A few confessions about The Mallard and my thoughts on music reviewing:

1.  The Mallard is a friend.  I’ve attended many of The Mallards show, and the cassette tape upon which this unnervingly catchy little ditty emerged was given to me, with a beaten up cassette player (sans batteries), by said duck-like musician.  Thus, bias runs large, but in the name of transparency (if that trend hasn’t faded in to the murk) I expose myself to you.

2.  This said, I am quite often the hardest on those who I would refer to as friends.  After a brief spell of lost companions, I halted all friendly admissions, and turned once again to the bliss of anonymity.  Friendships are more important than snarky rebuttals, and for whatever reason, a track penned by a friend was too often edged in to the negative pile.

3.  And with this said, friend and all, I believe The Mallard is perhaps the best thing I’ve heard yet this year (even with new Woods, new Phospherescents, new Thee Oh Sees, and on and on).  For some reason her thundering take on lo-fi and garage does not press the snooze button on repeat.  Instead I find rhythms toyed with, vocals altered, hearts broken, by this young, solo musician.

Boating accidents indeed.

The Mallard - Floating

Source: The Mallard, in all it’s feathered frenzy

I am stupefied at the sheer prolific nature of John Dwyer and the might Thee Oh Sees.  I am shocked, and amazed, each and every time some befuddled PR person fills my inbox with another notice announcing yet another Thee Oh Sees album.  I keep wondering when the quality will dip, when John Dwyer’s ailing body will finally fail and Thee Oh Sees will be unable to continue to define and redefine the outermost edges of garage.  I imagine somewhere, behind closed doors there is a enormous multi-limbed robot, playing guitar and pounding on drums and honking kazoos and creating the sound that we’ve come to know as Thee Oh Sees.

There newest album, the nth in the last two years continues on their streak of noisy, well crafted pop gems, John Dwyers strained holler still breaching the fuzz.  The song to chat about is “Warm Slime” a 13 minute opus that covers an entire side of an album, but this little diddy, more rock and bop, than straight up garage gives me a slight chill, eager and nervous as to what might come next.

Thee Oh Sees - I Was Denied

It’s not grungy or gritty or lo-fi or coldwave or darkwave or any of the various peripheral genres creeping in more and more.  Nope, this is unabashed beach-pop.  A troubador in bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt trolling the fog-covered beaches of San Francisco, a beaten up acoustic guitar strapped around his neck.  Sonny and the Sunsets don’t deign to the ironic, they don’t play with tape-decks or fuzz boxes or even the basics like reverb and distortion.  They tune up, turn on, and just let the, sigh, good times flow.

When I caught Sonny and his declining suns almost a year ago, squished between the twangy garage of Nodzzz and the shirt-ripping yaller of Thee Oh Sees, they seemed bland, unexcited performing on a stage at a cheap Mexican restaurant in front of a large screen television.  But now, thanks to the good folk at Raven Sings The Blues, I’m diving back in.

Currents not too strong, waters damn near toasty.

Sonny and the Sunsets - Too Young To Burn

Thee Oh Sees are a mainstay at The Daily Choice.  That half-cocked friend from primary school that ends up on your couch every six months or so, dragging you to a coked-out drum and bass party, or keeping you up to the wee hours with incredible stories of peyote-fueled trysts.  You’re never really keeping an eye out for them, but when they knock at the door, you can’t help but smile.

This go around, our swarthy trio of couch-crashers have tweaked the pummeling garage rock they had just about branded their name upon.  Yes, thrashy pop guitars and John Dwyer make steady, lasting impressions, but there’s a sense of experimentation present that hasn’t reared it’s freakish head since Sucks Blood and before.  The Fizz is a low-end romp, an echoing blast of rock ‘n’ roll seemingly recorded in a wind tunnel.  Dwyer and Brigid Dawson’s voice twirl about unkempt, coiling and releasing, muffled but piercing.

Nice to have you back friends.  You still sound like a million blood-stained bucks.

Thee Oh Sees - The Fizz

Thee Oh Sees ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

In addition to being highly amusing, Partman Parthorse had me realizing that a couple of their songs are pretty rad and danceable. Sic Alps were just OK. To be honest I felt like there was nothing new there and so did the crowd. To our pleasant surprise, heading to the outside smoking area early meant were given a chance at securing a good spot for what was about to happen. Thee Oh Sees were setting up all of their gear right under the basketball hoop. And as you might expect, after they got going, things up front started to get a little wild…

Thee Oh Sees ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Thee Oh Sees ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Thee Oh Sees ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

I’m a bit obsessed with Thee Oh Sees right now.  I’ve seen them twice, maybe three times, in the last month, purchased and listened to their new LP Help a record number of times, seen lead singer John Dwyer in his many guises all over this city, and all the while I’ve been digging my way through their fairly sizeable back catalog.

And then I stumbled across their new “Tidal Wave/Heart Streams” 7″ that just dropped on Woodsist (an incredible label at the moment) scooped that up and have allowed it to set up camp on my record player for the last four days.

I feel like a groupie, but without the awkward sex and free drugs.   So I feel like the worse kind of groupie.

Thee Oh Sees - Tidal Wave

Thee Oh Sees on Myspace

This may be the very first time that I’ve posted about a band a second time, and I don’t do so lightly.  Thee Oh Sees album from last year, The Master’s Bedroom Is Worthing Spending a Night In, is still, I shit you not, in heavy rotation at The Daily Choice Headquarters.  This is nearly a six, maybe seven months after I first heard the album, I’m still pushing it’s unique, squawky blend of distortion, surf rock, and reverb to the maximum volume from any speaker source I can find.

Thus, the recent knowledge that they’d released a new 7″ with two brand new songs pretty much shortened my pants.  “Carol Ann” doesn’t fall terribly far from the old Oh Sees tree in terms of sound, but it bustles along with the best of the cuts off Master’s Bedroom and I’d hold myself in low regard if I didn’t share it with you.  Also, the release of a 7″ is the first step the release of an EP which is a pretty good indication that a new album, chock to overflowing with meaty cuts is well on it’s way.  Titter.

Thee Oh Sees - Carol Ann

Thee Oh Sees on Myspace

My favorite form of description is to take a band’s musical sound compare it to another band or genre that sounds similar and then affect it with some sort of drug.  Thus Man Man becomes “Tom Waits on meth”, and so on and so on.  I think many would shy away from continuously using a similar writing trick to woo their fans, but I am of few talents, so I’ll stick with what I’m somewhat decent at.

With that in mind: you know when you’re walking along a city beach and you stumble upon, hopefully over, a rusted, old syringe poking it’s nasty little point out of the sand?  I’d describe Thee Oh Sees as surf rock on whatever disgusting concoction once flowed through that abandoned skin-popper.  The delightful harmonies and driving power chords of surf rock are still sunken below the surface, but John Dwyer and crew feel as if they and the genre, have really been through the ringer.  Drug along the streets and gutters of life, just enough to to tinge these barely doo-wop melodies with a certain sense of dirt, grime, and good times past.

Thee Oh Sees - Ghosts In The Trees