John Hancotte's Bass Desires: 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.