Dave and Dave

Dave and I played a brunch at Venkman's, once again jumping on stage immediately after the puppet show ended.

Rough gig.  I couldn't get anything going, and I had more than a few mental errors.  Not my best playing.

Thursday

Thursday was another corporate event--this time, a fundraiser for a recycling center in Atlanta.  Pretty painless, though we did have many familiar faces in the crowd to help us along.

The vendor meals came in plastic boxes, the beer was in cans and bottles, the cups were paper, and the water was bottled.  To the best of my knowledge, we recycled none of it.  Not off to a good start.

Soundcheck.  Kip demonstrated his singular drum technique.

Ready to go.

Hanging out between sets.

photo cred:  Peter Olson!

On the way back to Marietta, I got stuck in a massive traffic jam at I-75 and I-285.  This lane closing, the rain falling on my gear in the back of the truck, my urgent need to pee, and the fact that the "need gasoline" light had come on a while ago called for evasive maneuvers, so I bailed onto 285 to Cobb Parkway.  At least that solved some of my problems.

Tuesday

Woo!  Tuesday night gig!

But first, a little bit of gear maintenance:  my Nord (the red keyboard) has been jumping out of the cleats that hold it in place inside the case, so I added some extra foam to the inside of the lid to hopefully hold it down.  I also made two blocks of foam to add to The Great Bencuya's Nord keyboard case.  Hopefully that will keep the keyboards from banging around inside the cases.

So...we had a gig at the Aquarium, in the ballroom.  The belugas are doing well.

This was another one of those low excitement corporate gigs.  They pay really well, though, so I can only complain so much.  It was weird to me, though, that they used the entire ballroom (which is pretty big), but they only had a couple of hundred people there.

As I was dragging my gear out at the end of the night, some dude from the party asked if I was the drummer.

"No."

"Wait--you play the, uh, skin flute!" (and pantomimed playing the EWI).

"No.  I was the keyboard player."  Not entirely untrue.  

Birmingham

Yacht Rock travelled to Birmingham, Alabama for the first time to play a show at Saturn, a really nice room in a gentrified neighborhood on the east side of town.

This is a great place to play!  Easy load in, big stage, good size room.

To add to the great performance space, there is a large apartment upstairs that serves as the green room, complete with pool table, kitchen, two and a half baths, couches, a record player, and lots of beds.  For a hundred bucks, the band can spend the night there.  Wow!

I remember this thing from my childhood, but I don't remember what it did.  Now it's a lamp.

We ate around the corner at a restaurant called Wasabi Juan, which was (as you might guess) a sushi and Mexican restaurant.  Total stoner food.  I had some kind of Thai-spring roll-burrito thing, with a chips and salsa as a side.  It was different, but good.

The was an entertaining gig.  My only really bad moment was on (ironically) Couldn't Get it Right, where I had a major brain fart and couldn't recall what I was supposed to play during the verse.  Everything else was pretty solid.

We spent the night upstairs, which was really convenient--Kip decided that it would be best to leave the gear in the building instead of loading it into the trailer, so no load out and no driving after the show.

The bed I chose, was unfortunately dirty--when I pulled the sheet back to climb in, there was...uh...plenty of someone else's body hair on the sheets.  Hmm...not sure how worked up I should be about that.  I decided it was too late to go searching for a different place, so I slept on top of the sheet, under the blanket and a sleeping bag.

We woke up early on Sunday morning with the intention of fueling up at the coffee shop downstairs before our return to Atlanta, but it didn't open until 10  AM.  What?  What kind of coffee shop isn't open Sunday morning?  Where's the brunch crowd?  Ugh.  We had to drive a few miles to find caffeine.  Not cool.  Plus, I left the green room bananas on the counter, so we had none to eat on the way home.  Booooo.

Dud

A dud of a gig last night for a bunch of doctors.  A couple of sets of us playing while they stood around in the back of the room and talked.

nobody on the dance floor for "Power of Love"

Highlights:

1.  Easy load in

2.  Monkeyboy's new amp logo (designed by Kip)

3.  Easy load out

Georgia Music Day

Yacht Rock was recruited to close out the ceremonies at Georgia Music Day at the state capital building Wednesday.  I really don't know exactly what the specifics of the day were--as usual, I showed up and did what I was told.

photo cred:  Peter Olson

We played Brandy acoustically (acoustic guitars, bas, shaker, saxophone, and a single keyboard), most of us planted in a line on wooden stools.  As we launched into the song, I noticed that everyone except Nick had a microphone.  He strode directly to the podium and performed the entire song like he was delivering a speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  It was amazing.  In a room full of big time music people, Nick laid claim to being the baddest motherfucker in the room.

500 Songs

Yacht Rock ended the weekend with a nice afternoon gig at Park Tavern, part of a food and music festival for 500 Songs for Kids.  It was a really comfortable show, playing for a crowd sprinkled with friends and familiar faces.  On top of that, there were twenty-something restaurants present, and I did my best to eat all the tacos and gumbo available.

It was really weird to load out of the Park Tavern when the sun was still up, though.