osees

Osees
+ R.M.F.C.
The Metro Theatre, Sydney
15 February 2023
Photos- Vic Zubakin / Look Sharp Photography

Osees have been landing on Australian shores for more than a decade and consistently leaving an impression as a “must see” band.  Over the years, I have been in conversationswith people who have raved about the powerful live experience, the guitar sound and the energy.

When I heard claims they were “one of the best live rock bands in the world” I was always dubious. Let’s face it: rock roll can be about hype and creating a myth.  Finally, I had an opportunity to witness what all the talk has been about.  

Band leader John Dwyer is someone who anyone making independent original music should greatly admire.   Over 26 years, there are 33 albums he has produced, or played on. Dwyer is the last of a breed: the rock ‘n’ roll outlaw and fringe dweller completely living the music.

In the last decade, with intense work, he has made a real impact, supporting his music with shit jobs like stacking shelves, with one focus:  Running his own label, creating art, playing in a band and driving his part of a cottage industry.

Psych-punk psychic warrior, ear worm-farmer, and possessor of many stamped passport pages, John Dwyer and his band Osees (aka Oh Sees, Thee Oh Sees, OCS, The Oh Sees, etc) return to Australia next March following a blistering sold-out national tour in 2023.

Already announced as a feature act at the 2025 Golden Plains Festival, Osees will also headline Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Fremantle and Melbourne.

Edwin Garland's review of the 2023 Sydney show is here and the late Patrick Emery's Melbourne recap is here.

The 2025 visit comes off the back of the release of their 28th album “Sorcs 80”, an album that is unique to the band’s catalogue because it is guitar-less.

I have been making lists and, damn, it has been a huge year of music for me; so many records and so many gigs.  I cannot think of a year so jam-packed.  I could have made a Top Ten list by August this year. Best that I don’t count these off or it could be limiting.

1. Loud Hailers at the Hollywood Hotel, Surry Hills, NSW
Ben Fink is one of the most tasteful and sonically powerful guitarists in town, evoking Blind Lemon Jeffersonand Jimmy Page. Then there’s drummer Jordon. And vocalist Christa Hughes,who mixes it up, referencing everyone from Nina Simone to Lydia Lunch to a deranged Lisa Minnelli. Confrontational and soulful. Their gigs at the Hollywood set the place on fire. The Sydney inner city band to catch in 2024.

2. Fabels at the Hollywood
Ben Alyward and Hiske Weijers have been making music together for 13 years and have developed a cult following both in the inner city and Europe.  It’s a creative, surreal form of shoegaze with a huge palette of influences. They sit in their own space and avoid the pub rock tradition, forging their own identity and sound.

Osees
Croxton Hotel, Thornbuy, VIV
Saturday, February 11 2023

My employer received some correspondence recently from a "sovereign citizen". It was, as so often the case with such sincerely composed missives, a rambling diatribe replete with muddled pseudo-jurisprudence  and wilful indifference to the symbiotic relationship between individual autonomy and collective responsibility.

We searched in vain for some discipline of reason, even a vague hint of cogent argument but, alas, there was only nonsensical assertion. It was, someone remarked, the discursive equivalent of a sugar-laden teenager playing free-form jazz on a cheap recorder over a concerto piece played on a defective turntable and then labelling it a work of artistic genius.

Later that night we went to the cinema to see “Tar”. Before Cate Blanchett’s titular character falls from grace, she explains the often mysterious movements of the orchestral conductor. Crudely, one hand represents timing and tempo, the other conveys the desired shape of the music.

Which brings us to Osees.