Giving Kitchen Benefit

Yacht Rock closed out the weekend with an easy gig for our chef friends at the Giving Kitchen's event.  This one was special because we were also celebrating the life and times of Ryan Hidinger, one of the founders of the Giving Kitchen who recently lost his fight with cancer.  Our third really cool gig of the weekend with a full house of really appreciative people.  I could get used to this.

Dustin subbed for Bencuya.  No big deal, though I wish we could've continued to polish the new tunes we added for the Anchorman soundtrack gig at the Variety this past Friday.  

They had a digital photo booth that we enjoyed a lot.

The music at load out was extremely loud for NO APPARENT REASON.

Taste It

Yacht Rock played the Taste of Dunwoody for, I think, the fourth year in a row.  Even more so than in previous years, this was a pretty big party with a rowdy crowd.  Dunwoody was rocking as much as the suburb could handle it.

Peter showed up with a new 12 string.  Reports from the guitar players are that it plays easily and sounds good, though the bridge is pulling up a little.  None of this means anything to me.  Still, congrats on the new purchase!

The food at the gig was pretty good.  We, of course, tend to gravitate towards the tacos.  Good ones from Tin Lizzy's and wherever Monkeyboy is in this picture.

So…three sets, no problems.  I think after the Variety Playhouse, everybody was pretty relaxed tonight, and some things that we played again might have even been a touch better because of it.  A good night all around!

Towards the end of the night, some dude jumped up in front of us and stage dived, then got up and did it again.  This is something different, especially off a two foot high stage in a hotel ballroom in Dunwoody.  Work on that for next year's Taste of Dunwoody!

Dark Side of the Moon/Anchorman

Yacht Rock played a sold out show at the Variety Playhouse last night, performing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and most of both Anchorman soundtracks.  Great gig, particularly the DSOM.  I think we've now played it enough times that it's automatic.  For me, the show was much better than last year because I had a great reed.  Last year I had an ok reed and I think I played just ok.

The Anchorman (Anchorma?) stuff was cool--it was a mix of songs we play all the time (such as Ride Like the Wind, Lowdown), stuff we play but not regularly (Treat Her Like a Lady, Who's that Lady), and new songs (This is It, Hold Your Head Up).  I had a good night and felt mentally present through the whole thing (sometimes that is not the case and I have to wait for half the set for my brain to show up).  In particular, I enjoyed This is It, which is super hard I think for everybody in the band--instrumentally complicated and vocally challenging.  I worked on that one a lot, especially coordinating my vocal part with the moving string part.  Hope that one's a keeper.

The encores for the show were Afternoon Delight and Don't Stop Believin', the latter being a particularly guilty pleasure.  I sincerely love that song.



Awesome gig!  One of my favorites at the Variety.

MLK at GSU

I subbed into a friend's latin jazz gig yesterday evening (Thursday) for a gig at Georgia State;  we provided background music for a reception following the MLK Convocation.  Interesting gig!

The parking lot attendant couldn't find my name--after several minutes she discovered it because she was looking for David Freeman and it was listed as Dave Freeman.  Really?  Then as I made my way through the deck to find a parking spot, another car passed me in the garage!  Never seen that before.

I was right on time for load in at 3:30 (me and a saxophone and a music stand, so not much to load).  Other band members trickled in, with the last of them arriving forty-five minutes late.  More standing around until 5:30 when we began.  Due to our proximity to the MLK event, there was no soundcheck or anything.

My position ended up being directly behind a large column (and next to a trash can).

Once we got going, the gig was really fun.  I was sight reading the book, which seemed to be mostly blazing sambas!  Very challenging, but I really loved it.  I don't do a whole lot of gigs where I read charts (or play saxophone the entire time), so this was really cool.  I did ok, though a couple of reading things got the best of me.

We played a forty-five minute set and then took a break.  At that point, the crowd began to dissipate, and as we launched into the second set, they took all of the food away and began breaking down the tables.  I think we made it another fifteen minutes before they told us we could stop.  I was out the door ten minutes later.  Gotta love the easy load out!

Run of the Mill

Yacht Rock played a nice and easy private party at Roswell Mill Saturday night.  Easy load in, nice crowd, relatively close to my house (I made the drive home in about fifteen minutes).  I was sitting on my couch at 11:30 PM.  Not too bad.

It sounds like we're going to add in John Lennon's Watching the Wheels to our sets (we'd learned it for Please Pleaserock Me the night before), except I'll be playing the synth part on a keyboard instead of approximating with a horn section.  Cool tune!  We also played one of my other favorites from the PPRM gig, Band on the Run, which was very well received.  A few others that made the setlist were tunes for this weekend's big show at the Variety Playhouse--That Lady (Isley Brothers), Sunshine (Go Away)  (Jonathan Edwards), and Treat Her Like a Lady (Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose).  Good stuff.

My PM church gig was once again pretty light on improvisational space, so I mostly focused on my tuning.  Well…mostly I focused on the football game updates coming in on my telephone, but when I was playing, I was trying to be in tune.  The priest's voice sounded like Paul Harvey.  The score was 10-3 at halftime.




Shows this week!

Thursday, January 23  playing with Wild Rice (latin jazz) at the GSU Student Center 4-7 PM (music from 5:30-7), part of the MLK Convocation

Friday, January 24  Yacht Rock will be at the Variety Playhouse, performing all of Dark Side of the Moon, plus selections from the soundtracks to Anchorman and Anchorman 2  8:30 PM

Saturday, January 25  Yacht Rock will be playing the Taste of Dunwoody (benefit for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta) 7-10:30 PM

Sunday, January 26 Yacht Rock will be playing for the Team Hidi event The Giving Kitchen 4-8 PM

Security!

Please Pleaserock Me (Yacht Rock Revue plays the Beatles) was at Smith's Olde Bar last night.  It was a pretty good show with a couple of new additions:  Magical Mystery Tour, Hello Goodbye, Watching the Wheels, Ticket to Ride, and Yellow Submarine.  I arranged horns for everything except Ticket to Ride, and for the most part I liked what I ended up with.

Mark Dannells used his new Kemper amplifier tonight.  Success!

In the midst of playing our encore of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, with me sitting dead center of the stage playing organ, I happened to notice some drunk guy get up on stage with a saxophone.  My first thought was "Oh God, this is going to sound bad!"  My second thought was, "HEY!  THAT'S MY SAXOPHONE!"  No one on the Smith's Olde Bar staff had noticed the drunk guy walk on stage, pick up my tenor, and pretend to play it.  I couldn't decide what to do--what if I crawl through three guitar players (and probably mess up Monkeyboy during his big solo) and charge the guy, and he drops my horn or jumps off the stage and runs off with it?--so I just laughed at him.  Frankly, it was so bizarre, I wasn't even mad.  The song ended, Greg got my horn back (drunk guy was trying to put it back on the stand backwards), and I shoved the guy off the stage.  No harm done to my instrument.

Just another night in my music career, I guess.

Churchill Grounds

I led a quartet gig at Churchill Grounds last night, playing two sets of my original tunes.  The band included Kenny Banks Jr on piano, Kevin Smith on bass, and Justin Chesarek on drums.  Amazingly awesome stuff--it thrills me to no end to hear stuff that I wrote brought to life by such spectacular musicians.  I want to do it again and again!

Here's audio.  Check it out!

Thanks to Churchill Grounds for having us.  I'm already looking forward to the next one.

A New Year of Sundaze

So…post California.  Here I am.

My AM church gig died.  I got an email from the head honcho saying that they weren't going to keep me in the rotation of weekly services this year.  I'll be brought in for specific stuff, and hopefully some of the orchestra stuff (like my big clarinet performance a couple of weeks back).  Booooo.  I'm assuming that it has to do with the music budget and not my performance.  Perhaps the Playboy bunny pictures did me in.

My PM church gig is alive and well.  Still kind of a snoozer, musically.  My personal highlight was playing the flute riff to Marshall Tucker's Can't You See over something (I can't remember what song it was).  I bet when people look at me and see tears in my eyes, they have no idea that I'm crying because of self-amusement.

Big shows this week!  My quartet is playing at Churchill Grounds (next to the Fox Theatre) this Wednesday, January 15 at 9 PM.  Also, Please Pleaserock Me (Yacht Rock plays the Beatles) is back at Smith's Olde Bar this Friday, January 17, also at 9 PM.

A nifty video of us playing Year of the Cat with Al Stewart last weekend in L.A.  Saxophone tuning is optional.



Also a preview of our installment of Ronn's Garage:

Happy New Year!

The new year is here!  So far, things are pretty incredible.  I'm not sure if this pace will hold up, but the first seven days have been nothing but great gigs and amazing experiences.

Yacht Rock ended 2013 and began 2014 in California. The weather was perfect--highs of 70, lows in the fifties.  Much better than pretty much everywhere else in the country.

Here's what I remember:

December 30:  we flew to LA on a huge plane (our sound man Hans drove our van and trailer full of gear out).  Unfortunately, a young mom and screaming kid got sat down right in front of us.  It was immediately obvious that the kid had a dirty diaper.  Mom was oblivious;  kid was apoplectic.  She left him sitting in it all the way to California, a four hour flight.  The band (a row of dads) was unaffected by the screaming, but the poopy diaper was not cool.

Rather than stay in a hotel for a week, we opted to rent a house in Marina del Ray, just blocks from Venice Beach.  Totally awesome.  Separate rooms and bathrooms for each of us.

We hit a Mexican restaurant around the corner from us before the night ended.

December 31:  Most of our mornings were free time, so I went to the Venice Pier to check it out.

And then brunch.

Our New Year's Eve gig was in Long Beach.  Easy gig--we played in a family-friendly event that ended at 10 PM.  Two sets with a pause at 9 PM to acknowledge the east coast hitting midnight.  We also facilitated a marriage proposal.

During load in, we found out that we'd run over a nail.  Flat tire on the trailer.

During load out, a passing car threw their pineapple kush into our pile of gear.

Back at the house and in bed before midnight.  Good thing--we were up super early to head to our next gig.

January 1:  Rose Bowl gig!  We left super crazy early (5:30 AM) so we could get through the Pasadena traffic jam to make it into the lot for the Rose Bowl party.  Our gigs took place in a tailgating monster built from giant shipping containers.  Three stories tall, carpeted, wired with electricity and lots of TV screens.  On the other side of the fence…the grand daddy of them all!

state of the art sky writing

This gig was pretty easy--we played a couple of sets before the game, and then they allowed us to pack up and split once the crowd had emptied out.  Sweet!  We watched the rest of the game from our house.    Several times one of us said, "I'm glad we didn't have to play after the game!  We'd still be sitting there!"

Our shipping container tailgating palace was in a big grassy lot with several other parties.  One of the coolest had the Miles Mosley band playing.  Great stuff.

January 2:  Day off.  We visited legendary drummer James Gadson's house in Inglewood.  So awesome!  James has played on Express Yourself (The Watts 103rd St Band), Use Me and Lean on Me (Bill Withers), Let's Get it On (Marvin Gaye), the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, Herbie Hancock's Manchild, as well as stuff with Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, and Beck.  He has over 300 gold records.

You can see his complete discography here.

He was gracious enough to let us hang out in his tiny recording studio in his backyard.  It was an incredible afternoon.  The Paul McCartney story will live with me forever.

That night, we went to see a band at the Whiskey A Go Go on Sunset Strip.  They were recreating Led Zeppelin's first LA show, before their first record came out.  At that point they were playing mostly covers…so we were a cover band watching a cover band recreate another band's covers.  Right?  It's a famous room going back to the 60s, but the band didn't do much for me.  I was glad when we split.

January 3:  Second day off.  I went for a bike ride during the day.

That evening, we drove out to Ronn Moss' house (he of Player fame, as well as playing Ridge Forester on The Bold and the Beautiful).  There we filmed a segment of Ron's Garage, performing and sitting for interviews.  Ronn's a pretty cool guy and can get as weird as we can.  Conversation subjects included helicopters, Jon Lovitz, and beastiality.

Ronn Moss keeps his gold records in his garage.  It's a nice garage, though.

After that, we made the short trip to the Canyon Club to see Tower of Power.  What a thrill!  We were late so we only saw the last five songs of the gig, but the band (and the room) sounded great.  Very cool!  I haven't seen them since I was in high school.

with Emilio Castillo and Doc Kupka, founding members of Tower of Power

January 4:  House of Blues on Sunset Strip.  This was a fantastic gig in a very full room.

on stage with Al Stewart

We had the guys from Player (Ronn Moss and Peter Becket) sing This Time I'm in it for Love and Baby Come Back, Elliot Lurie sang a Dancing in the Moonlight and Brandy, and Al Stewart showed up and sang Year of the Cat.  Al didn't even make soundcheck, so the only time we went through it with him was on the gig!  It made for a pretty special performance, I think.  Definitely the highlight of the night for me--I remember when this song was on the radio all the time.  Hearing his voice through the monitor while we were playing was mind blowing.

After our set we played an encore, took a bow, and then ended up playing a second encore.  I think LA likes us.

still no cavities

January 5:  Probably the reason you're reading this blog--we played a gig at the Playboy Mansion.

we entered from the rear

in the grotto, where I bashed my head against a rock and almost knocked myself out

front of the house

Anyway, we loaded in and set up on a stage in front of the pool.  A couple of girls came by--we are guessing maybe they were there testing for the magazine and not actually Playboy girls--why else would they be posing for selfies in front of the grotto?

We took pictures, they took pictures…

After soundcheck we wandered around.  I checked out the animals before heading to the game house, where we hung out for a few hours.

the only patch of sky without a helicopter flying through it

The game house has a couple of rooms with beds, naturally.  In addition to the telephones, there are plenty of napkin/tissue products at the ready.

Our set was actually on forty-five minutes--kind of teaser for the next day's performance at the BCS game (back in the shipping container mansion at the Rose Bowl).  The rest of the time was spent taking pictures and wandering the grounds.  We were not allowed in the house--Hef was in there, but he wouldn't come out.  If Hef had come out and and sang Year of the Cat with us, I think I would have dropped dead.

The party came with a few Playboy bunnies who were there for photo ops, and that was as close as we got to a massive orgy.  Sorry to disappoint you, but the most part this was just a nice corporate party at swanky outdoor bar.

the grotto at night

A once in a lifetime experience!  Wow!

January 6:  Up pretty early to go pack to Pasadena for the BCS Championship.  We were back in the shipping container building for this one.

It was a very long day.  I think we left around 8:15 AM and got back to the house after midnight.  We set up, played two sets, watched the game (it was pretty cold once the sun went down), and then played a third set afterwards.  What a game, by the way!

January 7:  One last walk on the beach, and then a long (but poop free) flight home.  The Southwest flight had no TVs and no WiFi--booooooooooo.

This week is quiet, but next week I have:

January 14:  rehearsal
January 15:  The David Freeman Quartet at Churchill Grounds 9 PM
January 16:  rehearsal
January 17:  Please Pleaserock Me at Smith's Olde Bar
January 18:  private gig

Also, don't forget the big Dark Side of the Moon/Anchorman gig at Variety Playhouse January 24 and the Taste of Dunwoody January 25!   Vacation is officially over!