:  I did church gig number one.  The big fun of the morning was a sixteen page chart--what the hell?  Those vocal score plus piano accompaniment charts suck.  The rest of the gig was super easy.  I had a good reed and my flute face was good.

Sunday afternoon, I passed on my usual church gig for the chance to play a gig with one of my heroes, Bryan Lopes.  We played at Cross Pointe Church in Duluth--part of the North Point Church system.  Lopes and I played on one tune that had a sax section thing, so he played bari and I played tenor.  It was fun--the song was fine, but the cool thing was that he and hung out for five hours (and played a single four minute song).

The gig itself was fine, but having Lopes there was pretty intimidating.  I got a solo at the end of the song, and as much as I wanted to play something impressive, I ended up aiming more for not playing anything flat out wrong or just really stupid.  Success, I think.

Lopes and I made it a food gig;  they had dinner for the band before the service, and he and I each ate a mountain of Mexican food, and then burped it up for an hour.  It wasn't even very good, but we made the most of it.  They had chips and salsa, and I'm weak.

davidfreemanmusic.net

U2 Tune Up

Yacht Rock played U2 at The Ivy Buckhead last night…part of the Thursday Night Concert Series that Keeps Us out of the 10 High.  It was a paid rehearsal for us…nobody showed up and nobody in the bar cared.  They didn't even turn the lights on, so we played in the dark.  They must have been busy with the Shake and Bake.

My night was pretty easy, but that's what happens when you're the seventh guy in a U2 cover band, playing second keyboard and percussion.  This pretty much sums it up:

I did get out of there really quickly.  Not much to load out--tambourine, shaker, and one keyboard.

davidfreemanmusic.net