The 1970s TV sitcom “The Partridge Family,” about a family rock band led by maternal keyboardist Shirley Partridge (played by Shirley Jones), was inspired by contemporary hitmakers the Cowsills, who featured the sibling Cowsill musicians’ mother, singer Barbara Cowsill. Both the fictional and real-life familial acts were commercially successful, but to many of that era’s hip, “don’t trust anyone over 30” demographic, few things were more uncool than having your mom in your band. These days, though, when many Gen-Z music fans think nothing of seeing AARP-aged rockers on bills with younger groups, that stigma appears to be gone. Taking this welcome development to heart is Lunar Figurine, veteran Ulster County multi-instrumentalist Michael Truckpile’s newest project, whose live incarnation includes his mother on keys and will make its live debut to celebrate the release of Cracked in Two, its first album, at Unicorn Bar on July 16.
“It’s wild,” says Truckpile about working with his mom, Marta Waterman, 82, in Lunar Figurine. “She started playing in hippie bands in communes in 1977, when I was two years old, and she teaches piano, so I was always hearing her play when I was a kid. My parents divorced when I was 10 [Truckpile’s father is music journalist Don Wilcock], so our basement went from having my dad’s collection of 10,000 records in it to being the rehearsal space for my mom’s band. Their drummer kept his kit down there and he’d let me play it.”
By age 13, Truckpile was the lead singer of his first band; a few years later, he was behind the drums, his main instrument, in pop-punk duo the Kiss-Ups, bright lights of the early 2000s Hudson Valley underground. Based in Rosendale, the group were part of that town’s momentary micro-scene, a circle that then also included outfits like Gigantic, Big Sky Ensemble, and Uncle Buckle. “It was an amazing time in Rosendale,” recalls the musician, who now makes his home in nearby Stone Ridge. “[Kiss-Ups bassist] Paul Heath and I lived and rehearsed in this building that was owned by [recently departed] Bob Freeston, who was this old beatnik that ran small-press publishing company Canal Press and rented his place’s apartments for cheap to artists and freaks like us. I loved being in the woods, and Bob barely raised my rent the whole 10 years I was there.”
Truckpile, a visual artist who’s drummed on tour for locals Laura Stevenson and Matt Pond PA, launched Lunar Figurine as a studio-only effort circa 2017-2019 with tracks he recorded in 16-hour sessions while house-/pet-sitting for friend Neko Case at her Vermont farm while she was touring, playing almost all of the instruments and singing everything himself. Cracked in Two’s original release was set for early 2020, but Covid and an illness his wife went through saw the album shelved—until now. “I was at a yoga class with a bass player who I’ve been in bands with, and after class he said, ‘Hey, what happened with that project you started a while back?’” Truckpile recounts. “That motivated me to set up an Indiegogo campaign to do the vinyl, and the record finally came out in April.”
A sonically varied, myriad-mood album, its nine atmospheric cuts include such items as the lush, tribal-tinged “In the Forest,” which brings to mind Peter Gabriel’s late-’70s solo work, and the danceable, marimba-pulsing “Covered with Windows.” The only track Truckpile doesn’t plan to play live is “Rainbow Staircase,” whose Baroque piano parts the composer admits are difficult to replicate on stage. “A lot of that song uses [digital] MIDI programming that I fed the notes through,” he explains. “My mom was, like, ‘I can’t do that, it’s too crazy! [Laughs].”
For the upcoming live performance Truckpile will be out from behind the drums, to front the band as a stand-alone vocalist; Loom percussionist Carlos Bible will instead keep the beat, joining Waterman, rising bassist Jackson Speller, and, making her live premiere, guitarist Alanna Rebeck in the ensemble. “The rehearsals have been sounding fantastic, it’s already exceeded everything I’d envisioned when I started putting the group together,” says the leader. “We definitely want to do it more after this show.”
Nashville band Terror Pigeon will open. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door.
This article appears in July 2026.
