Double Dippin'

Last night I double dipped.

First off was the Platnumb gig. I'm already a bit foggy on the details. We played a wedding at the St. Regis Hotel, a room in which I'd never played before. It was pretty. The whole place looked and smelled like a Restoration Hardware Hotel. Lots of Bentleys, Ferraris, and a Lamborghini out front. As far as the band went, our bassist John bought a new pedal and it sounded awesome! Lots of crazy, funky noises coming from over there. I loved it.

At one point, the stage was flooded with people from the crowd, and some idiot lady came up between me and my music stand, squeezed through, took the neck of my tenor in her left hand and the music stand in her right, and pushed them apart so she could pass through. Not cool. Not cool at all. That was about the spot where I almost lost it.

Once I finished that one, I jumped in the car and raced down to East Atlanta to The Earl or the CD release of Attractive Eighties Women. I walked in, pulled out my horn, and went to work. It's funny (to me) that I began the night playing Chicago Song , trying to play really precisely, and then I ended the night playing random shrieks and squeals on a song I'd never heard before. After I finished with the AEW, I stayed to watch their final couple of songs. Lots of weird stuff went down. The lead singer poured a beer over himself. He took swallows of another beer and spit them straight up so it went everywhere. Some guy in the front had a watermelon, and he threw it on stage (and it broke). The band threw the watermelon pieces into the crowd. It was returned. The lead singer rubbed watermelon all over his face. The whole time, the rest of the band was playing twice as loud as anything else on the planet. It was nuts. Then encore included a bunch more people singing on stage, and that gradually morphed into the fast part of Free Bird. It was totally bizarre. Not my thing, but the place loved it. At one point, everyone was singing "She broke my heart/WALK THE PLANK/ARR ARR ARR!!!!"

I got home around 2:30 this morning.

I've got another gig tonight. Me and a DJ and a percussionist.

Good Luck Ganesh

Last night we had Ganesh Giri Jaya subbing on drums for Mark Cobb. Ganesh is our good luck charm--he has subbed with us on multiple occasions, and we always do better than usual on the money side. He never fails! Things were pretty smooth. I'm trying to thing of something interesting to say, but nothing really happened. No tragic gear failures, no weird crowd stuff, no nothing. The only distaster I can think of is that in Africa I missed the pedal and messed up the second half of the solo. So that was a bad four measures. That was about it. We did have a near disaster--on the second tune, I slid out into the center of the stage for a solo. At that same moment, Nick pointed in my direction by punching his fist to his right (with the microphone in his hand!). I narrowly avoided getting slugged in the temple! His hand grazed my hat. Woah! That was close.

Practice=Comfort

I practiced alot yesterday. The best day of my life? I wouldn't go that far, but the best day I've had in a long time. I got my clarinet stuff out of the way before my first student showed up. Then I knocked out my flute stuff in the gap between him and the rest of my students. Then I did my sax stuff after supper. In little bits and pieces I played some piano (ok, really I just played Lonely Boy some more, but my hands hit the keys, so it counts).

Practicing for me is all about staying comfortable on the instrument. I want to be able to execute any idea I hear in my head, and I want to make sure that I'm getting a good sound. Practice is a major part of my job, and when I don't get a chance to practice, I'm not doing my job.

Lonely Boy

Let's see...

Sunday night I had my usual church gig. I wore a new suit and got lots of comments about it. Nothing more to report there. I got the suit on sale.

After that I ran over to Tucker for a quick recording session for Nathan Beaver's next record. I nice tune--something about was sort of Lyle Lovett-ish to me. Anyway, Mike Barry (trumpet) and I cranked it out. In an hour we'd triple tracked it (including me going back and laying alto in with the tenor), so yeah, it was a super easy session. Have I mentioned that there were charts, and how grateful I am when there are charts at a recording session? It's almost like you had a plan before we got there!

Two people from my Sunday church gig played a wedding Saturday morning and used my iRiver to record their efforts. I partially edited the audio--I gave up at 4 AM. A couple of more hours during the day on Monday and it was done. It took that long because I was messing around with reverbs, EQ, compression, and a little pitch correction. Raw audio out of board can be a little naked and harsh.

Yesterday was Monday, which means that in addition to laundry, it was back to teaching time. With the exception of my first two students, I don't think anyone else had put much time in to his or her lesson preparation. Lots and lots of B.S., lots and lots of excuses, and they were all one right after another. I'm not saying that nobody practiced--I'm saying they didn't practice enough.

Jack spent the afternoon at my parents' house, so when I finished teaching I ran over there and picked him up. By the time we got home, it was around 10 PM, and then it took an hour to get Jack to go to bed. I watched half of Mad Men and gave up for the night.

My latest musical obsession is Lonely Boy by Andrew Gold. It's an old Yacht Rock tune that we haven't touched in months. I probably like it because I can play the piano part, but whatever--it's a great tune! I love you, Andrew Gold, for that song.
I pointed out to a high school student of mine that Andrew Gold also wrote Thank You for Being a Friend, and that it was the theme to Golden Girls, and he had no idea what I was talking about. It's probably a good thing, because that show was really stupid.

Yachts are for Rich People

Yacht Rock played some guy's 40th birthday party last night at his neighborhood pool clubhouse. Very impressive. A significant upgrade over my neighborhood, my pool, and my pool's clubhouse! If I had the money to throw myself a birthday party like that, I would not spend the money on stuff like that. That's how rich these people must be.

The band purchased a pair of amplifiers for the main PA, and last night was their first test. Passed with flying colors! We were upstairs in a room with a wood floor, lots of windows, and a high ceiling. Loud would be an understatement. One of those nights when I could feel my hearing getting crushed...in twenty years when my ears are totally shot, I'll look back on a night like this when I raped my ears and my plugs were in a bag not six feet away. Nice going, Freeman.

Anyway, we were loud. It was fun, and the sound was actually pretty clear. It was a smooth sonic boom. Mark Bencuya (our keyboardist) said he could hear everything I was doing for a change. Usually I guess he hears me waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off in the distance. For some reason (room acoustics or the PA), he was able to pick up on my stuff. I hope that hearing me helps reassure him that I've radically improved in covering the parts. I think he's probably more concerned about the second keyboard situation than anybody else in the band--maybe last night will help to let him know that it's working just fine.

I bet I played as much on the keyboard as I did on saxophone last night. How weird is that? I used the band's Nord Electro running through my rig. It is sweet. You hear people moan and groan about weighted keys on a keyboard...it definitely helps with touch. I guess a little resistance there is a good thing. I dug it. Unless something catastrophic happens in the next three or four months, I'd bet I'll be investing in a Nord, assuming things continue with the current band situation and playing this much keys. The Nord's sounds are really sweet (and accurate for things like a phased Rhodes). I feel like I graduated from trying to cover the parts to being the guy in the second keyboard position.
The other night I bought a slightly bigger mixer for running the sax, EWI, and two keyboards into my powered monitor. I have a little Mackie, but I'm one channel short, so I bought a Yamaha board that had a couple more channels. It's going back to the store today. I think that the preamps are kind of lame compared to the Mackie. I had the gain almost wide open, and the channel faders almost wide open. I grabbed the Yamaha over a similar Mackie because it was $50 cheaper, but I think I'm going to go back and get the Mackie. My head is telling me I'm not going to be satisfied with what I've got here.

I've got my church gig tonight and then a recording session for Will Robertson. Will is awesome! He writes the horn arrangements, then sends you pdfs of the charts and an audio mock-up. The horns are able to walk in there and knock it out because the charts work and we've heard the tune already. I wish everybody could be like Will. That's the way to do it. It works great on both ends--the players get the work done faster, and the arranger gets the right notes without having to hunt for the right harmony notes.

Ahh...Thursday

I've woken up really early today, and I'm alone in a dimly lit room watching a SportsCenter rerun...it's like being in a hotel room, except I'm at home.

I was really excited about Thursday's Yacht Rock because I was borrowing a Nord Electro for the tunes where I played organ, piano, or rhodes. Very cool. I usually mix my sax, EWI, and keyboard with a small Mackie mixer, and I thought I'd be able to add the Nord in there too. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to put both keyboards into the stereo channel like I thought I could. Bummer. Therefore, the Nord went to the house and was heard through a nearby (but mostly inaudible) monitor. It was a major disappointment...I only heard a handful of notes that I played. Mostly I just watched my hands. Even worse, when I jumped from the Nord to my Triton, the latter was super loud because it was jacked up in my personal amp.

One funny thing...during the fourth song of the night, some drunk guy in the front row, fell face first onto the stage. Just splat, right on his face. Then he laid there. In a couple of seconds, a bouncer came and picked him up and got him out of there. And the band played on! It was so funny, though, that I completely lost track of where we were in the song.

Yesterday (Friday) we went to the zoo. Jack ran us around there. I think he had a good time!

After that I headed down to Avatar to record the Yacht Rock Christmas song. I don't think I should give out any details, except to say that it sounds really good. I got there and hung around for about three hours before they got to my part. I "read" many many Playboys, Gun magazines, and Guitar magazines. Mostly Playboys.

On the way home I stopped by Sam Ash and bought a slightly bigger mixer (to avoid the Nord problem from Thursday). I bought a two tiered keyboard stand too, but I don't really like it. I'm going to take it back and get one from Guitar Center.

Yacht Rock is playing a party in Sandy Springs/Buckhead tonight. It's indoors, so I don't think we'll suffer like we did last weekend in the heat.

Tuesday

Not much to report on yesterday's activities. I purchased a suit on eBay and it arrived yesterday (and it fits, except that the pants are a little long).

Teaching is coming back around. I did five or six in a row yesterday, which is good news. The store (Music and Arts) keeps telling me that when my Mondays and Tuesdays get full, they'd like me to add an extra day. That sounds good in theory, but since that hasn't happened (all available slots full) once in the past three years, I'm not holding my breath. Plus, I'm not sure about which day would work. They asked about Saturdays, but I've almost always got a gig Saturday night, and now Jack's getting to the age where he has sports stuff happening Saturday mornings. Sundays could work, but I don't think the store has an open room that day. The other day they asked about was Friday, which seems like it could happen. Just like Saturdays, I seriously wonder what kid is interested in killing part of their weekend on a music lesson. I know I would not have wanted to do that.

Last night was a Platnumb rehearsal. The original basis for calling the rehearsal was to prep for recording a new demo. I'm not sure we accomplished that--there was no mention of that, and I doubt it was on anybody's mind. Instead it was a review of a couple of songs and a trudging through of a couple of new ones. It's cool to add some new stuff, but I prefer to add them at soundcheck. I would say that I really only need to run through stuff once to make sure the form of the song is set. Anything beyond that is a waste.

The trend with newer material tends to be in cobbling multiple songs into a medley of sorts. These tend to be songs that don't work on their own, so we prop them up against other songs--just a taste, not a full meal! Sometimes it works, but sometimes it's of absurd--I mean, if the song doesn't work live, let it go! Play the mp3 on the break! We come up with some pretty random segues...will they work in two weeks? We'll see.

My main problem with rehearsal is that Jack is at an age where I would like to be around for stories and the end-of-the-day stuff, and leaving to go wander through a rehearsal is not what I want to do with my time. I already miss this on Thursday nights, Saturday nights, and Sunday nights because of gigs. When it's a gig, I can justify it in my head, but when I have to go hang out while somebody in the band tries to learn a song he couldn't bother listening to beforehand, I really don't want to be there.

On to today!

Wasting Time

When I got home from teaching last night, I ate and watched the football game. Good stuff! Too bad I passed out on the couch trying to get to the end of the third quarter! Not only did I miss the last play, and not only did I not get anything else done last night, but I woke up refreshed and ready to go at 2:30 AM! Ugh! I could not get back to sleep. I ended up watching St. Elmo's Fire for about the 188th time. It never gets old. I don't know why. It's a cliche, I know, but this movie takes me back, and the associations I used to make with the different characters still rings true. Ahh...I'm getting sentimental!

Since this a music blog, I will point out that the love theme (on saxophone) is great, and I think I played it on saxophone about a million times when I was in middle school. I would also point out that the weird luggage strap idea on Rob Lowe's saxophone is a total Clarence Clemmons rip-off, and probably not practical--I would think that the horn would hang too low, or go in your mouth at a weird angle. Also, the pretend sax playing is really bad. It also frightens me that he does not own a case. But I digress...

The bad news is that around 4 this morning (still wide awake), I decided to take a Benedryl to knock me out. It worked...but I didn't wake up until noon today, which means I am wasting even MORE time. In fact, I'm wasting time right now writing this. I've got to get it together.

Yachting in Young Harris

Actually, we were a bit north of Young Harris at the Brasstown Valley Resort. Almost exactly a two hour drive one way.

Nick (acoustic guitar), Mark Bencuya (piano), and I (flute, clarinet) played the wedding ceremony. Pretty cool that they chose ALL Beatles stuff, so I think we played a dozen songs (including the prelude music). Very cool, except for the fact that we were outside the entire time.

We got there and sort of half set up for the reception in direct sunlight, then ran up the hill, got dressed, and played the ceremony outside (we scooted out of direct sunlight). Then we boogied down the hill and finished setting up, and played a three hour reception outside. Did I mention it was outside and I had on a polyester shirt, a suede blazer, and a wig? Yeah, it was hot.

This is a rant for another time, but it really bugs me when I'm sweating and I go to bar for water, and they fill a glass with ice and then pour water in it. I need water, not ice!

Other than the heat and the pressure of trying to get everything coordinated (without any help from the coordinator), things went pretty well. By that I mean I played pretty well. In the ceremony, my flute kept sliding down my face on a river of sweat, but it was fun playing a bunch of Beatles tunes. We used charts from the Beatles encyclopedia. Strangely, there were lots of mistakes in the charts (missing accidentals, and a repeat sign in the wrong place in All You Need is Love). I really am enjoying playing the keyboard on these gigs. Every gig I get a little more comfortable, and as I am able to relax, it gets to be that much more fun. The sax and EWI stuff I know will be fine, but it's been cool letting my limited keyboard skills blossom. It's such a great opportunity to be able to improve on the job...even if they brought in a second keyboardist from here on out, I feel good about what I've gotten out of it.

Since we're talking about the EWI, I should mention that it has now been two gigs in a row with no problems since I swapped out that USB cable. Is it too early to claim that it's fixed? No. I feel good about it now. I'm going to stop worrying. This will free up the voice in my head to nag me about other things!

A special shout out to the mom in the red bikini at the pool. Wow!

The Who's on the Boat

Let me begin with the end of the gig...a big thank you to the two super hot lesbians who were dancing right in front of me through the encore. I enjoyed that.

The encore was Won't Get Fooled Again (The Who). It was very well played, but I wish we had done something where I actually had a part to play. This song choice was a flip of the bird to our audience...we're always seesawing back and forth between giving the people what they came for and trying to annoy everyone in the room. Even though it went over well, this was more of the latter--we will not give you more Yacht Rock! Anyway, it was cool to hear it, but not much fun for me because I swung a tambourine until it ended.

I had a great night playing. It was easily the best Yacht Rock gig I've played in the past five or six dates. That was a relief. If you were betting on what would go wrong with the EWI last night, I'm here to inform you that I think the USB cable might have been the thing. I had no issues with it at all. Thank God. I'd sure like to get past the constant fear that it will crap out on me at a crucial moment.
I played last night with charts (technically, I did double check where the string lick started Love is Alive, but I wasn't staring at a piece of paper). I was down to a handful of things that Brandon used to play, and I needed to play then correctly a few more times to get them in my head. It sure is nice when you can get off the page, particularly on gig like that where it's a show, and we're expected to interact with each other and the crowd. Another way to think of it is that I can't be dancing around and then try and look down to pick up where I am in the chart. It's tough to do. Add sunglasses, and you're in trouble.
Tim Smith (of Sheryl Crow's band) came and hung out last night (Peter Stroud might have been there, too, for a little while, but I didn't see him). When you think about it, it's pretty wild to be that close to an international act--the layers between our band and their band are so few, it's not inconceivable that someone from our circle could be tapped to join Sheryl Crow's band. I'm not saying I expect it; it is worth noting that it's not a big leap between here and there.

Post-gig I heard multiple comments from band members about the show (first set ok, second set was a mess). I'm not sure what to make of that. Was my playing not what I thought it was (not likely--I think at this point I know what I'm capable of doing, and if I feel like it's working, I have faith that it is), or is my part musically irrelevant enough that even if I'm having a good night (or a bad one), it has no effect on the overall show, or would it be explained away that even though I played well, overall we were pretty limp and that's what the comments were referring to? It's tough to say, but does get my wheels turning a bit... am I still just hanging out and playing sax solos (and the rest is just self-amusement)? Sometimes it feels like I'm just along for the ride.

Ahh, but the EWI may be fixed! Stay positive!

Hijacking the Hora

The cantor from last night's wedding evidently regards himself as the Jewish Pavoratti...he hijacked our Hora Medley last night. I love the way the guy refused to follow what we intended to do, and then looked at us like we were crazy because we couldn't read his mind. How do you say egomaniac in Yiddish?

I thought I had finally solved all my EWI woes with the changing of a MIDI cable, but yesterday at soundcheck I had the same sort of hiccup/loss of sound that I'd been experiencing at random moments for the past few weeks. I realized that the MIDI signal is getting to the box that converts the MIDI to USB, so my hope is that my USB cable has had enough; I've replaced it, and I hope that does the trick. I guess I'll know Thursday. If I have another hang up, my final step will be to try replacing the MIDI to USB box.

I wonder when I am toothless and arthritic--how many wedding receptions will I have played by then? In other words, how many more do I have to do?