The first OCS album consists of home recordings JPD made from approximately 1996 to 2002, with a couple from Pink and Brown bandmate Jeff Rosenberg thrown in as well. The album was released as two CDs, totaling 53 tracks (all untitled), clocking in at over two hours. The first disc, originally titled 34 Reasons Why Life Goes On Without You — actually 35 tracks, which led to a name change at some point to reflect that — consists mostly of quiet, lo-fi acoustic guitar sketches that are at times reminiscent of the work of John Fahey (if his producer had been Vampire on Titus-era Guided by Voices). The second and twenty-seventh tracks feature vocals, but they are very vague and indiscernible. The last three tracks of that disc kind of preview what's to come on the second, 18 Reasons to Love Your Hater to Death: dissonant experiments with noise and feedback, which sound something like a less-extreme Merzbow. All told, this is the furthest "out there" album in the entire OCS/Oh Sees/Osees canon, and not really one I'd recommend (unless you already have experience with this kind of experimental music) until your obsession has led you to the point that you must consume it all. It isn't at all bad, just challenging.
Dwyer's liner notes for the 2022 vinyl reissue shed light on how this album came to be:
It all started when my girlfriend at the time, Courtney Coogan, bought me my first 4-track. There are a handful of people that have presented significant crossroads in my life. This was one of those moments.
I was a townie in Providence, Rhode Island, and I started to dip my toes outside of the buddies I grew up with and more into the student arts community (RISD, Brown students, etc...). Mostly I was just selling them drugs, but from that jumping point I was introduced to a wide world of visual arts and music. Then I started to realize other locals had been mixing with the imported arts students this whole time...I just hadn't noticed before.
It was life changing to see bands like Drop Dead, Rorschach, Bastard Noise, Merzbow, Massona, Forcefield, Lightning Bolt, Arab on Radar, Thee Hydrogen Terrors, Amps for Christ...the list goes on and on and on. I considered myself fortunate to have the door opened to me and was determined to cut my own path in this jungle of creative minds. Heaps of musicians and artists were working in synchronization in giant gritty warehouse spaces that were dirt cheap (I paid $150 a month for a 1500' raw space...which meant I had to pee thru ice in the morning during the winters, but I could do whatever my heart desired in the space). We were egregiously loud at most times and owned a rooster that would just scream in the middle of the night...so yeah, healthy.
This is where OCS was born...building homemade instruments out of debris and old electronics. Picking up tidbits and how to make different things from other artists (Matt Brinkman's lesson on how to make a golden throat for $30 is still fresh in my mind).
I did two early solo shows.
Both were ambitious failures.
Live to fight another day.
In the summer of '98, after a couple years in the old jewelry factory warehouse spaces of Rhode Island, I moved to San Francisco. I knew exactly one person in SF: Jeff Rosenberg (who would go on to play drums as my better half in Pink & Brown). I picked up acoustic guitar like never before because I was lonely and clinging to it like my one path to sanity at the time. I had just been introduced to the likes of Fahey, Elizabeth Cotton, Skip Spence, Snooks Eaglin and Joseph Spence. I was in love with finger picking and slowly but surely learned a very primitive method to emulate these giants. I had already been swimming in the water of alternative tunings back in Providence, so this was a comfortable and logical next step for my playing. And, weirdly, it lent itself to my already existing archive of sound structure & harsh noise recordings. A foil if you will.
These 3 LPs (originally released by Andee Connors of Tumult Records on CD...thanks buddy) represent all my early solo 4-track cassette recordings from about '96-'02. These were made at home alone in a bedroom (many different ones over the years), with the occasional buddy joining me here and there: Jeff Rosenberg, Matt Brinkman, Ara Peterson, Brian Gibson and anyone else who is lost to the dust...
My first forays into home recording were simple and raw out of necessity. I was in a mad dash to record everything could and in no state of mind to make it sound presentable or palatable in any commercial sense. Raw was and is good in my opinion. This very much captures my state of mind and sense of style at the time: Haphazard, frenzied and uncooked....with some moments of loveliness and timidity.
Enjoy,
JPD
(get ready to read the world "untitled" so many times it'll lose all meaning)
(The 2022 vinyl reissue splits the tracks as follows: 1-11 on side one, 12-24 on side two, 25-33 on side three, 34-35 on side four)
1. untitled (2:27)
2. untitled (2:57)
3. untitled (1:09)
4. untitled (1:18)
5. untitled (2:16)
6. untitled (1:32)
7. untitled (2:17)
8. untitled (2:17)
9. untitled (0:06)
10. untitled (2:46)
11. untitled (1:25)
12. untitled (1:17)
13. untitled (1:25)
14. untitled (1:39)
15. untitled (1:02)
16. untitled (1:17)
17. untitled (2:15)
18. untitled (2:09)
19. untitled (0:58)
20. untitled (2:01)
21. untitled (0:52)
22. untitled (1:14)
23. untitled (3:02)
24. untitled (1:53)
25. untitled (1:28)
26. untitled (1:17)
27. untitled (4:05)
28. untitled (1:39)
29. untitled (1:42)
30. untitled (1:28)
31. untitled (3:33)
32. untitled (0:39)
33. untitled (3:01)
34. untitled (6:47)
35. untitled (7:53)
(The 2022 vinyl reissue splits the tracks as follows: 1-9 on side five, 10-18 on side six)
1. untitled (5:39)
2. untitled (5:29)
3. untitled (3:05)
4. untitled (2:53)
5. untitled (1:26)
6. untitled (1:27)
7. untitled (2:17)
8. untitled (1:47)
9. untitled (1:11)
10. untitled (1:27)
11. untitled (2:20)
12. untitled (2:28)
13. untitled (1:16)
14. untitled (3:48)
15. untitled (1:20)
16. untitled (2:38)
17. untitled (5:57)
18. untitled (2:39)
Bandcamp: 35 Reasons Why Life Goes On Without You/18 Reasons to Love Your Hater to Death
35 Reasons Why Life Goes On Without You on Spotify/Apple Music
18 Reasons to Love Your Hater to Death on Spotify/Apple Music
Archived listing on Tumult's website, December 2002: courtesy of the Wayback Machine.
OCS on Discogs: originally released as a 2CD by Tumult; subsequently reissued on 3LP vinyl by No Coast in 2022. If you must own this album physically, prepare to pay a pretty penny.