Oh Sees Retrospective #33: Live At Big Sur

 While I do still want to see them live someday, there is a small, cynical part of me that is glad I've never seen Phish in concert because they have such a high capacity to disappoint me. As I became a fan during the dark times (late 2004 to early 2009), I had a lot of time to catch up on old shows, diving deep into online fan tapes and the official LivePhish.com store/site. Having already heard a lot of the most recommended “best” and “fan favorite” concerts, I decided to listen to shows that I might have actually gone to in my area, to get a sense for what an 'average' show might have been like. While not outright terrible, Phish—especially in the post-hiatus, 2003-2004 incarnation—are sometimes known for playing sloppy or jam-light shows from time to time. And this is where my disappointment would always come in. I could forgive forgotten lyrics here or there, a flubbed section of a song here or there, but if a show had no tasty improv, or at the very least, some interesting segues between songs? Count me out. So, while I don't mean to rush the conclusion of this Retrospective entry, I have to say up-front that I was not looking forward to revisiting Live At Big Sur. Will I be just as let down this time? We'll find out in a bit.

Live At Big Sur was released on January 9^th, 2021. For whatever it's worth, it was recorded on December 19^th, 2020, so a pretty quick turnaround. It's officially known as Live At Big Sur, but sometimes also referred to as Live At The Henry Miller Library Big Sur. I'll be going with the shorter designation for sake of ease. The webcast, now posted for free on YouTube, is preceded by 12ish minutes of a bizarre improv jam over footage of...well, I'm still not sure for the most part. Best experienced for yourself. Now, please correct me if I'm wrong but I think this was purely a digital release, so no limited edition color variant vinyls to lust after. Maybe I'm alone in this but I find it exceedingly odd that there's been no physical release at all, even on CD. But I digress. It's not on the Bandcamp page for this release so for those wondering, here's what John Dwyer had to say about the performance/release: “We’ve dipped deep into the dark waters of our song-sack of holding and found several more never-before-performed-live tunes & paired them up with some oldies we’ve knocked the dust off of as well as some fan favorites and general surprises to make the merry very. That’s right, we’ve been paying attention. Recorded from dusk till dawn 2 at the gorgeous Henry Miller Library in Big Sur. Same killer crew, similar killer vibes. An enchanting pre-holiday evening to tell you that we miss and love you. Play it loud and have one on us. And keep your chin up for goodness sake."

As usual, here's the tracklisting, with the album the song is from in parentheses:

1. Rogue Planet (Mutilator Defeated At Last)

2. I Can't Pay You To Disappear (Dog Poison)

3. Opposition (Carrion Crawler/The Dream)

4. Crushed Grass (Carrion Crawler/The Dream)

5. Heavy Doctor (Carrion Crawler/The Dream)

6. Ticklish Warrior (A Weird Exits)

7. Gholü (Face Stabber)

8. Withered Hand (Mutilator Defeated At Last)

9. Voice In The Mirror (Dog Poison)

10. Tunnel Time (Floating Coffin)

11. Gelatinous Cube (A Weird Exits)

12. Poor Queen (Mutilator Defeated At Last)

13. Lupine Ossuary (Mutilator Defeated At Last)

14. Dead Medic (Dead Medic 12” single)

15. Jealous Again (Black Flag, Jealous Again 12” EP)

16. Nervous Breakdown (Black Flag, Nervous Breakdown 7” EP)

17. Wasted (Black Flag, Nervous Breakdown 7” EP)

18. Fix Me (Black Flag, Nervous Breakdown 7” EP)

19. Levande Begravd (Liket Lever, Levande Begravd/Hjärtats Slag 7” single)

20. J'ai Mal Aux Dents (Faust, The Faust Tapes)

Live At Big Sur is a very scattered release, in terms of choices of covers as well as the band's own songs. It's weird to have three songs from the same album in a row, and it's also weird to have four songs from the same album in total. Not sure if those were conscious choices or just how they wanted the set to flow and feel. Overall the songs are heavily biased towards short tracks and I think it's easily my least favorite setlist of their recent live releases. Before 'Dead Medic', a welcome rarity, there is only one song that is over four minutes long! I will say it's cool to get some bustouts and never-before-performed-live tracks but that only goes so far in my book.

As for the covers...Well, I'm not that huge of a Black Flag fan. I've always been of the opinion that hardcore punk bands got truly interesting when they started to get weirder. I mean, do more people know Double Nickels On The Dime or Paranoid Time? Given their recent style and penchant for improv I think it's odd Osees only did songs from Black Flag's very early hardcore punk era, before they started to get more ambitious musically and had tracks that routinely went past four minutes. I'd love to hear Osees tackle the legendarily sludgy, stoner metal-esque side two of My War: three songs in 18 minutes, an eternity by hardcore punk standards. Featuring Greg Ginn's guitar insanity at its first true flowering, side two is sort of like if early Bardo Pond had an angry frontman. Anyway. They're well done and faithful covers, and...that's it.

As for the Liket Lever cover, I'm not even going to pretend like I know who this band is. They're apparently a punk band from Sweden who, as far as I can tell, only released one 7” and then disappeared from the historical record. Much like the Black Flag covers, it's well done and faithful, but I can't think of much else to say about it. The Faust cover is much more exciting, given that Osees constantly get compared to Can (for good reason, mind you!) but not other krautrock mainstays they also definitely draw from. Faust aren't as well known for their lengthy jams but give a listen to the original version of 'J'ai Mal Aux Dents' or their quintessential song 'Krautrock' and you'll hear the parallels quite easily. Though in some sense just as well done and faithful as the other covers, this one benefits from having more of an open musical template to play with, as the original song isn't a digestible pop song either. It's also nice given how short and jam-less most of the rest of the show is to finally hear them get psychedelic with it.

Which is, in addition to the somewhat strange song choices, my biggest gripe with this live album. I gotta have my jams, Johnny boy...and Live At Big Sur is like dry toast. That said, if you really like 'Dead Medic' and the studio albums this draws heavily from, you might find a lot to enjoy here.

Next time: Levitation Sessions....II!

Oh Sees Retrospective #32: Weirdo Hairdo

 

“In order to have that incredible groove that makes you dream, you have to think not of the groove, but of the dream.” -Mike Gordon

“I'll play it first and tell you what it is later.” -Miles Davis

“I'm not crazy about country-western music. But the lyrics are good.” -Alice Cooper

During various points of my life, I was either actively learning/playing trumpet or making music using the limited instrumental inventory and software available to me. Sadly, I've never had the experience of collaborating with other people, let alone improvising music in the solo or collective sense. I am fascinated by artists who specialize in playing jazz, jam band, or improv/free music, because it's something I envy and would love to try my hand at. It feels like speaking a different kind of language with other people; being lost in this constantly evolving interplay and development must be like nothing else on Earth. Although I don't know John Dwyer personally, I can safely assume he feels the same, given his increasing appreciation and participation in jamming and improvisations. Sure, evidence of his affinity goes back to at least 2010's forgotten Sword & Sandals release, but it was only with Mutilator Defeated At Last that studio albums started to reflect his love for setting the controls for the heart of the sun, or hitchiking on a krautrock convoy, lost in the reverie of a serene velocity down the Autobahn. Once we were through listening to Smote Reverser for the first time, we had confirmation that the next few years would continue to provide some tasty jams. And so, during their Red Rocks performance in 2021, when he announced before 'Scutum & Scorius', “...this one's for all the Heads out there, smoke 'em if ya got 'em”, it felt like the first time that we (Dwyer and the audience) were no longer just winking at each other for liking this kind of lengthy spectacle and drug-friendly-but-not-required music. It was open season.

If there's one release in their discography that has come to define “this one's for all the [Osees] Heads out there” for me, it's Weirdo Hairdo, a three song (!), 41 minute long (!!) not-quite-album, not-quite-EP, that is longer than most previous Osees albums, including Protean Threat. Ah, but I digress. Weirdo Hairdo was released on December 17^th, 2020, available physically only as a limited edition 'Pilsner' vinyl pressing. The Castleface site describes it as a limited edition 12”, and refers to there being four songs, which is both confusing and incorrect. The one thing I couldn't find any information on is when these three tracks were recorded. I'm guessing it must be from the Protean Threat sessions or some random recording session that didn't produce a new studio album. I think we can definitively say it wasn't leftovers from the Face Stabber sessions, since that's what Metamorphosed (partially) was composed of.

The title track starts us off, sounding like a hangover from Panther Rotate. It's almost as if they know their fans might be listening to everything in a chronological playlist and this makes a smooth transition from that to Weirdo Hairdo. Actually to me it kinda sounds like when you get a vinyl pressing with some defects and the needle will pop/skip in exactly the same part of a song every time you play it. Lucky things don't continue on like this, and 'Weirdo Hairdo' turns into another patented Osees 20 minute banger, a “kitchen sink” drive down to the deep jam goal line. Stuttered, echoing Dwyer vocals bounce around your brain, sort of like if 'Aumgn' by Can was on a sativa instead of an indica high. Tomas Dolas does a great job of squeezing all sorts of delightful blorbs, burbles, and bleats out of his synths throughout the 20 minute endurance race. Tim Hellman and the drummer duo do that perfect thing that rhythm sections ideally strive for during these sort of tracks where, if you don't pay close attention, they seem to merely be holding the reins of the groove, keeping the carriage steady, that sort of thing. But give a closer listen and there's all sort of interesting accents and divergences going on. What else to say? I love how druggy and hypnotic and looped out the ending sequence is; reminds me of an Animal Collective segue about to hit.

'Don't Blow Your Mind' was performed during the Protean Threat rehearsal posted on YouTube. This studio run-through has a lengthy jam section after the song portion ends and never returns to the chorus again. It's credited to Alice Cooper & The Spiders, but it's actually from the pre-Alice Cooper incarnation of that band, formerly known as The Spiders. Technicality or no, it's an amazing performance and a great cover. Alice Cooper may be overdue for a critical reevaluation and canonization like we've now afforded the Grateful Dead and ABBA. But I digress yet again. 'Don't Blow Your Mind' has some of the more nuanced and interplay-focused improv Osees have put forth. The forward momentum and ever shifting instrumental bedrock remind me, in spirit but not in results, of a particularly focused and energetic Tortoise track like 'Seneca' or 'The Suspension Bridge At Iguazu Falls.' Something about the chords Dwyer starts playing at the end as the jam peters out makes me imagine this segueing into the descending guitar line in the opening of 'Carrion Crawler.' Closing song 'Tear Ducks' is a cloudy meander, with a languid bassline and some particularly acid-peak sounding vocals from Dwyer. If I'm being honest it sounds more than a little like 'Crawl Out From The Fallout', but I can forgive that because of the subtle use of acoustic guitar late in the track, as well as how cool the whole thing sounds. To paraphrase I Heart Huckabees, is it a crime to like cool sounds?

I don't have too much more to say on Weirdo Hairdo. My only complaint is that it is what it feels like it is: a gathering of three different songs that are pretty different from each other. It doesn't hang together like a true album, with finessed sequencing and flow, in the way The White Album or the better Radiohead albums do. And there's nothing wrong with that! I won't dock points just because a release is patched together; it isn't trying to pass itself off as “the next studio album from Osees!” I could even see this being a top ten favorite for true Heads. For those who have slept on it, like I did, it's time to wake up and smell the bong smoke wafting out of the van windows.

Next time: Osees at Big Sur! Another live one!

Oh Sees Retrospective #31: Panther Rotate

 

In 2021, during a bumper-crop year for live albums and collaborations, John Dwyer released an album called Endless Garbage. Though seemingly of-a-kind with the Bent Arcana and Moon-Drenched improv records, it's actually quite a different beast. As explained by the man himself, “...one day, I hear a frenetic, free drummer playing in his garage a few blocks from me. And I think “interesting”. I stand outside his garage staring at the wall, like a fool, for a minute, then decide to leave a note on the car parked there. This is how I ended up meeting and working with Ted Byrnes. He wasn’t creeped out, and he ended up sending me a pile of truly spontaneous drums recordings from the carport to work with. I decided to have every musician come in one at at time and just take a wild pass at their track over the drums. None of these people had ever met or played together. I was the connecting thread.” So, rather than a group playing together in a room, Dwyer presented each participant with the different drum tracks and had them freely improvise over it. He also added some of his own playing, and mixed/edited the whole project into something a bit more consistently interesting and intelligible.

When is a remix album not really a remix album?

In 1998, Bill Laswell released Panthalassa: The Music Of Miles Davis 1969-1974. Though it is ostensibly billed as a remix album, Laswell did far more than just add some beats here or there or elongate the music to danceable lengths. As Allmusic.com put it, he “...occasionally deleted the rhythm sections, brought up obscured instruments, added Indian and electronic droning sounds from elsewhere on the tapes, constructed moody transitions, and premiered previously unreleased passages from Davis' sessions.” This is interesting because in some sense this makes Panthalassa a remix of a remix. Much like what Can was doing contemporaneously in Germany, Miles Davis and resolute collaborator/producer Teo Marcero would edit down tapes of lengthy jams, sometimes repeating vamps/run throughs of different song sections, other times cross-editing different takes of songs together. A great example is found on the seminal Bitches Brew album. The song 'John McLaughlin' (which features no trumpet or playing from Miles Davis at all) is actually an edited excerpt of an especially great solo from McLaughlin during a take of the album's title track.

When is a remix album not really a remix album?

Panther Rotate was released on December 11^th, 2020. As near as I can tell it was entirely done by John Dwyer, as no liner notes or info I found indicated that any of the other members of the band worked on it—well, other than obviously providing the original source material. It's billed as a remix album, and was made concurrently during the Protean Threat sessions. Before listening, I always had the impression it was just the standard modern-style remix album; the truth isn't quite so simple. The official description goes like this: “A companion LP of remixes, field recordings, and sonic experiments using all sounds generated by the hum and crackle of the desert farm.” Meanwhile, the blurb accompanying the original limited edition 3D lenticular vinyl edition of the release goes as follows: “Remixed, Reimagined, Respooled takes from the Protean Threat tapes. Served Up Piping Hot On Half And Half Colored Vinyl And Featuring A Special Lenticular Cover.” So perhaps the best way to think of Panther Rotate is as a companion piece, though in my mind it can also fairly be considered as its own thing. Even though the track titles directly reference the song names on Protean Threat, this certainly isn't as simple as 'Scramble Experiment' is just 'Scramble Suit II With Beats And A Rapper.'

When is a remix album not really a remix album?

Late in his career, Miles Davis became hugely interested in the popular R&B and hip hop of the day. Though finished after his death, Doo-Bop became an early example of mainstream jazz acknowledging the links to newer genres like hip hop and electronic music. Though far from his best album, Doo-Bop gives us a glimpse of what Miles might have continued to make. Inadvertently, it does give us a preview of the future. Album producer Easy Mo Bee took unfinished trumpet takes by Miles and built songs around them to finish the album, even adding samples and rappers in a pseudo-remix technique. It does beg the question though: if Miles Davis didn't finish/approve of the record himself, is it really his album? Is it even an album at all if some of the tracks are effectively remixes of unfinished songs?

When is a remix album not really a remix album?

Let's talk for a bit about what this album is before I get to my thoughts on it. Panther Rotate, along with the Damaged Bug side project and the recent improv collaborations he's been doing, is a clear indicator that John Dwyer is a restless spirit who wants to bring the truly experimental bent back to this creations. And mind you, I'm using the word experimental in the true sense of the word, not the lazy shorthand for “it's a weird and/or noisy album.” Hell, most of the tracks on Panther Rotate are titled with the word experiment in them! Listening to this release, I can't help but imagine Dwyer wanted to amuse himself between sessions with the full band. Maybe this started as something he was only doing to challenge himself and only later decided to release it. Who knows.

If anything, I would say there's two immediate touchstones for this album: early OCS records and Alien Soundtracks by Chrome. Now, anyone familiar with the latter may assume I'm thinking of it because Osees did covers of songs from it for the Levitation Sessions II performance. However! I had actually heard of/heard this record before their covers, and the abstract, fragmentary nature of the music on Alien Soundtracks is mirrored in the structure and feel of Panther Rotate. It's not quite a 1:1 comparison of course, and that's where the early OCS output comes into play. I'm going all the way back to the very first OCS release, the double album known variously as 1, OCS, and 34 Reasons Life Goes On Without You/18 Reasons To Love Your Hater To Death. Oh wait, on the OCS Bandcamp it's now 35 Reasons. Whatever! I digress. The point is, it's not the early folky aspects of the OCS sound but the experimental stuff that Panther Rotate calls to mind. True it's not as noisy and droney and atonal as OCS 1 can be, but the spirit and similar “throw it all at the wall and see what sticks” vibe pervades both. I mean hell, 'Untitled 3' from OCS 1 is a found sound recording of someone walking in gravel and doing something with water(?), while 'Poem 2' on Panther Rotate sets a whimsical, bizarre Dwyer poem to vintage crowd sounds and a distant brass ensemble. I don't remember any of that on Protean Threat, do you?

When is a remix album not really a remix album?

Madlib, early in his career, began to learn instruments and perform jazz under the Yesterday's New Quintet name. These records, which began releasing in 2001, were not actually a real quintet. Instead it was just Madlib playing all the instruments and doing the production. In 2003, Madlib released Shades Of Blue. Though early in his career, legendary jazz label Blue Note Records invited (soon to be legendary) jazz-head hip hop producer Madlib to take a journey through their archives and see what he could come up with. As with the equally influential work of his friend and collaborator J. Dilla, Shades Of Blue would cast a long shadow, influencing a new generation of music makers, crate diggers, producers, and beat makers, in particular the then-nascent lo-fi hip hop scene. Anyway, Shades Of Blue is a hard release to pin down, not a typical remix album at all, seeming to bring the past, present, and future together by being equally jazz and instrumental hip hop at the same time.

When is a remix album not really a remix album?

All of this leads us to....well, I'm still not entirely sure. I've been struggling with Panther Rotate, in a good way. It's a difficult record to wrap your head around, not in terms of “getting it” but in terms of “getting it and deciding if you like it.” I suspect this was and will continue to be a very divisive release in the ol' Osees discography, much like OCS 1. The simple fact is that experimental music just isn't everyone's cup of tea, and though Panther Rotate ain't exactly Metal Machine Music (which still holds up today, and just keeps getting funnier every time I listen to it) I can for sure see some fans tilting their heads, puzzled at what the hell this is supposed to be. As for myself, my reaction thus far has been similar to other experiments by bands I love, like Metal Machine Music or (No Pussyfooting) insofar as Panther Rotate is also:

1. Interesting but inessential listening

2. Not especially compelling to listen to on repeat

3. Best enjoyed on as many drugs as you can get your hands on

Like a lot of experimental releases, there won't be certain songs you gravitate toward. Rather, this is very much a collection of ideas and moments. Some are but brief flashes of chaos, like the electronic beeps and whooshes of the breakdown during the end of 'If I Had An Experiment', which sounds like a drunken, lurching, inside out version of its parent song. Others will go for extended grooves that fade in and out, or stop and start, like the opening 'Scramble Experiment', interrupted at 1:13 by a glitch escaping from an Autechre song before it continues on until 3:00 when we apparently enter a swamp or marsh with buzzing flies and mosquitoes. For my money the most thrilling parts of Panther Rotate come when no familiar terrafirma is below us and we're in the dark realms of Dwyer's restless urges. 'Terminal Experiment' presents us with a slow motion bassline that feels like it's being played by someone actively fighting falling asleep, over and over, as all sorts of flotsam and jetsam goes by in the background. It reminds me a bit (a bit!) of some of the more free floating and spacey moments from really out there Grateful Dead jams from the late 60s to mid 70s, part free jazz skronk and part psychedelic fireworks and daisies being sprayed across the sky.

When is a remix album not really a remix album?

Released in two parts initially in 1994 and 1995, John Oswald's two-CD set called Grayfolded is one of the more interesting cult items of a cult band. The title is a pun on the Grateful Dead, and as this “plunderphonics” project was officially commissioned by bassist Phil Lesh, Oswald was given full access to their vault, choosing to focus on two album length suites edited together from over a hundred different performances of 'Dark Star' from 1968 to 1993. Nowadays you can find innumerable mixes on YouTube of jam band performances, themed around certain ideas: Phish Ambient Mix, Grateful Dead Space Mix, Phish's 'Tweezer' megamix, and the like. But in his time, Oswald's project was unique, a for-fun-only release still beloved by fans who remember/know of its existence.

Kinda like what we'll tackle next time, Weirdo Hairdo.