Well, I made it back safely from Louisville, where the Georgia Brass Band was awarded….

drumroll….

…second place.

Yeah. The Central Ohio Brass Band nipped us by 3 points out of 300 and got away with the gold. I have to admit that I was – and am – a tad disappointed that we didn’t win; but the COBB was a good band. I just thought we were better.

The two bands picked by 4BarsRest.com to finish ahead of us ended up in 5th and last, respectively. So much for the experts.

The night before the contest last Saturday, we played a concert at the Christ Church cathedral in Louisville, one of the oldest churches in Kentucky. Interestingly, we played the concert on the night before the anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. You all know who he was, right? It’s important that you do, because the interesting part is that Jefferson Davis was married in the Christ Church Cathredral in Louisville. I’m assuming that you know who he was, too. Oh – it was also Friday the thirteenth. Neato, huh?

Anyway, the concert went pretty well. Our sound was tremendous, and I hope we can play there again next year (assuming we go to NABBA again).

After the Gala Concert on Saturday (where it was announced that we were being awarded … drumroll … second place), most of the GBB went across the street to a little brewpub named the Bluegrass Brewing Company. In short order, about 4 other bands followed us there, including the Central Ohio Brass Band (you may recall that they got first by three freaking points . . . I suppose I might want to be a little more circumspect with my opinion – who knows if COBB has spies online). We all had a good time being brass bandsmen (i.e., drinking lots of microbrew beer). After a short while, a tubist friend of mine discovered that the BBC sold “growlers” – half-gallon jugs of their brews which could be transported back to our hotel.

End of BBC party. Beginning of hotel party. I believe I got to my own room somewhere around 3:00 the next morning.

Remember I told you in an earlier post that I had a gig in Atlanta on Sunday afternoon? I made it. Just barely. Fortunately, it was a pretty informal gig. My quintet played at the house of one of our trumpeters (he had a small party going on), and everyone was so amazed that there was a quintet in the neighborhood that they didn’t really care if we sounded good or not.

In other news, tomorrow is the day that Keith and Dennis move in. We’ve been getting together once or twice a week since they decided to make the move, and by and large we’re having a good time together. The housing situation should be fine.

For the last year or so, I’ve been promising the Northbrook UMC (Alpharetta, GA) that I’d play tuba in their orchestra. I promised this because 1}I like to play, and 2}I’ve been guaranteed two gigs a year (Christmas and Easter) at Northbrook since about 1991, so I figure I owe the music minister something. To his credit, his musicians and singers have improved by leaps and bounds since the early 90’s. One thing that worried me is that, if I started playing regularly with the orchestra, I wouldn’t get paid for Christmas and Easter. Last Christmas, I was assured by the church secretary/pianist/organist/flutist that I would indeed keep getting those two gigs. So I agreed to start playing with them after NABBA.

This last Sunday, I went to my first rehearsal.

Remember that sentence up there that said, “his musicians have improved…?” That apparently doesn’t apply to the regular orchestra. Oh. My. God. What have I gotten myself into? On the one hand, it’s nice to have people going gaga for your playing because they’ve never had a bass voice before. On the other hand….Oh. My. God.

But I did promise.

Last Saturday I got to hang out with some of the best musicians in the world, by the way. Really. One of the tenor horn players in the GBB had a party at his house, which I decided to go to. What he didn’t tell anyone was that he’d invited basically the entire Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to join us after they finished playing a concert – and a good number of them did. And I thought brass people could put away the beer in Louisville. The symphony people descended on the lone keg like it was an oasis. I’ve never seen 18 gallons of beer disappear so fast.

As an aside, I’ve rebuilt the GBB website. You can access it at http://GeorgiaBrassBand.com/2007. I’ve been meaning to update the site for the last 7 years, so it’s nice finally to have done so.

Got my lawn mowed last weekend, and also put in the first of two gardens that I’ll have this year. Planted cucumbers and carrots. Next weekend, I’ll try to get tomatoes and other stuff put in.

I also trimmed the holly around my deck….and sliced right through my (television) cable while doing so. Not to worry. I work for a television company. I got two of the technicians to give me a private lesson in splicing coaxial cable yesterday and had my televisions working again by about 6:30 last night.

As I’m sure I’ve bored everyone enough for one day – and as I’ve got to get to a rehearsal (we have a concert on May 8…but if you’ve already looked at the GBB site then you know that) – I guess I’ll wrap it up here.

Turtle Cakes and Lemonade? That’s what one of my helpdesk guys said to me today. “I’d love to talk, but I need to go make some Turtle Cakes and Lemonade.”

I laughed.

TWD

I always wanted to use the word “nigh,” but the opportunity just never presented itself until now.

Oh, sure. I could have said things like, “My birthday is nigh” or, “I’ve been really sick of my job for nigh onto eight years,” but let’s get real. Those things just aren’t worthy of nighness. NABBA, however, is nigh. I’m talking NIGH, babe.

Did you ever notice that after you use a word about twelve times in a very short time, it begins to look completely strange. I’m tempted to grab a dictionary now to confirm that “nigh” is a word.

Nigh nigh nigh. Nigh. Nigh.

I can’t stop typing that.

Etch-a-Sketch time for the old gray matter.

So anyway, the GBB and I had our last rehearsal last night and fortunately spent very little time on the contest pieces (for those of you in the cheap seats, those’d be The King of Elfland’s Daughter and Resurgam). We did do a late run-through, but the majority of the rehearsal was spent on a number of other pieces that we’ll be playing in concert this Friday night at a church in Louisville, KY.

Saturday afternoon, we’ll drive about 20 minutes into Indiana to compete in the North American championships at Indiana University of the South in (I think) Albany, IN. 4BarsRest, a website that tracks this sort of thing, has predicted that we’ll finish third behind the New England Brass Band and the Triangle Brass Band (Raleigh, NC). New England won the thing last year. I’m not sure why Triangle is picked to finish ahead of us – they’re a good band, but I’ve never been overly-impressed with them.

I’m not sure what the Vegas odds are.

The winners will be announced at a gala event on Saturday night, after which I’ll probably hit the road (or not), as I’ve got a gig on Sunday night with my quintet in Atlanta.

I learned last weekend that the incredible rehearsal schedule since December has actually been quite beneficial for me. I played a couple of Easter gigs on my CC tuba – which I hadn’t touched since about January – and I must say that I kicked butt. Not back to college form, but I’m definitely better than I was when we started ramping up for the competition last December.

In other news, Maria is now firmly entrenched at Fort Bragg (I’m assuming that she’s not planning any sort of putsch against the government) and I have indeed lined up two guys to replace her as my roommates. Dennis Hamilton and Keith Ackerman have been in my circle of associates since the early 90’s and they’re scheduled to move in on April 25th. While “working” from home today, I managed to shampoo the carpets and clean out both guestrooms so that everything’s ready for them.

I also cut a hole in the bottom of my bedroom door so that I can close the door and the cats can still go in and out. They drove me crazy when Maria was here. Everytime I closed my door, the cats went crazy either trying to get in or trying to get out. So I ended up propping the door open with a sneaker while holding it shut with a box of towels. It was annoying.

A week or two ago, I bought a new refrigerator. My old one came with the house (8 years ago), and never worked right; so when I got my bonus I splurged and bought a great big brand new one. I must divulge that I got it for $600 off because it had a paint scratch. The horror.

The coolest part about it is that it’s got a beer rack built into it. I mean a soda rack.

Get it? I said “the coolest part” in reference to a refrigerator. Ha!

At this point, I have nothing more to say. This is what we call, “A boring life – nigh to pathetic.”

TWD