Utah --> Atlanta Redux

Wednesday: Yacht Rock had a corporate gig in Utah Thursday, and we were fortunately able to fly out Wednesday night. As I've gotten older, it's a lot more difficult to fly across the country and play a gig that night--my brain invariably starts to misfire at some point during the show. It's worth the extra time away from home to not feel miserable on stage.

I picked up Bencuya at his house and we headed to downtown at 4:45. Fighting traffic and weather, it took us over an hour to reach the airport. The plane was also a little late, and we were slightly delayed while the previous flight emptied. We boarded and then sat at the gate, waiting some weather to pass. We finally made it out to the runway, only to abort the takeoff because of wind sheer (that was nuts!--full throttle, then the engines pulled back, then full again, then we basically rolled to a stop).

Once we finally got airborne, it was a smooth flight, and skies were clear across the country.

Memphis, TN

Denver, CO

Thursday: Park City again! We were just here, but since the Sundance festival is over, it's just skiers and snow, and they've had a lot of snow, it appears.

The gig for the evening was on a ranch/event facility. Nice room!

Kind of a clunker of a gig--one of those where people just sit and watch from the dark corners of the room. On this one, people gradually left the room (presumably boarding busses and heading back down the mountain) and suddenly we were playing the gig for just about nobody. Weird.

Anyway, Keisha and Kourtney subbing for Nick (who's on paternity leave), and Ganesh subbing for Mark Cobb. Even with the lack of an audience, I still had a pretty good time playing. Having multiple subs shook up the set list in a good way.

Friday: Park City to Salt Lake City to Atlanta.

Saturday: Brunchfest at Park Tavern. Is Brunchfest a real thing? Not sure. Anyway, it was just like every other Park Tavern gig, but we played in the early afternoon, which was kind of nice--we got it over with and had a night off at home. Incidentally, there was pretty much no food available for us, so I ate the year old granola bar that I'd left in my truck for just this type of emergency.

I guess I was happy to have Cobb and Nick back on the gig--I was pretty into what we were doing on stage. Pretty fun!

Sunday: The ol' Team Hidi/Giving Kitchen fundraiser that we've played for probably six years now. They've changed locations for this event through the years, and I hope they'll do it again, because the present venue sounds bad, has a tiny green room with uncomfortable seating, a shitty parking situation, and a surprisingly difficult load in/out. Plus drunk people yelling into microphones as loud as they can=FML. Run away.

Different Stuff

The last time I wrote something in my blog, I probably mentioned that rehearsals for the musical Footloose were just underway. This week, we finished up rehearsals and performed the show three times, all three without any heart stopping disasters. In the middle of all of that, I also played as loud as I could for a few hours. Dig it:

Tuesday: Afternoon/evening rehearsal. The band was still a bit clunky, but already we were fitting our parts together much better as we learned the music and the flow of the show, as well as the way things sounded in the room.

Speaking of sounds: the audio guys in the theater decided to rectify the amplification problem (2 keyboards, 2 guitars, and bass all coming out of one or two floor monitors) by giving four of us (guitar 1, guitar 2, bass, and me) a headphone amp and four sets of headphones...and one mix to listen to. I was not in the mix, so I pretty much immediately took the headphones off and listened to the keyboards (still coming through the speaker on the floor) and the drums (acoustically). It would've been cool to hear the guitars and bass, but...I guess not. The bass player was unhappy with the mix, so he soon followed me, basically opting to not hear his amplified instrument anywhere. The guitar players I guess were more or less satisfied with the mix.

Another interesting sound thing: both keyboardists were using laptops for their sounds, and evidently the theater purchases/rents the sound files when they get the books. Basically, the second keyboardist is playing lots of woodwinds, brass, and strings (in addition to some synths and stuff), thereby eliminating the need to have a pit full of musicians playing things acoustically. Interesting! All the keyboard splits and everything are laid out song to song and match the keyboard book. I guess I haven't done enough shows to have seen this before, because the music director spoke like it was quite common these days.

Anyway...

Wednesday! We performed the first act for the school in the afternoon, and it went well. After that, we had one final rehearsal for the whole thing. Things felt pretty solid.

Wednesday night, I was back at Blind Willie's, playing with Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo. It's always loud, but on this night, it was loud enough that the waitress asked us to turn down. This evening's band included Dan Lawrence on keyboard, Yonrico Scott on drums, Dave Yoke on guitar, and Scott on bass. This gig is usually two saxophonists, but on this particular evening, the other guy was stuck at home with the flu, so I tried to play for the two of us.

I must say that this is possibly the largest crowd (at least at the beginning of the night) that we've ever had, which was kind of cool. Several patrons were in town for the poultry convention (no lie!), so we started the evening off with our rendition of The Chicken.

Thursday: Show number of Footloose was FANTASTIC! The kids in the cast really brought all their energy to the performance, and was so proud of them. Musically, we also came together right on time. I was pumped. Playing a musical at a high school wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

Only little hiccups: one of the laptops was turned down nearly to the point of being inaudible in the first set (fixed it at the break), and I accidentally banged my saxophone into my microphone (which made a super loud embarrassing BOOM in the house), and the second time, I may have also said DAMNIT! near this microphone, but nobody said anything, and I said ten Hail Marys on the way home and we're all good.

Friday: Show number two was equally good. I felt really focused for Thursday night's gig, and it took me a couple of songs to get my head into it, but the kids were electric, and it definitely brought out the best in the band. Also, I did not hit the microphone anymore.

It's never easy to know how much playing you can do before a show and not wear out your face. I remember that a couple of years ago when I played Miss Saigon, I couldn't even warm up at home--I needed to save each and every one of those notes. For this gig, I was comfortable playing for a few hours and at home in the middle of the day and still having enough face to make the gig. It is tricky, though, because if I have the time and the mental capacity, I can sit and play until I can't form an embouchure anymore.

Saturday: Three for three! Another great show, and no microphone contact, thank you very much. My flute and clarinet chops feel great, as did depositing the check for all of this (thank you very much).

I really loved playing this show--I wish I had a few of these every year. Sometimes it feels like part of my musical soul is dying, and this did much to revive it.

This Week

This week in Dave History:

Tuesday: Did I mention that Yacht Rock is recording some original material for an album? I can't remember, and frankly, I don't feel like looking. Anyway, rhythm section (bass, drums, guitar, keyboards) stuff was recorded over the last two weeks, and then I wrote horn parts based on that. My usual plan was to record demo versions at home and submit them to the people in charge.

Monday night, I finally got some specific feedback from the people in charge, and so Tuesday was a very long day of writing more and editing things, finishing just after 3 AM with multiple parts for the three horn songs printed, taped together, and ready to go.

Wednesday: Up at 8 AM to get caffeinated and head to the studio. Rob Opitz (trumpet), Richard Sherrington (trombone), and I recorded three songs, and then I went back and overdubbed more sax parts, and then I put solos on a few songs, sax parts on a song, flute parts on a song, and then another sax solo on another song. Ten hours after walking in, I picked up my horns and walked out of the studio never more braindead in my life.

an interesting set up--the horns were not individually mic'ed, but instead set up in an arc around three microphones (with two more to capture more the sound of us in the room)

Friday: I was invited to play with local horn band Bumpin' the Mango at Madlife in Woodstock. Good times on a small stage! The horn section was literally shoulder to shoulder--it's the only way we could all fit. I played really well (subbing as the tenor saxophonist), and we were finished by 9 PM (we had to hustle off the stage to make room for an Ozzy Osbourne tribute band). Hell yes.

Saturday: Since Yacht Rock isn't touring right now, I was able to squeeze in a musical this week--playing Footloose at The Lovett School. There's only one reed book--I'm playing flute, clarinet, and tenor and bari sax.

I'm not sure how it was done when I was in high school, but it does seem weird to be in a pit orchestra of professional musicians, playing for a high school cast, but...it's a gig (and I do enjoy the challenge of playing musicals)! Rehearsal number 1 was today.

This gig has some quirks:

1. We are situated in scaffolding upstage right, so we are packed in pretty tight. For instance, I cannot see the conductor's "conducting" (right) hand--only the "cueing" (left) hand. Also, there are two electric guitars, electric bass, and two keyboards up there, and all of their sounds are coming out of two floor wedges (actually just one on Sunday, as the other wedge died mysteriously).

2. Straight ahead jazz guys playing rock is...not convincing. Maybe it's just that there are no amps on stage, so there's not much balls to it.

3. In spite of our close proximity, it's hard to hear what everybody's playing, and there's a little delay between the drums and the band, and a lot of delay between the vocalists in the room and the band, and then if we put either in the monitor, it can become blazingly loud...we're having some issues with the mix!

4. The music director (keyboard 1) has played the show with the cast more than the conductor, so he'll react to their lines and start playing and leave the band a fraction of a second behind, making us all fight to find tempos.

5. The music itself isn't very difficult, but getting used to all the cuts in the music is, and sometimes when I turn the page, I can't find the next place in the music. I might need to add some post it note flags or something to lead my eyes to the right spot on the page.

I think it's all going to come together (I guess it HAS TO!). The process of getting the thing going is much different than other gigs that I play, though.

Sunday: Footloose rehearsal 2, and then I raced down to Venkman's to play a Yacht Rock "Unplugged" show.  We haven't seen too much of each other in the last two weeks, but there wasn't too much rust on the ol' machine.

I was very late to soundcheck because of the rehearsal, and then I made some adjustments to my mix after we finished, and then my mix was terrible. I just kinda lived with it since it was my fault.

Nothing particularly memorable about this one, except for Ganesh Giri Jaya filling in on drums. All my horns felt great--definitely a byproduct of all the playing I did earlier in the week. Monkeyboy told some particularly bad jokes. Nick went around the room with his wireless microphone.

Super Bowl Week

Woo! I'd kind of given up on the idea that there'd be a bunch of gigs around the Super Bowl--things just aren't like they were twenty years ago in Atlanta, but maybe it's quality over quantity this time? Nah.

Wednesday: I played with Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo alongside Mace Hibbard (tenor), Dave Yoke (guitar), Dan Lawrence (piano), and Will Groth (drums) at Blind Willie's in Virginia Highland. Blind Willie's is an Atlanta institution of sorts, so I thought that maybe there'd be some Super Bowl traffic, but it was just another Wednesday night there. Sal Paolantonio (of ESPN fame) did walk in early in the gig and requested some Allman Bros (we sightread Southbound for him). He left before we finished the first set.

Other than that!...nice hang. Mace killed me on a night when I just couldn't come up with anything to play. Late in the gig, I had one good solo on Hummingbird, but the rest of the night, I was pretty lame.

Sunday: Yacht Rock was invited to play the official NFL tailgate party (or something like that) at the World Congress Center downtown. Due to the proximity to the stadium and the people and all that, this one had some insane security, which also meant that all of the gear had to be rented and checked by the FBI and everything. I sent a saxophone and flute a couple of days early, so we truly walked into the gig with nothing. No soundcheck or anything.

checking to make sure everything is turned on

Some other band opened and played their set, and then there were announcement-type things, which ended with something to the effect of "Thanks for coming, enjoy the game!" at which point, people started leaving. Thank god we only had to play for forty minutes.

start of the gig--maybe 100 people are watching the band

twenty minutes later, the crowd has shrunk significantly

twenty minutes after that...ouch!

And that was that. A dud, just like the game.

Utah, Johnny

Yacht Rock played the Sundance Film Festival in Utah last Saturday. It was a loooooooong day, faaaaaaaaar away, and I was tiiiiiiiiiiiiired when it finally ended.

Got on a plane in Atlanta around noon...

Watched all of Mission Impossible: Fallout and half of Gone Girl. Mission Impossible was pretty good. Gone Girl was kind of slow at the beginning.

Nice views. 

Landed in Salt Lake City three and a half hours later. Got in a van and rode forty-five minutes out of town with our driver dude, who talked to Zach for the whole ride about things like "totally shredding the gnar." We might have egged the conversation on a little, too (brah).

Got to Park City, dumped our bags, and hung out around all of these people who were working/networking/being seen/hanging out. We also ate a bunch of food, and then they brought us the food we had ordered, and we were too full to eat that too.

 More hanging out. Someone brought a dog (Eckie) to the hang, so we all got a chance to say hi.

We set up and sound checked, and then went back for more waiting.

Eventually, it was time to get dressed.

We played the first set. This TV was on a loop playing clips of the Bee Gees, Smokey and the Bandit, the Roseanna video, a few 70s commercials, the intro shots of Dallas, Falcon Crest, and Dynasty (but NOT Fantasy Island), a weird Fleetwood Mac video that looked to be late 80s, the part of Caddyshack where Rodney Dangerfield's boat is out of control in the harbor, a Chuck Mangione Memorex commercial (and I was like "Hey, that sax player (Chris Vadala) just died like a week ago!"), and I don't remember what else. I was certainly distracted, though, which was good and bad.



Ella...the real answer is "Who geeeeeeves a sheeeeet."

Guessing what was next helped me pass the time, because holy shit my in ear mix sounded bad. Not a good room for a live band. In spite of that, social media videos show that the out front sound was good.

This was a pretty raging party, if I do say so myself. Definitely didn't feel like a corporate event--it felt more like a house party.

The second set happened, and then we went into overtime, and at some point, my brain started to brown out because it was 1:30 AM inside my skull.

And then it finally ended, we changed, got back in the van, and headed back to Salt Lake City to our hotel. Greg woke me up in the middle of the night because I was snoring like a freight train.

Back to the airport. Bought a shitty, overpriced veggie panini from an SLC airport restaurant. Got on the plane. The rest of Gone Girl was good--it gets a thumbs up from me. I also squeezed in a viewing of Bohemian Rhapsody, which was super damn great, and I managed to get the whole thing in, with the credits rolling right as my row in the plane was ready to exit. Boom.

I'm working Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday, this week, so check back frequently for more exciting moments in my life. OK bye.

The First Busy Week of the Year

This week was our first intense week of gigs for 2019. Monday was the first day of recording some originals, Tuesday was a gig in Indianapolis, Wednesday was another studio day, Thursday was a gig in Florida, and Friday and Saturday were both back in Atlanta at Venkman's.

Monday: We have begun a new project, recording an album's worth of original songs. Day one of recording involved a lot of checking to make sure everything was making sound, balancing mixes, and later in the day, some recording. I haven't been involved in any of this; I spent the day as a spectator.

The song that the guys recorded today will eventually have string and horn parts, which I have mostly written. Once my arrangements are finalized, they'll be added as overdubs.

Tuesday: The whole TSA/government shutdown thing cost me some extra sleep, as we decided to play it safe and get to the airport extra early for our flight to Indiana. The traffic on the interstate ended up being more of an inconvenience than the airport, though. No delays in Atlanta or Indianapolis.

I slept like a dead guy on the plane, but was awake for the very hard landing/very soft crash at the end.

There was snow.

The gig was...something. Five days later, I can't remember anything about it. It was a late developing gig, I guess you'd say--what I mean by that is that we had almost no crowd for the first hour. They softened up a little later on, and we actually went into overtime, which will be a nice boost to the ol' paycheck. More positives: easy load in/out (we used our own gear), good pre gig meal, single hotel rooms, and the gig ended at 9 PM.

Wednesday: It's deicing season.

I slept on the plane because that's what I do. I wonder if my hands went to sleep, too, because I had this wild dream where we were playing Baker Street, and I was sitting at my keyboards and couldn't pick up my saxophone--like, my hands wouldn't work--and then I realized that I didn't have my hat or sunglasses on, and I couldn't pick them up either. I looked down and I didn't have fingers or thumbs on my hands. The whole dream kept repeating; it was the two measures right before the saxophone riff starts--the band just kept chugging on the eighth notes while I struggled to get my horn off the sax stand.

So, is the nightmare:

1. I can't pick up my horn to play Baker Street?

2. The band is going to vamp and therefore Baker Street is never going to end?

3. I'm dreaming about Baker Street?

The rest of the guys headed to the studio after lunch, but after spending almost all of Monday looking at my phone and planning out my pee breaks, I opted to stay home and work on the aforementioned arranging homework.

Thursday: Van ride--approximately six hours down to the Florida panhandle for a gig. We played a show to kick off the 30A Singer/Songwriter Festival. Wrap your head around that one--they hired a cover band to launch a singer/songwriter festival.

Not a bad gig, though. The crowd was decent, the weather (we were outdoors) was just under 60 degrees, and...that's it. It was fine.

Friday/Saturday: We played two shows at Venkman's back in Atlanta. Both shows were pretty fun. I'm not always a fan of gigs at the V (the small stage, the potentially shitty in-ear sounds), but both of these sounded really good, and neither dragged on and on. The crowd was very good Friday; Saturday felt a little like a throwback to our drunken Thursday nights at the 10 High (which I guess has some strange charm to it).

we added an extra song or two, but I can't remember

No load out Friday night after the gig! I put my horns back in the case, but it was kind of nice to otherwise just drive away.

It's funny...things that I didn't practice worked on Friday's gig, but things I DID practice Saturday afternoon didn't stick at all Saturday night. Overall, though, I played well. These shows were surprisingly fun.

we also tucked PYT in there somewhere

Sunday: Unpacked all my gear, played my church gig, and nailed it if I do say so myself. Thank you very much.

Athens

Yacht Rock played the Georgia Theatre in Athens last Saturday night, a sold out show without the drunken football madness. We managed to sell it out for either the third or fourth time.

It was good to get back on the horse, gig-wise. My brain didn't start to crumble until the last four or five songs--all of the sudden, I was missing parts and playing string lines that were a fourth away from where they were supposed to be in All Night Long. Raspberry Beret was ok, but then I crashed through most of I'm So Excited, and then snapped back to normal.

In other news, I almost got I Just Wanna Stop completely right. That string part is tough.