OCS

OCS

Live At Permanent Records

Rock Is Hell

ONE-TIME RELEASE PRESSED ON EXCLUSIVE CRYSTAL CLEAR VINYL. "During the holidays of 2023, Brigid Dawson and I got together at my house in Los Angeles and started transcribing a nice list of songs. Some new some very old that I’ve never been played live ever and put together a holiday set list which we performed two nights in a row at Permanent Records Roadhouse in Los Angeles and did a bit of it at a charity event at the Lodge Room. Seven tunings later… It was a lot of fun and there was a lot of libation and celebration. We surrounded ourselves with good friends and came up with this charming off kilter set of recordings. I think they capture the casual energy of the evening in the mood of the crowd. Hope you enjoy."—JPD Live Sounds by Cos The Casual Prince. Mixed By JPD. Mastered by JJ Golden. Artwork by Liorzh. Guest appearances on "Block Of Ice" by Tom Dolas (electric piano), Nick Murray (drums) and Andres Renteria (percussion).

OCS

1

No Coast

***A reissue of the debut album from JOHN DWYER under the OCS moniker. Original released in 2003 as a double CD. This is the first time it has seen a vinyl treatment! Lovingly remastered at Golden! Cut by CARL SAFF. 

OCS

Live In San Francisco

Rock Is Hell

A mesmerizing live set by OCS—JOHN DWYER and BRIGID 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.

OCS

Memory Of A Cut Off Head

Castle Face

It is easy to forget (especially amidst the ringing of ears and aching of muscles after a typical Oh Sees show) that initially, OCS was a rather hushed affair. After the minimalistic brutality of Coachwhips, the band was the diametric opposite corner of John Dwyer’s musical world, quiet to the point of whispered in the wind, buffeted by the airy whirr of singing saw, soft and strange. Those early records especially had a rather contraband hush about them, as if the party had gone on all night and continued into the morning and everyone’s raspy from talking too much and agrees to whisper and pantomime as they watch the sun come up over the hills.  Since then of course, things got gradually louder, faster, crazier...the band evolved into the Oh Sees everyone knows. For the 20th Oh Sees release, 100th Castle Face title, and 20th year doing it, Dwyer re-examines the quieter roots of it all in particularly baroque and homesteadly fashion. Memory Of A Cut Off Head was co-written with longtime collaborator and vocal counterpoint Brigid Dawson, recorded in total in Dwyer’s own Stu Stu Studio, and it’s lush, sumptuous in texture, but satisfyingly retains the gentle grace of the early stuff. There’s beautifully executed strings throughout, courtesy of Heather Lockie’s fine arrangements, horn arrangements courtesy of Mikal Cronin, and they even brought back the old saw—Patrick Mullins, that is—on saw and electronics. A return and a refinement of old forms, a few solemn meditations on life lived...