More Musical Olympics

What a crazy weekend!

Yacht Rock played a private gig at the Children's Museum Saturday night.  Easy stuff…we've played this same event once or twice before.  Before that, though, I played a quick House Live gig one block away at the Aquarium.

The House Live gig was 5:30-7.  Piece of cake!  They bussed in a thousand or so people to eat in the Atrium and tour the exhibits.  We were amazingly loud.  The SPL app on my phone maxed out.  It was brutal.  My left ear is ruined.

Wayne and Nico on percussion.  Two cajons, two shakers, four congas.

At 7, I ran out the door and down the street to the Children's Museum, changed clothes, and walked on stage (I preset my gear earlier in the afternoon) and started playing at 7:25.  Whew!

This gig was also fun and easy.  Nick and Mark Cobb were out, so Greg moved from bass to lead vocal.  Rob Henson subbed on bass and Ganesh Giri Jaya subbed on drums.  I was trying to explain to the sound guy who was subbing.  He's running sound for us next weekend at the Park Tavern, and I tried to explain that it'll be the same band except for the subs, except for part of the night Greg will play guitar and Pete will play bass.  Then his head exploded.

Here's my solo on Lowdown.

On the way out I sat in some sort of hellacious traffic jam at midnight.

I'm doing my church gig in the morning, and then we are headed to Miami for the Rock Boat XIII.  I'll be needing a nap at that point.

When in Rome...

Yacht Rock played a gig at the Brewhouse Music and Grill in Rome, GA last night.  Easy gig, and a good review of a couple of things we are playing on the Rock Boat next week.

The Brewhouse has good sound and an easy load in.  I think we had a hundred and fifty people there, but they were really into it--somebody drove in from Alabama just to hear sound check!

Here's my solo from Good Thing last night.



Our CD (with this song on it) is officially on sale next week!

In other news, Battle Cases has added me to their artists page.  I use their big saxophone case (BCS 200) when we travel.  Expensive, but well worth it.  Mine is in a truck on the way to Miami right now!

Trio in Piedmont Park

Kevin Smith, Kenny Banks Jr, and I played a nice little trio gig last night at Magnolia Hall in Piedmont Park.  It's a really beautiful venue, and now that the parking deck has been constructed nearby, it's a really sweet spot for an event.

Crazy easy gig.  The people were brought in (via two buses) for dinner;  they were a half hour late, and left fifty minutes early.  Our three hour gig lasted an hour and forty minutes.  Yes!

Here's the audio.  I didn't play nearly as poorly as I thought I had.

To Nashville and Back!

Yacht Rock was on the road this past weekend, heading up to Nashville for a Saturday night gig at the Cannery Ballroom, then back to Atlanta first thing the next morning to play the Sweetwater Brewery's Sixteenth Birthday party.  I was even able to squeeze my PM church gig in there before I finally ran out of gas.

So…we rolled up I-75 in the early afternoon to Nashville.  It was actually snowing at the top of Monteagle!  Wow!  Fortunately, we had one of Wisconsin's finest (Jason Nackers) at the wheel and none of it was sticking anyway.  Once we made it to the other side, we were safe.

We were back in the Cannery Ballroom instead of the Mercy Lounge this time.  More people--the room holds about a thousand people.  The final count on the door was 890.  Pretty close!  Make Me Smile, Nashville's authentic tribute to vintage Chicago, opened for us.  It sounded great--the band leader, Scott Sheriff, did a terrific job organizing the band and writing the charts.  Their horn section of Scott Kinney (trumpet), Jim Hoke (saxophone), and Chris Dunn (trombone) even sat in with us at the end of our set on a handful of tunes.  Do some investigating of these guys…badasses!

Our part of the show went well--catastrophe free!.  I made it through all my stuff just fine--I finally nailed a string run in She's Gone that I'd been practicing for a couple of weeks.  During the Maneater solo (if I'm remembering correctly), a couple of women got through the barrier in front of the stage and grabbed my leg.  That was kind of weird.  We stuck Rosanna in as a request (we get requests via Twitter these days, and occasionally we will honor them).  I was kind of ragged on my parts.  I played piccolo on You Can Call Me Al for the penny whistle solo--big hit with the audience.  Oh yeah, and my solo on Biggest Part of Me was a big stack of pentatonic bullshit.  Booooooooo.

We got to the hotel around 1:30 AM.  Lobby call was 7 AM.  We got back to Atlanta just after noon and began loading our gear onto the little outdoor stage at Sweetwater.  They had a tent that covered three sides of the patio and wrapped around the bandstand.  Not too bad, except the gap where the tent had to come up and over the fence--it let every frigid breeze get me!

We did two sets.  It was packed.  It was really really cold.  My fingertips and toes hurt, but the crowd was pretty slammin'.  The owner of Sweetwater was out-of-his-mind-happy about everything.  He gave some sort of a speech, then stayed on stage and danced for You Can Call Me Al.

We finished at 5:30.  I packed and stacked my gear, and then met up with my ride to my church gig.  Unfortunately, my church clothes and instruments didn't make it, so I grabbed my beater flute from my Yacht Rock gear and played my gig in the same clothes I wore Saturday night.  Lots of staring people down.  Yes, I'm wearing this.

Next week we're on the Rock Boat XIII, so some of my gear is leaving mid week to get down there.  I also have a couple of gigs at the end of this week.  Yacht Rock is in Rome, GA Friday night, so come see us if you can!

February 22, The Brewhouse (Rome, GA)
February 24-March 1, Rock Boat XIII (the ocean)
March 2, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
March 14, Wonder Bar (Asbury Park, NJ)
March 15, Theatre of the Living Arts (Philadelphia, PA)
March 16, Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY)
March 17, The Hamilton (Washington, DC)
April 20, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
April 26, (Atlanta, GA)
June 28, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
July 11, Mohegan Sun (Montville, CT)
July 20 (Atlanta, GA)
August 23, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
September 27, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
October 19 (Atlanta, GA)

Taste and See

Yacht Rock played the Taste of Dunwoody last night.  I think this is our third time playing it, and the third time it has sold out.  The Dunwoody Cougars are thriving just north of the Perimeter.

By the way…sign this petition:

The venue was the Westin over at the king/queen buildings this year--the previous location was a good bit smaller, but they've been able to expand and accommodate more people and vendors.  Great for us--the smaller rooms were so tight, you could've stepped off the stage onto the first vendor's table and walked all the way around the room without ever touching the floor.

So…better location, easy load in (no ancient freight elevator), good food (we get to sample everything), good crowd…great gig!  Yay!  Once we finished, they even inspired us to load out as quickly as humanly possible with an East Andrews flavored DJ.  Run for your life!  I don't need to hear Brick House, September, or that Pitbull song ever again.

Home before midnight!

Yacht Rock is at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville tonight, and the Sweetwater Brewery back in Atlanta tomorrow afternoon!  See y'all there.

Ash Wednesday

I played my PM church gig's Ash Wednesday service last night.   It was packed!  I was surprised that there were that many people.  I was there early, and there were two full masses going on before my own.  We were the overflow service for the main sanctuary, and our room was standing room only.

As usual, we were in the parish hall, which feels acoustically like the deadest room on the planet.  Yuck.  Since we were tucked in the corner away from the main speakers (and the music didn't call for it), I spent more time listening than playing.  No biggie.

In other news…

I've decided to let my website die.  This was based on a few things:

1.  Most people are headed to my blog anyway--a search for me on google brings up my blog first.

2.  Everything on my website has been added to my blog as a sidebar, so there's no new information there.

3.  My domain is going to expire, and Just Host has not been helpful at all in getting it (my domain) to point to my blog instead.  The hell with it it.

4.  I got an email from google saying that my site has been compromised by a hacker (a "cloaking" scheme).  Hacking seems really juvenile.  Leave me alone!

So…welcome to my new website!

Also….

I read plenty of griping about the Grammys, and it reminds me of this blog post by Seattle trumpeter Jason Parker, titled That's not MY Music Industry.  Perhaps it's apathetic of me, but I find the Grammys to be like several other things in life--I ask myself, "Do I have to care about this?  Do I have to have an opinion?"  No, I do not.  It doesn't affect me.  I then get on with my life.  Why waste any energy on it?

Upcoming Yacht Rock dates!

February 15, Taste of Dunwoody (Dunwoody, GA)
February 16, Cannery Ballroom (Nashville, TN)
February 24-March 1, Rock Boat XIII (the ocean)
March 2, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
March 14, Wonder Bar (Asbury Park, NJ)
March 15, Theatre of the Living Arts (Philadelphia, PA)
March 16, Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY)
March 17, The Hamilton (Washington, DC)
July 11, Mohegan Sun (Montville, CT)
July 20 (Atlanta, GA)
October 19 (Atlanta, GA)

Monday Night Corporate Party

Yacht Rock was back in action for a corporate party at the Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway.

I got things started by leaving fifteen minutes late--that ended up being about twenty minutes late because of the rain and traffic.  Embarrassing.

The Marriott is pretty nice.  I think it gets forgotten because of its location (next to the International Convention Center, which also gets forgotten).  It's nice and clean and moderately hip looking, and the load in is easy and clean and doesn't feel like the back door to a dungeon.

The crowd was costumed for the "rock and roll" theme of the party (I think).  We did three sets.  There were several other things competing for attention--green screen photo booth, pool tables, ping pong tables, and bean bag toss.  When we went on break, they played videos from pop music that was current ten to fifteen years ago.  The whole thing was kind of weird.  Not much dancing.  We were, for the most part, expensive background music.

At one point, we had the four guys from Kiss on the dance floor by themselves, getting down to Silly Love Songs.  Gene dropped his tongue on the floor a couple of times.  Yuck.

Done at 9:30.  Home around 11.  Nice!

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