Thee Oh Sees

Thee Oh Sees are the latest incarnation of songwriter, singer, and guitarist John Dwyer's ever-evolving pop-folk psychedelic group. Dwyer, who hails from Providence, Rhode Island, has been active on the San Francisco indie scene since the late '90s, working with several bands, including the Coachwhips, Pink & Brown, Yikes, Up Its Alive, and Swords & Sandals, among others, and he formed OCS (which is an acronym for Orinoka Crash Suite, Orange County Sound, or whatever Dwyer decided it was on any given day) initially as a vehicle for the experimental instrumentals he was producing in his home studio. In time, OCS morphed into an actual band, and worked under the usual flurry of names, most notably as the Oh Sees or the Ohsees, and eventually as Thee Oh Sees, featuring Dwyer on guitar and vocals, Brigid Dawson on vocals and tambourine, Petey Dammit (sometimes listed as Petey Dammit!) on bass, and Mike Shoun on drums. Sounding a bit like the Mamas & the Papas run through a seriously bent garage blender, the band signed with the German Tomlab label and released Sucks Blood in 2007 and The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In in 2008. Thee Oh Sees' second full-length effort, Help, appeared in 2009 and featured a bit of a garage rock vibe mixed with the band's psych-pop sound. The album Warm Slime followed in 2010. Thee Oh Sees pulled double duty the following year, offering the pop-leaning Castlemania in June, followed in November by the heavier, wilder Carrion Crawler/The Dream, also the band's first recording with second drummer Lars Finberg (the Intelligence). Thee Oh Sees returned in September 2012 with Putrifiers II, an album combining Castlemania's fractured pop sensibilities and Carrion Crawler/The Dream's ferocious rock experimentation. Their next foray, 2013's Floating Coffin, saw the group stripping away all the weirdness and hitting hard with a heavy set of straight-ahead garage punk rockers. ~ Steve Leggett, Rovi