Last Week's Roundup

Friday: Yacht Rock headed up to the northeastern corner of Georgia, hopped the state line, and continued into South Carolina until we reached Walhalla. Never heard of it? You're not alone.

I'm guessing this was some sort of local concert series. 

It looks like a old school auditorium, smells like an old auditorium. A charming little room. Sounded good, though.

I don't remember much about the gig, but it did enjoy the chance to sit on a bench outside for about an hour and practice. Actually, that's not true. The room was so dark, I never saw anyone in the audience. I remember that.

Saturday: We played at The Senate in Columbia, South Carolina for the first time today. Since we were early to load in and the weather was perfect, I had a chance to walk around the state capitol complex and some of the University of South Carolina campus.

By the time I made it back, set up was in progress. We played this gig with the drum riser pushed off-center and turned thirty degrees, and no one that I asked had any explanation why. It didn't change anything sound-wise, so...I don't know.

A couple of other things about this one:

1. Mark Dannells woke up feeling pretty sick, and by the time we started this gig, he was in hell--he kept a stool onstage next to his amp, and ended up playing a couple of songs sitting down.

2. Pete's guitar pedal had some sort of issue during the gig, so Zack came out to check on it. In the process of crawling between my keyboards and the drum riser, he must've stepped on the mic cable for my saxophone stuff such that it immediately started going in and out (which I fixed by kicking my effects pedal a few times).

3. The Indian restaurant that I selected was closed. I went instead to the Mediterranean place next door because they had "vegetable curry" on the menu posted in the window. "Vegetable curry" turned out to be steamed veggies dumped over rice, which was blah.

Other than that, it was a pretty good gig. I had a better Biggest Part of Me solo than the night before (when I kind of shot my wad too early and played a bunch of crap).

Sunday: We spent the night in Greenville, South Carolina. Monkeyboy was in such poor shape that we left him at the hotel--our sub guitar player, Matt Reed drove up from Atlanta to cover for him. When we called him, he'd just returned home from a gig...in Charlotte! Ouch!

Oh yeah--this is the gig where there's a drain directly in front of the stage, and when the wind blows at you the smell of raw sewage is quite powerful.

Having said that, the weather forecast earlier in the week said there'd be rain and cool/cold temperatures, but this day was pretty perfect for an outdoor event. Yay for that.

On to the gig--Matt Reed played great! It felt like his tenth gig in a row with us. No problems at all.

My gimpy sax mic cable gave out completely at the show, and so Zack opted to completely bypass my effects pedal, which made a lot of the stuff I played feel...underwhelming. I had a spare cable with me, but it was packed away because everything worked fine at soundcheck. Bummer.

Nothing else particularly memorable about this one.

Will Monkeyboy survive? How will he get back to Atlanta? Stay tuned for next week's blog!

Some Different Stuff

Thursday: I was finally in town and able to perform with the Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra at Venkman's. Such a cool gig--the music is fantastic, and I have as much satisfaction learning the music as I do actually playing with the guys in the band.

The Georgia Tech big band opened for us. I think somebody said that Tech has five big bands--wow! That's more than Indiana had when I was in school. I wonder how many bands the bass player has to play in (usually the problem with multiple big bands)! This particular ensemble had seven saxophones, too--also a problem for jazz programs.

Anyway, ALJO was fun. My preparation was good. Justin Powell's trumpet solos were brilliant. We're back November 21!

Tech big band

Friday afternoon, I got a call to fill in with FunkCake at the Copper Coin in Woodstock. Funk Cake is a modern brass band--trumpet, two saxes, trombone, sousaphone, and drums, and they play their own originals and funny arrangements of modern pop songs. Alex, the leader and trumpeter, brings maniacal energy and big love to the gig. It's silly, yes, but it's also fun, and another opportunity to play saxophone this weekend.

Here's a tune from the gig:



Saturday: It rained all day. Yacht Rock had an outdoor gig. It's gonna get cancelled, right? Nobody's going to show up. The vendors are all gone. We're not going to set up our gear on a wet stage.

Well, guess what...they set up two dry risers in the back of the stage, we played an acoustic/radio set up (2 acoustic guitars, bass, a single keyboard, hand percussion, and me on one saxophone), a handful of people (maybe forty?) showed up, and with the exception of Africa (which I had absolutely no idea how to play on saxophone) and Hey Nineteen (a lesser musical catastrophe where I reached out in the musical darkness and found nothing to hold onto), it was pretty painless. We made the best of it.

Just weird enough to be mostly fun, and I was home early enough to sit on the couch, watch TV, and eat dinner.

Sunday: I played my church gig this evening, and my flute face felt great. Not always the case, so I wanted to point it out. Last week, my sound was kind of ragged. A solid week of playing and a good warm up made the difference.

Hooray

Hooray for in-town gigs!

Friday: I got to sub in with Bumpin' the Mango again, in Roswell again (part of their "Music on the Hill" concert series), but this time on bari sax. Neil Newcomb played tenor.

I had a good week of practice leading up to this gig, but things got off to a rough start. On the second tune of the night, I got to PAGE THREE! of What is Hip before realizing that I was playing the tenor chart on bari--since we're a fourth apart pitch-wise, there are weird notes but not a lot of outright clashes that would tell me something was wrong. Instead, I was like, "this feels so familiar but sounds kind of strange." Man, I felt soooooo stupid! Realizing what was happening, I half transposed the tenor chart down a fourth/half played by ear the rest of it.

As soon as the song was over, I deleted the chart from my iPad so there would be no evidence of my wrongdoing! It never happened! Then I spent three or four songs trying to gauge (based purely off facial expressions) whether or not Neil had noticed me on the wrong chart.

The gig got better from there, and in between sets, the sound guys even figured out how to turn on our monitor so that we could hear ourselves (which hopefully means that nobody could  tell what I was doing on What is Hip?).

Me: We can't hear ourselves at all.

Sound guy: I've got you cranked. I can't give you much more.

Me: It feels like it's not on.

Sound guy: I went over there. It's blasting.

Five minutes later, sound guy is over working on our monitor.

Sound guy: I don't know how it happened. Somebody turned the volume all the way down on the wedge. That's why you couldn't hear it.

Me: Huh.

Anyway, good gig! It was easy to pack up one horn, and I was home in twenty minutes without ever getting on the interstate. Gotta love that.

Saturday: Yacht Rock played a fundraiser in John's Creek. Our third (maybe fourth) time playing this same gig. As far as corporate/private gigs go, this one is a breeze…1. it's local; 2. the weather's always nice; 3. the people are cool; 4. it sounds good; 5. there's a noise curfew at 10 PM. Home by midnight. Hell yeah.

In other news, next year's Yacht Rock Revue tour has been announced.

FL-GA-TN

Wednesday: We've had a string of Wednesday gigs going, ending with this one in Grayton Beach, Florida at A.J.'s, a roadside dive bar a half mile north of the Gulf of Mexico. On this particular night, we were guests of Berkshire Hathaway--some sort of corporate party thing, so we crammed the gear onto a tiny stage and got ready to play.

Setting up in this space wasn't too bad, and soundcheck was quick and painless, so I went for a run before dinner. It wasn't too hot, but the humidity made up for it!

For a private gig, this one wasn't too bad--the crowd (which appeared to be mainly middle aged women) was on the dance floor early in the night. Between the people watching and the TV watching (there was a screen in my line of sight that played Gomer Pyle USMC, Green Acres, and two episodes of Hogan's Heroes), I was occupied.

Tuesday night, I'd begun to feel the beginnings of a cold, and around the time we finished this gig, I was dying! I was in bed within minutes of arriving at the hotel, and slept as late as I could.

Thursday: Back in the van, back to Atlanta. I slept in the back seat for as much of the trip as I could.

When we hit town, we went straight to Callanwolde Arts Center for a fundraiser gig. Being more tired and more sick than the day before, this one was that much more difficult to get through.

We made it through, though, and got the gear back in the trailer and went our separate ways. I took my snotty handkerchiefs and sweaty running clothes home and went straight to bed.

Friday: Big fun in the morning. Our dryer died Tuesday night, and Friday was the only time I had to work on the repair (blown thermal fuse).

And then, it was off to Knoxville for our inaugural show at the Mill and Mine! Nice room!

Featuring lots of bead board backstage!

Yay, Knoxville! Who knew almost 900 people would show up on our first night in town? Nice room, nice sounds. I can dig it.

Saturday: On to The Signal in Chattanooga. I like this place, too, for similar reasons. Nice green room, nice stage, good sounds in my ears.

Bonus: we had ample time to go find food after soundcheck, and several of us walked a couple of blocks to a food court/food hall called Market South--basically a collection of several restaurants with group seating in the middle. You order from a big menu and the server takes it from there. Market South had a pizza place, an Asian place, and...

...an Indian place! I had vegetable vindaloo, a side of rice, some kind of dahl, roti, and a weird pickles + deli mustard thing that I didn't eat. The rest of it was really great, though.

Back to the gig! Lots of people at this one--another good show!

We drove back to Atlanta after the gig.

Sunday: The dryer is fixed!

In other news, my cold is gone, but now I have an enormous, angry stye on my left eye! What I thought was swollen sinuses (from the cold) has become its own thing. I'm glad to have a week at home to deal with this.


Gigs this week:

Friday, October 11: Music on the Hill (Roswell) with Bumpin' the Mango
Saturday, October 12: Summit Rocks (Johns Creek) with Yacht Rock Revue

Hot and Weird

Wednesday, Yacht Rock flew to Washington DC for a gig in Maryland. While we were waiting for the van and trailer to pick us up, Monkeyboy spotted Mike Stern (who played with Blood Sweat and Tears, Miles Davis, Michael Brecker, Steps Ahead, and the Brecker Brothers) in baggage claim. I think we startled him, but he was a good sport about it.

Today's gig was a corporate party for insurance people, and they added Robbie Dupree and Matthew Wilder onto the bill. Kip and Zack had made the trip north the day before, and they had about half our gear set up before we even arrived (practicing for Saturday).

Much time was available between soundcheck and dinner, so I headed out for a run. Started in Maryland, ran across the bridge to Virginia, and came back.

the path alongside I-495

Washington, DC in the distance

National Harbor ferris wheel

 Our gig was at the Gaylord National Convention Center.

Also on this gig was Matthew Wilder and Robbie Dupree. Always a fun hang with those two.

Matthew and Pete

The gig was predictably very sterile, as you'd expect several hundred insurance people to be. We only played for about an hour, and for more than half that time, we played to an empty dance floor. I think they liked it, but everybody just sat there in the dark, watching. When Robbie came out for his two songs, he remarked that "it looks like an oil painting!"

As we got closer to the end, we did get some dancers, though. Easy enough for a Wednesday night.

We flew home the next morning.

Saturday, we reconvened for a flight to Charlotte. Kip and Zack had brought the gear down from DC and set everything up very early (7:30 AM load in) for this day's show at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

There was plenty of time to kill, so we ate at the Charlotte airport. Here's a very wet pizza that a guy made for me. Without any cheese to hold it together, I couldn't pick it up! Didn't taste too bad, though.

On to the racetrack. This was a stock car race, but not with the big NASCAR guys (they raced on Sunday)--I guess these guys were kind of like the developmental/farm team guys? We hung out in a hot tent in the infield, waiting for the thing to finish so that we could play. The whole thing was such a bizarre confluence of rednecks and money; I think we all decided to just play our show and get the hell out of there.

checking the set up

And then, more hanging around. There was some predictably country guy who opened for us, and then a looooooong segment that I guess was broadcast on the internet, and then finally they turned it over to us, and by then, I was hot and brain dead, and more than a little confused about who'd paired us with this particular event.

I don't know...it was a gig. We played it. At least by the time we got on stage, much of the heat had dissipated, and it sounded pretty good.

After the gig, we packed everything up and went back to our hotel. The van and trailer continued on into the night, headed to tomorrow's gig.

Sunday: Onward we go, this time from Charlotte to Nashville.

This gig was for the kickoff of the Nashville Predators' season (hockey), and we were on a stage and it was 96 degrees, and all my gear was sitting in direct sunlight, and it was hot and miserable. My keyboards were so hot that I couldn't touch the metal frames, my saxophone mouthpieces were nearly a half an inch out from where I normally play, and my phone overheated and shut down. I did my best to baby my laptop/EWI rig so that they didn't give up, too.

It's irritating to me that no production company would leave your gear out if it was raining, but nobody has any issue with high heat/direct sunlight and electronics. This one sucked.

We loaded off the stage quickly so that the next band could get going (another run your gear off and pack it somewhere else thing), and once we had everything back in the trailer, headed home to Atlanta. I put on the previous day's t shirt and underwear because my clothes were too wet with sweat to wear for the four hours home. Yuck! Where the hell is fall?