The first music festival I ever went to was the 2007 Pitchfork festival in Chicago. Partly I was going since I had a good friend who lived there and we hadn't seen each other in awhile. Mostly I was going for the music, and specifically the first night which was presented by All Tomorrow's Parties and their 'Don't Look Back' concert series. Basically, ATP invited bands to play one of their 'classic' albums live in full. This edition had Slint performing Spiderland, GZA performing Liquid Swords (sadly wasted on me since I didn't like hip hop at the time), and Sonic Youth performing Daydream Nation. Ever since then, I've fantasized about seeing other bands performing their best records. When artists actually do a tour or a single performance of a 'classic' album, it's usually years after the initial release. Not so with Memory Of A Cut Off Head, which was performed in full during a short OCS tour in late 2017, including two San Francisco shows. While I would certainly give up my clear vinyl copy of Thee Hounds Of Foggy Notion to see Oh Sees perform Help or Face Stabber, it is nice to have one live album that features a beloved record.
Culled from shows on December 17th and 18th of 2017, Live In San Francisco would be released on June 28th, 2018. One thing I can tell you right off the bat is that it's one of the modern releases with the hardest to find information, in terms of websites not reviewing/covering it. I don't see it discussed much online, even on Reddit and other fan/music forums. I get the sense it snuck out there and only the truly hardcore/record collectors were able to get their hands on the various limited edition vinyl versions. The other big reason it's a hard release to research is that its title is exactly the same as the Oh Sees Live In San Francisco, so if you put “OCS Live In San Francisco” into Google most of the results end up being about the Oh Sees one. Anyhow, the OCS lineup for these shows bizarrely didn't feature Nick Murray or Patrick Mullins, who contributed to the studio album. Instead the cast includes John Dwyer, Brigid Dawson, Tim Hellman, Tomas Dolas, and Paul Quattrone, supplemented by a string section made up of Emily Elkin, Eric Clark, Heather Lockie, and Heidi Maureen Alexander. Elzo Durt, who provided the cover art, also did the awesome art for Carrion Crawler/The Dream. I recommend checking out his website, he's got a fantastic 60s concert poster throwback style. The last bit of business I need to address is that I purchased the digital version from Bandcamp since it's not on Spotify and some of the track names are fucked up or weirdly shortened. Another instance where I can't tell if somebody was lazy or didn't doublecheck their work. 'Neighbor Ton None'? 'On & On Cooridor'? Hey, you know what one of my favorite songs off Thee Hounds Of Foggy Notion is? 'Dreadful Day.' You can't see it but I'm shaking my head right now.
Live In San Francisco is mostly a faithful performance of the studio versions of the Memory Of A Cut Off Head songs. As I said earlier, it's literally the album in full, in exact order, with some 'bonus' old favorites at the end. Like with the Pitchfork 2007 'Don't Look Back' performances I saw, there are a few little wrinkles here and there to make this live release a worthy companion to the studio versions. Dwyer uses a bit of echo/delay on his guitar, often between songs, and it's a cool effect. The noise/drone section at the end of 'The Baron Sleeps And Dreams' gets some big cheers from the audience, which always makes me smile. 'Time Tuner' gets a bit of David Bowie 'Heroes'-esque sustain guitar from Dwyer, giving it even more of a Nico vibe, and it's a bit slower and longer than the studio version. I enjoy the Dwyer banter sprinkled throughout, including him pronouncing the band's name at the start as “Oh See Ess”, so now we all know it's not “Oh Sees.” Oh, and there's a bit during 'The Chopping Block' where someone says something I can't quite make out but it makes Dwyer crack up and makes me realize how much this song sounds like David Bowie's 'Space Oddity.'
Otherwise, there isn't much to say about this release that I didn't already say about Memory Of A Cut Off Head, so I'll cover the final three throwback tracks for curious parties. Once the string players leave the stage, we get a nice Thee Hounds Of Foggy Notion throwback with 'Dreadful Heart' and 'Iceberg.' The former is prefaced by a dedication to a friend of Dwyer, and is really close to the Hounds version. 'Iceberg' gets a weirdly self-deprecating “This is another old that we played for nobody a long time ago...” comment from him and a dedication to someone named Garth. There's a bit more to 'Iceberg' in this performance, including some gorgeous Rhodes organ, presumably from Tomas Dolas. And then there's 'Block Of Ice', and hoo boy!
To date, this is the longest track on any Oh Sees release. It starts out like the version on The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In, with a fatter bottom end thanks to organ/keyboards from Tomas Dolas. They extend the hell out of the song and Dwyer absolutely cuts loose on his electric guitar just like the epic, live album closing 'Contraption' on Oh Sees' Live In an Fransisco. Send 'em home with their minds blown! I can only imagine listening to this on acid. Around the eight minute mark you can really tell why Dwyer brought on Dolas full-time. He's a decent improviser in his own right and tries to keep up with the guitar madness going on. They return to the main riff and lyrics around 14 minutes in, and if you aren't paying attention to the runtime you might think they're about to wrap it up. Nope. You still have like ten minutes left, dig in! Around 15:35 it mutates into 'Ghost In The Trees'—why the tracklisting doesn't reflect this, I have no idea—before going off into more jamming and wrapping up with another runthrough of the 'Ghost In The Trees' riff/lyrics. Over the course of this performance, Dwyer does everything from silky delay trails/loops to grimy noise blurts and groans to bluesy riffs. It never quite flows logically but that doesn't really matter. It's all about the pure spectacle, like that live Frank Zappa album where they play 'Louie Louie' using the giant Victorian organ at the Royal Albert Hall. After the calmer/hushed tone of the rest of the Live In San Francisco album, it's a jarring change, though not strictly in a bad way.
In all honesty, if you own Live In San Francisco, you don't really need Memory Of A Cut Off Head. This may be a bit controversial, since some people always prefer to have studio versions of music. For me, though, Live is superior in every way. It's like having the original album plus three interesting, unique throwbacks as a meaty bonus, kinda like ordering a 12 oz. steak and getting three sliders as the side. Well, I guess one of the sliders should be a double bacon cheeseburger. Alright, let's stop torturing the metaphor. For fans of Memory, this is an excellent companion piece. For people who aren't especially big on the album, however, the three bonus songs are worth the price of admission alone. I've sure spent $7 on worse things.
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