the short story


THE LONG STORY

Years ago, Stanley Ross came trudging east over prairies and steppes a confused and anxious post-war laborer, a flat grey sky hanging low over his head and a guitar clenched in his fist. His back had turned on the weathered mills and grain elevators of the Great Plains, and his eyes were focused on the towering industry of Chicago, approaching slowly and steadily on the horizon.

Stanley Ross had nothing. No…he had songs. Dreary songs. Foggy Americana pierced by the occasional freight horn, sung by a man who seemed to be channeling England and Ireland, drinking in a frothy ale and wolfing down bangers, elbowing up with hard working old men, their eyes as clouded as the windows of a gilded age saloon.

Stanley Ross walked all the way to the frosted coast of Lake Michigan with those songs, a disillusioned troubadour, hitting only the notes that counted until the notes hit back. He fell in love. He walked, he worked, and he fell in love. And now, on Favorites, all the sweat, blood, come, and piss that make an American man whatever an American man may be are laid bare and made fun, the fun of a man in love—

rollicking rockers, one imagines a drunken Irishman screaming to his British lover across the misty Irish Sea while his smiling brothers
sway drunkenly at his side.

–Dan Duffy

reviews


FAVORITES

Rocktober #44

"Not sure who these glorious, get the Kinks out, Anglophiles are, but I bet they have the best record collections in America! If I write a good enough review, will you make me a mixtape? What's the scariest about this is that I fear they may have snuck in my room and played me this CD in my sleep, because these all sound like longtime favorites!"


TimeOut Chicago

"A little spazzy, a whole lot of stylish, Stanley Ross takes the Midwest's love affair with power-pop to even more deliriously affected levels, which isn't nearly as annoying as you might think. In fact, his Favorites is pretty good stuff."


IndiePages.com

"Stanley Ross is not a fellow, but a band from Chicago, and this is the first I've heard from them, though they've been around for a few years. Clocking in at just under half an hour, the songs on this record fit somewhere between Guided By Voices and the Oranges Band, with nods to Superdrag and Pavement, as well. The music on this record is rather hard to easily define, as it can sometimes be too off-kilter to be power pop and at other times too hard-rockin' to be indie rock (check out that guitar solo in "ZZ Hop"!) - but no matter how you want to classify them, there are plenty of catchy hits to bounce along to, like "Make Us Deaf", "Go!" and "Baby Divine"! The slow "Nails" wasn't too interesting, though I did like their even slower, somber ode to being hospitalized, "I.C.U.". This record is a good time, and I bet they're even better live..."


New City Chicago

"Chicago outfit Stanley Ross celebrates the release of "Favorites" tonight, a nice, compact record that pays homage to both the riffy rock 'n' roll of yore and mid-nineties radio pop (my first reaction after listening to "Call Back" was, 'Man, these dudes sound like Presidents of the United States of America,' a sentiment I wish I could say aloud more often, actually). The song "Make Us Deaf" catches your attention rather quickly and proves to be the record's finest, the leads during the interludes endlessly grabbing, the hook delightfully ecstatic in its hoppy craft. The band drifts when the songs get more goofy, at least by construction, like on "Major Crush," which is based in a series of "whoa"s that turn you off pretty quickly. But the giddiness of a song like "Go!" will turn it around again, and the bluesy, muddy rock of closer "Little Bird" shows promise."

-Tom Lynch


USA Today - Pop Candy: My Favorite Things "I'm also listening to: Chicago band Stanley Ross..."

-Whitney Matheson


befuddled.org
Imagine some weird fluke of nature in a parallel universe where Dave Clark is born decades late, and he is an American rock n roll drummer named James Duffy.

In this mythology I am weaving we are now in Chicago, and Duffy meets Nicholas Meiers. And, as fate would have it, Meiers is none other than Ray Davies born decades late, except this time around he apparently took some voice lessons. Then Duffy and Meiers meet up with some dudes named Seifert, Meehan, and Leach (whose identities have not yet been established).

These dudes then all get together, and create a band called Stanley Ross. Why Stanley Ross? Who knows. These are weird dudes, man!

What is the Stanley Ross sound? Imagine rock that makes you jump up and dance. Imagine Stanley Ross!

Stanley Ross hangs out on Myspace, and they have a website where you can listen to their music.

Below you will find a copy of the Stanley Ross video ``Turnstyles''. (My thanks to Nick from the band.)

-Tim Null

THE NELSONIAN EP

USA TODAY - "I popped it in [the Nelsonian] and was so pleasantly surprised, loved it, and have been playing it non-stop ever since. I think they're great and I'm so glad I can expose their sound to more people."
-Whitney Matheson

NODAK SPLIT 7"

SPLENDIDEZINE - "Mr. Ross's music is bleak and dreary, with a touch of '60s pop thrown in for good measure. But don't take that the wrong way; Ross has a knack for writing strong melodies.

He delivers this nonchalant tale passionately, acoustic guitar in hand, sparse musical backing rounding it all out." -Andrew Magilow

RAZORCAKE - "Stanley Ross: It sounds like the singer for that Brit-pop band, Pulp, singing a Cat Stevens song. Like a British Cat Stevens. Was Cat Stevens British? I don't know. This is everything I should hate - I swear it's got that corner of a dimly-lit coffee shop with an acoustic guitar feel to it - but I actually like it." -Megan Pants

THE WIRE - "Stanley Ross 'the Marshall Crenshaw of North Dakota " -Steven Stapleton

shows


2008 SHOWS

05/21/08 - The Empty Bottle (Chicago, IL)
w/ The Old Haunts, Red Eyed Legends

05/02/08 - Rock Star Bar (Brooklyn, NY)
solo w/ Shipla Ray of Beat the Devil, Love Story in Blood Red

04/07/08 - Montrose Saloon (Chicago, IL)
solo

04/03/08 - WLUW 88.7 Razor & Die Show (Chicago, IL)

02/29/08 -WHPK 88.5 Pure Hype (Chicago, IL)

02/17/08 - Schubas (Chicago, IL) w/ Holy Fuck

01/10/08 - Schubas (Chicago, IL) w/ Arriver

12/15/08 - Burgundy Room (Waukegan, IL) solo w/ Jon Pekkarinen

2006-07 SHOWS

08/25/07 - Gallery Cabaret (Chicago, IL) w/ Don Barbeau, Dan Duffy, Kong Federick

06/26/07 - South Union Arts (Chicago, IL) w/ Kasper Hauser, Kong Frederick, Necking Party

01/24/07 - Gallery Cabaret (Chicago, IL) w/ Kasper Hauser

10/21/06 - Oucho Fest (Chicago, IL) w/ Bearhawk, Joe Sepi

10/06/06 - Gallery Cabaret (Chicago, IL) w/ Love Story in Blood Red

07/20/06 - Martyrs (Chicago, IL) w/ Helicopters, Skybox, Foster-Walker Complex

05/05/06 - Subterranean (Chicago, IL) w/ Elf Power, The Instruments, The Recordlow

04/08/06 - Second Story (Bloomington, IN) w/ Love Story in Blood Red

03/28/06 - Schubas (Chicago) w/ Say Hi To Your Mom, Adam Fitz

02/25/06 - Lavery's (Belfast, Ireland) DJ set w/Love Story in Blood Red, Large Mound

01/28/06 - Schubas (Chicago) w/ The Coke Dares, Mark Mallman, Love Story in Blood Red

2004-05 SHOWS

10/24/05 - Pizza Lounge (Chicago) w/ Ben Clarke [Lying in States], Mishka Shubaly

02/22/05 - Schubas (Chicago) w/ King Kong, Stag Party

10/09/04 - The Hideout (Chicago) w/ Love Story in Blood Red

10/08/04 - WHPK (Chicago) Live performance on Pure Hype

09/26/04 - Skrappy's (Tucson, AZ)

09/27/04 - Zen Sushi (Los Angeles, CA)

09/28/04 - Casbah (San Diego, CA)

09/29/04 - 12Galaxies (San Francisco, CA)

10/01/04 - Rumour's Lounge (Eureka, CA)

10/02/04 - Ego's (Salt Lake City, UT)

10/03/04 - Larimer Lounge (Denver, CO)

07/30/04 - Empty Bottle (Chicago) w/ Br. Danielson, Baby Teeth

06/25/04 - Gunther Murphy's (Chicago) w/ Mark Mallman

05/08/04 - Oucho Fest (Chicago) w/ Century Rocket Building

02/14/04 - Second Story (Bloomington, IN) w/ Rapider Than Horsepower, Okkervil River

 

news

The full-length debut "Favorites" is now available. Download it here or email

Watch the Turnstyles Video