Stiers Unveils CD
(Posted April 14, 2006 in The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas)
By Amy M. Cotham
Jonathan Stiers will host a release party for The Pawn & The Pawn at 8 p.m. Saturday at the UARK Bowl in Fayetteville. The CD of 10 original songs is Stiers' fifth compilation of original music "I feel it's my best," he says. "It draws on view points that in many relationships, at one time or another, we're all being played or playing with someone else's emotions."
The Fayetteville native balances his passion for songwriting with a full-time job as a corporate art director, so he's really revved up about the rare opportunity to perform live
at the release party, he says, and equally excited about revealing his new songs to the world. Stiers counts Tori Amos, Rufus Wainwright and Depeche Mode among his influences. Learn more at www.jonathanstiers.com. The CD-release party starts at 8 p.m., and admission is free.
Review: ‘Player and the Pawn’ mature effort for Stiers
(Editor’s note: Rachel Newton, a former entertainment editor of the Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, is currently the editor of the Arsenal Sentinel, an Army newspaper for the personnel of the Pine Bluff Arsenal (Arkansas)
By Rachel Newton
You might expect to hear this artist’s music lilting coolly over the speakers at some out-of-the-way coffee shop or indie record store tucked in the back of a strip mall, however, self-taught pianist and composer Jonathan Stiers deserves so much more than a casual listen. His music deserves to be played over and over until you wear the album out.
With a refreshing sense of self, Stiers plunges deep into the world of relationship love, loss and longing in his fifth album “The Player and the Pawn.”
His song writing on this latest effort reflects great maturity and growth since his last original effort “Spare a Dime” from 1999. By digging deep into his personal life and the world around him, Stiers’ haunting piano melodies mixed with a good amount of drums, base and keyboard allow the listener to fall into his shoes for just a brief moment in time.
“Circumstance (Afterglow),” the first track, is a little different but it is that difference that makes it one of the most real and refreshing cuts from this artist since “Lead Me To Drink” (“Spare a Dime”). “The games we play…this superficial place. Has a way of making everything all right and…Just how long will we be able to sustain this front this time?””
A Northwest Arkansas native, Stiers started singing and playing piano at age seven. Although never formally trained, he said in a recent phone interview that he did take one piano lesson when he was 15. “The teacher told me I was holding my hands all wrong when I played,” he said. Well, even if he is “doing it all wrong,” there is nothing wrong with the piano playing on this album. It is in a word mystical.
As our musical journey continues Stiers offers us “Waiting.” The overlapping lyrics on this track are so precise and sharp that the listener can’t help but sing along. “I want a love, a love in this life…Or is the answer that this is why I’m still waiting. Sick of waiting.”
“Will to Live” is such a song of desperation, but has a sense of hope about it too. It encourages us to never give up in the search for what we truly want out of life.
“I lost my will to live..But opened up to him. He gives me strength to carry on..when all hopes gone.”
When I first listened to this album, I was completely blown away by the lyrics. The song writing is what makes this album great.
The rocking “Wasted” pushes the listener to the edge with its lyrics and pulls them back with such precision that it makes you think for a second that Stiers is writing from a place beyond his 30-something years. “In this life I want the finer things. Not your couch with cigarette burns. Where’s the man who likes to say the things. The things he wants to hear in return.”
Stiers strength lies in his ballads, such as “Tonight’ and “Northern Lights,” which are filled with unforgettably, incredible words.
“The taste of coffee as I kiss your lips…Is the memory I hold inside. There are times when you’d call me up…In the middle of the night. But what could I do or say. When you are so far away.” (“Tonight”)
“Running out of time, feeling older. The love I had in mind is fading faster. And I want you to be the one I’m waiting for. And I want you to see that I am so much more.” (“Northern Lights”)
Stiers conveys so much raw emotion in these two songs that you can’t help but feel like you have been privileged to look in on a part of his life. “I have lived both sides of every song on this album,” he said in the phone interview. “I have been the player..and the pawn.”
The final track, “When It’s Over,” is a strategically placed cut. And, when this album has finally been played to its conclusion, the listener can’t help but stray back to the beginning and start all over again. “When it’s over. And all I can say..’Who’ll ask you to hold them now and forever? Until that day, when it’s over?”
This album gives us one final thought, embedded in the cover – “Don’t blame the Player. Blame the game.” Well, we have “played” the game, so to speak, and we want to play it again.
