#5 - THE FIRST QUARTER - By Chase Stain

Chase Stain is best known as the bassist and co-frontman for the wild and shocking party punk band, Numbers On Napkins. Stain is also known as the president of the local punk rock record label, Bad Stain Records, and the President of the management and booking agency, Laundromat Productions. Stain is responsible for throwing the Annual Arizona Ska Punk Awards, and has ventured throughout the local music scene, working as a sound tech, recording engineer, producer, writer, critic, and was even co-editor of Bad Stain Fanzine and editor or Unspeakable Thoughts Fanzine.

Stain has performed in Numbers On Napkins since 2003, but prior to NON, Stain was in the pop punk band Yars Revenge, as well as the punk rock band, Dirty Laundry. Stain even performed double duty for a year, playing bass for a side project he had, the post hardcore/screamo/metal band, Forever Falling.

Despite all of Stain’s work in the local music scene, many people are unaware that Stain also performs as a solo artist, and has released four EP CD’s since 2005. That’s because Chase Stain has taken precautions to keep his solo career in the underground, and all four EP’s that Stain released had a limited press run of just 500 copies, and the songs are not available to download legally anywhere online.

Stain’s first release was the “January” EP in early 2005, and was followed by the “February” EP later that same year. Stain released a musical experiment in 2007 titled, “72 Hours...”, and released the “March” EP in 2009. With fans begging to hear the songs from the EP’s in his “Month” series, Stain made the decision to release his debut full length album, “The First Quarter”, a collection of all of the tracks from the “January”, “February”, and “March” EP’s, as well as two exclusive bonus tracks that Stain wrote for the new CD.

“The First Quarter” is not a limited release, but that doesn’t mean that you should waste any time getting a copy. The album features a kaleidoscope of styles, and Stain manages to display so much diversity with “The First Quarter”, it’s impressive that the end product was so strong. Songs like “Romantic Comedy” have a new wave/emotronic style that draws in the listener, and other tracks like “Pussy on Tap” have a funky jazz feel about them, and songs like “March” just make you smile at the simplicity of it all. Stain does include plenty of his punk rock roots, especially when you listen to tracks like “True Love” and “I Think I’m Falling for Shannah McClure”.

With the release of “The First Quarter”, Chase Stain successfully shows that he has remarkable skills and capabilities as a singer, songwriter, and musician. The album is diverse, original, and down right addictive!