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The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life

by Stephen Clair

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Artwork by Randall Martin / Photos by Hillary Clements

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  • Full Digital Discography

    17
    releases

    Get all 17 Stephen Clair releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life, Live at The Clubhouse, Tricks, To The Trees, Nothing Has Changed, When This Is All Over, Vote For Love, The Small Hours, and 9 more. , and , .

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1.
Pizza And Fairytales 02:03
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2.
I Died On The Crosstown Bus This Morning 04:04
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3.
I Think You're Lonely 02:32
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4.
Watering The Flowers 02:38
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5.
Days Passed 02:45
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6.
Tic Tac Toe 01:48
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7.
The World Has Changed 02:59
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8.
I Imagined I Was An Elevator 02:43
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9.
You Do Nothing But Good In This World 03:17
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10.
Bubble Bath 02:21
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11.
Come For The Winter 01:57
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about

Rawboned, Stephen Clair's latest (his 10th) effort The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, features only Clair and a
guitar, except when it's Clair and a rickety piano. The songs are miniature stories, the essence of
emotion, and the arrangements and performances fit accordingly. "Every note, every part — including the air around it — is intentional," says Clair. "I recorded it alone, in a room, over months, guitar in my lap, mousing with one hand, groping through the microphones surrounding me. I recorded take after take of each song. What you hear are complete, intact performances of each song. No punching in, no edits, no cutting and pasting. Each track on the record is a single performance."


There's air in these songs, for sure. Every melody counts, as does each breath, word, and all the
spaces in between. Repetition is another device Clair takes full advantage of. Repeating words or
lines can show longing, anticipation, and even obsession. The singer in "Watering the Flowers"
and "Pizza and Fairy Tales" uses this to full effect. The sanguine narrator provides the play-by-play as they incessantly water the flowers, waiting, wondering, attempting to keep their shit together.


Clair first came to prominence when the late Rita Houston pronounced her love for "Jen in Her
Underwear," adding it to regular rotation on WFUV, thereby putting Clair on the map and the road. His next effort was Under the Bed, followed by What Luck (2007.) In 2019, Clair teamed up with celebrated producer Malcolm Burn (U2 and Emmylou Harris), the result, an epic garage album, Strange Perfume. Paste Magazine declared "Clair's lyrics are everyman poetry with a dash of self-deprecation and gallows humor to go with his otherwise uncluttered views of the world around and within him.”


With an album so bare is this new one, it’s as if we are in the room with Stephen Clair, knee to
knee. Just listen.

credits

released November 17, 2023

Stephen Clair, guitar, voice, and sort-of piano

Jonny Taylor mixed and mastered

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Stephen Clair Beacon, New York

“Blending the kind of jaggedly cool guitar and piano that put Spoon on the map with a deadpan, almost spoken-word vocal delivery, the song quickly evolves into a righteous bar band anthem that feels as much linked to acts like the Hold Steady as it does to Wilco”
— Glide Magazine ... more

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