Brian Sauer and The Amazing Waste

Songs

House on Edgar Street

Recorded in 2014 on a 1970's personal tape recorder, House on Edgar Street is an ode to the potential held within everyone and everything..

Carew Tower

Appearing on "My City, My Self", an EP inspired by landmarks in Cincinnati, this song hopes to serve as a reminder that evidence of longing for a better world is hiding in plain sight.

Mercy

Containing a more abstract lyric and fuller instrumentation, this is one of Brian's favorites to play with his band, The Amazing Waste.

About

Being in a band made making music make sense to Brian Sauer. Brian has played music since he was young. But it wasn't until gigging around Portsmouth and other local former industrial towns while in undergrad that the act of creating new music became a calling. The band's leader wrote hundreds of songs in an old, coverless spiral notebook. Some of his songs made sense of a confusing world; some songs made no sense at all. The band loved those songs and cherish them to this day, long after the amps went silent and they went their separate ways. Brian learned a lot from those times, but the most important lesson was that the act of creation is a noble and worthwhile endeavor in and of itself. Even if only the creator hears the final product, channeling the wider world and funneling it into a song gives a tangible voice to what's often overlooked, enriching all who partake in the process.

Brian has been focused on deliberate creation ever since. The purpose of Brian's music is to bring significance to the insignificant. Through music he distills the meaning and depth in all things, be it a crumbling bridge, a forgotten book, or a fleeting dream. Brian follows in the tradition of romantic poets and old folk singers by deeply examining the surroundings and local traditions of the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area he calls home. Grounded in the landmarks and references of a community that he is an integral part of, the proximity his music shares with both the dreams of his neighbors and the history that surrounds him allows Brian to have an authentic and purposeful conversation that both challenges and respects his audience. His music plaintively asks questions of broad significance, while plucking on ukulele strings and common threads jointly shared.

To keep that authenticity, Brian adheres to a punk, DIY ethos in which the process of making and promoting music is as honest as his songs. He writes on old envelopes, records in his basement, and tapes on recorders or old computers. He burns every CD and folds every paper cover. He keeps a day job. The end result is heartfelt music and the ability to further enrich his community by trading CD's for donations to charitable causes.

Numbers

$1737

Amount of money raised for the Freestore Foodbank by trading CD's for donations.

8

Number of EP's and albums written, recorded, and performed since 2014.

4

Total members in the band, The Amazing Waste, who perform with Brian from time to time.

Elsewhere

Music can be streamed on all major platforms. In addition, here are Brian's other corners of the internet: