Would the Ass Ponys, by any other name, smell as sweet?

by Grant Alden

City-bred, it is easy to envy small-town life, for there is certain solace in those familiar faces, in that closed circle, in the measured, steady pace of their living. Or so it seems, warping off the highway with some kind of introduction – strangers must be vouched for – to map-dots like Bethel, Ohio, where the Ass Ponys come from. Bethel and environs we know from the lyrics of Chuck Cleaver, much as Sherwood Anderson peeled open Winesburg, Ohio. Like most such ordinary, unexamined destinations, it seems a swell place.

Well, then, a curious place...
They say a saucer landed there
In 1959
And on that day that very year
He was born without a spine
And even though he'll never walk
They say he's doing fine.
– "Place Out There" (Electric Rock Music)

...filled with curious folk leading lives of imperfect resonance.
Well I swear upon my mother
And I believe with all my heart
That I could rule the world
If I could get my car to start
But what would I do then?
With the tires around the flower beds
We'll have to ride the rims
– "Shoe Money" (The Known Universe)

Cleaver sings these stories in a voice that starts low and grounded but trails upwards, high and swaying, uncertain like a kite in gusting wind. The other Ass Ponys (Randy Cheek, bass and backing vocals; Dave Morrison, drums, organ, etc.; and Bill Alletzhauser, guitars) take a very Midwestern, postmodern, classic-rock-radio approach to the songs. Which means traces of everything from John Prine to punk rock to Pere Ubu (it's an Ohio thing) might show up somewhere along the line, and you can tell there was country music on the AM radio out in the garage when they were trying to fix the lawnmower, too.

This all came into more public view two years back when A&M elected to release the Ponys' third, Electric Rock Music. It can't have been that tough a decision. As with all four Ponys records (the latest is titled The Known Universe), Electric Rock Music had been recorded on a modest budget – $2,500 – at Afghan Whig John Curley's Ultrasuede Studio up the road in Cincinnati. All that remained was to do was harvest the good press from their first two LPs and put the thing out.

Oh, and to convince the band it was a good idea. "We needed to be coaxed, basically," Cleaver says. "When four people have to give up their jobs in order to do something, you have to be compensated for that. Other than that, we told them as long as it didn't affect our lives economically, great. We'll be on your label. That's about all there was to it."

Not that they were living lives of corporate ease, or anything, just that the Ass Ponys had begun in 1989 as a gentleman's band with no particular place to go. "I'd go back in time and choose another name," Cleaver chuckles, "if I thought we were going to go beyond two or three shows."

Cleaver and original drummer Dan Kleinger had been together since 1981 in something called the Lunchbuddies, and something else called Gomez (not the Austin band of the same name, nor the Brits who came after). Randy Cheek had been a Libertine, and John Earhardt (the guitarist up until last year) was principally a bluegrass musician. That lineup recorded 1990's Mr. Superlove (on Okrah), and Grim (on Safe House, with Morrison taking over the skins along the way).

Their recordings have improved as the fortunes of the Afghan Whigs (and the reputation of Ultrasuede) have allowed John Curley to upgrade his facilities. "We recorded Mr. Superlove in his house," Cleaver recalls fondly. "The vocals were done in the bathroom, the guitars were recorded in his bedroom. Everybody could see each other via closed-circuit TV. It was weird, it was great. I actually did the guitar parts for Mr. Superlove standing on his roommate's bed."

Mr. Superlove has been reissued on Anyway, a small Columbus label, with a couple bonus tracks. "I think the original version of 'Peanut' is on there, and some other song that never came out," says Cleaver. "The original version of 'Peanut' is so unlike the version of 'Peanut' that ended up on Electric Rock Music that it's practically a different song. It's like a fast bluegrass number. And it's bad; we recorded it in a kitchen. It's not bad; I love it, but it's fucked up. It's really very odd. There's a whistling solo in the middle of it."

Anyway, the upshot of signing with A&M was that Chuck's teenage daughter got to see her daddy's picture in Rolling Stone, his wife's colleagues down at the high school had more reasons to look quizzically at her husband, and the band got to tour further and wider than accumulated vacation time and regional reputation would otherwise have afforded. "The jury's still out," Cleaver said at the time. "We normally get along pretty well. When you're out that long, who knows who's going to get on your nerves first, and what's going to happen." What happened was that Earhardt found the rigors of the road not to his liking, and the shock of his exit nearly broke up the band. Not, it should be noted, that they parted on less than friendly terms; Earhardt still works on Ass Ponys videos, and his wife remains the band's business manager.

"I think a lot of bands really and truly would have folded in the same circumstances," Cleaver says. "We've always been a band that were very in and of ourselves, and so it was very odd to think about replacing somebody. Especially somebody who was the lead guitarist and never took solos," he finishes, laughing.

Alletzhauser, a dozen years younger than Cleaver, appeared in the midst of an otherwise futile audition process. "I was just lamenting to the other guys before one audition, 'God, I just hope this kinda seedy David Lindley-looking motherfucker just walks in and kills me,' and it was Bill." Alletzhauser has a somewhat murky pedigree that includes time in assorted thrash/skater bands, a band called Grinch, and a stint with an R&B singer in Florida.

"I think Bill did really well on the record, but the record only shows a pinch of what he can do," Cleaver says, almost paternally. "He's just amazing and he's so willing to just show his ass – no pun intended – he's wonderful. His solos can be as horrible as they are great. And it's pushing along. It makes me want to play better. He plays like I'd like to be able to play, if I could actually play the guitar beyond like the fourth fret."

The Known Universe also became the first Ass Ponys release to take some kind of advantage of their corporate sponsors. "This one we had an entire month in the studio," Cleaver says, not to mention a 24-track analog tape deck imported from Nashville. "We had always been real hit-and-run before that – however many songs you could get done in six or seven hours, and then do it over a three- or four-month period, whenever you had the money."

The Ass Ponys' near-dissolution also produced at least one song ("John considers it our 'downer' record"), "Blow Oskar", courtesy the kindness and concern of their A&R man Jeff Suhey, a voracious collector of folk art in his spare time. Those familiar with "Earth to Grandma", from Electric Rock Music, will understand the Ponys' connection to that impulse, as well.

"Blow Oskar", see, is the trademark work of Georgia folk artist R.A. Miller. "Jeff was kind of concerned about band morale, so he came out for a week. Dave went off and took care of himself, but me and Randy were just kind of floundering so Jeff came out and took us down to Georgia, to meet some of these people. It was kind of nice to meet R.A. Miller. He reminded me of my grandfather. While we were there, three or four people came and bought up basically everything he had. It was a little weird. To me that's a little bit of a touchy subject, but, at the same time, he makes probably more money than anybody around there."

Easy enough, then, to trace the origin of songs. Cleaver's writing process, however, is another matter altogether. "I don't write anything down," he says. "Usually the guys in the band don't know what the hell I'm saying until there's a lyric sheet. I used to keep a journal when I was a teenager, and I found one once that I had kept when I was maybe 14. I found it when I was 15 or so, and I thought, 'Jesus Christ, this is so stupid, I don't ever want anybody to read this.' I just quit writing stuff down, it gave me the creeps. And so I keep it in my head. I edit in my head, too. I'll come up with something and then I'll work on it and bend it around until it makes complete sense. I like things to make sense. I don't always succeed, but I like songs to make sense."

The literate quality of his songwriting has emboldened editors to ask Cleaver to try his hand at prose, but that is composed in much the same fashion. "I write it in my head until I'm ready to put it on paper. And then I put it down, and there's very little editing. I might push a word around or two, but it's a taught thing. If you were raised behind chickenwire, storing food, if Uncle Tom doesn't come back to feed you at noon, you've got something from breakfast you can choke down."

And at the risk of diving too deeply into the Darwinian nomenclature of the music industry, the question does come up (speaking of chickenwire) as to whether the Ass Ponys are fish or fowl. The public championing of the Afghan Whigs is almost as misleading as the occasional twang to the guitar, or the David Thomas (from Pere Ubu) cast to Cleaver's voice.

"I don't really think we had too many alliances with too many movements," Cleaver laughs. "We weren't and aren't like a grunge thing or anything. And we're really not a punk band, although I think, in a way, we're more punky than some of the bands that call themselves punk bands. It's almost more punk to play shit like we play than it is to play punk music now."

Still, Cleaver reports the Ass Ponys' best gig to date happened in Chicago, opening for Golden Smog. "We had the nicest time," he says. "It's nice when adults occasionally see us. I think adults are usually pretty surprised, you know? 'I've heard of you, but I just always assumed you were something else. You guys are great.' We played a really good show that night, too. I really do think people my age can like this band if they'd just give it a fuckin' chance." Afterwards, Jeff Tweedy urged the Ponys to accept a possible opening slot on the H.O.R.D.E. tour, as Wilco themselves did last summer.

There was even talk of crossing to the other side of Uncle Tupelo's street on Son Volt's February and March dates, though that didn't end up happening. "I don't know how we even fit into the alternative-country thing," Cleaver says. "I guess we do, but I mean, Jay Farrar wouldn't take us on tour with Son Volt. He liked the record a lot, but he didn't think we were that enough, or whatever. Whatever it is. It's like, they've got a foot in the water, but they're not bathing with it. And I guess I can see his point. It's the story of our fucking lives. Nobody ever knows where to stick us. We don't really go with much."