It smells of sweat in the sold-out Rotterdam Maassilo, from the pit to the toilet. As the bodies bounce and stagedivers plunge into the crowd, John Dwyer takes up his attack position. Osees’ singer-guitarist – dressed as always in a pair of cut-off jeans and a white shirt – takes a long stride forward and slowly collapses until he hangs in a kind of forward split just above the stage. He has his guitar so tight around his neck that the strings barely touch his reddish-brown quiff and whiskers. The knobs of his amplifier are turned up as far as possible, the treble even up to eleven.
Everyone knows: this is attack mode.
As soon as Dwyer – wildly headbanging – tackles his instrument, an excruciatingly shrill white noise is heard that normally pours out of snowy TVs. When he steps on another distortion pedal, it seems as if all the bottle banks in Rotterdam are being emptied at the same time. The audience goes wild, and the singer is satisfied: “Thank you Dutch people. I like it.”
Dwyer and his band Osees (whose name he spells every possible way) are the standard bearers of the psychedelic garage rock that has been bubbling up in California over the last fifteen years, all of whose representatives (Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin) have gone through the same development: they start with hard and simple ragging, get more and more depth and remain ridiculously productive.
Secret weapon
The 26th Osees album will be released this week intercepted message. In the immense oeuvre, just like during Wednesday’s show, countless currents have merged: furious punk, sweet synthpop, experimental prog rock, drawn-out hippie jams and chaotic noise. The one constant is Dwyer’s distinctive voice, as hyperactive and flamboyant as his character. In the verses he rattles like a runaway sports commentator, in the choruses he only lets out crazy cheerleader shrieks and screams, eating the microphone. After 15 minutes, he bends over, snatches a phone from a filming fan, pretends to call, and then yells at the audience: “I’ve got all you mothers on the line! fucking behave!”
Osees’ secret weapon is the double drum line-up. At the very front of the stage, Paul Quattrone and Dan Rincon are brotherly whacking each other. Sometimes they give each other space and one of the two may work up a sweat, but usually they drum exactly the same part together, which, in addition to an irresistible groove, also produces a beautiful ballet of simultaneously swinging arms.
They get paid for work. In the middle of a long instrumental jam, Dwyer steps off stage to go get them beer. When he puts the bottles on their drums, the duo just keep on drumming.
Osees – Levitation Sessions