Meet The Family
Random Family Records is a lil’ indie co-op label that wants you to listen to and love Al K!NG, Citizen Insane, City Council, Floco Torres, Oh Dorian and Roly-Bots.
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- Caught him getting take-out.
Al K!NG is a space alien who went riding the back of a meteor one night and crashed into the woods of Twiggs County. He was adopted by a fashion designer and a graffiti artist, and both his earth parents were champion amateur beatboxers, a skill they honed in the absence of a TV. Scientists believe that K!NG’s music is an attempt to contact his home planet for help, cleverly disguised as the start of a new era in music.
- That's their security blanket.
Citizen Insane are three angry, angsty kids who play like they might just rip your spine out and beat you with it but in real life are extremely nice. Like bashful nice. Well, except for Lacey. I mean, she’s nice but you can tell she’s mean. And Jesse’s just got a lot of pent-up rage. He breaks drumsticks at every show. Shawn (wait, I thought Shawn was the drummer?) he’s too damn literate to be a rocker, but oh well, he’s a rocker and he loves books. Especially Chuck Pala… eh… Chuck Paalllaai… ah. Nevermind. He really likes the guy that wrote Fight Club.
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- "...just when they thought the city had lost it..."
City Council is a duo who came to my 30th birthday party dressed like they’d just stepped out of Breakin’ 2. Given my affinity for The Electric Boogaloo, we hit it off extremely well. That and I was wasted. Then we all found out that they’re extremely talented and soon, they were everywhere. They even paired up with a badass rock unit called the Paper Street Band, comprised of members of Citizen Insane, Nomenclature and Magnificent Bastard. When they re-did their songs with the Paper Street Band, we all realized they weren’t hip-hop at all, but rock. With a hint of pop. So we call it hip-pop n’ roll. (That’s not TRADEMARKed so you can use it.)
- Like he's got a job to do.
Floco Torres is many things but one thing he is not is a joke. Probably the most serious member of The Family. And he never friggin’ sleeps. It’s probably because Sportscenter stays on all night, and when it isn’t, he might be watching iCarly re-runs or flipping through music sites, or researching European Economics. Dude is straight-up a nerd. But he’s a beefy nerd, the kind that could kick your ass, so I never call him a nerd to his face. It’s like Ogre and Booger were trapped in the same body… without the frightening potential for deadly flatulence or gratuitous belching.
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- She has a fear of chairs.
Oh Dorian is mostly Heather Kemp, who is just a little taller than a lawn gnome and twice as weird. Her songs are deep, contemplative, moody and sometimes a bit of a downer (only the ones about someone being mortally wounded). But she, herself, is a vibrant, energetic lil’ miss with a huge laugh and big personality. Between the two is an artist who is unlocking the secrets of what she can do when she follows her ear and her instinct. Her first project on Random Family Records is the culmination of that education. It’s going to be scary good.
- Jared has an insane fear of paper.
Roly-Bots is what happens when you spend too much time considering the phrase “heartbroken 1960’s pulp sci-fi robot” and long for a world in which the best music is made by three people–three guys–each with a name that begins with a “J”. It’s fairly utopian, eh? So are Roly-Bots, a word that drives me nuts (a phrase that reminds me of bad pirate jokes… sorry). Arrrggh, this is aggrevating. Writing about Roly-Bots is like quipping about Martin Mull.
