On Sleep Lab Reviews
"It appears that the Stairs final album, On Sleep Lab,is doomed to become a lost classic. Suffice to say, however, that the few people who've heard it will be shaking it at you like an Arcade Fire demo for years to come." Boston Phoenix
On Sleep Lab "should be heard by many more people than will actually happen."
Shredding Paper
"On Sleep Lab feels both like an undiscovered rock classic, written about in invisible ink on the pages of a well-worn issue of Rolling Stone, and like the magical, seldom-heard output of those mysterious next-door neighbors who seem to spend a lot of time in the basement. It feels like a secret...one that's exciting to know but also in dire need of being spread around."
Earsing Clouds
There's a brief write-up of the final live show
here and Matt Ashare's eulogy appears in
here in the Boston Phoenix.
"The latest masterpiece in The Stairs small discography."
Northeast Performer
"The Stairs have quietly become one of the best bands in town, and they will be missed." Weekly Dig
"No question the best local indie-pop album so far this year." Boston Phoenix
"Reasons for not buying this one include: 1) hating great music; and 2) being an asshole. Here’s hoping neither applies." -
Weekly Dig
"Go grab up this album. Why haven't I heard of this great band before?" -
Editor's Pick -
Smother.net
"The Stairs are breaking up."
Coke Machine Glow
"You just know that this isn’t going to be one of those run-of-the-mill, commerce-hungry offerings that so pollute the soundwaves. But weird is by no means the limitation of this group’s talent."
Gigwise
"Il y a de quoi se poser des questions."
Millefeuille
THE SLEEP LAB PROCESS REVEALED!: The
Well-Rounded
Radio Stairs Episode.
There are some terrific
photosof the CD release party here. Also the Paradise Show was written up
here.
Nashville Scene: The Stairs are a National Treasure.
"There are some real unpolished pop gems to be found here."
Copacetic Zine
Chime Away EP Reviews
"The ready-for-TV-movie story of how this Boston-suburban foursome turned their debut recording into a community development project garnered unusually good press -- a good bit of which focused, at least incidentally, on how good the music was."
Splendid
"Keep an eye on The Stairs, they're creating magic under the radar."
Erasing Clouds
"One also realizes that the real first album of the band, Miraculous Happens, got rave reviews from some of the best American webzines, which didn't really enable the band to get a whole lot bigger. Just one listen to the mp3 they have confirms that their
relative obscurity is undeserved. We should spread the word."
Millefeuille (
English translation here)
"One of the most interesting records I've ever had the pleasure of hearing."
The Noise(Scroll Down)
"They seem like art school dropouts. Their EP starts with sampled playground sound effects, their posters have fancy drawings, and their lyrics can be nonsensical. But under its arty trappings, 'Chime Away' is a catchy pop album."
The Boston Globe (Scroll Down)
"C’est clair, ces petits nouveaux ne s’encombrent pas de normes réductrices et s’offrent une liberté musicale totale."
Tatapoum
Miraculous Happens Reviews
PopMatters says that "It sounds as if a bunch of music geeks wanted to create the ultimate mix tape from all their geeky touchpoints...attaching jazz codas to surf pop,
'60s psychedelia to country, sitars to saxophones, Moogs to movie samples, tubas to toy pianos. And somehow it works."
"Miraculous Happens, an album two years in the making, sounds like nothing that has come out of the Boston area for a long time."
Northeast Performer, September 2003.
Miraculous Happens is "a wide-ranging crazy pop epic" according to The Noise, October 2003 issue. Read the entire review
here. (scroll down)
NowOnTour.com writes: "They somehow sound like they're actually working on The Beatles Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Part 2...One can only imagine what this collective can do during a live show." Continue reading the review
here.
"These guys are brilliant! [Their album contains] miraculous feats of organization in the name of pop. The Stairs have accomplished a great thing here."
Splendid
"In many ways, this extensive sonic experiment is like The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour."
Indieville
"Extremely creative and refreshingly unpredictable."
Synthesis
The Motel Candlewasters "Hierarchy Of Hoaxes" Reviews
Splendid says, "this subtle and unassuming album from members of Boston band the Stairs should be especially treasured." Read the entire review
here.
And
South Of Mainstream says that Stairs side project Hierarchy Of Hoaxes "incorporates the odd symphonic appeal we came to expect from Jeff Mangum's genius with Neutral Milk Hotel."
Band Profiles & Misc.
-
Neumu article which declares that The Stairs' debut album Miraculous Happens represents "one of the more unusual creative journeys of all time."
-Stairs guitarist Ryan is part of Matt Parish's wonderful article on
Algorithmic Walking.
-The Stairs have started a band
blog in order to "publish" short stories, setlists, non-imperative news, and other miscellaneous debris.
-For those of you who ride the BitTorrent train and want to here Ryan's abstract/absurd/collage/mess "My Educated Remains" click
here. M.E.R. was created in accordance with the rules set out at the
National Solo Album Month Site. Details on the process/cover art/etc:
here.
- "Those [Stairs] songs...They’re beautiful in the same way that you can’t describe the first time you smoked a cigarette and drank a beer looking over the highest cliff in the town you grew up in."
Happy Robot
-"The Stairs live shows have evolved into fluid, stream-of conscious trips through time warps of pop style."
"Everyone In Allston's In Love" Some Other Magazine
-
Imagine
if the Langley School's Music Project made the recording of its own Pet Sounds." -
Nashville Scene
-“At first we were like, we made these parameters so we can get the grant and that’s kind of a pain in the butt,” says Walsh. “But somewhere we realized that that was the greatest part of recording it; it wasn’t lip service anymore it actually became a community
project.”
Weekly Dig
-"A little band that could from Massachusetts." -
Flak Magazine
-“I can count the number of times we have played live on one hand.”
The Daily Free Press
-"They definitely took a leap of faith with us."
Dedham Daily Transcript
-"But they're not the only Dedhamites on the album."
Dedham Times Article
-Stairs
Show History
-
Stairs Poster Gallery
