Platinum Entertains at Capital City Club Alongside Rock-N-Ride

First of all, I got my turntable up and running this past Saturday morning, finally.  It wasn't packed well (SKB - Shoulda Known Better) and so it wasn't operating upon arrival.  I decided to try to repair it myself.  I finally figured it out, after leaving it alone for a bit.  All it took was one washer to level the platter.  Let's hope that's it, 'cause now it's too late to return it...  I played a nice guitar album and it made it all the way through.  Very distorted at first, until I learned of the "line/phono" switch in the back;  it was on "line" and I was plugged into the phono input (thus utilizing the premap on my Denon receiver).  Modern issues.  Old phonographs did not have that problem.  Once I switched that, it was crystal clear and warm/fat/analog heaven!  Next I need to connect it to my PC via the USB cable so I can rip a record - funny to type that!  Old friends remember my big ol' collection of vinyl - still have a bunch of it.

Rock-N-Ride was going on downtown adjacent to the fine Capital City Club, making for a potentially tumultuous commute and load in.  It turned out to be okay.  Peachtree Street (yes, THE Peachtree Street) was closed, but the police let me through the barricades to enter the driveway of the club.  We had a few things to go over, most notably my vocal turn at Sting's Fields of Gold.  I practiced singing it several times as the week went on after reading V's email concerning who would sing it...  I almost memorized the words. In fact, I'm on somewhat of a mission to do away with the charts on stage.  During the soundcheck, I gave it my best.  We were all a bit uncertain of the form.  It's a bit strange but it does make sense if you plot it out: begins with the vamp on Bm, after the 1st verse it returns to Bm, after the 2nd it goes to the tonic D, after the 3rd Bm, after the 4th D, then the bridge G, last 2 verses it goes to the D.  Not so bad, it's those pesky Bm vamps that fool us.  I almost had those lyrics memorized, I just needed those reference lines to get me through.  I guess I wasn't spectacular; nobody said anything about my attempts.  Nothing.  How nice.  Well, if you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all.  I really gave it my best and tried in vain to sing strongly and with some emotion.  The song really speaks to me in a way that it probably doesn't to others.  I find it to be a brilliant 3 minute pop ballad in a very classical sense: the repetitive imagery, the musical pauses that give the story time to develop, the cool minor 11 nylon string voicings, the lower range of his voice, the sedate drum pattern played by Vinnie C. (! - that alone is worth the price of admission, if you know what Mr. Colaiuta is capable of), I may think of more down the road.  I just like to sing and aspire to try a simple song like that once in a while - that's all!  I thought it came out nicely - my own opinion.  I didn't choke and didn't get too self conscious.  All of the sudden it was time to do it; I was wearing the NS WAV (a new trick, strapping it on - no jokes, please - before slipping the jacket on over the strap.  A clean look considering the hardware involved to wear this beast!  Consequently, I couldn't switch fast enough to the J bass.  I played the song on the WAV and it was nice.

My only chart for the night!

As you can see, I need some help editing my photo uploads!  I just decided all of this was too good to keep to myself!  The one with Kevin over my shoulder makes me laugh just thinking about it!  We had some time to kill, so that's how I dealt with it all.  Glen tried to come to my rescue and he took that artsy angled pose of me - thanks G-Clef!  You are a musical wonder, all that info you keep in your cranium!

We had a real good gig with people dancing on virtually every song, even the first ones after the featured dances.  Made a medley out of Start Me Up --> Hurts So Good.  That Stones song gets so much mileage out of that one riff and then just playing those chords over and over.  Funny how the chorus sounds different but it's just the same chords as the verse, without the Bb (in our case A as we drop it down a half step).  So, what I was especially proud of was that I did the gig (other than the Sting tune) without my music stand - no charts!  We even did On Green Dolphin Street (in E flat) and I had those changes memorized.  Yay for me!  I'm going to try extra hard to not utilize my book in the future.  Been working on some of those nutty tunes (Last Dance is one I thought I would never get in my head, but I'm real close).  I'll always have to bring it, as we know so many and I guess anything could be called at any moment.  We are given the setlist ahead of time so that does help a lot!  My J bass sounded sublime after the darkness of the WAV.  It makes me wonder why I bother with all of those others I bring out.  I'm liking my "synth" patch on the Boss ME-50B utilizing the square wave setting, with the 4 pots at 12 o'clock.  It's not as chewy as the other "synth" settings but still nice and springy.

Gus is close to losing his cast and starting on the physical therapy.  His double kick pedal was in full effect at any rate.  We had Anton, of course, and he rapped on Good Feeling - did it well but then I couldn't really hear him.  His little keyboard really sounds dope; nice to have 2 keyboardists once in a while.  He got with me a couple of times, as he's wireless also.  Fun!  Derek was his usual bad-a** self, shredding all over the joint.  Glen had to sing a lot, but he nailed that high note during the break on Shout!  The front line of Kevin, Virginia, and Lexxi were laughing and having the best time.  Lexxi did great on the first dance of  This Will Be (An Everlasting Love), Virginia sang a beautiful rendition of Adele's version of Bob Dylan's Make You Feel My Love, and Kevin led us through a fine version of Brown Eyed Girl (sorry Kevin, I can't remember what new tune you were on this time out)!  Dianna was hanging out at the end - great to see her and she was her usual good-natured self. Oh yeah, DJ was there.  He doesn't hang with us during the breaks so sometimes I forget that he's the 9th member.  Great sound from him, but no subs so I was not in the system.  No worries - my amp wasn't even pushed to the max like on some of the shows.

We hit it again next weekend in Asheville, somewhere on the Biltmore Estates rambling campus, so we'll catch up after that!

1st Day of Summer: A "Brown Bag" Wine Tasting at Java Monkey with TAAG + 2

It was a nice warm evening, not too sticky just yet;  perfect for another round of neo-mainstream jazz with The Adrian Ash Group holding court on the Java Monkey patio stages.  Nice work if you can get it, indeed! Days like this, the day after the summer solstice, are certainly inspirational.  With the wine tasting being a brown bag affair, what you see is what you get!  That's what we offered as well;  Adrian and I were joined by the guitar wizard Randy Honea and saxophonist William Hollifield.  On this occasion, the results were bold and forward-thinking, yet surprisingly straight ahead.

I hadn't met William before.  He's a tenor terror, no doubt - gotta check him out if (when) you get the chance.  He knew everything we called and more.  Highlights included a terrifically straight-ahead All the Things You Are.  It's funny how on that tune, no matter who I'm with, we want to trade fours after the solos.  With it's slightly odd form, the bars turn themselves around and then the drummer is playing over the first four measures on the second go-round.  I always find that a bit unsettling, but we usually just keep on going.  In this case, we let Adrian continue alone the second time through.  William had a great, warm tone and an adventurous melodic sense;  never straying too far from the tonal barrier that outlines our mission: presenting jazz to the great unwashed and unsuspecting masses of Decatur.  He even quoted me (my puny phrase was echoed back to me - that's about the coolest thing that's happened to me since the last time somebody quoted my lonesome lick!) - no mean feat, I was slow and steady, with not much in intentional "outsidedness" going on.  It was surprising that he did it, at any rate.  These young lions with their big ears!  His set-ups of the tunes were a great lesson in composition;  wonderful miniature exercises in coyness around the melody and playful jabs at the harmonic heart of the piece.  Yeah, that's it!

Randy - I'm always trying to figure out what he's playing and how he's doing it!  I think I overheard William posing the question of "Metheny or Scofield?" to Randy, which his reply was "Scofield."  Perhaps "Sco" with a twist of "Frisell" for added zest.  He gets this shimmering Leslie rotating speaker kind of patch with his vintage Line 6 Pod setup that keeps the comping tight yet washes over all of the upper partials until we're ready to come back down to earth for the restating of the head.  It's a beautiful sound to check out..  I want to be him when I grow up!  Adrian keeps our energy going throughout, calling the tunes and pushing me to stay on the front of the beat.  He has chops galore, and a strong sense of forward momentum.  I always wonder what he's thinking, as he is a bassist.  His solos build in such a logical fashion.  A great benefit to be able to play another instrument (or 2 or 3, actually).

Another tune that we don't play enough but was a stellar call: Equinox - how appropriate, and I didn't even put it together that we had just experienced the solstice.  How come nobody, I mean nobody, wants to play it in C#m?  Well, I get it.  It's a weird key.  That was indeed the key that Trane wrote it in.  He wasn't afraid, was he?  I mean, Giant Steps is in B (or is it Eb?).  Like Red Clay being in C#m also.  It's all the Real Book's fault, I tell you!  Aside from my silly concerns, it was a fine moment where we met with the crowd for a fertile celebration of modal minor blues.  Nobody was harmed during our gig.  Even the policeman coming through didn't give us any flak - noise ordinances only occur when there is noise!

Sunday Church Service at Mt. Pisgah in Johns Creek

Crawled into bed, let's say a 5:30 am, after getting Spencer up to go potty.  The truth is, it was more like 5:45.  Had 2 alarms set for 6:50, so it was about an hour of real sleep.  Hey, happy father's day to me!  Had to be at Mt. Pisgah United Methodist Chruch for an 8:00 am rehearsal.  I was looking forward to meeting up with an old comrade Tom Knight.  I haven't spoken or seen him since he found great success playing with Atlanta's own http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TLC_(band) (very informative wiki site - Sabina bought CrazySexyCool back in the day, so I am duly impressed!  he's done countless other sessions along the way, including recordings with the great young bassist Adam Nitti.  Tom always held himself up to a higher level.  I distinctly remember him practicing in GSU's Music Building (circa 1990) Room 300, where the big band and many of the combos rehearsed.  he would play to a Dave Weckl play-along cassette tape (maybe it was cd back then, I guess it would make more sense)!  He was getting through it, minute by minute.  We had a "band" called The Stud Muffins: Sam Skelton: tenor sax 9sorry to incriminate you, Roomie!);  Tom McGill: bass guitar;  Tom Knight: drums;  and myself on guitar!  Yes, of course I was mainly a guitarist back in the day.  We had a most happening repertoire (the sky was the limit with Sam, it was just however the rest of us could hang that gave the public our music...).  We used to play Mike Stern's Chromazone (dig that, I hung in there for the most part).  This YouTube version is killin' - the album was what we were going off, which is understandably slower.  The album version has Bob Berg playing but with a righteous Michael Brecker solo that will tear your head off!  So New York, you'll be worn out and have the itch to just hang in your parlor and do nothin' after you dig what he throws down.  You know, I can't find it on youtube just now - it's on "Time and Place" (cool bass transcription here, along with that live with Berg video hosted once again).  The big marketplace displays it here.  Worth reaching into your pocket for that last track, plus Gossip has another nut-flinching Brecker throwdown.  No Notice and After All are also killer tracks.  I digress, we played a few times as a quartet.  It is still my top brush with greatness encounter!  How's that for progress?  Just kidding.  I knew Sam & Tom would be eclipsing me in the near future.  Maybe that's why I wanted to play bass more.  I could stand a chance down the road.  What I would consider giving for a picture of us back in those "early '90's GSU" days...

The gig went well, although it could have been more smooth.  Tim Johnson, aka TJ, the leader was excellent, and very detail oriented.  The rhythm section read their charts off of iPads.  Mine was low on charge and skipped pages at random - Tom was my witness!  He had a cool iPad mount for his drum area.  I gave up on the iPad and tried to put together all of the paper charts; opend the folder and all of the music that had been in the left pocket fell to the floor!  Crackers!  During the break, we went downstairs to sit in Tim's office.  I was trying to find a writing utensil to fill out my tax info for payment.  I rested and chatted with the crew, sipping on a cold water of Tim's that tasted better than anything should.  Then I realized I needed to get the paperwork done.  Found a pencil in the office next door and wrote down all of my info.  Then I noted that I was alone down here - oh no!  They've all darted back upstairs!  I get up there and heard them going through the opening of the second service.  Blimey!  The walk of shame to me to my seat, where I tried in vain to find the charts on the iPad.  After the first tune, Tom tried as well.  We couldn't do it, and it was low on charge anyways, with no extension cord to plug in the charger.  I had to read off the paper charts.  A sad occurrence that tainted the gig.  Still, it was rather tremendous, the dynamics and power of this mighty band!  I got past the negative stuff and enjoyed the music.  I was in awe for many of the numbers.  What a great gig to have every Sunday.  Maybe one day.

Horn player conducted some of the more complex numbers -
he cuts the checks too, so gotta play the right notes!

Tom Knight in his element.  I'm not worthy!

Plugged into a Super Redhead.  Nice tone for my monitoring pleasure.

TJ

No touchups here - not too bad considering the night I had just endured!

It was Father's Day - after lunch at my Father-in-law's, the boys and I made it out to see Madagascar 3.
Check out Spencer the penguin!

Saturday - Off To Brasstown Valley Resort with Sweetwater Junction

Up early to ready the fem-car for Sabina's blueberry picking excursion over the South Carolina border with the boys and her co-worker Nancy.  The dvd player gave me a scare but worked just fine after relocating the power plug to the front - is there an issue with the mid compartment outlet?  I was quite bleary-eyed, as I had foolishly taken my time getting out of the door the night before, and then consequently basement surfing when I got home.  Silly middle-aged man who never learns the value of sleep...

Sweetwater Junction on this occasion is the standard road weary line up of Brian Molin, Chris Garner, Mark Letalien, and Dan Barker, along with myself.  Brian gets us there and back with no issues - a good time in his trusty hands.  Killer guitar chops at will, ready to slay or smolder.  Chris has the impeccable voice and is a great guitarist as well, acoustic flavor much needed on some of the songs.  Mark is always working the groove, laying down a deep pocket for me to tag along, a sonic hammock if you will.  Dan brings a lot to the band.  I enjoy his 3 keyboard setup, his cool sounds he gets, the way he ends up standing for much of the set, and his good natured hangability.  We made the most of occasion with good camradarie!  Had the opportunity to ride with Mark - shoulda woulda coulda!  Rode with Brian, as he had rented the big van and we needed to practice some harmonizing, which we did.  Only problem there was, Brian rocks the mighty mackie powered mixer with a whopping 8 (count 'em - 8) XLR inputs.  This meant that Dan would be without a vocal mic, and he was singing his parts really well in the van.  It also compromised some other sound issues, like Brian's guitar amp not going through the PA.  Easily solved by turning the amp up to 11 (or 10.5).

Played adjacent to the golf course where I'd been before.  Had to load the gear into carts as they wouldn't allow a trailer down the path.  Other bands have ruined that practice with their careless driving, destroying the Our dances we prepared for certainly set the tone for the festive celebration: Grateful Dead's Shakedown Street;  James Taylor's Shower the People;  Nat King Cole's L-O-V-E;  and the parting song for the end of  the night: Grateful Dead's And We Bid You Goodnight, an a capella/hippie folk ditty/sort of Amazing Grace type spiritual.  The crowd was very appreciative as we eased into the night with our light jazz: Freddie Freeloader;  All Blues (in 4);  Just Friends;  Chitlins Con Carne;  great weather and good stuff for the cocktail hour.  Folks giving us props even as we were still in the midst of the slow stuff.  The dance stuff came quickly after dinner - hippie but oldies for the folks footing the bill.  Gave them a lot of music, as the speeches were short.  Got out of there late, after consuming too many Krispy Kreme donuts (hey, so glad they weren't Dunkin' Donuts)!  Back home in time to catch a few zzz's before a church service in the early morn.

Do you see this view?

String quartet during ceremony and just afterwards.

Detail of string quartet -  great expression that is silently saying "Eat shit bass boy!"

Dan getting down on All Blues.

A rare shot of me from a distance!

Dan & Mark, kicking back.