Biography
Eats like a meal. Hale and hearty, THE READY STANCE is earnest, urgent American music. Interweaving, tube-fueled guitars careen through melodic yarns with energy to spare. Poignant vocals and textured harmonies. First tracks of upcoming CD currently being mixed/mastered. Live dates beginning Summer 2010.
“When I was a kid growing up in Kentucky, on lucky summer nights, my cousin would pick me up in his Chevy Super Sport and drive me down along the Ohio River to Cincinnati to hear some rock ’n’ roll. Those were exciting times, and the bands would play late into the night, rocking soaked in sweat. When I hear the Ready Stance, these memories come back to me and I remember that Cincinnati has produced so many wonderful musicians. The Ready Stance is among that number. You will be hearing a lot about them in the future.”
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Chris Frantz, Talking Heads / Tom Tom Club
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“It’s hard to evoke a certain classic style without being overly derivative, But the Ready Stance really pulls it off—plus they write great songs. To me, that’s triumph.”
-Chuck Cleaver, Wussy/Ass Ponys
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"In these days of gimmicky indie art projects, the Ready Stance’s time-honored sound is rare. Yarns, all set to sweeping, melody-rich hooks, raw, ringing guitars, and driving rhythms—are rooted in fact and stranger than fiction; literate, image-laden observations with a penchant for classic, bent Midwestern arcana."
-Peter Aaron, Music Editor,Chronogram
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"Great guitar sounds and really nice songwriting"
-Stan Demeski, The Feelies
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The Ready Stance
In rock ’n’ roll some tales are just too perfect to make up. And the back story of Cincinnati band the Ready Stance definitely qualifies as one of them.
“I hadn’t been in a band in years, although I was still writing songs and jamming with friends on weekends,” recalls guitarist Wes Pence, the creative force of revered early ’90s outfit Middlemarch. “I was walking home one night and happened to glance in the open window of a house on my block. Inside were a couple guitars and on the walls and some old show flyers from The Replacements and other bands I loved, which seemed really out of place for the neighborhood. Then this guy walked out on the porch…”
That guy was lead vocalist and guitarist Chase Johnston, an Ohio native and a veteran of the Athens, Georgia, music scene who’d recently moved back to the area. An animated conversation between the two revealed an uncannily simpatico musical vision and still more shared touchstones: Big Star, VU, the Band, R.E.M., the Feelies.
After some preliminary sessions, it wasn’t long before talk turned to forming a band. Pence recruited one of his jam buddies, bassist Paul Conti, and his old Middlemarch bandmate, drummer Eric Moreton, and the new quartet started working up Pence’s backlog of tunes. In the guitarist’s basement studio, before even playing out, the four began recording Damndest, the Ready Stance’s astonishingly solid debut.
Much like the story of the band’s formation, the yarns in the album’s 11 tracks—all set to sweeping, melody-rich hooks, raw, ringing guitars, and driving rhythms—are rooted in fact and stranger than fiction; literate, image-laden observations with a penchant for classic, bent Midwestern arcana. There’s “Steamship Moselle,” the calliope-infused account of an 1838 maritime explosion that ends with an ill-fated minister found clutching a dry Bible; and “Marathon,” an amusing local legend concerning a confused fistfight between a speech-impaired gas station attendant and a customer with a similar affliction. More timely themes include “Real America,” a chord-crunching, poetic look at divisive politics and pundits who claim to represent the ‘Real America’.
In these days of gimmicky indie art projects, the Ready Stance’s time-honored sound is rare: just four guys in a room knocking out straight-up, folk-based rock, much as it could’ve been done in 1966. “We all can tell after one take if it’s any good—we don’t even really talk about it,” says Johnston. Such timeless stuff has already drawn praise from some big names. “When I was a kid growing up in Kentucky,” recalls Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club drummer Chris Frantz, “my cousin would pick me up in his Chevy Super Sport and drive me down along the Ohio River to Cincinnati to hear some rock ’n’ roll. Those were exciting times, and the bands would play late into the night, rocking soaked in sweat. When I hear the Ready Stance, these memories come back to me and I remember that Cincinnati has produced so many wonderful musicians. The Ready Stance is among that number. You will be hearing a lot about them in the future.”
And with Damndest, that future is already here. Waiting to be heard. Now.
-Peter Aaron
Instrumentation
Chase Johnston
(Vocals/Guitars)
Wes Pence (Guitars/Vocals)
Paolo Conti (Bass/Vocals)
Eric Moreton (Drums)
Discography
Full length debut album, Damndest, coming Summer 2011
Links
http://www.myspace.com/thereadystance
Facebook
MySpace
Reverbnation
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