John Hancotte's Bass Desires: The Next Day: From Athens to Bluffton

How my day began - trailing behind Ira
on our way back to Atlanta after a night in Athens.

On the road again. My first real road trip in my new 2004 Honda Oyssesy. I was packed for the Last Call gig in Athens and this evening's performance with Platinum at the Hampton Hall Club. Oddly enough, I use different gear for the 2 bands, so my stuff was substantial. Had to repack it all, putting the Last Call gear towards the middle since I wouldn't be needing it. I had to make room for Derek and Glen's gear plus their overnight bags. I did all of that at Publix, where I bought an apple, an orange, and a banana for my breakfast. No protein, but I figured we would be stopping for lunch sooner than later. The whole day was an earlier one. Through a couple of issues, we were a bit tardy. Uggh. I hate to be late. We were still okay for the soundcheck. It's always good to pad the time. I'm learning that for every rider, an extra 30 minutes can be a good rule of thumb. Nobody wants to be late, but everybody has their own issues.

Always good to have someone to talk to on a long trip like this one... lol, right?

One thing for sure: it was all-out beach-ready hot in Bluffton. It was a penetrating heat that made you run for shelter. It felt like late July down there, with not a cloud in the sky. We had a bit of trouble finding this Hampton Hall Clubhouse. My GPS gets me close, but not quite there. We went down a long road that seemed to lead to nowhere. It did take us to a gate that wasn't labeled as we had hoped. This keeps the riff-raff out, for sure! I guess there's another way in, but I eventually manned-up and pressed the callbox. We were allowed access and before long, we were there unloading into the ballroom. The band had been alerted to my travel woes, so our tardiness was excused. Fun stuff on the way to super-stardom! We had 4 on the front line this evening, with Johnny Collins and Tony Hightower co-fronting along with Dianna and Virginia. Tony has some incredible scat chops, which he let soar on Fly Me To The Moon. Bravo!

Dianna gave me some good photo ops, so I had to oblige. She is always an inspiration; lots of energy and raises our spirits. We performed Little Trip To Heaven (On the Wings of Your Love), Tom Waits tune from his debut album Closing Time. I recently picked that one up. Released in 1973 but recorded in '72. Hard to believe it's that old of a record - 40 years? Really? Well, we missed the Miles-infused muted trumpet noodling. Either you love the guy or you don't. I guess I'm the biggest fan of his in this band. I made a chord chart for the tune, with a little help from the net - hey, time is tight and I don't mind getting a helping hand. I'm certain I made a few adjustments and tacked on the tag at the end. The form is the same for the verses and solo. With Word, which is what I use (insert table, etc.), it's easy enough to copy and paste. I can make these relatively quickly, and they're easy to read since I use 16-point Arial font. It appears that a few of my fonts were 14-point. I occasionally make the flat symbols, which are a lower-case b (duh) 12-point font for aesthetic reasons, depending on the time. To post them, I have to convert to a pdf (easy enough from Word, provided you have Adobe Acrobat Professional) and then save that as a jpg. A little lossy but that's what the blog will allow. Oh, I keep some templates with those funny symbols (half-diminished, full diminished, and Major 7, respectively) at the bottom for ease of use. I usually delete them along with the extra bars after I have saved the final chart. So in case somebody needs it, here's my chart for the Tom Waits love song Little Trip To Heaven (On the Wings of Your Love).

Virginia rocked her costume change to perform our Lady Gaga medley. This wedding was certainly a big budget. The family was very nice to us. The whole crowd was so into our music from the opening doors, grooving to our opening jazz numbers: Herb Alpert's Rise and Grover's Just The Two of Us. They danced and reacted like they were part of a televised broadcast. People remarked later that they thought they were watching a broadway performance. I do my little part, with my two left feet back there dancing as best I can. Funny that I had my NS/Stick plus a few other basses. I try to mix it up in that regard to make it more of a show. I even broke out the Ashbory for Shout!

We ended up at this little hut across from the hotel for a late night drink, not to mention the pizza in the hotel room.
Ah, the simple pleasures of the road.