Even the guys in Pallet would admit that practice never made them perfect per se. But in their nearly two decades of peddling their patented amalgam of quirky pop and punk, they always sounded tight, made new fans nightly and certainly had fun.
According to founding member/singer Jay Tarrant, however, lack of a practice space may just have been the straw that broke the veteran outfit’s proverbial back.
“We practiced in this old factory building in downtown Holyoke for over 10 years,” Tarrant explains. “It was like a second home to us, and fans would just show up from time to time. I guess they are converting it into some computer education facility… all I know is, losing the space really had a snowball effect on us.”
While Tarrant confesses he is not in a position to unilaterally declare Pallet perished in any official capacity, he is quick to note that the fact that he “wrote and sang” the lion’s share of the tunes would seem an insurmountable obstacle in terms of the remaining members continuing.
For the first time in his musical career, Jay Tarrant will front a band that is not Pallet when his Odds of Eden (featuring former members of Rise, Clip and Ciderhouse, among others) debuts at Headquarters in Agawam this Saturday, May 14.
“The funny thing is, Headquarters was the sight of what I guess was the last Pallet show, back in October of 2010,” Tarrant recalls with a chuckle. “Maybe someone is trying to tell me to begin where I left off.”
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In other news, Valley native Eric Holden checked in to report that he was recently holding court at the home of that other really bad guy who was killed in recent years.
“I just finished a tour of Iraq and Kuwait—playing for the troops with Vertical Horizon—and yeah, it was amazing,” Holden states. “We met tons of great soldiers, had the bases we were staying at attacked by mortar fire twice and even stayed at one of Saddam’s old palaces in Baghdad.”
A rapidly impending flight to Milan prevented our e-interview from going any further, but Holden did reveal that is providing the rumbling bass bottom for an internationally re-knowned hip-shaker of note in the weeks to come.
“Shakira is a new gig for me, so I don’t have too many stories yet,” he says of the tour that will take him to 16 countries by June 14 and include Rock In Rio and a DVD filming in Paris. “Other than that, I’m looking forward to coming home to promote the new American Music For Gypsy Souls CD that I just finished.”
To monitor all things Eric Holden, visit his website—www.basstracks.org—regularly.
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Waxing nostalgic: Hometown hero Aaron Lewis (aaronlewismusic.com) performs one of his most intimate local solo shows in years this Wednesday, May 11, when he sets up shop at the Yankee Candle Flagship store in South Deerfield. While this show will focus on Lewis’ breakthrough country release, Town Line, the “Country Boy” himself is quick to note that he has no intentions of forsaking either his rock roots or the bandmates who helped get his name on the marquee.
“We’re about two-thirds of the way through [the new Staind record], and it’s the heaviest record or collection of songs we have written in a long time,” he recently told Billboard. The genre-jumping singer went on to explain that the culmination of his country tour and the current studio work with Staind has actually helped to “unblur” the lines between what to expect from him in years to come.
“The songs I used to bring on the mellower side will now be the embodiment of my solo career, and Staind can stick to doing the heavier things,” he concluded.
Send correspondence to: Nightcrawler, PO Box 427, Somers, CT 06071; fax to (860) 394-4262 or email: Garycarra@aol.com.
