Paper Thin Stages

Get em while their hot..and cheap.

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Paper Thin Stages
CP/ Magnum Puce V. 8.0
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Paper Thin Stages is a collaboration that became a vehicle for constant
seek and exploration into unanswered musical questions. From their
early jaunts in dissonant math-rock, to their most recent back-flip
into murky acid-water, the goal is always just beyond reach, and the
process is the reward. The Weekly Dig hails their music as not only
"smart and hot" but, "adventurous [and] ... consistently alluring."
Somewhere between transcendental meditation and primal scream therapy,
you'll find Paper Thin Stages' new EP Magnum Puce . Sung, looped,
deconstructed and reassembled in their Hox Bot studio, these recordings
find the band documenting the search, logging thousands of tape miles
in the process. For fans of later Bjork, Tarentel, and Akron Family.

HERE



PAPER THIN STAGES | FLYING HEARSE

Paper Thin Stages is like the sonic equivalent of Lincoln Logs. The three members build mansions of sound from the minimalist offerings of a guitar, percussion and a laptop. Their spaced-out ballads (sometimes lasting more than fifteen minutes) mount and grow like in the classical musings of Steve Reich. What could become repetitious in unskilled hands is reinvented by this trio of innovators.

HERE is a video of our performance on WMBR's Pipeline! in February 2008. You can also view it on our website under IMAGE

Thanks to Echoplanar Productions!

From QRO magazine. At the end, a review of a live set from the Milky Way in JP.

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Drug Rug : Live

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Concert Reviews

Written by Mike Gutierrez

Wednesday, 07 November 2007

With the opportunity to splurge on the Boston area at the Milky Way on Sunday, Drug Rug kept it carefree. Still awash in the glow of a recent (and inexplicably fawning) Boston Globe write-up, a healthy mix of friends, regulars and the merely curious turned out for an exercise in schoolbus-sing-along-indierock. A thumping, closet-country bass paced the set at a relaxed, regular tempo while the too-perfect frontcouple, guitarists Sarah Cronin and Tommy Allen, did their best "June and Johnny"-meets-Williamsburg act.  Hot, acerbic guitar licks shared time with extended, trucking passages of Velvet Underground minimalism.  Light touches were the order of the day- a delicate slide down the neck of the guitar, a peal of brass for texture, sweet whispers- anything to avoid bombast or monumentalism. The good vibes rolling through the Milky Way threatened to overwhelm the masochistic Boston crowd.  Fortunately, the bassist and sometimes singer, George Lewis Jr., king of casual banter, let the audience know they were "ugly."  Phew!  Crisis averted!  The headliners rounded out the set after six well-received songs.  One gets the impression Drug Rug has more attitude than material at the moment, but quality beats quantity every time.  Opener Paper Thin Stages and Amoroso kicked off the night.  PTS, a three piece ensemble of guitar, percussion and synth/laptop, showed up with a lot more rock muscle than you might expect from an electro-experimental outfit.  In a spacey set comprised of a single song, PTS teased out a landscape of beeps and squiggles, strums and strains, a continuously evolving dynamic of tension and release that made for great bowling music.  The second opener, Amoroso, a virtuosic two piece of guitar and drums, will make you roll your eyes the next time you listen to a White Stripes album.  If only Meg could drum like that…

Boston's INsite magazine just did a nice story about us!

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..> ..> ..>..> ..> ..> ..>..> Paper Thin Stages Music, Redefined by Thom Plasse Paper Thin Stages' latest EP, Magnum Puce, at first looks like a relic from an elementary school computer class circa 1992 rather than something you'd find on someone's CD shelf. Those among us who wasted many an hour as children playing Oregon Trail on archaic PCs will instantly recognize the form of the black floppy diskette that holds the 6-song EP. It's been modified of course, its magnetic guts torn out and replaced with the CD (which, interestingly enough, fits quite perfectly inside the disk, as if the inventors of it had some sort of precognition regarding the path of data storage in the next decade or so). Obviously an awesome idea at just face value, but it also says something a little deeper about the band, the creative ways that they present their music, and the relationship that their music has to technology. Seeing Paper Thin Stages at Great Scott a few weeks ago, my first impression was astonishment at the sheer volume of effects pedals, mixers, and other musical gadgetry that they had on stage with them. The next step is curiosity as to what types of sounds will come out of all this stuff. Suffice it to say, there really is no predicting what a Paper Thin Stages show will sound like. In fact, the members themselves don't even really know. The band bases their live shows around improvisation, around the interplay between the three of them filtered through the myriad technology at their disposal. Just ask John Perotti, who we'll say is the group's bassist for simplicity's sake (each member actually handles an impressively wide variety of tasks onstage): "We're trying to see how good we can be at listening to each other; how perceptive we can be." So winging it plays a large role in their live shows, but they're not a jazz band. They use an awful lot of musical technology, but they are not an electronica band. The only way to really describe their sound, and what gives it a certain consistency, is that it is defined by the sensibilities of the three musicians playing it, Nate McDermott, John Perotti, and Ed Hadley. They've been playing together "forever," and their music would probably just sound like the dumpster behind Guitar Center if it weren't for their hyper-awareness of each other and willingness to take risks and liberties with their songs. "We just took the important parts [of the song] and just played around with them," says John regarding their live shows. That basically sums up what someone who has listened religiously to their albums can expect from their performance. Like in jazz, there may be a musical theme or figure that is recognizable from the recorded version of the song, but once it has been established, almost anything goes. Still, their records are equally important, if very different from their live shows. Magnum Puce was culled from dozens of improvisations at practices that they selected the best bits from and mixed and manipulated in the studio. A much more calculated approach than the freedom of performance. But both facets are equally important, "two sides of the same coin," as Nate puts it. The wide varieties of experiences a listener can have with Paper Thin Stages is what makes them such a dynamic band, and one that needs to be really heard to be appreciated. For more info on the band, visit www.paperthinstages.com

From http://buddhaden.blogspot.com/

After a seemingly endless series of events leading up to the actually day, last night was, in fact, Halloween. We couldn't be happier that this holiday is now behind us...

...last night at the Nite Owl served as remarkable showcase for some great bands from Dayton and beyond. Opening the night was the "official" debut for Stone the Mayor Sheriffs, featuring ex-members of the much-loved Sputnik Halo, fully decked out in A-Team costumes. Engaging in a heavy, but dynamic aesthetic, STMS displayed a sense of adventure with their compositions that truly masked their infancy. We expect good things to come out of this camp very soon....

...next in line was Paper Thin Stages from Boston. The trio employed all manner of technological gadgetry to generate an hypnotic, ambient sound highly reminiscent of Liars' Drum's Not Dead album, as well as post-rock practitioners such as Tarentel. Upon further inquiry, I was informed that the band's set was fully improvised, as are all performances. While they might have been better suited to a show at Goloka Gallery, we are pulling for a return visit very soon...

...not letting the momentum of the evening down was Amoroso, also in from Boston. Performing as a duo of guitar and drums, Amoroso unleashed a furious torrent of heavy blues-inflected heaviness that recalled everything from Lightning Bolt to Led Zeppelin. With inconceivable dynamic range and a telepathic sensibility to turn on a dime, we could not have expected such brilliance on a Wednesday evening...

...in from Virginia was the anthemic indie rock of This Car Up. Landing somewhere between Death Cab, Weezer, and the sunnier strains of Pavement and Superchunk, TCU delivered giant shimmering choruses tinged with chiming, interweaving guitar work and the requisite vintage synths...

...closing out the night was Vows. Although admittedly inebriated (we'll give them a break; there were 5 bands after all....), the band showed no signs of impediment and proceeded to flatten the room. Dishing out monstrous riffs and searing dual guitars passages, Vows provided the perfect maniacal conclusion this Halloween season....

White Lodge may be finishing dubbing as we speak!

Tracklist for the PTS side:

1. Dear Dracula

2. Silk Socks

3. Just So You Know, Don't Ever Do That Again

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