Miss Fairchild: Positive Pop-Funk Since the Start

According to its website, "Boston’s Original R&B ensemble Miss Fairchild is joyfully committed to the show; spectacle, musicianship, awe and entertainment. Channeling both the urban ferocity of The Dap Kings as well as the slick live acts of Justin Timberlake and Bruno Mars, they tilt their fedora’s to the past, while dancing in tandem with the contemporary." 

Miss Fairchild joins Gold Blood and Associates and Randall Flagg for a show at the Milky Way in Jamaica Plain on Friday, Jan. 10. 

Jamaica Patch talked with bandleader Travis Richard about the show, the band and musical comparisons. 

JP Patch: Judging by your description here, it sounds like it's not your run of the mill R&B that many might think of, but the show is dubbed as a "night of R&B." How do you describe yourselves?

Travis Richard: So, the show on Friday is comprised of three bands that are all friends and/or admirers of one another. We all wanted to play this show together, but needed to make sure that we could properly identify a theme if we were to do so. "Rhythm" and "Blues" seemed to be the overarching musical bond of our bands. Randall Flagg plays guitar-driven bluesy folk anthems, while Gold Blood & Associates play a sort of psycho-billy blues mixed with oldies soul. Miss Fairchild, however, is a perhaps little harder to peg. We sell ourselves as "R&B's Modern Show Band." What does that even mean, the younger folks often ask? "Show Band" is a term that goes back decades; back to a time where musical performance was equally weighed on entertainment as it was on musical merit. Specifically, we model our "show" after those of the great entertainers of Soul / Funk / R&B's past - James Brown, Sly & The Family Stone, Prince, Michael Jackson - all can be felt at an MF performance. But what makes us different from, say, a band that would just simply cover these artists is that we aim to have a place in the lineage.

JPP: What's the strangest comparison you've gotten? 
TR: For a rather rich comparison, the Phoenix once said, "Miss Fairchild is creamy and smooth like the milkshake you never want to stop sucking on." We like it!

JPP: Tell us a little about the background, and how the band came to be. 
TR: This band is nothing short of the embodiment of a childhood dream. Myself, along with Schuyler Dunlap (arrangement) and Sammy Bananas (production) started a rather ambitious funk cover band in our high school days back on Nantucket Island. We've been working on encapsulating and improving on our wide-eyed, unapologetically positive pop-funk since our teen years. And the great thing about MF in 2014 is that we think we've finally done it.