A hidden gem in Killington is the North Star Lodge’s Star Lounge. It’s a great place to stay but you don’t have to, to enjoy the entertainment in the Star Lounge. This season, The Star Lounge is open Thursday – Sunday, 4-10 p.m. with an expanded pub menu and various live entertainment on the weekend. This Friday and Saturday from 8-10 p.m. you can catch Jake Palatine and Tom Palmieri from Attleboro, Mass. Jake is the nephew of bartender Big John who brings his big personality to the Lounge, to make your visit that much more enjoyable. I enjoyed myself last season and was blown away by the great food and great drinks but more importantly, they have the best drink prices in town. Make sure you call ahead for their entertainment schedule.
Jake plays electric guitar and sings. Tom is on the cajón, acoustic guitar and sings too. The two of them are part of Jake’s six-piece band, the Chunky Seltzers who are a funk, soul, R&B band that plays covers and originals and is booked 2-3 times a month in the Boston area. Jake and Tom have some residencies at some breweries around their area.
As the duo, you can expect to hear casual, familiar, tunes with a mix of pop, old stuff, and originals. They do Guster, Dispatch, John Denver and even have a Justin Bieber tune on the list. Jake said, “A lot of the covers we do, I always fall back into Bill Withers. Not only because I love Bill Withers, but I love twisting covers a little bit. People can still hear the soul in them but like in the Chunky Seltzers we can make them really soulful and funk them up a bit.” Tom added, “We try and make it our own but obviously you have to leave the essence of the song in there so people can recognize it, but it makes it more fun to play.”
Their show consists of 80% covers but they both enjoy putting originals in. Jake said, “I never want to stop throwing originals in there because that’s kind of why I do it.” Tom added, “There’s nothing better than in the middle of a show, throwing some originals in and see if people tap their feet.”
Jake and Tom have been playing as a duo for a little over a year. Jake said, “Tom filled in for my drummer in the Chunky Seltzers and kind of blew us away, so we were like, ya let’s do a duo. The band has been playing for four years but Jake and some of the guys have been playing together for twenty years.”
Jake grew up in the North Shore, in North Andover, and wanted to play drums but the drum lesson place wasn’t doing them anymore, just offering guitar lessons so that’s the direction he went. Jake said, “It just hooked me. Ever since I was twelve, I started playing in bands. I had a band all through middle school, all through high school. We had a ton of fun; we did great before college. I’ve always loved the camaraderie of playing music. I could never get away from it.”
Some of Jake’s musical influences are some bands I enjoy and have seen live like Lettuce, Soul Live. He likes a lot of soul and funk bands. Jake didn’t have a lot of music in his family but said, “My grandfather was a big musician, it must have skipped a generation.”
Tom grew up in the South Shore in Bridgewater and started playing piano when he was five. He said, “My parents threw me into piano lessons, which were great, I loved it. I had the itch to play drums and begrudgingly enough my parents got me my first drum set when I was ten. I taught myself drums and then I got into guitar and would play Open Mic Nights and host Open Mic Nights. I traveled around the local pubs in town and then I went back to drumming. I went all over with musical instruments. I always had a love for music and that’s never went away.”
Tom’s biggest musical influence is drummer Gene Krupa. He said, “He’s one of the best drummers ever but I take a lot for my musical influence from Tower of Power. I was a big James Brown fan when I was younger, that entire genre of music is great.”
They both really enjoy this. Jake said, “It’s a feeling you can’t share with anybody else but other people who do it. My favorite thing about playing music is never having met somebody, playing live with them, jamming with them, and knowing you’ve connected on a level that you can’t connect with other people on. It’s like a gift all of us musicians have worked for. You can’t even describe it at times.” Tom added, “I echo that sentiment and for me one of the biggest things is like at our last show we had a little girl come up and start dancing and then her mom came up. To me that’s like the end all, be all, to see people enjoying themselves to the music that you’re playing because when you’re playing it and you’re doing it well, you’re enjoying it too. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s why I’ve played for as long as I have.
Please check out their website, chunkyseltzers.com. You can also find them on all the social media platforms under the same name. They have a YouTube channel and besides listening to their music on their site and socials, you can find their music on all the streaming channels like Spotify, iTunes, etc.
