O’Death’s Gregory Jamie On Their Time In Austin at the South By Southwest Festival:
“I was particularly taken with the area we recorded these songs in. The neighborhood lacked the bustle of a music festival and made us feel at home. The next day, when we were playing the Brooklyn Vegan/AAM showcase, we walked around the streets, looking at the houses and remarked how this would be a great area to settle down in. The entire trip was very much marred by my being sick — particularly in my throat. I was constantly worried I wasn’t giving the best vocal performance I could, and so, maybe enjoyed the festival less than I could have. I’m not sure what was wrong with me, but I ate a lot of ginger and drank whiskey to help before performing. I think my vocals on these recordings we did may have been slightly more restrained than I’m used to performing them. The five shows we played in three days were mostly a lot of fun, particularly the one Todd P. put together near the train station. We got to play back-to-back with one of my favorite live bands — Old Time Relijun. Our nights were mostly spent in our hotel room watching “Futurama.” We were particularly lazy and didn’t get to catch much music at all. The van ride home, where we drove straight from the Whiskey Bar in Austin to Westchester County, N.Y., took about 30 hours and was hellish. It may have been one of my least favorite marathon drives and it took me a few weeks to recover from my throat-sickness. Thank you for your hospitality, Daytrotter, I wish we could have spent even more time together down there.”

This session was recorded at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 14th at Bog Orange Studio in Austin. We wish you all could have been there. It would have set your hair and feet on fire. Drummer David Rodgers-Berry was throwing snow tire chains over his beat-the-fuck up drum kit. Fiddle player Bob Pycior was wily and frazzled, looking to be straight from a turn-of-the-century saloon. Greg Jamie was all beard and slightly crazy looking. Bassist Grabby, within minutes, had pulled his shirt off and was letting the skin hang out. Banjo player Gabe Darling, the outcast of the bunch for his regular appearance, got possessed. This was one of those sessions where Pat’s infamous phrase, “Hot damn!” came in handy. – Sean Moeller

Third song
Adelita (O'Death) [3.05MB] [1863 downloads]


– original version appears on Head Home
This song appears on our album, Head Home, which is about to be rereleased throughout the U.S. and Europe. In the past, it’s been my favorite song to play live, though I’m not sure it still is. It represents a sort of new stage for the band as we began to write songs with more parts in them. I wouldn’t say this tune is complicated, but the approach was very new for us when we wrote it.