Archive for the ‘Feature’ Category

popmatters and pazz-n-jop

Friday, February 5th, 2010
4337103.0

2009 Pazz and Jop Poll

Wussy made a good showing in the 2009 Pazz and Jop poll, compiled by the Village Voice and the almost 700 critics who contribute their votes. The self-titled album ranked #109 out of 1934 albums in the poll. Well within the top 10%. Check out the link to the right to see the complete list.

logo-popmatters

Wussy on PopMatters

Recently PopMatters did a feature on Wussy. Robert Loss writes: “Perhaps the question isn’t why “keep on keepin’ on,” but how? You can begin by making a record as good as Wussy, an effortless-sounding album full of spit, regret, and, at times, a damn-near spiritual beauty.” Link to the full article is to the right.

While we work on the new record, we’re playing regionally across the Midwest and East Coast throughout the spring. We’ll keep our  tour page updated with new dates as they’re added. There’s lots in the works for summer. But for now, here’s what we’ve got.

Ultrasuede (photos by John Curley)

Ultrasuede (photos by John Curley)

FEB
19th Melody Inn, Indianapolis
26th Cleveland, Beachland
27th Columbus, Tree House

MAR
6th Detroit, Majestic Theater (duo)
20th Cincinnati, Northside Tavern
25th Chicago, Darkroom
26th Winona, Ed’s Bar
27th Minneapolis, Sauce

APRIL
1st Cincinnati Zoo
10th Dayton, South Park Tavern
14th Pittsburgh, The Smiling Moose
15th Philadelphia, The Fire
16th Manhattan, Cake Shop
17th Brooklyn, Spike Hill

The Cleveland, Columbus, and East Coast dates will be with our good friends The Fervor. We’re thrilled to get to hit the road with these guys and we know you’ll love them, too. We also got word that Shake It just sent off the new “Breakfast in Bed” Wussy single for pressing. It should arrive very soon. Stay tuned.

68
Posted in Band Updates, Feature, Press, Self-Titled, Tour |

that’s what I get for being in a band with three people who could fit on a charm bracelet

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

holidayHey all! Wussy and our friends the Sundresses will be playing in Lexington this Saturday December 5 along with Killer Meteor. We’re very excited to bring the full band back to the Green Lantern – one of our favorite stages to play! Thanks to the good folks at WRFL, CD Central, Boomslang Festival and the Green Lantern for making us feel so at home in Lexington.

The live Funeral Dress recording went well and we should have that in hand before too long!

New Merch: Limited edition greeting postcards!
Set of six for five bucks. We’ll have them at shows, or if you want to order some, send a note to darren(at)shakeitrecords.com and I’ll drop some off at their mail order shop.

img.phpNew Digital Best Of Comp: Wussy – Campout!
Just the ‘hits’! Airborne, Happiness Bleeds, Jonah, Muscle Cars, Rigor Mortis, Soak It Up, Sun Giant Says Hey. For Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald, you’ll have to wait for the second installment. Give this lil camper a home in your digital wonderland. Available via ThinkIndie for $7.49. Perfect for Wussy newcomers.

New Press: Wussy Feature in Cincinnati Magazine
“The Ballad of Chuck and Lisa” by Jason Cohen, photographs by Jonathan Willis. Excerpt —- “Fifteen years later, Cleaver is still living in Cincinnati, and still DEC09_Wussyplaying in a celebrated Cincinnati band—assuming, it can be said with minimal hyperbole, that the group in question, Wussy, didn’t break up in the time it took this magazine to go to press. But if that happened, not to worry. The band’s implosions never last, and make-up records really are the best… Formed on a whim (and possibly a crush) by Cleaver and Walker in 2001, Wussy—which also includes bassist/multi-instrumentalist Mark Messerly and drummer Joe Klug—highlights her voice and writing chops as much as his. It would be easier to split an atom than to separate the pair’s creative spark from their romantic life, which has been nuclear indeed. “What a *%#@ing nightmare it’s been!” says Messerly, without a trace of rancor.” read the rest

7
Posted in Album Releases, Feature, Photos, Press |

wussy vinyl update!

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

KBR008coverfinalThe Green Belt (2nd of The Belt Series)/ Wussy & The Fervor
Karate Body Records
Longtime pals and tourmates Wussy and The Fervor cut some of their most earnest, blistering rock material yet for this, the second installment in the Belt Series. A true, bare-knuckled statement. Pressed on limited edition green vinyl, and supplies are already running low. It’s available online from Karate Body or you can also pick it up at Shake It Records,  earXtacy, and other fine independent record retailers. Limited to 500 copies, these will be on wax only, no digital. Keep an eye out for a Wussy / Fervor tour in early 2010.

art19220nar

Dangerous Highway Series / Wussy, Greg Dulli, Drive By Truckers, Heartless Bastards and more..
Shake It Records
We just finished our next single which will be part of Shake It’s “Dangerous Highway: A Tribute To The Songs of Eddie Hinton” series. Ours in gonna come out in Jan or early Feb of 2010 –  but in the meantime, if ya want you can grab the first two 7″s. Vol. 1 is from Greg Dulli (he does “Cover Me” & “Hard Luck Guy”), Vol. 2 features Drive-By Truckers covering “Everybody Needs Love” & “Where’s Eddie”. You can order then online at shakeitrecords.com. For the Wussy single, we are covering two Eddie Hinton / Donnie Fritts songs: ”Breakfast In Bed”  and ”300 Pounds of Hongry”. Read more about the Hinton series from CityBeat and Blurt.

3
Posted in Album Releases, Band Updates, Feature |

happiness bleeds: npr song of the day

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

midpoint2NPR Song of the Day 10/01/09
Wussy: Portraits Of Unlikely ‘Happiness’
by Christian Hoard

October 1, 2009 – The Cincinnati band Wussy’s self-titled third album is a song cycle about a fictional couple, written by a real one: Lisa Walker and Chuck Cleaver, who don’t likely suffer the same troubles as their counterparts. On Wussy, the two take snapshots of infidelity, seething anger and other problems, replete with everyday details and rough-hewn melodies that are catchier than they initially appear. It’s one of the best indie-rock albums of the year.

link to article

72
Posted in Downloads, Feature, Press, Self-Titled |

rolling stone: “cincinnati foursome make you feel their pain”

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

29261556Wussy gets a four star nod in the August 6 Issue of Rolling Stone. Neat!

Wussy - Wussy (Shake It) – Four Stars
Cincinnati foursome make you feel their pain
“mega-tuneful songs that can get under your skin something fierce ”

We were also featured in the magazine’s New Music Report podcast in May.

(more…)

59
Posted in Feature, Press, Self-Titled |

village voice: rob harvilla on the cheerfully combative midwestern noise-pop of wussy

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

vvFrom the Village Voice: It’s Tuesday night at the Cake Shop, and Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker, the delightfully volatile artistic/romantic heart of Cincinnati jangle-pop quartet Wussy, are onstage, before a small but adoring crowd, discussing their available merch.. Aficionados of surly, grudgingly beautiful, self-loathing Midwestern rock are perhaps already acquainted with Chuck, he of the poorly named Ass Ponys, who, for a decade or so, trudged alongside the titans of that particular genre, especially on 2001’s grimly gorgeous (and excellently named) Lohio. Back then, you wouldn’t have figured his next project to play out on a Fleetwood Mac/Quasi/Richard and Linda Thompson are-they-or-aren’t-they-and-will-they-eventually-kill-each-other-regardless? battlefield of tough love and vivid unease.

view article (more…)

65
Posted in Feature, Press, Self-Titled, Tour |

fresh air’s ken tucker on wussy

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

17309_logoFrom NPR’s Fresh Air Program: “It’s alright, we’ve got all night,” Cleaver and Walker sing in “Little Paper Birds,” the lead-off cut on their new album. And indeed, in their measured ways, Wussy’s songs do exude a serene confidence in the strength of the music. It conveys the delicacy and fragility of the emotions they want to describe.

It also helps that “Little Paper Birds” includes a line that the band must have known would charm anyone who still uses the postal system: “I finally got your letter and your punctuation hit me like a truck.”

Transcript / Podcast

(more…)

312
Posted in Downloads, Feature, Press, Self-Titled |

wussy makes magnet a mix tape

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

magnetmixFrom Magnet: Since 2001, singers/guitarists Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker have have created an X factor (that’d be their John Doe/Exene Cervenka-like vocal interplay) for Wussy, the Cincinnati quartet that brings bar-band grit to droning, almost jangly guitar rock. As the group prepares for a summer tour in support of its third album (self-titled and recently issued on Shake It Records), Cleaver and Walker took the time to make MAGNET a mix tape with a broken-record theme: songs they find themselves singing obsessively and compulsively.

Click here to download Muscle Cars and stream Mix Tape.

(more…)

32
Posted in Downloads, Feature, Press, Self-Titled |

caught in the carousel: wussy interview and consummate top ten

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

koth

Alex Green of Caught in the Carousel interviews Chuck and Lisa about the new record and the band offers up their consummate top ten. The subject? Top Ten Actors To Cast In The Live Action King Of The Hill, If There Ever Was One.

“Led by former Ass Pony Chuck Cleaver and singer/songwriter Lisa Walker, this Cincinnati-based quartet are one of the most inventive, idiosyncratic and intelligent bands around. Although they’ve got two superb albums under their belts (Funeral Dress, Left For Dead), Wussy is their finest to date.”

(more…)

417
Posted in Feature, Press, Self-Titled |