John Erhardt was a well-known and beloved figure in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he did long stints as a guitarist in two of the city’s most celebrated rock bands: Wussy and the Ass Ponys. So, when he passed away, a whole bunch of people showed up to his memorial service—except that his loved ones couldn’t hold a traditional memorial service, because Erhardt died in May of 2020: The earliest, most uncertain and unnerving weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I just remember yelling, ‘We love you!’ to his widow out the window because we had to keep moving. We couldn’t even stop the car,†says Lisa Walker, Erhardt’s longtime bandmate in Wussy. “It was at the largest cemetery in town, and they’re usually pretty well set up for all kinds of events, but I don’t think they understood how many cars were going to show up. The whole place filled up before we did the processions—hundreds of cars, and there’s a minutiae of loss for all those people.â€
Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
That minutiae of loss is the concept at the center of “The Great Divide,†the first track on Wussy’s new album Cincinnati Ohio, their first in six years and first since Erhardt’s passing. Written and sung by Walker, the song is a wistful meditation on the mundane things that can bring grief to the surface: Walking into a grocery store, a particular melody, initials scribbled on a piece of equipment, a memorable quirk. “John got us all to start doing screengrabs of our phones when it was 11:11. That was his favorite number,†Walker says. “We say ‘hi’ to him at that time every day.â€
Walker is not alone in grieving Erhardt’s death. Wussy’s rhythm section—drummer Joe Klug and bassist Mark Messerly—played alongside Erhardt for years; Chuck Cleaver worked with him on and off for more than two decades, both in Wussy and in the Ass Ponys. Cleaver wrote a handful of the songs on Cincinnati Ohio, but they were largely finished before May of 2020. “I’ve always written about pretty grim topics. My preferred genre is probably best described as ‘sad bastard,’†he says. “I really like sad music. I like sad songs. They make me feel better.â€
Cleaver and Walker formed Wussy in 2001 and have since used it as a vehicle to write and record warm, expansive indie rock built from ragged guitars, roots-y resonances, and Midwestern melancholy. They’ve been remarkably consistent, releasing eight great albums in 20 years and earning enthusiastic fans among both fellow musicians and music critics like Robert Christgau, who has called Wussy, unequivocally, “the best band in America.â€
Cincinnati Ohio will do nothing to deter their devotees. Top to bottom, it is packed with patient and cinematic songs about death and desperation, perseverance, love, hope, gratitude, and, of course, the unrelenting march of time. The songs exist as much for the members of Wussy as they do for the rest of the world. “Writing these songs definitely helped me move on, in some ways,†Walker says. “It’s sort of what I had to do in order to take the next step and take a full breath again.â€
Below, Cleaver and Walker talk about some of their favorite music on Bandcamp, ranging from alt-country classics to gentle indie pop to an ambient video game soundtrack.
John Moreland
In the Throes
Compact Disc (CD), Vinyl LP
Cleaver discovered Oklahoma singer-songwriter John Moreland while he and Walker were playing a duo show at a friend’s house. “He played it for me and I immediately was like, ‘Jesus Christ! Who is this guy?’†he says. “The next time we went back, John had played there and my friend got me an autographed copy of the record, and it said, ‘Chuck, I want to be you when I grow up.’†Cleaver’s favorite thing about Moreland’s music is the honesty that comes through his downcast folk songs. “It’s hard to find people who aren’t afraid to break your heart with their truth. He’ll cut himself open, man,†he says. “There’s not a clunker on this record. It’s just absolutely 100% solid.â€
The Embarrassment
S/T
Vinyl LP
Active in Kansas in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, The Embarrassment were a punky pop band with a jangly, sharp-cornered sound—like a weirder Midwestern Feelies, Cleaver says. “Ass Ponys got to open for them once,†he remembers. “They were just the best band in the world.†The Embarrassment released a five-song EP in 1981 that has since been reissued by Brooklyn’s Almost Ready Records. “I walked into the record store one day and saw (their) single and I thought, ‘That looks interesting. I’ll give it a chance,’†Cleaver says. “And I went home and played it to death. Great songwriting. Great execution. They all four wore glasses and looked like complete nerds, but they were amazing.â€
Richard Buckner
Bloomed
Compact Disc (CD), Vinyl LP
The debut full-length from itinerant folk singer Richard Buckner, released in 1994, is a favorite of both Cleaver and Walker’s. While gushing about it, they both at one point just start naming songs they love: “Blue and Wonder,†“Emma,†“Up North,†“Gauzy Dress in the Sun.â€
“‘Gauzy Dress in the Sun’ makes me cry,†Cleaver says. For both, the appeal lies in Buckner’s vulnerability, his unconventional use of language to imbue his songs with emotion, and his punk rock ethos. “I have chills over my whole body just trying to come up with the words to say about this record,†says Walker. “That’s how much it’s meant to me over the years.â€
Advance Base
Animal Companionship
Vinyl LP, Cassette, Compact Disc (CD)
“We met [Advance Base’s] Owen [Ashworth] when we played with him, and it was the first show Chuck and I did that wasn’t a livestream after the pandemic,†says Walker. “We didn’t really know what to do, so we played with our masks on because we didn’t know the protocol,†she says. “He was so sweet. He didn’t give us shit about it or anything.†Walker first heard Advance Base’s quiet synth-pop on comedian Joe Pera’s peaceful 2020 special, Relaxing Old Footage with Joe Pera, which ended with scenes of Milwaukee set to the song “Your Dog†from Animal Companionship.
“It was so beautiful,†she says. “This whole album is beautiful.â€
Cush
Cush
Walker picked Cush’s 2000 self-titled album in part because, she says, “you can’t find it anywhere but Bandcamp.†It’s the project of Michael Knott, a pioneer of the alternative Christian rock scene best known for his band Lifesavers Underground. Cush finds him making sparkling pop-rock with members of The Prayer Chain, Starflyer 59, and other bands. “This is a vestige of my Christian youth—growing up in youth groups and going to church with your parents and trying to do your best but feeling like you really didn’t fit in,†says Walker, “and then sort of finding comfort in this whole Christian alternative movement that was peopled with grown-up versions of those of us who didn’t fit.â€
Sadly, Knott passed away in March; NPR’s obituary called him a “brash and brilliant†musician who “challenged the faithful to examine their faults and hypocrisies.†Wussy has covered “Heaven Sent,†the first track on Cush. “I love the music of outsiders,†Walker says, “even if it falls within a genre that I’m not as locked into as I once was.â€
INERT
2INERT
Here, Cleaver and Walker keep it the family: INERT is Wussy bassist Mark Messerly’s Americana project. “We would’ve picked it even if he wasn’t in our band because we both really like this album he’s put out,†Cleaver says. “It’s really good, and he’s a really good songwriter.†Walker points out that Messerly’s singing voice has a “Steve Earle edge†to it, and his songs are stripped down, efficient and totally DIY: “He made this record himself and put it out himself and I love the brevity of it. This record reminds me of my favorite aspects of seeing shows where there’d be, like, a hardcore band and then a singer-songwriter like Jeffrey Lewis or Colleen Green.â€
The Clientele
Bonfires on the Heath
Compact Disc (CD)
At first, Walker struggled to appreciate The Clientele’s Bonfires on the Heath because of an association with an old boyfriend. But eventually, she couldn’t resist. “I’d put it on and it was just so beautiful,†she says. “Once I got locked in, I couldn’t tear myself away. For me, it’s like listening to Mozart, you know? It’s the romance music of our time.†Walker likes albums that transport her to another place, like a mini-vacation. If she’s ever exiled to a desert island, she says this will be one of the CDs she brings as a companion. “I think it’s one of the most amazingly pretty albums I’ve ever heard. And the best thing about The Clientele is they are still putting out records and the records are good.â€
Ben Babbitt
Kentucky Route Zero Original Soundtrack
Walker is not a hardcore gamer, but she did get into Kentucky Route Zero, a “magical realist adventure game about a secret highway running through the caves beneath Kentucky, and the mysterious folks who travel it,†according to its website. “I played it this last year, and I enjoyed it because it has a lot of literary references and it mixes in things that actually happened in Kentucky and things that happened in novels and things that never happened and creates this whole world,†she says. The soundtrack is largely ambient, though it includes a few gospel and bluegrass tunes, too. “The music in this game is so good. You just want to hear it all,†says Walker. “I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but when I reached the end of the game and the final song was performed, I was just beside myself sobbing. This soundtrack just haunted me. It still runs through my head.â€
