Ten Days

Yacht Rock just finished one of our longest trips as a band--ten days away from home! We started with 219 hours and counted down (estimating our return to be 2 PM on the last day).

Warning:  this blog is mostly going to be pictures! The gigs weren't as interesting as the locations. Here we go!

Monday:  We flew to L.A. It feels like an all day flight, and when you get there, people are eating lunch.

Our first gig was to be a corporate event on Tuesday, but it's too far to fly and then play (especially if the gig is going to go until midnight on the west coast), so we came out a day early and spent the day night in Torrance, CA.

balcony view

We brought a camera crew along to capture some of our day to day lives. The first order of business: a video shoot in Hermosa Beach.

After the sun went down, we returned to the hotel, showered off the sand, and headed out for food and drinks at Hudson House, a hole-in-the-wall bar on the way to the beach.

Tuesday: Before heading out to our gig, I had time to run to Redondo Beach. The coast really looks this beautiful every morning.

lunch

Our main reason for being California was to perform at a corporate event in Rancho Palos Verdes at an incredible resort called Terranea. Wow!

The client put us up for the night at the resort--we were spread out in million dollar cottages along the golf course. Here's our digs:

Our early arrival and soundcheck left plenty of time to explore before the gig. Here's more of the surrounding property.

The gig was pretty easy. From what I remember, it was a decent corporate party. The only hiccup occurred earlier in the day when the production company forgot to bring microphones and microphone stands.  Kip yelled at them.

Wednesday:  We only had to make it back to Los Angeles today, so...late check out! I squeezed in another run and some exploring along the cliffs.

After lunch, we made our way to home base for the rest of our L.A. trip--an Air B&B in Bel Air, up on a steep hill overlooking downtown. The lay of the land is insane--you could fall off the back porch of our house and bounce off a neighbor's roof before you hit the ground.

We managed to book a last minute public show at a place called Club Bahia in Echo Park. Yikes! Very different from what we'd experienced the day before.

photo cred: Eden Beckett

The gig was ok--kind of a shitty room. Matthew Wilder and Peter Beckett sat in with us, but there were still only a hundred and something people there to witness it. As you can see from the photo above, we debuted some new custom denim outfits.  After paying the rental fee for the gear, we netted zero dollars.

One more thing--in spite of the venue's claim to having "the best tacos in town" (or something along those lines), the food was really, really, really bad.  Zach, Bencuya, and I went to a convenience store (which was playing Coltrane's Say it Again and Again off the Ballads album!) and then three grocery stores in search of food (chips) and alcohol.

Thursday:  Our house!  It looked like a house from a porn shoot. The nine of us (seven band and two crew) shared this place with our film crew trio of Troy, Megan, and Jordan. Jordan is an olympic level snorer.

Our first order of business was a trip to Matthew Wilder's house in Venice.

It's good to be Matthew Wilder.

some stuff that he's worked on

More video stuff. I had a short term infatuation with the microphone boom girl.

boom!

Lunch at a vegetarian place called The Butcher's Daughter.

After we left Matthew, one of our friends from the Yacht Rock YouTube video series took us on a tour of the Warner Brothers lot.

Does The Great Bencuya blog?

the sound stage set of The Fosters

this is not going to end well

Harry Potter flying broom

My Fair Lady

Superman's cape

J.R. Ewing's hat and boots from Dallas

The Music Man

We closed out the night with some video interviews and a joint podcast with the Beyond Yacht Rock guys. I said nothing.

One last shot of L.A. at sunset.

Friday: Enough of that!  We flew all damn day to New York City, landing at JFK in the early evening. The walk from the gate to baggage claim is still entirely too long. The airport now has men's rooms, women's rooms, and a "dog relief" rooms.  Woof.

We landed around 8 PM (picked up by our van and trailer), checked into the hotel in Brooklyn, and by 10:45 PM, I was in the Village.  My plan was to check out Joel Frahm, one of my favorite sax players, performing with Jean-Michel Pilc at Smalls. The first set was sold out, so I bought a ticket for the second set (beginning at midnight) and found something to eat.

it looks like something is finally going to move into the Brecker Brothers' old spot 7th Ave South

This show was intense! I didn't know the piano player (Jean-Michel) or the bassist, but the drummer was Ari Hoenig and the front line was Joel and Melissa Aldana. It's really cool to see in person these people whom I only know through YouTube. They played a boiling version of Freedom Jazz Dance which morphed into Someday My Prince Will Come, and then All Blues.  This is the first time I've ever seen Joel a metal Link mouthpiece.

The ride back to Brooklyn was more complicated than my trip into the city. The A train was maybe(?) running on a different track, so I waited for it on the A platform, switched to the F platform, went back to the A platform, and finally back to the F platform. I have no doubt that I was missing it by moving back and forth, so I eventually jumped on a Brooklyn bound train and switched to the A further down the line.

Saturday:  Yacht Rock had been hired to play a wedding in Brooklyn, but we didn't load until mid afternoon, which left me time for a run around Brooklyn Heights before we split.

Once again, there's not much to say about the gig.  It was a wedding.  We used our own gear (ahhhh!).  Dinner was not provided, so I ate a salad (with frozen lettuce--yuck!) and a big bowl of rice from Whole Foods.

After the gig, we drove to Princeton, New Jersey to spend the night.  Check out the light switch in our hotel room.  Somebody actually thought that this was acceptable.

Sunday:  Back in the van, we drove down to Washington D.C. for the final Yacht Rock Revival show of the year, this time at the historic Howard Theatre.  Lots of history here!  Check out some of the backstage murals.

George Clinton

Duke Ellington

Marvin Gaye

Duke Ellington statue out front

As with the other Revival shows, we backed up Robbie Dupree, Matthew Wilder, Peter Beckett and Ronn Moss of Player.  Ambrosia was the opener.  Nice gig!  I had a good tenor solo on the outro of Africa for a change.

Ambrosia on stage

Monday:  Another fly day!  We sent the old folks home, and then hopped on a flight from D.C. to Nashville (with a layover in Atlanta).  Kip and Zach drove the van and trailer.  Monkeyboy and I joked that when we changed planes in Atlanta we were going to run out the front door and catch cabs to our homes.  So near, so far.

first class was so close that I could reach out and touch it

there goes my suitcase

We were scheduled to spend two nights in Nashville, so once again we opted to get an Air B&B instead of two nights in a hotel.  This one was a beautifully restored farm house off 8th Avenue.

A night off in Nashville afforded us the opportunity to catch up with our friend Heath at APA (who books us on cool gigs all over the country) and Dude from The Shadowboxers (Matt Lipkins).

nope

Tuesday:  Our gig was close by, so I once again had time in the morning for a meandering run through downtown.

The gig of the day was a corporate party at the Country Music Hall of Fame.  Quite a view!  This was another painless gig.  In between sets, things threatened to get weird when a few of the clients requested to come on stage and sing along with the band, but our handler managed to shut that down. We finished at 10 PM, and back at the house by midnight. Good flute solo on Lowdown tonight.

Wednesday:  Strip the beds, take out the garbage, and drive home!

Some videos from our recent gig at the Houston House of Blues:

Local

Yacht Rock was in Atlanta all weekend (for a change), closing out the summer with a few local gigs.

Friday:  Park Tavern.  Due to this year's schedule, we only played here in July, August, and September.  Gone are the days of playing the first Friday of every month all summer long!  The crowd was pretty good--maybe 750?--and fairly tame.  We had Keisha Jackson come and sing a few songs with us (in particular, the Pointer Sisters I'm So Excited), and we brought a back a few songs that we haven't played in a while.  All were challenging due to the fact that our gear was in the trailer all week, so I imagined a lot of synth parts while practicing them on piano!

Saturday:  We performed at East Lake Golf Club as part of the PGA Tour Championship this weekend.  This is our third year playing this gig, and the first one where there hasn't been monsoon-like conditions.

Our show was in a tent in a sponsor's pavilion.  As usual, it was a fairly easy show once we got on site and got our gear into the tent.  We played ninety minutes to a pretty good crowd, though most of them were behind a rope line while a few VIPs lingered in between--kind of strange.

After the gig, Monkeyboy chased me out of our green room tent in my underwear, and the cops showed up.

I was home before the sun went down, which was great!

Sunday:  Venkman's.  Our home away from home was the place for this evening's corporate event, some kind of afterparty for a convention going on downtown.  It was a snoozer of an event--I'm sure they enjoyed it, but we didn't get any energy from the crowd, which made the night feel twice as long.  Still better than my church gig.

Tejas

Yacht Rock spent last weekend in Texas.  Dig it:

Friday:  We were once again on an early flight out of Atlanta, this time bound for Houston.  Why so early?  We played a fundraiser at an elementary school before our load into the House of Blues.

I had a window seat on the flight over.

The school thing was tied to our evening gig--it sounded like they bought a big block of tickets for the show, and in exchange we agreed to make an appearance--our usual three song, stripped down show for the kiddos.  We also recorded some sort of music for an auction, but all of that went by so fast that I wasn't really following what was going on.

Anyway, on to the main event--the House of Blues in Houston!  Yes!  What a cool place to play!

This was a great first gig of the run--the room was cool, the crowd was tremendous (over 700 for our first time in Houston), and we played well.  Shows like this make the other stuff worth it.

post show photo with a fan

Saturday:  We got up and headed to the Dallas/Ft Worth area for an outdoor show in Mansfield, Texas.

A waffle and coffee before we hit the road.

It may be mid-September, but it was still really hot in Texas.  What a relief that the stage faced east, blocking us from the blazing afternoon sun.  It also meant that we got a great view of the harvest moon rising throughout our  show.

I don't know why this showed up in the parking lot next to our show

Zach got a little crazy from the heat, so we left him on ice for a while

Nice gig!  This was another revival show, so Ambrosia opened for us, and then we backed Robbie Dupree, Matthew Wilder, and Player.  Word was that this was Mansfield's first time going beyond small local bands for entertainment.  I think most everybody liked it, but they were very polite about it.  For us, it was a good warm up for Sunday's main event.

Sunday:  Austin City Limits!  We played in the theatre where the show is currently filmed.  Wow!

This one was extra special for me--I grew up watching Austin City Limits at my grandparents' house every summer, back when it seemed that it was always Crystal Gayle, Porter Wagoner, and Guy Clark  in a rotation.  I don't think my grandparents ever understood how my career was progressing, and if I could have showed them that I was playing here (even though it wasn't a television performance), it'd finally be something they could relate to.

photo cred:  Matthew Wilder

 Another one of the greatest rooms we've ever played.  Unbelievable.

Willie Nelson has a smoking balcony

Doug Jackson, guitarist for Ambrosia, never brings a pedalboard to the gig--always just loose guitar pedals, which he lays out on whatever's available at the venue.  Tonight was a strip of carpet.

We listened to Ambrosia's set piped into our dressing room, and it sounded amazing!  Kudos to Kip for dialing up such a perfect mix.  It sounded just like their records.

photo cred:  Kip Conner

photo cred:  Scott Moore

Alongside Robbie Dupree!

photo cred:  Scott Moore

Our set was excellent, and I had especially good night on saxophone--my solos were more cohesive than the previous two nights.  The room sounded great, and the crowd (around 800 on a Sunday night!) was loving it.  I think we'll be back!

We're in Atlanta this coming weekend, with shows at Park Tavern Friday night, East Lake Golf Club for the Tour Championship Saturday afternoon, and then off to California next week for a show at Club Bahia in Los Angeles.

Orlando

To be perfectly honest, I couldn't even remember where we were earlier this week for the gig, and I'm not totally sure of what day it is today.  I woke up three times last night thinking that I was late for my flight, even though we don't fly again until tomorrow.  Soooooo...

Tuesday:  We got up super damn early and flew to Orlando.  There was a tropical storm off the eastern coast, and we had rain pretty much the entire day.

I sent my mom this picture and said, "Guess where I am."  "Give me a hint," she replied.  I wrote "You hate it here" and she immediately answered "Florida!"

Lunch in Celebration, Florida.  This place didn't exist when I lived here.  It feels like the town from The Truman Show. 

The rain is moving in!

Nice hotel rooms for the night at The Swan.  Corporate gigs do have their perks!  Our day was drawn out enough that after soundcheck there were several hours of down time.  I think just about all of us went back to our rooms and slept.

The rain is here!

This gig was a private party for a fast food chain--the typical party setting to close out an evening of meetings. Unfortunately, there was no green room for us to change in, but they furnished an RV which was parked across the street from the loading dock.  Since it was still raining, our handler brought seven ponchos.

Pete's new guitar effects pedal--because every twelve string guitar needs distortion and wah wah.

His guitar rig is now better than several of our guests' (original artists) setups.

Anyway...this gig was pretty happening for a Tuesday night!  The people were definitely into us from the start, giving us plenty of good energy to make it through the show.  They dug it so much, we had to do two encores (and easily could've done a third if the venue hadn't shut us down).   Another plus was that the room in which we were performing at Epcot sounded fantastic, and we had Kip and Zach with us to really dial things in.  Those guys are the best, and I'm so glad we have them helping us.

photo cred:  Kip Conner

Wednesday:  We took an early flight home, and Kip and Zach headed to Texas with all of our gear for the next run of shows.  Friday night, we're at the House of Blues in Houston.  Saturday night, we're hosting a revival (with Robbie Dupree, Matthew Wilder, Player, and Ambrosia) in Mansfield, Texas (outside of Dallas/Ft. Worth).  Sunday night, we're right back in Austin for another revival show at the place where they film Austin City Limits.  More details are available here, and I'll be posting the aftermath sometime next week when my brain recovers.