Osees - Stunner

Improv at Zebulon 2/6/21 by Osees [Free download/Name Your Price on Bandcamp]

Paul Giamatti first wore this distinctive red and gold costume as King John in the 2011 film Ironclad and even appears on the film’s poster. The piece went on to be used in television – first in a 2013 episode of Da Vinci’s Demons, where Ross O’Hennessy wore it as Commander Quattrone, and later in the 2017 mini-series The White Princess, when it was worn by Nicholas Audsley as Lord Strange.

Costume Credit: Lucia

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YouTube video >> Thee Oh Sees - Henchlock (Live on KEXP) [Recorded 5 October 2019 / 10mins.+14secs.]:

Thee Oh Sees

John Dwyer - Guitar / Vocals

Tim Hellman - Bass

Dan Rincon - Drums

Paul Quattrone - Drums

Tom Dolas - Keys

YouTube video >> Thee Oh Sees - Sticky Hulks (Live on KEXP) [Recorded 25 November 2016 / 8mins.+44secs.]:

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Thee Oh Sees

Thee Oh Sees are a band that formed in 1997 in San Francisco, that perform glee, and surreal humor. They are John Dwyer, Tim Hellman, Dan Rincon, Paul Quattrone and Tomas Dolas. Their visual language to describe the comically unreal is ingenious with whimsical sarcasm. The psychedelic, punk influenced, and sweeping surfy sounds, are awesome. With performances and accompanying art, that match in appeal. 

Osees — Protean Threat (Castleface)

Protean Threat by Oh Sees

John Dwyer’s 23rd album as Osees (variously spelled) is a monster, the best in ages, raising the wild animal spirits of garage rock abandon and locking them down in precisely drawn, tightly played arrangements. The heat of the moment meets the chill of open-ended hypnogogic drone here as short blasts of unhinged guitar play are fitted into rhythmic boxes (see the squeals of wah wah bursting out of “Toadstool”’s rigorous groove) and presented for your approval. There are two excellent drummers pummeling simultaneous kits, the yelp of tortured guitars, the squiggly wonder of space-age keyboards.  Cuts range from out-and-out surf pop (“If I Had My Way”) to cartoon-violent riff fests (“Terminal Jape,” “Scramble Suit II”) to dub-echo’d, jazz-slouching, Can-evoking introspections (“Said the Shovel” “Gong of Catastrophe”).  

The Osees have evolved over time, with various players coming and going as regularly as the band name is altered, but this is a particularly skilled and cohesive iteration.  Dwyer is, as always, the center, but everybody gets a moment. The two drummers, Dan Rincon and Paul Quattrone, whom you might remember from the Modey Lemon, hold down the rhythms with the forceful, violent precision that these cuts require, playing hard but intricately.  Tim Hellman, who played with Sic Alps and currently is in Flat Worms, anchors the fast cuts with rupturing exactness, but lends a dubby, nodding poetry to the laid-back ones like “Red Study." Tom Dolas, who records as Mr. Elevator, kicks in the eerie, futuristic keyboards that push certain grooves (“Said the Shovel”) into ESG-playing-“U.F.O” expansiveness.  

The pieces are solid, but what is very fine is the way they fit together, whether in the frenzied, guitar-caroming-down the neck opener “Scramble Suit II” or the heat-hazed, in-the-pocket shuffle of “Canonpr ’74.” Osees have a seething, roiling intensity that, nonetheless, makes room for its components; there is no stepping on other people’s parts.  There’s also an antic sense of play in many of these cuts, as in “Dreary Nonsense” where jump-cut riffs end in vibrating finale notes, like a punch line, a reaction shot, a cartoon villain running into a frying pan. It’s not dreary at all, more like sticking your finger into a light socket, but fun.  

It is hard to hear the lyrics most of the time—and probably superfluous.  They seem to rhyme and scan better than they convey information.  Still, you might be struck by a verse from “Upbeat Ritual,” in which Dwyer chants, “I know you’ve got the beast by the collar all the time, hopping on the root cellar jangling the chain all the time, let’s run loose, let’s run wild all the time.”   The cool thing about Protean Threat is that he’s got the beast and the collar. He can let things run wild in complicated ways while also keeping it wholly and brilliantly under control.   Let’s not mince words. This is one of the best rock albums of 2020.

Jennifer Kelly  

Oh Sees - Poisoned Stones

!!! Come Home to Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday Night

The dance-punk band !!! (pronounced: chk chk chk) have been making music to set the dance floor on fire ever since originally forming in Sacramento, Calif. (before later settling in New York City), more than two decades ago. And while Nic Offer (vocals), Mario Andreoni (guitar), Meah Pace (vocals), Dan Gorman (horns and keys), Allan Wilson (horns and keys), Paul Quattrone (drums) and Rafael Cohen (bass) combine to form “a quaking, rhythmic, groove machine in full, kaleidoscopic flow. They are a band to sweat to, love to and shake to,” according to PopMatters, they still make the time to get into the studio to record new music. And to that end, Wallop (stream it here)—recorded in Offer’s Brooklyn apartment—arrived via Warp at the end of August. “Tapping into the primal urges that fuel their best work, Wallop is actually a layered, nuanced piece of dance-punk, albeit one that could kick your ass at the same time,” says Clash Music. “Out now, the record references everything from the house phantasia Prince should have had to the impact of gentrification on creative spawning spaces, all while surging into sonic territories unknown.” And now their tour brings !!! home to headline Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday night. Shilpa Ray and Wake Island open the show.

Osees - Perm Act

Overthrown by Oh Sees from the album Smote Reverser - Edited and Directed by Joshua Bruce

Oh Sees -  Rehearsal For Next Album

This nearly an hour long video has just been posted by the record label of Oh Sees, Castleface records on their you tube page. The video show the band rehearsing songs for their next album.

Oh Sees are based in Los Angeles, California, USA. The band currently consists of primary songwriter and core member John Dwyer, alongside Tim Hellman, Dan Rincon and Paul Quattrone.

Links: Bandcamp

Excellent piece on the drummers of Orinoka Crash Suite, OCS, Orange County Sound aka Oh Sees.

How Philadelphia's 'Bail Advocates' Reduced Pretrial Racial Disparities

How Philadelphia’s ‘Bail Advocates’ Reduced Pretrial Racial Disparities

The use of paraprofessionals to provide individualized information about defendants that could guide judges’ decisions about granting bail could reduce racial disparities in pretrial detention, argues Paul Heaton, the director of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. In a paper published in the Indiana Law Journal, Heaton…

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TOMORROW! TV EYE! 11PM-4AM! FREE! reunited with my amigo PAUL QUATTRONE of THEE OH SEES for another week of dancing to the black leather party lights of old weird america and beyond at my weekly “maximum rock and soul” wingding since 2008! New York Night Train SHAKIN’ ALL OVER UNDER SIDEWAYS DOWN! (at TV Eye NYC) https://www.instagram.com/p/CULVrj3Fw0T/?utm_medium=tumblr

There’s a feral and carnal quality to this exultant song that drew me to it right away, as well as a sensuously seductive, noisy pummeling psychedelic allure. Cave Crawl is like sultry fanged quicksand, it draws you into its dark vampiric twanginess and raucous churning cacophony. The song comes from Warm Drag, and it channels much Siouxsie and the Banshees and Nico, with some Spaghetti Western cinematics and the skin-crawling devilish discord of 70s no-wave. Warm Drag, a two-piece band which consists of Paul Quattrone (Oh Sees, !!!) and Vashti Windish, makes a compelling imprint with the reverb-heavy noire-ish song, which comes off their just released self titled debut album, available, here. The duo have confirmed live dates in LA, Chicago, NYC, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and more later this month. Keep up with Warm Drag on Facebook, here.

OCS - Live In San Francisco - Double Vinyl, LP, Rock Is Hell, 2019

OCS – Live In San Francisco – Double Vinyl, LP, Rock Is Hell, 2019

OCS – Live In San Francisco – Double Vinyl, LP, Rock Is Hell, 2019 A mesmerizing live set by OCS – John Dwyer and Bridgid Dawson with a 7-piece backing band featuring Paul Quattrone, Tim Hellman, Tom Dolas, HEIDI MAUREEN ALEXANDER, and a string section comprised of HEATHER LOCKIE, EMILY ELKIN and ERIC CLARK. Recorded by ERIC BAUER at The Chapel in SF, December 17, 2017.

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