Garage-Psych Heroes Celebrate Homecoming
By Dave Pehling
The brainchild of SF underground rock fixture John Dwyer (Pink and Brown, Coachwhips), Thee Oh Sees was initially known as the OCS or Orange County Sounds as the musician explored lo-fi home recordings with a decidedly more laid-back sound than his earlier garage-punk outfits.
The project would gradually expand to feature percussionist Patrick Mullins and later singer/keyboardist Brigid Dawson. The first album under early The Ohsees moniker was the freak-folk effort -- The Cool Death of Island Raiders in 2006 -- featured Dwyer's and Dawson's vocals steeped in reverb and was produced by members of TV On the Radio.
Over the next couple of years, the line-up evolved as Dwyer decided to turn up the energy and appeal to the audience he built with the Coachwhips. After adding new members guitarist Petey Dammit and drummer Mike Shoun and changing the moniker to Thee Oh Sees, the band would release a fusillade of singles and albums including such acclaimed efforts as 2008's The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In and Warm Slime two years later.
After two more well-received efforts -- Putrifiers II and Floating Coffin -- Dwyer recorded Thee Oh Sees' 2014 album Drop largely on his own with contributions from longtime engineer and collaborator Chris Woodhouse and a few others. Dwyer made a couple of major changes. The longtime live quartet line-up went on an indefinite hiatus after a final 2013 late show at the Great American Music Hall prior to the musician relocating to Los Angeles.
Dwyer would unveil a new version of Thee Oh Sees featuring bassist Timothy Hellman and drummer Nick Murray that still delivered the kind of chaotic and cathartic onstage mayhem that has become the band's trademark. Last year, Dwyer brought Dawson back to record Mutilator Defeated At Last for his own Castle Face Records imprint for a deeper exploration of the krautrock sounds the band has touched on with its last few efforts.
Despite the wide acclaim the album received, Dwyer quickly emerged with a new line-up alongside Hellman featuring two drummers (Ryan Moutinho and Dan Rincon) to play those songs and record the explosive in-concert document Live In San Francisco recorded during a sold-out three-night July residency at the Chapel that came out this past summer.
That version of the band made it's studio debut on this year's equally acclaimed A Weird Exits (and the mellower instrumental companion piece An Odd Entrances that came out last week). Thee Oh Sees return to the Chapel for two shows, sharing the stage with Australian lounge-synth vocalist Alex Cameron as well as Tuesday night openers Peacers (a band featuring Mike Donovan of Sic Alps and former Oh Sees drummer Shoun) and Wednesday's opening act, synth-driven local group Apprentice Destroyers.
Thee Oh Sees
Tuesday-Wednesday, Nov. 29-30, 8 p.m. $22 (sold out)
The Chapel
