Sunday Fun

So yeah…I dragged ass out of bed and went to my AM church gig.  More of the same kind of vibe (or more correctly, lack of vibe).  We kind of threw together some hymns and worked through a sixteen page chart, and then one after that that was probably around ten pages.

The performance was OK.  Tommy Dodd (of pedal steel fame) was there again, so he and I were sharing "fill" space, and the music didn't have that much space to begin with.  I felt really disconnected from what we were doing.  We did one song with a percussion loop.  The vocalists sang to the slap they were hearing off the back wall and the rhythm section played to a click (all on headphones).  I was in the middle, I guess.

We finished the service, and everybody in the band EXCEPT me was invited to play the second service (a repeat of what we'd just done).  One of the other guys asked if I got the email about staying and I said no, but then I had to ask the band leader, who shot me down.  Ouch…that was a little uncomfortable!  No love for Dave.

I left there and headed over to the church where I used to play, St. Ann's, for a special mass.  One of the long time priests there, Father Ray, has been transferred to Chicago, and for his final mass he specifically requested me to come play.  Very cool!

From the moment I walked into the church, things were great.  I know the guys in the band (led by Ed Bolduc of bVI, IV, Vsus V fame), and we were all excited to be reunited.  Super fun!  I think I have a good approach to Ed's playing and compositions, and the whole mass (without rehearsal) went very well, and I had a really good time.  Father Ray started crying during one song, and after we ended he apologized:  "I'm sorry…it's just the sax!"

Before the mass, Ed announced to the entire congregation:  "Joining us today for this mass is saxophonist David Freeman from the Yacht Rock Revue!"  Ha!  I guess that's who I am now.

It was really cool to see lots of old faces!  Maybe St. Ann's could take up a collection and get me back in there…

LUNCH.

NAP.

My PM church gig was ok.  I'd didn't play anything of value.  My mix sounded pretty good, I think.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Melting Point

Yacht Rock was back in Athens for two sets at the Melting Point--part of an 80s prom event.  We played forty-five minute sets beginning at 10 and midnight, alternating with a DJ.  Easy stuff!

The Melting Point is not the easiest room in which to play.  The stage is small, and the room is very wide but shallow--you could throw a tennis ball from the stage and hit the back wall.  It has a balcony, concrete floors, and glass windows.  The sound on stage is loud!

The crowd was really into it, which made it really fun.  Big cheers for everything we did…or maybe they were screaming in pain because of the volume.  I know that when I took a sax solo, the sound man would bump me up and it was probably the loudest thing in Athens at that time.

I played much better.  No boneheaded stuff like the previous night.  I think I'm getting over my fear of the Africa solo.  We played True for the first time in months, and I still have that solo under my fingers. Why?  Of all the things to be glued into my memory!

Speaking of the Park Tavern show, I heard something rattling around in my keyboard, and it dawned on me that I'd put my alto reed on the keys when I was packing up and forgotten to put it back in the holder.  In between soundcheck and the first set, I took my Nord apart to get the reed out.  Nice work.  A perfect cap on that show.

I was in bed at 5:15 AM.  Up at 7 AM to begin Sunday!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Just Like Johnny Colla

Since I mentioned it a few posts ago, I will begin with one of my signature moments of last night's Yacht Rock:  I forgot to turn my sax microphone on, just like the guy from Huey Lewis and the News.  And I felt just as stupid.

Yacht Rock played our monthly show at the Park Tavern to a whole lot of people (last month was over 2,000, but they vowed to cap it because the June show was more people than the bars or restrooms could accommodate).  I made lots of stupid mistakes like the microphone thing;  played things in the wrong octave (talking about the bridge of Baby Come Back and the chorus of Good Thing AND the synth hook on My Life).  I sucked real bad because I was very, very stupid.

The second set was much better for me.  I didn't screw up the solo to Africa, though I was holding on for dear life.

My new alto mouthpiece is awesome.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Tongue and Groove

Yacht Rock played a benefit last night at Tongue and Groove.  Three quick sets--it went by fairly quickly, and we were finished at 9 PM.

The break:  Tongue.  And Hooves.

The world's worst DJ hastened our fastest load out ever!  In forty-four minutes, we had all our gear (including the PA) out the door and in our vehicles.  It was like packing up in the rain.

davidfreemanmusic.net

CBS in the Morning, Huey in the Evening

7 AM load in at CBS Better Mornings Atlanta yesterday morning!  The Yacht Rock Revue was assembled for a promotional appearance, touting The Greatest Yacht Rock Revival in the Universe (August 18 at Park Tavern).

We've played several of these, so it's not really a big deal anymore--I don't think there are any nerves involved.

We did a few quick segments (going to commercial), an interview, the weather, and two longer segments (Maneater and Can't Wait for Summer).  Here's the latter:

CBS Atlanta 46

Pretty cool!  Too bad my solo at the end didn't make it.  Actually, maybe not.  I didn't play anything worth hearing again.

After that, I went home and taught lessons.  Yuck.

Wednesday night, Yacht Rock took a field trip to Chastain to watch Huey Lewis and the News and Joe Cocker.  Good stuff!  Huey played all his hits;  Joe had a better front of house guy.  Huey had three sax players (and an obnoxious trumpet player);  Joe had one.  Huey had a bari and two tenors.  Huey wins.

The first tune of the night was Heart of Rock and Roll, and when the sax player came up front to play the solo, he forgot to turn his microphone on.  Ouch.  I felt…exonerated?…it happens to other people, too!  Let's reminisce about a time when I did this in front of a lot of people...

That's about it.  Huey's front of house guy did a much better job of getting the saxophone in the PA.  Cocker's guy didn't bring it up enough.  Come on!

davidfreemanmusic.net

No Sleep Till...

Ugh.  It's a week of not sleeping at normal hours for me.  Sunday morning, I was up early (after getting home late) to go play my church gig.  In between the AM and PM gigs, I worked in the yard.  That night, I stayed up until 4 AM working on Yacht Rock tunes for a Tuesday rehearsal.  I got up Monday morning at 10:30 and continued working for most of the day, finally going back to bed at 5:30 AM.  Tuesday.  I got up three hours later and went to my rehearsal.  I came home just before 2 PM, ate lunch, and went to bed.  I woke up at 8 PM, ate supper, and did some stuff (worked on reeds, packed clothes and gear for tomorrow morning, took a shower).  I'm headed off to bed now (2 AM),  but I'll be up at 6 AM to play CBS Better Mornings Atlanta.  7 AM load in.  Ouch.  I'm totally out of my groove.

davidfreemanmusic.net

Church Gigs

Sunday…church gigs.

My AM church gig featured The Georgia Spiritual Ensemble.  They were fantastic.



My PM church gig was pretty good.  No problems.

Actually, there was a problem with the lectern microphone.  It runs through the church system and not my mixer, and for some reason it was not on.  After the first reading, the reader was looking at me, so I went in the back, found the mixer.  It was definitely getting signal.  I turned the volume knob up, and the band started distorting, so I put it back where it was.  Somehow, that fixed the lectern microphone, too.  I am a genius.  Dave saves the day.

Busy week ahead!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Cafeteria Wedding

Yacht Rock played a wedding yesterday at the Botanical Garden.  We were in the Day Hall, which is really just a high school cafeteria without the fold up picnic benches.

I guess we were more Constantly Awesome--some Beatles, some Yacht Rock, some bar covers (Honky Tonk Women, American Girl).  Not much to report…the usual wedding stuff.

I've developed some kind of serious mental blockade against the first few notes of the Africa solo.  It could be anything, and then three beats into it, my hands snap to the right place, and the rest is fine.  That first note, though…I can't find it to save my life.

Tonight's break:  Botanical.  Garden Salad.

davidfreemanmusic.net

SX Recording

I recorded today for Ben Allen, who is producing a record by the Belgium band SX.  The song was called Beachmaster--sort of an 80s thing.  I was copping a previously recorded sax part which followed the vocals.  Mark Cobb has been laying down drums for them for the past week.

Really, I thought I'd be better at it.  I had my chart and I was ready to go, but still took me forever to nail the phrasing of the chick and the time feel of the original sax.  Way longer than I thought it should.  I thought I'd be quicker at it.

So it goes…I was in and out in under an hour, and everybody seemed happy with it.  Success!

davidfreemanmusic.net

Minority Report

I played a salsa gig last night…my last one ever?

I have mixed feelings about salsa gigs.  I get to play a lot, I like the music a lot, and it's not a wedding reception/micromanaged event, but it's kind of a rule that the circumstances surrounding the gig will be ridiculous.  This one proved to be no exception.

I have done five gigs with this band, and for every gig I have had to write charts for everything (with the exception of one tune that carried over from the first to the last).  It's usually about a dozen tunes, and I'd guess that I spend, on average, an hour per chart.  For this gig, I wrote ten charts.  Three songs were changed at rehearsal, so I wrote three more charts.  On the gig, the singer couldn't remember the words to a song, so we skipped that one.  So that's four charts (and four hours spent) that we didn't use.

our stage lighting was blinding

I showed up at 9:15 PM.  We did some kind of sound check.  It was a mixer and monitors tied into the house patch situation (we used the bar's main PA).  A Berringer mixer without enough inputs, so half the microphones used those low Z/high Z turnaround things into quarter inch inputs (with no gain control).  The piano and the bass ended up each stuck into one side of a stereo channel--I'm pretty sure that doesn't work.  A Peavey floor monitor and a Peavey Escort speaker on a tripod were the monitors. We had major high end feedback--at first it was out of control, but later on it only built up if we took too long between songs.

Then, the waiting began.  Where's the piano player?  (Donde esta el pianista?)  Ahh, he has a gig that ends at 10 PM, but he's five minutes away.  So…we waited.  Mentally, I drew a line--no piano by 11 PM and I'm leaving.  Fortunately, there was no audience, so nobody noticed us.  Waiting, waiting…who would show up first, the crowd or the piano?  At 10:45, he finally made it and got set up.  We began at  11 PM, playing for maybe ten people.

Things were OK.  In performance, the new tunes that I had charted didn't exactly follow the recordings (thanks a lot for that)--they were kind of bar band-ish, with hand cues and eye contact.  There was a big section in one tune that we skipped.  We skipped an entire tune because the singer couldn't remember the words.  We ended the set with a merengue where the vocalist missed his entrance, so we had to go around again and pick him up, and then once we got to the instrumental break, he wouldn't come back in, so we collectively just bullshitted parts over two chords.  I finally just stopped playing.  The rest of the rhythm section eventually faked an ending.

At the break, I still wanted to make a run for it.

The second set was short (thirty minutes) because we'd borrowed a tune for the first set.  More of the same…sloppy playing all the way around with a bad PA.  The crowd was still in the teens.  The gig ended, and I hustled out of there.  I guess on a good note, I kept my bag right next to me on stage, so packing up was easy…

davidfreemanmusic.net

Organ Trio!

I finally found an opportunity to do an organ trio gig with David Ellington!  We'd done a duo thing at a restaurant last December, and we talked about playing some more, but it just never seemed to come together.  I got a call about doing a jazz gig and then doing one of those House Live gigs with a DJ right after that, and they wanted to have the percussionist for House Live also play on the jazz part.  Sax, drums, and keyboard sounds like organ trio!  Yay!

So…here we are!  Ellington on organ, Phil Smith on drums, and me, trying to keep the Microsoft people happy by playing impossibly quiet in the acoustical nightmare that is the High Museum atrium.

 David Freeman Organ Trio-July 18, 2012 by David B Freeman

The House Live gig was easy…supposed to be two hours, but nobody showed up for the first half hour…thankfully, because I was not in the mood.  My alto mouthpiece played great, though!

davidfreemanmusic.net