The past month has been really dead, but before that, there were about three weeks of gigs, so here we go...
Friday, March 10, 2023: Lexington, KY. This place was slammed--I'm pretty sure we sold it out again--and it'd be nice to find a bigger, better venue, but in the mean time, this will do. Not much to report about the gig. It was solid and we were a bit out of gigging shape. That's about it.
photo by Deb Ponder
photo by Deb Ponder
Saturday, March 11, 2023: Nashville, TN. We played a private party at Marathon Motor Works here, the venue where we've been playing our public Nashville shows as of late. It felt like a real gig instead of stiff party, so that made the night go by. We dig this room.
There was some boredom/silliness.
And treats after the show!
We spent the night in Manchester, TN, about an hour outside Nashville, and my room was this close to the front desk. Pretty noisy spot.
Sunday, March 12, 2023: Atlanta, GA. We rolled back into town in the middle of the day, with enough time to set up, soundcheck, and play a show for The Giving Kitchen (a non profit that provides emergency support to restaurant workers).
Greg Lee left town for vacation, so we had Seth Waters on bass. He did a really fantastic job, even if he looked like a goober in that captain's hat.
Thursday, March 23, 2023: Macon, GA. We played the Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, GA. The weather was perfect.
It did get a bit buggy, though--this scary looking guy kept pacing across my top keyboard, and sometimes ventured down onto the keys, and just generally freaked me out. I encouraged him to go see the drums, but his grip was too strong.
Friday, March 24, 2023: Atlanta, GA. Back in town, we played a private event. I honestly don't remember what this one was for. I do remember that I was really late, having drastically underestimated Atlanta traffic on a Friday afternoon.
They fed us, and everything had twice as much salt as the recipe asked for. I mean, I like salt, and this was a lot of salt.
Anyway, the gig was ok. We played at American Spirit Works Distillery, and for the first time (we've played at least twenty-five gigs here through the years), the stage was rotated ninety degrees, so that we were playing into the longer length of the room. Surprise! It didn't sound nearly as bad as it used to when we were blasting the bathroom doors.
Saturday, March 25, 2023: Savannah, GA. I slept nearly the entire way to Savannah--still a van sleeping champion.
This gig was for a party at a golf club, put on by a golf cart company (can't think of the name of either). I do remember, thought that this gig had THREE HELICOPTERS!!!! YES! I love helicopters. Each crew would even let you go inside. It was soooooo cool.
The Chinook. Incredible!
The Coast Guard helicopter, which is a Dolphin. Some kind of Euro copter kind of thing with an enclosed tail rotor.
We had golf carts to drive ourselves to the green room.
Near the green room was a Blackhawk. They let me sit in the front seat. It was amazing.
Before our part of the evening began, the helicopters had to fly out, and we were nearby to keep the stage gear from blowing away.
First to leave was the Dolphin.
Then the Blackhawk left.
And finally, the Chinook.
We started right at dusk. It was a pretty night.
Once it got dark, though, the big LED screen on the back of the stage attracted every bug on the golf course, and we were soon overrun. Turning down the intensity of the screen helped, but it was crazy for about ten minutes. I was sure I would end up with something crawling through one of my sax mouthpieces!
Vegetarian food options at the gig were slim--I think I ate some salad and a big plate of rice--so I bought a microwave burrito at the hotel.
My room had a microwave, but no plates, so I used what I could find.
Monday, March 27, 2023: Atlanta, GA. I went to meet the van and pickup my gear, and we discovered that someone had broken into the band's storage unit. The gear that we'd used on the road was fine, but some things that were in storage went missing. Apparently someone rammed the door, grabbed what they could, and took off. That's not good.
April 1, 2023: Destin, FL. My family spent the week in the Florida panhandle.
I had a zero gigs, but still lots of homework, so I spent a part of every day writing out my parts for the next batch of Yacht Rock songs.
April 17, 2023: Atlanta, GA. A tough of week of rehearsals, with lots of new stuff. It'll probably be fun once I've caught up on all the sleep I've missed.
February 17-21, 2023: Sail Across the Sun Cruise. This Sixthman cruise, hosted by the band Train, takes place every other year, sailing from Miami to the Caribbean for what amounts to a four day music festival. We've been there since the beginning (back when it was the VH1 Cruise). It's an easy gig for the most part.
Not so easy was the travel! We were scheduled for an 11 AM flight to South Florida, and due to interstate closures, parking bullshit, airport TSA bullshit, and whatever, I almost missed the flight--like I came within about 15 minutes of them shutting the airplane door and me not making it to the boat. I was almost in tears. It was awful.
We landed, and this dumbass was pretending he had some kind of medical emergency or something so that he could get off the plane before everybody else. The aisle filled up before he could get out, though, and he and several band members traded verbal jabs until we could all go our separate ways.
Yacht Rock was scheduled to play the first night of the cruise out on the pool deck, but the weather was uncooperative, so our show was cancelled, and people were annoyed...like it was our fault, or our call. Anyway, we spent the night drinking and wandering around.
We saw the Bearded Bastard Irishmen. Crazy energy! It was loud, though, so I'm glad I snagged some earplugs.
We saw Fitz and the Tantrums. Their sax player was killin' it! These guys used lots of tracks, but their front of house guy blended it with the live stuff so well that it didn't matter.
We ate food in the middle of the night.
We saw Of Good Nature. Yay for horns! Also, the atrium sucks for live music. I'm glad we were able to avoid playing in here. The bass player was cool as hell, and he looked kind of like Urkel. I bet he hates hearing that all the time.
The next day, Yacht Rock was host the bingo tournament.
The boat changed time zones (for whatever reason), and our man, The Great Bencuya, got caught in it. He was late to bingo. We gave him a hard time.
Immediately following the bingo, we moved up to the front lounge for our turn at the meet and greet/autograph signing party.
Our first of three shows was rescheduled for this evening in the theatre. The first time setting up on these is always chaotic--this one was especially so. We were still trying to get things sounding decent right up to the point when they opened the doors.
I think it went ok. The bass supplied to Greg did not work, and the bassist from the Bearded Bastard Irishmen went back to his cabin and brought Greg his personal instrument to help get through the show.
Monkeyboy deemed his in-ear mix unfixable.
Pretty full room, for better or for worse.
We did a victory lap after our set. Train was on the pool deck, doing Christmas songs (that was the theme of the night).
We had some more food and drink late at night.
We ended up at the Dan Band show in the theatre. They were tight, and Dan had lots of cometic bits.
The following morning, we woke up dockside in Puerto Plata, on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic.
Today's first objective: a band photoshoot with our buddy Will Byington.
Will in motion
Will took us to two spots that he thought would be good. The first was this street with all the rainbow umbrellas. It looked like it might be cool...
And then somebody drove these two old cars down the street, presumably for tourist photos?
We ended up getting some great pictures in and around the red one.
There were also some parrots hanging around--I think these were also for tourist photos.
We squeezed in some shots right here while we waited for the traffic to clear.
We then moved on to an alley that was hot pink, and took another set of photos there.
Back to the boat for lunch.
Also in port on this day was the Virgin Voyages ship Scarlet Lady.
It's been a tradition for Yacht Rock to dine at teppanyaki for one of the dinners aboard the ship. Our original reservation got bumped by Train, so we had to squeeze it in at 5 PM this evening.
The whole thing is...sort of annoying. I like that the whole band is together, but the chefs are loud and sing/yell the whole time and tell the same jokes that we've heard for about ten years at this point. The novelty of it has worn off.
As we are now heading back towards Miami, it's time to roll the time back.
Our second show of the cruise felt a little less chaotic. Things were a little less stressful. The boat was moving a lot, and we were all full from teppanyaki.
Another victory lap. I'm not sure what's happening in this picture. Zach may have a mouthful of food. Monkeyboy obviously does not.
Zach and I went around looking for things to see, and eventually ended up at the Irish bar for late night food. It was mostly fried chicken and chicken wings, and at some point (and for some reason), Zach paid $12 for the guy on duty to bring me a plate of cookies. I ate several. Guilty! The chocolate ones in the middle were pretty great. I may have eaten four. Or six. It was bad.
Day four of the cruise included a long hang with some of the guys from Fitz and the Tantrums. I drank six cups of coffee. I got sunburned. We watched the band Delta Rae in the theatre. Killer vocal harmonies.
Our third show of the cruise was out on the pool deck. This is a great setting, but the stage hands are never very helpful, so you have to mostly find and set up all your own gear (which brings in some unnecessary stress and frustration). The one guy who is in charge of the set up is completely overwhelmed.
Big crowd tonight!
The next morning, we got off the ship and flew home. The Miami airport is as crappy as ever, and the shuttle from the boat dropped us off at the wrong place to check our luggage, so we had to drag all of our stuff (mostly my stuff) quite a long ways. Then I ate at Subway.
Friday, February 24, 2023: Phoenix. We flew on Friday night to Phoenix for a Saturday gig.
The gig was some kind of private thing at the Phoenix Biltmore, which was kind a stone block place built by an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright, and it definitely had some FLW undertones to it.
Here's the green room.
Of course there's no cover for the stage, even though it's a bunch of expensive electronics sitting out in the Arizona sun! I got lucky that my horns were able to avoid it.
Following soundcheck, I killed about an hour of down time by practicing flute in this conference room.
The lobby.
The gig was pretty easy for a corporate event, with an acceptable amount of ambivalence from the crowd. Lots of good looking people in the audience, so plenty to admire.
Nackers played drums on this one
One of the raffles for this event was an opportunity to sing Don't Stop Believin' with the band. The guy who won didn't really know the words, so he kind of did half of the first verse and gave it back to Nick. It was for the best.
It didn't even get too cold once the sun went down. We got lucky! Our part ended around 8:30 PM, too.
Ugh. 5:30 AM shuttle to the airport. Ouch!
I slept pretty much the whole plane ride home, finally waking up when we were about thirty minutes from landing.
That's it! You're up to date!
Here's a new video I recently completed, playing on Dizzy Gillespie's Woody n You. Give it a listen!
