I lucked into playing with the Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra Thursday night at Venkman's, sitting in the lead tenor chair. The first half hour was pretty uncomfortable, feeling like maybe I didn't belong there, but eventually I got used to how I sounded within the saxophone section, and I was able to relax.
And it was fun! The music is really challenging to me, and required a ton of shedding the book for the few days leading up to the gig. Some of the guys (maybe most of the guys?) are sight-reading the book and keeping up just fine. I'm not sure that I could've done that.
Saturday, May 12, 2018
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
The Northeast, Part One - The Restraint of a Gentleman
Here we go - a weekend in the the Northeast, playing gigs, sleeping, and running.
Thursday: Montclair, NJ. We flew into Newark, hopped in the van, and rolled over to The Wellmont Theatre for a show. This is our second (?) time playing this room, which is an enormous cave of a place. It looks cool, but it's really boomy.
We had a good size crowd (800-850, I think?) but there were lots of tickets given away, so maybe a third of the people there had no idea about us. Still, not too bad for a Thursday.
Friday: We slept late, and I went for a run through East Rutherford, NJ.
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| This woodchuck no longer chucks wood |
Then, off to Long Island! We were back at The Paramount in Huntington. I remember that the first time we played here, this place looked to be the size of a hockey arena. Now, it just looks like the same size room we play everywhere else. That being said, this is an incredible venue.
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| this, on the stage of the Paramount, never gets old |
The first time we played here, there were 300 people in the audience (we weren't even advertised as Yacht Rock Revue-the marquee said 70s Light Rock Music or something like that). The second time we were here, 400 people. Tonight, 1,300 people. We're catching on at The Paramount.
I can't say enough about how excellent this place is, from the guys that bring our gear in, to the hospitality, to the sound of the room, to the audience. This is one of the best places we play.
We played a great show, by the way. It was a ton of fun.
Saturday: More sleeping, more running, and another dead animal. Shout out to CVS for letting me use their restroom. Desperate times.
Back to Jersey, this time to Asbury Park and the Wonder Bar. We've played a couple of public shows here, but tonight was a wedding.
This load in suuuuuuuuuuuucks.
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| random building with my middle name on it |
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| The Asbury Park boardwalk in all its glory |
If you can imagine Jersey shore people who rent out their favorite bar to host their wedding reception, that was our crowd Saturday night--they were ready to party, which made for a fun evening. They liked everything we played. Even the guy from Fox News who was there--he liked it.
Fun gig, and it sounded pretty great on stage.
Sunday: Let's see--NJ on Thursday, NY on Friday, NJ on Saturday, so....back to New York! But first, another late morning run after sleeping as late as possible.
Most of this run was on the shoulders of four lane roads. Not ideal, but ok on a Sunday morning.
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| no dead animals! |
Tonight's gig: another wedding! This time at City Winery in Manhattan. Another less than ideal load in and small stage, but at this point, who cares?
Much time to kill after soundcheck, so I went for another run, this time around the southern end of the city.
This gig was unusual in that bride was a Broadway actress (not sure about the groom), so she was one of the performers at the reception. We played What the World Needs Now, backing a choir of about twenty people, Jersey Girl, backing one of the actors from Jersey Boys, and a four part vocal arrangement of You Make My Dreams Come True. It was a lot of work (especially on What the World Needs Now), but the performances were kinda awesome! I really enjoyed putting that together.
We flew home Monday, but we'll be back a week from Thursday to pick it up again with shows in NYC at Playstation Theatre (Thursday), the Royale in Boston (Friday), a wedding in Brooklyn (Saturday), and The Hamilton in DC (Sunday). Keep keepin' on.
In the mean time, I'll be playing with The Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra this Thursday night at Venkman's. 7:30 PM!
Full Moons
Scott Glazer was nice enough to invite me back to Blind Willie's to play his monthly residency in a band that included John Sandfort (tenor), Nick Johnson (guitar), Dan Lawrence (keyboard), and Adam Goodhue (drums).
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| a selfie of Scott, John, and me |
In spite of the empty room, we had a fabulously silly time, and for the most part, we all played well. It was also not quite as loud as last month, which made a huge difference in my playing. In other words, I could hear myself, didn't overblow, and Sandfort didn't kick my ass quite as much!
Good hang!
Monday, April 30, 2018
AAA
That's Arizona, Atlanta, and Austin--a crazy weekend of travel and gigs.
Thursday: Head west! We flew to Tucson, a three hour and forty-five minute ride. Long enough that I could sleep for a few hours and still wake up and watch a movie.
On this trip, I watched Darkest Hour, chronicling Winston Churchill's rise to prime minister at the dawn of the second World War.
We landed, grabbed our bags, and boarded a spacious limo bus to Marana, AZ, on the north side of Tucson.
Unfortunately, that wasn't our bus! We had to get off, grab our bags, and walk to our much smaller van parked in the next ring of parking.
First thing first, we checked into our rooms...at the frickin' Ritz Carlton! Sweeeeeeeeet.
With a few hours to kill before soundcheck, I went for a run on the nearby Wild Burro Trail, which ran through a canyon directly behind the hotel!
The weather was in the low 80s and kind of overcast, so it wasn't too brutal out there. Off to soundcheck.
A stage with no cover and some pretty rough rental gear met us. Everything worked, but everything felt old and dusty. I guess there was only one Nord Electro available, so I ended up with a Nord Stage, and the sustain and expression pedals provided wouldn't work with it. I tried all the usual stuff (flipping the polarity on the pedal, flipping the polarity on the keyboard), and nothing fixed it. Eventually, I put the Fantom sustain pedal on the Nord (which worked), found another sustain pedal in the gear box that worked on the Fantom, and played the gig with only one expression pedal. Not a huge deal, but kind of annoying.
Back to our hotel rooms for an hour (and a snack).
Ready to go...
The weather was pleasant for the evening, and I didn't mind the bugs that congregated on my keyboards. The crowd wasn't rabid by any means, but they danced, and this gig was a pretty easy 100 minutes.
Our set ended with a fireworks show.
We were back at our hotel by 10:45 PM, which was good because our lobby call was at 4:15 AM. Ouch. "It's 7:15 Atlanta time!" you say, but that's still early for The Dave.
Friday: Head east!
We got back to Atlanta just after lunch, everybody went home/fought through some hellacious Friday traffic, and then we regrouped in Piedmont Park for our annual Purple Rain show. I'd practiced the hell out of this stuff last week when we didn't have any gigs, so I was ready to go.
Earlier in the week, we'd packed all of our gear in the van and trailer, and so when we arrived at the stage, everything was roughly set up. Hallelujah. This must be what the next level of gigging feels like.
After soundcheck, I went for a short run around the park.
The gig was one giant set with the album on the back half--a little over two hours long. It was a great gig with somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 in attendance, and we gave them a really good show. That tent we were in sounded terrible, though--too many sound reflections and too many microphones. I got used to it, but there was nothing Kip and Zach could've done to fix it.
Once the gig was over, I packed my gear up and left it in a pile on my corner of the stage. Home by 11:30 PM. Oh yeah.
Saturday: Head west! We had an early afternoon flight to Austin for a fundraiser. I felt a hundred percent better after a good night of sleep in my own bed.
There was no line at security. Nick's backpack got pulled for closer inspection (his harmonicas are mistaken for gun clips), and the security guard pulled out a bottle of vodka that he'd taken from the green room/tent the night before. Whoops! He said, "I thought my backpack felt heavier."
We got upgraded to first class. Ha ha ha ha...I don't know what to do with myself up here. At least they didn't bring around the hot towels on this flight.
Aaaaannd...I couldn't sleep! Maybe I'm dying. Anyway, it's about a two hour flight, so here are some pics of the world. I watched Black Panther. It was ok.
We were outdoors (though covered on a nice size stage) for our show, and the temperature was right at the edge of being too hot to be outside on a gig. I was in the shade, though, so it was bearable.
The big story of the day...this Roland Fantom had a broken compact flash card reader, so none of my settings would load. Usually I just pop the card in, "restore" my stuff from the card, and it's just like my keyboard. This one would not. The same thing happened to me last year in Santa Fe, and the backline guys had another Fantom brought from their warehouse. I asked the backline guy about getting me another keyboard--"I'm from Oklahoma City, so the warehouse is seven hours away. That's not going to work." No, it's not. Hmmm. Or should I say, HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!
So, I'm freaking out. I tried a different card, I tried a different card reader. It's not happening. I did have a backup of my settings saved onto my laptop, but 1. The file was over a year old; 2. I've moved the files from the keyboard to the computer, but never from the computer to the keyboard. How do you do that?
The internet wasn't terribly helpful, and I had almost resigned myself to having to program the entire night's setlist from scratch. I could get as far as being able to see the "backup" files in the menu on the keyboard, but I couldn't figure out how to make them load. Finally, I found a page on Roland's website that helped--when the icon pops up on the laptop, delete the existing files and replace them with hour backup files. Ah ha! Did that, powered down the computer, powered up the computer, and bang! My keyboard was back, and my stress level went from one million to zero.
The Tito's Vodka RV was set up close to the stage.
After the whole keyboard thing, this gig was really easy; the weather was great, the food was delicious, and the sound on stage was excellent. No problems at all. Also, most of the women in the audience were really good looking. Thanks for that, too.
Sunday: A pretty good night of sleep in a familiar hotel, and a late morning flight home. Home by 3 PM.
We're back at it this coming weekend, with public and private gigs in the northeast. Check back here maybe Tuesday for an update.
Thursday: Head west! We flew to Tucson, a three hour and forty-five minute ride. Long enough that I could sleep for a few hours and still wake up and watch a movie.
On this trip, I watched Darkest Hour, chronicling Winston Churchill's rise to prime minister at the dawn of the second World War.
We landed, grabbed our bags, and boarded a spacious limo bus to Marana, AZ, on the north side of Tucson.
Unfortunately, that wasn't our bus! We had to get off, grab our bags, and walk to our much smaller van parked in the next ring of parking.
First thing first, we checked into our rooms...at the frickin' Ritz Carlton! Sweeeeeeeeet.
With a few hours to kill before soundcheck, I went for a run on the nearby Wild Burro Trail, which ran through a canyon directly behind the hotel!
 |
| (not part of the trail--the cart path behind the hotel!) |
The weather was in the low 80s and kind of overcast, so it wasn't too brutal out there. Off to soundcheck.
A stage with no cover and some pretty rough rental gear met us. Everything worked, but everything felt old and dusty. I guess there was only one Nord Electro available, so I ended up with a Nord Stage, and the sustain and expression pedals provided wouldn't work with it. I tried all the usual stuff (flipping the polarity on the pedal, flipping the polarity on the keyboard), and nothing fixed it. Eventually, I put the Fantom sustain pedal on the Nord (which worked), found another sustain pedal in the gear box that worked on the Fantom, and played the gig with only one expression pedal. Not a huge deal, but kind of annoying.
Back to our hotel rooms for an hour (and a snack).
Ready to go...
The weather was pleasant for the evening, and I didn't mind the bugs that congregated on my keyboards. The crowd wasn't rabid by any means, but they danced, and this gig was a pretty easy 100 minutes.
Our set ended with a fireworks show.
We were back at our hotel by 10:45 PM, which was good because our lobby call was at 4:15 AM. Ouch. "It's 7:15 Atlanta time!" you say, but that's still early for The Dave.
Friday: Head east!
We got back to Atlanta just after lunch, everybody went home/fought through some hellacious Friday traffic, and then we regrouped in Piedmont Park for our annual Purple Rain show. I'd practiced the hell out of this stuff last week when we didn't have any gigs, so I was ready to go.
Earlier in the week, we'd packed all of our gear in the van and trailer, and so when we arrived at the stage, everything was roughly set up. Hallelujah. This must be what the next level of gigging feels like.
After soundcheck, I went for a short run around the park.
The gig was one giant set with the album on the back half--a little over two hours long. It was a great gig with somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 in attendance, and we gave them a really good show. That tent we were in sounded terrible, though--too many sound reflections and too many microphones. I got used to it, but there was nothing Kip and Zach could've done to fix it.
Once the gig was over, I packed my gear up and left it in a pile on my corner of the stage. Home by 11:30 PM. Oh yeah.
Saturday: Head west! We had an early afternoon flight to Austin for a fundraiser. I felt a hundred percent better after a good night of sleep in my own bed.
There was no line at security. Nick's backpack got pulled for closer inspection (his harmonicas are mistaken for gun clips), and the security guard pulled out a bottle of vodka that he'd taken from the green room/tent the night before. Whoops! He said, "I thought my backpack felt heavier."
We got upgraded to first class. Ha ha ha ha...I don't know what to do with myself up here. At least they didn't bring around the hot towels on this flight.
Aaaaannd...I couldn't sleep! Maybe I'm dying. Anyway, it's about a two hour flight, so here are some pics of the world. I watched Black Panther. It was ok.
The big story of the day...this Roland Fantom had a broken compact flash card reader, so none of my settings would load. Usually I just pop the card in, "restore" my stuff from the card, and it's just like my keyboard. This one would not. The same thing happened to me last year in Santa Fe, and the backline guys had another Fantom brought from their warehouse. I asked the backline guy about getting me another keyboard--"I'm from Oklahoma City, so the warehouse is seven hours away. That's not going to work." No, it's not. Hmmm. Or should I say, HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!
So, I'm freaking out. I tried a different card, I tried a different card reader. It's not happening. I did have a backup of my settings saved onto my laptop, but 1. The file was over a year old; 2. I've moved the files from the keyboard to the computer, but never from the computer to the keyboard. How do you do that?
The internet wasn't terribly helpful, and I had almost resigned myself to having to program the entire night's setlist from scratch. I could get as far as being able to see the "backup" files in the menu on the keyboard, but I couldn't figure out how to make them load. Finally, I found a page on Roland's website that helped--when the icon pops up on the laptop, delete the existing files and replace them with hour backup files. Ah ha! Did that, powered down the computer, powered up the computer, and bang! My keyboard was back, and my stress level went from one million to zero.
The Tito's Vodka RV was set up close to the stage.
After the whole keyboard thing, this gig was really easy; the weather was great, the food was delicious, and the sound on stage was excellent. No problems at all. Also, most of the women in the audience were really good looking. Thanks for that, too.
Sunday: A pretty good night of sleep in a familiar hotel, and a late morning flight home. Home by 3 PM.
We're back at it this coming weekend, with public and private gigs in the northeast. Check back here maybe Tuesday for an update.
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