Concert review/photos: Wussy @ MilkBoy Philly 4/3
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
They could've gone on like that all night.
After Chuck Cleaver introduced them briefly — “Thanks, we’re Wussy” — the first sounds were three electric guitars gently playing, joined by John Erhardt’s pedal steel bending notes, adding vibrato, and intensifying the distortion of a tune that gradually articulated itself. The four instruments rose in volume together and as far as I was concerned, they could’ve gone on like that all night. A great deal of Wussy’s power comes from their incredible guitar tones, which instantly recall music you’re familiar with but can’t really pin down to a time and place. There are decades’ worth of influence and style at work in that sound. I’ll grudgingly simplify (why?) and say it’s something like Electr-O-Pura era Yo La Tengo at their noisiest, but bigger, more expansive.
Then Lisa Walker’s singing came in and we were hearing the first track from their forthcoming release Attica!, called “Teenage Wasteland.” Walker might very well be the best rock vocalist now working. There’s seemingly nothing her voice can’t do overtop guitars: It can float high and beautiful like it did on “Pizza King,” squawk madly like it did on “Pulverized,” do both as on “Maglite,” or find a sumptuous, slightly lower register of its own to burrow inside a groove. And when she plays counterpoint with Chuck’s earthy twang on songs like “Happiness Bleeds,” or new one “To The Lightning,” the quality of their expressiveness, their emotional range, sounds limitless.
They’ve been sharper and tighter (there were some equipment malfunctions, and Walker looked regularly displeased with either her guitar or herself) than they were last night, no doubt. But when you write songs like they do and are as committed to performances as they are, there's plenty of wiggle room. They played for more than an hour and there wasn’t a song, old or new, that flagged. Mark Messerly’s jumping, arm waving antics pleased no end, Chuck seemed to disappear into the halo of his white mane and guitar noise for minutes at a time, Joe Klug tried to wear his kit out, Lisa carried every note and syllable on her face, they joked at their own expense, and at ours, and they can still break your heart before you realize — “This is not a home, this is an apartment… This is not a dream, this is disappointment.” Wussy Lives.
