The Stairs
Mexican R 'n' B

If you come from Liverpool and play, you're already marked, you have no escape, and you'll be someone who inevitably draws from the Beatles.

Even more so if your time is the early '90s, you have even less chance to escape the cliché, so you play brit-pop anyway and made it just in time to jump on the train «heading to glory, with Blur and Oasis steering the locomotive.

Dark times, those of brit-pop; because if Blur and Oasis are the right ones to remake the movie starring the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, I still haven't understood who's playing who, nor what are the «Sympathy for the Devil» and «In my Life» of the end of the century.

Then, there are those who try to short-circuit the system.

From Liverpool, in those years, came the La’s and the Stairs. In their own way, they try to stay a bit outside the box, even though one (the La’s) is from north Liverpool and the other (the Stairs) from south Liverpool, meaning they do things so different that they never cross paths; and if the La’s get some favor too, the Stairs instead are practically ignored. Indeed, one thing in common the La’s and the Stairs have, and it's that they each make one album and then disappear from the scene.

In any case, this is for the Stairs.

The Stairs' only album is titled «Mexican R’n’B», because that's the matrix, the stripped-down R&B of the very first Stones, when the prima donna was still Brian Jones, and they were wading through future blues classics. It's also true their idea of rhythm'n'blues is quite eclectic and spacious, almost as much as the space between Mexico and Russia, and in between, there's everything, from psychedelia to garage, soul and punk, rock'n'roll is obviously a must.

Retro with intransigence, strictly mono, but with talent.

For the few who gave them a chance, quite a few pieces became instant classics: «Mary Joanna», «Mr. Window Pane», «Weed Bus», «Flying Machine» (the best of the batch, in its speaking the pop language of Liverpool conjugated with the verb of the Long Ryders), «Woman Gone and Said Goodbye», «Right in the Back of Your Mind», «Sweet Thing».

However, speaking of large numbers, the Stairs are a disastrous failure, the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But do you remember what genuine assholes Oasis and Blur were (and maybe still are), just to mention the ones who hit it big? Because, for me, guys like the ones in the Verve and Pulp were decidedly worse, they knew how to provoke pure, skin-deep hatred in me, just by looking at them, without even needing to hear the trash with which they flooded the space between their house and mine.

Because laughing and goofing around every now and then does good, even the Latins said so.

And welcome the Stairs, portrayed on the cover one with a poncho, sombrero, big mustache, and the mandatory (stuffed) donkey, another with an astronaut suit.

But do you remember those from Man(Mad)chester, also major assholes; although, at least from there, something great the Stone Roses and the Charlatans pulled out.

Because, even for me who has always been straight-edge unknowingly, I get the suspicion that a joint is better than a pill.

And welcome the Stairs, who sing it straight out, maybe because in the caves where they are, different stuff is going around compared to the discos where the others hang out.

But do you recall the commercial “suicide” of the La’s? The maniacal perfectionism of Lee Mavers, borderline paranoia? (And yet I like the La’s a lot, only I don't forgive them for making just one album).

Because rock music is fundamentally street music for street people.

And welcome the Stairs and «Mexican R’n’B», always good on the first try, much better than any first time ever can be, neither for passion nor for intensity nor even for fervor.

The wrong people, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Simply adorable.