Hello from sunny Annapolis, Maryland! I'm in town for a friend's wedding, but wanted to check in to tell a quick story.
Yesterday, I took the day off of work to drive down for the festivities. But earlier in the week, Matt Dallow, who has booked me to play with Sunnyside Social Club before, reached out because his friend Misha Savage was looking for a tuba player for the weekend. I wound up connecting with the guy, mostly to introduce myself, and he asked if I was available on Friday morning at 9am.
Normally, there's no way I could do that -- day job and all -- but since I had already taken the day off for travel, I jumped at it.
Misha didn't have charts, but he did send a setlist the night before. So I listened through each tune two or three times, and tried to learn the funk bass lines -- making liberal use of any bass tabs I could find online.
At silly o'clock in the morning on Friday, I packed up my sousaphone got on the subway. I was listening to the playlist the whole way there. Just before 9am, I met Misha (for the first time) at an elementary school in Bushwick.
Why an elementary school? The kids have state math testing next week, so the teachers were giving them a "Math Pep Rally" -- complete with a hype band and a math obstacle course -- to get them motivated.
It was me, Misha on guitar, and a drummer. We played two tunes -- Simon Says (without the lyrics) and Pass the Peas. And then we were done. I was out of there by 10am and on the road.
Nice to knock out an early gig like that on a Friday morning.