OK, tell me all about Wussy

Ass Ponys fans may be disappointed to find that Chuck doesn't sing on all the songs, but it doesn't really matter, cause the girl adds a whole new element. As the Dean said, it's more alt rock than alt country.

Best song is the first song, Airborne. That has both of them singing. In a better world, it would be a hit.

And all the treasure from the good days
Is going through the last phase
Of Yours and Yours and Mine
When something from the Yours pile
Shattered on the floor tile
And you went off like Frakenstein

The title cut is a shameless rip of The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks," and they cite VU and The Meat Puppets as influences, so I suppose their hearts are in the right place. If Funeral Dress had come out on Homestead Records in 1985, it would've been a CMJ chart topper.

But it's appropriate that Christgau says they "unlocked a silo or warehouse of hummable tunes, and worked out the harmonies" cause this is a very workmanlike album. There's "writer's workshop" damage all over this thing and if you told me they built this in the garage using power tools and The Singer-Songwriter Handbook For The Rock Musician I wouldn't be surprised. You know those wistful songs that TV shows like Scrubs or Grey's Anatomy play over concluding ain't-life-poignant montages of thoughtful character shots (lesson-learned voiceover optional)? If The Drew Carey Show ever indulged in such hijinks, Funeral Dress could've provided a half-season's worth of grist. OHIO!

As for the future, Wussy might:
A) release 3 more steady-rocking slabs like this one and then issue one hell of a greatest hits album
B) put 5 songs as good as "Airborne" on their next record and end up on everybody's top 10 list of 2006
C) resist their formalist tendencies and push what they've got into some weird new sonic territory
D) encourage Lisa Walker to extend her countrified girl-gone-bad-is-now-a-bitter-woman snarl (as evidenced in "Airborne") over the course of an album

... any of which would be a good thing, although C and/or D would be my personal preferences.

anyone heard the newest, Be here now? yet another A from X'gau and it may well be my favorite batch of songs. i guess they're kind of obscure in that i've never even seen their cd's at amoeba, and i don't think they've travelled West of the Rockies.

I love it – an angrier Yo La Tengo, although the male Wussy occasionally sounds like Adam Duritz.

weird I was just thinking about them the other day in that "what every happened to wussy" way

whatever, that is

what ever

whatevery

i guess "be here now" is a typo. it says "be the best" on the actual disc, but wussy's website refers to the disc as s/t. who cares

"and i don't think they've travelled West of the Rockies."

just got this e-mail from chris brokaw today:

"hi all,

wanted to let you know i have a solo show next week at pa's lounge, in somerville. i'll be playing a bunch of new stuff from recent records and upcoming ones. my good pals from ohio WUSSY will also perform, as well as NATHAN XANDER and PAPER AND SAND. come on down if you can!"

that would be friday, june 19th.

i love Funeral Dress.
like somewhere between The Vaselines, Yo La Tengo and New Pornographers.
The underrated Lisa Walker writes better songs than Cleaver - maybe thats why this record is better than anything Ass Ponys ever done imo\.

how are the other 2 Wussy records compared to Funeral Dress?

they keep getting stronger. esp. the songs/writing on the new one. i've only heard it about 7 or 8 times, but love it more with each listen.

Chuck Cleaver has been responsible for a buttload of great music in the 2000s. Haven't heard the new Wussy, but I loved the last two. And the Ass Ponys were seemingly incapable of writing a bad song, especially on the last two records, Some Stupid With A Flare Gun and Lohio.

I saw the Ass Ponys at Maxwells a few years back, as part of a triple bill with Neko Case and the Handsome Family. So good.

well, the new Wussy album is awesome.
yes - they do keep getting stronger.
the album is even more hooky and catchier than Funeral Dress,the production is cleaner and thicker, and the melodies reminding me stuff like Quasi or early BtS (meets YLT New Porno's).

one of the most underrated bands around this days - how come Matador/Merge didnt sign them yet?!
(on the other hand,a step like that might ruin them)

love:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuyHa9OO63g

Downloaded this at amazon for $6.99. So great.

Still great.

yeah, they are pretty great (well, their songs are, anyway). i just really really REALLY fucking wish they didn't sound like such a demo band. Lord Lucifer please to bestow unto them a decent producer/engineer. kthxbye.

i like them, though they tend reapeat the same schticks (esp. with the male/female vocals) ans as a result some of their songs sounds like versions of older ones

I've just caught up with this year's record and love a lot of it. If they were to ever come through Toronto (maybe they already have, and I missed it), I would actually make the effort to see them.

New Wussy album!!!

http://wussy.bandcamp.com/album/strawberry

nothing's special on first listen

I like everything this band does, including this. There's nothing as immediate as Rigor Mortis, but even so, it's still vintage Wussy. Chuck Cleaver continues to rock.

Hey Wussy fans, read what Robert Christgau has to say about them.

Their song Motorcycle is one of my favorites of last 5 years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdJuHzw5PFw

live version is great too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdR5NagZYSw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYMkVn9u8vU

And what a great song this was (with simple but indelible guitar riff!) (charming video too)

just one more link - Yellow Cotton Dress (live)

That Grisly Adams guy plays some great guitar in this clip!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X31p51zN19A

Normally my taste diverge that greatly from the ILX norm; but in this once case I can't recall a single other person expressing any kind of appreciation for what I consider one of best songs of the last decade: Mayflies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYMkVn9u8vU

I even got more of a favorably response when praising Northside a few years back..

I realize the grammar in that last post makes it sound like it was Google-translated from Russian

OK, my favorite album of 2013 has just come out, and it's free. Get your Wussy outtakes and live versions record at wussy.org. It's called Popular Favorites. Holy moley, so so so good.

I downloaded that the other day, but haven't had a chance to listen yet. "Pizza King" was high on my year-end list.

I don't pay any attention to Record Day, so I didn't realize there was a short one (seven songs) called Duo out there. No luck so far figuring out how to get hold of it.

I went through everything they've done and listened closely. (I've put songs of theirs on year-end lists, but I hadn't really taken time with each album.) If I made an introductory mix-CD, here's what I'd put on it.

1. "Airborne" (2005)
2. "Crooked" (2005)
3. "Bought It Again" (2005)
4. "Mayflies" (2007)
5. "Millie Christine" (2007)
6. "Tiny Spiders" (2007)
7. "Sun Giant Says Hey" (2007)
8. "Melody Ranch" (2007)
9. "Vivian Girls" (2007)
10. "Gone Missing" (2009)
11. "Happiness Bleeds" (2009)
12. "Muscle Cars" (2009)
13. "All the Bugs Are Growing" (2009)
14. "Airborne" (2011 acoustic version)
15. "Crooked" (2011 acoustic version)
16. "Magnolia" (2011)
17. "Pizza King" (2011)
18. "Little Miami" (2011)
19. "Runaway" (2013)
20. "North Sea Girls" (2013)

A title..."The Last Phase of Yours and Yours and Mine." They've been my favourite band for the past couple of years.

thank you this thread for reminding me of "earth to grandma."

But....but....how could you have a Wussy best-of without Rigor Mortis or Grand Champion Steer. or Maglite fer crying out loud!

Just not crazy about any of them. I don't know, past "Airborne," they seem like a blank slate where favorites could fall anywhere. (I love the Ass Ponys' "Astronaut," too.)

Fighter Pilot is another great Ass Ponys song. And Kung Fu Reference and Dried Up from the follow up.

You could make a strong argument for Chuck Cleaver being the best songwriter of the millennium with Ass Ponys and Wussy together.

How can I get North Sea Girls?

I got it through a well-known secret file sharer. (So well known that I feel silly doing the thing with the asterisks--but if I don't do it, I worry that I'll bring the whole operation to a ruinous end.) It's only seven short songs--if you're not particular about vinyl, I'm sure I could get it to you in a couple of e-mails. Or you could go through the well-known secret file sharer.

I would definitely add Maglite and the Funeral Dress II version of Conversation Lags. That chorus drives me insane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brgBSZReyH8

The new album is excellent so far.

I voted for "North Sea Girls" last year, so I already know that's good. Found a site where I was able to hear "Teenage Wasteland"--also very good, and I like how the beginning paraphrases what you'd expect. (I guess they were inspired by One Direction's "Best Song Ever.") The album cover's kind of ugly; with such a great title, I think they could have done better there. Still looking forward to it, of course.

I hear you. I was watching some of those things regularly but ultimately ended up feeling weird about it somehow.

Just in general, my boundless love for mankind in the first couple of weeks of the pandemic has gradually returned to me telling loud people to shut the fuck up under my breath and getting impatient in slow-moving lines.

I hear you

Got all excited when I found the Wussy/Paranoid Style record for $13 on Amazon, with free shipping, so I ordered it immediately. I had it in my wind it was a double-EP. It's a 12-inch single...I just paid $13 for a 12-inch single, quite probably the least frugal thing I've done in 45 years of buying records.

"in my mind"...a little extra proof it may be going.

Well maybe it'll be good---let us know. Paranoid Style vocals put me off, but I didn't stay with it long, whenever that was.
Forgot to paste this, from What Are You Listening To?:
Wussy's Ghosts is/are odds and sods, appropriately for The Who influence that keeps coming back, even on campfire and laundromat songs here (guitars tend to push back against and through woolgathering words, some the vocal levels take getting used to, but yknow studio field recordings, with some odd little ambient sounds---Lisa Gardner's voice always comes right out, even on one of her damn Magic Numbers Radio Shack tracks, where she comes out just enough to pull me in, or close enough to see her slow spin, in the dryer, like.

She also rolls one of the most startling highlights among several: a cover of the Eddie Hinton-Donnie Fritts classy chestnut "Breakfast in Bed," a highlight of the all-highlights Dusty In Memphis,here with guitars from another part of theeeee 60s.
you can listen to the whole thing here:
https://wussy.bandcamp.com/album/ghosts
Although the tracks are in a different order in the promo file; play 'em as you please, of course. Quite few releases on their bandcamp.

in lieu of a poll i hereby request lists of top wussy songs from clemenza and others

no doubt i'm the only one hung up on 'donny's death scene'

Love to! Here's the 80-minute CD I play in the car (goes up to What Heaven Is Like...I don't think they've released anything since).

1. airborne (2005)
2. crooked (2005)
3. bought it again (2005)
4. millie christine (2007)
5. tiny spiders (2007)
6. sun giant says hey (2007)
7. melody ranch (2007)
8. vivian girls (2007)
9. gone missing (2009)
10. all the bugs are growing (2009)
11. pizza king (2011)
12. little miami (2011)
13. teenage wasteland (2014)
14. halloween (2014)
15. home (2014)
16. beautiful (2014)
17. dropping houses (2016)
18. aliens in our midst (2016)
19. skip (2018)
20. black hole (2018)

Kornrulez6969 suggested above that I should have included "Rigor Mortis," and I think that is indeed a fan favourite--I like it, not quite as much as what I have.

nice, ty!

Hello friends!
We wanted to let you know that the Wussy Duo (Chuck and Lisa) will be teaming up with Undertow Shows for a fall living room tour. There are still a few tickets left in Cleveland, Buffalo, Montpelier, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.
Tickets are available here: undertowshows.com/collections/wussy

Here's the full list of dates:
Oct 28 - Cincinnati (Sold Out)
Oct 29 - Cleveland
Oct 30 - Buffalo
Nov 1 - Montpelier
Nov 2 - Brooklyn (Sold Out)
Nov 3 - Philadelphia
Nov 4 - Baltimore (Sold Out)
Nov 5 - Pittsburgh
Nov 6 - Columbus (Sold Out)

It's been ages since we've been able to play live, and we're really excited to get back out on the road. We would love to see you there!
xo
Lisa & Chuck

Or that I was (guessing they don't mean Columbus GA or MS)

New album coming too.

oh sweet, thanks for the tip dow, hadnt heard about this, will definitely be scooping a ticket

I found Ghosts in the glove compartment the other day, the last thing they released (COVID year). Looking it up later led me to something I didn't know: Mark Messerly, their bassist, put out an album in 2019 under the name Inert. So I bought it from Bandcamp and, as I expected, if you're a Wussy fan it's quite good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTOCaqgjo5Y

Wussy Duo cover Bill Fay's I Hear You Calling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XRxA01VZyA

Cincinnati band Wussy are back with their first LP in six years. The aptly titled Cincinnati Ohio - out November on Shake It Records - is the first album from the five-piece since 2018’s What Heaven Is Like. Wussy are known among critics and their loyal fanbase for releasing albums of lyrically deft pop songs awash within a blanket of noise - a sound that critic Robert Christgau has described as “merging the Velvet Underground and the Flying Burrito Brothers” (SPIN, 2013). And it seems Cincinnati Ohio is no exception - punctuated with many of the familiar Wussy sounds: a jangly mix of electric and acoustic guitars; the dueling lead vocals of Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker; Joe Klug and Mark Messerly’s driving rhythm section; and warm rolling waves of pedal steel - this time split between late Wussy guitar player John Erhardt and newest member Travis Talbert. On Cincinnati Ohio, the band leans heavily into its penchant for cinematic Americana landscapes, drawing stylistic inspiration from influences such as Calexico, Mazzy Star, R.E.M., Sun Volt, and the Mekons (whose Jon Langford painted the album’s cover art). This Midwestern wall-of-sound method clearly works for Wussy, who according to The Ringer, has been “quietly crafting one of the great rock catalogs of the decade.”

Cincinnati Ohio comes out November 15th, along with two limited edition Wussy EPs: The Great Divide and Cellar Door.

finally! saw them play in acoustic duo configuration (in a lighting design studio in bushwick) and the new stuff sounded terrific.

Wow

Comes out mid-month...I love driving videos!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnF8gypAOGA

It's wild seeing clips of Edinburgh in the video among all the other places. They were so great that night in The Electric Circus (a horrible venue that's now part of a Gallery). Genuinely one of my top 5 gigs of all time

Bought the new one a couple of weeks ago, finally got it onto a disc and into the car. I'd say about half of it's great on first listen. I've developed a marked preference over the years for Lisa-sung songs (maybe also the ones she writes, I don't know). First track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0y6AiXleAE

I just love listening to them in the car surrounded by empty snowy fields in all directions.

I think the two songs above are masterpieces. My third favourite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixNabaWf6os

Sounds a lot like "Black Hole" from What Heaven Is Like. Which I love, so that's okay--keep rewriting that one.

It's good! And gets better with repeated listens. I concur that Lisa's songs are more immediate. I've never seen them live, hope to next year.

I never see live music anymore, but I'll die disappointed that I never got to see them. I don't know if they ever got up to Toronto pre-COVID, but I know they haven't been in Canada anywhere since.

No surprise, an A from Christgau for Cincinnati Ohio. If I've got this right, their eight regular-issue LPs are A/A/A/A/A+/A-/A-/A on the Consumer Guide.

Will listen for the first time in a few.

In my mind Wussy and Kathleen Edwards occupy adjacent spaces, wonder if anyone else feels similar.

Looks like she released two songs last year and has been recording a new album.

Anyway, back to this new Wussy album.

Should have worded it “if anyone else feels similarly, or am I a cigarette alone?”

He actually reviews three Wussy records this CG.

Does this band have a fan base outside of Christgau acolytes?

Must have.

I liked the first two or three albums but their output after 2014 is so, like, Fisher Price Yo La Tengo that their admittedly well-observed lyrics fail to rise out of the mild noise.

As far as I'm concerned everything they've released aside from What Heaven Is Like is on a spectrum from good to great with Attica a high water mark.
The new one is really also really good. I particularly like Inhaler and Winged. It will be in my top ten of albums released in 2024 when I get round to finishing that list

I've seen them live a couple of times and the first show of theirs I attended is in my personal top ten out of the hundreds of gigs in my life

I live in Scotland and I have never knowingly read any Christgau

record store clerks
Midwestern dads who read Pitchfork in their teens/early 20s
alt-country lifers
aging punks/college radio DJs in the Chicago/Cincy/St. Louis triangle

these are all larger groups than "Christgau acolytes"

i would say the size of their fanbase is something like "Being There-era Wilco"

How often do nursing homes take the remaining Christgau acolytes on shopping trips to the record store?

All right, rabbit, you've convinced me. I've only been listening to Wussy with enjoyment because of misguided tribal alliances. I'll be doing a Wussy Sucks bonfire auto-da-fé of all my Wussy recordings come the weekend.

Treefell: we're Wussy twins. Heaven's the only album I don't like (except for "Dropping Houses"), Attica is my favourite (or at least tied with their debut), and my two favourites on the new one are "Inhaler" and "The Great Divide."

They're able to make it to Scotland but not Canada? Ouch.

#2 on Christgau's year-end, right behind Louis Armstrong.

That Armstrong album is great.

This is fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xsgu7mSIOk

Quite content with where I live, but I do wish I could go out on a Saturday morning to a Wussy garage sale.

https://i.postimg.cc/15rvT63C/wussy.jpg

A little too expensive from Canada, but hope to catch up this eventually:

https://wussyworld.com/music/factoryfloor

"with"

What a great tracklist!

Nice cover art tribute there.

I looked for the skull and dagger but didn't see one.

Heh. Me neither.