Thee Hounds of Foggy Notion

In between 2008’s untamed *The Master’s Bedroom* and 2009’s gloriously garage-y *Help*, San Francisco’s prolific Thee Oh Sees took a little detour with collaborator/director Brian Lee Hughes, and produced a DVD of live performances at various — and unusual — locations around San Francisco. This “soundtrack” to the DVD captures the band playing alongside highways and beaches, translating old and new songs alike into lo-fi, dreamy versions, painted in blacks and grays instead of the band’s trademark explosion of (muddy) color. (The only “live” aspect to these recordings is occasional environmental sounds.) The spacey, atmospheric “We Are Free” starts vibrating and jangling ferociously halfway in, and the lulling take on “Block of Ice” ends with a blast of seesawing guitar. A few tracks feature a Theremin, offering up a slightly creepy backswirl, and on the title track, it’s a delightful counter to the beautifully fingerpicked guitar. This foggy, gray version of “Ghost In the Trees” is fitting, with its echoing tom drum and subdued garage guitars heavy with reverb. A new mood for Thee Oh Sees, and one worth visiting.

To announce our reissue of Thee Oh Sees - Thee Hounds Of Foggy Notion, we’ve asked our fearless filmmaker friend and Castle-Face co-founder Brian Lee Hughes to discuss its genesis: “I had moved from Denmark to San Francisco in 2003 to set up a better life for me and my family. Turns out my Danish wife changed her mind and stayed in Copenhagen with my daughter, which needless to say, made it a dark, weird, and lonely time for me. The only peek at some shining light of funny hope for the future was when I met John Dwyer. Twas on a Flag Day when I was blown away by a roving Coachwhips trio of street shows powered by a generator from a decommissioned ambulance. After stops on Market Street, and at the beach, the trio of shows climaxed at the scenic vista atop Mt. Sutro accompanied by the art rocker performance crew Double Dutchess attired in fake pregnancy bellies, and a choke-chained pitbull shredding a plastic baby doll, all amongst the hordes of souvenir sweatshirt selling families, and the dozens of Chinese elderly tour bus tourists, and the fantasy tuxedo rich white people wedding party goers belching off of a synthetic trolly car limo thing. I’m certain that was anarchic freedom comedy event saved my life, and that it was the seed of THEE HOUNDS OF FOGGY NOTION. Instead of shooting myself, I started shooting a film called Rock Star Scars. It forced me to go out every night to film a member of a band telling me a story about a scar they had. SF was thriving at that time, and JPD was in a handful of bands that were central to the scene. When Coachwhips suddenly broke up, it sucked. I didn’t just like Coachwhips, I needed them as my musical medicine.  OCS was just getting started, and its rapid evolution of shifting members, monikers, and music became my next main fascination. I followed along and filmed them live many times and I caught myself smiling again. Then, JPD mentioned to me that he was going to break it up, too. Not because he hit a creative wall like he did with Coachwhips, but because his label at the time was an archaic crack-head horror show. It was then that I offered up to co-found a label with him that dispatched with the bullshit and let the bands own their masters. He said “OK”, and that was the birth of Castle-Face. When he asked me to consider making a vid for Thee Oh Sees I was blissed. His stipulation was that he didn’t want to do anything to playback. I understood that to be a live film, but I had filmed them live to the point of creative exhaustion at that point. What we somehow mutually agreed upon was to film Thee Oh Sees live, but not on stages. My secret caveat was to document his process and mix in some interstitial interviews. He shut that down after I asked the first question. Instead, what we got was infinitely more insightful and true to the free fun reality of the scene in the form of glorious stories. So, armed with a 15 passenger van, a generator and minimal gear, my cinematographer friend James Wall and dove in. Everything sound wise went through an ancient mixing board that Johnny had housed within a Samsonite suitcase. We ran all the plate mics from the drums, and the lil pedestal mics from the amps through this old mixer, and we all believed that all would be well and swell. My only fear-based bonus was the rental of a 12” Sennheiser directional mic in a fluffy wind muff that was directly feeding into one of our Canon XL-2s. My residual fears proved true, that the only thing that ruins docs or indie films is shit sound; the goddamn suitcase based mixer had a short in it. It wasn’t until the edit that it was clear that all the multi tracking through the mixer was hopelessly covered in geiger counter static tics. So the source of all that you hear on the LP is the single Sennheiser mono mic, muffed and faux-stereo’d via doubling mono. The interstitial stories on the video were recorded along the way by a Handicam. As great as he is as a performer, John was in even better-er rapid fire story-teller genius mode during every spare second of the journey. Brigid Dawson added some delicious gems as she always does. Petey Dammit is a pretty quiet private guy, but even he proved to be very funny when he gets loose. Patrick Mullins on the other hand is literally Castleface. After editing through 40+ hours of footage of live performances and interstitial whatnots, it became very shockingly clear to myself, and editor Akiko Iwakawa, that his expression never ever ever changes. He is Castleface.  I love that Thee Hounds of Foggy Notion is loved by others, I loved the lucid, fluid, perfectly imperfect process of making it, and I am blissed out proud of the live album audio and the honest documentation of Thee Oh Sees at a certain time and place. It is heaven to hear from so many artists over the years that it was inspiring to them, and I hope that you enjoy it too.” It’s out on Castle Face May 13th