AM Church Gigs and Golf Gig #2

I wish I'd taken more advantage of my early Saturday gig by going to bed early, but I didn't.  Unfortunately, I was up extra early to make a trio of church gigs at St. Ann's.  Once I was up, it really wasn't that bad--it's the early afternoon crash that gets me.

The church gigs were super easy;  the songs aren't difficult and the people are cool.  As much as anything it was a cool hang with the the two guys who run the music there, a chance to work on my soprano sax tuning.  I'll be back to do it again one Sunday in October.

After lunch, I headed out to another Yacht Rock gig (a big weekend for us).  This was a kickoff party for pro golfer Stewart Cink's Cink It Challenge,  which raises money for two local charities.  We've played this gig (I think) four years in a row now.  It's an easy, well run event.  

My sax effects pedal was acting strange--it appears that I traded on electronic gremlin for another.  Fortunately, it wasn't sounding weird, but the display kept showing the settings for the patch I was on.  I'm not sure why.  

Other than that, things were cool.  The rain even let up long enough for us to enjoy the fall weather.

We're headed to the northeast this coming weekend, with shows in Boston (The Royale), New York City (The Bowery Ballroom), Huntington NY (The Paramount), and Washington DC (The Hamilton).  

Golf Gig #1

Saturday, Yacht Rock played a late afternoon gig at the PGA Championship in Atlanta.  I'm not really sure for whom we were playing;  there was a small loop of corporate sponsor type tents set up in a VIP area, and we used one as a stage.  Unfortunately, the rain from Friday night continued all day Saturday, so the people who saw us were drenched.  I was a bit dumbfounded at the number of people (maybe 75?) who stood in the rain and mud and watched us, but they did, and they loved it.

I solved my EWI problems by switching out the little MIDI cable between the EWI and the wireless MIDI transmitter.  It worked like a champ.  A few spare cables have been in ordered and are in route to my mailbox.

Other than the rain, this was a nice, easy gig.  Monkeyboy had some guitar issues early on, but once he settled down, things were cool.  My sax mic was having some strange reactions to the on stage sound--probably because of the tent and the proximity to the main speakers.  There really wasn't anywhere to go anyway.

Skechers hosted us (it was their tent), and provided us with some groovy shoes to wear.  A nice perk of the job.

Home by 8 PM.  Nice.

Park Tavern

Yacht Rock played our final Park Tavern show of the summer concert series.  Pretty big crowd (maybe 1,000?), in spite of the rain.  

photo cred:  Kip Conner

My big excitement of the evening was some sort of EWI problem, basically with the laptop not receiving MIDI information from the EWI.  This is a major drag because there are several things that could go wrong:

1.  EWI problem

2.  bad MIDI cable between the EWI and the wireless MIDI transmitter

3.  problem with the wireless MIDI system

4.  bad MIDI cable between the wireless MIDI receiver and the MIDI to USB box

5.  bad MIDI to USB box

6.  bad USB cable between the USB box and the laptop

7.  laptop problem

The issue is intermittent, meaning I kind of have to wait for it to happen and then see if I can figure it out.  This happened years ago when the band was just starting to play bigger shows, and it took at least a month for me to solve it.  Fun.  I am now terrified of using my gear.

My initial hope/diagnosis:

1.  The EWI seems fine

2.  The wireless MIDI transmitter and receiver have a flashing light that says they are synced up, and that was flashing (meaning they are talking to each other), so I think they're working correctly

3.  The USB box also gets MIDI information from a foot switch (used for switching sounds), so I think that part is probably ok, which also means that the USB cable is fine, and the laptop is probably fine

Therefore, I am going to swap out the little MIDI cable between the EWI and transmitter tomorrow and hope that everything goes back to normal.  Pleeeeaaaaaaassssseeeee!

What else...the stage was about five feet above the crowd, which was kind of weird.  I wonder why it was like this.  No one had a good answer.

We brought back Break My Stride and Hip to Be Square.  Both were pretty good.

Post gig, the handle on my rack that houses my electronics broke off.  Now there's no way to pull it around like a suitcase, meaning I'll have to carry it like the big forty pound plastic box that it is until SKB sends me a new one.  Great.  Just in time for us to head out for some gigs in the northeast.

Second Beatles Show at Venkman's

I had the burger again (they were out of the bratwurst thing that I intended to order).  Still a winner.

This gig sounded much better.  According to Zach, the only difference was that he cut the level on the audience/ambient microphones down.  Maybe there was more to it (last Thursday, the guitar level moved up and down during soundcheck a lot, and we had some "Your ears should be muted"/"They're not" stuff), but whatever the science, the result was excellent.

Pretty good playing in front of a lackluster crowd, no doubt deterred by the rain.

I forgot my iPad clamp and my bari sax stand, neither of which I could do without, so in between soundcheck and the burger, Rob Opitz (our trumpeter, who also managed to forget his iPad clamp) headed back to Cobb County.  Not my favorite way to kill time, but there was no closer solution.

Polo Grounds

Atlanta has polo?  Atlanta has polo grounds?  I guess I never knew that.  Saturday's gig was at at the Buckhead Polo Grounds, which looked to be a pasture in the lowest (geographically speaking) part of Buckhead.

We set up on a stage in a tent, besieged by gnats, for some sort of benefit.  It was a pretty vanilla gig, albeit one with tall, expensive looking women.  In the second set, the band got a little silly, which made the time go by a little faster.  The gnats also excused themselves for the evening after sundown, which I greatly appreciated.

Other highlights:  I brought home four bananas from the green room;  we were fed BBQ, which was excellent;  I was able to drive up next to the stage for load in and load out.  A nice, easy gig, which I think was about all that we could handle.

Beatles Show at Venkman's

My burger was great;  my in ear mix was not.  We'll try again next week.  I may even order another burger.

Venkman's

Monday night was a cool gig for the Dave and Dave Duo (my sax/organ duo with David Ellington):  we played for the grand opening of Venkman's, a new restaurant brought into existence by Yacht Rock front men Nick Niespodziani and Peter Olson.  Congratulations to the whole crew that brought Venkman's to life!

Dave and I hadn't played together since late July at JCT Kitchen.  You can take a look at the videos from that gig here.

The Venkman's gig was a lot of fun.  Jazz gigs require a different kind of concentration than a Yacht Rock gig, and it was a very nice change of pace for me.  Plus, I played really well.  That always makes for a good night.  I even landed the two Brecker licks I've been trying to incorporate.  Yay for me.

Give these mp3s a spin.

I'll be back for a few Thursday gigs with Yacht Rock playing the Beatles (September 17 and 24).  I'll be leading a sextet in a performance of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue October 12.