Oh Sees Retrospective #8: Thee Hounds Of Foggy Notion

It’s a common experience in music to listen to something that you just don’t get. Maybe it’s an album you’ll eventually like, maybe it’s a style of music that isn’t your cup of tea, maybe you just weren’t in the right mood that day. Expectations, too, can play a part. In my early days of being an Oh Sees fan, I hadn’t memorized their discography yet, and would often stumble on their releases not knowing exactly what I was getting into. Spotting Thee Hounds Of Foggy Notion in a record store in Ann Arbor in the Fall of 2013, I remember thinking, “weird, they have a live album that comes with a DVD, why didn’t anyone tell me?” Funnily enough, I was actually on a first date that day. It didn’t end up going anywhere but my love affair with this album had only just begun, in a quite literal sense. You see, at first, I didn’t really like it.

Take a deep breath, I’ll get there by the end of the story!

Let’s detour briefly and talk about the hard facts. Thee Hounds Of Foggy Notion was released on August 22^nd, 2008 (or the 25^th, if you believe Wikipedia). Due to the vagaries of music release schedules and DVD production, it came out after The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In despite being recorded before it. With the classic freak-folk lineup including Patrick Mullins on drums, Thee Hounds features songs from the band’s releases up to this point, a few originals, as well as nascent versions of ‘Block Of Ice’ and ‘Ghost In The Trees’ that would be reworked for Master’s Bedroom. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the DVD included with this album. Not only does it feature the band performing the songs in various locations around San Francisco, but it has segments between songs of the band goofing off, telling stories, and doing party tricks. I believe the whole thing is on YouTube for those who haven’t seen it. It’s essential viewing, equally intimate and electrifying, and a glorious window into the otherworldly being that is John Dwyer.

I’ll dispense with any more formalities and come out and say it: Thee Hounds is one of my favorite albums, ever. I love everything about it, from the production style to the improved versions of past songs to the album cover to the look and feel of the DVD performances and between song segments. Sometimes when I do the dishes I put on this album and I get so caught up air guitaring along to ‘We Are Free’ and singing along to the songs that I forget I was even doing dishes. So, you’re probably still wondering: why didn’t I like it at first? Mostly it was down to expectations. I had no clue about the earlier era of this band, and the vast difference between something like ‘If I Had A Reason’ and latter day classics like ‘The Dream’ left me confused. Was this some kind of stripped down, MTV Unplugged style live album? Sure ‘Golden Phones’ is pretty as hell, and ‘Dreadful Heart’ is spellbinding. But…but I want to hear ten minute versions of ‘I Come From The Mountain’ and ‘Destroyed Fortress Reappears’! I want to mosh along to it alone in my apartment, spilling beer on the floor and falling over my couch! I suppose the other reason it didn’t click with me at first is that I was going through a serious “I want music to be as crazy as possible!” phase, mainlining Miles Davis live albums from the early to mid ‘70s, getting into No Wave and industrial music, obsessing over shoegazer and noise pop, and continuing to make my own crappy, amateurish experimental music with as many layers, samples, and effects as I could get my hands on. But I digress. I love this album now, all is right with the world.

I get the sense that Thee Hounds is a more or less universally beloved Oh Sees album. Maybe I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know when I say it’s a perfect live artifact of this era of the band. The only complaint I have is that ‘Highland Wife’s Lament’ doesn’t quite belong. I think it’s an interesting experiment though I usually skip over it. I dunno, it seems more like something I’d expect on a Blackout Beach record. Anyway, as I said earlier, I love the reworkings of earlier songs, and comparing the slower versions of ‘Block Of Ice’ and ‘Ghost In The Trees’ to the Master’s Bedroom versions is interesting, particularly because they sound like a halfway point between the freak-folk and garage rock eras. Still, Thee Hounds is a very special album to me regardless of its rarity, style, and place in the band’s history. It’s the best starting point for getting into the earlier freak-folk era of Oh Sees and the DVD is an essential piece of understanding Oh Sees and the world of John Dwyer.