Newberry, Austin (Again)

On the road again...Yacht Rock was in Newberry, South Carolina Friday night for a show at the Opera House. Nice place! Also, loaders! Thank you very much.

The pre-gig meal was a "Sunday dinner" style homemade buffet of chicken/turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, bread, fruit, and dessert. The cook was standing by, mostly (it seemed) to check out what we were eating. I got a whimper of disapproval for passing on the meat and potatoes in favor of doubling up on the green beans, bread, and salad.

Nice crowd, though significantly older than our usual audience. They liked it all the same. Mark Cobb left me a nice a long time to go apeshit on the end of Biggest Part of Me, which I greatly appreciated.

After the show, we packed up super quick and headed back to Atlanta, arriving at our hotel around 2:30 AM. It was a short night of sleep before Saturday's 7:25 AM lobby call. Ouch.

Saturday: Off to Texas again! We flew to Austin (super damn early) to play a wedding reception. I slept on the plane.

After dumping our gear and suitcases at the hotel, most of us made the pilgrimage to Curra's Grill. So good. I had the veggie tacos, and a ton of chips and salsa.

That still left us plenty of time to take a nice big nap at the hotel. Thank god for that.

The wedding reception was for some cool people. Easy gig, though we were all pretty flattened by the end because it ended at 11:45 PM central time. It'd been a long day at that point.

Abbey Road Again

Thursday night, Yacht Rock gave an encore performance of the Beatles Abbey Road at Venkman's. For me, it's as easy as pulling the charts up on my iPad and running them down. I had a good night playing, and an excellent time hanging out with Rob and Rich in the horn section.

Mardi Gras

Sazerac played a show for Mardi Gras at The Vista Room Tuesday night. I was really looking forward to this one, particularly because of the horn section (Justin Powell, trumpet; Richard Sherrington, trombone; Gary Paulo, bari sax; and me, clarinet and tenor sax). Jeez..what a section! I played really well, too, so this gig was really fun.

Texas

Deep in the heart of Texas! Our first attempt at establishing a Texas run, with shows in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. It looks like it's going to be great.

Thursday: Zach and Kip drove our gear out the day before. We flew out Thursday morning. The Great Bencuya has mastered the art of sleeping on a plane.

First stop: lunch! This parking lot security guy followed us from the van to the restaurant, and then from the restaurant back to the van. I'm not sure if we were the threat, or if he was protecting us from some local menace.

Even after lunch, we still had a few hours to kill before we could load into the venue. I went for a walk. Here's some stuff that I saw:

Our first gig was at the House of Blue in Houston. The local crew took our gear up the freight elevator to the stage, and I thought I knew the other way to go up, but I did not, and we got stuck on the loading dock.

This show had a pair of obnoxious DJs as the opener. They played appropriate music, but they talked over everything they played. Also, is this really a two man job?

I tried to bribe a local crew person into sabotaging their microphone, but she said, "Sorry, but I'm the lighting person."

Ugh. The crowd endured these two and stuck around for our show, which went well. Our second public show here was pretty well attended, and set up good vibes for the rest of the trip. The Houses of Blues are cool rooms to play, and the local crew moves the gear from the trailer to the stage. I love that.

Friday: On to San Antonio! Along the way, we made a pit stop at a Buc-ee's.  It's a cross between a gas station and a Wal Mart. You could get lost in there.

Friday afternoon in San Antonio was sublime. The Aztec Theatre where we played was right next to the river walk, and the weather was perfect for hanging around until it was time to load in.

What a room! The Aztec is a beautiful theatre. They even brought the disco ball out of storage for our show. I liked everything about playing here: the crowd was once again excellent, with several hundred people in attendance, the green rooms were plentiful, the local crew was helpful, and the DJ was pretty and didn't use a microphone. I think we made a lot of new friends here. It felt like a pretty spectacular night.

Saturday: After the show, we trekked to our hotel in Austin. It kind of sucked to go that far (85 miles) before going to bed (well...I slept in the van, so I can't really say that it was too terrible, but Zach drove us and I'm sure he was tired), but the good news was that we had the whole day in Austin.

Lunch time wandering around:

fried pickle

Our show was at the smaller room in the Austin City Limits complex--3Ten. We came within a dozen people of selling it out! There's big love for us here, which hopefully means we'll be moving to a larger venue. This one was a little tight! That being said, it sounded great! My in ears mix was so clean and balanced that it didn't even sound like we were on a gig.

photo cred: Zach Wetzel

Sunday: Off to Dallas under grey skies.

Lunch at In and Out Burger. I ate it, but I don't understand what's so great about it.

Another Buc-ee's. Miles of aisles.

House of Blues, Dallas. Another terrific room. This was our first public gig here, and I think we aced it, based on the the turn out for a Sunday night show.

This evening's set list was particularly strong, though it took me the first five or six songs to get going.

In other news, I farted almost continuously throughout the gig. 

The only video I've seen from the Train cruise a couple of weeks ago:

Upcoming shows 

with the Yacht Rock Revue:

Friday, March 3, Newberry Opera House, Newberry, SC

Friday, March 10, Silverton Casino, Las Vegas, NV

Saturday, March 11, Roxy Theatre, Los Angeles, CA

Thursday, March 23, Fillmore Silver Springs, Silver Springs, MD

Friday, March 24, Irving Plaza, New York, NY

Saturday, March 25, The Sinclair, Boston, MA

Tuesday, March 28, Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra, Cafe 290, Atlanta, GA

Friday, March 31, Zeppelin vs. The Who, Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA

Mojo Dojo

Last Wednesday night, I got the call to play with Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo at Blind Willie's. What a band! Mace Hibbard on tenor, Micah Caldwell on guitar, Brandon Bush on keyboard, Justin Chesarek on drums, and Scott on bass. The gig was fun--who wouldn't love standing in the middle of all those guys! I did the best I could to keep up...it was a nice hang, regardless!

Train Cruising 2017

Our now annual gig, the Sail Across the Sun Cruise hosted by Train, took us from Tampa, Florida, to Costa Maya, Mexico and back last week. Cruises are easier for me when I lay low, sleep a lot, and focus on playing each of our three shows as best I can. I'm also less prone to jump overboard.

the view from my balcony

Wednesday: Unfortunately, I'd caught a cold, and this day was the worst of it. Coupling how I felt with the embarrassment of being late for the meet up left me in a pretty crappy mood. I was glad that we weren't performing on the first night of the cruise, so I took a couple of naps around the lifeboat drill and dinner, and then went to bed early.

Before we'd even left Atlanta: I was kicked out of the TSA Precheck line because "they use new scanners" and that my saxophones would not fit through. The TSA lady sent me to normal security (wait through another line, take my shoes off, take my jacket off, take my laptop out) only to find...the same scanners. My saxophones fit fine. Mark Dannells took a guitar through TSA Pecheck and they checked it by hand. Thanks a lot.

Thursday: Our first show was scheduled for Thursday at noon on the pool deck. The morning yoga class finished at 11 AM, giving us an hour to completely set up and soundcheck. It turned out to be a pretty stressful experience; the usually reliable stage crew was not very useful (unless sitting around backstage chain smoking is somehow useful), the backlined gear was in pretty rough shape, and we had a few emergencies to troubleshoot (Monkey had a bad cable, and I had a bad channel in the mixer I was issued and a volume pedal that didn't work). Once we began playing, things improved somewhat, though I ended up with a really weird in ear mix--probably a combination of the outdoor acoustics and borrowed gear.

Thursday night, Train had a show (also on the pool deck) with guests from the other bands on the ship. I was chosen to play Careless Whisper and Born to Run. I was fine at the rehearsal, but the gig was a different matter. For one thing, I chose to use a regular cane reed instead of a synthetic, and when we hit the humidity, it had all the spring and stamina of damp notebook paper. Instead of in ear monitors, we used a wedge, and mine happened to have a lot of guitar in it! I used my wireless microphone, though, and at the time, it seemed like I was having an issue with it dropping out (I tried through both songs to find the sweet spot by moving in a hula hoop sized circle behind the wedge, to no avail).  Maybe it wasn't--nobody mentioned it to me, but it felt that way. I haven't seen any video of my performance on the internet, so let's agree that it was magnificent, and I won't bitch anymore about my reed.

photo cred: Alyssa Olson

From there, I met up with the rest of the band--teppanyaki in progress. More rice, please.

Enough disappointment for one day! Back to bed!

Friday: When I awoke, we had reached our only foreign port of the trip: Costa Maya, Mexico. Costa Maya appears to be a port built exclusively for the cruise industry--a nook of touristy shops (tequila, diamonds, and t shirts) cut out of the Mexican jungle south of the Yucatan Peninsula. There's really nothing else there. I did a lap so that I could say I got off the boat in Mexico, but there was nothing interesting for me.

One benefit of this stop: enough people got off the boat that the internet was dramatically faster and I was able to call home.

Saturday night's show was in the theatre. Better crew, better conditions, better show (except for one sustain pedal, which would stop working if you held anything for more than four seconds). This gig was epic! I had a great time, and played really well--in fact, everybody killed it. We were on fire this night.

I was so pleased, I even did a victory lap around the boat.

Saturday: Our only non-musical obligation was an 11 AM meet-and-greet. Two hours of being silly, signing autographs, and posing for pictures.

That afternoon, we had a photo shoot on the front deck of the boat.

photo cred: Zach Wetzel

photo cred: Zach Wetzel

Immediately following, I sat for an interview for a documentary that is being shot about us.

Saturday night, we were supposed to be back on the pool deck for a 10 PM show, but weather forced us back into the theatre. This one felt like an encore from Friday night's big show. Pretty close to the energy we had the night before. One volume pedal did not work, which was right on my average.

photo cred: Michelle Anderson

photo cred: Zach Wetzel

Sunday: The end! After we finished our show, I quickly packed up my suitcase, tagged it, and set it outside my door for pickup by the luggage guys. The magic of this is that it will be waiting on the dock beside the line for customs, and I won't have to drag it off the ship myself. With two saxophone gig bags, a backpack, and a pelican full of gear, I welcome the opportunity for someone else to deal with my suitcase.

Unfortunately, my suitcase was not there when I arrived. I checked the other groups of luggage, but it was gone. The cruise ship people assured me that it would turn up and they would send it to me.

While on the shuttle to the airport, I got a phone call from a guy who said that an overly aggressive porter had accidentally grabbed my suitcase as well as his and thrown both of them in a cab to the Tampa airport. He had time, so we agreed to meet at the Delta counter.

At the airport, I encountered the documentary guys...and my suitcase! What luck! They were as surprised as I was.


We're back in Atlanta for a few days before heading off to Texas. See you there!

Thursday, February 23, House of Blues in Houston
Friday, February 24, Aztec in San Antonio
Saturday, February 25, ACL Live in Austin
Sunday, February 26, House of Blue in Dallas

Moontower's Roses

Greg Lee and I worked on a new original song with the local Atlanta band Moontower (G Lee producing and me writing a horn arrangement). The horn section is Rob Opitz, trumpet, Richard Sherrington, trombone, and me on tenor and bari sax.

Here's how it turned out:

If you scroll down a few posts, you can follow along on my chart!

Nashvegas, The Noog, and The V

On the road again! Yacht Rock returned after a long hiatus to Tennessee: Friday night in Nashville, and Saturday in Chattanooga. Capping off the weekend, we played an "unplugged" show at Venkman's in Atlanta.


Friday: The Nashville show was in the Cannery Ballroom, where we have played on numerous occasions in the past. Still a boomy, doglegged shaped room, though they did bring the stage slightly forward (no more columns in the middle of the stage), and they upgraded the lights (no more old-school heat lamp PAR cans).

It's tough to get a read on the Nashville crowd. Their enthusiasm would ebb and flow quite a lot from song to song. Kip also mentioned a couple of times that they talk throughout the entire show, making it difficult to hear the band clearly. I can't hear too much of the audience because of the in ears, but they seemed to enjoy seeing us again. 

850 people plus guests.

photo cred: Zach Wetzel

photo cred: Zach Wetzel

Saturday: After plenty of sleep and a leisurely lunch burrito, we rolled into Chattanooga with plenty of time to stage a nineties album cover photo session, yielding this:

After soundcheck, we went in all directions looking for food, but the cool little restaurants right around the venue were all packed! Half of us ate, half of us did not. We've got to plan for carry out next time. Greg and I broke from our routine of hitting up the Cajun place (Blue Orleans) and landed at the Thai place around the corner.

On with the show. Chattanooga! 1,500 people showed up, which feels like a record for one of our regular (non revival) shows. Maybe it's not...it's up there, though.

Great show! The crowd was fantastic, the stage was roomy, and the room sounded great--much better than the night before.  Epic gig.

photo cred: Christian Stewart Photography

photo cred: Christian Stewart Photography

Chattanooga is fortunately close enough that we drove directly back to Atlanta after the show, arriving around 2:30 AM.

Sunday: Our "unplugged" shows at Venkman's are still very popular with the sit down crowd.  They're also a nice challenge for us as we reimagine some of our most common repertoire with acoustic guitars and different keyboards. Check it out: