The Family Band
Staring down the barrel of a move on a rainy day, why not throw on some Family Band. It's cold, it's wet, there's a mountain of crap in the room that needs sorting, filing, boxing, tossing, remembering. Each object is given a piece of my time as I try to remember why I had it in the first place, and whose memory it was keeping. The steady stream of holiday traffic on the boulevard outside reminds me that I'm still in Los Angeles, and that I'm just moving upstairs. Not far at all. One flight. No big deal.
But when the Family Band is playing everything seems like a big deal. All the small moments are magnified and given dignity. All the tiniest movements are given grace and the whole thing seems like a delicately choreographed dance. Bagging clothes in the corner, boxing CDs, stripping the bed. It all takes on an air of nobility and purpose when that beautiful voice echoes off the empty walls. The bare-bones arrangement, confident in its subtlety, filling the room more adequately than expected.
Recorded in upstate New York by a few friends, the new Family Band record, Miller Path, is a revelation, and it couldn't have come at a better time. We all need their backs to lean on and their hands to hold. Over on the East Coast I imagine they're lighting bonfires and telling stories and fixing the old barn together while we on the West Coast can only dream of such things.
*photo courtesy of Daniel