Is Your Nostalgia Wrong?

I was watching a video on YouTube recently in which someone visits the last Blockbuster located in Bend, Oregon. This nostalgia overdose left me with oddly mixed emotions. As a card carrying 90s kid, I should have been glowing with joy as I did when Ecto Cooler was briefly brought back in 2016. You rarely, if ever, get to relive the past in such a genuine way—after all, Ecto Cooler wasn't just the same flavor under a different name and lacking the Ghostbusters branding; it was the real deal. Similarly, the last Blockbuster revels in its retro-ness, right down to letting you buy merchandise such as Blockbuster cards and fannypacks. However I think it's become clear that as nostalgia has become more and more of a mainstream phenomenon, sometimes people get lost in their memories and can't step back enough to separate the good nostalgia from the bad. Perhaps I should say, to evaluate whether the thing they're pining for is the thing itself or their fuzzy memories of the thing itself. Ecto Cooler still tasted great decades later, but does going to a video store really hold up?


First, though, let's talk about Blockbuster as a company. They deserved to go out of business and we all seem to have forgotten this in the wave of post-Captain Marvel 90s worship. Remember how Blockbuster passed on buying Netflix because they couldn't see where technology was heading? Remember how Blockbuster, at their height, were one of those pseudo-monopolies that edged out mom-and-pop video rental stores? Let's also think about how their strategy was to overwhelmingly focus on new releases and the most popular movies, so that their selection was always very limited and tailored to mainstream tastes, thus eliminating the ability to explore the history of film and the variety it offers.

Now, let's talk about the movie rental experience. Have we all forgotten and taken for granted how superior the online streaming model is? Have we all forgotten going to Blockbuster and they either didn't have the movie you wanted to see or they were out of copies to rent? Only 90s kids remember how rad limited availability was, bro! s clearly superior to pay like $5 to rent one movie for a couple days instead of paying like $15 a month for unlimited access to hundreds of TV shows and movies. In all seriousness, even with Netflix's increasingly sparse selection compared to its height in the early 2010s, it's still a much better value than Blockbuster or other video rental stores could ever match. In the aforementioned YouTube video, they didn't even like the movie they rented, so that's $5 wasted. Sure there's a lot of garbage on Netflix, too, but you're not paying $5 a pop to try your luck on crap like Tall Girl or Zumbo's Just Desserts.

All of this brings me to the important point I want to make about nostalgia: ask yourself if you really miss the thing in and of itself. Do you really miss going to a physical location to rent a movie, or do you miss the warm safety of childhood that surrounded this experience? I, personally, used to have a huge amount of nostalgia for the NES and its games, yet with a handful of exceptions, all of those games have aged poorly and are frustrating, badly designed, time wasting pieces of shit. By and large when it comes to my nostalgia for the NES, its really longing to relive my childhood, the experience of discovering what videogames were for the first time. Sometimes I long to return to Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast because of what a new and revolutionary experience it was, yet if I think about the game itself I'd much rather play something that isn't so clunky, slow, and grindy. All of this said, obviously I do miss certain games because they do hold up today and are still great experiences, such as Chrono Trigger or Streets Of Rage 2. They're nostalgic and actually worth being nostalgic about.

Blockbuster? Not so much. True, I prefer books over reading on computers/phones/tablets, and I prefer vinyl records over digital music...but I do utilize all of these things to some extent. They aren't either/or propositions; they complement each other and offer unique upsides and downsides. This isn't so with going to Blockbuster vs. streaming online. Other than physically seeing the boxes, there is no upside to videostores, and actually you can do this at Best Buy or used game/video stores, so...what's the point, other than misplaced nostalgia? While I will concede that not every movie/TV show is available online, somewhere, to stream, the vast majority of them are available, even if it's video on demand or buying the physical release on Amazon. True there is the immediacy argument, that you can go to a video store and have it in your hands right then and there, but this is also assuming they carry the title(s) you want and that they have copies available.


The point of all of this isn't to rain cynicism down on someone else's nostalgia parade. People are allowed to be nostalgic for whatever they want, and maybe some people do have genuine love for Blockbuster, for whatever reason. I just think that sometimes we allow nostalgia to blind us to the obvious faults in things from the past, as if everything that doesn't exist anymore somehow automatically transubstantiates into a valued brand or item. What's next, will people be nostalgic for Best Buy when that great lumbering beast finally goes belly-up in the murky waters of modern retail? People are dumb, so probably, yeah.

Drive

This past November, I found myself moving in with a friend without a job lined up. I wanted to take some time off to recenter myself and so spent the better part of the Holiday season living the hipster bum lifestyle, playing videogames and writing and watching movies. While I've always enjoyed films, I had been going through a spell where I mostly watched action movie schlock or so-bad-they're-good movies like the masterpieces by Neil Breen. At some point, though, after so much junk food, you start to crave a decent meal, and I began to add quality like Raging Bull, Mulholland Drive, and Hard Boiled to my diet. The world of cinema began to bloom inside my mind, as if I was reconnecting with a lost lover. I then made a point of beginning to whittle down my Netflix queue, in particular the movies I had been putting off for years because I never seemed to be in the right mood for them. Drive sat at the top of the list, and the viewing experience was so affecting that I almost couldn't get to sleep because I immediately wanted to talk to people about it. I also wanted to watch it again as soon as it was over because it was the rare film in which everything works in concert, like Pulp Fiction or The Big Lebowski.

The opening scene of the nameless driver (hereafter referred to as Driver) talking on the phone and then executing the getaway instantly grips you. Its rising and falling tension is expertly shot and edited, with the literal ticking clock of the watch being mirrored in the ending of the basketball game on the radio. Eventually it's made clear why he has the game on, timing the escape from the police so that they arrive at the arena as the crowd is pouring out. Since the music isn't the usual overly dramatic Hollywood crap, the tension arrives organically as the basic electronic beats rise and fall, often quieting down entirely as if following a sigh of relief. In terms of its style and the Los Angeles setting, Driver reminds me of Michael Mann's Collateral, which also features plenty of driving at night and mysterious characters up to no good. Mann's 80s aesthetic is a clear influence on Drive, from the soundtrack to the pink font for the title cards to the cold/precise color palette. Anyway, Ryan Gosling immediately establishes Driver as a meticulous person who says little and betrays no panic or fear during this whole sequence. When the title cards hit and we switch to 'Nightcall' and lingering shots of Driver going about the streets, you know this is his passion. As he himself puts it in response to Irene asking what he does for a living, “I drive.”

The movie's cinematography and overall aesthetic are both stunning. It has a precision in its angles and arrangement of characters and objects in scenes. There are shots that make use of Kubrickian one-point perspectives, such as when Driver is wandering through the grocery store aisles or when he enters Cook's strip club. Drive also has multiple helicopter shots of Los Angeles at night, which are used as moments of calm and reflection. Praise must also be given to the use of color and lighting in the movie. Several scenes reveal the emotions of the characters through the clothing they wear, favoring blues for cool/collected moments and reds/oranges to underline the energy, violence, or passion taking place. All of the driving scenes, even at night, use naturalistic lightning and colors, so that as Driver wanders through Los Angeles he's bathed in neon blues, red/oranges, and yellows. During the first daytime driving scene with Irene and her son, the golden sunshine mirrors the romantic happiness of the characters. These two elements come together in one of my favorite shots in the movie: after returning to Irene's apartment after the aforementioned sequence, they talk about how her son had a good time, a conversation suffused with meaningful glances and pauses. Driver is wearing a basic white shirt, with a white window frame behind him. Between them is a light blue wallpaper, suggesting the thawing of Driver's cold exterior and emotional distance/incompatibility with other humans. Irene, meanwhile, is lit with orange/red light from behind, suggesting her positive influence on him and/or her growing affection toward him.

The soundtrack is utterly essential to the success of the movie. It helps to establish the emotion of a scene, of course, but it also helps state the movie's themes. Even the opening song, 'Nightcall', has lyrics that relate to the story and characters. Just as music is crucial in Tarantino films, Drive makes similar use of it as an important component of the overall feel and atmosphere. Some of the short scenes of Driver, well, driving are hypnotic and stick in your head long after you see it because the synthwave music is so effective at matching the look of the film. Whenever I think about my favorite movies, certain scenes or sequences play out in their entirety—dialogue, music, cinematography, etc.—in my head without any specific attempt at recollection on my part. Wes Anderson films have their slow motion walks set to classic rock songs, Mulholland Drive has the dreamlike Spanish language performance of 'Crying' in the Club Silencio sequence, Aliens has the climactic queen alien vs. Power Loader fight...I could go on. Suffice it to say, Drive is no exception, with vivid memories of Driver's face in the rearview mirror as he prowls through the streets at night set to synthwave or electronic ambient music.


I appreciate how Drive avoids cliches whenever possible. When Standard has his first conversation with Driver, we immediately get another masterfully choreographed spike of tension because we are expecting him to find out about the affair and confront/attack Driver. Instead, he ends up accepting the help of Driver in trying to get himself out of debt and keep his family safe and unaware of his misdeeds. Furthermore, I love how the main protagonist, Driver, and main antagonist, Bernie, are parallel characters, in that the 'hero' is committing crimes and has a violent psychopath hidden inside, while the 'villain' is not an outright murdering thug. Bernie is shown as being legitimately excited about getting into stock car racing and subsequently sorrowful when he knows it'll never happen. When he kills Nino's thug, he does it in a violent, exaggerated way to vent his frustration, whereas when he slashes Shannon's arm/wrist, he comforts the dying man. You can tell he feels pity for Shannon earlier in the movie when he talks to Driver about him, mentioning how he's never had a lot of luck in life. In a strange parallel, Driver brutally kills several no-name thugs yet merely drowns Nino and stabs Bernie.

The violence in Drive is intentionally over the top and shocking. While director Nicholas Winding Refn may have his own reasons for using it, my feeling is that it calls attention to itself to shake up the complacent audience. We're so used to seeing people get merely shot or stabbed, often seen from a distance, and it has a desensitizing effect. Refn seems to intentionally linger on some violent acts and not others—indeed, the ending co-stabbing sequence happens so fast, the first time I saw the film I barely noticed that Driver had stabbed Bernie. When people are shot in the film, such as when Standard is killed, it's initially seen from a distance to give us a surprise moment because we were instead expecting something from the mysterious car that pulled into the parking lot moments before, not from the pawn shop. After the first gunshot, Standard stumbles to the ground in disbelief and the camera moves in to capture his reaction and the subsequent gunshots that kill him. In the motel when Blanche is killed, her gruesome death is emphasized to show how ruthless the people coming after them are. This entire sequence reminds me a lot of similar hotel scenes in No Country For Old Men, with the also meticulous Anton Chigurh dispatching criminals and having a cat-and-mouse shootout with Llewelyn Moss. As Driver checks his surroundings following the bloodbath to make sure he's safe, he recedes into the shadows of the bathroom with blood all over his face. We as the audience have come to see the other side of his personality for the first real time. The 'scorpion' emerges and he retreats into darkness where he belongs. There is a crucial earlier scene where someone he did a job with before approaches him at a diner and we get the first hint at the 'scorpion' he is underneath.

Despite not saying very much throughout the movie, Driver is one of the more magnetically compelling characters of modern cinema. Gosling does so much with his physical performance and mannerisms like tightening his fists or breathing deeply. We never learn Driver's name though between the New Jersey accent that pops up here and there and Shannon mentioning his arrival in Los Angeles a few years back, we get the sense he may have done some bad things back home and fled to Los Angeles. Between the scorpion jacket, toothpick, and the driving gloves there is a theatricality to his persona, and in general you get the sense he has a romanticized notion of the world. Working as a stunt driver in Hollywood, he perhaps sees his life as being like a movie, so that his violent murders are justified by the fact they're committed against “bad guys.” His scorpion jacket is a sort of armor or uniform that he wears mostly at night/while doing crimes or violent acts. We often see him from the back when he's wearing it, suggesting a duality of his nature. The non-'scorpion'/human side of Driver is shown as being awkward around other people. When he first helps Irene get home she offers him a glass of water and he says “okay”, not “yes, thank you” or “no, thank you”, as if he took it as a suggestion and not a question. He often smiles in response to people talking to him or about him, much like a child would, as if he's shy and not fully matured. Indeed, he has several important moments with Standard's son, Benicio, suggesting he relates to and understands him more than the adults. When Standard is assaulted by Cook's thugs, Driver immediately goes over to check on the son and walks right past Standard.

Driver's theme song in the movie, 'A Real Hero', is one of the movie's obvious themes: is he, or perhaps can he be, a real human being/a real hero? When, before stalking and killing Nino, he dons the mask he wore earlier in the film to be a stuntman stand-in for the hero of the movie, it isn't to hide his identity. Rather he seems to be trying to transform himself into a hero. Just as donning the scorpion jacket indicates something about his nature and what he's doing, this scene has him wearing something different to indicate a different context and intent. It's true that he drowns Nino but this is one of the least violent kills in the movie. Contrast this with the famous elevator scene, where he has a moment of fantasy, kissing Irene goodbye before we snap back to reality and the dark side of his character, the 'scorpion', is finally revealed to her. He viciously stomps and stomps the man sent to kill them, and we again see him from the back, the shot lingering on the scorpion jacket. She stands outside the elevator and looks horrified, seeing the other side of Driver for the first time. It's in this moment that we perhaps get the sense he tried to change his character by wearing the 'hero' mask and exacting revenge on Nino but inevitably the 'scorpion' reemerges and ruins his chance to be with Irene and Benecio. While setting up the final meeting with Bernie, Driver mentions the parable of the scorpion and the frog, perhaps acknowledging he knows he can't change his nature. When meeting with Bernie at the end, you get the sense again that they're parallel characters: Bernie is shown being meticulous in cleaning his razor blade, and also in murdering people in equally brutal ways to Driver. Earlier in the film they both mention having dirty hands, and like two scorpions they can't help but stab each other instead of just walking away from the situation like they could have if they chose to. It's left ambiguous in the end whether Driver survives or if we're just seeing another fantasy (like the kiss with Irene in the elevator). I like to think it's up to the audience to fill in their answer. If he was able to change, he survives and drives off to somewhere else in order to continue his heroic path. If he can never change, he dies as the 'scorpion' he always was deep down.


The title of the film can be taken in a few ways. For one, yes, it's a movie about a driver who drives. But it can also be taken in another meaning of the word, that of the psychological definition of an innate, biologically determined urge to attain a goal or satisfy a need. As a 'scorpion', is Driver “driven” to be violent and to help others commit crimes by his very nature? The final meaning of the title also relates to this idea, that the true “drive” of Driver is to see if he can be good, to be a real human being/a real hero. When he notices Irene's car broken down in the grocery store parking lot, he could just as easily ignore it and leave, yet his drive to be good compels him to walk over and help her. He even tries to give her the stolen money before he leaves town for good, and it's made clear throughout the film that money is not a motivating factor for him, simply a necessity. I also like to think the title has a dual identity, just as Driver does. More than any other motivation, Driver is driven to drive. Everything he does in life—getaway driver, stuntman driver, possible stock car racing driver—is centered around driving. His romantic scenes with Irene primarily take place in a car, and when she tells him the news about Standard being released from jail, they're suddenly at a stoplight, a metaphor for their budding affair/relationship coming to a halt. Most importantly the film has many scenes of Driver aimlessly driving around the city at night, as if he can't sleep and can't stop moving. So much of the movie is spent seeing him in motion, whether it's in a car or in a grocery store or in an elevator, that you wonder if he actually is capable of “stopping” in a metaphorical sense and settling down with Irene somewhere.

One of Drive's other central themes is the notion of fate. We see Driver's keychain a few times and it has a lucky rabbit's foot on it, suggesting he believes more in luck and that not everything is predetermined. Luck means there is a chance to change your fate. Bernie mentions that Shannon never had much luck in life, though in some sense Driver disputes this later when he tells Shannon that he “fucks everything up”, thus that Shannon's problems are the result of his actions and choices. Nowhere is this theme of inevitable fate vs. changing your luck more embodied than in Driver himself. You get the sense he starts out the movie accepting his status living a dual life as a 'human' during the day and a 'scorpion' at night. He seems resigned to his fate, yet in helping Irene and Standard you see him start to believe that he can change, that his luck can change, too. He isn't fated to always be a 'scorpion', and he might even be able to have a happy life by changing his path, going into a career as a stock car driver and possibly settling down with Irene and her son. The ending of the film might suggest he believes he has changed because his theme song plays again. Yet I believe that true change has to come from within, not because we want to change for other people, to placate their desires or to be what they believe we are on the surface. So as a whole I interpret Drive as saying that we can't change our fate, we only delude ourselves into thinking we can/have. Driver ends the movie after revealing the other side of himself to Irene and (assuming he survives Bernie's stab and the ending shots aren't a death dream) he subsequently leaves Los Angeles because he's lost everything (well, and because the police will be after him). He hasn't really purged the 'scorpion' from himself and become a real human being/a real hero, though he seems to think he has. You could even argue he's back to square one, in the same boat as he was when he arrived in Los Angeles, possibly fleeing something back home in the Jersey area. Who knows? Drive leaves the ending purposefully open and ambiguous, so your interpretation will differ from mine.

The brilliance of Drive is that it's both very stylistic and very substantive, too. Some early reviews and reactions to the film focused solely on the surface level, praising it for its seductive aesthetics but lamenting it was so busy with its style it had nothing to say. Obviously I disagree with these assessments. To me Drive is a film, like Pulp Fiction, that marries the artistic craft of filmmaking—action, direction, production design, narrative style, themes—with pure popcorn entertainment. Both films can be mistaken for style over substance, but this is due to people not engaging with the ideas and philosophy of the world and the characters. To me, Drive is that perfect ideal of a movie that can be as shallow or as deep as you want or need it to be.

Oh Sees Retrospective #27: Smote Reverser

A wise man once sang, “people change/but you know some people never do.” The paradox of Oh Sees has always been that they're always the same and they're always changing. What this means is that you may go on a two or three album stretch without one you thoroughly enjoy. You may wish they'd return to certain styles that were more prevalent on previous records. You may also ride the waves and change with them, getting at least something out of every release. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, and you may...whoops, sorry. Couldn't help myself. Let's talk about Smote Reverser.

Unleashed from the depths on August 17^th, 2018, Smote Reverser was the true beginning of the band steering into heavier prog rock, metal, and jam band influences. It showcased the core modern-era foursome of John Dwyer, Paul Quattrone, Dan Rincon, and Tim Hellman, supplemented by (soon to join as a full time member) Tomas Dolas on keyboards, vocals from Brigid Dawson, and um...'marching boots' by recording engineers Enrique Tena Padilla and Mario Ramirez. There is a credit given to Heather Lockie of 'sampled viola' on 'Last Peace', though I'm not sure if this means it's a sample taken from a recording she did or if they had her play in the studio and sampled that. I'm not familiar with her credited groups on Discogs though her website reveals she's a multi-discipline artist and creator, so big ups to her. Anyway, hardcore completionists and/or record collectors will have their hands full with this album, as it saw four different color variants in addition to the basic black edition. Now, I know not everybody is a fan of the cover art but I think it's dope as hell. I would totally put it on the side of my van. I was psyched when the creature reappeared in the 'Poisoned Stones' music video. It's worth noting that the artist behind the cover, Matt Stawicki, is a longtime fantasy/scifi artist, who has done a ton of book covers as well as (of great personal interest to me) a couple Magic: The Gathering cards.

Smote Reverser is an interesting album to end this retrospective series on, for a number of reasons. First, from reading/watching reviews and forum posts, it seems to be a very divisive record. It has a fairly even split between people who think it's one of the Oh Sees's best and started them in a great new direction and people who think it's overly indulgent and has more bad songs than good. Second, I'm sure people are wondering why I'm not also doing Face Stabber, which is a valid question. As stated in the previous retrospective, my opinion of it hasn't change since I wrote my initial review, and since I have nothing new to say about it seven months later, there isn't much point. Lastly, it's an interesting one to end on because Smote Reverser is one of the releases that my opinion changed the most about since I first heard it. You might say I was smitten and then it was reversed.


Sorry, I know, that was really reaching. Let's dig in.

The first couple listens, I loved it and thought it was a masterpiece. I understood the complaints by people who didn't like it, though I chalked that up to the fact that they didn't vibe with the direction Oh Sees were going in. As time has gone on, though, I see Smote Reverser as more of a mixed bag that averages out to 'merely good.' I quite like some tracks, while others are either underdeveloped or overbaked. We may as well start with 'Anthemic Aggressor', since at twelve minutes long it's the most remarkable track on the record. And I mean “remarkable” in the literal sense, that there's a lot to remark about. Now, I don't dislike 'Anthemic Aggressor' because it's so long. I'm on record as a huge fan of jam bands like Phish improvising for twenty minutes or more, and I'm a founding member of U.H.B.: United 'Henchlock' Boosters. No, to me 'Anthemic Aggressor' is bad because it's simultaneously underdeveloped and overbaked. It's essentially just an instrumental jam session that isn't particularly good. The soloing is often dull and uninspired, and some of the sounds are grating and atonal in a bad away. You can find much better examples on Face Stabber and previously released live albums/tracks of this sort of improv. I also feel like the musical bedrock of the track is one of the weaker repetitive riffs/vamps Oh Sees have ever done. The drumming is spastic, and not in a good way, and the bass is so simplistic it's dull as unpolished shit. I feel like some of the issues I had with 'Warm Slime' are present here, though I'll remind you, I actually like 'Warm Slime', and I almost always skip 'Anthemic Aggressor' when I put the album on. While I'm throwing shade, allow me to darken the doorsteps of 'Enrique El Cobrador' and 'Nail House Needle Boys', two tracks that are pretty weak and forgettable. The latter features a drum/percussion break that is so mundane it almost has to be a joke.

The borderline-frustrating thing about Smote Reverser is that there's also a lot to love, things I want to take out of the shade and to hold up so they can shine in the sunlight. Overall I'm excited by the new metal/prog/jam band direction that Smote Reverser sailed toward. I also delight in Tomas Dolas; he brings a lot to the table and I'm glad he joined full-time after this album. I appreciate how prevalent keyboards have become in the current Oh Sees sound. More importantly, Smote Reverser has some of the band's best material. 'Beat Quest' is a fantastic closing song, emphasizing the dual drummers throughout its runtime and making for a much better drum showcase than the weak breakdown in 'Nail House Needle Boys.' Also have to give some love for the gooey keyboard/synths around the 2:45 mark, as well as how the track starts out melancholy and develops into a jubilant organ-led ending. The other bookend of the record, 'Sentient Oona', perfectly sets the atmosphere for the songs to come, with some great “ooh ooooh” backing vocals from Brigid Dawson and a whipsnap entry into the main riff before it cools down again. 'C', meanwhile, is like Red Lobster's Lobsterfest for people who love crunchy and boogie-ing 70s-inspired guitarwork. Perhaps the biggest surprise is 'Overthrown', which just stabs your face with its heaviness. Unless you have epilepsy, I highly recommend the video for 'Overthrown', especially with the lights off, and especially if you're enjoying some psychoactive substances.

Weak songs aside, I suspect I would still enjoy Smote Reverser as much as I did on first listen if Face Stabber didn't exist. It's hard not to look back on it as a warmup for Face Stabber. To me it does most of what this album does well and does it even better. I'm not at all saying Smote Reverser is retroactively irrelevant or not worth a listen. I have my issues with it, sure, but I still listen to it on a somewhat regular basis when I'm in the mood for Oh Sees. It's totally valid not to share the opinion that Face Stabber is a better version of Smote Reverser; it's got some really strong highlights as I discussed in the previous paragraph. The best comparison I can think of is that Smote Reverser is like taking several different food items from different cuisines and mixing them all together, whereas Face Stabber is like a carefully planned five course meal. It just has so much more variety in sounds and textures and ideas, and all of it works well together and flows nicely. Smote Reverser doesn't flow well, it's more of a stock market graph with ups and downs, screams and laughs.

Kind of like this retrospective series, really.

Oh Sees Retrospective #26: Live In San Francisco

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 17^th and 18^th of 2017, Live In San Francisco would be released on June 28^th, 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.

Oh Sees Retrospective #25: Memory Of A Cut Off Head

As I near the end of this retrospective series, it seems fitting that I'd eventually get back around to talking about OCS. Now, you might argue that since I'm not covering Damaged Bug and other John Dwyer side projects, I shouldn't technically be writing about Memory Of A Cut Off Head. Yes, part of the reason he revived the OCS name is that he now considers Oh Sees and OCS to be distinct entities, though this is a bit of a sleight of hand. Early releases under the OCS name are certainly distinct in style and tone from, say, Help or Smote Reverser, but in the early-era of the band the subtle name changes slowly blurred OCS into The Ohsees and then into Thee Oh Sees and finally into Oh Sees. The lineup from the early OCS days also slowly morphed into the mid-era foursome, so even if I am cheating a bit on this one, I still think it's a relatively fair cheat. And anyway, Memory Of A Cut Off Head features contributions from Nick Murray and Tim Hellman, who were/are from the modern-era Oh Sees lineup, as well as future Oh Sees member Tomas Dolas, so there!


Like many surprise Oh Sees releases, the revival of the OCS name and announcement of an album seemed to come out of nowhere. Memory Of A Cut Off Head was released on November 17^th, 2017, mere months after Orc. Technically speaking, this record is billed as a collaboration between Dwyer and Brigid Dawson. This is interesting because she was never nearly as a big presence on old OCS records. They were dominated by Dwyer...which makes sense, since I think we all forget Dawson didn't join OCS until album five, The Cool Death Of Island Raiders, which was released as The Ohsees, not OCS. So I guess she was never really a member of OCS until 2017? Eh, maybe this is needlessly splitting hairs. Memory Of A Cut Off Head (hereafter referred to as simply Memory) is a fun throwback in terms of the OCS style. To have Patrick Mullins back is pretty huge, as is the reappearance of former Oh Sees drummer Nick Murray (who we last heard on Mutilator Defeated At Last, or the Fortress single if you want to be a stickler for details). Tim Hellman is an interesting addition to the OCS sound, since if I remember right they never really had a bassist before. John Dwyer must love him as much as I do! Tomas Dolas contributes unspecified keyboards to the album, marking this his first appearance on an Oh Sees/OCS album, though he's billed as Thomas Dolas because...I don't know. It's either laziness or whitewashing, and I'm much inclined to believe the former. Luckily this would be rectified on Smote Reverser.


Going into this retrospective series, I was most curious to tackle the early OCS output and in particular to revisit this one. I had only given a couple cursory listens to Memory before coming back to it for this series, and it's been an eye opening experience. I had almost forgotten how nice Dwyer and Dawson's vocals sound together in a more psych folk/orchestral folk setting, especially when he's singing more hushed and melodically. It's also much easier to pick out the lyrics, which are quite dark and suffused with death and sadness. For example, 'The Remote Viewer' offers the chucklefest of a chestnut: “we are junkies of despair.” Anyway, if Memory is a return to any era of the band, it's a return to the old OCS sound circa 2. However this time it's much more “professional” and full sounding, with the welcome addition of string arrangements. In fact they're essential to this record and its style. There's a very good reason the OCS Live In San Francisco has string players on it. Some of the Beatles-esque/early Pink Floyd whimsical psychedelia and orchestral folk elements I've detected on the 'solo' Oh Sees records like Castlemania and Drop are in full bloom here. There's other intriguing instrumental flourishes, such as the harpsichord on 'The Remote View' and another welcome trotting out of Dwyer's flute skills for 'On And On Corridor.'


On a side note, the overall buoyant feel and especially the Rhodes-style organ in the beginning of album closer 'Lift A Finger By The Garden Path' always makes me imagine a slower, more folky 'You're My Best Friend' by Queen. Am I the only one who hears it? Probably.


Perhaps the greatest change to the OCS sound comes in letting Brigid Dawson step forward as a true collaborator. As far as I remember, Memory is the first time she sang on an OCS/Oh Sees songs alone, and presumably she helped write at least some of the lyrics. Overall, hearing her voice alone reminds me a lot of another female singer but I can't put my finger on who for the life of me. 'Time Tuner' definitely starts off sounding like Nico. I know I also made this comparison for one of the last songs on Castlemania but 'Time Tuner' could have gone on The Marble Index and nobody would have done a double take. Anyway, this record makes me curious to hear more full-blown collaborations between Dwyer and other people. I know at some point he was rumored to be working with Ty Segall but that either didn't happen or it ended up just being Segall co-producing Orc. I'm a big fan of Segall's two collaborations with White Fence, in particular Hair, so I'm still holding out hope. But I digress. With all the changes and updates to the sound, and the addition of Oh Sees members, it's easy for me to forget the way Memory actually is a throwback in a few crucial ways. Obviously there's the mellow/downer atmosphere, as well as the prominent use of acoustic guitars and occasional singing saw contributions from Patrick Mullins. In addition, I love that the ending of 'The Baron Sleeps And Dreams' is a drone throwback to similar moments/tracks on OCS releases. One last throwback that isn't really an OCS throwback: the album cover was done by Jonny Negron, the same artist as Drop, which makes total sense because the color palette is almost exactly the same. I find his style more limited and less appealing than Ryan Beatty; as ever, your mileage will vary.

I've struggled with a way to conclude this retrospective because I have very complicated feelings about Memory. Let me start by saying it's absolutely tops as far as OCS-billed releases. It's as if it presents an alternate history wherein John Dwyer kept The Coachwhips going and so didn't steer his OCS project into going in more of a rock rather than a folk direction, becoming the Oh Sees we know in our timeline. Memory, therefore, is like if he kept putting out OCS records between Coachwhips projects, so that in this alternate timeline OCS developed/matured into this particular nuanced, orchestrated sound, while also allowing Dawson to step forward more often. Now, all of this said, though I may not have any issues and problems with Memory, I don't adore it. It works for me but it isn't something I foresee wanting to listen to consistently over the coming years. It's quite similar to how I feel about the Damaged Bug records. They get released, I listen to them and admire them and appreciate them for what they are, and I don't have many, if any, relevant complaints...yet they don't fully bewitch me. Well, that's subjective taste for ya. Next time we'll find out if OCS in a live setting makes any difference.

Oh Sees Retrospective #24: Orc

I have to be honest, when I first saw the announcement back in 2017 that the forthcoming Oh Sees record would be called Orc, I thought man, that's lazy as hell. This is a band with a series of excellent album titles—yes, I even like Drop for its varying meanings—and Orc just seemed arbitrary. Sure, Dwyer was turning up the fantasy influence in the lyrics and overall aesthetic of the band, but “Orc”? Really? Plain and simple “Orc”? Not even “Warrior Orc” or “Orcs Brew” or something? Well, perhaps this paring back of the title was a nod to the band changing their name to simply Oh Sees, dropping the Thee. As it turned out, while a couple listens of Orc won't sound so different from A Weird Exits/An Odd Entrances, there's more changes going on than the surface level name change and stripped back album title indicate.


Orc was released on August 25^th, 2017, and along with the band name shortening to Oh Sees, there were a couple other crucial changes. As discussed in the last retrospective, Ryan Moutinho quit the band two days before the release of An Odd Entrances, and in early 2017 Paul Quattrone took his slot, maintaining the dual drummer setup we've all come to love. This addition would also solidify the modern-era lineup (minus Tomas Dolas, who only became an official member after Smote Reverser). By the by, for those curious, Quattrone is always in the left stereo channel and Dan Rincon is always in the right. I'm assuming they kept this convention going forward though I don't recall if the liner notes continue to specify this. The other big change is that this is the first Oh Sees album not to have Chris Woodhouse as recording engineer/producer/collaborator, after a streak stretching all the way back to Sucks Blood in 2007. I'm sad to report I wasn't able to find any information explaining why Woodhouse stopped working with Oh Sees. Judging by his Discogs credits, he hasn't been very active in the last year or two. He even left The Dock recording studio he helped found. Hopefully nothing bad happened to him, or anyway, between him and Oh Sees. Anyway, this led Orc to be a production handled by the team of John Dwyer, Eric Bauer, Ty Segall, and Enrique Tena (who is referred to in Smote Reverser track 'Enrique El Cobrador', which means “Enrique the debt collector”). It's weird, I always forget Ty Segall worked on Orc. I'd think this would be a bigger deal to people but I don't remember anyone bringing it up or commenting on it. By 2017 Ty Segall was arguably more mainstream and popular than Oh Sees, yet none of the professional music magazine/website reviews made even the smallest fuss of his involvement.


To these ears, Orc is a slightly-more-modern sequel to Mutilator Defeated At Last. It's solid all the way through, has no weak tracks, and it's an across-the-board fan favorite. It also has a reputation as a dark/heavy album akin to Floating Coffin. This isn't completely deserved, at least musically. Yes, lyrically the album is pretty dark and heavy, a strange mix of almost self-consciously poetic turns of phrase and disturbing imagery, continuing the apocalyptic scifi/fantasy concepts of the last two records. For example, opener 'The Static God' is from the point of view of a self-destructive/masochistic character, trying to bum cigarettes and wondering aloud, “I'm leaning in/into the whip/does it satisfy me?” Not to mention there's a track called 'Cadaver Dog', for god's sake! Musically, the album is quite heavy though it does have more variety than Floating Coffin, so the reputation is only partly deserved. Before I get to said variety I should touch on the heaviness, as Orc has some of the band's most crunchy riffs and metal-tinged moments. 'Animated Violence' is one of the heaviest tracks of the modern-era, rivaled only by 'Face Stabber' or 'Heartworm.' However, this heaviness is leavened expertly with slower/calmer moments and songs, like the five minute long viola-led second section of 'Keys To The Castle' and the slow dance fantasia of 'Drowned Beast.' There's also the aptly named 'Cooling Tower', which sacrifices heaviness for grooviness, and has a churning/chugging up-and-down riff that reminds me a bit of both parts of 'Unwrap The Fiend.' Also, is it just me or does the drumming on this track really sound like Can circa Ege Bamyasi? They've been a huge influence on Oh Sees for years but the grooviness and repetition of the drumming on this track is absolutely out of Jaki Liebezeit's wheelhouse, specifically 'Vitamin C.'


The main difference that sets Orc apart from the previous few releases is that the songs are more dynamic and sectional. This is part of where the increased prog rock influence comes in. Sure, the songs being a bit longer than normal, overall, accounts for this feeling as well, but only partially. 'Nite Expo' and 'Keys To The Castle' both have a rather linear development instead of the usual pop song verse/chorus/verse, while 'Raw Optics' is the kind of solid album ending instrumental that you want to write home about. It's a classic 70s prog rock/acid rock track and I absolutely adore the drum solo section. It's a much more interesting and enjoyable version of the 'Drums' improvisation sections of the second set of Grateful Dead shows. This song, more than any other, points to the jammier direction of Smote Reverser and Face Stabber. While we're on the subject of instrumentals, it's worth noting that Orc has three of them, and two of them are back-to-back in the tracklisting, with the third coming one song later. In theory this risks backloading the album with samey sounding material, but Oh Sees have mastered so many styles of music and the dynamics of instrumental songwriting/jamming that they're among the most compelling songs on Orc.


Since I'm not going to do a retrospective on it, I want to briefly mention the Dead Medic EP. At only two tracks it's difficult to call it an EP though both tracks add up to 20 minutes, so maybe this is one time I need to stop being so pedantic and listen to the artist's intent. Near as I can tell the title track is an in-studio jam, with frenetic drumming and all kinds of psychedelic splurts and burbles going off like slow motion fireworks reflected on the surface of a lake. The other track is a cover of an old school Swedish band I won't even pretend to have heard of. Reminds me a bit of what I remember Amon Düül II sounding like, though I haven't listened to them in years so I recommend finding out for yourself.


As I don't have anything negative to say about Orc, I do want to also take the time to briefly detour to mention a truly terrible and insulting review of the album on Under The Radar. They gave it a ridiculously low 2/10 score, and that's whatever; I hate scoring systems, I haven't used them for years, and that's not why I was so bothered. Moreso I'm blinded by rage with the condescending tone and jabs at nerd culture in this useless, masturbatory excuse for a review. I don't know what it is with the “professional” music press in the UK always being huge pretentious assholes in general, and especially about psychedelic and prog rock music. If you guys sometimes disagree strongly with what I write, prepare yourselves for this bullshit: http://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/oh_sees_orc/


OK, detours are over. Given the context of the records to follow, you can look at Orc as being the svelte and focused version of what Smote Reverser and Face Stabber mutated the sound into. By this I mean that Orc lacks most of the jammy/noodly stuff that turns some people off of the latest two albums. This isn't to say Orc is a pop record with short songs, far from it. A better explanation is that it trims all the fat and the sprawl and only leaves the best, most essential parts in these songs. Myself, I love the fat and the sprawl, too. Sometimes I want 'Nite Expo' and sometimes I want 'Henchlock', just as sometimes Oh Sees want to title an album “Orc” and not “The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In.” What else is there to say? You know Orc, you love Orc. Zug zug.

Oh Sees Retrospective #23: An Odd Entrances

In the late 90s, if you'll pardon the cliché, it was the best of time and the worst of times to be a Radiohead fan. The best, because the Internet brought together us fans who obsessed over every obscure single, EP, and recording update on the band's official website. The worst, because after releasing OK Computer in Summer 1997, we would have to wait until October 2000 for the next album, Kid A. As if to placate their rabid fanbase, less than a year later Radiohead released Amnesiac, a companion album to Kid A, taken from the same recording sessions (well, other than 'Life In A Glasshouse'). You may be thinking I'm about to draw parallels to A Weird Exits and An Odd Entrances, though you'd be mistaken. To me the true Radiohead parallel is OK Computer and the North American-exclusive Airbag/How Am I Driving? EP. This mini-album, as it was labelled on the cover, serves as a companion piece to OK Computer, full of excellent tracks which either didn't make the cut or didn't flow well with the rest of the album. Despite repeating the song 'Airbag' from OK Computer, it's a release that can be judged on its own merits, just as An Odd Entrances can be despite repeating...well, alright, it doesn't technically repeat any songs, but we'll get to that a bit later.


Following A Weird Exits by a mere three months, An Odd Entrances (I'll be using the same single noun shorthand from the last retrospective hereafter) came out on November 18^th, 2016. Its arrival was somewhat clouded by the announcement two days prior from drummer Ryan Moutinho that he had quit the band mid-tour. Reading the interview with him I linked in the previous retrospective, you get the sense he left in order to pursue his own projects and to step out from the role of 'the drummer' that he had consistently been roped into. Oh Sees would briefly perform, once again, as a trio before Paul Quattrone joined sometime in early 2017. Anyway, in doing research about Odd I was surprised to learn that a couple of the limited edition vinyl versions came with a 7” Flexi-disc of previously unreleased track 'Classic Bananas.' It's a fantastic song that deserves more listens and awareness. Furthermore, it's strange that it wasn't included on either Weird or Odd. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say it's because it's a bit of a throwback to the mid-era sound and the production style doesn't quite match the albums. Also, this reminds me: where the hell is Singles Collection Volume 4 already?!


Clocking in at roughly ten minutes shorter than its predecessor, Odd is a strange beast indeed. It's not quite short enough to be an EP, in my opinion. It's described as an appendix on the Bandcamp page. Then there's Spotify, who have it under 'Singles'! I'm going to go with the Airbag/How Am I Driving? EP nomenclature and refer to it as a mini-album. The closest parallel I can think of in the Oh Sees discography is actually the Moon Sick EP. Both it and Odd contain a batch of great songs (mostly slower/weirder material), they can stand on their own, and they can be taken as supplements to their parent albums. In terms of standing on its own, Odd has plenty of delights that don't require knowledge of Weird to enjoy. It starts with 'You Will Find It Here', one of, if not the best, opening songs on any Oh Sees release. Whenever I make mixes to get other people into this band, it's always my go-to opener. 'The Poem' sounds like it could be on one of the 'solo' Oh Sees records, like Drop or Castlemania. Whimsical lyrics, the guitar sound, and the overall atmosphere make me think of The Beatles circa 1967 or the first Pink Floyd album (also 1967....huh). It's perhaps worth noting that a full half of the tracks on Odd are instrumentals, something the band would continue to sprinkle on future records. I must make quick note of 'Nervous Tech (Nah John)', which is a better version of what 'The Axis' turns into toward its end. However, it's still the weakest track on Odd, relatively speaking, and it goes on too long without enough development. Liner notes indicate it's “derived from 'Go Ahead John' by Miles Davis” which makes a ton of sense when you listen to them back to back. John Dwyer still isn't really soloing in the way that makes the lengthy Miles Davis track slightly more compelling (though I also think that song goes on too long and isn't one of the best from the fusion era Davis releases). It's more like his improv on 'Contraption' off of Live In San Francisco, which is enjoyable in small doses but not for eight minutes straight. If I learned anything from the feedback from the last retrospective, your mileage will vary.


Perhaps more interesting to discuss is how Odd complements/contrasts with Weird. Let's focus on the sibling tracks from both releases. I recommend making a playlist and listening to them “in order”; it's a fun experiment. 'Unwrap The Fiend Pt. 1', from Odd, is pretty straightforward, other than the self-destructing keyboard ending, and establishes the Fiend riff/motif. 'Unwrap The Fiend Pt. 2' is a bit slower/groovier and the guitar has a greater variety of textures. I love the churning/chugging “chorus” part, always makes me visualize machinery moving things around a factory or a sped-up overhead shot of cars driving through a city center. 'Jammed Entrance' is ironically on Exits and has a killer bassline and noodly keyboard/synth solos while Dwyer takes a break from guitar. The drummers are really getting down on this track, it's a feast for percussion lovers. 'Jammed Exit' is equally compelling, with a more simple bassline and a mix that places more emphasis on the keyboard/synth. Can't forget to mention Dwyer's flute soloing on 'Jammed Exit', something that I often forget is there if I'm using Odd as background music while I drive or play videogames. Sure, 'Jammed Exit' is more monotonous than 'Jammed Entrance' but eh, it still works.


As with the Moon Sick and Airbag/How Am I Driving? EPs, mini-album Odd is a worthy quick follow-up to its parent album, one that can stand on its own merits and that can also serve as a companion piece. Lost until the last minute in all of the discussion of these twin releases is the fact that Odd would be the last time the band would operate under the Thee Oh Sees moniker. Starting with Orc, they'd shorten it to Oh Sees, though whether this was a way of signaling a slight change in musical direction or to reflect the new lineup with Paul Quattrone on drums, we'll have to find out next time.