Kirk Family Band: Press

A family that plays together, stays together
By Neal Simpson
Wed Dec 19, 2007, 05:24 PM EST
Needham -
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Needham - It’s 10 a.m. on a Saturday, and the Kirk family has gathered in a small room tucked off the living room of their Warren Street home.

“Should we do something bluesy?” John Kirk asks his two children, 16-year-old Jackson and 12-year-old Katherine. Jackson puts down a saxophone and climbs behind an electronic keyboard, while his sister crosses the room and joins her father behind a pair of microphone stands and conga drums.

“Oh my friend, you’re blind,” the father and daughter begin to sing.

“Boy, what happened to you?”
John Kirk, a financial consultant who plays a jazzy kind of folk rock with his children, has ramped up practices in preparation for Dec. 31, when the folk rockers will take to the stage for New Year’s Needham. For the family band, which has played together for about a year, it will be one of the largest performances to date.

But missing from the performance will be the Kirk’s fiery brand of political commentary. John Kirk said the band’s more political songs — which include titles such as “Extraordinary Rendition” and “Got Anymore Brilliant Ideas? (To Dick Cheney)” — are intended for “a very specific audience.”

That audience has been growing, thanks to the Internet. A music video John Kirk made for “Extraordinary Rendition” has been viewed more than 1,700 times on YouTube and was so popular that someone e-mailed John to ask if she could use the music for another YouTube video.

But John Kirk said that a message of peace, rather than politics, is what guides most the family’s songwriting. The songs, which the family writes together, are woven out of nightly dinner-table discussions, Kirk said.

“Some of it’s political, because that’s what we’re thinking about,” he said. “But some of it’s not.”

Play Time
The Kirk family hasn’t always made music together.
John Kirk traces the beginning of his family’s musical career to one day seven years ago when his son, then 9 years old, was listening to a recording of blues legend Bessie Smith in the family car.

“He said, ‘Wow, her voice sounds like a saxophone that’s playing more than one note at a time,’” recalled John Kirk. “So we went out and bought him a saxophone.”

Jackson Kirk soon learned to play the saxophone by ear. His father, who hadn’t played an instrument since childhood, was inspired.

“I started playing with him, and then we started writing songs, and off we go,” Kirk said.

Performing as the JKirks, John and Jackson Kirk began playing at festivals and coffee shops. They launched a Web site and recorded a CD, “Wherewegoin,” in their makeshift studio.

About a year ago, Katherine joined the band, playing piano and singing. Out of deference to Katherine, whose name contains no “J,” the band dropped its JKirks moniker and started playing as the Kirk Family Band.

Jackson plays mostly guitar and saxophone, but is known to climb behind the keyboard or drums. His sister, whom he helped teach, plays keyboard and guitar. John Kirk plays the harmonica and guitar, and all three sing.

The family now practices whenever they get the chance, usually early weekend mornings or for 20 or so minutes after dinner.

“John says, ‘Only 20 minutes, only 20 minutes,’” said his wife, Susan Kirk. “But it always goes longer.”

John Kirk struggles to describe the band’s music, comparing it at one point to the work of Van Morrison.

“The saxophone does weird things, because you take the folk rock and put some jazz in it,” he said.

The band practices in small office-turned studio, complete with recording equipment, a keyboard, drum set, congas and a collection of 10 guitars hanging in a row along a back wall.

“It’s not like a big fancy guitar collection,” John said as he looked over the guitars, some slightly battered and coated with stickers. “They’re not, like, awesome guitars.”

Both of the younger Kirks play music outside the home, but they said their in-home practice sessions have helped them learn.

“It makes it a lot more fun,” Katherine said.
“We’ve just been working on this recording, and I think we’re just going to sit back and look at it and see what happens next.”

Neal Simpson can be reached at nsimpson@cnc.com.