Take Your Pretty Hands Off My Heart by Stewboss

Four days. I have trouble getting my head around it. How did they record and mix an entire record in only four days? Bands spend three months, heck, they spend a year, making records that don’t hold a candle to this one. How in the hell did they do it? Well, after many, many listens I may have figured it out… It starts with an old house in Escondido, California. Set-up the drums and bass in the living room, guitars and vocals in the kitchen and track everything live until you get the take that says it all. When you’re too exhausted to go on, simply sleep on the floor. Wake up the next day, get some fuel in you and start all over again. Now THAT, my friends, is how great bands make records. Forget all the digital multi-track garbage the industry is trying so desperately to pass off as inspired. Our ears know the truth. Four guys playing together, that energy, that intent, you’ll hear it, you’ll feel it, and you’ll know… this is what music was meant to sound like. I remember once hearing Jeff Buckley say that the greatest moments of musical inspiration happen when you’re completely exhausted. What comes out when you have nothing left to give, that’s where the magic is. I would have to agree. This record and this band are pure magic. Somehow, they’ve raised the bar again on every musician out there that thinks music and talent is about the clothes you’re wearing and which actress you’re screwing. Well, it’s not. And now we have proof. Great songs and raw talent, the mighty Stewboss have it in spades. Taking a cue from Sam Phillips and the Sun Studios mentality, they went in and knocked out ten of the best songs you will hear on one record this year. They’re not playing country. They’re not playing blues or folk or even rock-n-roll, but somehow, the same feeling I get when listening to those old records from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, that feeling of reckless abandon and soulful wonder, I get that when listening to this album. You will feel them in the room with you. On “The Ghost of Adeline” they sing, “she is standing there beside you too and looks through you.” Like ghosts through the speakers, they creep in and take hold of you, raising the hairs on the back of your neck, until you’re left paralyzed by the sound in the room. I’ll freely admit, this doesn’t happen to me much anymore. In fact, not since I was teenager listening to “Music from Big Pink”, "Astral Weeks" or maybe “Nashville Skyline”. But now it happens when I listen to this band, and I’m still not sure exactly why. And, you know what, I don’t care anymore. I’m just going to sit back, listen and be thankful for it. ℗ 2006 Stewsongs Records