February 2024

Friday, February 9, 2024: Ft. Wayne, Indiana. 

Early flight, small plane, decent nap.

Ft. Wayne's airport has a space for really nice auto overhauls. Last year when we came through it was an early 1980s truck; this time it's this pretty Corvette.

We were in town early enough to go find lunch before the load in, so our van landed at an industrial building that had been repurposed as a food court. This burrito was every bit as bland as you'd expect food in the midwest to be. Hans can tell you about it.

I thought it was going to be cold and miserable, but my run had pretty nice weather.

Dinner. Some kind of veggie burger and fries. Totally acceptable.

Our show for this evening was at The Clyde Theatre, which is owned and maintained by Sweetwater (a musical instrument supply company).

Sweetwater even has a gear vending machine in the lobby!

Pretty decent show! We were all really tired, but we got through it.

Saturday, February 10, 2024: Nashville, Indiana. Today's van ride was three hours long. We stopped in a shopping center in Greenwood for lunch, and Zach, Hans, and I ate in this Mexican restaurant with all these wood carved seats and...other things. Decorations? Olé.

This evening's show was at the Brown County Music Center. Pretty new, and really nice. This was kind of a hometown show for Nick and Pete, as we are very close to Columbus, Indiana.

Pete's knee brace. He messed up his knee when we were on stage in Florida, and as he waits for it to heal, he's using this to keep it from getting any worse.

Seen on today's run.

A birthday cake for Greg and Ganesh, courtesy of the Anchorheads.

Good show here!

When I was assembling my horn before soundcheck, the neck of my tenor slid out of the bell and landed on the floor. I didn't realize it at the time, but the octave key bent slightly, causing it to sometimes work fine, and sometimes not really work (almost like there was a major leak at the top of the horn!). I spent the first six or seven songs trying to figure out what was going on, and then once I remembered the next hitting the ground, I was able to bend it back in place well enough to play the show.

We flew home from Indianapolis Sunday morning, and the Indy airport had a basketball court set up in the atrium to highlight the NBA All Star game being in town.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024: Boston, Massachusetts.  Before we'd even finished the gigs in Indiana, most of us were already concerned about the possibility of bad weather in New England, and by Monday, the news reports of a nor'easter forced us to switch to an earlier flight. 

When we landed in Boston, it was raining steadily...

...and by the time we reached the venue, it was already changing over to snow.

This place was a cool spot to hang out, though. The MGM Music Hall is connected directly to Fenway Park, and had lots of music and sports memorabilia.

The room itself was much bigger than I'd anticipated! Kind of weird that it's situated just down the street from the Boston House of Blues.

By 2 PM, the rain/snow had completely stopped, and our gig was spared.

This is a very nice dressing room, by the way.

Nice room!

Since the weather abated, I was able to squeeze in a run. Boston is a pretty good place to run, but my phone and GPS watch get completely messed up when I need directions.

Back to the gig.

The vegetarian options in catering were simple but effective!

This was some kind of lemon cake. Fantastic.

It was a looooooong day, but we finally got to the gig--a private thing for a tech company.

We spent the night at the Verb Hotel (in the same neighborhood as Fenway), and I unwound from the day with a little Steely Dan on the record player.

The next morning, the weather was completely gone, and we flew home without any delays.

 

Friday, February 23, 2024: Alpharetta, Georgia. I got a last minute call to sub on the Bumpin' the Mango gig for a sick friend.

It was a long, loud gig--three one hour long long sets from eight to midnight. We were on wedges, and the keyboardist had his keyboard so loud on our side of the stage that I couldn't hear much of anything else--I was definitely inaudible to him, and probably anybody else around us, so I jammed ear plugs into my ears (at least I could hear myself that way) and did the best I could.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024: Atlanta, Georgia. We played a private gig at Mercedes Benz Stadium for the company that owns Arby's, Jimmy John's, Dunkin' Donuts, and several other fast food brands. The gig was in the Delta Sky Club at the stadium. I got lost inside the building and did a lap around the field before I found it (remarkably, nobody ever stopped me to ask where I was supposed to be!). My poor sense of direction struck again.

My big excitement of the day was that I repaired the bite plate on my tenor mouthpiece. It had popped off when I was washing the mouthpiece. I dipped it in boiling water to soften it so it would fit back in the pocket on top, and dabbed a little bit of super glue to hold it in place. Good as new!

I also had a repairman go through both horns to catch the little leaks that have developed over the past couple of months, including my bent octave key!

January 2024

Sunday, December 31, 2023: Orlando, FL. Our New Year's Eve gig was at the House of Blues in Orlando. Late gig, late (-ish) flight. Easy.

Pre flight burrito. Olé, Qdoba.

My least favorite part of playing the Orlando House of Blues:  you have to walk through a mile of people to successfully get off Disney property so that you can find a place to run. Well, maybe the food, too, which is always terrible Disney resort food (hello impossible burger with fries), but damn, the way you're stuck in this mile long outdoor mall with only one way out is...ingenious, but also a pain in the ass.

This was a pretty good one--I recall that last year's NYE gig in Indianapolis was really lame until midnight, when we all started running around on stage like jackasses. This one felt like a regular show. Pretty fun. Good crowd. I drank Monkeyboy's champagne when he wasn't looking. Does this mean I've fallen off the wagon?

Wednesday, January 10, 2024: Atlanta, GA. First up on the day, I did some flute recording for the band Soccer Mommy at Maze Studios. The producer and engineer were excited to figure out that they could use MIDI files to create sheet music for me (which is a huge time saver for me--either learning it all by ear, or writing my own charts while they wait), so I didn't have the heart to burst their bubble by informing them that they charts were all written an octave down, and in bass clef! It was mostly half notes and whole notes, though, so it was simple enough to translate it. 

After the fact, I realized that I should've brought my alto flute, since the parts kept ending up at the bottom of a regular C flute. Alto would've given me a little more room to honk out those parts. Maybe next time!

Following the recording session, I went to State Farm Arena (way early) for the Hawks game. The Yacht Rock Revue was performing at half time--mostly just pretending except for a couple of live microphones.

This looked like it was going to be stupid, with us dancing around for ten minutes to a recording, but we had a good time--it was a cool experience. 

A modern NBA game is like a circus interrupted by five minute episodes of basketball.

After halftime we were free to go, so I was home and out walking the dogs before the game ended (Hawks won in overtime, by the way).

Thursday, January 11, 2024: Marietta, GA. I spent all day at the studio, recording six songs of horn parts for the next Yacht Rock Revue album alongside Wes Funderburk (trombone), Liz Regas (French horn), and Justin Powell (trumpet). To hear the stuff I wrote played by these guys was AWESOME!! Who knows how it will be within the context of the song after it's all been edited and mixed, but in the room, it was phenomenal. 

We started with the two songs that had French horn parts, then did the other four songs with just the three of us (sax, trombone, trumpet), then I went back and recorded bari sax parts on a few things, and then I recorded flute parts. It took about ten hours altogether. My face and my brain were worn out.

Friday, January 19, 2024: Isle of Palms, SC. 

Behold, the Windjammer with no stage!

This gig was a private fundraiser for the College of Charleston baseball team (we're tight with the head coach!). I thought this gig was gonna be a drag because the Windjammer is such a dive, but the gig was actually pretty damn good, and there were a few Anchorheads sprinkled into the audience.

Saturday, January 20, 2024: Evans, GA. This gig was a public show at a performing arts center in the fancy part of Augusta. Niiiiiice roooooom.

Another good one, and a great crowd. Who knew it was going to be this full?!

Cookies from our Anchorhead friends! I had some of each one--I mean, each style. I'm a big fan of cookies.

Post-show, we got to sign the wall. They come back and paint our logo later.

Our hotel was remodeling the breakfast area. 

Tuesday, January 23, 2024: Jacksonville, FL.   Here's the routing for the week. Tick tack toe.

First, behold, the Florida Theatre!

This place is pretty cool.

Good gig! This one was a kind of scary because Mark Bencuya started throwing up after soundcheck (suspected food poisoning from lunch), and so we shuffled the setlist a little bit (so that he wouldn't have to sing). He was able to keep it together for the whole gig, and then he went back to the dressing rooms and threw up some more. Damn! I don't know how we would've made it if he was unable to play.

Solid offering of bananas, and they're actually ripe enough that you could eat them today! Nice work, Floridians!

Wednesday, January 24, 2024: Sarasota, FL. 

There is a distinct color scheme happening here.

Another good one!

High humidity in hotel hallways. This machine was working overtime on it. Lots of noise, little relief. Fortunately, the A/C in my room was just fine.

We had the night off in Sarasota, so management organized a family dinner at a local seafood restaurant called The Dry Dock.

My pasta was exceptional (that's not my drink, in case you're wondering).

Monkeyboy has a thing for tiki bars, so about half of us made the trek over to Bali Hut.

It was terrible. Instant regret. Fuck that shit. Karaoke only made it worse.

Friday, January 26, 2024: Coral Springs, FL. Another van ride...

Nothing great about this place--it appeared to be staffed completely by high school kids, and it was dirty and lame, and we had severe problems finding clear frequencies for our wireless equipment (Zach was miserable). 

On the other hand, I put new reeds on my saxophones. What a difference a reed makes!

Anyway, pretty full house again, which always helps.

Monkeyboy being Monkeyboy. The pitter patter of little footsteps in a long hallway.

Saturday, January 27, 2024: Clearwater, FL. Our hotel after Coral Springs was literally across the street from the Everglades.  I don't know why, but that kind of blew my mind.

Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. Named for the wife of the Eckerd Drugs guy.

Nice looking, nice sounding room.

A little pre-gig run along the bay.

Catering was fantastic. Eggplant parm and a salad.

Woooo! Another great crowd.

Post gig, Kourtney and I split this piece of banana walnut cake. It was as good as it looks.

Just announced! The first half of this year's calendar will be kind of light because most of our gigs are going to be on the Train/REO Speedwagon tour in July and August.