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    Falling Stairs was three Johns and a guy named Charlie from Queens and Long Island in the late 80s and early 90s who were obsessed by independent music coming from Minneapolis, Hoboken, Athens, Boston, Melbourne, Washington, D.C., Austin, Sydney, Detroit, Amherst, Seattle, and our hometown of New York. It inspired us to pick up guitars, a bass, and drums and make our own kind of noise.

    We played bars and clubs all around New York and surrounding states for several years, recorded an EP, recorded a couple of singles, then promptly imploded.

    The masters ended up in boxes and moved around with us for thirty years. Decades, and many children, later we gathered up 2” and 1” tapes and even a VHS, had them baked, remastered, and digitized. Upon hearing the songs for the first time in decades, we realized maybe this quad of misfits quit too soon.

    We were fans of Antietam, Belly, Big Black, Big Dipper, The Birthday Party, Black Uhuru, The Blasters, Buffalo Tom, The Celibate Rifles, The Clash, De La Soul, The dBs, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Feelies, The Fleshtones, Fugazi, Gang of Four, Go-Betweens, Jason & The Scorchers, Hoodoo Gurus, Hüsker Dü, Let’s Active, Lime Spiders, MC5, Meat Puppets, Mental as Anything, Metallica, Mission of Burma, The Minutemen, Naked Raygun, New Order, New York Dolls, Patti Smith Group, Pixies, Prince, Psychedelic Furs, Public Enemy, Pylon, Radio Birdman, The Ramones, The Replacements, R.E.M., Romeo Void, The Saints, Sonic Youth, Soul Asylum, The Stooges, Talking Heads, Television, They Might Be Giants, U2, Uncle Tupelo, Violent Femmes, Wall of Voodoo, X, Zeitgeist, and lots of others. You can hear a bit of all that in there. We all grew up with older siblings, too, so we had been hearing everything from rock to blues to metal to folk to disco.

    We played live at Brownie’s, CBGB’s, Downtown Beirut, The El-n-Gee, King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut, Lauterbach’s, Lismar Lounge, Maxwell’s, Nightingale’s, The Pool Bar, The Pyramid, The Right Track Inn, The Space at Chase, Tramps, and others we have forgotten. We did a few short tours in the south, sent out our EP to radio stations and got lots of plays. We sent more to fanzines and newspapers and got a bunch of nice reviews. It was a lot of fun and we wouldn’t change it for the world.

    In truth, very few people actually heard any of it.

    There may not be a big reunion tour, but all these many years later, this collection of songs a time capsule of an earlier era of American rock: angry, anthematic, hooky, poppy, noisy, and insistent. These well-constructed, well-performed, and well-recorded songs have stood the test of time, even if that was in a bunch of cardboard
    boxes.

    So, 30 years later, we present the debut album.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Life is a Kick Trial: 1988-93 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more
    ships out within 90 days

      $20 USD or more 

     

lyrics

They say, “What do you want?”
And we say, “What do you mean?”
Looking for a problem for us to keep.

It’s not what you prepare.
The same or less than you dare.
Crossing off accomplishments and feats.

Losing all the choices you could keep.
Wake up in a scream, they say its just bad dreams.
Good intentions lead to bad things.

They try hard to be fair.
Keep that voice in the air.
Building up the character for better days.

It won’t work in the end.
So don’t you let them begin.
Giving in before you have to leave.
Giving in to what you don’t believe.

Wake up in a scream, they say its just bad dreams.
Good intentions lead to bad things.

And they mean well, they say.
Each time it ends the wrong way.
Looking for a solid floor beneath.

The last thing is to talk.
It won’t end without fault.
When neither gives, then we’ll all resist.

Though it’s only half of what we can give.
Wake up in a scream, they say it's just bad dreams.
Good intentions lead to bad things.

And if it’s good enough for all of us, then it’s good enough to be.
Then it’s good enough for all, good enough for all.
If it’s good enough for all of us, then it’s good enough to be.
Then it’s good enough for all, then it’s got to be.

credits

from Life is a Kick Trial: 1988​-​93, released April 21, 2023

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Falling Stairs Queens, New York

Falling Stairs was three Johns and a Charlie from Queens and Long Island in the late 80s/early 90s.

We played all around New York, recorded an EP, a single, then promptly imploded.

The masters ended up in boxes for thirty years. Decades, and many children, later we had them baked, remastered, and digitized.

Upon hearing the songs, we realized maybe this quad of misfits quit too soon. ... more

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