BAND BIO
ONE SHEET
POSTER (12.75" x 17.25")
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info@stairwellsisters.com
PUBLICIST
Kim Fowler
Two Dog Media
kimfowler10@gmail.com
THE STAIRWELL SISTERS
GET OFF YOUR MONEY
Produced By Lloyd Maines
Release Date - 5/12/08
Producer Lloyd Maines recalls hearing The Stairwell Sisters for the first time: “I happened upon this tribe of women musicians, playing old-time string music, with the power and excitement of a great rock band.”
Tribe of women indeed. Evie Ladin explains what holds sway with the sisters, themes similarly found in one of their early influences, Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard: “not exactly the sweet and tender ladies, but the stand up for yourself and face the world kind of women.”
Which is exactly the kind of women that make up The Stairwell Sisters. Evie, Stephanie Prausnitz. Lisa Berman, Martha Hawthorne, and Sue Sandlin are career women, organizers, activists and mamas; making ends meet working and living in San Francisco. They also happen to crank out acoustic, old-time music with a punk-rock intensity. Somehow, between raising children, working and releasing records, they've taken their band to some rather well-regarded places - appearing on "A Prairie Home Companion," festival stages from Lincoln Center (NYC) and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (SF) to Celtic Connections (UK), and many points in between.
Their third release Get Off Your Money, produced by Maines and out May 12, covers substantial ground as well. There are fiddle tunes crafted decades ago from Alabama to Scotland and points unknown. There are old songs of trains, boats and possums. One song is translated from Swahili, an all-too familiar story learned from a street musician in Tanzania. There are new songs too - original songs of trial and work, loss and love, and all-night parties. The women run all of it through the “Sister Mill.” Regardless from which era or continent the songs have traveled, The Stairwell Sisters make such heartfelt and skillfully played music that boundaries dissolve beneath the chugging force of old-time fiddle and banjo, the whomp of bass and guitar, the grit of the slide guitar, and the tight, closely interwoven harmonies.
Lloyd Maines has it right. The Stairwell Sisters are tribal; laying down that all-gal teardown wherever they go. Get Off Your Money carries the spirit and message of the urban evolution of country string band music.
REVIEWS of GET OFF YOUR MONEY:
SF BAY GUARDIAN, PICK OF THE WEEK
The Bay Area's own sorority of sweet harmony, steel strings, and step dancing, the Stairwell Sisters are busy these days - not that the triple-threat (singer-songwriter-instrumentalist) musicians of the quintet are strangers to fancy footwork. The labor of promoting their third album of original and traditional old-timey tunes, Get Off Your Money (Yodel-Ay-Hee, 2008), has every reason to pay off once traditional music fans and appreciators of great songwriting catch wind of the Sisters' sweetly heartbreaking ballad "Cinderella" or the twangy, eXhilarating, banjo-driven rendition of "Swing Low."
VINTAGE GUITAR MAGAZINE
They create a rustic wall of sound where the backing rhythms are as important as the principal melodic line. This group music approach makes every song they perform, whether it's an interpretation of a Roscoe Holcomb blues or one of their own original tunes, sound organic and ancestral. Want a tonic for modernity? The Stairwell Sisters have a cure for what ails you..
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WHAT THEY'RE SAYING:
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
A powerhouse ensemble
OLD-TIME HERALD
Vocal prowess with skilled multi-instrumental chops and a hellbent-for-leather attitude.
SING OUT!
Male or female, one of the best bands in the biz.
FROOTS
Five multi-instrumental, singing, dancing old-time gals hit the UK…their sassy modern take on southern old-time string band music was so feisty..they caught everyone’s attention.
DIRTY LINEN
No fake-bravado flash, no glitz…just the real thing. The San Francisco area STAIRWELL SISTERS mesh together in a way that makes the “Sisters” half of its name absolutely appropriate. Fast, well-picked, played-from-the-heart offerings abound.
BLUEGRASS UNLIMITED
The Stairwell Sisters’ latest release is reflective of their ever-expanding artistry and reputation...‘Feet All Over the Floor’ is old-time music at its finest and establishes The Stairwell Sisters as significant interpreters of traditional American music.
ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS
Whether they're singing about a burned dinner or a cryin' baby, an empty wallet or a disappointing lover, The Stairwell Sisters crank out an acoustic old-timey sound with a punk-rock intensity.
CITY PULSE Lansing, MI
You didn’t know we needed a pep-stepping girlie-girl, swamp-chthonic yet leather-tough take on early American roots music, didja? Well, nobody else did either until the hurricane called THE STAIRWELL SISTERS swept out of San Francisco to assume it’s present role as collective dominatrix of allemandes and other unsquare moves. Close harmonies, relentless energy and thundering footwork alternate with footsore ballads as the Sisters take full command.
DALLAS OBSERVER
Five women who attack string instruments with a veracity that rivals some of rock's most venerated fret-burners...played with a gospel spirit and an expressive playfulness...rarely have songs taken from the public domain sounded so modern and vital.
OAKLAND TRIBUNE
Wild, hard dance music...infectious
THE METRO, Newcastle, UK
Offering a carefree, pure and rowdy sound...these city girls have all the virtues of the country: a simplicity and directness that comes straight from the heart...but it is the power of the original songs that truly confirms The Stairwell Sisters' sincerity and real skill.
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
Blazing a brilliant trail through a genre usually dominated by men [with] an energy that flows as much from the audience to the bandstand as among the players themselves...the new album captures the band’s close vocal harmonies, haunting ballads and lock-step square dance grooves with passion and precision.
METRO SANTA CRUZ
These talented women keep the stringband tradition alive and hopping with tight vocal harmonies, buckdancing, haunting ballads and dynamic original material...they have a ball while challenging the audience to do the same.
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