Wedding Gig

Yacht Rock started off the new year of gigs with a wedding.  Pretty easy and a good crowd, though we did gripe quite a bit about playing Peter Cetera's Glory of Love for the first dance.

Matt Lipkins subbed for Nick up front.

Here's something you don't see every day:  they had a painter in the back of the room, and the whole time we were playing, he was back there working on a picture of the reception (and, it turns out, the ceremony).  Pretty cool!  Never seen that before.

We're off to the Northeast this week!

January 8:  The Sinclair (Cambridge, MA) 
January 9:  The Paramount (Huntington, NY) 
January 10:  Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY) 
January 11:  The Hamilton (Washington, DC)

NYE 2014

So...Yacht Rock closed out 2014 with a New Year's Eve show at the Park Tavern--on top of the ice rink!  We did this once before, I believe two years ago.  Just like last time, we loaded in and I thought, "Hmm...not too cold in here!"  Within an hour, I was frozen.  Fortunately, by the the time the gig had begun, the place had heated up nicely, and playing wasn't a problem.

The Yacht Rock Schooner opened for us.  They were outstanding, as always.  Having all those guys stand around a watch us made me a lot more conscious of my mistakes.  Ganesh pulled double duty, singing with the Schooner and then playing drums with us.  Excellent on both counts.

Our set was fun.  Maybe a little rust since we hadn't played in a couple of weeks, but we made the best of it.  The crowd seemed to be really into it...maybe it was the alcohol.  They were also really loud--the loudest Park Tavern gig I can remember, to the point where it was hard to hear myself, and if I turned up, hard to hear anybody else.

"Baton Bob" made an appearance in the area between the audience and the stage, prancing back and forth for most of the set.

When it came time to lead Auld Lang Sine, my mind was completely blank.  All I could hear was Hava Nagila--probably because the band was vamping using the same kind of groove (we went straight into You Make My Dreams after that).  After a few long seconds, it came back to me.

As we came off stage at the end of our set, a woman from the audience tapped me on the shoulder and said "That was the worst show EVER!"  I still haven't decided if that was supposed to be a joke or not.  At the time, I said, "Well...I'm sorry," and turned back around, and we went up for the encore.  After the show, I was made sure to get out of the offstage area and go change immediately so as to not encounter her again.  Happy new year!

Lots of good stuff happening in January!

January 8:  The Sinclair (Cambridge, MA) with Yacht Rock Revue
January 9:  The Paramount (Huntington, NY) with YRR
January 10:  Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY) with YRR
January 11:  The Hamilton (Washington, DC) with YRR
January 16:  Variety Playhouse (Atlanta, GA) with YRR
January 23:  Sun in my Belly (Decatur, GA) with David Ellington
January 25:  The Giving Kitchen (Atlanta, GA) with YRR
January 29:  JCT Kitchen and Bar (Atlanta, GA) with David Ellington
January 30:  Georgia Theatre (Athens, GA) with YRR
January 31:  Smith's Olde Bar (Atlanta, GA) with Sazerac

Bump City

I got a call yesterday around lunch about subbing that night in Bumpin' the Mango, Atlanta's best Tower of Power style horn band.  Heck yeah!  I've played with them a couple of times earlier in the year, but this was my first opportunity to play the tenor sax book (previously I'd only played bari sax).    After hearing John Sandfort and Umcolisi Terrell nail the tenor parts, I was pretty intimidated, but who can pass up the chance to be Lenny Pickett for the night?

I think I played pretty well;  I missed a repeat sign/third ending somewhere and I stepped in a rest on Soul in a Capital S, but no other prominent errors.  My solos were ok--I couldn't think of anything particularly nifty to play.

Also subbing on this night were Eric Frampton on keyboards, Rob Opitz on trumpet, Mike DeSousa on trombone, and Dan Baraszu on guitar.

What was really fun was the saxophone hang afterwards with bari saxophonist Gary Paulo, another Indiana U. music school alum.  Gary's a super badass, very casually nailing the bari parts in Bumpin' the Mango.  In addition, he plays guitar in AJ Ghent's band, and teaches classical saxophone at Emory.  Interesting to compare our experiences at and after school.  I feel more average than ever.

Funny how a gig like this will pull your ear in a certain direction.  Last week's Beatles stuff got me interested in playing clarinet a little more often, and Bumpin' the Mango has led to a major Tower of Power binge today.

Indy and the Beatles at Smith's

Please Pleaserock Me (Yacht Rock plays the Beatles) had a show at Smith's Olde Bar last night.  Indianapolis Jones opened for us.

I didn't play that well.  In both of my features, I ended up overblowing resulting in a squeak in When I'm Sixty-Four and a couple of choked notes in Jealous Guy.  Never found my groove on this gig.

Great Boobs

Yacht Rock played a holiday party on Friday at a venue downtown that was not meant to have bands when it was long ago constructed.  Thus, we were in too small of a room on too small of a stage.  I was three feet from both Peter and Monkey, obscuring my view.

The highlight of this particular party was a spectacular pair of breasts in a plunging-neck dress.  They were the subject of conversation on both set breaks.  Merry Christmas to us.  Thank you.

Terminal

Yacht Rock played a holiday party at Terminal West last night.  I'd never been there before--it's a pretty room, and the on stage sound was decent, and the crowd was pretty into it--fun show!

Jimmy Midtown came by and drank all the vodka in the dressing room.

Finally, a good crowd at a Christmas gig!  It was packed with expensive people.  Lots to look at.

At the end of the night, they raffled off a new Porsche.  These people were so rich that nobody claimed the prize on the first raffle number, so they went to another ticket...and then another...and finally somebody won.  Unbelievable!  A couple of people just lost out on a free brand new Porsche because they either didn't stay or didn't look at their tickets.  Dude!

PPRM at MNB

Yay Beatles gig!  Please Pleaserock Me (Yacht Rock plays the Beatles) played a holiday party Tuesday night.  Once again, the crowd was not very into it.  At least this one was one ninety minute set (finished at 8 PM!), so it didn't drag on all night.  Good rehearsal for this Saturday's show at Smith's Olde Bar.

Rob Opitz played trumpet with us for the evening and did an excellent job.  Total pro.

Zach and Kip on sound.

Fun night nonetheless.  The food (BBQ) was also pretty good, and I walked out the door with a box of pulled pork, pulled chicken, and half a dozen buns.

Holiday Special 2014

Yay!  Finally a good gig!  Yacht Rock played for a sold out Variety Playhouse (I'm pretty sure it sold out Thursday evening) for our sixth annual holiday show.  Good stuff.  I had a blast.  Special guest John Hopkins (of Zac Brown fame) sat in with us on You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch.

First part:


Second part:

Some crazy stuff made it feel like the 10 High without the smoke and the nasty load out--in the midst of us reorganizing to play Brandy on miniature instruments (ukuleles, kid drum set, melodica), a fight broke out in the crowd at the same time that two women jumped on stage and tried to get us to take a picture with them.  What the hell?  Everybody got thrown out.

Somewhere in the night, I think each of us had a personal disaster.  Mine happened to be in Rosanna--I accidentally turned the EWI channel feeding my amp all the way down, so I gave up on the solo because no sound was coming out, only to find out that it was only my volume that was off--the sound to the front of house was unaffected.  If I'd only played through it, no one would have ever known.

But whatever...we all laughed at each other's mistakes and carried on.  All part of the fun.

Some cool pictures from Emily Butler Photography:

One from Zach/Athens Sound (in between running monitors and chasing the two women off the stage):

Awesome night!  Kudos to the Pleaserock team for another great show!

Ugh

Another clunker of a corporate holiday party, this time with a pretty shitty downtown Hilton labyrinth load in/out.  Top it off with some pretty horrible load out music from Kip.

Lots of empty dance floor.

I fell asleep with the dog sleeping next to me and woke up with wet legs because she's peed on the bed in the middle of the night.  Big fun.

Durham

Yacht Rock played a private party for a corporate client in Durham, NC last Saturday at the Carolina Theatre.  What a beautiful room!

Unfortunately, very few people saw us.  I think we maxed out a around fifteen people in the room.  I suppose having the food and the booze out in the lobby kept people away?  They say we were piped into the speakers out there, but did it matter?  I don't understand why people hire us for these kinds of gigs.  Totally uninspiring.

Kip brought his new mixer...probably the most exciting thing about this very long trip.

On the way home, we passed the Marshall Tucker crew truck on I-85.  Nifty.

This week's big event!

Dave and Dave in December

David Ellington and I had another terrific duo gig at Sun in my Belly, our favorite little restaurant gig.  The crowd always likes us, the staff is awesome, the food is fantastic...what else, what else...the music's fun!  Good stuff.  I think we're in the rotation for once a month, so try and check us out the next time you venture out and about in Decatur.

The new tune for this gig was Horace Silver's Juicy Lucy (Confirmation contrafact).  I forgot to call our new tune from last month--Gregory is Here.  I'm losing my mind.

Check it out:



In other news, I reorganized/updated my YouTube page with new videos from recent gigs.  Here are a couple of duo gigs and a trio gig that we did last month: