The Wilhelms

A side project of John Wendland and Andy Ploof of Rough Shop, the Wilhelms are an acoustic duo with a penchant for solid songwriting, intertwining strings and soaring harmonies.
At a glance, the Wilhelms appear to be a simplistic entity: two men playing two instruments, and singing. Only when you really start to listen does it becomes obvious that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Those familiar with Rough Shop will find the same level of musicianship in the Wilhelms.
The stripped-down arrangements show off just how well Wendland and Ploof are able to weave their voices and instrumentation into songs with unique flare. If you think folk music is bland and boring, give the Wilhelms a listen and see if they can't change your tune.
- KDHX-FM

"Far Past the Outskirts" is a laid-back collection of songs that are equal parts country, pop, rock and folk. Its 12 tracks emit a kind of Grateful Dead vibe, but the hook-filled tunes and literate lyrics are totally original. Add wonderful playing, and you have a CD that gets better with each listen…Dahm's organ washes and solos add soul and gospel colors to the band's canvas of guitars, mandolins and dobros, especially on the gender-ambiguous "I'm Your Man" …With multiple multi-instrumentalists and singers, Rough Shop is a formidable talent collective that deserves the chance to make a very loud noise. – St Louis Post-Dispatch - St Louis Post Dispatch

When you write for a group of impeccable players fronted by an overpowering singer, you're lucky anyone notices your songs at all. The now-defunct One Fell Swoop wasn't one of St. Louis' best bands because they could pick and sing. They had songs in spades, the kind that stand with the best of our better-known roots-oriented writers. Together Andy Ploof and John Wendland wrote tunes like "Broke Down," "Evening Stranger," "Black Ice" and "Sweet Relief" -- in other words, much of the band's finest material. One Fell Swoop may be no more, but Ploof and Wendland continue to craft careful, wise, even classic songs that finger the edgy line between country, folk and great American rock. ~ Riverfront Times
- The Riverfront TImes

When you write for a group of impeccable players fronted by an overpowering singer, you're lucky anyone notices your songs at all. The now-defunct One Fell Swoop wasn't one of St. Louis' best bands because they could pick and sing. They had songs in spades, the kind that stand with the best of our better-known roots-oriented writers. Together Andy Ploof and John Wendland wrote tunes like "Broke Down," "Evening Stranger," "Black Ice" and "Sweet Relief" -- in other words, much of the band's finest material. One Fell Swoop may be no more, but Ploof and Wendland continue to craft careful, wise, even classic songs that finger the edgy line between country, folk and great American rock. ~ Riverfront Times
- The Riverfront TImes

The appearance of the otherwise unheralded debut by the Wilhelms through my transom was something a surprise. It's not as if the duo's members, Andy Ploof and John Wendland, have lacked an outlet for their collaborations. First in One Fell Swoop and later in the still-active Rough Shop, Ploof and Wendland have traded songs, stories and guitar licks for more than a decade.

You'd be hard-pressed to find two men more entrenched in American songcraft; listen to Wendland's Memphis to Manchester on KDHX (88.1 FM) for a three-hour education each Thursday, or stop in for a clawhammer banjo class at Ploof's Music Folk shop in Webster Groves. But in the years since Rough Shop has swelled to a working quintet and taken on elements of electric roots and soul music, these songwriters haven't lost their love of acoustic folk music. Film at 11 is an unfussy, stripped-down affair made for two voices and two guitars. Both men, firmly rooted in middle age and not pretending otherwise, sing about the past with some hard-won wisdom instead of mawkish nostalgia.

Film at 11 will be available digitally, but it's worth buying the CD if only for the liner notes, in which Wendland and Ploof offer insight into each song's genesis or influence (Dana Smith's cover painting and Nate Burrell's band photo round out a smartly designed package). You won't need to read that Wendland was inspired by Neil Young once "Mr. DJ" starts -- that lyrical harmonica line is a good enough wink -- but it serves as an apt mission statement for this project. The song yearns for a kind of musical honesty, a warts-and-all approach that takes human imperfection as a working definition for "soul music."

That thread is picked up with the closing track, "St. Louis Song," which celebrates Wendland's adopted hometown by taking the refined and the seedy in the same view. As on Rough Shop's LPs, Ploof sings a little lower, a little slower and plumbs deeper recesses of the heart. This simple setup is all the backing he needs for the emotional rawness of "Clean Slate," with Wendland's harmonies tucked in behind Ploof's resonant vocals. Tracks like these, alongside covers by T-Bone Burnett, Norman Blake and St. Louis legend John Hartford, help make the album sound less like a statement and more like two old friends passing songs back and forth. We're lucky enough to listen in.
- The Riverfront TImes

John Wendland and Andy Ploof have never lacked for an outlet to share their music together. The men, both singers and guitarists, played together in One Fell Swoop in the mid-'90s before joining with bassist and singer Anne Tkach to form the core of Rough Shop. That the band has weathered the tragedy of Tkach's sudden passing in 2015 — a new album is said to be in the offing — is further proof of the pair's musical bond. In the interim, Wendland and Ploof stay busy with their acoustic duo the Wilhelms, whose sophomore album Contortionist Blues was released this month.

In the mezzanine of the Tick Tock Tavern, the musicians muse on the distinctions between their two active bands and what playing as a duo affords them.

"I think some songs lend themselves better to full-band arrangements," says Wendland. "We tend to do those with Rough Shop. But I love a lot of stripped-down, more intimate-sounding stuff, and to me that works really well with this."

"We were at a point with the band where it just seemed harder to get everyone together," says Ploof. "We wanted to play a fair amount still, so we thought, 'Well, it's gonna be a lot easier to get fewer people together and agree to practice and agree to certain dates to play shows.'"

Ploof continues, "It was fun to focus on the acoustic duo now, and since we're songwriters, it's fun to really focus on the songs."

Of those songs on Blues, many show the intricate craft of top-shelf folk music, with finely wrought lyrical detail and sturdy, unfussy acoustic guitar work. When asked to pick their favorite new song written by the other, both men demure slightly.

"Oh man, that's really making it rough," Wendland laughs. "But maybe 'Falling Down Drunk.' That song works so well with a full band, and it works so great stripped down, and it's just narrowed down to the basics and it just really gets across. I don't see a lot of other bands playing stuff like that."

The song rides on a gentle, loping waltz and finds Ploof putting his weathered, husky voice in the guise of a man stumbling through his steps from both too much alcohol and a conflicted conviction. In talking about "Falling Down Drunk," Ploof gives insight to his songwriting process. "I had the melody for a long, long time, and then the title just worked with the song," he says. "From there, the idea of somebody trying to screw up his courage to get something done came about. I have a hard time writing words; I often think, 'OK, do I have enough for a song? Good! I'm out. I'm not writing anymore.'"

For his selection, Ploof gives credit to Wendland's "$500 Funeral," a funny and surreal story-song about sending a loved one to his final reward — on a budget. Ploof calls it a "really good, detailed story laid out in a song form," and Wendland cops that his inspiration came squarely from the Gram Parsons song "$1000 Wedding."

"If he can write a song about a thousand-dollar wedding, I can write a song about a $500 funeral," says Wendland. "That's how I started writing it, simple as that."

Wendland's song is played mostly for laughs, but the track underscores a sense of loss that permeates many of these songs. The album closes with "Meet Me on the Southside," a tribute to the late Bob Reuter, a revered DJ, songwriter and photographer. Granite City native Michael Friedman wrote the lyrics and Wendland provided the music.

"Our relationship with Bob Reuter goes back a long way," Wendland says. "When I first moved here we'd start going to guitar circles hosted by [KDHX DJ and RFT contributor] Roy Kasten. That's where I met a lot of songwriters, including Bob Reuter and Michael Friedman.

"He was a rather prickly character, but I always got along with him really well," Wendland says of Reuter.

The album's most striking song is also Wendland's most personal. "Best Spent Time" is a tribute to his late wife Marie Arsenault, and Wendland wrote it in the month between her passing in August 2016 and her memorial service a month later.

Through the grief, Wendland recalls that the music, a binding force in their relationship, provided some solace.

"It just so happened that Andy and I were supposed to be playing the night before the memorial," he says. "We just decided to do it because she was such a music fan and used to book bands for a living.

"I wrote it pretty quickly," Wendland says. "I had the melody, part of it, already, but once I had a melody in mind it just poured out. It's a hard song to do because you want to do justice to the song, but you're trying not to think too much about what you're singing. You gotta try to disassociate yourself slightly to get through the damn song.

"I wouldn't change a thing about that song, from a lyrics standpoint," Wendland concludes. "Not a thing." - Riverfront Times