The Band

Miss Fairchild

Miss Fairchild is more than just a band. True, they play dynamic modern pop music that also serves as a music appreciation course for lovers of soul and funk music. True, they blend a timeless sense of songwriting with an undeniable sense of now, displaying a remarkable musical palette influenced by such artists as Sly & The Family Stone and Tony Toni Toné. True their live incarnation, The Miss Fairchild Show, has drawn comparisons to the legendary JB’s for its energy and remarkable transitions. But more than all of that, Miss Fairchild exists to bring joy to an oftentimes-joyless world.

Even in their earliest days of music making, Miss Fairchild’s Daddy Wrall (vocals), Samuel P. Nice (production) and Schuyler Dunlap (instruments) have made it their mission to put the K back in Fun. In fact, they have played together under one name or another for 10 years, along the way dropping out of The School of Too Cool, that place where we all learn insecurity and a need for our neighbors’ approval and enrolling in the New School of Funk. Daddy Wrall learned his command of an audience from his father and grandfather, both Congregational Ministers. Samuel P. Nice learned production making beats and doing remixes for Hip-Hop artists and Indie Rock bands. And the Great Dunlap found out just how universal the language of music can be as he traveled to four continents studying flute and other instruments on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Since reuniting in 2004 as Miss Fairchild, they have committed themselves to an inclusive, participatory music, so much that The Miss Fairchild Show (with Trick Johnsn on bass and Todd “The Rocket� Richard on drumset) has consistently prompted two responses: “I’ve never had that much fun in my life,� and the more serious, “This city needs you.�

On 2007’s Ooh La La, Sha Sha… Miss Fairchild has taken these thoughts from their fans to heart and made a record that reflects the unadulterated fun of The Miss Fairchild Show. Blending their remarkable gift for memorable songwriting and pitch perfect production with this commitment to fun, inclusive music, they have made record with both musical depth and pop appeal. From the effervescent “Number One� to the anthemic “Vanilla Place,� OLLSS has fans singing along as much as The Miss Fairchild Show has them clapping.

Sly Stone, in his famous Woodstock speech, said, “A lot of people don’t like to [sing along], because they feel that it might be old fashioned. But you must dig that it is not a fasion in the first place. It’s a feeling, and if it was good in the past, it’s still good.� Fast forward to 2007, and Miss Fairchild has taken this sentiment to heart; if fun music was good enough for the past, it’s still good. With all that’s wrong in the world today, who needs fear and insecurity? What we really need is more Miss Fairchild.

Daddy Wrall

Libra. Also known as Wrall Skillz.

Vocals, Percussion

Samuel P. Nice

Taurus. Also known as: DJ P.Nice, Sammy Bananas, Sam Nice

Turntables, Alto Saxophone, Synthesizer

Schuyler Dunlap

Aquarius. Also known as The Great Dunlap, The Original Homemade Souperstar.

Flute, Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals

Trick Johnson

Since the summer of 2006, Miss Fairchild has featured Patrick “Trick” Johnson on bass guitar. Trick has played the bass for nearly twenty years in many musical contexts. He has a road-tested fluency in funk, rock, jazz, reggae, and electronic styles. Recently, he can be found as part of “The Difference,” the rhythm section that includes Miss Fairchild’s Todd “The Rocket” Richard. Together they have played with Joshua Eden, Andy Happel, Slowing Room and founding Fairchild member Samuel P. Nice.

Recently, Trick took time out of his busy schedule gigging and building his home to speak with me about his life, the bass, and Elvis Presley…

Bass player for The Miss Fairchild Show.

Todd "The Rocket" Richard

Todd “The Rocket” Richard is a musician who has never cared much for genre tags and preconceived notions. An acclaimed, award-winning, and in-demand drummer/percussionist both live and in the studio, the Rocket has 15 years in professional music with artists and projects as diverse as his own record collection. Portland Magazine has declared him “Maine’s Most Sought-After Drummer.â€?

Drummer for The Miss Fairchild Show

Once upon a time, before they were Miss Fairchild...

Before they were referred to in hushed tones and shouted of by hoarse voices…

And before they could boast the ability to turn any night into Saturday Night…

Before all of this, Miss Fairchild needed a name. They had spent many sleepless nights scouring newspapers for fortuitous collisions of words, stabbing fingers into random pages of dictionaries, diagramming brainstorm sessions with vast sheets of butcher paper tacked to living room walls, all to no avail.

In a fit of pressure-cooked despair, the band did the only thing they could in such searching moments: they sent Daddy Wrall to the salon. Mr. Z, a genius in the trimming-of-locks and sculpting-of-hairs, was sure to have an answer to this dilemma.

But Z’s suggestions fell flat. As he sunk deeper into malaise, listening to the snip of shears, watching brown hair fall softly onto the floor, Wrall began to give up. The band would be nameless forever, a union of pop and soul music that never happened. Their dreams of all-night parties with rooms full of hands clapping and feet stomping, their visions of wistful and nostalgic laments to mysterious past loves, their plans of fusing their influences into a unique sonic experience that would leave fans restlessly searching the internet for more – all dashed upon the rocky shores of namelessnessdom, that treacherous land where so many great ideas go to die quiet, anonymous deaths.

“…and in any case,” the follicle fabulist was saying, “I’m no good at names. Why do you think this place is called ‘Mr. Z’s Salon,’ anyway? Names, not so much. Now, hair, that’s another matter. See here, where others might deign to use clippers, I would never dream of…”

Just then, the chime of the bell on the salon’s door caught Wrall’s attention. Shade of a pink hat, wisp of a mysterious chin, shimmer of a posterior departing.

“Who was that?” said Wrall, in a kind of reverie.

“Who, that, who just left? Miss Fairchild, and none other. Now that is a woman! When I cut hair – ” and he snipped ” – I dream of her, I dream of such beautiful tresses! And that smile she gives me, a little sexy, a little distant – mm hmm, how she inspires me. That’s what you need, Wrall – ” and he snipped again ” – a muse to inspire you. Now, when I was younger, I thought of…”

But at the word muse Wrall’s heart had leapt. He knew their search for random confluences of words were at an end, for it was not a catchy name the band needed, nor an ironic one. No, it was a name to give them confidence as their energies flagged in the wee hours of the night, sweat dripping as they blew their horns and belted out their tunes and roused the ecstatic crowd to new levels; a name to buoy them on its wings as they adventured into new realms of sonic wonderlands; a name, at last, to inspire them.

And so they took down their butcher paper with its wild diagrams of brainstorms, so they folded up their newspapers and recycled them, and so they replaced their dictionaries on the shelves: for they had a name. And if one night, as Daddy Wrall lifted his voice to the rafters, and Sam Nice cut breaks and spun samples, and Schuyler Dunlap beatboxed upon his silver flute, they caught a distant glimpse of a pink hat in the corner of the room, with that mysterious smile beneath and a sex curve to the hips, they would know their muse was with them, in spirit and in name.

Miss Fairchild is Daddy Wrall (vocals), Samuel P. Nice (production) and Schuyler Dunlap (instruments). Since 2004, they have made dynamic modern pop music that also serves as a music appreciation course for lovers of soul and funk music. On 2007’s Ooh La La, Sha Sha…, the trio blends a timeless sense of songwriting with timely production values, displaying a remarkable musical palette influenced by such artists as Sly & The Family Stone & Tony Toni Toné. With Trick Johnson (bass) and Todd “The Rocket� Richard (drums), they are The Miss Fairchild Show, an express train of energy, rapid transitions and positivity, which has drawn comparisons to the legendary JB’s.