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Sister duo Lindy Vision coming to Gallup

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The next Levitt  Amp Concert Series musician is a band made up of two sisters: Dorothy and Natasha Cuylear. Their band, Lindy Vision, is an indie rock band.

Dorothy is the oldest sister, Natasha is the middle child, and their youngest sister is Carla, who used to be a member of the band but recently decided to take a break from playing music.

“She decided last year that she wanted to take a break from the band and we had to respect that,” Dorothy said.

She went on to explain how the sisters came to decide to start a band.

“Natasha and Carla started in high school just playing. [Natasha] started playing guitar, Carla started playing drums, and they were just sort of making noise, nothing really big. I was already at Albuquerque at UNM and I didn’t want to be left out, so I just kind of said ‘oh I’ll do vocals’ and that’s how we just kind of became a band,” Dorothy explained.

The sisters have been playing music together for 20 years, but only 10 of those years has been in public.

“It was really organic. Music was always sort of like therapy for us. It was something we all liked growing up; I don’t know if every teenager [likes music], but it was like air to us, it was like breathing,” Dorothy said.

The women were raised in Las Cruces, N.M. When they started playing together as a band in 2010, they called themselves “Black Native.” They changed the band name in 2012 to Lindy Vision.

“We were under the name Black Natives because we’re black and Native American. Growing up and even now people ask us what we are, so it was just kind of this natural [way for] people to stop asking that and just listen to the music because [we’re] being called Black Native so then that mystery’s solved,” Dorothy said.

The sisters said they find inspiration from bands like The Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Their website calls their sound “a mix of dark ‘80s new wave, bouncy synth-pop, and ethereal indie-rock …..”

Since Carla recently left the band, Naasha and Dorothy have been figuring out what that means for their sound. They released their first single as a duo on July 1 entitled “Running.” The sisters said more music will be coming in the next six to ninth months.

July 9 will mark the sister’s second time coming to Gallup, but the first time as a duo. They performed in September at the El Morro Theatre. Natasha said she’s excited to be back.

“It’s a different audience, it’s a different crowd, which is awesome. When we played last year, the audience was just rowdy and I loved it,” Natasha said. “They were just into it, so it’s just a totally different vibe. I don’t know how many live events like this Gallup gets, so it’s really cool to go play at a place that maybe doesn’t get that many live shows and doesn’t get that many performances.”

Dorothy talked about how much she loves performing on stage.

“It’s an out of body experience, which I love. There’s no other place like the stage when you’re performing live music,” Dorothy said. “It’s something you have to experience to get it, but there’s just this really cool experience you get performing on stage for people and having people sing your songs and really seeing them react [to the music] live is really fun.”

When asked what it’s like performing with her sister(s) Natasha praised her older sister.

“[Dorothy’s] stage presence as our front person and lead vocalist always amazes me, I’m like ‘you can dance like that?’ Seeing my sisters come out of their element on stage is really awesome.”

Dorothy said she’s really cherished being able to make music with her sisters.

”We’re making memories. We just come from such a troubled background and trauma – just sort of a fragmented family – so when I get to make music with my sisters, I really cherish that moment because we’re not going to be here forever, and when we’re 70 years old we can look back at these videos, we can listen to our music and say ‘oh yeah, we did that together,’” Dorothy said.

According to the women, their parents were alcoholics, and some of their music is inspired by the life experiences they had because of that. In an article published by Talkhouse in May 2020, the women talked about how their two-part album “Adult Children” is inspired by the book “Adult Children of Alcoholics” by Janet Wotitz.

Dorothy also mentioned the family legacy she hopes their music will give their children. Both women gave birth to sons in 2020; they’ll be two years old in August, born only 11 days apart.

“That outlives you. People can listen to it 20, 50 years from now,” Dorothy said. “So to make that with my sisters is this really sacred thing we’ve done.”

Of course, writing and performing music with family can be a challenge too.

“I think with Lindy Vision it was hard for all three of us to respect each other’s’ individuality,” Dorothy said. “We were just this unit, we called it the tripod, so we all had to be moving together as this three-headed beast, but in reality we’re all going through different things in our lives, we’re all going through different emotions, different physical illnesses, everything that life throws at you. It’s hard to be an individual in a band.”

But, Dorothy said, they did eventually learn to set boundaries with each other.

“It’s [about] respecting each other as bandmates and as sisters,” Dorothy said.

Lindy Vison will be playing as a part of the Levitt Amp Concert series on July 9. The concert starts at 6 pm at the Courthouse Square. The event is free to the public.

By Molly Ann Howell
Sun Correspondent