Thursday, June 17, 2010

Scott Damgaard and The Wayoutz

This article was in the April 2004 Medford Transcript





THE WAYOUTZ REUNITE


By Joe Viglione

Medford's Lenny Scoletta is drummer in the psychedelic band "The Wayoutz" and has lived in this city all of his forty eight years. A former board member of Medford's TV3, Scoletta is known in collector circles for bringing music to various conventions like the
Merrimac Valley Music Collector's Show in Chelmsford
and the Randolph Music Record & Compact Disc expo.

The former proprietor of a Malden record store, Instant Replay, from 1977 until about 1982, Lenny moved the enterprise to another Malden Square location in 1984 naming the shop "Grooves". " I got robbed and had no insurance so i had to close" the musician told The Medford Transcript.

In between his work as a videographer and record retailer, Scoletta has another life - that of a rock and roll drummer. He played with Boston folk/rock legend Ron Scarlett, but is better known as member of his own group, the very 60s influenced Wayoutz.

The Wayoutz are a real find - a true diamond in the rough. Their only album, "Something Now", features titles like "Baby It's Raining Millionaires", "Last Remaining Girl In Massachusetts", and the exquisite science fiction epic "Galaxies Away", which has
garnered some airplay on 91.5 FM, Medford's WMFO. The
record mysteriously slipped under the door of the radio station back around 2000 also features an excellent version of the Lennon/McCartney classic "And Your Bird Can Sing".

Bassist Tom "Spanky" Abbott lives in Woburn while "spacey" rhythm guitarist Scott "Scooby" Damgaard is from East Boston. Lead guitarist Richard Mirsky used to live in Medford beford heading out to the Norwood area. The group formed around 1981 when Tom and Lenny's previous group dissolved. "I saw an ad in the Phoenix that a band was looking for a bassist & drummer so I told Tom about it & we did the audition" Scoletta notes on The Wayoutz' formation. "I got my first kit when I was in middle school around 1968" the drummer told the Transcript. "I had a fractured collarbone at the time so it took awhile for me to actually learn how to play them. Then I learned mostly by ear." On his stint at TV 3: I was on the board about (sometime around) 1988-1989. I did a lot of public access TV shows in those days - many are
still repeated on TV3, so i still get recognized around the city from the "Frankie Fabulous Show" or whatever."

When asked about one of the band's most fun nights Scoletta replied: "One night we were playing in a club in Cambridge that's no longer there & the former guitarist Sam was going nuts onstage. He knocked the vocal mic off the stand onto the floor. The guy who owned the mic was pretty upset and almost jumped onstage to strangle him." On the making of their disc: "The band had been together a real long time with a bunch of recordings but not an actual record or cd, so we decided it was time to record our little piece of history. We recorded it at Kissypig Studio in Allston, Massachusetts because we knew the owner and got a good deal!"

The Wayoutz released a "bonus" cd with "Something Now" before the concept was in vogue. "We talked a log about how to add the extra stuff on there. I don't know if anyone has found it but it's there! An extra song, pictures and stuff. I think it's only accessible by computer." A review on All Music.Com notes that "

Psychedelic is the mantra here on this very cool recording by Boston area band Wayoutz, from the glorious eight-page photo booklet drenched in pastels to the 16 selections of explosively fun garage rock." The band should be reuniting May 13 for a gig
in Malden at Avenue C, 166 Eastern Ave.

Their website was: http://www.gis.net/wayoutz/ but no longer functions


----------------------------------------------------
On Saturday, April 16, The Rampage Trio performed at The Honey Fitz in Malden. The band consists of Brian Owens on vocals/guitar, Eric Yanaway on bass and singer-songwriter-drummer, Medford's own Kevin "KC" Crowley (who was profiled in the February 2004 issue
of Modern Drummer Magazine). The Rampage Trio has released their fourth album "The Silvertone Sessions". A full profile on the band will be in The Medford Transcript soon.

Joe Viglione




Scott Damgaard's website links to the Wayoutz review from AllMusic.com

http://www.scottdamgaard.com/somethingnow.html




Psychedelic is the mantra here on this very cool recording by Boston area band Wayoutz, from the glorious eight-page photo booklet drenched in pastels to the 16 selections of explosively fun garage rock.

Scott Damgaard's "Galaxies Away" is the longest song at seven-plus minutes, and is one of the CD's highlights with its pop aggression and spacy sounds. The beauty of this collection is that these clever guys are never redundant, and the material comes off with a freshness and an "I don't care" attitude that is the opposite of what is really going on.

The fact that they do care is displayed by their in-tune backing vocals, Lenny Scoletta's solid early-Charlie Watts' drumbeat, and their ability to take a topic that seems unbelievably silly, as Rich Mirsky does on "Donuts R Life," and make it work.

It's quite a bit of material to tackle in one setting and keep the listener's attention, but as they shift alternative rock genres from sunshine to British pop, the music here keeps reinventing itself.

The smart guitar riff of bassist Tom Abbott's "Clover" is a contrast to the driving cover of Lennon and McCartney's "And Your Bird Can Sing," while his "Path of Wire" sounds like a second cousin to Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot."

With bubbling precision they somehow keep the fun quotient up, "Memories of the Future" another science-fiction epic from Damgaard, again injecting that happy-cosmic element back into the mix.

There's a hidden bonus tune not listed in the tracking on the CD, Tom Abbott's "Drag Race in Outta Space" in MP3 format, and also a CD-ROM portion that includes photos, lyrics, bios, and related items. Something Now is an ambitious project that is light years beyond what many Boston bands were releasing at the end of the 1990s, and is highly recommended.

~ Joe Viglione, All Music Guide




Scott Damgaard's "Galaxies Away" is the longest song at seven-plus minutes, and is one of the CD's highlights with its pop aggression and spacy sounds.

http://www.answers.com/topic/something-now


http://test.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:avfqxq9ald6e


http://music.aol.com/artist/wayoutz/album


http://www.mp3.com/albums/602259/reviews.html

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