A Brief History of Petty Larceny
With our last original member — and unofficial historian — retiring, we look back
By Bob Letourneux
The Petty Larceny Band was officially born on March 15, 2012. Our first rehearsal was in Sterling, in the upstairs loft of a three-car garage at the house of one of our bandmember's friend. The initial musicians in the band were:
Al Keith Sloss — vocals
Robert Dec — keyboards
John Maguire — guitar
David Jolie — guitar
Robert Letourneux — bass
Tom Pisciotta — drums
The first songs we learned to play were:
American Girl
Breakdown
Won’t Back Down
Runnin’ Down A Dream
Mary Jane’s Last Dance
You Wreck Me
In later rehearsals we added:
Listen to Her Heart
Even the Losers
You Got Lucky
Basically, these are the foundational songs every Petty tribute band starts with.
There was some talk of deciding whether we’d be a straight Petty tribute or a cover band with an emphasis on Petty songs. We decided to focus on becoming a straight Petty tribute.
David Jolie emailed in March 2012 with the following:
As for the band name. Keith and I like “Petty Larceny” (and maybe a tagline like “We’re not stealing Tom’s music, just borrowing it.”)
That’s where the name Petty Larceny came from. The full name — “Petty Larceny Band” — came a few years later.
We got our first gig on June 8, 2012, at the church bazaar at Mary Queen of the Rosary parish in Spencer. We played for an hour, and it went over quite well. Here’s the setlist:
Won’t Back Down
Breakdown
American Girl
Free Fallin’
Runnin’ Down A Dream
Mary Jane’s Last Dance
You Wreck Me
Listen to her Heart
You Got Lucky
Need to Know
Even the Losers
The Waiting
Into the Great Wide Open
Refugee
Don’t Do Me Like That
While it was short, our first gig was a success. However, a friend taking pictures gave us two bits of constructive criticism:
“You guys need to relax!!!”
“Lose the music stand up front”
Then he went on to say that no one would have guessed it was only our first gig. He said the music was great, the lead and backing vocals were great, the PA mix was right on, and he thinks we could have the start of something pretty special.
Our second gig was at the Sterling Summer Concert Series on July 1, 2012. We played from 6-8 p.m. on a beautiful summer evening in the gazebo, and we had a good crowd for the show. In addition to the main songs listed above, we added the following songs, and our first Stevie Nicks numbers — yes, they arrived that early:
Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around
Gold Dust Woman
Don’t Stop
Take Me To The River
Wild Night
R.O.C.K. in the USA
Evil Ways
Rockin’ in the Free World
We did a few songs we no longer do, but they turned out to be good songs for us at the time. All in all, it was a good second show — even though we were not aware at the time that this show would be our last formal show for our first year together.
Our next gig was to be on Sunday, August 5, at the Pinecroft Dairy in Holden. As it turned out, we never got the chance to play it, thanks to Mother Nature. In a kind of preview or our abbreviated concert in Paxton years later, a line of thunderstorms came through the area. We were watching it closely and exchanging emails all through the day. In the end we decided to cancel, and it was a good thing we did. The skies opened up, and we would have been drenched!
The last gig we played in our first year was on September 8. It was a private party held at our rehearsal place’s host. We basically played out of our rehearsal place, which was upstairs of their three-car garage. People would come up to hear us play, and we played for maybe an hour. There was a catered buffet, which was very good and plentiful, so that was good!
So that’s it for 2012, our first year together.
In the coming year, we would replace our singer and band founder Al Keith Sloss with Derek Varnum, who we would eventually replace in 2014 with Scott Edman.
Also one of our guitar players, David Jolie, left the band and was replaced by Bobby Pedone, who was replaced in 2014 by Phil Maltais.
We replaced our original drummer, Tom Pisciotta, with Brian Lizotte in 2014.
By then half the band was replaced, and Bob Dec, John Maguire, and myself were all that were left of the original band.
In subsequent years John Maguire was replaced by Matt Marshall Bruce, Bob Dec was replaced by Kent Anderson, and I will be replaced this week by Frank Christy.
And this is how Petty Larceny charges into its 10th anniversary year!
WooHoo!!
Join us tomorrow night at Greendale’s from 8-midnight to say farewell to Bob Letourneux on bass, and welcome Frank Christy! We’re going to rattle the rafters!!