80s in Athens

Yacht Rock played a private gig for software developers in Athens last night.  It was 80s themed, so we pulled all of our Reagan Rock stuff out for them.

We were on a super tiny stage.  From my spot, my back was against the wall (literally!) and the microphone clipped on the bell of my horn kept hitting my keyboard.  Mark Cobb's right side crash hung over the top of my other keyboard--I think that it was probably closer to me than him.  All of that being said, the volume wasn't too bad, though the bass was awfully loud.

The gig was really fun.  I don't know if the crowd was into it, but I enjoyed playing some different tunes.  We also hit some stuff beyond the realm of Reagan Rock--just stuff that the Y.O.U. guys used to play as covers.  I got off a really good alto solo on Talking In Your Sleep--wish I'd recorded that, but I wasn't thinking I was going to play anything on it at all!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Humane Society Benefit

Yacht Rock played a benefit for the Humane Society at Sweetwater Brewery last night.  I was worried--the weather was a little too chilly for me to have fun outside (and last time we were there we nearly froze to death).  It turned out to be a non-issue.  I mean, my horns were flat as hell, but everything continued to function, so I could deal with it.

By the end of the night, though, my hands were really not working well.  We played Lido Shuffle as an encore and my hands just couldn't do the triplet thing in the synth build up.

Mark Cobb had some strange experiments with gaff tape throughout the night.  Every set had stripes across the head of a different drum, it seemed.  That and a strange pair bell cymbals (I guess)--about four inches in diameter, that rode atop his hi hat for a while.  He's looking for some Steve Jordan/Chris Dave mojo.

So that was it.  No rain, and we were finished at 9 PM.  Not too bad.

We're off to Athens tonight.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Church Snippet

Not too much going on at the moment…I recorded (on my phone) a song we played at church gig number one a couple of days ago.  I went for a Lenny Pickett approach (on a crappy reed!).  Still, not bad for first thing in the morning.  I start playing about a minute and a half in.

 Mt. Bethel UMC-March 27, 2011 by David B Freeman

Church gig number two was pretty easy.  I played lots of low stuff on flute.  I'm dreaming of an alto flute.  Wish I could afford one!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Dixie Tavern

I played with the Yacht Rock Schooner last night at the Dixie Tavern last night.  Not bad for a bar gig!  The gig itself was good, but I nearly died waiting around--I was told to be there at 8.  Ready to go at 8:10, but the soundcheck began at 9:30 (which means they checked the sax line at about 10), and we didn't actually start the gig until 10:30.  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to hang out.  Next time, I'm rolling in at 10.

Anyway, once we started playing, everything was cool.  The band was solid, and there was something for me to do on every song of the first set.

Someone from the crowd told the two singers that the difference between the Schooner and the Revue was that the Schooner's sax player is so much better.  Thanks?

davidfreemanmusic.net

10 High

We (Yacht Rock) used the 10 High as a preliminary rehearsal for the big 80s prom coming up in a few weeks at the Variety Playhouse.  New oldies included Careless Whisper, Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, I Can Dream About You, and True.  All came off without a hitch (ok-I had a medium small disaster in I Can Dream, but nothing fatal).  We also added Hold the Line, which was alot of fun to play--I played power chords on the chorus and a synth part on the second and third verses.  Easy stuff for me, but I bet we won't do that one too much--the vocals are super high.

The second set was fast.  Mark Cobb played everything like he needed to go pee.  We flew through every song.  All of the sudden, the gig was over!

It was a pretty thin crowd.  I won't bother to speculate why.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Monday trio gig

I played a really good trio gig with Louis Heriveaux (keyboard) and Kevin Smith (bass) at the Sheraton downtown.  It was some kind of private gig…a networking thing.

Here are the audio files:



davidfreemanmusic.net

Road Trippin'

Friday and Saturday, I was on the move with Yacht Rock.

Friday's show was with the Yacht Rock Schooner in Chattanooga at Rhythm and Brews.  I just played saxes and flute, so it was a pretty easy night.  The band sounded good;  everything was solid, and it was nice to kind of have the night off on a gig.  I probably did more cell phone videos than actual playing!

Saturday afternoon was a Yacht Rock Revue gig at Eagles Landing in Stockbridge.  What a disaster!  The van was late in arriving to grab our gear, and then it took us twice as long as was allocated to pack the trailer.  We then moved our cars over to the Pleaserock office so as to avoid returning to smashed car windows.  Once we got on the interstate, we decided to take 75 south instead of 675 south (which was what my phone kept telling me to do), and somewhere in there I recalculated directions to Stockbridge instead of Eagles Landing.  So…we got off the interstate at the wrong exit before I noticed.  Back on the interstate, down 75 another few miles.  We got there with a little over and hour to get our gear in the room and soundcheck.  Somehow, we finished with five minutes to spare!

Dig the curtain behind us.  It looked just like the Hot for Teacher video.  I couldn't stop thinking about that for the first couple of songs.

It just got worse from there.  We had to kill off two and a half hours in our green room until our stuff was scheduled to be begin.  The gig was a total drag.  The room was pitch black, and with sunglasses on it seemed like we were playing inside Space Mountain, and after how many beers in those few hours I thought I was going to fall off the edge.  The crowd was really stiff, and we got bored and then we had to drag ourselves to the bitter end.

Here's audio from the night.  I recorded with my phone, sitting on one of my keyboards, so the balance is weird (right in between my amp, the guitar amp, and the drums).  Check the cowbell duel.  "Africa is percussive."

That's me on the solo--a bit of EWI magic.

Somebody cut the last chorus short.  You can hear me yell "What the fuck!" and then Dannells and I chattering about it.

 Africa (Toto): Yacht Rock Revue by David B Freeman

The theme for the party was James Bond (hence the "Octopussy" in the audio), so we played a little bit of Live and Let Die off the cuff.  That went pretty well.  Our other thing was the James Bond ending, which did not go well at all.  We were going to do it in F minor, and I figured it out on EWI (which I have set to Bb).  Unfortunately, the couple of times it was audibled, I was either playing keyboards, flute, or alto--never tenor or EWI, and my brain couldn't quite move the lick into another key!  Actually, I think the time I did try to play it, Dannells was playing it in E minor, so even when I was finally right, I was still wrong.

We loaded the gear back out, and then the van wouldn't start because we were parked on a hill and the tank was almost empty.  Greg and Ganesh left to find a gas station that was open and buy a gallon of gas.  We packed the gear up, put some gas in the van, and drove home.  When we got back to town, we went and picked up our cars at the office, and then caravanned to the rehearsal space, which turned out to be our only good move of the night.  The gate for the space was locked and nobody had the key, so then we pulled our personal gear out of the trailer and went our separate ways (which meant somebody had to be responsible for the PA in the trailer and then deal with it again the next day).

Sunday began just hours later.  I played church gig number one in a fog.  It went pretty well.  No big surprises.  I went home, took a nap, got up and hung out with Jack.  I took another nap.  I got up and went to church gig number two.  No problems.  I think I had a pretty good mix happening.  I came home and immediately/accidentally fell asleep, and woke up twelve hours later.

Another week cometh!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Waiting is the Hardest Part

Last night was the big Pleaserock takes over Virginia Highlands night--multiple Pleaserock bands playing around the Dark Horse, Limmerick Junction, and Blind Willie's.  Yacht Rock played the 9-11 PM slot in the parking lot.  We had GREAT weather.  Last year, it rained;  there was no cover for the stage, so we never even played.  The year before that was pretty good, but it got cold once the sun went down.  The year before that was colder still.  The high was in the mid-70s (how appropriate!), so we were still really comfortable through our sets.

The toughest/worst part about the gig was the fact that we loaded in at 4, but didn't play until 9.  In the mean time, we stood around.  The Stooge Brothers played.  Then the Main Street Exiles played.  Then the Ill-Eagles played.  Finally, we got up there--frantically threw our gear on stage and got started.  I preset as much stuff offstage as I could, but everybody was still waiting on me to get set (and I heard about it).

I played well.  The big song of the night was Moonlight Feels Right, which we haven't attempted in about a year.  I was really pleased with myself for figuring out a nifty keyboard split that allowed me to sustain a string sound with I played a two handed synth part (the chorus stuff, if you're checking it out).  The string part was the one thing Bencuya and I could never grab before.  Yay!  I hope that one stays in the setlist;  I like having something new to do.  Maybe it will bump some of our warhorses off the map for a while.

Once we hit the 11 PM curfew, I dragged all my stuff offstage and packed it up.  After locking it in the cab of my truck, I clawed my way into the 10 High and sat in with the Schooner (who was covering our usual gig).  They sounded good.  It's funny how the two bands play the same stuff, but the sound and feel can be so different.  Anyway, I played on a few tunes and then the night ended.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Tuesday-House Live

Tuesday night was the final leg of our House Live tour…not really a tour, but after a couple of months of not having any gigs, we had Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday.  Good stuff!

This one was the easiest of all--just a quick two hour gig at Ventanas.  We made our usual pilgrimage to Baja Fresh across the street, and then came back and hit it.

It was blue dress shirt/dark pants night, and mostly dudes.  Lots of one-on-one business talk.

Here's a couple of audio clips from the evening.  In hearing these recordings, it's striking how different the levels appear in comparison to when I'm playing.  On stage, the DJ component sometimes seems to be too much, but listening back now it seems that it is I who is too loud in the mix.

 House Live (soprano) by David B Freeman

 House Live (alto) by David B Freeman

At the end of the night, I put my phone on a cocktail table in front of us for a video.  I guess it turns out to be mostly a video of Wayne.



davidfreemanmusic.net

Sunday Stuff

Sunday morning started off an hour too early.  Why the hell do we still have daylight savings time?  Not cool.  I'd gotten home from my Saturday night gig by 9:30 or so;  I practiced until midnight, and then poked around thinking I still had plenty of time to sleep.  Boo--the time switch snuck up on me.  No good.

Anyway, church gig number one went off without a hitch.  In fact, the leader even mentioned that it was one of the tightest services we'd ever played.  Pretty high praise, considering how often it is dished out.

Sunday night, I played another House Live gig, this time at Stats--some private party for a technology company.  Pretty easy stuff.  We played for an hour, then had about forty-five minutes off, then played an hour and forty-five (with a break).  I continued my stream of consciousness playing, for better or for worse.  We had a table of guys sitting right in front of us for most of the night, and I wondered why it took so long for them to get sick of me!

On the break, we were able to go out and enjoy the patio and the weather.  A great night to be outside!

Here's some audio from the end of the night.  Some saxophone and some flute.

 House Live (alto) 1 by David B Freeman

 House Live (flute) by David B Freeman

 House Live (alto) 2 by David B Freeman

Video?



davidfreemanmusic.net

Payback, circa 1992-93

Yacht Rock played our second gig as a U2 cover band (Uno Dos Tres Catorces) tonight at Meehan's in Sandy Springs.

This one was much better than last week's effort.  For one thing, none of us was throwing up (though Nick tried)!  Also, I think on the whole we were much more rested and ready.  I was also able to spend an hour or so going over my stuff (as well as a few hours over the past couple of days).  I felt good.  It was easy, though I can't say that there was really much for me to do.  I played lots of shaker and tambourine.  The toughest part of the night, in fact, was trying to look cool playing shaker;  for that matter, trying to look cool doing nothing on stage!

The crowd was good.  They seemed to be really into it.  I wonder how many people showed up thinking it was going to be smooth 70s soft rock, though.

We opened for Ed Kowalczyk, former lead singer of the band Live.  The girl I was dating at the end of high school (and long distance into college) got really into Live around 1992-93.  I associate that band with that girl--they were the soundtrack to the cataclysmic end of that romance.  I feel like they should bear some of the blame for my pain.   I had thoughts of ambushing him backstage tonight.

So ha!  Now Ed's playing in Kroger parking lot for a suburban beer festival.  She's doing well, too, I see.

I feel better.

davidfreemanmusic.net

House Live

House Live hasn't played a gig in a couple of months.  I guess nobody's been having trendy parties the past few months!

We were hired to play a 50th birthday party at a really cool space--a new room at a complex called White Provision.  Pretty cool…at one point it was a slaughterhouse, and more recently a U-Haul place (that's how I remember it).  Anyway, there's no blood left, and it looks really good, and the room where we were had really great views.  Upton Sinclair approves!

The gig itself was really refreshing.  I haven't had a lot of opportunities to just improvise and let it all hang out.  About an hour into the gig, I finally felt like I'd played through all my crap and had gotten to a point where I was coming up with some different stuff.  At that point, I kind of zoned out and just played.  It wasn't until later on that I realized that I was no longer playing in the context of the DJ's tracks--it was beyond that.  Maybe that's good, maybe not.  I don't know if anyone would want to stand in front of us and hear my stream of consciousness playing go on for ten minutes straight, but it was cathartic as all get out for me.

I had chicken fried steak and a biscuit for supper.  Good stuff.  It's been too long since I had that.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Ugh.

Yacht Rock played the 10 High last night.  Nick was sick and Cobb was out, so we had Kevin Spencer and Ganesh working with us.  I wore my new suit.

I know what you're thinking:  Kevin Spencer has an unofficial fan site?  More than one, it appears.  Here's another.

The first set was pretty good.  I got off a really good solo on Biggest Part of Me--remarkable because I haven't had a saxophone in my hands much at all this week.  Kind of a dud reed, but it was able to take the air, so it ended up being more of a feel issue for me and nothing else.  Not much else to report in the first set…it was pretty solid, though the  tempos felt slow to me.

The second set…ugh…the second set was a drag.  It felt slow, and the talking between songs was really annoying, and the crowd was ambivalent.  Brutal.  There was no flow to the set, and the space between songs made it feel like we'd never played a Yacht Rock gig before.  It had all the momentum of a morning rehearsal.  I thought we'd never get to the end.

It got even longer when the entire band stopped, mid-song (Takin' it to the Streets), to have some drunk guy thrown out.  We waited and waited and waited (and yelled at him on the mics) while Nate (our security guy) slowly walked him out of the room.  I think his exit was longer than the song itself.  It sure didn't help make the gig go.

When we finished, I never even bothered to get off the stage--I just started packing up.

After all that, we made pretty good money!  Ahh...the happy ending!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Ashes to Ashes

I had a rare mid-week church gig tonight.  It's Ash Wednesday, and my number two church gig was asked to play the overflow service (people that couldn't fit in the cathedral were bumped over to us).  We ended up with a standing room only crowd.

The most challenging part of this gig was the mixing.  I am rarely ever in this particular room, and I was using unfamiliar sound equipment.  Plus, we were plugging into the ceiling speakers.  Weird stuff.  I think I ended up with a pretty good mix, though I had to ride the gain on a couple of the singers.  Frickin' singers! Half the time they sing with the mic at their breastbones, and half the time it's an inch from their lips!

I played flute but no saxophone on this one.  Lent is supposed to be somber, and I was reminded (once again) that that means no solos for Dave.  For some reason, this doesn't seem to apply to the frickin' singers.  Oh well…one less horn to pack up!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Greater Vavoom

Remember The Greater Vavoom show where we opened for Juliette Lewis?  You can read about it here.

Here are two sax solos from that show:

 Fuck My Boss (edit) by David B Freeman

 Boomerang (edit) by David B Freeman

You can follow The Great Vavoom here.  And you should.

P.S.  We really kicked ass that night.

davidfreemanmusic.net

More Non-Sleeping Madness

Sooooo…last time I wrote, we had played a pretty good gig at the 10 High.  Since then?  Madness.

Friday morning, I got up, made a few notes about the U2 stuff, packed my clothes, and met up with everybody else down at the office in Candler Park.  We loaded the van and drove to Nashville for a gig at the Mercy Lounge.

The Mercy Lounge is really cool.  All of the gigs there feel like significant events in the band's life--as opposed to the 10 High, which can feel like more of an obligation when we're not into it.  The Mercy always has good sound (though it can get really loud), and the sound guys generally care about what's happening.  I mean, it is Nashville--I think because there are so many talented people floating around, the sound guys have to be on it too, or they're likely to be replaced.

We rolled in, set up, soundchecked, and went and ate at Fiesta Mexicana, which is where we've eaten the past three or four times we've been up there.  I had a spinach burrito--a bold move for such a picky eater.  It was ok.  I probably wouldn't order it again.  I'm really only there for the chips and salsa.

When we got back in the parking lot of the Mercy, we got the trailer hung up on a fence, so somebody suggested that the six of us get out and pick up the trailer and carry it away from the fence.  Great, except that when we put it down, I slammed my forehead into the steel frame of the door and got a nice big bump.  Ouch.

The gig was good fun.  I was really tight through the whole first set, and made lots of little mistakes--holding a note too long, bumping a key, that kind of stuff.  Not the major catastrophe variety, but the little mistakes of not being comfortable on stage.  A keyboard playing friend of the band was in the audience, and I couldn't get it out of my head that he might be focused on what I was playing.  Every little blip felt huge.

On Reminiscing, I turned on my sax mic and it started to feedback, so I turned it off and looked over my shoulder for the monitor guy, but he was nowhere to be found.  I waited as long as I could (and kept looking), and finally I just turned it on and let it wail until he came running.  He chopped the offending frequency out of the wedge in front of me, and things were fine.  My solo on that tune was much better than the crap I played the night before.

I played a pretty good flute solo on Lowdown.  They have this really big mic for me at the Mercy, and they put a foam windscreen on it that I hate.  On a regular mic, I get right up against the grille, but with a foam windscreen, it totally messes up my airstream and makes playing difficult.  I feel like they're not getting all of my sound, though, if I'm not right up against it.

Greg and I hung out on the break talking to a couple of girls;  one had really big hair.  She asked me if my hair was real.  I said, "No.  Is yours?"  I've always wanted to say that.

The second set, I was much better.  I guess I finally got used to the sound on stage.

We ended an encore.  Always a good feeling!  We did Baker Street and Footloose.  I did really well on Baker Street--that song is getting to be really difficult to play if the crowd is not into it.  My mind kind of wanders sometimes.

After the gig we packed the trailer and went to the hotel.  Somehow they gave us rooms with king sized beds, so I slept in the same bed.  Fortunately/Unfortunately, he did not spend much time in the bed!  He spent the whole night throwing up his Fiesta Mexicana.  Food poisoning?  I bet he puked five or six times in the four or five hours that I slept.  He puked again in the street right before we pulled out for Atlanta.

We drove straight from Nashville to the office, got our cars, and went on to our next gig at the Park Tavern (the 2011 Shamrock Fest).  We loaded in in the rain, through all the people who were already there drinking bad beer and eating fried food.  It was cold, and the tent over the patio was leaking in several spots around me.  Not good for saxophones or electronics!

The U2 set was at 6:30.  It felt like we hadn't played the stuff in a month.  I was confused about the notes I'd make on my charts, and it was loud and I couldn't hear.  At one point Greg put his guitar down and went and puked again.  For a first shot at it, I guess it went well.  It didn't feel like us, though--it felt more like somebody had dared us to play it.

We changed and hit the stage again at 8:30 to play two sets of Yacht Rock.  These felt much more comfortable.  The crowd was really into it, and I was cool with the sound on stage (once again, though, it was really loud).   I liked the sound guys we had for this one--I think they ran the house speakers a little bit louder, and when I was playing saxophone up front, I could hear it really well.  Most of the time, it feels like I am playing into a pillow, so hearing it in the mains was very encouraging.

Some girl asked if my mustache was real.  I said, "Yes."  I wanted to reply "Is yours?" but I didn't--but I wanted to.  No question about the wig, which always makes me wonder if they think it's real, or it's so obviously fake that they move on to the 'stache.

Sometimes I get asked if my chest hair is real.  Can you fake chest hair?

We called a sub for Greg and he went home on the break.

Early in the second set, we started Lowdown, and that was around the time that it dawned on me that on the break I'd put my flute away (inexplicably).  In eight measures, I went from flute in case to flute on face.  Nice move, Freeman.  A mere minutes later, I played one of my worst flute solos in recent memory!

Weird--at the end of the night, it dawned on me that I never picked up my tenor for the entire gig.  I played four or five alto songs and that was it.

When the gig ended, I packed up my gear and ran like hell to get out of there.  Beth had called after the U2 set to say that her father had suffered a major stroke that evening, so I dumped my gear at our rehearsal space and went straight to Grady.  He's in the intensive care unit of the stroke center.  I was there for a few hours before returning to the space, grabbing my gear, and heading for home.

I got up a few hours later and ran over to church gig number one.  Everything was really relaxed, and we burned through everything with ease.  In fact, the rehearsal ended early--usually it runs seventy minutes or so, but this time we knocked everything out in about forty-five.  The service itself was a bit more chaotic, with the leader trying to whisper directions to us about intros, and lots of pushing and pulling (and small train wrecks) of tempo.  Chris, our drummer, was furious--all that stuff made him look bad, and it was the leader's fault.  At one point, the main singer/cantor was singing and conducting at one speed, the leader/pianist was plowing ahead at another speed, and the band was caught in limbo between the two, and the leader was glaring at Chris.  Not cool.  I thought Chris was going to quit mid-gig.  He cooled off enough to get through it.

We were asked to stay and play the next service (yay! more money!).  When we got on stage, some old guy with a trombone said, "Hey!  You guys need to be wearing robes!  Where's your robe?"  I thought he was joking, so I said, "Can I borrow yours?"  Steam shot from his ears.  Evidently, there's some friction coming from the "orchestra" that plays sometimes at the second service.  So…we went downstairs and got suited up.  What do I care?  I'm guessing he hasn't seen what I usually wear to gigs.

I went home and took a nap, a shower, and then went to church gig number two.  It sounded pretty good.  I mixed with headphones this week to double check what I was doing.

The church attempted to show a video of the bishop's appeal, so a guy pushed a black metal A/V cart out into the middle with a projector on it and tried to hook his laptop up to it, but it wouldn't work--like it's 1995 or something!  It never ceases to amaze me how technologically deficient this church is, and not for lack of money.  Sadly, I think that the laptop/projector set up is a step forward for them.  Last year they set up a TV on the altar and just turned the sound up.  Then again, at least it worked last year...

This was right after the priest bragged about how they'd received $30,000 beyond what they'd needed last year for the appeal.

I was able to get a lot of sleep today.  Good thing--it's going to be a tough week.

davidfreemanmusic.net

The Build Up

This week has been relatively pain free after last weekend's crucible.

Most of the focus has been on the U2 stuff.  We did two rehearsals; one on Tuesday, and then a wrap up one on Thursday to check everything.  Both went well--everything sounded big and powerful.  After doing some more research, the guitar guys (Greg and Dannells) ironed out their respective parts a little more clearly.  Now it's up to Nick--this Bono stuff is super humanly high to sing, and a whole set might kill a lesser vocalist.  We lowered most of the keys a half step, but it's still tough stuff.

Last night at the 10 High was pretty good.  As usual, the first set was really tight;  everybody played well.  I did crash and burn on my solo to Reminiscing--things we going well, I was following a cool succession of ideas, and then my hands couldn't keep up with my head anymore, and that was it.

I played my best palm slide ever on the organ part to Thunder Island.  Ever.  I think I'm going to make a point of high fiving myself for things like that.

Also deserving of a high five:  Mark Dannells' solos on Reelin' in the Years were on fire!  Totally awesome.

On the break, some guy was telling me how good the guitar duet sounded in Reelin' in the Years (Dannells on guitar, me playing the other part on alto sax).  He said, "it sounded so good--I couldn't tell where the other guitar was coming from, and then I looked over and saw you playing!"  I said, "I guess if you didn't notice that it wasn't a guitar, then it sounded right."  He said, "it sounded great.  What patch were you using?" Huh?  I played along…"it was my 'saxophone' patch."  "That sound was perfect.  It sounded like a guitar."  Thanks, I think.

The second set was a slow descent into silliness, led by Cobb's Roland drum pad.  By the time we got to the end, I was playing the tenor solo to Old Time Rock and Roll (we got multiple requests for Bob Seger last night) on EWI (using a bari sax patch) over the verse to Lido Shuffle.  Then Hans (the sound guy) took it one step further and used his pitch shifter to destroy my synth build up on that tune.  Crazy.  We amuse ourselves.

davidfreemanmusic.net