PM Church Gig

Ahh, the PM church gig…a bit light on attendance tonight.

My tuning on flute and soprano was actually very good tonight (for a change), but there wasn't much to play.  My mix was ok;  I didn't get much help from the mostly tepid performance.

I won't even try and come up with anything else to say about it.  I did my job and I left.

The Usual

Yacht Rock played a private party last night (Saturday) in Atlanta.  Not too much to report here, other than our old friend Kevin Leahy subbed for the vacationing Mark Cobb on drums.  I've known Kevin since our freshman year at Indiana;  suddenly, that was more than twenty years ago.

Anyway, it was two seventy-five minute sets with a half hour break for the DJ to fill.  The setlist was very safe, as is always the case when we have subs.

One of the more exciting/annoying moments of the gig was the lady who invited herself on stage to dance not once but twice.  I guess there's the "everybody look at me!" thing, but I'm not sure what the thrill is.  We didn't even play Dancing in the Dark.

The other moment:  a lady (different from our dancer) offered us sexual favors in exchange for playing an encore.  We did play the extra tune, but there was no payoff.  Nor did she help break down or load our gear out (which I would have preferred).

In other news…videos from last week's Variety Playhouse show!

Dark Side of the Moon:









Anchorman stuff:































Also, videos (I'm still adding to this) from my organ trio gig at JCT Kitchen Thursday night.  David Ellington on organ and Justin Chesarek on drums.



Upcoming public gigs:

Saturday, February 8, Georgia Theatre (Athens, GA)
Friday, February 14, Train Cruise 
Saturday, February 15, Train Cruise
Sunday, February 16, Train Cruise
Monday, February 17, Train Cruise
Wednesday, February 26, Live Loud Cruise
Thursday, February 27, Live Loud Cruise
Friday, February 28, Live Loud Cruise
Saturday, March 1, Live Loud Cruise
Thursday, March 6, Mercy Lounge (Nashville, TN)
Friday, March 7, The Vogue (Indianapolis, IN)
Saturday, March 8, Lincoln Hall (Chicago, IL)
Saturday, March 14, The Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY)
Friday, April 11, Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
Friday, May 16 Park Tavern (Atlanta, GA)
Thursday, June 12 The Hamilton (Washington DC)
Friday, June 13 The Gramercy Theatre (New York, NY)
Friday, June 20 The Sinclair (Boston, MA)
Friday, October 17 Music Farm (Charleston, SC)

JCT Kitchen

I had a nice organ trio gig at JCT Kitchen Thursday night, part of their little series of music on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.  Justin Chesarek played half of a drum set (1 cymbal, hi hats, snare, and bass drum), and David Ellington brought his smallest organ setup.  We were jammed in the corner, but made the best of it, with some of the gear on the bench that lines the wall, and Dave sat on his subwoofer instead of an organ bench.  Not only were we trying to fit into the space;  we were also fighting the less than ideal acoustics (all glass and concrete).  I played the entire gig with material plugging the bell of my horn.

The idea is that once the weather warms up, we'll be out on the patio (much more accommodating for space and volume).

So…still really fun, though!  We focused on Blue Note stuff from the late 50s and early 60s.  I found lead sheets online for many of the tunes--great songs that are underplayed!  Things got loose in a few spots, but overall I think it sounded good, especially considering that Dave and I got together to play through the tunes for the first time earlier in the day, and Justin played the gig without any rehearsal (but he's awesome enough to pull it off).

To top it off, they fed us afterwards.  Super good food.  We had burgers and fries all around.  I highly recommend them.

Giving Kitchen Benefit

Yacht Rock closed out the weekend with an easy gig for our chef friends at the Giving Kitchen's event.  This one was special because we were also celebrating the life and times of Ryan Hidinger, one of the founders of the Giving Kitchen who recently lost his fight with cancer.  Our third really cool gig of the weekend with a full house of really appreciative people.  I could get used to this.

Dustin subbed for Bencuya.  No big deal, though I wish we could've continued to polish the new tunes we added for the Anchorman soundtrack gig at the Variety this past Friday.  

They had a digital photo booth that we enjoyed a lot.

The music at load out was extremely loud for NO APPARENT REASON.

Taste It

Yacht Rock played the Taste of Dunwoody for, I think, the fourth year in a row.  Even more so than in previous years, this was a pretty big party with a rowdy crowd.  Dunwoody was rocking as much as the suburb could handle it.

Peter showed up with a new 12 string.  Reports from the guitar players are that it plays easily and sounds good, though the bridge is pulling up a little.  None of this means anything to me.  Still, congrats on the new purchase!

The food at the gig was pretty good.  We, of course, tend to gravitate towards the tacos.  Good ones from Tin Lizzy's and wherever Monkeyboy is in this picture.

So…three sets, no problems.  I think after the Variety Playhouse, everybody was pretty relaxed tonight, and some things that we played again might have even been a touch better because of it.  A good night all around!

Towards the end of the night, some dude jumped up in front of us and stage dived, then got up and did it again.  This is something different, especially off a two foot high stage in a hotel ballroom in Dunwoody.  Work on that for next year's Taste of Dunwoody!

Dark Side of the Moon/Anchorman

Yacht Rock played a sold out show at the Variety Playhouse last night, performing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and most of both Anchorman soundtracks.  Great gig, particularly the DSOM.  I think we've now played it enough times that it's automatic.  For me, the show was much better than last year because I had a great reed.  Last year I had an ok reed and I think I played just ok.

The Anchorman (Anchorma?) stuff was cool--it was a mix of songs we play all the time (such as Ride Like the Wind, Lowdown), stuff we play but not regularly (Treat Her Like a Lady, Who's that Lady), and new songs (This is It, Hold Your Head Up).  I had a good night and felt mentally present through the whole thing (sometimes that is not the case and I have to wait for half the set for my brain to show up).  In particular, I enjoyed This is It, which is super hard I think for everybody in the band--instrumentally complicated and vocally challenging.  I worked on that one a lot, especially coordinating my vocal part with the moving string part.  Hope that one's a keeper.

The encores for the show were Afternoon Delight and Don't Stop Believin', the latter being a particularly guilty pleasure.  I sincerely love that song.



Awesome gig!  One of my favorites at the Variety.

MLK at GSU

I subbed into a friend's latin jazz gig yesterday evening (Thursday) for a gig at Georgia State;  we provided background music for a reception following the MLK Convocation.  Interesting gig!

The parking lot attendant couldn't find my name--after several minutes she discovered it because she was looking for David Freeman and it was listed as Dave Freeman.  Really?  Then as I made my way through the deck to find a parking spot, another car passed me in the garage!  Never seen that before.

I was right on time for load in at 3:30 (me and a saxophone and a music stand, so not much to load).  Other band members trickled in, with the last of them arriving forty-five minutes late.  More standing around until 5:30 when we began.  Due to our proximity to the MLK event, there was no soundcheck or anything.

My position ended up being directly behind a large column (and next to a trash can).

Once we got going, the gig was really fun.  I was sight reading the book, which seemed to be mostly blazing sambas!  Very challenging, but I really loved it.  I don't do a whole lot of gigs where I read charts (or play saxophone the entire time), so this was really cool.  I did ok, though a couple of reading things got the best of me.

We played a forty-five minute set and then took a break.  At that point, the crowd began to dissipate, and as we launched into the second set, they took all of the food away and began breaking down the tables.  I think we made it another fifteen minutes before they told us we could stop.  I was out the door ten minutes later.  Gotta love the easy load out!

Run of the Mill

Yacht Rock played a nice and easy private party at Roswell Mill Saturday night.  Easy load in, nice crowd, relatively close to my house (I made the drive home in about fifteen minutes).  I was sitting on my couch at 11:30 PM.  Not too bad.

It sounds like we're going to add in John Lennon's Watching the Wheels to our sets (we'd learned it for Please Pleaserock Me the night before), except I'll be playing the synth part on a keyboard instead of approximating with a horn section.  Cool tune!  We also played one of my other favorites from the PPRM gig, Band on the Run, which was very well received.  A few others that made the setlist were tunes for this weekend's big show at the Variety Playhouse--That Lady (Isley Brothers), Sunshine (Go Away)  (Jonathan Edwards), and Treat Her Like a Lady (Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose).  Good stuff.

My PM church gig was once again pretty light on improvisational space, so I mostly focused on my tuning.  Well…mostly I focused on the football game updates coming in on my telephone, but when I was playing, I was trying to be in tune.  The priest's voice sounded like Paul Harvey.  The score was 10-3 at halftime.




Shows this week!

Thursday, January 23  playing with Wild Rice (latin jazz) at the GSU Student Center 4-7 PM (music from 5:30-7), part of the MLK Convocation

Friday, January 24  Yacht Rock will be at the Variety Playhouse, performing all of Dark Side of the Moon, plus selections from the soundtracks to Anchorman and Anchorman 2  8:30 PM

Saturday, January 25  Yacht Rock will be playing the Taste of Dunwoody (benefit for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta) 7-10:30 PM

Sunday, January 26 Yacht Rock will be playing for the Team Hidi event The Giving Kitchen 4-8 PM

Security!

Please Pleaserock Me (Yacht Rock Revue plays the Beatles) was at Smith's Olde Bar last night.  It was a pretty good show with a couple of new additions:  Magical Mystery Tour, Hello Goodbye, Watching the Wheels, Ticket to Ride, and Yellow Submarine.  I arranged horns for everything except Ticket to Ride, and for the most part I liked what I ended up with.

Mark Dannells used his new Kemper amplifier tonight.  Success!

In the midst of playing our encore of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, with me sitting dead center of the stage playing organ, I happened to notice some drunk guy get up on stage with a saxophone.  My first thought was "Oh God, this is going to sound bad!"  My second thought was, "HEY!  THAT'S MY SAXOPHONE!"  No one on the Smith's Olde Bar staff had noticed the drunk guy walk on stage, pick up my tenor, and pretend to play it.  I couldn't decide what to do--what if I crawl through three guitar players (and probably mess up Monkeyboy during his big solo) and charge the guy, and he drops my horn or jumps off the stage and runs off with it?--so I just laughed at him.  Frankly, it was so bizarre, I wasn't even mad.  The song ended, Greg got my horn back (drunk guy was trying to put it back on the stand backwards), and I shoved the guy off the stage.  No harm done to my instrument.

Just another night in my music career, I guess.

Churchill Grounds

I led a quartet gig at Churchill Grounds last night, playing two sets of my original tunes.  The band included Kenny Banks Jr on piano, Kevin Smith on bass, and Justin Chesarek on drums.  Amazingly awesome stuff--it thrills me to no end to hear stuff that I wrote brought to life by such spectacular musicians.  I want to do it again and again!

Here's audio.  Check it out!

Thanks to Churchill Grounds for having us.  I'm already looking forward to the next one.

A New Year of Sundaze

So…post California.  Here I am.

My AM church gig died.  I got an email from the head honcho saying that they weren't going to keep me in the rotation of weekly services this year.  I'll be brought in for specific stuff, and hopefully some of the orchestra stuff (like my big clarinet performance a couple of weeks back).  Booooo.  I'm assuming that it has to do with the music budget and not my performance.  Perhaps the Playboy bunny pictures did me in.

My PM church gig is alive and well.  Still kind of a snoozer, musically.  My personal highlight was playing the flute riff to Marshall Tucker's Can't You See over something (I can't remember what song it was).  I bet when people look at me and see tears in my eyes, they have no idea that I'm crying because of self-amusement.

Big shows this week!  My quartet is playing at Churchill Grounds (next to the Fox Theatre) this Wednesday, January 15 at 9 PM.  Also, Please Pleaserock Me (Yacht Rock plays the Beatles) is back at Smith's Olde Bar this Friday, January 17, also at 9 PM.

A nifty video of us playing Year of the Cat with Al Stewart last weekend in L.A.  Saxophone tuning is optional.



Also a preview of our installment of Ronn's Garage: