Freak Scene #59: The Lucky Shots Team Up on 'Second Tongue'
Plus, Michael Larocca proffers a lot of drums, and this weekend's James Velvet tribute concert.
A Guide to Music in Western Mass. (and sometimes Connecticut)
This week in Freak Scene, Western Mass. band the Lucky Shots are back with their most collaborative album yet, and Connecticut free improvisation drummer Michael Larocca tests the bounds of their abilities on a new solo album for drums.
When we last heard from the Lucky Shots, on the 2024 EP Hunter’s Heart, bandleader Noam Schatz played most of the instruments himself, with an assist from his mixing/producing partner Hamilton Meir. The Western Mass. band takes a more collaborative approach on new album Second Tongue.
“This record is the first time I've taken my excellent live band into the studio, and I couldn't be more pleased with the music that has emerged,” Schatz says by email.
It’s a full-circle kind of move, given that Schatz first assembled the band — Anand Nayak on guitar, vocals and “sunths”; Jim Bliss on bass; and Mike Benoit on drums — to back him up onstage. With a growing collection of songs as a result of a songwriting game that Schatz plays with friends (they take turns suggesting songwriting prompts every two weeks, which they’ve been doing since 2016), he brought in the full Lucky Shots lineup to flesh out some of them.
“For this record, we worked out the songs with the band, recorded them live together in the order they appear, and then Anand Nayak (my other mixing/producing partner) helped me with overdubs, insane lead guitar, and fine harmonies, and he mixed the whole thing into a tasty enchilada,” Schatz says.
That’s all well and good, but writing a song every two weeks for going on nine years equals [sets up abacus for some number crunching], well, a lot of songs. Second Tongue contains 10 tracks, which meant narrowing down the options. Fortunately, Schatz came up with a system.
“At one point I noticed that I had written a few songs that seemed to be pairs, one called ‘Night and Day,’ about mutual co-arising of opposites, and one called ‘Day and Night,’ about the persistence required in day to day living. There was one called ‘She Came Here to Find You,’ and then I referenced that in a song that was called ‘I Came Here to Find Her,’” Schatz says. “Soon, a sort of balanced structure of songs crystallized in my mind, with the songs both reflecting their counterparts on the other side and also forwarding a loose theme of maturation from the first song to the last.”
The results are striking on tracks that are tight and vibrant. Punchy guitars propel “She Came Here to Find You” (by contrast, “I Came Here to Find Her” has a funkier edge, augmented by vocals harmonies from Schatz and Nayak). “I Hope You Do” sounds ebullient, with a chorus that glides upward on vocal harmonies, as if the Lucky Shots are taking flight on the strength of their own optimism. There’s a swiftly flowing polyrhythmic thing happening on “Night and Day” that makes it impossible to sit still, while “Bitter Pill” has a barroom-blues feel that comes complete with fat-tone guitar leads.
What really sets Second Tongue apart, though, is the sense throughout of collaboration among the musicians. As compelling as Hunter’s Heart was, the Lucky Shots’ latest benefits from musicians in a room, listening and reacting to each other in a way that elevates the four of them, and their music, too.
Michael Larocca Lets Imagination Roam on ‘Physical’
If two hours of free improvisation drumming sounds like a lot of drums, that’s because it is a lot of drums. Yet on Michael Larocca’s new album Physical, the 16 tracks (plus one piece for piano) become a sort of odyssey, a journey through a world of limitless rhythmic possibilities.
“I was just trying to put out a larger scale solo record where I could incorporate different approaches and even different ‘styles’ of solo playing on the drums,” says Larocca, who also plays in the New Haven free improvisation group Bookers (who we learned about in Freak Scene #50), the emo band Foxtails and runs an improvisation series in Willimantic.
On Physical, those approaches manifest as numbered tracks ranging from less than three minutes to more than 15 minutes as Larocca charts his way through shifting tempos and patterns, all of which he created in the moment. Snapping snare drum here gives way to staccato fluttering on cowbell, or hand percussion on one track yields on the next to pinging cymbals and tom-toms that thump like popcorn in bloom. Motifs emerge and suggest, in a liminal way, arrangements that could accompany them. Sometimes, the tracks are simply meditative drumscapes in which to lose yourself.
The piano etude closes Physical with a few minutes of somber chords that serve as a melodic counterpoint to all the rhythm that came before. It’s an unexpected end cap to one drummer’s adventurous exploration of the far reaches of their own imagination.
This Weekend: James Velvet Tribute Concert in Woodbridge
More than a dozen Connecticut bands gather Sunday, March 30, at New England Brewing in Woodbridge to pay tribute to James Velvet, a mainstay of the New Haven-area music scene, who died in 2015.
Performers include the High Lonesome Plains, the Nortons, the Johnnybirds, Big Band Johns and the Shellye Valauskas Experience. The concert happens in conjunction with James: A James Velvet Tribute, a new 24-track album of Velvet’s songs recorded by acts including Reale Wolfe, Christine Ohlman & Jim Chapdelaine, the Furors, the Jellyshirts, American Elm, Frank Critelli, Shandy Lawson, the Sawtelles and all the artists listed above who are performing Sunday.
Doors open at noon, music starts at 1 p.m. If you’re going, have a Sea Hag for me.
Upcoming Concerts
Josh Ritter & the Royal City Band, Amy Helm, Steve Poltz and Viv & Riley perform at this year’s Arcadia Folk Festival Aug. 23 at Mass Audobon’s Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Easthampton (tickets). In addition, this year’s version will include a performance by yet-to-be-announced artists Aug. 22 at the Academy of Music in Northampton.
Tree House Brewing in South Deerfield brings Michael Franti & Spearhead for two shows July 8-9 (tickets), a return engagement by Jeff Tweedy July 24 (tickets), the Dead South Aug. 12 (tickets), Ani DiFranco and Hurray for the Riff Raff Aug. 27 (tickets) and Trombone Shorty Sept. 16 (tickets).
The Iron Horse in Northampton hosts Food House with Folie in a late show May 10 (tickets), Session Americana May 14 (tickets), Australian country musician Kasey Chambers July 5 (tickets) and Danny Klein’s Full House July 12 (tickets).
The Drake in Amherst brings Frente Cumbiero May 17 with Mica Farías Gómez (tickets).
Westville Music Bowl in New Haven presents CAAMP June 18 (tickets) and a coheadline date with the Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse Aug. 8 (tickets).
Coming to the Space Ballroom in Hamden, Conn.: Similar Kind June 7 (tickets), William Elliott Whitmore July 17 (tickets) and Shonen Knife Sept. 23 (tickets).
Infinity Music Hall in Hartford presents the Rebirth Brass Band June 13 (tickets), Spyro Gyra June 15 (tickets) and Suzanne Vega June 17 (tickets).
The influential, deeply anti-capitalist post-punk band Gang of Four, now featuring Ted Leo on guitar, perform April 18 at the Westport Library, in the fifth-richest town in Connecticut, which sounds like one of those unstoppable force-meets-immovable-object scenarios. Tickets are here.
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