Save the black rock music
Time: September 16, 2007 4p.m.
Location: Brooklyn Lyceum
Band: Family Stand
First, here is a little background of The Family Stand I found from their official website. The family stand was “Formed by the powerhouse triple team of vocalist/keyboard wizard Peter Lord, vocalist multi-instrumentalist V. Jeffrey Smith and soul siren Sandra St. Victor in the early 90s…they have sustained a ravenous, excited following even in their absence. Largely this is because their dazzling live shows back in the day. Built around the songwriting and production talents of Smith and Lord and the thermonuclear vocals of St. Victor, The Family Stand re-combined elements of rock, folk, soul, free jazz, Hip-hop, funk and hardcore gospel into a melodic amalgam rooted that’s answered the musical questions.”
The interviewer started out the conversation by questioning the audience of excellence of music. With this question in mind, I started to look at how this band understands “great music”. As the interview proceeds, I learned that their music relates to everyday life issues closely. The band often incorporates political and emotional issues into their songs, reflecting their views and thoughts in the form of music. “We have the platform to speak out our thoughts of these issues, to make something internal comes out,” said Sandra. The group takes on social and political issues into their classic songs, such as “Plantation Radio” and “The Education of Jamie”.
Here, The Family Stand hasn’t just reformed to revive old glory but has been in the lab making a new release for ’07 called “Super Sol Nova”. Once again they are taking on the hot topics of Katrina, day-9/11, the war in Iraq in the music with hard beats, loud guitars, sensuous horn and a sense of hope and redemption. The group tries to make people aware of things happen around us, and to affect us. And I had the pleasure to hear them all and to see them expressing it through the depth of their eyes during the two-hour-interview.
Robert then talked about the process of writing songs. “The only intellectual thing about writing song is the structure,” said Robert, “first you get a title, and then you know where to go… everything else is free.” I loved it when Robert said, “beat plus something inspiritual, then you will have the whole universe.” There are not so many rules when it comes to making art and music; there is absolute freeness. When the interview goes onto the topic of incestuous creativity, Sandra shared her experience as a college student in The Performing Arts Center at the University of Texas. She remembered her professor told her not to be afraid to make up mistakes while one is making something sincere. “You have to do you, and try your absolute best of what we can be,” said Sandra.
The world, according to The Family Stand, is full of funk, love, rage and introspection. And they did a great job in elucidating their view of the world they live in. They also did what great black music performances used to do as a rule–make you think hard about the world and your own inner life while you had a good time in the process.