For those lamenting the fact that San Francisco's too easily losing its arts community to other cities, here's another reason to shed a tear: John Dwyer, frontman for Thee Oh Sees and countless other integral garage and noise bands over the last two decades, is leaving San Francisco for Los Angeles, putting the great San Francisco band's status on hold.SF Weekly's Ian Port reports that at last night's Great American Music Hall show, Dwyer told the crowd, "This will be the last Oh Sees show for a long while, so dig in." Port confirmed that Dwyer's message meant an Oh Sees indefinite hiatus with Annie Southworth, the group's booking agent. "Will be a little hard to continue with all the different locales so who knows what is going to happen," she said. Dwyer is headed to Los Angeles, while keyboarder and vocalist Brigid Dawson is moving to Santa Cruz. (This is no reason to fret that Thee Oh Sees have broken up, though. Dwyer told Pitchfork "This is just a well deserved break and a transitional period.")
As someone who has covered Dwyer's bands as a writer and a huge fan since the '90s, I'm crushed by the news of Dwyer's move, although not surprised. Dwyer's partners in crime, from Ty Segall to the Sandwitches' Heidi Alexander, are down in Los Angeles already. But with him heading south now too, it's feeling like an era is washing away. Add to that list the departure of Tim Cohen of The Fresh & Onlys and Magic Trick for Arizona, and my garage and freak rock heros are moving on from the city where they helped build such a strong scene. It makes me really sad.
Luckily, we still have Kelley Stoltz, Mikal Cronin, and Sonny Smith, three guardians of the strange pop vanguard. And I'm eagerly awaiting to hear who the next crop of wild garage experimenters will be. Who have the Dwyers and Segalls of the scene inspired next? I sorta count White Fence as one of our own, with their members feeling so fluid between here and LA. But what of San Francisco's prolific stoner-garage experimenters? Dwyer helped push forth a scene of punks who didn't give a shit about making it in a commercial sense but also had no appetite for simply repeating what came before them. He became a real icon here because of that. He's an important musician, visual artist, and general sonic provocateur who has stirred up a ton of great records in his wake, and while I look forward to hearing what new sounds Los Angeles brings out of him, I'm jealous that that city gets him now, when so much of what he's done over the years felt and sounded so very San Francisco to me.