David Freeman Music

I woke up at 7 AM Sunday morning, drank a cup of coffee, put on a suit, and left for work.  I hope I  never do this more often than once a week. I walked into my AM church gig to find it set up for the orchestra instead of the usual small group.  I wish I'd known I could have left three of four instruments at home!  Oh well…middle school level saxophone parts are easy on my brain first thing in the morning. While we were rehearsing, I got a text message from a friend who works as a pilot for Delta. My big excitement of the morning was when my tenor sax/T.C. baritone (treble clef) part was flipped over to reveal the B.C. baritone (bass clef) part.  That's an exciting transposition!  Change clefs and up a whole step!  I flipped it back over and went back to sleep. We lucked into playing both services this morning, so double the money!  Yay! In the afternoon, I somehow avoided taking a nap and instead ran errands and worked on stuff f...

Yacht Rock finished off the weekend with a slamming gig at the Atlanta Athletic Club last night.  I have no idea what we were celebrating, but it was a rocking party. We played this gig last year--we drove straight there from Nashville and set up on a stage in their tennis stadium.  Due to the weather, this year's event was in their indoor tennis facility.  Way better to me--no pollen, no rain, no direct sunlight. Awesome gig!  The sound guys were fantastic (Hi-Gain Audio), the crowd was into it from the first note, the load in/out was easy, and we played well.  Plus, we played I Keep Forgetting AND Whatever Gets You Through the Night !  Why can't they all be like this? We'll be back!

Yacht Rock played the Variety Playhouse last night.  Pretty good gig! The Yacht Rock Schooner played the opening set, and sounded great.  They did some new tunes ( You'll Never Find ) and some oldies ( Rosanna ).  A problem with the front of house interrupted their set (FOH couldn't get the band in the PA).  Once they got it up and running, it sounded really good. We played the Anchorman soundtrack again--previously, we'd learned it for a show at the Variety in January.  This time felt a little more uptight to me;  we might have played it better on this one, but I was kind of holding on like "I am NOT going to screw this up!" for the entire set.   It was good, but we were working at it. I played about twenty bars of saxophone the entire night--the solo over the verse in She's Gone .  I think my mic was audible on stage, but I don't thing it was on in the house.  Hmm.  Maybe it was, but it didn't feel like it. M...

Yacht Rock played a short gig last night at the World Congress Center for the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau.  Short and sweet!  We played one ninety minute set.  Home by midnight. Things started early in the day with an extreme load in--we had been instructed to enter through the loading dock, up the freight elevator, and around the ballroom.  Easier said than done!  I luckily ran into a couple of event coordinators who helped move my gear.  I still had to find my way back down to the dock, then drive around the block to the red lot.  The World Congress Center is that big. It seems like I knew everybody at this event.  My friend Jeff Burnisky was the DJ in the ballroom (on a plexiglass platform lowered from the ceiling!), the photographer was Ross from Northlight Photography, and the great Tony Winston Trio was playing before us.  Plus, Matt Sheren (from my morning church gig) was running sound. Once we found the stage, ...

Yacht Rock had a nice little show Monday night, doing our Beatles tribute (Please Pleaserock Me) for a foodie event at the Buckhead Theatre.  As I've said before, the PPRM gigs can be hit and miss with me because there's not always much to do, especially when things lean more towards the earlier stuff that doesn't involve horns.  I end up with tambourine, cowbell, and hand claps.  Gotta love the load in, though;  here's my gear for the night. This one turned out to be fun;  I guess I was in the mood to play a gig where I had almost no responsibility.  We did play Whatever Gets You Through the Night (I was sure it was going to get cut, but no!).  Mostly I just hung out and watched the other guys. Some guy afterwards tried to convince Nick and me that lead singers and sax players get all the women;  bass players and drummers are screwed, he said.  Riiiiiiiight.

Ahh, Bryan Lopes,  I love you so.  Thanks for putting my soprano sax back together in time for me to play my church gigs today.  Both AM and PM gigs were heavy on the straight horn.  It would have been a drag dealing with my leaky horn for another week. The AM service was good.  The church was struck by lightning Friday, and it blew out some of the audio systems in the sanctuary.  That meant no monitor for me, but the playing was good, so no biggie.  I did a couple of things on tenor, then soprano for a hymn, clarinet for a hymn, the soprano for the big song of the day, which was cool because there were some nice spots for me in the intro and the breakdown. My PM service was fine, but nothing particularly exciting.  I played a lot of soprano on this one, too, but the band seems to be getting quieter every week, and it's harder and harder for me to hear the piano.  I could use a monitor, or else I may cut back to just flute.

Yacht Rock began our summer concert series at Park Tavern last night with the Reagan Rock Prom.  Midtown was packed all afternoon (mostly because of the Dogwood Festival), but we still had a good turnout.  It didn't sell out, though that was probably good because the tent never got so packed that things got out of control. We played I Keep Forgetting again.  That in itself made the evening. Our second try at Kokomo got a better reaction than our first.  Here's my transcription of the solo. My worst moment of the night was the Get Out of my Dreams solo.  This must be a comped solo--there's no place to breathe!  About halfway through, things got a little loose, and I kind of fumbled rest of it.  By the measure:  yep, yep, yep, oops, yep, fuck!, dammit!, ok. We've got a busy week ahead:  Monday night at the Buckhead Theatre, a private event Thursday, Friday at the Variety Playhouse, and a private event Saturday.  Stay ...

Yacht Rock had a show at Summerour Studio--Springtime in the City, which is a benefit by Peachtree Presbyterian for the Adaptive Learning Center.  For us, it was also a good tune up for tomorrow's big show at the Park Tavern.  Nice, easy gig with a good crowd and easy load in. Two great things about this gig: 1.  We got to play I Keep Forgetting .  I love to play that one--it's one of my favorites, but unfortunately it's a tough one to sing, so we play it three or four gigs a year.  Such a hip song. 2.  We are debuting a couple of new Reagan Rock tunes this week.  One is Get Out of My Dreams (Billy Ocean) which is passable, though at 1988, it's pretty late in the genre.  The other is the Beach Boys Kokomo .  It's a pretty crappy song.  Also a 1988'er.  The band is pretty divided about this one--I think we all agree that it's pretty bad, but split as to whether or not it's so bad that it's good (another way to think of it is: ...