MOG

Back in 2006 I spent a few months in Biloxi, Mississippi helping pick up the blood and dust that was flung from one Lady Katrina. One of my many cohorts was a guy named Russell. He was there the whole time I was and I consider him to be the most respectably badass dread-pirate any side of that old river. Russell introduced me to the sudsy refreshment of bluegrass music- bands such as Trampled By Turtles, Old Crow Medicine Show, and The Goddamned Rattlesnake. Russell stayed in Mississippi when I came back to San Francisco but we stayed in touch through some of the many bastardized renditions of communication offered by the 21st century. Last fall I got a phone call from him.

“Rad Sean, I’m in Oakland, what’re you doin’ tonight?”

“Hanging out with you, you fuckin’ retard-“

“Good. O Death is playing in the city tonight.”

“Who’s O Death?” I asked him.

“They’re fucking amazing deadly blackgrass.”

“Mm. Sounds good.”

“Sue’s with us. Meet us there.” He said immediately.

And so it was.

I met Russell and Sue, another incredible worker who got to Biloxi before I did and is still there, working her ass off with Russell. They were with Jim, a friend who had I’d driven with down to Biloxi. The show was downtown, at a small place I’d never heard of and have since forgotten the name of. The only thing that matters about it is that they had a bar; we made haste for beers. We then went upstairs to the smoking room where we caught up on all our past headlines since we’d last seen each other. Girls and betrayals and drunken smiles and every hurricane in between. We took turns buying rounds until O Death took the stage. I could tell by Russell and Jim’s sudden spark that it was going to be a damn good show. We all charged back down to the floor and stood up front as O Death chatted and tuned and got ready to play. Then they began.

With a droned and scratchy holler the intro of their set was bellowed, as they begged to be Laid Down to Rest, before collapsing into the rhythmic train wreck of their music. I’d never heard anything like it- the kind of beautiful damnation that makes you want to slowly and melodically beat the hell out of your best friend. If the devil sent five damned souls to earth to lure the wicked down to hell, the music they would create for their draw would sound a lot like O Death. I felt like a sinner just listening to them; and it felt good. We all danced and knocked the crud out of each other and spilled our beers all over the place and holy Christ was it a good time. Noses bled. It was a good time indeed. O Death had great stage presence too, laughing and making corny jokes and commenting on our less-than-graceful dancing maneuvers. In a place like that, they were only about a foot and a half above the floor, making us and them all part of one crazy show- which I feel is the way bluegrass should always be ingested. We were pretty shitfaced by now as we hollered and sang along at one another.

After they finished, Jim and I went up to the smoking room and after a few minutes were joined by O Death’s leadest of singers, Gabe. He was a mellow nerd who was amazed that anyone from California had heard of them. Jim asked him what they were doing tonight. “I don’t know,” he said. “We were just gonna get a hotel or something.” “Well if you guys want, I live in Oakland. Y’all could stay there. We can drink some beers and play some Stump.” Gabe said that would be great, they could save money and party-on. He went to go make sure it was cool with the rest of the band. Me and Jim went down and found Russell:

“Are you fucking ready to party with O Death?”

He was.

We headed across the bridge to Jim’s warehouse after stopping for beers a-plenty. Immediately upon arrival, Russell asked them if they knew how to play Stump, as he motioned toward the disembodied cedar stump standing about four feet tall in Jim’s kitchen. Stump is a game we played every night in Biloxi by the campfire out back. It is the most fun and dangerous pastime that I regularly enjoy.

O Death was not privy. Jim quickly explained: “Alright, we all set a nail in one hit,” he produced a hammer, “the goal is for your nail to be the last one with its head above the surface of the stump-“

“How do they-“

“I’m getting to that: We go clockwise, each one of us flips the hammer at least one rotation in the air. Upon catching it, you cannot pause, you cannot cock back! In one motion you bring the hammer down on someone else’s nail. You miss? You drink! Your nail gets hit: You drink! The nail sparks: that’s a social- everybody drinks! There’s some other little rules but we’ll explain those as we go-“

“This sounds fucking dangerous.”

Jim grinned as he slowly nodded.

O Death’s introduction to Stump was similar to most. They were at first wary, a bit nervous, and not entirely sure how it’s possible not to scuff a digit or some such. By the end of the first game, they were wondering where stumps had been all their life. We played and drank and talked until the wee hours before everyone retired to their sleeping bags and so ons. By then I felt like I was just hanging out with a bunch of old buddies. They were all so mellow and humble and goofy- just meeting them you would never guess that they were the most talented and incredibly deadly bluegrass band that you’d never heard of.

The next morning Russell and I went to the store to get an assload of eggs and bacon and O.J. We went back and cooked them a big rotating breakfast before seeing O Death off. They were on their way to LA or Reno or somewhere shitty like that and we wanted to give them their strength. We bought a couple of their CDs to help fund their visit to California and cheerfully threw up the horns as they puttered off into the sunrise. Then we went back inside and played some more fucking stump.

Posted on 05/13/2008