Live Recording Wednesday at Takoma Station
Takoma Station, 6914 4th St NW, Washington, DC 20012

I read Nephew's posting that this performance was going to be recorded for a live album. With that in mind, I not only took pictures, but short movies (in the second set) as well. I figured this would be a unique opportunity this summer. Unfortunately, doing this not only caused me not to be able to pay full attention to the music, but also made my thumbs and shoulders sore.


Godfather, Dwayne, BJ


Doc, Pooh, D-Floyd, DP, Godfather (behind DP), Dwayne


Packy, Adia, Doc, Mike, Pooh, D-Floyd, DP, Godfather
All pictures taken by and Copyright - Jordan Rich (Note: Pictures artificially brightened by flash, it was darker than it appears.)

When I arrived, I talked with Donnell about the upcoming studio sessions. The Lieutenant was there and said hello. Doc and I discussed the Trouble Funk performance I attended on Saturday; he wondered why they don't play now and then in DC. I talked with Doc for a while about musical direction of a number of GoGo groups including Familiar Faces. He talked about how L!ssen is reverting back to (regular?) GoGo from their Neo-Soul R&B stance. Doc said he couldn't understand why they felt the need to change from what is working. He said he wasn't aware of any original songs they had, I told him about Sunshine, which came out together with a DVD (which is a documentary of L!ssen). I also told him about how Rare Essence has a live DVD & CD coming out on August 3. I told him how I will pick it up so that I can compare it to Familiar Faces. He said they have a totally different sound, that with D-Floyd, people are used to him "Trying to bring down the house in DC", whereas Familiar Faces has more of a laid back Jazzy feel to it. He said he wasn't sure how to label/categorize FF. I suggested Neo-Soul Jazz (covers) and Rare Essence songs. He reiterated to me that he isn't sure where Familiar Faces is going. We talked about FF's upcoming album, which is part studio and part live (tonight's performance). Doc said it will be interesting how the studio album comes out. It will have original material, some of the tracks have been in the can with different (previous) personnel from 911 - he said the older material is too valuable not to use.

The performance started a little late because they had to be more conscientious about making sure all of the mics and the sound were what they should be. Papers were on the floor next to the drum kit that I assume were recording contracts for the album. This performance had BJ on grand piano - the first use of the piano I've seen this summer by them. It turns out that this was because his Ensoniq ASR-10 was not working; see here for more details on this and other aspects of this performance. Other than the set-up, I was impressed by that the fact that they were recording did not make them act differently than other live performances.

Familiar Faces
The line up tonight for the first set was: Mike, Adia, D-Floyd, DP, Dwayne, Doc, Pooh, Godfather, and BJ on Mini-Moog and Piano. A guy named D-Bone came over and told me he is working with FF, promoting them and that he would be interested in my pictures. In the second set, Packy played percussion together with a guest percussionist, Demetrius Owens. Allison, the girl from the last Safari Steakhouse performance danced front and center. It was a good performance, but unfortunately I was distracted by the taking movies. They closed as usual with Prince's Purple Rain. The only joning by Donnell was when he asked two girls if they worked with "Luther's janitorial service."

After the performance, I talked to Demetrius (that's how I got his name). He told me that Ricky Wellman was his uncle and asked me if I knew who he was. I said of course, he was the drummer for Chuck Brown and Miles Davis (and is currently with Whop-N-Em). He said that Ricky performs (with Whop-N-Em) at Takoma Station on Tuesdays, that I should check him out. I then introduced myself to Marvyn "Blak" Johnson of One Fam Entertainment - he said he knew who I was from taking pictures and that he liked how I wrote about everything that happened in my blog write-ups.

See here for some of Mike's nicknames.