News from the Stairwell

With a nice honeymoon hiatus for our fine fiddler and our newest mister sister, the gals have slowed down in some ways and sped up in others. We only wish the summer went on a bit longer, don’t you? We’re revving up together again and taking our new CD in and out of town, proudly playing a bunch of shows you can see for free!

NEWS

We’re honored to be named BEST STRINGBAND from the East Bay Express’ 2008 “Best of the East Bay: Old School” Rock!

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/bestof/best_string_band/BestOfAward?oid=776849

Evie is featured in the July issue of Banjo Newsletter, including tablature of tunes off the new CD. http://www.banjonews.com

New Live Tracks from our Freight & Salvage CD Release on Myspace

http://www.myspace.com/thestairwellsisters

Airplay all over the nation and then some – thanks to the fabulous DJs for spreading the music!

Highlights of June include the Live Oak Festival down in SoCal – listening faves: Campbell Brothers Sacred Steel Band, Gibson Brothers, and this raunchy blues singer filling in for Nappy Brown. Never did catch her name but she was great! By far the largest square dance we’ve ever played/called. We’re looking for some photos of our head rooster on the fiddle, or the 400 plus people (half-dressed, somewhat intoxicated, oddly dancing all together in time) we led through a dance that started late and went later – what a sight! Thanks to Bill Foss and Josefina Craven for sitting in on the raucous and trance madness. Amazing hospitality, including a mushroom grove and masseurs right outside our outrageously decorated dressing room…not to mention the several hundred folks we taught some hambone to – bada boop boop, pada poom!

And the lightest highlight of all was our Summer Solstice in Nome – check us out at midnight, coming out squinting from a wild bar show into the midnight sun – see also Marth & Evie fresh from the frigid Bering Sea!…we filled the town with music and dance and really enjoyed the lay of the land and all the fine people who treated us right. Where else could you play tunes on a flatbed followed by diabetic moose and pup seals throwing candy? See a shootout where nobody dies? Eat Musk Ox chili? A trip we will never forget. Thanks to Jim & Carol for hauling us around and Brian DeMarcus for Ray’s amazing Vietnamese Halibut – delish!

NEW REVIEWS 

OK, I’ll resist the temptation to say that these gals are sittin’ pretty, but they are. The gifted all-female string band known as the Stairwell Sisters … deliver a feisty set of hillbilly originals and traditional fiddle tunes from Appalachia, Mississippi and North Carolina’s Piedmont region, all marked by virtuoso playing, sweet harmonies and a wry sense of humor. The group’s engaging third album is produced by seasoned country producer Lloyd Maines, who also contributes pedal steel to one track. Essential download: “Who’s to Blame.”

- PACIFIC SUN

There is a tendency for some bands who marry old time tunes to a modern political bent to be right on in a didactic sense. The Stairwell Sisters avoid this trap, providing a thrilling burst of joyful hallelujah. 

- AMERICANA-UK.COM

While this third disc, Get Off Your Money, is good, to do the girls justice, you have to see them live. All girl string band, The Stairwell Sisters play old-time string style music with the energy and excitement of a great rock band. Their influences are varied, but guitarist Sue Sandlin says it was listening to Flatts and Scruggs that did it for her. “It was akin to the hair raising excitement I felt the first time I heard the Clash as a teenager.” And that hair raising excitement shows on stage. Way cool.

- AMERICANA RHYTHM MUSIC MAGAZINE

From the first song until it ended this project just leaps out at you and won’t let you go. This is old time music on steroids. The more you play it the more you find new and different things to like. I played the entire CD and my request line was ringing off the hook. 

- KCBL/Backroads Bluegrass

The Stairwell Sisters have loads of fun and they care. Both show.

- FOLKALLEY.COM

…& FEATURED on MILES OF MUSIC home page. “It’s a Cracker – 100% Guaranteed”

Feet All Over the Floor
The Stairwell Sisters

Get it at our store!

We’re proud to be part of a new compilation CD dedicated to assisting hurricane disaster efforts – Musicians Assisting Disaster Efforts, A Conscious Alliance of Voices, Vol. 1.

In addition to the Sisters, the CD’s roster includes The Gourds (who wrote a special song about hurricane Katrina just for this CD), Split Lip Rayfield, Umphrey’s McGee, Hit and Run Bluegrass, Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band, Jefferson Hamer w/Ben Kauffman from Yonder Mountain String Band, Zen, Kathryn Keats w/Darol Anger, Cornmeal, Steppin’ In It, Toni Brown Band, the Tallboys, plus a few “surprise bands” and the Deep Fried Pickle Project. Limited Edition CD of “the finest Americana Musicians” with a $20 donation. Check out the details here!
For more information on how you can help, go to www.consciousalliance.org or www.pickleproject.com.