Freak Scene #95: Joshua David Thayer Finds His Voice
Plus, Northampton band the Lucky Shots have changed their name after their luck took a turn
A Guide to Music in Western Mass. (and sometimes Connecticut)
This week in Freak Scene, Joshua David Thayer tells us about his progression from supporting player to frontman, while Noam Schatz had to change his his band’s name to the Unlucky Shots for reasons he explains below.
Joshua David Thayer chuckles at the notion that he is a frontman. “A frontman for a project of one,” the Hadley native cracks. All the same, that’s Thayer singing songs that he wrote on So Little, Close to Nothing, so it counts.
It’s a relatively new role for Thayer, who spent a long time in more of a supporting part as the bassist in the Northampton indie band Fancy Trash (and in his high school group Love Minus Zero before that). After a decade-long break from music, though, he returned to playing and writing and soon found himself with a stockpile of songs that became his first album on his own, It Will Still Keep Feeling Rough. Released last year, it was a cathartic record as Thayer processed the death of his father and the loss of his job, and it left him looking forward to the next project.
“With the first record, when I started feeling like, ‘Oh, I think I’m making a thing,’ I didn’t really have any identity whatsoever as a songwriter, singer, performer on my own,” says Thayer, who left Fancy Trash in 2008, then and moved to Medford. “This record, in a lot of ways, is more about starting to own that identity, trying to figure out, like, if I am someone who makes my own stuff, what does it become? The first record felt a lot like it was compelled from outside hands, like it sort of happened almost without me, a lot of ways. And this record, I think, is more intentional.”
The result is 10 new songs spanning different sounds. There’s the bold, surging alt-rock of opener “We Won’t Relent,” a mix of synths, taut guitars and effects-treated vocals on “Pick Up the Fight” and a rootsier feel to the blend of guitars and ukulele on “The Cave.” Thayer played most of the instruments himself, though there are a few guests: Fancy Trash’s Jason Smith played drums on the album, while the song “Get Down” features Tracy Grammer on violin, Michael McLaughlin on accordion, Silas Hite on mandolin and his Love Minus Zero bandmates Aaron Muller, Chris Hewat and Peter Muller on backing vocals.
Throughout So Little, Close to Nothing, Thayer is exploring ideas about what matters in our lives and what we will leave behind, on songs are considered, catchy and show an experimental tendency that reflects Thayer’s approach to making music in his basement studio, bit by bit in the limited amount of time he has while also raising two young kids and the various other day-to-day obligations of a husband and father.
“When I’m picking what to do, it's mostly driven just by instinct,” Thayer says. “And if something inspires a thought and I can catch it, what's supposed to happen next? Like, ‘OK, cool, that's a thing. Now, if I add another thing, there's a new gestalt there. What is that? What is that asking for?”
Thayer came back to music around 2019 when a friend who is an independent filmmaker needed a few pieces of music for a project. Thayer asked if he could give it a try.
“I had just got a new guitar and I had always been curious about that kind of thing,” Thayer says. “And I just futzed around a little bit and made some clips and send them to them. That kind of got me interested in, like, ‘OK, cool, recording is fun, and let me do some more stuff.”
Though he’s now released two albums just a little more than a year apart, Thayer hopes to pick up the pace.
“I'm just here in my all alone in the basement trying to make things,” he says. “Our time is limited, and I've started this piece late, relatively speaking, at 50. So, yeah, I just want to move fast and get stuff out there as I can.”
The (Un)Lucky Shots Are Back After a Brief Outage
Here’s a cautionary tale: Northampton musician Noam Schatz had to change the name of his band after a California group with the same name filed a trademark claim with various digital music services and got Schatz’s group removed from all of them — without ever reaching out to Schatz. His group is back online now as the Unlucky Shots.
“So here’s the story: we used to be called the Lucky Shots. Then we found out there’s another group using that name, out west, apparently, where the sun is bright, the egos are large and cease-and-desist emails grow wild and free,” Schatz wrote on the band’s website. “While they’ve been busy trademarking nouns, we’ve been busy making music. Still, rather than waste more energy arguing with strangers over who’s luckier, we decided to skip the drama and go full truth-in-advertising: We are now The Unlucky Shots™.”
Wouldn’t you know it, the Sacramento band that got Schatz’s group kicked off the internet isn’t the only Lucky Shots still out there: there’s a band in Athens by the same name, too. How long does it take for a cease-and-desist to cross the Atlantic and be translated?
This next part is important: there are a fair number of bands in in Western Mass. and Connecticut that share a name with another group somewhere else. In fact, this is essentially how Amherst trio Dinosaur Jr. acquired the “Jr.” following the release of their second album, You’re Living All Over Me, in 1987. They started out as Dinosaur, until a California band called Dinosaurs, comprising leftovers from San Francisco’s late-’60s psychedelic scene, sued them. In Schatz’s words, “To my creative friends out there, take steps to secure your name and intellectual property sooner rather than later. You can’t rely on the other person to be nice about it.”
The Unlucky Shots play their first show under that name tonight, Friday, Dec. 5, at Luthier’s Co-op in Easthampton, with Jim Egan and the Whodunnits.
Upcoming Concerts
The Back Porch Festival has lined up an impressive slate of “Ramble” performers for next year’s incarnation, happening March 27-29 in Northampton: Chuck Prophet & His Cumbia Shoes (who were fantastic earlier this year at the Iron Horse), James McMurtry, Margaret Glaspy, the Rebirth Brass Band, Tommy Prine, Low Cut Connie, the Mammals, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, Winterpills, Mark Erelli, Maya de Vitry and more. Information about the lineup so far, and tickets, is here.
For those of you who really like planning ahead, former Ashfield resident Ray LaMontagne plays Sept. 23 Symphony Hall in Springfield as part of his tour for the 20th anniversary of Trouble, his breakthrough album (tickets).
The Academy of Music in Northampton hosts the wonderful, eccentric Jonathan Richman March 6 (tickets). He’s also at the Space Ballroom in Hamden March 10-11 (tickets for the first show, the second show and both). Richman fronted the Modern Lovers in the 1970s, though he may be more familiar to many as the singer with the guitar in the 1998 Farrelly Brothers comedy There’s Something About Mary. Either way, Richman last summer released his umpteenth album, Only Frozen Sky Anyway.
Some Perennial news: first, Freak Scene’s favorite modernist punk trio plays this Saturday, Dec. 6, in Mahar Auditorium on the UMass campus, with Gut Health and Rednave (music at 7:30; donations at the door). Also, they’re opening for Deer Tick Dec. 30 at the Iron Horse (tickets), where the headliner had better bring their A game.
The Iron Horse also hosts singer-songwriter Jake Xerxes Fussell with Dougie Poole Feb. 13 (tickets), Cherish the Ladies March 9 (tickets), Jon Pousette-Dart in an acoustic duo with West Hartford’s Jim Chapdelaine June 6 (tickets) and British post-punk band the Mekons June 10 (tickets).
Dark synthwave band Dance With the Dead play April 27 with Magic Sword at the Drake in Amherst (tickets).
Metal band August Burns Red plays College Street Music Hall April 11 with Boundaries and Dreamwake (tickets).
Folk-rockers Mt. Joy play Westville Music Bowl Sept. 22 (tickets).
THat’s all for this week — thank you for reading! If you like what you’ve seen, please share. Also, I’m always open to submissions. You can send music for coverage consideration to erdanton at gmail or reply to this email. Check out these guidelines first.
Freak Scene is free, but donations help make this happen, and are gratefully accepted. Previous issues are available in the online archive.
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