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The Coachwhips, formed in San Francisco by
deranged vocalist John Dwyer, half of the duo Pink & Brown,
took the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's
distorted garage-rock to the punk-rock extremes of the
raucous frenzied orgy of Get Yer Body Next Ta Mine (Narnack, 2003),
an energetic parade of short sonic blisters such as
Hey Stiffie and 1000 Years.
Bangers Vs Fuckers (Narnack, 2004) applies the punk aesthetics borrowed
from the Germs to the sound of garages at large,
flipping through the glorious pages of
Gun Club (You Gonna Get it),
Jon Spencer (I Knew Her She Knew Me)
and
Cramps (Extinguish Me, Harlow's Muscle of Love)
in a few breathless minutes.
Peanut Butter and Jelly (Narnack, 2005) is not the overdose of
rock'n'roll that its predecessors were. In fact, it boasts only a few songs
that justify its format as a full-length album: Body and Brains, I Made A Bomb, Did You Cum?.
The rest is filler. This should have been an EP.
Double Death (Narnack, 2006) collects rarities.
John Dwyer's side-project OCS
(Orinoka Crash Suite)
was devoted to
minimal bedroom folk and blues for acoustic guitar and found noises:
the double-CD Orinoka Crash Suite (tUMULt, 2003), including a full disc
of terrifying noise
(18 Reasons To Love Your Hater To Death),
the double-CD 2 (Narnack, 2004), that collects material from 2001 to 2003,
and the double-CD 3 & 4 (NArnack, 2005).
Renamed Thee Oh Sees, John Dwyer's solo project first moved towards psychedelic
music with The Cool Death Of Island Raiders (Narnack, 2006),
and then rapidly turned towards old-fashioned garage-rock with
Sucks Blood (2007) and
The Masters's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In (Tomlab, 2008).
John Dwyer
was also active in Dig That Body Up It's Alive and Zeigenbock Kopf.
He also ventured into free jazz with Swords & Sandals.
Thee Oh Sees' prolific career continued with the mediocre power-pop of
Sucks Blood (Castle Face, 2009)
and
Dog Poison (Captured Tracks, 2009),
while
Zork's Tape Bruise (Kill Shaman, 2009) collected leftovers.
At best,
Help (In The Red, 2009) reinvented garage-rock by experimenting with
all sorts of hybrid formats.
Enemy Destruct combines the panzer attack of Blue Cheer and the acid vocals of Thirteenth Floor Elevators.
Ruby Go Home is a Cramps-ian psychobilly that decays into a David Peel-esque hoe-down.
Meat Step Lightly blends pow-wow drumming, bubblegum refrain,
distorted riffs and Jethro Tull-ian flute.
The surreal Destroyed Fortress Reappears is a singalong for nursery
schools propelled by power riffs and massive drumming.
Like most of their albums, this should have been a three-song EP.
Castlemania (2011) and the EP Carrion Crawler/The Dream (2011) were
polar opposites. The former is still an unfocused and intimate work.
On the latter Thee Oh Sees finally matured as a band.
Carrion Crawler is a cosmic ditty reminiscent of Syd Barrett-era
Pink Floyd with a solo of guitar feedback
worthy of Jimi Hendrix.
Contraption/Soul Desert beats all their previous
garage-rock rave-ups with a manic progression a` la
Velvet Underground and psychotic vocals a` la
Suicide.
The even more propulsive The Dream, their artistic peak, is pure
feverish hysteria, adorned with virginal falsetto singing
like Renaissance church boys joining a Teutonic zombie dance.
The spaced-out ballad Robber Barons flies high with the
anthemic overtones of vintage Jefferson Airplane.
The jazz and soul accents that percolate through the songs surface in the
instrumental shuffle Chem-Farmer.
Opposition is a brief poppy punkish fit.
The raw and groovy psychobilly Crushed Grass turns to their favorites of the Pacific Northwest (Sonics, Raiders).
The slow death dance Crack In Your Eye is littered with
shamanic yowls and mindbending distorions.
Heavy Doctor links the Syd Barrett-ian melodies, the deranged new wave
vocals, and the atmospheric solo guitar of the early 1960s.
This EP beats anything the Coachwhips or the Thee Oh Sees had ever done.
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