Living Loud

Yacht Rock just returned from the Live Loud cruise, a four day nautical jaunt between Miami and the Bahamas.  Along for the ride were Robbie Dupree (Steal Away), Peter Beckett and Ronn Moss of Player, and the Washee Washee lady.

Wednesday:  We flew to Miami really early, landing at 10:45 AM (which means that none of us slept very much, since we met up at 6:30 AM).  As we were waiting at baggage claim, we got a message that the entire port had been closed due to the discovery of a radioactive compass.  Somebody had brought a WWII vintage compass on board the previous cruise, and as he came off the boat it set off some sort of detector.  I think that delayed us for about an hour, giving us a little time to hang out in the lobby of the Airport Marriott before transferring to the port shuttle.

At the port, there was another big delay to get on the boat because the gangway needed to be reset.  More standing around.

Once we got on the boat, there was no time for a nap--we had the "sail away" slot on the deck, so set up for the first show began immediately.  Our first set went off without a hitch as the boat left Miami for open water.

Later on the night, we checked out The Shadowboxers (Atlanta based band).  Very cool stuff.  They're extra awesome.

Thursday:  Our first stop on this trip was at Norwegian Cruise Line's private island Great Stirrup Key.  They have built up a little resort area with a tender port, a cafeteria, a beach, and a stage.  We were supposed to do our second show on the beach stage.  Unfortunately, high winds (Robbie reported that they were 37 knots!) cancelled our show.  We still got to ride over to the island on the tender.  Quite a ride on the high seas.

Our show was rescheduled for that evening in the theatre.  Good news for us!  The Stardust Theatre is really nice--a good sized stage with a nice sound.  We had a pretty good crowd, as our first show had helped to generate a buzz.

nice mic placement

Afterwards, we went to a show by Brian Collins.  From there, things got a little wild.  I did a couple of shots of Jaegermeister (ugh), drank a few beers, and stayed up late with the Sixthman guys and the sound crew.

Friday:  Kind of the same stuff.  I slept late, ate, and took a nap--all helpful in curing the common hangover.  We played our final show of the cruise once again in the theatre, this time to a full room.  Yay!  I think this was also our best show.  Some particularly excellent playing my all three Marks.

"It's probably not even on"

Saturday:  Our second stop on this trip was at Freeport, Grand Bahama Island.  I can't think of another port we've ever visited that didn't have something within walking distance.  With that in mind (and no cash in my wallet for a taxi), I set out walking.  After an hour, the only place I'd found was a gas station.  I bought a bottle of water and turned back to the ship.  My head is now red like a tomato.

Some dude jumped/fell overboard while we were in port, and the rest of the cruise found out what a "code oscar" is.  Once he was safely returned to dry land, he was kicked off the ship and sent to the airport in Freemont.  Ouch.

Saturday night, we had a photo shoot with the great Will Byington, who took some really superb pictures of us (he's responsible, for example, for this fantastic shot).

From there, it was dinner at the teppanyaki place (our new cruise tradition).

We then celebrated Ronn Moss' birthday.

Monkeyboy sang Happy Birthday.

Greg Lee crushed me in bowling again.

Later in the evening (early the next morning), we sat in with the Trailer Park Ninjas, a really groovy cover band out of Ohio.  Their sax player, Matt Corey, sounds great and is a really cool hang.

Sunday:  get off the boat!  We had one more big delay when they once again had to reset the gangway before we could walk off (and then walk back and forth and back and forth down to meet customs).  Not my favorite thing to do while dragging gear.

Greg Lee is not amused

At Miami International, the dude at the Delta counter wanted to charge me $100 to check my sax case.  It weighs 63 lbs.  I disagreed about his interpretation of his company's rule for musical instruments.  I pointed out that the Delta website says the limit is 100 lbs, and I'd flown probably twenty trips with this case and every other Delta counter guy knew the deal on musical instruments, and I'd researched it and checked with Delta before I'd even bought the case, and oh, by the way, it's also a law as of 2012 (as in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, Section 403).  None of this mattered.  I asked to speak to a supervisor;  she declined the opportunity to get it right.  Even after all these years, I want to give Miami the finger.  Say hello to my little friend.

So…the way everyone else at Delta reads this means that I can check my saxophones without being charged.  The way Miami Delta reads this is that they can't refuse to fly my case home (because it's under the musical instrument limits), but they'll still charge me extra money.

Interesting that I got charged for being over weight, but he didn't charge me for being over size (my case is 81 linear inches).  I guess when you're reinterpreting the rules, you don't have to follow all of them.

Interesting also that my suitcase was a couple of pounds overweight and didn't get charged.  Does that make us even?  I guess when you're reinterpreting the rules, you don't have to follow all of them.

I got home and called Delta Customer Service, and the agent agreed with me (and not her colleagues in Miami).  She filled out the form to issue me a $100 refund.  We'll see how I do with multiple flights in the next two weeks.

Fun.  I reserve the right to be mad at Delta for the remainder of my music career.

I made it to my church gig Sunday night.  My flute playing was not so good.  My face is really out of shape.

Charts and Charts and Charts and Church

Yacht Rock (I guess we won't really be YRR since we're not doing in YRR tunes) has a big private gig coming up for Home Depot in Las Vegas.  There's a horn section, so I was charged with writing charts.   That's how I spent my weekend--cranking out music for ten tunes.  We'll play through them tomorrow with the band, and then I'll spend some more time editing them.  Ten tunes with three horns on each one…so far I've invested about twenty hours.

No gigs this weekend, save ye ol' church gig.  Considering that I spent the entire weekend parked at my computer, I don't think I sounded too bad.

Love from Train and Love for John Oates

Yacht Rock just got off the Sail Across the Sun Cruise, hosted by the band Train.  This was (by our count) our ninth music cruise.  You could say we're getting the hang of it.

Let me begin by offering my apologies if Michael Franti pops out of your computer and starts rapping and dancing barefoot on your desk.  Franti was everywhere on the boat, dancing in the crowd, walking around George Town, playing his own gigs, and guesting on everybody else's gigs.  It was cool--I mean, the dude is an immensely optimistic, sweet guy, and I've got nothing against him, but I think there might be more than one of him because he was everywhere!

The real story of the cruise was the legend of John Oates, the little buddy half of Hall and Oates, who's pretty much every musician on the boat's hero by now.  Helped write the hits, helped play the hits, played the biggest stadiums, sang on We Are the World for god's sake, rocked the 'stache, shaved the 'stache, and now does and plays exactly what he wants while still giving the fans the Hall and Oates they need.  I think all the other bands on the boat spent some time wooing Oates into sitting in with them (we being no exception).  Oates delivered every time and seemed to have the most fun of anybody.  Plus, he was cool as hell.

I mostly stayed in my room gobbling Dayquil and Nyquil.  I slept a lot.  It was pretty awesome.

Friday:  we flew to Miami, got on the boat.  I watched Gravity (excellent even on a tiny, shitty television).  I took a nap.  We ate at the Teppanyaki place (very good food!).

Our first gig was in a dark room with a low ceiling.  The stage was crazy dead--outer space has more natural reverb.  For this gig, I had a Nord Stage 2 as my bottom keyboard (usually I use a Nord Electro 3).  Slightly different controls.  I spent the entire gig tearing my sunglasses off as I tried to figure it out while playing something on the top keyboard.  Not my best or most inspired performance, as the keyboard stuff was always confusing (mostly because of the Nord, but also because the top keyboard, while the same as the one I normally use, had fifteen more keys, making visual landmarks more difficult), and the sax stuff on such a dead stage felt like I was playing into a pillow.  Ugh.

Saturday:  I didn't wake up until after 3 PM.  What's up Nyquil!

In the evening we hosted/hijacked the bingo game.  I played saxophone through much of it.  Songs included Happy Birthday, Auld Lang Sine, Bingo (in a minor key, though), and Turn the Page.  Suffices to say we were really annoying.

Photos indicate that we hung out with former MTV host Matt Pinfield, who knows everything about every song.  Pretty impressive.  I believe this night also included Greg Lee crushing Monkey and me in bowling.  I also booed several Sixthman karaoke singers at the private party.

Sunday:  woke up on the south side of Cuba at a little island called Grand Cayman.  I went ashore for coffee and lunch.  The bar I found also had wi-fi.  Good sandwich.

The city of George Town was really deserted--I assume this was the case because it was Sunday, and not some unannounced plague.  I saw more chickens than natives.  There's a dumb joke about nest eggs and Grand Cayman banks here.

As the boat was leaving port, we were gearing up for our second show, this time up on the outdoor stage.  As we were getting set, out walks the man, the myth, the legend, THE JOHN OATES!  Ho-lee-shit.

So, blah, blah, blah…I got a Nord Electro 3 for this gig, so my keyboard stuff was pretty much normal, and my sax playing was a little better (though my alto felt weird, like my reed was too soft and kept closing up).  Whatever.  We played She's Gone with John Oates.  Nothing else about this gig matters.

Monday:  more sleeping.  Matt Pinfield interviewed John Oates.  Great stuff, and Oates gave us a nice shout out.  We hung out with guitar wizard Charlie Hunter that afternoon.

Monday night, we played one of the last shows on the boat--a big set of 80s stuff in the Atrium.  Twas a night of technical difficulties.  Monkey had all sorts of guitar problems which derailed his performance.

For this one, I got a Nord Electro 2…where was the 3 I had the day before?  No idea, but the 2 is about as different from the 3 as a Nord Stage is, so back to hunting for things throughout the gig.  Fun.  I didn't get expression/volume pedals for this show either--no idea why.  I did get sustain pedals.

Second song, I noticed that the top keyboard sustain pedal was dead.  I turned around and asked the crew for another one.  In the mean time, I swapped the one working one back and forth, except the the polarity was backwards, so every time I moved the plug, I also had to flip the switch on the bottom of the pedal.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Where's the replacement pedal?  Nobody can locate one.  Back and forth, back and forth, and Monkey is having a shit fit.  Finally the second pedal shows up about two-thirds of the way through the set.  I plug it in the Nord, and it's the wrong polarity (and has no switch to change it), which means I have to plug it into the top keyboard and put the other pedal in the Nord, but I have to switch the polarity on it.  Got it?  Whew!

All this stuff is happening while we're peeling through tunes and I'm trying to remember my two or three parts and look like I'm having fun doing it.  The gig ain't always easy!

Anyway, the lead singer of Train (Pat Monahan) is a huge fan of ours, so he hung out for most of the show and sang on I Can't Go for That (where was Oates for that one?).  He is also an amateur saxophonist, and he and I chatted about the different horns for a few minutes before the gig (this is after he razzed me during soundcheck and I told him to shut up--we're good friends now).

Tuesday:  I went to bed at 4 AM.  Artists were scheduled to meet at 8:45 AM.  Some asshole banged on my cabin door at 7:30.

We flew home, landing in Atlanta around 2 PM.  Brace positions?

The next cruise (Live Loud) leaves next Wednesday.  More washee washee…happy all the time.

Georgia Theatre

Yacht Rock played a great show at the Georgia Theatre in Athens Saturday night.  The circumstances were a bit unusual in that there was a charity boxing match before us…?  Wait, what?  I'm not sure, but we loaded in around 7:30 PM and played at 10:15 PM.

Good show!  We did one big two hour set to a full house.  Everybody played well, and the stage sound was a bit quieter (and better) than usual.  I'm not sure why--I want to believe that as the sound guys have figured out how to make us sound good in this room, and don't try and mix us like we're some heavy rock band.  On stage, I think it was just the luck of starting from scratch with the monitor guy, and things never got turned up too loud in soundcheck.

We made good time getting back to Atlanta.  I think I was in bed by 3:30 AM.

I managed to stay awake through my church gig Sunday night.  Not always an easy thing.

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.