wussyblog

Wussy December Update

Here's a little bit of news and stuff:

Wussy will be showcasing at SXSW '08 and then heading to the east coast shortly after. We were thrilled to get to perform at the 2007 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, where we were able to sneak in a Donovan cover and a small choir. To top it off, Left for Dead took Album of the Year honors, among some very stiff competition. Our only show this month is Sat December 8th at the Northside Tavern with The Fervor (free/21+).

New Press:

CMJ
"Mournful beauty...gorgeously rumpled."

Crawdaddy
"An extraordinarily literate bar band."

Goldmine
"Velvet Underground-inspired distortion and drone, with the ragged melodic sensibilities of The Replacements and country charm of The Flying Burrito Brothers"

Cleveland Free Times
"It has mastered the art of chaos."

 

Left for Dead Gets National Release & Press

Today marks the national release of Left for Dead, and we are pleased to announce that there is already a flurry of great press for the new record, with more to come! Here's a sampling:

Rolling Stone (Robert Christgau)
"Superb...imagine a Yo La Tengo too tight to get cute or far out dispensing a Velvet Underground derivative fluent enough to warm the erectile tissue of anyone with a thing for guitar drones."
Spin
"Haunting and exalting..."
Magnet
"Alive with the gritty, imperfect glow and wry humor of coed combos X and the Mekons."
No Depression
"Wussy continue to craft songs that mix deftly casual propulsion with the ache of life's fleeting inevitabilities."
Anchorage Press
"Fragile, spinning and crashing in all its catchy, creepy Midwest glory...like a modern day Johnny & June."

Also, keep an ear out, because we're starting to get some airplay on stations like KEXP, WOXY, Sirius Disorder, college stations, and even Serbia's B-92.

      +  Order a copy of Left for Dead
      +  Order Left for Dead & Funeral Dress

Impromptu Partnering Causes Band to Form

Oxford Press Interview
by Richard O. Jones

In 2001, Lisa Walker was consoling her friend Chuck Cleaver as he was preparing himself at the bar for a pending “dreaded” pre-show performance as part of the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards. Cleaver — a former member of the popular Cincinnati band Ass Ponies — didn’t like performing alone, Walker said, so she kindly offered to come up with him. “I was familiar with his work,” she said. “I didn’t know all the words, but I knew how the songs went. I just wanted to cheer him up, but to my surprise he said OK.” So Cleaver wrote some lyrics on a napkin, and (little did they know at the time) Wussy was born.

Wussy Interview in Goldmine Forthcoming

Peter Lindblad's Goldmine Blog

"The next is the new album by Wussy, which features former Ass Pony and a one-time Goldmine advertiser Chuck Cleaver. Left For Dead is the followup to Wussy's 2005 release Funeral Dress and it's a minefield of strong, melodic, guitar-oriented indie-rock steeped in rust-belt Americana. Due out Nov. 6, Left For Dead is honest, straight-forward, ballsy rock that lets Cleaver get in touch with his inner guitar hero. His vicious, distorted solos rip flesh, and it abounds with tough, male-female vocals. Look for an interview with Cleaver either online or in an upcoming print issue of Goldmine. (shakeitrecords.com)"

Chuck Makes a Mix Tape for Amplifier

Chuck Cleaver: Mix It Up

The only thing Chuck Cleaver loves more than collecting records is offering pointed commentary on them. In his second Mix It Up feature for Amplifier magazine, he extols the musical vision of noise luminaries such as Dean Carter, Big Stick, and The Embarrassment. And let's not forget the A-Squared version of "Looking at You" (complete with hardcover picture sleeve).

"Wussy bounces off the satellites with structured anarchy" (MPMF 07)

"Wussy is one of the most unpredictable and elemental bands Cincinnati has to offer at present, and we can only hope that they will continue to just narrowly harness the sonic power at their disposal. After all, we’ll always have their albums and the calm studio demeanor that makes them shimmer with restrained fury. It’s on stage where the fury is unleashed, Pandora’s musical box is unalterably opened and Wussy bounces off the satellites with structured anarchy. I will love this band all the days of my life."

Download "Jonah" from Holland

A Dutch music weblog, Ketelmuziek, has made "Jonah" available for download. So grab yerself a digital copy! And if you can read Dutch, you can see what folks in the Netherlands have to say about the new Wussy disc.

MP3  Wussy - Jonah

Left for Dead Available November 2007

Hello everyone!! Left for Dead's national release date is now November 6, 2007. BUT the new CD will be available from Shake It Records for a limited time for those folks that just can't wait. we've been overwhelmed with requests and we figure why make EVERYONE wait???? Order your early copy here.
We've gotten a little bit of early press as well:

Reviews
"A collection of misfit players and sounds that, when brought together, create something gorgeous and magnetic. Sophomore slump? Not by any standards." - Mike Breen, Citybeat

"You can hear why critics like them and mass audiences won't, but sometimes (horrors) critics can be right." - Ken Barnes, USA Today

"As melodic, catchy and well-written as Funeral Dress." - Chris Varias, Cincinnati Enquirer

"Indie-pop wunderkinds...Cincinnati's second-best kept secret" - Toronto Eye Weekly

"Timeless. 9 out of 10." - I Rock Cleveland

"It doesn't take many spins for the songs to take over the brain the way Funeral Dress did." - Cin Weekly

Downloads
WOXY Lounge Act - August 3, 2007
"Rigor Mortis" - from Baby, You Got a Stew Goin'!
"Crooked" and "Airborne" - from songs:illinois

Left for Dead Review: I Rock Cleveland - 9/09/07

How do you try to follow up a debut disc that the dean of music critics, Robert Christgau, described as "11 three-minute songs, all about perfect, one after the other after the other?" Perhaps the best advice comes from the esteemed Jedi master Yoda, who so famously said, "Do or do not. There is no try." As blunt as that muppet can be, he does hint at an effective approach: avoid the temptation to place unnecessary pressure and stress on yourself, and instead, focus on your own abilities, then go out and do it.

Left for Dead Review: USA Today - 9/06/07

"You can hear why critics like them and mass audiences won't, but sometimes (horrors) critics can be right."