July was mostly empty--only two Yacht Rock Revue gigs, and now that my church is dead...lots more time to do my own things!
I ran the Peachtree Road Race this year, and my plan had been to do a couple of shorter runs at the beginning of that week and then take the day off before the race. On July 1, a random step during a treadmill run felt like my kneecap was being pried off. Yow! I made it to the end of the run in some pain, but hopefully it was just a temporary thing.
The next night, I went back to the Y to get on the treadmill and see if things were ok. They were not! I still had the pain in my kneecap--it's runner's knee! I took a lot of walk breaks--the pain would subside and then come back. Hmmm.
I took Friday off. Saturday was the race. Due to a problem with MARTA, I missed my warmup and had to basically turn a corner and get going. My knee was ok. It hurt at first, but then the pain mostly subsided. Once I'd hit the finish line, it tightened up again. Not good, but I figured I'd take a month off of running and see if whatever was wrong would heal itself.
The following Monday, my buddy Jordan from the Yacht Rock Schooner texted asking if I could fill in for him on his weekend's gigs, so it's back to work!
Thursday, July 9, 2026: Gainesville, GA. I went to my repair guy to have my instruments checked out after all the sand and travel of the previous months, and that left me just enough time to go home, grab my dinner and my clothes, and head off to Gainesville, a drive that took over an hour and a half.
It started raining as soon as I grabbed all my stuff to head inside, but I found the door to the kitchen was open, and when I stepped inside, they were playing some old Brecker Brothers jams--this place is hipper than I thought!
Anyway, no rush. The guitar player was stuck in awful traffic trying to make it up from Decatur.
Pretty good gig--we had an enthusiastic crowd, and everything sounded right (Van, monitor engineer from the Yacht Rock Revue, was running sound for us). This room...kind of felt like a contemporary church.
As always, it was weird to play songs I've played a million times, but only play saxophone. I sang some things like string parts to myself to keep my place in the music.
The Schooner guys had a videographer there getting some promo footage. I guess they'll figure out a way to work around me being there...or not.
Seth (playing guitar now instead of bass with the band) played the first half of the show with his fly down. Hopefully that won't make it into the video either.
I messed up Baker Street a few times by getting my microphone cable under my shoe. When I would lean back, it would yank the horn out of my mouth. That was annoying. I'm surprised I haven't seen a social media post of that.
Anyway, easy load out (2 saxophones and a flute!), and I was home by 12:15 AM.
Saturday, July 11, 2026: Smyrna, GA. Schooner gig number two! This one was much closer (twenty-five minutes). I got there on time (for a change) and got my stuff under the cover just before the whole place was deluged with a thunderstorm. For a while, it felt like the gig might get canceled.
It did not! We had to throw-and-go, basically. Set up, soundcheck, change clothes, and back out to play, bang-bang-bang-bang.
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| the most redneck sound crew in the world this night--jeez! |
We played from 7:30 to 9 PM, and then packed up and split. Some of the audience was under the impression that because the whole event was 7-10 PM, we'd be playing the whole time. Those people were not happy to see us walking away.
I had a better performance on this one--thank god, because my buddy Gary Paulo (saxophonist extraordinaire) was in the audience. Had I known, I would've probably overplayed and sucked real bad.
Friday, July 17, 2026: Detroit, MI. There was a Yacht Rock festival in Detroit, and we headlined Friday night, and Pablo Cruise opened for us. That all sounds weird.
OK, so up at 5:30 AM to get out of the house at 6:30 AM to fly. I probably could've delayed that by a half hour. Traffic, parking, check in...no problems. I think I slept for almost the entire flight.
Our show was moved indoors due to some really heavy smoke from Canadian wildfires--there was a lot of crap in the air. I kind of can't believe that the local government didn't shut down the outdoor part of this, but they did not, and for whatever reason, Pablo Cruise opted to play outdoors in the soot.
We went straight from the airport to the venue (The Roostertail!) to set up our gear (which our crew guys had driven up from Atlanta).
I was worried that the food would either be really bad or nonexistent, so I brought a bag of six peanut butter sandwiches and a couple of apples for lunch and dinner.
We had about six hours to kill before our show, so we drove back out to the airport and checked into our hotel.
Pete, Nick, and I eventually found our way to the hotel fitness center. I walked and then ran on the treadmill. My knee had made no progress--I worked my way up over several miles from walking t eventually running, but I could tell that the problem still existed.
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| the haze outside my hotel room window |
We did our thing, and it was fine. There were a few hundred people in the room, and they seemed to be having a pretty great time. I can't imagine that it sounded great, though, as the stage's back and sides were floor-to-celing glass windows.
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We made it back to the hotel at 12:40 AM. The crew guys were a bit later than that, as they had to drag everything out to the parking lot and load the trailers.
By the next morning, the air quality had greatly improved.
Thursday, July 30, 2026: travel to Montana. We were hired to play a party after someone's rehearsal dinner in Bozeman, Montana--that's a lot of money.
11 AM flight. My Lyft driver listened to Jeopardy on his phone (through his car play), and knew most of the answers.
We flew non stop to Montana. I've never been here before.
I slept on the plane, and once we got our hotel rooms, I slept again, for a few hours. I guess I needed it.
Down in the fitness center, I tested my knee. Still cranky, so I alternated between walking and very slow running.
Bozeman has TWO INDIAN RESTAURANTS. MY PART OF MARIETTA HAS ONE, AND IT'S PITIFUL.
The waitress and I had trouble communicating. "Extra rice?" "Does it come with rice?" "Yes." "That's fine." I think I got extra rice. It was good, but it was a lot of food.
Some things I saw on my walk around town before returning to the hotel.
Friday, July 31, 2026: Bozeman, MT. I woke up a bunch, but managed to stay in bed until 9 AM--I didn't want to be sound asleep at gig time.
Our gear for this one was rented, so we went down to the venue just before lunch and set everything up. Nice gear! The Fantom (top keyboard in my pair) was from the backline guy's personal collection. It was mint.
After setup, I went to lunch at THE OTHER INDIAN RESTAURANT. It was better. Also, they had a TV in the corner playing Tom and Jerry cartoons. It made no sense, but it was a nice change up, as most Indian places bombard customers with crappy Indian pop music.
Time for soundcheck!
The only thing that wasn't great about the gear was that one of the sustain pedals they gave me would not play nice with the keyboards. As I was walking back to the hotel, I passed a music store, and they had pedals, so I bought one--it'll make it into my rotation at some point, so no big deal to spend the money.
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| just a cool neon sign |
Ok, so back on the treadmill. I watched a video about runner's knee that said that the problem was not my knee, but more likely my quad or calf, so I spent a ton of time stretching and even used a water bottle as a roller on my quad, and guess what...it was much better! Almost no pain at all. Yay!
Back to Indian restaurant #2 for dinner.
On to the gig, which was fine. All the guys in the audience were in some version of head-to-toe denim (the Canadian tuxedo). Good, energetic crowd, but itt got a little weird later on when one of the dudes took his shirt off and danced around, and then it kind of looked like he was going to jump on stage and dance, and then somebody picked him up by the legs while he was holding on to the front of the stage--kind of a cowboy/superman thing. I don't know.
In other news, here's a thing I wrote while I was at home. I thought it was just going to be saxophone over some synth pads, but it evolved into something more complicated. Anyway, enjoy!