September 13, 2024

Freak Scene #31: Urojets, BUNNIES and More Unleash New Music

Discover new tunes from Urojets, Roger C. Reale, Outro, and BUNNIES in this week’s Freak Scene!

A Guide to Music in Western Mass. (and sometimes Connecticut)

What a wealth of new music we have this week in Freak Scene: not one but TWO new albums from the Urojets, some high-profile collaborations by Roger C. Reale, and new singles from Outro and BUNNIES. Let’s go:

There are challenges to recording music as a one-member band. For starters, you’re on the hook to play or sing every take of every instrument or vocal part you plan to include. Jeff Lloyd says it can be exhausting, but that didn’t stop the Urojets mastermind from releasing two albums within a week of each other this summer.

Deluxx came out July 1, followed July 7 by hot loaf #2. Though they’re collections of songs released by the same guy, who played and sang everything himself, the albums are definitely distinct. “I think the two records are like brothers,” says Lloyd, of Easthampton, who goes by Tal Vez in the album credits. “One has a girlfriend and is looking at colleges, the other is more of a wild child partying and sleeping around.”

The party animal is hot loaf #2, which comprises 11 shaggy lo-fi songs that often sound as though they could collapse in on themselves at any moment. They’re full of scabrous guitars and gleefully abrasive lyrics that Lloyd sings on multi-tracked vocals that are just enough out of sync to give the impression that he’s yowling in a room somewhere by himself. It’s kind of amazing. His narrator relates real-talk advice on “get confident, stupid” between waves of fuzzed-out guitar and muddy bass, while “box of chicks” creeps along to a slow beat and a repeating figure on banjo.

By contrast, Deluxx is the more polished album, though that’s a relative term. Maybe “mannered” is more accurate. The songs are tighter, even as many of them stretch past five minutes, with an emphasis that tilts toward hooks over chaos. All the same, Lloyd doesn’t hold back: grotty guitars go surging through “death coach, death coach,” framing sardonic lyrics that Lloyd talk-sings in conversational tones. “She’s gonna pray (the funk away)” balances heft and swagger, while thrumming bass jitters through “air trash” like someone who can’t stop bouncing their leg.

There are four covers between the two albums by artists as disparate as Daniel Johnston, Galaxie 500 and Silver Jews. Lloyd absorbs them all into his own aesthetic, which he defines in a way when he lets slip a bit of information in his own song “ballad of the jets,” on Deluxx. Airy guitars go zooming around over a beat full of splashy cymbals as he confides, “Now, the Urojets are just the voices in my head.” In the words of John Cleese from the Monty Python era, it’s better than bottling it up, innit?

Roger C. Reale Hangs With the Greats

Connecticut blues singer and songwriter Roger C. Reale has been spending time in rarified company: he’s the vocalist and a co-writer on Friendlytown, a new album from the 82-year-old Memphis guitar legend Steve Cropper. Billed as Steve Cropper & the Midnight Hour, Friendlytown also features Billy F. Gibbons of ZZ Top on guitar and a guest contribution from Queen’s Brian May on the song “Too Much Stress.”

Reale has a big, booming voice that more than holds its own among guitarists accustomed to commanding the spotlight. Reale cuts through the churn on “Hurry Up Sundown” over a Bo Diddley beat. He roars out the blues on the title track, and his bark has bite on the slinky shuffle “Talking ’Bout Politics” (“Liars, crooks and clowns!” he scoffs).

Cropper sought out Reale after hearing some songs the Connecticut singer had written and sung with Jon Tiven (a New Haven native) shortly before the pandemic. They worked together on the Grammy-nominated 2021 album Fire It Up before reconvening for Friendlytown.

Outro Embraces Joy on New Single ‘Gila’  

With a new EP due sometime this fall, Northampton quartet Outro is cranking up the anticipation by way of a new single, “Gila.” It’s a tightly constructed song packed with bristling guitars, an explosive beat and deceptively sunny vocal hooks on the chorus.

Gila | Outro

track by Outro

Though the Gila is a tributary to the Colorado River in the southwestern United States, this gila means “happiness” in Hebrew, which resonates with Outro singer and guitarist Josh Levy. “For me it’s about the elusiveness of joy, finding it and then losing it, and yearning to hold on to it and live in it as much as possible even under dire circumstances,” he wrote in an Outro email announcing the song.

The new EP will be the follow-up to last year’s full-length release The Current, which I wrote about on my pre-Freak Scene blog. Outro performs Saturday at the Marigold Theater in Easthampton, with Bellwire, the Tines and Soft Fangs. More info here.

BUNNIES Are Back With ‘Lullaby’

But not that kind of lullaby. Northampton’s BUNNIES today release “Lucky Larry's Lullaby to Lilith and Lucifer,” their first new track since 2018. The song, a swirling psychedelic number full of wah-wah guitars and contrasting high/low vocals, comes from the group’s forthcoming album Horror Spectrum.

Not only did BUNNIES commission an animated video from Zosia Kochanski, a.k.a. Wishbone Zoe (who appeared in Freak Scene #17), the group opens for Soft Machine Wednesday, Sept. 18, at the Iron Horse (info here). They’re also the only band in town to feature a serving city council member, in singer and guitarist Jeremy Macomber-Dubs.

Upcoming Concerts

This year’s Northampton Jazz Festival, dubbed “Jazz Without Borders,” happens Sept. 27-28 around downtown Northampton, with a headline performance by the Anat Cohen Quartetinho at the Academy of Music. Other acts include the Expandable Brass Band, the Downbeat, Julieta Eugenio Trio, Ize Trio, the Jeff Holmes Big Band, Arun Ramamurthy Trio, Ekep Nkwelle Quartet and Jesús Pagán y Su Orquesta. More information here.

As if two shows by Martin Sexton weren’t enough — and they clearly weren’t, because concerts on Oct. 29-30 both sold out — the singer and songwriter has added a third date at Tree House Brewery on his Abbey Road Show tour. He now performs Oct. 28 as well. More info here.

The beatboxer and musician Honeycomb performs Nov. 30 at the Drake in Amherst with Michael Wilbur and Drunken Doja Monkey; more info here.

Fantastic Shows brings Electric Eyes to the Iron Horse Sept. 29 with Les Derailleurs and Stock Goblin; info here. British rock veterans Wishbone Ash play Dec. 10 at the Iron Horse in Northampton; more info here.

If you missed Big Head Todd & the Monsters in Northampton earlier this year, the Colorado rockers are playing Jan. 23 at District Music Hall in Norwalk and Jan. 24 at College Street Music Hall in New Haven; Manic Presents has info here.

The Warehouse at FTC in Fairfield hosts Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes Dec. 6. Yacht Lobsters are there Dec. 13. Manic Presents has more information on those, too.

The excellent up-and-coming indie band Lunar Vacation plays the Space Ballroom in Hamden Feb. 14 — perfect for your lovelorn Valentine’s plans. That’s a Manic show, too.

Next week: There’s a new album from Animal Piss, It’s Everywhere, a band with a name as pungent as it is true.

Freak Scene is always seeking submissions! You can send music for coverage consideration to erdanton at gmail or reply to this email. Check out these guidelines first.

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