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<strong>Lifestyle</strong>’s music columinst...<br />
MARTIN<br />
QUIRK<br />
MOVE ON UP...<br />
Several generations of Liverpool’s muso<br />
community are still buzzing following<br />
a glorious reunion gig at The Kazimier<br />
by ‘cult’ Liverpool band, The Stairs.<br />
‘Cult’, in this case, as whenever it refers<br />
to a band, just means that they’re really good<br />
but they’ve never had much or any mainstream<br />
commercial success. But then, some of the<br />
people who have cited The Stairs as a major<br />
creative influence over the years, people like<br />
Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller, have possibly<br />
had more than their share of it, but nobody ever<br />
said that life was fair.<br />
Edgar ‘Summertyme’ Jones (bass and vocals) Ged<br />
Lynn (guitar) and Paul Maguire (drums) formed<br />
The Stairs to make American garage rock music<br />
of the mid to late 60s in 1990 at a time when<br />
MDMA was fast becoming part of the fabric of<br />
musical culture and fuelling the ‘Madchester’<br />
thing and the Rave/Acid House boom. Not the<br />
best time ever to try and sell doped-out, cosmic<br />
retro-scally grooves inspired by the underground<br />
psychedelic scene of late 1960s California,<br />
perhaps, however good it happened to be.<br />
The fact that The Stairs were so dedicated to that<br />
specific niche in musical history that they made<br />
their notoriously anachronistic contemporaries,<br />
The La’s, seem futuristic by comparison speaks<br />
volumes for their dedication and authenticity.<br />
After The Stairs split Edgar Jones ‘did his National<br />
Service’ playing in The La’s, like almost everyone<br />
else who was around Liverpool back then it<br />
seems, and also toured the world playing bass<br />
for Paul Weller before releasing his own critically<br />
acclaimed records on Liverpool’s own Viper<br />
label.<br />
The Stairs have done a BBC 6 Music session<br />
since the reunion gig but word on a new LP or<br />
any further dates have yet to be confirmed.<br />
However, their only original studio LP, the<br />
fabulous ‘Mexican R&B’, released on Go Discs<br />
(The same label as Paul Weller and The La’s) in<br />
1992 is available on i-Tunes, and is well worth<br />
the investment if you like the rockier late sixties<br />
Beatles and Rolling Stones records or the Paul<br />
Weller, La’s and Oasis albums that they inspired.<br />
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