Cruisin', Corporate Gigs, and the Carolinas

Greetings, readers! It's been almost a month since I updated the blog--my apologies! My world has rapidly accelerated back to pre-COVID speed, and I've been hanging on for dear life. Anyway, here we go!

Friday, March 25: We set sail on The Beach Boys Cruise out of Miami on the Norwegian Pearl, a boat we know very well (I think somebody said this was our sixteenth music cruise, and almost all of them have been on here). Norwegian used their downtime to update the cabins. I approve! It's mostly just a less orange color scheme, but the bathroom has been updated as well. 

The sail away show featured The Temptations. There is still one original guy and he's eighty-something years old.  The other fourteen guys are younger guys, replacements through the years. Are they still The Temptations at this point, or a cover band?

I noticed when when we were trying to get on board that there were a TON of horn players--an oddly disproportionate number of sax cases and trumpet bags--compared to usual. It was because The Temptations brought a ten piece horn section (five saxes, three trumpets, two trombones). Yay for horns!, even though these guys were of the chunky-black-Skechers-as-dress-shoes variety of dudes. Sounded pretty good, though, from what I could hear side stage. Out front, the vocals were so loud that they drowned everything else out. 

Our first show in the theater, late on the first night. 

It was easy (75 minutes), and we played to a very small audience.

Saturday, we hosted bingo in the same theater. Pete won the first round. It made the crowed immediately suspicious of us.

My usual routine for these cruises: sleep as much as possible, run on the treadmill, practice as much as I can without driving anybody crazy, play the gigs, eat the Indian food. All of these tasks were accomplished. Maybe I should also add "get sunburned," because I fell asleep in a deck chair on Sunday and got pretty red.

Anyway, I practiced flute on my balcony. Maybe it bugged Kip? Maybe he was just being grumpy. 

Our deck show was similar to the theater show in length (75 minutes) and attendance. Nick is still out with a ruptured achilles tendon, so Pete's wife Alyssa sang a handful of songs with us to help fill out the setlist. You can see most of both shows at this YouTube account: https://www.youtube.com/user/icetraders

We always have a band dinner at the teppanyaki restaurant, so we did it Saturday night.

Sunday, we awoke in Nassau, Bahamas. I've been here enough to not be bothered with getting off the boat. It looks like the port is expanding, or they got a great deal on concrete.

Nothing else to do (after my sunburn and run), so I practiced on my balcony, and the Carnival people kept telling me how much they enjoyed listening to me play. Kip was less enthusiastic about it.

Around 4 PM, all the boats started heading out. 

We went next.

For a few cruises, they showed some good movies that I'd never seen, but the TV viewing was pretty crappy on this boat. Whenever The Departed came on, though, I was hooked for at least forty-five minutes.

I caught The Beach Boys on the last night. There are two original guys left, and the rest are hired guns. It was a very polished show, coordinated with the video and the tracks. The sax player was good--he played a lot of bari and hand percussion, and of course, the sax solo on the dreaded Kokomo. 

Monday, we returned to Miami. Our flight wasn't until the afternoon, so we drank coffee, looked at our phones, ate lunch, looked at our phones, and finally boarded. I watched Julia (a bio about Julia Child) on the flight. Pretty interesting stuff!

Wednesday, March 30, Yacht Rock reassembled (with Nick on the front line on a stool) for a corporate event in Atlanta. Hello pollen! I have no idea for whom we were playing. Easy gig, though. The hardest part was trying to figure out where we loading in our gear.

Thursday, I played at Venkman's, sitting in on Nick's solo show. It was fun! Even though it was mostly the same stuff we always play, I only had saxophones, so I was free to improvise a bit more. 

Surprisingly, this show was not particularly well attended. I guess I thought people would have packed the place out, but no. It was also streamed on the internet, so maybe there was an audience there.

Beginning April 4th through the 10th, I was at the Stillwell Theater on the campus of Kennesaw State University, playing saxophone, flute, and clarinet in their production of The SpongeBob Musical. Why me instead of a college kid, you ask? I too, ask, but there is no answer. I'm guessing there wasn't anybody capable/comfortable/interested in doing it. Their loss is my gain, because I love playing shows, and most of the Yacht Rock guys were away on Spring Break. 

The pit was closed except for the conductor, so this was my view for the week. 

As you can see, my big ol' iPad was nice and bright in the dark. For this show, I finally invested in one of the big iPad Pros instead of using the provided book, and I'm never going back! Wow. Being able to clearly see the music! Being able to read my written notes! Reliable page turns! The ability to share my notated music with my subs without having to scan the entire book! I would recommend this setup to anybody doing a gig like this. 

Here are some solo highlights from my book:

On Sunday morning, I played a Palm Sunday service on clarinet and flute at a Methodist church, and it was the easiest check I'd earned in quite some time--basically playing out of the hymnal along with the choir and an organist who couldn't have cared less whether or not we (myself, a flutist, and a cellist) could be heard!

Wednesday, April 13, Yacht Rock played a corporate gig at the Intercontinental in Buckhead. Piece of cake gig, with loaders doing the godawful push down one of the longest hallways in Atlanta. Other than that, whatever. We were mostly paying attention.

Thursday, April 14, we embarked on a short run to North Carolina, beginning at The Fillmore in Charlotte. Good crowd, fun gig!

Friday, we left Charlotte at noon and headed to Raleigh, with a lunch stop in some random small town. The lady who made my sandwich was very considerate in my request for a special vegetarian order.

The Ritz in Raleigh is a place we've played once before--you can read about the ol' tube-socks-in-the-saxophone-bell incident here. It's a pretty good room--nice stage and an easy load in.

Gee wiz the stage was cold, though. They crank the air conditioner at load in, and the vents were blowing right on me. I'd brought a space heater for the following night in Asheville (an outdoor gig), but it was chilly enough here that I pulled it out of the backseat and turned it on for the first half of the night.

This gig was pretty good. I had a couple of moments where my brain started to brown out, but I mostly held it together. 

Post show hotel hallway: I think if you need this many tampons and pads, you probably need to go to the emergency room. Maybe this was some kind of insane girls' weekend or something. 

Saturday: I wasn't really looking forward to our gig in Asheville for two reasons: 1. it was going to be outdoors and kind of cold (in the 60s during the day and falling as the sun went down), 2. the last time we played here, this place looked like a junkyard with a stage. My memory is also tainted by the fact that the last time we played here was the day after we'd killed it at Chastain in Atlanta, and nobody felt like playing shitty gig in a junkyard on a small stage.

However! This place has massively upgraded, and the stage is huge and the production is way better and the green rooms are nicer. I can dig it now.

I had some problems with this one. Our fourth gig in a row was kind of wearing on me, and I was cold (even with my heater, the breeze in our faces made it tough). The pollen was also fairly strong and the breeze helped to cover everything with it, and that was annoying. When I see my gear again next week, I'll have to wipe everything down, so yay for that. And then there were bugs--lots of bugs--all over my keyboards, on the screen, in between the keys, walking around, coming and going. I got preoccupied with them. At one point, I managed to mute the organ sounds on my Nord, and I so then I had to troubleshoot that while playing a gig in a dark cloud of fog.

I couldn't get in the groove on this one--didn't play anything particularly inspiring. I didn't feel real great, and I was annoyed with all the strobes and blackouts that were happening with the lights--plus the hazer for the lights completely wiped me out a couple of times. The whole thing was frustrating. I was glad to get out of here. Maybe next time. Maybe we'll get back into The Orange Peel.

Sunday, April 17, we jumped in the van at 8 AM, and Hans delivered us back to Atlanta, leaving me just enough time to zoom home, eat lunch, grab a different set of gear, and head up to Kennesaw State to play the last SpongeBob show before the musical closed. Success!

We're in Atlanta all this weekend, with two nights at Venkman's and then a private thing on Saturday. Plus, I'll be back on my Sunday afternoon church gig. See you around town.

Back and Forth to Florida

The last few weeks have had a good amount of variety, which is how I prefer it! Here's what happened:

Saturday, March 5, I played a duo gig in Waleska, GA with Bill Graham. Waleska is about an hour and a half north of Atlanta, up in the mountains (up 575, if you're local to the area). This was a New Orleans/Mardi Gras gig at a country club, even though it was four days after Mardi Gras, but whatever. We played jazz tunes for three hours, and it was great fun!

Bad GPS almost killed me, though, as this county club was in the back of a gated community, and the directions on my phone stopped about a half mile short of where they should've taken me. I turned around, drove back almost to the entrance, put in the address again, drove to the "wrong" spot again, drove back, got directions, went to a different place, tried GPS again, turned around again, asked somebody else again, got sent to a different place, got directions from someone else, finally got in touch with Bill (who was having similar issues but had finally figured it out), and finally landed in the parking lot right as the gig was supposed to begin. Damn! All good after about ten minutes, though.

They fed us after the gig (an enormous veggie burger and fries for me), which was a major bonus.

Two days later, Yacht Rock traveled to Orlando for a corporate gig.

Been here before...(you can reminisce here--this place was night 2 in that blog post).

Dinner was pretty excellent.

Dessert, also excellent.

This sucker was supposed to be outside, but Florida weather got us--the rain came right around when we were starting. Fortunately, the event had already been moved indoors to an enormous ballroom, so we were spared the hassle of packing up under duress. It was a really easy, gig, though. I think we played ninety minutes, if that. No big deal.

Speaking of packing up--holy hell--the loaders/local crew on the gig were WORTHLESS!

The view from my room after the gig. It did, indeed rain.

The following Friday, March 11, I played tenor with Bumpin' the Mango in Buford. I hadn't seen these guys in a couple of years, so it was great to reconnect with them. This was my first gig using a big iPad for charts, and it worked just fine (other than trying to wrestle my iPad clamp into a good position on the mic stand). Technology for the win!

We played at a place called Tannery Row in Buford, a big high ceiling, concrete floor kind of room next the railroad tracks. It felt pretty new, and sounded ok. Anyway, it's better than crowding onto a Wild Wing stage or something.

And I played great! I happened to be having a really good night (my chops are finally coming back together)--it felt like I rose to the occasion for this one.

Friday, March 18, Yacht Rock headed back to Florida, this time to Boca Raton. Our 11 AM flight out of Atlanta was delayed nearly an hour, though as a strong storm crossed through town right then. I, of course, slept through the whole rain delay and all the bumpy awfulness of the first hour of the flight. Basically, I zonked out pretty much as soon as they closed the door, and woke up on our initial descent into Ft. Lauderdale.

And I woke up to see that I had been seated next to a MADMAN who flew the whole way (I presume) with the window shade up! What kind of country is this! Come on, man! It's Florida! There's nothing to look at!

Our show was another corporate thing. Nice rooms here at The Boca Raton.

Nice spot for a gig. The weather at this time of year was perfect.

Another easy corporate thing. At first, it looked like we were going to be completely ignored the whole night, but in the last hour of the night, people finally began to congregate closer to us. And the crazy dancing drunk guy found his way to the front of the stage, which we all enjoyed immensely.

After the gig, I did my best to sleep, because I had to get back to Atlanta early the next day to squeeze in a rehearsal before our gig. Sooooo, up at 5:30 AM, in a Lyft at 5:45 AM, 30 minute car ride back to the Ft. Lauderdale airport, 25 minutes in line for a big ol' cup of coffee from Starbucks, got on the plane, passed out immediately, woke up on our initial descent into Atlanta, jumped off the plane, nobody on the plane train...

...nobody on the park and fly shuttle...

...went home, grabbed my flute, clarinet, alto, and iPad, drove to Kennessaw, did a 4 hour rehearsal for an upcoming musical (SpongeBob the Musical), drove back home, grabbed my Yacht Rock gear, drove to Venkman's, set up, went for a little run, changed clothes, and played the gig there.

Whew!

I thought I played really poorly on this show, but now that I look at the setlist, maybe not...maybe my brain was just fried at the end of a very long day, because other than the first song (our debut performance of Cool Change, which felt a little shaky on my end), and skipping over a song on the setlist, I can't really remember any really bad moments (except, maybe for some careless bongo playing in Two Tickets to Paradise). I had some good sax solos, so I suppose it was better than I thought.

I'm still loving the new the setup at Venkman's. We'll be back in April to do another night (maybe two?).

And the next day, I took part in a 5K (came in 3rd overall), and played another 4 hour SpongeBob rehearsal, so I was kind of wiped out by Sunday night.

In other news, Rob's got a new project out--The Peter Gabriel Tribute--and I played on Sledgehammer. Check it out!

Also, I made a couple of more little videos of my own.

Wazzup

After the big Jamaica trip, we resumed activity the following week at the Miami Boat Show in Miami Beach. It was great to see all of our gear again!

The weather was definitely going to be tricky--there were lots of little pop up showers blowing in off the ocean. It wasn't rain so much as mist, and it came and went quickly (we were starting to put away gear as the rain intensified, the DJ behind me looked out and said, "Don't bother. It's almost over"). They decided to tarp the stage after soundcheck just in case.

I went for a run. Wednesday afternoon at the beach is pretty quiet.

It occurred to me while running back towards the stage that Miami Beach is what the rest of the county thinks is Miami. Past and present residents know it's more like US-1, strip shopping malls, and endless canals as far as the eye can see!

The Art Deco thing is still really cool, though.

Back to the stage, hanging around, waiting for the gig to start. We were going to play 7:30-9:30, then it became 7-8, and then 7-8:30.

We got started for a small crowd, and then it started to spit rain a little bit, and everybody moved under the cover to our left, and over the course of about six songs, they dispersed, leaving us to play for four or five people! We stayed on stage for about fifty minutes before the gig was called.

In other news, my friend Steve Augeri released a new song, If You Want, that we recorded about a year ago. I recorded my part at home and emailed it, and we talked on the phone to make some adjustments. Why doesn't it happen this way more often? Anyway, the song turned out great. Enjoy!

Church gigs are back! The cathedral in Atlanta where I have been playing off and on for over twenty years finally allowed wind players back. Yay for that! My regular service with this group ended March 15, 2020, in the beginning of the Covid pandemic. 

This gig is a great way to keep my flute chops in shape. I was actually kind of nervous at the beginning--the style is somewhere between folk and classical, and so I fret much more about intonation and phrase endings and stuff that doesn't bother me when Yacht Rock plays Lowdown.

Also happening right now, I've been writing horn parts for a friend's Christmas album. The rhythm section parts are recorded and then sent to me, and I've been stacking lots of saxophones! Here's a bit of one of them, called Snowfall.

More of these to come as I crank them out!

In the world of Yacht Rock, things are slow for the next couple of weeks--just fine with us, as Nick is out with a ruptured Achilles tendon. In a couple of weeks we hit the road again, with subs, until he's able to hobble out and sit on a stool. It may be until the end of the summer before he's sidestepping again.