I began the day by running a slew of errands. First, I took a few mouthpieces and put them in the mail--some to be returned, and some to be refaced.
A few weeks ago I replaced my old beat up Vandoren 5RV clarinet mouthpiece with a new 5RVlyre Series 13 mouthpiece (which plays much more in tune for me--I have always been sharp, even with a longer barrel). Anyway, I ordered three mouthpieces to try, picked one, and sent the other two back. A few days later, I got a call saying that they'd accidentally refunded me the money for all three, and so they needed my credit card to charge me for the one I kept. Fine. A week later, the two mouthpieces I rejected showed up in the mail again, along with a bill for them. So...I called, they straightened it out (I hope), and I sent them on their way yet again.
While at the post office, I also sent out two Dukoff alto mouthpieces to Will Grizzle for refacing. One was a new guy, and one was an old guy that I messed up by tinkering with it. Oops. Will can straighten it out (I hope). I've never kept a single mouthpiece that I've had Will reface, but I keep hoping that it's me and not him. Since his claim to fame is working on David Sanborn's Dukoff, I thought I'd take another chance on him.
I also picked up this beautiful wig for the show tonight:
I got home and tried to troubleshoot what I thought was a cable problem, but what I now think is a buzzy tweeter in my powered speaker. It only buzzes when I use the EWI to play flute, and only on a certain note in a certain volume range. I think I've figured out something that will work--turning it down and then playing louder to get past that "spot" of distortion.
Somewhere in all of that, I was forced by Mark Bencuya to start thinking about next week's Beatles show. He was calling to check the key of When I'm 64...in C#. I agree. It got me wondering how I can arrange that little clarinet choir for one clarinet, one alto, and one trombone (or trumpet). We'll see. I'm thinking trombone will cover the bass clarinet part, and the alto will hopefully stay beneath me on the other clarinet part.
The gig last night...(finally!)...much better than last week. I really wanted to have a good time and kick butt, so I tried to force some enthusiasm at the beginning of the gig. That worked. I was having fun and playing well (cue the music!)...until...I had AN EWI PROBLEM!!!!!!! I know--who'd have guessed that the EWI would trip me up?! Here's how it all went down: we were playing great until we got to Peg. I play the intro thing (Tom Scott on lyricon, I believe):
When I cued up that sound, I got nothing, and the tunes was blowing by, so I used another sound until I could get to the verse and have a look. I looked at the screen and it was lighting up like it does when the thing is receiving MIDI info, so I was really confused...and here came the second verse thing, so I had to play something for that, even though it was the wrong sound...and then back to the computer. It turns out that the sound source (in this case it was the EXS 24 sampler) was missing from the channel strip. Hence, no sound. That sucked really bad. Peg was a disaster. When we got past the synth part, I didn't have the phasey clav thing set up on my keyboard, so I had to stop and do that, and then my head was splattered all over the wall and I kept playing wrong notes. It was not a pretty moment (and I'd been kicking ass up to that point!).
On set break I learned that the 10 High is now carrying Newcastle in bottles, so I had a big ol' bottle and felt much better about myself. No one even mentioned my disaster--evidently the bass rig was malfunctioning at exactly the same time my EWI stuff was taking a dive.
The second set featured Mark Cobb sitting in for My Love is Alive. That was cool--we rocked it. I luuuuuuuuv me some Mark Cobb, though Ganesh held his own. He even got 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover right after weeks of pysching himself out about it.
We skipped Lonely Boy. I'm just going on record to say that I disapprove. I guess the trade off was Mark Cobb on My Love is Alive. I can live with that, I think.
It took me forever to load out last night. I don't know why. I was dragging.
I will now madly cram for Thriller. Wish me luck!
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