David Freeman Music

The gigs continue, albeit at a much more relaxed pace. This week: two private parties. Where the fail in excitement, they succeed in compensation. Thursday: Private party at a ballroom in Buckhead. Not too terrible, but not too exciting. No idea what the party was for. The good news was that I got to go to my house when it was over and sleep in my own bed. Still loving the Legere reeds! I got an alto reed before this gig, and it's FANTASTIC! Feels great and sounds great--the feedback from both horns is so good that I feel inspired. Saturday: Up early (6 AM) for a 9:30 AM flight to White Plains, NY on one of those regional jet sized planes. The very limited overhead space makes me, weighed down with saxophones, nervous. TSA in Atlanta has changed their scanning machinery in the precheck line, so they escorted me over to the regular security and sent me through. It makes me wonder...I guess I should continue to go to precheck and have them take me to the other line...

Last week...another week of airplanes, van rides, gear issues, and special shows...and work! We are still gigging hard, but it looks to be slowing down slightly to a more manageable pace. Last week, however, was kind of nuts. Tuesday: I was making great time on the way to pick up Nick and Bencuya, as we normally carpool to the airport. Suddenly, traffic came to an abrupt halt just south of Moores Mill. Why? Not good. All lanes blocked. I was definitely not going to make the carpool--maybe I wouldn't even make my flight! The last three miles to Nick's house were projected to take fifty-one minutes. Terror radiated from my body. After a half hour of sitting/freaking out, the "police activity" cleared, and the traffic sped a way like the start of the Daytona 500. Average speed on the Connector through town: Whew! Made the flight. The camera crew was along for this trip. More documentary footage! Our first gig of the week was a corporate party i...

Another week of traveling and gigging! Here we go. Wednesday: I travelled to Charlotte, North Carolina with our second band, the Yacht Rock Schooner, for a gig at the National Whitewater Center. There's a huge rock climbing wall and long zip lines, but the main attraction is the giant manmade river where kayakers, rafters, and olympic hopefuls come to train. Pretty cool. Greg Lee and I were filling in for the usual guys on the gig, who are led by Greg's brother Ganesh. I only played sax and flute, so I tried to keep busy singing any background vocals I could handle. It feels strange to not play my keyboard parts that fit around the sax and flute parts. The gig was for web designers (their job was to take news stories and format them for news websites). There looked to be a couple of hundred of them. Unfortunately, the bar was approximately one hundred fifty yards to the right of the stage (down river!), so other than a painful few moments when they were ...

When did we last play a Yacht Rock gig?...as I write this, twenty-three days ago in Boston. Since then, it's been Zep/Who, a week off, and last Friday's project, the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense.  Around that, two other little gigs. Here it is. Thursday: I played a gig in a band centered around local celebrity chef Ford Fry. Mark Cobb has played multiple shows in Ford's band, and he pulled me in to be the utility guy, playing a little bit of saxophone, a little bit of keyboard, and a little bit of miscellaneous percussion. A dozen songs were picked (four Beatles, four Zeppelin, and four Stones). The event was some sort of private party for car people, and Ford was doing the catering. We were set up on stage at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Sweet! I've never been on stage at the Fox. For me, this gig was all about playing keyboard with a great band (other than Ford and the lead singer, everybody else in the group was a professional musician--Mike Lemond, Be...

Yacht Rock (plus special guest Peter Stroud) played a show of all Led Zeppelin and The Who last night at the Variety Playhouse. As you might imagine, not much for me to do--of the twenty-six songs, I played on nine (2 background vocals, 2 tambourine part, 2 keyboard parts, 2 horn parts, and 1 cowbell part). Lotta hanging around... I watched a few songs from the floor... Watched a few from the balcony... Hung out in the green room... Here's my chart for the beginning of Stairway to Heaven.  I've seen a few others on the internet, and I don't agree with them. All of the moving stuff (particularly the entire second line) was difficult to play smoothly with the sustain pedal (but not overlap anything). Also, I made the mistake of not hearing my part against the acoustic guitar at soundcheck--at the gig, I had to back my volume way down so I could hear (and stay in time) with Monkeyboy. Quick load out from this one. I was home by 12:15 AM.