MESOPOTAMIAN BLUES "Certainly the soul of Staggerlee is the blues. You can hear the Mississippi running through songs such as Second Coming, yet there is something totally modern in the sound too. Maybe it's the minimalist instrumentation, or the voice which has a sort of 'everyman' quality, that makes it seem so approachable. While it might be those elements for some listeners, the over riding element is the lyrics, which are rawboned, emotionally ladened, and tantalizing. This guy is one of the best poets catching glimpses of our world I have heard in quite some time. At times they have the impact of a car wreck, but you still can't turn away. You quickly become emotionally-vested in this effort." -- CALVIN DANIELS --from the review which first appeared in Yorkton This Week newspaper Dec. 19, 2007 - Yorkton, SK. Canada 


Staggerlee Stonebreaker was formed in the autumn of 1993, the brainchild of Lance Boyle, an unemployed parolee from Stoughton, Massachusetts. Boyle claimed to have seen God during a period of “quiet dissipation” and received divine instruction to form a band “the likes of which the world has never wanted to see (sic).” He accomplished little until a serendipidous traffic altercation with one Staggerlee Stonebreaker, a terminated used automobile salesman who happened to have taken up the guitar some weeks earlier. “Stag” knew of several failed musicians, marching band types in bad marriages, who Boyle and he felt might blend. Negotiations ensued, and one by one they were snared: Juke Nawlins, an individual who could play bass “stunned” by whatever drugs happened to be available while prancing like a Jesus lizard; Stix, a one-named and one-eyed “Uncle Jane” whose drumming had induced concussions in neighbors; and Johnny Flamingo, a tragic error from the moment of conception but a reasonably adequate keyboard player with a distinctive whiny “help me, beat me” sort of vocal presentation.

Plans were sealed. Boyle would manage Staggerlee Stonebreaker , and they braced themselves for fame, money, girls, and girls.

Mercifully, few tapes of the band survive. They missed their one live engagement when Juke drove to Rochester, New York, while a crowd of three paced in Rochester, Massachusetts.

On June 3, 1994, the divine sense of humor interceded. The entire band perished in a carnival mishap while Boyle looked on helplessly in hopeless horror. With events of the following days charitably omitted, enough said that Boyle was unavailable to pursue musical interests for the following 10 years to the day.
Now Boyle has his band.

The music. Personally I don’t like it. If there’s a genius involved here, he must have endured a blinding stroke. Boyle’s efforts to be funny and entice young women are the stuff of science, certainly not of entertainment. The abandon of some of the band’s “fans” seems more to me as some variation of radical incontinence---or a carriage race to oblivion. Do hop in.
O. Wilde, 8/7/2006, London

Ten years ago for a dime I purchased a book at a flea market, and inside the book I found a folded newspaper clipping hand-dated November 9, 1956, with the quotation below, written by “an unknown Confederate veteran” (American Civil War). I came across it yesterday to my surprise. Whether you are born again or an atheist, I think we can agree it is pretty strong stuff.

“I asked God for strength, that I might achieve. I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey----

“I asked for health, that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity, that I might do better things---

“I asked for riches, that I might be happy. I was given poverty, that I might be wise---

“I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God---

“I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life; I was given life, that I might enjoy all things---

“I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I had hoped for.

“Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am among all men, most richly blessed.”