North Carolina

Two more good shows for the Yacht Rock Revue, and home in plenty of time for the Super Bowl.

Friday: We didn't get very far before we stopped for gas, at which point Zach realized that we had a flat tire on the trailer. Luckily, he's dealt with plenty of these while driving our gear back and forth across the county, so he'd swapped tires in about ten minutes.

Our show in Charlotte was at the Fillmore Underground, our second time in this room and our second time selling it out. Unfortunately, we messed up on the load in/soundcheck/start time and had to make a quick pizza run around the corner before the show.

This evening's crowd did not disappoint! They were great for the entire show. The Fillmore was also very pleased, and it sounds like we'll be graduating to the big room next time.

photo by Zach Wetzel

Saturday: We spent the night in Gastonia, slept late, and headed to Asheville after lunch (which was really bad Mexican place).

The Orange Peel has a new PA, and we have a bunch of new fans! We came within a hundred people of selling it out (925 plus guests in the room). It's amazing--I can still remember what it looked like the for our first show here when there were 125 people in the room.

Another great crowd (even the old ladies are good looking in Asheville) that listened very attentively, and we gave them a good show. Also, somebody thought I was a keyboard player who also played sax and flute, which I will take as a compliment.

Zach took this

Here's the video from our Facebook Live feed:




My solo (the last 3:50 of the video) on Taking it to the Streets is a little better than average, with less bullshit more coherent musical ideas, though it does stay outside a little longer than I probably should have let it.

Here's an updated Yacht Rock calendar. The next Boston (5/18) and Washington DC (5/20) dates have already sold out!

With Alejandro

Monday evening, I got a random email asking me about playing a gig Tuesday night at City Winery here in Atlanta. I'd be playing tenor, flute, a little bit of piccolo, and some bass clarinet backing Alejandro Escovedo. Sure, I said. No idea who Alejandro was. The gig was a performance of his album A Man Under the Influence, and also an opportunity to raise awareness about Hepatitis B and C and the link to cancer (he is a Hep C survivor).

Here's the record. I guess you'd call it alt-country? Whatever it is, it's really good. This guy has a great voice and these songs are extra cool.



I met up with the music director and a local violist and cellist for a run through. After working through the music, we had soundcheck (I'd forgotten how long it takes to soundcheck with wedges, even with your own sound guy), a meal, and then the opener began.

I drew the unfortunate spot on stage between two guitar amps. Brutally loud. I didn't hear much of my flute. That's Mitch Easter on the left and Eric Heywood (HOLY SHIT he was good) on the right.

Alejandro's dog Suki was traveling with the band. She was really sweet. We had good games of tug-of-war and fetch while I was trying to change into my stage clothes.

This evening's set list. We skipped "Horizontal" and encored with "Rock 'n'  Roll" by Lou Reed

The gig was really cool for a variety of reasons. For one, it was interesting to be temporarily immersed in another band traveling by van and playing some of the same rooms that Yacht Rock has seen. I enjoyed the challenge of getting twenty charts to digest twenty-four hours before I would play them. I liked the band a lot, and the music was superb (and for the most part, the charts worked!). I even had one of those transcendental moments where the lyric ended and the part that I was improvising perfectly filled the rest of the phrase and I let go of it just right and the music flowed into the next section and I almost burst into tears because it was so perfect. I get that feeling maybe three times a year. It's magic.

One curiosity: for both sax solos I played on this gig, Alejandro asked that I channel Albert Ayler and give him as much of that angry/free jazz/screechy screaming thing as I could. Within the Yacht Rock camp, my explorations into this style are known as Primal Freem, and I would readily admit that I don't get it, and don't know what it's all about, but I went as berserk as could, as hard and as loud as I could, and everybody seemed to like it, so...this is a long way from Michael Brecker...I don't know, man...I kind of hope a clip from our show surfaces so that I can hear how it fit in with the music that was around me.

If you're not familiar with Albert Ayler, here's a representative clip. It sounds like King Curtis on acid.




Here's a Facebook video from the gig. Lots of guitar here.

Road Trip

Off we go...the Yacht Rock Revue was in Nashville, Birmingham, and Atlanta last weekend for three more sellout gigs. No plane rides, though...how am I supposed to accumulate Skymiles in the van?

Friday: This was our first time playing a Top Golf, which is basically a two story driving range attached to a music venue. How these go together, I don't know, but the room sounded pretty good and the load in was not too bad.

This week, we added the Doobie Brothers' Minute by Minute, so we spent a fair amount of soundcheck trying it out. Here's my chart. It took a long time to sort out those voicings! Bill Payne (of Little Feat fame) played the synth stuff on this as well as What a Fool Believes. I think he has six fingers on each hand.

After a few swings at this one, we sound checked Magnet and Steel with our old friend Walter Egan, who sat in with us at the end of the show. Before we changed, though, we ate, and before we ate, we took a few swings. I am really bad at golf--like missing the ball completely bad.

Greg Lee takes aim

Zach demonstrates his unique swing

Pretty good gig! I think we ended up attracting a different (older) crowd to this gig, and they weren't as rowdy as we've maybe come to expect--they would actually get kind of quiet in between songs, which felt kind of weird! We played alright, I think--after a week, there's always a little bit of hesitation. I didn't feel a whole lot of connection to what we were doing. Anyway, looked good, sounded good, felt pretty good. I'll take it.

photo cred: Meaghan Farrell

Saturday: The day started at noon, as we only had about three hours to cover between Nashville and our next stop, Birmingham. We had an equipment failure (broken snare drum stand), so the first stop was a Guitar Center. Monkeyboy was excited.

Kip bought me a shaker that looks like a banana.

So...Birmingham has been good to us! Tonight we were set up in the big room at WorkPlay, which holds about 900 people (they oversold it on this night--by fifty tickets!). Big room, big stage.

The guard dog Cheeto (with her ears dyed red) was relaxed...

...after pooping in the middle of the room.

I know--gross. On to the gig! This gig was a little better in terms of our connection to the audience, our own performance. Minute by Minute was a little rough at the beginning, but once we got into it, I think we all dug in a little more than last night. The only hiccup in this evening's show occurred when we returned from intermission and the local lighting guy did not--we played almost an entire song with no stage lights. Oops. Other than that, a good time was had by all.

photo by Zach Wetzel

Sunday: We drove back to Atlanta in the late morning, arriving for an early (1:30 PM) load in for the Team Hidi/Giving Kitchen event, a fundraiser that raises money for restaurant workers in need. We've played this annual even six years in a row, and it's a nice, easy gig for our friends at home. Also, it sold out--our streak continues!

After load in and soundcheck, we hopped into the van and drove back to get our cars and go home, since we would have most of the afternoon off. Ya know what sucked, though? I left my keys on stage, so when we drove back to midtown, I had to bum a ride from Kip and Zach BACK to venue, and then BACK to my truck before I could go home, burning a precious hour of doing nothing at home. Ugh. Not my best work.

The gig was a piece of cake, though (even though that room sounds bad), and the rain had stopped before we finished, so let's do it again next year! Home by 10:30 PM.

Utah

Only one Yacht Rock gig this week, but we had to go a long way to get there: Park City, Utah. We performed at the Sundance TV party for the Sundance Film Festival.

Salt Lake City/Park City got a foot of snow the night before our arrival.

I had no interest in the festival (the hipsters are thriving in independent film), so I walked a couple of blocks up the hill to escape the crowds.

all hail the heated driveway

SLC 2002

I stayed outside for as long as I could, and then headed back to the HQ. At that point, they were about begin another event, so I ended up sitting in the hallway outside the restrooms until it ended. Also in the hallway: a display with bags of "bark THINS." I ate three bags. Major tummy ache.

So...finally! Set up time on this tiny stage. Most of the gear worked (guitars and drum pad did not). Also, the in ear monitor system that we ordered did not make it on the truck, which meant that somebody probably had to drive a hundred miles an hour to Park City to get it to us in time.

haircut?

We played from 9:30 to midnight, local time. Everybody loved us. Except for the jet lag and the tiny stage, it was an easy gig.

This was my first flight with the new custom foam for my fly date alto/EWI case. Sad, but I think it's beautiful.

After a few hours in a hotel room in Salt Lake City, we headed to the airport for the long ride home.

pre flight de icing 

no snow!

ALJO

I had the opportunity to play with the Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra this past Thursday night at Venkman's. It's a cool band comprised of some of the most excellent horn players in Atlanta, and the rhythm sections are always stellar as well.

Unfortunately, the charts are very difficult, and I wasn't able to be comfortably prepared, so parts of this gig were painfully bad for me. I needed a few more days to really digest the parts, so...I don't know. I sucked in some parts, and I was embarrassed that I was screwing up surrounded by twenty of my contemporaries.

Here's video of the first set:

Dave Matthews with The Laymen

photo cred: Chadwick Hunter

I began playing professionally in the mid 1990s just as the Dave Matthews Band was becoming popular, and yet, in those twenty plus years, I have never been called upon to play a Dave Matthews song (not entirely true--years ago, I got called to play a random gig with a Dave Matthews Tribute Band, but I was unavailable) until 2018. I would've thought people would be calling me constantly, since the gig is all four saxophones plus flute and I own all four saxophones and a flute, and then I thought, maybe I haven't gotten called because nobody's playing these songs because maybe nobody wants to hear them?

Anyway, my friend Dustin Cottrell has a group called The Laymen (with another church musician friend of his), and they opted to use a full band for this DMB show. We played at the Red Light Cafe on a snowy night that maybe affected our attendance--there were maybe ten people there, but difficult to say because most of the people watching the first band were involved in the DMB show, and vice versa when we got on stage.

Anyway, I now have good sax/flute charts for The Best of What's Around, What Would You Say, Satellite, Typical Situation, Ants Marching, Jimi Thing, So Much to Say, Crash Into Me, and Two Step if any other sax players need them. Here's an example--they're good enough that you can probably skip rehearsal.