The Highs and Lows of the Weekend

Back on the gigs, which these days guarantees at least one airport, but probably two.

Wednesday: Flew to New York City for a private gig on a boat--one of those "cruise around Manhattan" kind of things. We cabbed it to the pier to meet the van and trailer.

photo cred: Kip!

It turned out to be a pretty mindless corporate gig, but the views were spectacular. Get paid to ride a boat around NYC on a nice Wednesday night? No problem.

Special additions to the setlist: Sailing and Arthur's Theme ("if you get caught between the moon and New York City," which we did).

The band spent the night at a hotel near Madison Square Garden--tiny hotel rooms! Plus, the dude in a cat mask watching Netflix. What the hell?

Thursday: Travel day. Our lobby call wasn't until almost noon, so I spent the morning on an exploratory run around town.

I've done the NYC/Michael Brecker tour on the blog before, so I'll skip that, but I do want to point out that this is the site of Paul Simon's 1991 "Concert in the Park"...which featured Michael Brecker! He was here!

My sister's first NYC apartment looks a lot different these days

doggie day care

the U.N.

LaGuardia food stop

Sully's landing strip

So...on to Nashville. We had the night off (this was cheaper than flying home from NYC for the night and then turning around to fly to Nashville on Friday). Several of us caught guitarist Oz Noy at 3rd and Linsley. Impressive chops from everybody in the band (including Atlanta-based drummer Darren Stanley)!

Friday: More down time. I had another exploratory run around a city.

the scene of my birth

After lunch, I took a walk around Vanderbilt's campus. College kids look like they're fourteen. I'm suddenly an old man. It also reminded me of how much I don't miss college at all.

The gig...we played the Cannery Ballroom. I had a pretty terrible/sloppy show, and by about halfway through our set I wanted to quit the band. I hated everybody in the room, the crowd, the venue, the music, myself...it was bad. I was miserable. Nights like this make me suicidal.

Saturday: On to Asheville, NC for a show at The Orange Peel, one of the coolest venues in the southeast. We hadn't visited in a couple of years, but ticket sales were pretty strong (600+)!

We were early to load in, affording us a half hour to walk around town.

No video, but this bus had a band in the front, and when they drove by, they were KILLING Free Bird. No lie. It was awesome.

My dog cannot and will not do this. Also, I can't juggle.

"I know you're gonna leave me a tip." My tip: long tones with a tuner.

Another night, another veggie burrito

I bounced back quickly from Nashville's fiasco. Great show at The Orange Peel--fun all around, the room sounded fantastic, the crowd was with us from the first note, and we played really well.

Here's a clip of Baker Street from the show:

photo cred: Zach

Three songs previous to Baker Street, I knew I was going to hop up on the front fill at the end of the song, and I got so excited that I got a massive adrenaline rush that I then had to manage for several minutes before the song even started. My plan nearly failed, though, when Monkeyboy put a foot on the box at the start of the guitar solo. Good thing his knee no longer allows him to do such things.

photo cred: Zach. Thanks to Pete for having my back.

 Sunday: Homeward bound for an Unplugged show at Venkman's in Atlanta.

Let's cut to the chase, here. Ever since I forgot how to play the intro to Christopher Cross' Sailing at a Variety Playhouse show (probably six or seven years ago now), it's been a HUGE mental hangup. It's the kind of thing where I could play the first four measures over and over for an hour, and still have to grit my teeth to get through it--it's all in my head. We played it Wednesday night in New York, and I had it right, but on this night, I started panicking three songs before we got to it in the set. Even looking at my chart right before the song began didn't help. My mind went blank, I had a false start, and then once I began, I realized I was in the wrong octave. It was a mess and I wanted to kill myself, and it's so simple! What is wrong with me?

Believe me when I say that I just stopped typing, walked over to my piano, and played it perfectly. Soooooooo....what's the big deal? No idea. Maybe we need to play it more often so that it becomes mundane. I hate myself for these four measures--really, just the first two measures. Even more.

One thought about this song: I'm at my worst when I try and play it using an organ sound instead of strings. The sound and the attack seem to rattle my ear from the first note, and then I make it more difficult by not using the sustain pedal. The next time we play this sucker, I'm going to use the Mellotron strings sound on my Nord. And the sustain pedal.

Anyway, that wrung most of the fun out of this show. I was good on just about everything else on the gig, though, and had some nice solo moments on flute (Lotta Love), piccolo (Me and Julio), and soprano sax (Hey Nineteen).

Damn you, Christopher Cross!

Two More!

I got up a little bit early Saturday morning and went for a run before we headed to the airport. The hotel that we frequent in Indy is very near the airport, surrounded by warehouses, an industrial park, and a Fed Ex depot.

Back on a plane. Zzzz.

The day's gig: a wedding reception at the Egyptian Ballroom in Atlanta. Many, many gigs have I played on this stage. Many. Too many?

Here's the pre-show food.

edible (picked out meat and just ate the pasta)

inedible

edible

edible (though heavy on the dressing)

no thank you (this was some sort of vegetarian lasagna)

 The gig itself was a piece of cake, and it was nice to see several musician friends out in the audience.

photo cred: Stephen Renney

After the gig, we were all involved in the low-grade war with the caterers and the production crew to get our gear down the freight elevator and out to our vehicles, which culminated in a car/truck (nobody saw it) peeling half of the bumper off Mark Cobb's car and destroying the tail light. What an ugly ending to a Saturday night.

Sunday: Last one. We've played most of the PGA legend Stewart Cink's Cink It Challenge parties waaaaay over in Suwanee. It takes me an hour to get there, but the gig couldn't be easier, Stewart is super cool, and we get a gift bag with Parker's Pickles to take home. Not a bad way to spend an evening, eh?

I had a couple of good solos on this gig, which hopefully makes up for not turning my microphone on for the last solo of the night (Take Me Home Tonight). Oops. I was tired.

Aaaaaaaaand no gigs this week.

Thursday/Friday

More gigs! Thursday night, I joined Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo for a gig at Blind Willie's. Also in the band were Kenyon Carter (saxophone), Jez Graham (keyboard), Nick Johnson (guitar), and Jack Jones (drums). What a group! It inspired me to some of my best playing in months. I always think, "Blind Willie's...ugh..." but the energy and chops of the group draws something extra out of me.

Friday morning, Yacht Rock reconvened at the airport! We haven't flown to Indianapolis in almost forty days, so this seemed like the right time to go back. Also, someone had hired us to play a private gig in Carmel at the Lucas Oil Estate. It turns out that the estate is not a home, but a multi-acre event space.

I never did figure out for whom we were playing. Easy gig, though, and good backline. Nothing else to report.

D.C.

And we're back! The storm blew threw Atlanta Monday evening/night, and we were at the airport Tuesday morning, Washington D.C. bound for a corporate gig.

post lunch/pre gig stroll through the National Zoo

 Another easy gig. Nice backline gear from Drums Unlimited. In bed before midnight!

Texas

Back to Texas! This trip was originally going to begin with a Thursday night gig in Houston, but Hurricane Harvey cancelled it. Instead, we flew Friday to Dallas to begin the weekend's work.

D/FW

Friday: Our first stop was a public show in The Colony, which is (I think) one of those "planned community" places. The Lava Cantina has a large outdoor stage that is mostly protected from sun and weather.

This show was pretty good. The crowd was into it (free show in the suburbs!), from what I could tell. A few things that were weird: 1. the large video screen that broadcast (on a 1.5 second delay) what was happening on stage--incredibly distracting! 2. the stage was maybe seven feet high, which left me feeling pretty disconnected from the crowd. Maybe they could show the crowd on the big screen (solving both of my issues?). I did like it later in the night when people would step in front of the camera out front, blocking half of the shot with a dark, fuzzy blob. That drove the video guy crazy.

The food here was great, and the staff was excellent. No complaints!

Saturday: A wedding reception in Ft. Worth. No alcohol was allowed, so we improvised a solution.

The Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth is pretty cool looking!...

...but maybe not ideal for a band. We set up in a round room with concrete behind us and glass in front of us--kind of an acoustic hell. The hedge was added to keep the drunk dancers from accidentally falling into us. The green room was a hallway.

Painless gig. Lots to look at.

It's Monkeyboy. Don't ask.

Sunday: Road trip to Austin! We couldn't make it without a pit stop at a Buc-Ee's, which looks like the offspring of a gas station and a Wal Mart. It's overwhelming. It's Texas big.

Tonight's gig: 3Ten Austin City Limits Live, which is an exceptionally good sounding room. Not the big room where they film the TV show, but we're in the same complex downtown.

Before the show, Zach, Bencuya, and I dined at Taverna, an outstanding Italian restaurant a few doors down. I ate an entire pizza. Cute waitress.

Highlights from the show: a drunk hippie-dancing chick latched onto Zach while he was working--a very entertaining side show. Also, the PA briefly died during the show, and no one in the audience seemed to notice. These two things were not connected.

Pretty solid crowd for a Sunday night, I thought.

Monday: Hurricane Irma was bearing down on Atlanta today, so we switched to a flight that left Austin at 6:10 AM--painfully early. However, we beat the storm home, which was all that really mattered. I slept like a dead guy on the plane.

photo cred: Peter Olson