Happy New Year!

The new year is here!  So far, things are pretty incredible.  I'm not sure if this pace will hold up, but the first seven days have been nothing but great gigs and amazing experiences.

Yacht Rock ended 2013 and began 2014 in California. The weather was perfect--highs of 70, lows in the fifties.  Much better than pretty much everywhere else in the country.

Here's what I remember:

December 30:  we flew to LA on a huge plane (our sound man Hans drove our van and trailer full of gear out).  Unfortunately, a young mom and screaming kid got sat down right in front of us.  It was immediately obvious that the kid had a dirty diaper.  Mom was oblivious;  kid was apoplectic.  She left him sitting in it all the way to California, a four hour flight.  The band (a row of dads) was unaffected by the screaming, but the poopy diaper was not cool.

Rather than stay in a hotel for a week, we opted to rent a house in Marina del Ray, just blocks from Venice Beach.  Totally awesome.  Separate rooms and bathrooms for each of us.

We hit a Mexican restaurant around the corner from us before the night ended.

December 31:  Most of our mornings were free time, so I went to the Venice Pier to check it out.

And then brunch.

Our New Year's Eve gig was in Long Beach.  Easy gig--we played in a family-friendly event that ended at 10 PM.  Two sets with a pause at 9 PM to acknowledge the east coast hitting midnight.  We also facilitated a marriage proposal.

During load in, we found out that we'd run over a nail.  Flat tire on the trailer.

During load out, a passing car threw their pineapple kush into our pile of gear.

Back at the house and in bed before midnight.  Good thing--we were up super early to head to our next gig.

January 1:  Rose Bowl gig!  We left super crazy early (5:30 AM) so we could get through the Pasadena traffic jam to make it into the lot for the Rose Bowl party.  Our gigs took place in a tailgating monster built from giant shipping containers.  Three stories tall, carpeted, wired with electricity and lots of TV screens.  On the other side of the fence…the grand daddy of them all!

state of the art sky writing

This gig was pretty easy--we played a couple of sets before the game, and then they allowed us to pack up and split once the crowd had emptied out.  Sweet!  We watched the rest of the game from our house.    Several times one of us said, "I'm glad we didn't have to play after the game!  We'd still be sitting there!"

Our shipping container tailgating palace was in a big grassy lot with several other parties.  One of the coolest had the Miles Mosley band playing.  Great stuff.

January 2:  Day off.  We visited legendary drummer James Gadson's house in Inglewood.  So awesome!  James has played on Express Yourself (The Watts 103rd St Band), Use Me and Lean on Me (Bill Withers), Let's Get it On (Marvin Gaye), the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, Herbie Hancock's Manchild, as well as stuff with Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, and Beck.  He has over 300 gold records.

You can see his complete discography here.

He was gracious enough to let us hang out in his tiny recording studio in his backyard.  It was an incredible afternoon.  The Paul McCartney story will live with me forever.

That night, we went to see a band at the Whiskey A Go Go on Sunset Strip.  They were recreating Led Zeppelin's first LA show, before their first record came out.  At that point they were playing mostly covers…so we were a cover band watching a cover band recreate another band's covers.  Right?  It's a famous room going back to the 60s, but the band didn't do much for me.  I was glad when we split.

January 3:  Second day off.  I went for a bike ride during the day.

That evening, we drove out to Ronn Moss' house (he of Player fame, as well as playing Ridge Forester on The Bold and the Beautiful).  There we filmed a segment of Ron's Garage, performing and sitting for interviews.  Ronn's a pretty cool guy and can get as weird as we can.  Conversation subjects included helicopters, Jon Lovitz, and beastiality.

Ronn Moss keeps his gold records in his garage.  It's a nice garage, though.

After that, we made the short trip to the Canyon Club to see Tower of Power.  What a thrill!  We were late so we only saw the last five songs of the gig, but the band (and the room) sounded great.  Very cool!  I haven't seen them since I was in high school.

with Emilio Castillo and Doc Kupka, founding members of Tower of Power

January 4:  House of Blues on Sunset Strip.  This was a fantastic gig in a very full room.

on stage with Al Stewart

We had the guys from Player (Ronn Moss and Peter Becket) sing This Time I'm in it for Love and Baby Come Back, Elliot Lurie sang a Dancing in the Moonlight and Brandy, and Al Stewart showed up and sang Year of the Cat.  Al didn't even make soundcheck, so the only time we went through it with him was on the gig!  It made for a pretty special performance, I think.  Definitely the highlight of the night for me--I remember when this song was on the radio all the time.  Hearing his voice through the monitor while we were playing was mind blowing.

After our set we played an encore, took a bow, and then ended up playing a second encore.  I think LA likes us.

still no cavities

January 5:  Probably the reason you're reading this blog--we played a gig at the Playboy Mansion.

we entered from the rear

in the grotto, where I bashed my head against a rock and almost knocked myself out

front of the house

Anyway, we loaded in and set up on a stage in front of the pool.  A couple of girls came by--we are guessing maybe they were there testing for the magazine and not actually Playboy girls--why else would they be posing for selfies in front of the grotto?

We took pictures, they took pictures…

After soundcheck we wandered around.  I checked out the animals before heading to the game house, where we hung out for a few hours.

the only patch of sky without a helicopter flying through it

The game house has a couple of rooms with beds, naturally.  In addition to the telephones, there are plenty of napkin/tissue products at the ready.

Our set was actually on forty-five minutes--kind of teaser for the next day's performance at the BCS game (back in the shipping container mansion at the Rose Bowl).  The rest of the time was spent taking pictures and wandering the grounds.  We were not allowed in the house--Hef was in there, but he wouldn't come out.  If Hef had come out and and sang Year of the Cat with us, I think I would have dropped dead.

The party came with a few Playboy bunnies who were there for photo ops, and that was as close as we got to a massive orgy.  Sorry to disappoint you, but the most part this was just a nice corporate party at swanky outdoor bar.

the grotto at night

A once in a lifetime experience!  Wow!

January 6:  Up pretty early to go pack to Pasadena for the BCS Championship.  We were back in the shipping container building for this one.

It was a very long day.  I think we left around 8:15 AM and got back to the house after midnight.  We set up, played two sets, watched the game (it was pretty cold once the sun went down), and then played a third set afterwards.  What a game, by the way!

January 7:  One last walk on the beach, and then a long (but poop free) flight home.  The Southwest flight had no TVs and no WiFi--booooooooooo.

This week is quiet, but next week I have:

January 14:  rehearsal
January 15:  The David Freeman Quartet at Churchill Grounds 9 PM
January 16:  rehearsal
January 17:  Please Pleaserock Me at Smith's Olde Bar
January 18:  private gig

Also, don't forget the big Dark Side of the Moon/Anchorman gig at Variety Playhouse January 24 and the Taste of Dunwoody January 25!   Vacation is officially over!

Last Sunday of the Year

Ah, the last Sunday of the year!  One last squirt of church gigs.

My AM church gig was moved from 9:30 to 11 AM, which meant a little extra sleep (it also means I was a little more awake).  I guess it's the last Christmas gift I will receive.

There's some temporary shuffling going on at the church--the usual song leader is away due to illness, so the bandleader is filling his role.  Sitting in the piano chair this week was none other than John Carrozza.  Nice!  John's a bad ass musician with a very clear and concise Russell Ferante keyboard style.  There's nobody else around here who plays like him.  His wife was along to sing a few--she has a really hip Bonnie Raitt kind of voice.  Very cool people, and quite an impressive duo.

Anyway, the Carrozzas show up with charts for their stuff and roll through the whole rehearsal without a single mistake.  The service was the same thing.  Effortless.  Inspiring.  Totally bad ass.

My PM gig was a bit of a snoozer.  We had a couple Christmas carols and a couple more of those tunes that don't really work well with improvisation--uneven chord changes and phrase lengths.  I feel like I'm in the way on those tunes, so I tend to sit them out.  Not much for me to do.  There were reports about some sort of distortion coming out of the speakers, but everything was clear in my headphones.  Perhaps the powers that be are messing with the amps and EQ beyond where plug the mixer into the floor.  Nothing I fix.  So it goes...

Christmas Church Gigs

A few more church gigs courtesy of Christmas!

#1:  I played the children's mass at my PM church gig.  I've done this one for several years and it's always crazy.  The little kids act out the birth of Jesus--it's fun to watch.  However, because there are kids involved, people start camping out for seats over an hour before the service begins, which means there will be no rehearsal or soundcheck.  I did figure out that the speakers in the ceiling have a global mute button, new knowledge that abated my great concerns when I couldn't get any sound ten minutes before go time.

#2:  Same location, but just an extra mass--sort of the overflow mass for the main room.  This one was kind of the official location of my PM church gig team (PM church gig priest, ministers, ushers, band).  No sweat.

#3:  I picked up an extra Christmas mass at the church near my house where I used to play regularly a few years ago.  Good to see all my old friends as well as some people from my neighborhood!  The band leader and I really click musically, and this mass was no different, particularly when we did a duet on Oh Holy Night--magical stuff.  I wish I there were more opportunities to play at this church, as I really like the people here, and there's room in the music for me to be creative.

#4:  Christmas Day mass!  One more at the same church as #3.  This one had a few extra instrumentalists to dodge.  No biggie.

Most Holy Dave

I played four--FOUR!--church services yesterday!  I am the the Most Holy Dave!

So…I'm bragging.  Two were back to back.  You could say I only played three.  I will say it was four, and mostly on clarinet, so I'm counting every minute.  Clarinet is hard.

I got a call mid week about playing clarinet for my AM church gig, which was also the location of my afternoon church gig.  It immediately made me think that somebody'd read last week's blog and gotten pissed off at me for complaining, which I guess I was.  Nobody ever said anything about it, so maybe I dodged that bullet.  Maybe they were just being organized.  The head of the music department said to me Sunday, "I don't know why we've never thought to use you in the orchestra before."  That's cool--I'm glad they're realizing it and hopefully will plug me in wherever they can.  I spent a good chunk of this past week's practice time on clarinet.  I found a couple of good reeds, played some etudes, ran through scales--everything I could do to ramp up my playing.  Sunday morning, here I come!

#1:  Because of the two services back to back and then the afternoon service, I was handed a lot of music.  The first service had a couple of things that kicked my ass--some crazy sextuplets at quarter note equals 152 in the key of F#.  Uh…yeah!  I played something there!  Mostly right notes, I hope.  First note and last note in the right place, and the correct shape of the line, for sure.  There was also another piece where the clarinets were doing lots of arpeggios--more tricky stuff.

#2:  The same stuff again, with about twenty minutes of fierce practicing between services.  I certainly didn't nail the sextuplets.  I was better on the arpeggios thing.  Wow.  What's the music for the afternoon look like?  I was kind of stunned from trying to sight read all this stuff, and then there was a folder of things for the afternoon service.

I went home, ate, and practiced all this stuff that freaked me out, plus a bunch of stuff in the manilla folder for an hour and a half before I headed back.

#3:  I showed up more ready to roll.  They passed out the program for the service, and several things I'd spent a lot of time on (the sextuplet thing and some other stuff) was not in this service!  Aggh!!  That would've been good to know.  The arpeggio thing was, and I did a much better job with it.

#3 turned out to be a pretty solid performance because I was awake and had practiced the music!  I was ready to kick ass from the moment I sat down.

Whew!  After all that, I must say it was a GREAT experience.  I haven't been in that kind of situation much at all pretty much since college--those three services were two flutes and two clarinets, trying to blend and play in tune and listen to each other and translate the music on the pages in front of it.  I loved the challenge of it so much!  Even the hang and the discussions between services was something different and fun.  I learned tons about my clarinet playing--the kinds of stuff you can't get from plowing through etudes by yourself at home.  I really really dug it--probably my favorite church gig I've played this year.

#4:  Not a bad way to cap the evening!  Two singers and piano, so the mixing was easy.  Right as the band leader threw me a solo, I blinked and got an eyelash in my contact.  Can you play while someone is poking you in the eyeball with a pencil?  Does my playing seem angry and unfocused?  Ouch.  Naturally, the solo was over one of those weird hymns where the phrases are weird lengths and the chords change in weird spots in order to keep up with the melody, and I couldn't open my eyes because of the pain so I couldn't see any kind of cues as to how long I had to endure this incredible pain.  I continued to wail away like some angry goose in the corner (paging St. Francis of Assisi) for what felt like forever, waiting for the vocals to come back in and put me out of this misery.

That was that.  I was in bed by 11 PM.

Here's a cool picture from our throw and go gig a couple of Saturdays ago at Center Stage: