Tilt a Whirl

I played a random gig with Full Tilt last night, doing the typical Atlanta corporate cover band thing.  It's really strange whenever I am back in that scene;  some of it is like I never left, and some of it is now completely foreign to me.  The Rupert's derived stuff like the sax solo on Signed, Sealed, Delivered is still there early in the night, as is the Atlanta Beat derived medley of Soul Man into Hold On, I'm Coming.  The newer things, the more current hip hop stuff, I have possibly never heard, and have nothing to play as a saxophonist.  I spent three quarters of the gig playing tambourine and shaker.

This one I have played many times.

Good rule of thumb for all you freelance saxophonists:  Don't bring a cowbell unless you specifically have to play it on a particular song, or some asshole in the audience will yell "More cowbell."  It's a race to see who can get it out there fast enough.  No one will ever yell "More shaker!"

Anyway, it's always good to have a paying gig during the week, and this one was fairly painless!  Also, it was an excellent hang with Michael Magno.  That dude is awesome.

Trio #3

So...Monday morning began with a rehearsal for the upcoming Purple Rain show in Piedmont Park.  Thank god I write charts for this stuff so that when we do something like this I don't have to start from scratch.  A few run throughs on Sunday night and I was ready to roll.  Rehearsal was no problem.

Monday evening I had one more trio gig (my first trio gig of the year was last Wednesday, and then in six days I've now had three).  This one had Kevin on bass and Tyrone Jackson on keyboard.  Once again, I took a feed off of the mixer, guessing on the levels.  The bass is a little hot on this one, until the last couple of tunes where the bass disappeared!  I think Kevin's amp got too hot and shut down.

This gig was in the mall.  Not the most exciting bandstand there among the housewares, overlooking the escalator.  Nonetheless, it was another opportunity to play some of my music!  

Dig Tyrone's shirt and check out the tunes:

Another Weekend

Another weekend come and gone, a significant chunk of which I spent asleep in the van.

Friday:  no gig, but I caught the big CD release show for Indianapolis Jones at the Goat Farm.  Indianapolis Jones is Nick's original band, and also has Mark Cobb on drums.  Great stuff!  Their album is super good, and their show was equally spectacular.

Video!

Saturday:  Yacht Rock played a wedding in St. Simons.  Yay gig, boo long car ride.  Any ride that involves driving to Savannah is a bummer.  Fortunately, I slept a lot.

We stopped for lunch at Subway.

We were Constantly Awesome for this gig, which means a much broader mix of tunes instead of the late 70s/early 80s boundaries of our main gig.  The CA gigs are fun--Bencuya usually does much of the keyboard work, and I play along on my side.  For this particular gig, he was out of town, though, which meant that I had the opportunity to play some of his parts.  Very cool!  Particularly fun were the Beatles tunes with Billy Preston on keyboard, such as Don't Let Me Down and Get Back.  

The reception was at the edge of a marsh.  I bet it gets really buggy here in the summer, but for this weekend the weather (and this setting) was just about perfect.

Sunday:  We drove home.  I slept most of the way.  So did Pete.

Sunday night I was back at my church gig.  I think someone's back to messing with the amplifier settings again, as my spot for the main faders was much louder than the previous couple of weeks.

I thought I spied the trumpet player from Easter and I got freaked out that she might be coming to beat me up after our last gig together.  It was enough to keep me awake for the entire service.  I guess it wasn't her, though.  Good thing.

Another week awaits!

Trio #2

I had a really good trio gig tonight, this time with Nick Rosen on keyboard (Kevin Smith on bass).  This was connected to some kind of tour of homes--we were in a big tent next to a Buckhead mansion.

The toughest part of this one was getting there.  All three of us fought the traffic to get there, and once we dumped our gear at the site, we had to park a few miles away and ride a shuttle back to the house.  Kevin ended up going directly to the parking place and bringing his bass on the shuttle in order to save some time (and frustration).  At the end of the night we got to reverse it--ride the shuttle back to our vehicles, then drive to the house and pick up our gear.

Playing was really fun on this one.  They requested that we play lots of "familiar" songs (no love for the David Freeman Songbook?).  We still managed to cover several a few of my tunes.  In particular, I think tonight's versions of Kenny's House and Silverite, two tunes we debuted last night, sounded really good.  I was in such a good mood, I didn't even mind that much that some big butted lady knocked my microphone over into my horns.  Thanks, though.

I think T.I. was there.  I'm not positive, but the dude looked a lot like him.

Anyway, check it out the music.  Tonight's mix was waaaaay better than last night's Kenny-fest.

Trio #1

I played a fun two hour trio gig with Kevin Smith and Kenny Banks Jr last night.  Some kind of corporate background music situation.  As usual, we let 'em have two hours of my originals!  Take that!  We were 100 percent ignored (though a handler stopped by the stage at one point to encourage us to move more quickly from one tune to the next).  Little did they know that we were allowing them to hear the world premier of not one but TWO new DBF compositions.

I recorded off the mixer (I set up a PA, but we didn't need it).  Not my greatest mix, obviously, unless you are trying to steal Kenny's licks.  Check it out, especially our first attempts at Kenny's House and Silverite (the two new ones).  Fun for us!

Saturday into Sunday

I've been delayed in writing this by Hank Mobley's Soul Station.  Just as awesome and singing as the first time I heard it.



Saturday:  Yacht Rock played a big party at the Atlanta Athletic Club--the third year in a row we've played this event.  They're into it from the first note, so it's always fun.  The first year we were outside, but now they do it in their indoor tennis facility, which is way better--less pollen, less direct sunlight during set up/soundcheck.

Ugh.  Speaking of soundcheck, we had one of the longest, most brutal sound checks ever.  It was at least an hour and a half, maybe two hours of boredom and frustration.  We eventually got what we needed (or could live with for one gig), but the path there was mind numbing.

The gig itself was great.  These people are cool, and their women are hot and expensive.  More of that, please, especially if they'll help load our gear out at the end of the night.  Maybe next year?

Sunday:  I'm back to only having my PM church gig.  I hope everybody at my AM church gig is severely disappointed that I'm not there anymore.

The PM church gig was pretty good.  They had some dudes come and check the sound system, and discovered that G is an extremely resonant note in the cathedral.  Yep--evidence of that at last week's mass.  What they're going to do about it remains to be seen.  In the mean time, I will keep doing what I'm doing.

Afterwards, I went to Smith's Olde Bar to check out Jake Clemons (nephew of Clarence Clemons, Springsteen saxophonist).  I guess I should've investigated it beforehand--not what I was expecting.  He played a sax solo on part of the first tune, but the rest of the time he played acoustic guitar.  I ended up watching more of this gig than I wanted only so I could get a picture of him with his horn for my blog, but it didn't happen, and I had to leave.  I wasn't into it at all.  I guess I was expecting there to be lots of saxophone--maybe some kind of a soul band with him singing and taking solos?  It was more like watching a Northpoint band play a set.

I woke up on the couch in the middle of the night.  Thus the week ended.

The Beatles of Buford

Last night, Please Pleaserock Me (Yacht Rock Revue plays The Beatles) ventured beyond our home at Smith's Olde Bar to try some Beatles at 37 Main in Buford, Georgia.  I think we had a very successful first night!

37 Main is a pretty cool place--the sound system is pretty good and the sound guys know what they are doing.  The staff/management there is also very easy to work with.  It's a good gig (even though it is FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR away).

We had Rob Opitz joining us on trumpet for this gig.  Excellent playing!  Working in a horn section situation is fun with a guy like Rob--he plays the charts very accurately and shows up prepared for the gig.

I hope that we can get back to doing a regular (monthly) Beatles gig--maybe more if we can get into a rotation with Smith's, 37 Main, and the soon-to-be-open 37 Main Johns Creek.  It's easy (for me) and fun, and we've begun playing some of the really cool solo stuff, such as What is Life off George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, Watching the Wheels by John Lennon, and Band on the Run by Paul McCartney.  Great records!