Sounds from the Underground

I had a great gig tonight, quite possibly one of the best gigs I've ever played PERIOD.  I led a quartet of Tyrone Jackson (rhodes), Kevin Smith (bass), and Marlon Patton (drums) though a forty-five minute set of my original tunes.  Everything really clicked--my horn felt great, I could hear everything really well, my hands felt fast, I was relaxed and prepared, and the band was tremendous.  It was magical.

Palm Sunday

I did two church gigs yesterday.

The first was fun, just as it has been since I began it a few weeks ago.  Hopefully it will continue past Easter!  The combination of musicians and the music chosen has given me great opportunities to improvise and orchestrate some cool stuff.  I'm really enjoying it.

I've been in a rut with my PM church gig--I have the feeling that if I fell over dead in the middle of mass, it probably wouldn't change anything (other than pushing the main fader up and down on the mixer).  In an effort to shake it up, I brought my clarinet to the gig.  Pretty good results!  I think I'll do that again.  Where else am I going to play clarinet?

The PM gig was more difficult than the first one because I took a bunch of Benadryl to deal with the pollen this afternoon.  I nearly fell asleep a hundred times.

Reagan Rock

Yacht Rock played our first show of the year at Park Tavern Friday night to a 1,000+ crowd.  We don't play around Atlanta as often as we used to, so it's always a welcome sight to see a big audience when we have a local show.  We had a great time!

We added two new ones for this gig:  Head Over Heels (Tears for Fears) and the late addition of Take on Me (A-ha).  The latter was added Wednesday, the result of a Facebook poll of our fans.  Both were fun to play.  I have more nostalgia for the Tears for Fears, but the something about the breakneck speed of the A-ha that was fun, too.

This was the gig where I decided to play Careless Whisper on tenor.  The guy on the original recording sounds kind of like he's playing alto to me, but I read later on that it was tenor recorded at a slower speed and then sped up, which explains why it's kind of chipmunk-y.  After all this time, playing it in a different key was really bizarre.  Doing that made this a one horn gig, though.  Lots of saxophone in that first set:  Maneater, True, Who Can it Be Now?, Get Out of My Dreams, and Careless Whisper.   I felt like I could hear my saxophone really well.  I know my amp was cranked, but we also had Zach Wetzel running sound for us, and he did a great job out front.

Other than that, it was stuff we've played before.  No problems.

Here are a couple of video clips courtesy of Bex Mitchell.

Maneater solo:


Careless Whisper clip:


See y'all May 16!

More Dave Duos

David Ellington and I played another duo gig last night, this time for some sort of shipping and logistics convention.  We were parked in the corner of a small ballroom, pretty much playing for our own enjoyment--everybody stayed near the bar or near their little booths.



I didn't play particularly well--I did not have a good flow of ideas and on several tunes I had trouble playing the heads.  Not my best work!  Nevertheless, it was a good hang with Dave and the gig was only an hour and a half, so no big deal.

Live on Stage in Memphis

Yacht Rock played a wedding Friday night in Memphis.  My hometown!  I imagine that the headline in the Commercial Appeal on Saturday morning said LOCAL BOY MAKES GOOD, RETURNS TO MEMPHIS TO KILL IT AT WEDDING RECEPTION.  Maybe not...in reality, we were in town for maybe 7 hours, as we drove in, threw everything on stage, played the gig, packed up, and drove southeast, spending the night in Olive Branch, MS.  Not much of a homecoming for me.  Then again, I moved away in 1977, and hadn't set foot there since the mid nineties.  It's been a long time.  Regardless, I love the idea of "killing it at a wedding reception."

Unfortunately for us, the wedding was outdoors on a really chilly day.  We were in an open tent in a parking lot behind a restaurant, playing for a couple of hundred beautiful people.  My hands don't function well in cold weather--everything I played felt really stiff.

This dude Charvey played on our breaks.  Very good!

We drove home Saturday.

No gig for me Saturday night, so I did yard work.  Not my favorite, but it desperately needed to be done.

On the entire trip, nobody mentioned either of these:





I had two church gigs Sunday.  The first was at the Catholic church near my house.  Once again (just like the past few weeks), it was a lot of fun--a small group with plenty of room for me for me to play. I love playing this gig.  Both my soprano and my flute felt great (the benefits of a good warm up before I left home!).   Musically, this is the perfect church gig for me.  It's easy, everything sounds good, the people are cool, it's close to home...yes!

My second church gig was my usual PM service.  I only played flute on this one.  I think it sounded pretty cool, though there are overall fewer opportunities in the music for me to do anything.  More of a play-along-with-the-others situation.  They don't leave me spots to do anything.

We had a visiting priest who's leading a mission at the church this week.  Funny that he preached about self absorption and narcissism in light of what the archbishop has been doing this past week:



One of the readings for this Sunday was the story of Lazarus, so I tried to work Branford's soprano line from Lazarus Heart into everything (much to my own enjoyment).  This album is good shit.



This Friday is our first show of the year at Park Tavern.  80s stuff...the Reagan Rock prom.  Bring your hairspray.

Weekend Update

This weekend turned out to be a bit busier than I had originally anticipated it being.  Thursday night, I stayed up late/normal checking out the stuff David Ellington and I had played on our duo gig.  After that, I packed every woodwind instrument I own into my truck and went to bed.

Friday:  I was up really really early (for me) to participate in the Celebration of the Arts day at Kincaid Elementary in Marietta.  I think we were celebrating the torture of artists.  Maybe some of these people really do get up and do productive things at 7:30 in the morning, but I'd bet you'd find that I am much more coherent/pleasant at 7:30 PM.

Anyway...forty-five minutes of me rambling about piccolo, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, four saxophones, and the EWI.   Interesting moments such as...

Me:  "Who knows why flutes have holes in the keys."

Second graders respond with lots of random answers.

Me:  "It's trick question.  I have no idea why there are holes."

or

Me:  "All of these instruments use the same basic fingering system as the recorder."  I then picked up a plastic recorder off the table behind me and played a few random notes.

Fifth grader:  "Those are the lost and found recorders!"

Me:  "It's ok.  I've put my mouth on lots of worse stuff."


I got home, swapped gear, practiced a few songs for the evening's gig, and headed down to Atlantic Station for a Yacht Rock gig.

Load in and soundcheck was 2:30-4:30, and then we didn't begin our part of the show until 9:30, so a couple of us wandered off in search of food, ending up at that Mexican restaurant in the middle of Atlantic Station.  After that, some of us went shopping at The Gap.  I was really tired and really bored.

"My underwear situation is pretty bleak."

Following this great adventure, I took a forty-five nap in the back seat of my truck.  It was warmer and drier than our tent-in-the-parking-lot green room.  I guess I should have brought my garment bag with me, because when I went to the tent to change, my bag (and the clothes inside) were wet from being on the ground for a few hours.

The gig in the big tent was kind of what we've come to expect from a run-of-the-mill private event...a handful of people who are really into us, and then a majority of people who don't care who in the hell is on stage right now.  We entertained ourselves and stared out at the expensive women on the dance floor.

The highlight of the night was the massive fart I laid at the beginning of the second set.  It gently wafted across the stage like a cloud of mustard gas and nearly killed two women in front of Bencuya. Potent shit.

Kevin Spencer filled in for Nick.  Hans ran sound and picked up the pieces after Monkey had a small temper tantrum.  At the end of the night, some lady walked off with Cobb's sunglasses.

Saturday:  I filled in for Bryan Lopes on a wedding gig with Rupert's, a gig I hadn't done in probably about six years.  Very weird to be back on that scene.  I did the best I could at reading charts and remembering parts.  Also, I felt like I looked cool, which hopefully made up for any deficiencies in my playing.

Right off the bat, I knew things were going to feel weird all night.  The sidestep with the first step to the right.  Yacht rock steps to the left.  Going to the right feels like clapping on one and three.

Playing in someone else's band is like moving in with your aunt and uncle when you only see them once every other year.

It sure was cool to walk out the front door, check in hand and horn on my shoulder, five minutes after the gig ended.  It seems like I never get to do that anymore.
Sunday:  I did my AM church gig again, just like last week.  Still super fun, mostly because me and the leader have a great time playing together.

I did really well except for one song:  I had a chart in the wrong key (F instead of D), and I couldn't get my brain to shift from playing a whole step up (on soprano) to playing a half step down.  Ugh!

My PM church gig was better for me than it has been in weeks.  I played only flute, which allowed me to better hear the piano.  Everything sounded pretty good until the main speakers nearest to us died.  Nobody else seemed to notice.

JCT Duo

David Ellington and I played another sax/organ duo, this time at the westside restaurant JCT Kitchen and Bar.  We're still working on our list of Blue Note tunes, and this being our third gig, things are beginning to come together.

Unlike January where we were jammed into a tiny corner of the bar, this time we were outside.  It was a bit windy in the early part of the gig, but the weather calmed after sunset.  We (mostly me) were under a propane heater, so things never got too chilly.  We're already guessing that if we do this gig again in a couple of months, it'll be really nice (late May), and then the one after that will be miserably hot (late July)!  Something to look forward to, I guess.  I'd rather be hot than cold.

So anyway...the gig was really fun, and flew by quicker than either of the previous ones did.  I think, for the most part, we're both getting better at the duo, better at understanding what the other guy is doing and thinking.  It'll take some time!

Here's the audio:



I had a burger and fries as a victory meal.  Highly recommended!

Church Gigs and Dave Gigs

Aha!  I picked up a mid day church gig for the next few weeks playing with a couple of old friends.  Totally fun and easy.

My evening church gig went pretty well, too.  I noticed that on soprano I just can't play whisper soft and still be in tune--I think it's an air support thing.  At a comfortable volume, intonation is much better.  Perhaps I should just play flute on this gig.

David Ellington and I will be at JCT Kitchen this Thursday evening between 6-9 PM playing a bunch of cool Blue Note tunes.  Here's the first tune from a private gig we did last week:



Also, my quartet (with Tyrone Jackson, Kevin Smith, and Marlon Patton) will be at Elliott Street Pub Monday, April 14 at 10 PM performing my original tunes.

Nothing to Report

So...private event...aircraft hanger...hot women...terrible lasagna...Kip vs. Active...three sets...nothing to report.

This Bird Has Flown

Yacht Rock was invited to play a short (45 minute) concert after the Hawks game last night at Philip's Arena.  Pretty cool, huh?  Our second arena performance (the first being in Vegas last week).

Due to the logistics of the event, we loaded in and set up on the loading dock in the early afternoon (1:30 PM).  Everything was on rolling stage pieces so that it could all be plugged in and we could begin.

Once we'd sound checked, there were several hours to kill before the game began.

The Hawks provided us with a suite from which to watch the game.  The game went quickly.  The Hawks eventually lost to the Pelicans.

Our gear rolled out, and Kip and Zach (expertly running sound for us this evening) made sure everything was up and running.  Unfortunately, the crowd had dwindled down to a couple of hundred by the time the show began.  Nevertheless, it sounded good out there, and we enjoyed the experience!

Dave and Dave

David Ellington and I played a duo gig tonight at a law firm in Buckhead.  I swear I've played a gig there before--something about the layout of the office was really familiar.  

Anyway...we were glad to have this gig as a nice tune up before our next JCT Kitchen show (next Thursday evening).  I, for one, had not touched these tunes since the last JCT gig, and it sounded like it!  Lots of wrong notes.  My apologies.  Next week I'll be better!

Here's the audio.  Check it out: