The Little Wretches

Friedrich Nietzsche Meets Langston Hughes 
(Click here to listen to Friedrich Nietzsche Meets Langston Hughes on YouTube)

Wagner: 
     Okay, did anybody go down? One of our political candidates announced his running mate down at Market Square. I don’t want to mention his name. 

Audience Member: 
     Why? 

Wagner: 
     Because Dave says we should stand above the fray of politics, and I, um… 

Dave Maund: 
     Friedrich Nietzsche said that. 

Wagner: 
     Oh, Friedrich Nietzsche said that. Oh, oh, it wasn’t “the…

Train tracks mostly follow a straight line, the shortest distance between two points, so as much as our parents told us to stay off the tracks, if we had to walk somewhere, the tracks were the quickest way to get there. 

Click here to hear DON'T YOU EVER MENTION MY NAME by The Little Wretches from the album UNDESIRABLES & ANARCHISTS on YouTube.

The tracks were also the place to go if you wanted to evade the watchful eyes of adult authority.The forbidden-ness of the tracks puts you in outlaw territory.
I’m a…

Click Here to hear/see Robert Andrew Wagner perform three songs for Father's Day

My dad didn’t ask for much. Somewhere, he learned that you’re entitled to nothing and you should be grateful for whatever you get. He didn’t mind telling me that I was the laziest, most ungrateful boy he’d ever met. Nothing had been given to him. Everything had been given to me.

He enjoyed feasting on a few delicacies. Olives, pepperoncini, anchovies, he’d eat those straight out of the jar. He liked fancy cashews, pizza with…

Click Here to Hear I RATHER WOULD GO by The Little Wretches on YouTube

I RATHER WOULD GO was debuted all the way back in The Little Wretches’ early shows at The New Group Theater. The original edition of the band was very much modeled after the “Rockin’ Robins” edition of Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers. John Creighton and Chris Bruckhoff were The Little Wretches’ “Rockin’ Robins.” 

At the New Group Theater, we were very much anti-rock. Our contemporaries were evoking The Stooges, and “hard core” was…

Three different versions of WHO IS AMERICA have been released on three different albums, all within the span of weeks. 
Listening to all three versions will cost you twelve minutes of your life, but it’ll be twelve GOOD minutes. 

When the link to this post appears on Facebook, I hope you'll consider posting a comment with your answers to the questions below. Why? I'm thinking about contracting someone to promote the catalogue to radio programmers and dee jays, and I really want to know what you think.

You've…

This is me, Robert Andrew Wagner, founder of The Little Wretches, talking.
I am going to tell you some background about the three albums released today.
Consider these the liner-notes for albums you've yet to purchase.

 Click here to purchase BORN WITH A GIFT (plus live tracks and rare 7" singles) 

Click here to purchase WHEN IT SNOWS 

Click here to purchase UNDESIRABLES & ANARCHISTS 

First, BORN WITH A GIFT 

The title song was, for me, very specifically a reflection on the death of John Creighton. John…

Click here to go the the Facebook Page of International Quarantined Origins Guild

Click Here to Purchase I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR (POEM) at iTunes / Apple Music

Yes, I’ve scripted my performance. 

Intro to I’ll Be Your Mirror 

Three of the best and most influential albums ever recorded are The Velvet Underground and Nico by, of course, The Velvet Underground, Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks, and Horses by Patti Smith. 

With HORSES, Patti takes classic, primal, foundational rock’n’roll songs—…

Keith Golebie (who currently pastors a church, teaches media-production at a public school in Western Pennsylvania, played bass on the SLAVE & BRAVES tape and ran sound for The Little Wretches for a significant stretch in the band's early days) helped me with the step-by-steps involved in sitting in front of a laptop and streaming live on Facebook.

On Tuesday evening, I did a little test. Click here to see/hear Robert Andrew Wagner perform a test-take of WHO IS AMERICA on Facebook Live, 6-2-2020

On…

The name of our/my band, you may know, comes from a scene in Francois Truffaut’s THE 400 BLOWS. 

I became acquainted with film as an artform by way of Bob Goetz, leader of a film workshop in the University of Pittsburgh’s ALTERNATIVE CURRICULUM Program. Goetz introduced me/us to films by Frederick Wiseman, Stan Brakhage, Rene Clare, Fritz Lang, Dziga Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, Bunuel and Dali, and Jean Cocteau. Goetz was also a huge fan of The Velvet Underground, helped to school me on rock’n’roll, and…

Click here to hear the song (Let's Do) Something Romantic by The Little Wretches

Upon learning of the passing of David Allen Flynn, artist and long-time friend of The Little Wretches, drummer Angelo George said without pause, "He and Chuckie are having a reunion in Heaven."

George shared the following anecdote:

At an early rehearsal, we were in the basement on Middleboro Road, maybe even before the band had a name. This was WAY back at the beginning. David, Chuckie and Ed Heidel (original bassist for The…