Oh No! Oh My!

Location:
Austin, US
Type:
Artist / Band / Musician
Genre:
Indie / Rock / Melodramatic Popular Song
Site(s):
Let's be honest, we're all here for the same reasons: the sweet shudder that fills up your blood when a rough and dirty note rings out from a beat up old guitar. The way your ears twitch back against your head when the base drum kicks in and everything seems like it's been fired out of a gun toward something important. And how it all jumbles together into a rhythm and a hum that wears itself ragged until the end when you're left with nothing but a song.



You can call this whatever you want, but I call it music. And that's what more than a couple of people love about Oh No Oh My: their music. They write songs that are big old bitches of a hound dog tune that beat down your senses and fill up your boots with a feeling like you've just gotta, at the very least, move. And all those reasons listed right above are just a little taste of what these four Texas gentlemen can cook up - the sort of thing that you can't say no to because every other part of you is just standing their looking out over the crowd with a shit eating grin that says, "Well hell yes!"



It's not easy to pull that sort of thing off, and now they've gone ahead and done it for the second time. But with People Problems we're not just talking about a collection of songs put onto a disc, we're talking about 12 grandly small stories of the regular and the ordinary, the unusual and the exceptional, that take turns sneaking in as a tune only to turn around and reveal that they're actually a reminder of what it's like to be a person. A person with problems.



The first song Walking Into Me is the sort of iconic lovers lament that you've come to expect from the South. Which is to say that like a wink across a bar it's a question and an answer at the same time - and the genius, of course, is not that they kick off with such a subtle (albeit powerful) serving of booze soaked philosophy, but that the second helping of You Were Right is the exact opposite. Telling us first and then asking right after. It's a kick ass combination that's not as much a one-two-punch as it is an old friend opening the door and saying "Come on in! Let's talk about it!"



From there the album just grows and grows - leap frogging a sophomore slump by refusing to even acknowledge it as a possibility. The sheer mastery that unfurls throughout the next ten songs is the sort of mastery that doesn't even know it's on an album, let alone a second one. You can argue the merits of ignorance all you want, but this much is indisputable - you can't have a slump if you don't know that you don't know what it is.



All of which is just a roundabout way of saying that the band has a hit on their hands. A bon-a-fide for-the-win that's going to make a lot of people sit up and smile (which is odd, considering this is, first and foremost, a work of people with issues playing about people with problems). And while this may not be the proper forum for it, I think it's worth the time to step back and look at where some of these songs came from. The popular theory being that once you know the history of a work, you're occasionally able to appreciate it on an entirely different level.



For instance, So I Took You doesn't seem like the sort of song one writes right after getting into a major car accident, but that's exactly what it is. In March of last year Joel's beloved Camry ("The Golden Beast") spun out of control and flipped over the center divider on I-35. He had been struggling with writing his first contribution to the album, and was starting to worry that he had lost the touch. But when he woke up two weeks later in the hospital the first thing he thought was, "Got it." and he was right (Odd but true: Brains and There Will Be Bones were also written after a car accident, but for reasons that are too obvious/gruesome to get into).



Meanwhile I Don't Know was thought up after Tim was brutally robbed while attempting the taking-your-life-into-your-own-hands activity of walking down the street. When wrapping your head around a senseless incident like that it's tempting to retreat back to the comfort of platitudes, in art as well as life - well not this time. Instead of letting a sad and nasty night give rise to an easy round of self-loathing or crime fueled nihilism (which could have easily lead the to the track being titled, "Maybe I Had It Coming" or "Because the Universe is Pointless and Cruel") the band stayed the course and examined the unpleasant incident and over, eventually reaching the musical conclusion that they don't know why it happened, only that it did and possibly could again (on a related note, Not the One was written a few days later, following a less-than-spectacular police line up).



Which brings us to the regrettable birth of Should Not Have Come To This. If the album has a strong undercurrent of sadness and regret it's because of the events surrounding this song. While the scenes of a lifetime come and go and one thing merges into another, some moments are stuck rising above the flow of time - a grim reminder that occasionally the world is a brutal, ugly place. Even today, after all the questions and claims about what really happened have faded into the background and nobody is sure that if given some sort of celestial choice that they'd actually choose to forget about the night of January 21st, 2010, even now Greg still isn't willing to talk about it. And part of that might be the unnecessary shackles of our legal system, and part of it might be self imposed labyrinthine psychological protection - but in either case what can't be denied is that we all know what the outcome was and maybe it's best that we just enjoy the song and leave it at that.



After trudging through such depressing histories you might think that all of the songs on People Problems sprang from hardship (or car accidents). Not so. For instance, Circles and Carousels is about Daniels unrelated but deep love of concentric shapes and the circus. While Summerdays was written after a hot-as-shit July afternoon that the band spent exploring the beaches of Lake Wintittago in Norfolk, Texas. It's such a laid back blend of reckless sunburnt energy that you can actually feel the sweat of a long afternoon dripping down the swell of your back. It's a carefully captured feeling that closes out an album of problems with a lackadaisical note of triumphant abandon.



But maybe the history doesn't matter to you. Some people can bring their own impressions to the table, regardless of whatever's already there. For example, in my neck of the woods there are more than a couple of funerals every month. And while I hate attending them, for all the usual reasons, I happen to be friends with the local mortician. And believe me when I tell you that the coffins he wrests out of iron and wood are works of art. Solitary reminders that man can create great things, even when he's dead inside of them. Now, I hate going to funerals. I hate everything about them. But while I'm there I see the beauty inside (figuratively) my friend's creation, and I can't help but be moved. I don't know how he does it, and occasionally I don't know a goddamn thing about the people inside, but every time I leave a service I'm not thinking about death, or pain, or loss - I'm thinking about the craft and the skill that he quietly delivered and I can't help but be moved. Am I somehow a different human being? A better man? A finer soul? Not really, but the daylight is always a little softer, the air a bit sharper.my head clears and the worries of a few hours prior no longer seem so heavy.



Which, ultimately, is what People Problems is all about. Taking something naturally difficult and turning it into a moment that can light a spark in your heart and allow you to live life without worrying about issues that are dreamt up to keep your spirits chained down against the crust of the ground. Literally.



I mean, isn't that what we're asking for from our music? That and the possibility that everything is going to click and we're going to dance or sing along or just sit and smile and have a good time? Because that's the sweaty smelling beer stuffed atmosphere you're going to get when you walk into an Oh No Oh My show. A thrilling affirmation that every song they wrote came from a place that was carried around inside just dying to come out but couldn't, until the four guys got up on stage and started beating their instruments and radiating a good time.



Or not. That's one of the great things about music - every once in a while it's open to interpretation. Either way if I were you I'd carve out an hour from your day, put on this record and just forget about life for a little while. Pour a few shots of your favorite drink and find the perfect place to experience the open-hearted togetherness of 12 songs that want nothing more than to pat you on the back and say, "Hey man, what's going on?"



-Jason Greene, August 2010
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