Derringer and Primrose

More stuff!  Yacht Rock had a Friday morning (noon) rehearsal with Rick Derringer in final preparations for the Candler Park Fall Fest Saturday evening.

So…Rick Derringer.  The man, the myth, the legend, the Sloopy.  I have no opinion of his playing--I just can't tell which rock guys sound good.  Maybe it's because I have no feeling for what it takes to play the instrument, but I also think that the tone of the rock guitar disguises lots of elementary technical stuff.

From rehearsal, we loaded into the Grand Hyatt for a private event for the Primrose School.  Rumor has it they were going to try that "curtain falls/instant band" thing like we had Tuesday night, but it never materialized.  Thankfully…

These people were a bit stiff--it felt very suburban and upper middle class.  There was a great disparity between the talent and the, shall we say, well fed.  They were generally polite, with the exception of the woman who poked me in the side repeatedly while I was playing to try and make a request that I could not hear.

Anyway, the party went fine.  It looked like it was going to get rough when we had to follow a full dance floor doing Gangnam Style.  How about a triple shot of Bee Gees?  In the end, they loved us and we got away without becoming totally annoyed by the situation.  Ahh, the corporate event.

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Scream on the Green

Yacht Rock zipped up to Nashville yesterday afternoon to play a forty-five minute set at Scream on the Green, the last installment of their downtown concert series Live on the Green.  The opener was The Delta Saints, and Here Come the Mummies followed us as the headliner.

Any gig that begins with a crew loading our gear from the trailer to the stage is a good one.  They also ferried it back after we finished.  Very cool, though I have enough personal stuff (saxophones, EWI, computer) that I get nervous when the guys want to grab stuff and walk offstage with it.

We played for a bunch of people.  10,000?  I'm not sure.  A few weeks prior they'd had 15,000 for Alabama Shakes.  It wasn't totally full like the crew had described, so I'll guess 10.

Great sound on stage and out front (at least it sounded great for The Delta Saints).

Once we finished, we packed up and headed back to Atlanta.  Ouch!

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Quartet!

I had a terrific quartet gig at the Georgia Aquarium Wednesday night.  The band was Tyrone Jackson (keyboard), Kevin Smith (bass), and Marlon Patton (drums).  We played for the International Titanium Association--I did not make that up.

This was my first time recording the band by taking the signal from my mixer--usually, I hang my recorder on the music stand in front of me.  It took a little while to get the balance right--I think it's better from Nothing Personal on down.

I'm still better than last night's sound man.

 David Freeman Quartet - October 10, 2012 by David B Freeman

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Good and Bad Soundmen

Yacht Rock began yesterday with a rehearsal for two upcoming shows:  Candler Park Fall Fest and Thriller/Purple Rain at the Variety Playhouse.  Good soundman Hans showed up with our gear after driving it back from Connecticut for us.  We loaded in and rehearsed.  I sucked real bad on the Thriller/Purple Rain stuff.  It was painful and embarrassing.  I will hopefully get some time to work on it early next week.

Later that afternoon we loaded into the Hotel Intercontinental for a corporate gig that night.  We were set on stage behind a curtain;  at some point in the evening, magic words would be spoken, the curtain would fall, and we would be playing--instant insane party.

As you can imagine, it never actually works.  The curtain will fall and they'll pull it off to the left, they said.  It fell and they pulled it off to the right, except for the end, which was still hanging up there at the end of the gig.

Because there would be no front monitors, we were all on in ear monitors.  Unfortunately, the sound in them was pretty bad.  I didn't even bother trying to tweak a mix, because I knew I probably wouldn't use them.  Sure enough, I made it through half a song before I tossed them on the floor.  It was easier for me to hear instruments acoustically and the vocals in the house.

This sound guy was bad.  In the first set, I noticed that he would finally bump up the sax solo when I was halfway through.  During the second set, if I didn't walk out front, (maybe I should wave to him?) I'd get no bump at all.  For instance, Maneater had no sax solo.  I was playing, but it was tucked way down in the mix.  Goddamnit.

At the break, the guys who were still on in ears were complaining that all of their supposedly pre-fader mixes were changing constantly as the sound guy adjusted the front of house mix.  Way to go.

Early in the second set, I turned my amp off so I could listen to the PA.  It was vocals and stage left keyboards;  everything else was about a third of their volume.  It made for a pretty shitty mix, if I do say so myself, and pretty much crushed any fun that I might have had.  I bet the beginning of Grease sounded great without the horn part.

As if the idiot soundman wasn't enough to make us homicidal, we had to contend with a contentious crowd who didn't like what we played, and then did like what we played but didn't like that we wouldn't let them play tambourine and shaker.  How about I come to your office tomorrow and use your computer while you're on a business call?  Mind if I surf some porn?  I'll only be a couple of minutes…

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The Tressi Tour

Yacht Rock returned from another successful tour yesterday afternoon.  Miles were driven and notes were played.  I dealt with head cold for most of it.

Thursday:  Our first stop was Asbury Park, NJ's Wonder Bar.  Asbury Park has a mythical quality because of Bruce Springsteen--we were all pretty excited to be there.  What if he shows up?  He's been known to crash other people's gigs unannounced.

We pulled up to a foggy, desolate resort town in the wrong season.  Except for about fifty orthodox Jews, there didn't seem to anybody around. We loaded in and set up--tight stage!  The sound was pretty decent, all things considered, though when Greg would play a low G the whole place would vibrate.

After soundcheck, we wandered up and down the boardwalk.

It seemed, based on the fact that there were about a hundred people in the entire town that night, that we would be playing to nobody, but the promoters were able to find about fifty people to come see us.  A handful of those had either seen us before on a cruise ship or in New York.  Repeat customers!  One girl even showed me a picture of the two of us--"See?  You let me touch your mustache."  Weird.

Friday:  We made the short drive up from the Jersey shore to New York City for our gig at Brooklyn Bowl.  Coolness everywhere.  We'd walked in here on a previous trip, but this was our first show--we shared the bill with a heavy metal tribute to the Bee Gees called Tragedy.  

First off…we had some time to kill, so we commenced wandering around the Williamsburg neighborhood.  No one would allow us to use the restroom--Pete and I ended up doing a shot at a bar so we could go pee.

Cool stuff everywhere.  We ate at a Venezuelan restaurant.

Soundcheck was fine, though two sets of gear was a little cluttered.  

It is a fact that Brooklyn Bowl has the best fried chicken in the universe.  I ate seven pieces (four wings, three boobs).  

Opening the evening was Ali Spagnola, who sang sixty stupid one minute songs about drinking.  In between every song, everybody was supposed to do a shot of beer.  She even sells shot glasses (attached to a USB drive with her "album" on it).  "AwwwwwwwwwwSHOT!"  It was really bad, then so bad it was funny, then bad again.  Kind of shameful that this passes for entertainment, especially at a real music venue.

We then alternated sets with Tragedy.  You can find their stuff on YouTube, I bet.  Heavy metal Bee Gees is a joke that's amusing for about forty-five seconds, and then you have about forty-five minutes to endure until their set ends.  Half the guys on stage aren't doing anything--one of the guys sports a guitar that isn't plugged into anything and sings into a dead microphone.  Not my thing at all.

So, at the risk of bragging, I'll say we won.  My main evidence is the fact that after our second set (before Tragedy came back for their second set), the crowd requested an encore (we did not--that wouldn't be cool).  When we didn't come back to give them one more, three quarters of the audience left.

After the festivities had ended (and Tragedy had covered the stage in buckets of glitter that got all over everything), we loaded up and headed to our hotel in Jamaica, New York.  NOT GOOD!!!! At 3 or 4 in the morning, they only had rooms with one bed, so we had to spoon.  I slept with Dannells.  Our bed had crumbs in it.  I was still full from the fried chicken.

Saturday:  we headed up to Norwalk, Connecticut to play a wedding reception.  It was in a tent right on the beach.  Pete was able to back the trailer almost up to the tent, but we still had to carry gear across the sand to the stage.  Not the greatest load in.

This one was pretty uninspired, especially coming off the previous couple of nights.  It finished at 9:40, though, so yay.

We loaded back out and drove to Enfield, Connecticut (home of former Beth Freeman employer LEGO!) to spend the night.  Much better hotel.

Sunday:  we were up waaaaaaaay early to fly to Nashville for a talent buyers' showcase.  Strangely enough, we had a connecting flight in Atlanta!  Notice the emergency exit legroom that Greg Lee and I are enjoying.

The showcase was in the War Memorial Auditorium, an awesome looking venue…though not meant for a modern concert PA.  Looked cool, sounded bad.  We played five songs--7 PM to 7:20 PM!  Steel Magnolia followed us, and then Edwin McCain.  Following that were Bare Naked Ladies and the Spin Doctors.  Does this say more about the state of our career or the state of theirs?

After that, we went out to celebrate Mark Bencuya's birthday at Robert's Western World.  We got really drunk.  I was drunkest.  

Monday:  we rented cars and drove home.  Our van and our gear should be home by Tuesday morning.  It had better!  We've got rehearsal and gig that night.  

PS.  This is my 600th blog entry.  I dare you to read them all in one sitting.

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