Promotional Photo

Vision: The Heart of Naugatuck

Vision
No Regrets (independent)

Here's something I hadn't heard on a newly released album in a while: An unapologetically loud and twirly guitar riff, followed by a sneer-y female voice snarling, "Oh, yeah! Hell, yeah!" which leads into a series of one-two-punch lyrics about guitars, kicking asses, and being a girl who'll kick someone's ass for touching her guitar.

It's how No Regrets, the debut album of the Naugatuck-based Vision opens—with three distinctly '70s aspects: the fancy-pants guitarwork, the self-referential rock and roll lyrics and the pop feminism. Tracks like "Rock Starr" and "Party Song" have the spirit the titles would imply, and the album has the requisite power ballads.

"It is sort of a throwback," says guitarist/general band-leader David Vignola. "This is not a modern rock vibe. I think there's been a demand for this sort of music, even when grunge came and went."

Vignola says he and his bandmates—clad in black jackets and Celtic crosses in the photographs in the CD booklet—are the type of 30- and 40-somethings who never stopped listening to Van Halen and AC/DC. It's easiest, perhaps, to compare Vision to Heart, the Wilson sisters-led '"female Zeppelin" of the '70s, given that the band is loud and three fifths of it is female. Vignolas says he gets that comparison a lot.

Vision started in 2006 with a simple goal, Vignola and his wife Jules (Vision's bass-player and back-up vocalist) "wanted to do original stuff, no more, no less...we had been playing in different cover bands and I had gotten tired of the cover scene."

Vignola thought that he'd lose the regular gigging schedule he'd developed in the Naugatuck River Valley but "it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. A cover band, or any band, in the local bar scene isn't going to play for more than 30, 40 people, and the music we're doing is getting a good response...I know I would rather play our own songs for 20 people than play Bon Jovi songs for 400 people."

They have two central bases in the area; the first is Cook's Cafe in Naugatuck, which books them monthly. The second the Vignolas' home (also in Naugatuck), where the installation of a home studio—a full, professional studio, not a bunch of gadgets plugged into a laptop—was a catalyst for the CD and the band.

It would be a rock and roll haven if not for one thing. "It's a residential neighborhood," says Vignola. "So that means we can only play until 7 or so."