David Freeman Music

Please Pleaserock Me (Yacht Rock guys playing the Beatles) played last night at Smith's Olde Bar.  There may have been twelve people in the audience.  Attendance was really bad.  When the curtain opened, there was nobody in the standing area in front of the stage except me.  I was able to take some good pictures because of this. This particular PPRM gig focused on the stripped down quartet music of the Beatles, due to the fact that our gear was on a truck headed to our next gig.  Therefore, we played on borrowed amps and gear that was not needed for Yacht Rock.  For me, the quartet music meant that I had even less responsibility than usual--some tambourine, a cowbell, and three saxophone songs for the entire night.  Therefore, the night was pretty much an excuse to drink as much free Newcastle as I could. Some gigs are like that. I used my bent saxophone neck on my soprano last night. ...

Tuesday was the Baja Fresh/Ventanas redux. Not much else to say, other than the gig was four hours long.  Very long.  Two hours of House Live is good.  Four hours is very long. I played really well, though.  I felt pretty inventive.  I didn't run out of gas.  I played a little bit of drums (with Wayne soloing on some iPhone app--it sounded really good!). The gig was for Air BP--I'm guessing their jet fuel division?  Everything was green.  It made for good pictures. davidfreemanmusic.net

Monday night was a  House Live  gig with Wayne and Jeff at Ventanas.  I should get reserved parking spot or something.  I'm there all the time!  How about a free helicopter ride? Anyway, usual stuff...not much to report.  I decided not to bring my soprano because the gig was only two hours, and I don't have any good soprano reeds.  I am fixing that right now--I soaked a box of reeds, and now they are drying on my desk.  I'll play them this afternoon and see what which are my best prospects at the moment.  The remainder will dry for a few more hours before I put them back in their plastic sleeves and in my reed box.  My flute face is kind of out of shape because I've been so busy doing other stuff.  After a couple of hours of it, my embouchure was definitely getting tired. Monday during the day, I did a horn section rehearsal for an upcoming gig (Halloween night at Smith's Olde Bar!) with Ben Lovett .  Ben's stuff...

Saturday night I played with the Yacht Rock Schooner at the Wild Wing Cafe in Suwanee.  It was really good and really easy.  I just show and blow on the sax and flute stuff.  I had pretty good reeds on both saxes, and I reached way back and pulled the flute part for Diamond Girl out of my butt.  Impressive! A funny acoustical thing:  as we got going and got louder, the a few of the bass notes started resonating in my tenor, which caused a random low frequency feedback.  For instance, the first chord of the verse on Peg is a CMaj7, and when the bass would play a low C this low roar would begin cycling between my mic and the monitor.  Awesome!  Not really!  The sound guy couldn't figure out from where it was coming, but I knew.  Not that I said anything... Sunday morning's church gig went pretty well.  We had to contend with a middle school choir.  They were pretty funny because they're all of that age where they're f...

Last night Yacht Rock played a private party on the senior quad at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  We all met at Avatar, loaded the van, and waded through the Friday rush hour to get up there. Three hours later, there we were, pulling up next to the stage in our van (with a U-Haul).  We set up, soundchecked, and ate.  Then we were off! The gig posed two main problems for me.  First, the cold weather made my EWI react differently.  As you probably know, the thing senses breath and translates that into volume.  When the weather is hot and humid (aka "Atlanta"), it's necessary to turn down the sensitivity, or the thing plays itself.  These leads to really annoying problems like the accidental transmission of MIDI data to my laptop.  Boo.  Last night's cold and dry (aka "winter") isn't any better or worse, but I need to reset the thing to account for the cool, dry air. The second problem, is of course, the tuning of wind...

Let's begin with a couple of things from the Braves game this past Monday: a few pictures: a video of the National Anthem: Acknowledge and move on. Thursday began at the Ritz (as it should).  We got up and drove back to Atlanta, and went ahead and set our gear in the 10 High so as not to deal with it later.  Smooth move. Thursday night we met up again and carpooled over to Ventanas for the Creative Loafing "Best of Atlanta 2010" party.  We played a one our set on about half our usual gear (I was on one keyboard and saxophones--no EWI,  Bencuya brought his Wurly and left both his keyboards at the 10 High).  Who could tell the difference, anyway?  It was fun and easy.  The Red Bull and Vodkas were free.  I did the best I could to keep up.   That show wasn't too bad.  I couldn't hear a single note I played (on keyboard), as there were no keyboard amps.  I played by sight and hoped it sounded correct. On saxophone, I had to ...

Yacht Rock played a private party at the Ritz at Lake Oconee last night.  It was a pretty easy gig, and they got us rooms there for the night.  How sweet is that?! When we turned up at the rehearsal space to load gear into the van, Sugarland was there conducting tour rehearsals.  No doubt tweaking Jennifer Nettles' fake twang. We stopped for gas somewhere.  Bencuya didn't want to. Soundcheck looked like this: The Ritz is really nice.  The weather was fairly uncooperative--we set up with no cover, and then a cloud sprinkled on us, so we moved inside.  After that, it never rained again. My highlight of the night occurred on Peg .  I got kind of funky (for me, anyway), on my clav part.  I'm a long way from Stevie Wonder, but at least I'm not playing chord, chord, chord.   We're back in town for the day to do a couple of gigs, and then out again tomorrow!  Stay tuned for more. davidfreemanmusic.net