...Plantation Radio & The Education of Jamie




...I Thought We Had & Undiscovered Country




...Happy Together & In A 1,000 Years


Some random tracks from a sadly overlooked group.
The last two tracks are from an album released last year.



Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

I guess I've been missing out. I haven't paid attention to TFS since "Ghetto Heaven." I know its bad but its the truth.

I love LOVE TFS they are the greatest unknown most unappreciated band on the universe and the music industry needs to WAKE UP to such talented individuals........AWESOME taste in music you have......I LOVE IT!!!

All heil The Family Stand!

...Sweet Liberation

Music for adventurous listeners


tA

Tribal Records

I love all of their material but I think "the education of Jamie" is my all time fav from the group.

It took me about 15 years 2 find their 1st cd: Evon Jeffries.......(I think that is the name)

I play their "Chain" CD ever so often but I was never able to get into anything by the band past that. My favorite songs are "The Last Temptation", "In Summer I Fall" and "Sweet Liberation".

Sweet Liberation is one of the all time greatest songs that most people have never heard and probably never will.

For me SL was the shining jewel on Chain, which itself was a jewel of an album. I was excited when I found a maxi-single with about 5 different versions of SL but the album version is still the best by far IMHO.

When Moon in Scorpio came out I snapped it up and was summarily disappointed. I thought, WTF happened to this band? Why in the hell did they go in the direction of rock when they had their game down tight with the sound they crafted on Chain?

Just checked youtube and still, the only versions of SL are a live one which doesn't come close to the ablum version and the official rooftop video version that tA posted which definitely comes closer but rocks the original arrangement a little too hard for my tastes (if there can be such a thing).

I also checked the next album after MIS but passed on it too. Chain was their apogee as far as I'm concerned.

I bought Sandra St. Victor's solo album later and was again disappointed. I think The Family Stand had a collective chemistry that brought out the best in all the members.

I'm glad to hear they're still around and working together as it gives me hope they might touch those heights again like they did with Chain which was a bit of a thematic concept album.

This new album has me scratching my head again.

The concept of 'will we still be funkin' in a thousand years' was a great idea for a song and the arrangement was appropriately futuristic alright, but damn, did they have to use the autotune all the way through the whole song? That spoiled it for me. I can't stand that shit.

And Happy Together? TFS is way too talented at songwriting to be putting covers on their albums, especially such fluff material as this. I mean it was an OK cover but not something I would ever want to pay for. When I buy a TFS disc I'm hoping for another Last Temptation is Love level tune from the band. Yeah, I'd be a bit let down to find such filler (not that the tune is bad in and of itself, just not the right material for a band that can write and play like they can).

[Edited 11/22/11 23:19pm]

DakutiusMaximus said:

Sweet Liberation is one of the all time greatest songs that most people have never heard and probably never will.

For me SL was the shining jewel on Chain, which itself was a jewel of an album. I was excited when I found a maxi-single with about 5 different versions of SL but the album version is still the best by far IMHO.

When Moon in Scorpio came out I snapped it up and was summarily disappointed. I thought, WTF happened to this band? Why in the hell did they go in the direction of rock when they had their game down tight with the sound they crafted on Chain?

Just checked youtube and still, the only versions of SL are a live one which doesn't come close to the ablum version and the official rooftop video version that tA posted which definitely comes closer but rocks the original arrangement a little too hard for my tastes (if there can be such a thing).

I also checked the next album after MIS but passed on it too. Chain was their apogee as far as I'm concerned.

I bought Sandra St. Victor's solo album later and was again disappointed. I think The Family Stand had a collective chemistry that brought out the best in all the members.

I'm glad to hear they're still around and working together as it gives me hope they might touch those heights again like they did with Chain which was a bit of a thematic concept album.

This new album has me scratching my head again.

The concept of 'will we still be funkin' in a thousand years' was a great idea for a song and the arrangement was appropriately futuristic alright, but damn, did they have to use the autotune all the way through the whole song? That spoiled it for me. I can't stand that shit.

And Happy Together? TFS is way too talented at songwriting to be putting covers on their albums, especially such fluff material as this. I mean it was an OK cover but not something I would ever want to pay for. When I buy a TFS disc I'm hoping for another Last Temptation is Love level tune from the band. Yeah, I'd be a bit let down to find such filler (not that the tune is bad in and of itself, just not the right material for a band that can write and play like they can).

[Edited 11/22/11 23:19pm]

That's the same thing that happened to me. After "Chain", I was really excited about "Moon In Scorpio". I tried listening to it and I was like, "What the F**k is this?" Why would they move from a sound that actually got them a couple of charted singles (if Im not mistaken, "Ghetto Heaven" was a Top 20 R&B hit) and airplay back to a Rock sound, which Atlantic Records was never able to gain support for at Pop/Rock radio?